Christmas and the New Year

It has been quite a year for us and 2011 is going to be another interesting and exciting one. We are up and running in our Skipton premises, situated at 1 Albert Street in the town centre. The client base is building up and everyone we have seen likes to see us there. Have a look in if you are passing and please let us have any ideas or comments you may have, good or bad, they will help us enormously.   
Our main business up to now has been from massage, we have had lots of successes and a wide variety of clients, varying from pregnant ladies coming for relief from aches and pains, injured walkers and sportspeople, including a few professional athletes and people who need to relax from the rigours of life. It's great and we enjoy seeing all our clients, some we see until they recover and others return every few weeks to keep on top of things or just because they like it.

The other areas of business are starting to build up as well, our greatest coaching success to date is probably hand cyclist, Karen Darke. We have been working with her for about a year now and she has developed from racing on the domestic scene to joining the British Cycling Federation Academy as a funded member of the squad aiming for a medal at the 2012 Paralympics.



It has been a pleasure working with Karen, using our full range of services to provide coaching, physiological testing, nutrition, massage and sports psychology/hypnosis to get the best performances possible. You can read a copy of a blog she has written in our shop window and buy signed copies of her book from us if you are interested. She is training in Majorca at the moment - wish I was there!!


Our NLP/hypnotherapy services are starting to be noticed and used. The techniques are tremendously powerful and we are looking forward to seeing lots of happy, relaxed and relieved clients leaving our premises.


So things are looking good and in this period of New Year resolutions we are hoping that people will use us to help them overcome the initial pitfalls and make their resolutions into permanent changes.


We hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Moving to Skipton

Things are moving fast with our move to Skipton, we are working from the Craven Swimming and Fitness Centre on Wednesday and Thursday evening and on Saturday mornings. One idea that is going really well is a 20 minute 'no booking' massage for £10. People can just pop in for a 20 minute session as they are passing our room outside the swimming pool changing area. We are getting all sorts of interesting and friendly people, some with sore back neck and shoulders, some with tired legs from heavy training and some with other sports or life related aches and pains. It's great! The picture shows the room we are using, no posters yet but we are getting there.

We are getting involved with local clubs, Christine went running with Skipton AC and we went to have a look at the Yorkshire Vet's cross country round that the club organised on Saturday. The weather was good and everyone appeared to have a good time on what looked like a proper cross country course. Here is the winner, Daren Burnley (M45) of Pudsey Pacers, crossing the finish line.


We are learning as well, attending Willie Fourie's course on lower limb treatment. Focusing on soft tissue techniques relating to connective tissue I think everyone learnt a lot and I have certainly started to modify the way I treat my clients using the new techniques and renewed enthusiasm. The course was organised by Janine Midgely of West Yorkshire Physiotherapy so a big thanks to Janine.

John has been suffering a bit at the hands of his sister-in-law, Anne Buckley, and her partner in crime, Mary Wilkinson. A relatively innocuous bike ride in the Dales resulted in him finding his maximum heart rate is 10 beats higher than he thought and that was in the first 20 minutes of the ride. Here is a picture of Anne wearing her latest disco gear.


So it's all good and we should have our premise at Albert Street very soon. The consultation for the 'change of use' planning process finished on Sunday so watch this space or our facebook page for details of an opening event of some sort.

Lots going on

No blogs for quite a while - you may be relieved or disappointed, sorry if you are disappointed. The lack of action here hasn't been due to lack of action elsewhere. We have been really busy as business keeps picking up.


We have been developing our skills further and now offer formal psychotherapy to complement our massage, sport, exercise and nutrition services. This capability is a real strength in a number of areas, the obvious ones are to help with stress, phobias, fears and anxiety helping us to help our clients make changes that benefit their day to day lives in many ways. We are also developing a specialism in special psychological techniques for sport that will allow our clients to focus on both mental and physical fitness for competition.

Talking of sports, Karen finished 4th in both the time trial and road race at the World Handcycling Championships in Canada. It is a fantastic achievement in her first real season of international competition. I'm sure there is more to come though, we are hoping for a medal next year. You can get the full story from British Cycling at http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/gbcyclingteam/article/Gbr20100822-Day-3---UCI-World-Paracycling-Road-Championships-0.


We are also in the process of opening a new facility in Skipton, North Yorkshire. We hope to take over a place in the town on Albert Street in 6 to 8 weeks. John is in Skipton at the moment looking for somewhere to use as an interim location so that we can start developing things. We plan to have someone working down there on a regular basis from now on so if you are in the area and would like to use us get in touch. We will keep you posted on progress.

World Cup success and Bike Balmoral in the rain

Karen went to her first Handcycling World Cup race in Spain with hope of a good result and quite a few nerves. Third place in the 44km road race and the 17km time trial showed that she really is a world class athlete and given her lack of experience at that level is fanatastic performance and a sure sign of success for the future. Well done Karen.

Back at home, Christine and John went to the Bike Balmoral mountain bike races on the Balmoral estate. It rained all day but that didn't dampen the enthusiasm, although we saw quite a few damp and muddy competitors. Indie and Katherine show the happy and friendly attitudes of the competitors that made this such a good event (Christine is in the middle). Put 12th June in your diaries as the provisional date of the race next year, we certainly aim to be there again.

Sheltered housing and Dr Jeffrey...

This week has been a bit less sport oriented, on Tuesday and Friday we visited sheltered housing residences to give talks and demonstrations of massage therapy. Both visits went really well and we are going to return one morning each month to provide treatment for the residents. The talks were great fun with plenty of banter but also the chance to make those who volunteered to be guinea pigs for the demo's feel a lot better.

Christine had the first weekend of her advanced remedial massage course, which is obviously going to be a lot more than just massage - day one involved realignment of various parts of the hips. Something a lot of people will benefit from.

On Sunday we had a visit from Michelle Jeffrey, we had a good chat about things both work and pleasure. It was great to catch up over a stroll along the beach, a coffee then some wine and an Indian meal.

Busy week!

It has been quite a week, last weekend we were at the cycling festival in Aberdeldy, there was lots going on but I found myself hanging around with Karen Darke and her hand cycling 'come and try it' event. 

I had a go on a Top End Force R racing cycle, it is very impressive - really stiff and aerodynamic but also comfortable and ergonomic. It's a long story but we now have the demo machine in our living room... 

Then John was on a coaching course in Aviemore before we headed south for a couple of days in the Yorkshire Dales. John spent Saturday doing a bike ride over the hills with his mad sister-in-law - Anne Buckley the mountain runner. Christine went for a run with Anne's boyfriend Triss and then we sat outside a cafe in Feizor getting roasted with the Buckley's, Karen Darke, Andy Kirkpatrick and his kids.

This morning was the Aberdeen Baker Hughes 10k, which went very well - five or us were busy providing pre- and post-event massage from 8am until 1pm. 

From left to right - Sam, Christine, John, Suzanne and Suzanne. I hope everyone who came to see us is starting to feel the benefits already.

New massage couch and credit card machine

We got a new hydraulic massage couch yesterday and a credit card machine. They should make things even better for our clients and us. The couch is really comfortable.... and the machine really snazzy...

We have been thinking of getting a couch for a while and I'm glad we have decided to. It will be of real benefit because we will always be at the right height and position to give the best treatment. The benefits of the card machine are obvious for everyone, more convenience. Both a really positive move for us.

Bike Balmoral

On Saturday we went to help Al Simpson recce the Bike Balmoral route. It was pretty cold at first but in the end the weather was really nice and we had a great time - Al was good enough to provide a couple of beers for rehydration in the sun.
It is a mountain bike event at an introductory level, there will be several races that are all really nice and scenic. The longest is a 30 miler that goes up the tracks towards Lochnagar. It isn't particularly technical but it will be tough enough for most. 
The website is www.bikebalmoral.co.uk, one of us might have a go at a race and a few of us should be there to offer some therapy to weary legs. It is on 13th June - see you there...

Run Balmoral

The Balmoral 10k was a success and hopefully we helped a few people. Some sore legs and also some sore necks and shoulders and a few more serious aches and pains that could do with some rest and recovery but that is runners for you. Had a night out in Ballater with the organisers afterwards. 

Our next event is the Aberdeen Baker Hughes 10k on 23rd May, come and see us for a free massage or just a chat.

Weekend in Edinburgh

We had a good weekend in Edinburgh, met Colin Russell for lunch. He has just started working for a company that is encouraging alternative means of transport to work http://www.findabetterwaytowork.org - they seem to be well funded and going well. It is associated with the Edinburgh Bike Station.

After that we visited one of our technical team (Dr Michelle Jeffrey) for a night out and a few drinks. We struggled out into the rain and cold for The Tour of the Meldons, cycle time trial on Sunday and Michelle managed to finish 2nd female - a successful finish to a good weekend. You will be surprised to find that the photo isn't last weekend in the Meldons, it is the Majorca training camp. Michelle is seated on the left and Colin on the right.

New website

New website in place www.fit-for-purpose.co.uk

UK hand cycling

Karen won the first UK Series handcycling race last weekend - really good. Now she is training in Majorca with Christine. All the hard work seems to be paying off.

Cycle Power Challenge 2010

We’re just about to start our Cycle Power Challenge, we have £100 prizes for the first male and female competitor so it should be a good competition. We’re looking forward to some exciting evenings if we get a few groups together. Come along and have a go...