Going Inside the Mind of Body Builder…Harry Grove

By Kat Ahn on July 30th, 2009

I’ll admit, I don’t personally know many body builders, though I’ve seen them around the gym and have been slightly frightened/intrigued by their enlarged biceps, veins that seem to be sticking out of their skin, and the enormous weights that they can somehow lift. So, when we came across Harry Grove, a Body Builder, Personal Trainer, and Strength Coach who also produces workout videos for www.ptondemand.com , we needed to pry a bit and figure out what actually goes on in the mind of a bodybuilder. Oh, and he lives in the UK, so he has an accent that us North Americans can’t get enough of.

So Harry…

Who are you and what do you do?

I am 27 and I live in Guildford, about 30 minutes south of London, England. I’m a personal trainer and strength coach. I initially qualified in the year 2000 and have since increased my knowledge and qualifications. I currently work with both your everyday gym user to national and international level athletes, including ice hockey players, soccer players, rugby players and rowers.

I am also a competitive powerlifter and compete drug free for the British Drug Free Powerlifting Association (BDFPA). I am currently training for the World Drug Free Powerlifting Championships, where I will represent England in November.

Did you think that you’d be doing this as a career or did it sort of…just happen?

I think so. I have always been into health and fitness and it was just taking that next step. I guess you could initially say that I did it to help with my own health and fitness goals. I have always liked working with people and helping others, so it was a natural progression of adding the two areas together and go into personal training.

What gets you up in the morning?

Breakfast, haha. I always have to have my 4 whole eggs scrambled with spinach for breakfast otherwise I won’t function.
Seriously though, the fact I CAN get up every morning motivates me. I am very grateful for my health. Having seen first hand what happens when people don’t have their health, it is the most important thing we have and I value mine very much.

Favorite country visited? Or if you haven’t traveled much, where would you like to go?

This will either be New Zealand or the USA. I have spent time in both countries, having traveled the USA for 2 months in 2004 and lived in and traveled NZ for 14 months in 2006-07. I have made regular trips to California since then having been in 2007, 08 and will be going back again this year.

Do you Twitter?

I do indeed. You can twitter me at www.twitter.com/harrygrove . Alternatively you can follow my company PT on Demand.

Favorite youtube video?

I am not sure I have a favorite. I do watch a lot of videos from Joe Defranco, a top strength coach. I also like watching powerlifting videos, music videos, anything really. Family guy clips too.

Favorite cocktail?

I am not a massive cocktail drinker, if I was to say one it would be a long island iced tea. I tend to stick to the traditional English ales though.

Your last meal on earth would be..

That is hard. I love my food. I would probably say a roast lamb with lots of vegetables and gravy. Then for dessert I would have homemade apple crumble and custard.

What website can you NOT live without?

My hotmail account haha. I can’t live without that. I also look at Tmuscle and not forgetting www.ptondemand.com either.

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to follow your path in life?

Keep expanding your knowledge. There are a lot of really good trainers, coaches and specialists out there to tap into. Get to seminars and lectures and listen to the best.

What’s your MO in life? Life mantras?

Be open to new ideas and opportunities, you never know what you could be shutting the door on. If something feels right and you get that gut feeling, then go with it. Take the risk, you only live once and if you fail, you can learn from it and move forward onto something else.

Work before Love or Love before work?

Love before work for sure. The more love you give, the more love you will receive.

How do you balance that, especially when you have such a busy schedule?

I have found it hard in the past to balance my work and my social life. I really enjoy my personal training work and working on PT On-Demand Ltd, so it is quite hard to detach myself from it all. I also volunteer, which also takes a few more hours out my week.

My girlfriend, Lydia, has been great and really understanding. She has helped me see that I do need time away from things to relax and recuperate. That it is not just all work. This has a great advantage as you take the break from work and then, when you come back, you are refreshed and you can concentrate even better. Things I do to help me relax are watching films, going to the gym and training, seeing friends and family, reading etc.

I am a big believer that we have to make time for other activities away from work, whether that be for physical activity or exercise, or spending time with loved ones. Even just having time to yourself and switching off completely by putting on a DVD.

Current Projects you’d like to plug?

At the moment I am actually working on a really exciting project that involves producing workout videos for video on demand services such as MP4 players e.g. iphone, online streaming and TiVo.

We make a range of workout videos that are centered around a specific goal, for example – fat loss, that are easy to follow and cover a six week period. We use our website to distribute the videos. In addition we provide related learning materials and progress trackers.

Workouts are written by myself and have been tried and tested on a select group of my own clients. We have seen amazing results.

Thanks for your time, Harry. And if you have any questions/comments or would like to contact Harry, you can reach him on www.ptondemand.com.