Becoming a Personal Trainer and Wellness Therapist

Dr. Mark Howard

Discover why I left a successful career to dedicate the rest of my life to helping you to transform your life by reclaiming your health, vitality and youth ! ….

Hi, my name is Mark Howard. I’m a Cornishman who grew up in a tiny village Kestle Mill in Cornwall (population of 20 !). I was not an athletic kid and I rarely played any sports except football with my friends. A long way from being a typical Personal Trainer !

There was one exception though and that was cross country running. I loved being challenged to keep going especially when the weather was bad! Many of the participants preferred to take short cuts so that they could have a sneaky cigarette when no teachers were looking but in the end I managed to win most of the races ….  I learned a lot from running and it taught me never to give up, especially when the going gets tough !

The rest of my youth was spent in this old farmhouse on Bodmin Moor (population 4 plus 3 cats, 2 dogs and some exotic birds .....

It was here that I began my own journey to leading an active healthy life, albeit enforced! There was beautiful countryside to cycle in and many, many, many hills to go up to reach my friends in our local town Newquay ….

About 26 years ago I started studying at The University of Hertfordshire and began weight training and kung fu (Wu Shu Kwan) as an antidote to the stress of spending long hours studying (and recovering from a few hangovers !). It was the beginning of my apprenticeship into the world of fitness, I made all the mistakes in the gym that beginners often make and learned a great deal. More importantly I was hooked for life to keeping in shape and using this as a foundation to being the best I could be. I guess I was beginning to develop the profile of a Personal Trainer !

After 4 years of studying hard I needed to start earning a living and so in 1987 I started an engineering career at Jaguar Cars Ltd in the UK. In the first few years I spent all my spare time reading about everything connected with self development from optimum weight training methods to life coaching (e.g. Anthony Robbins, Awaken The Giant Within). I was also very grateful to Jaguar for the many courses they sponsored on self development, for example, motivation, leadership and coaching.

Inspired by everything that I had read I felt a strong desire to take on more challenges and I was privileged to be sponsored by Jaguar to study an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) in my spare time at one of the best business schools in Europe – Warwick Business School. This taught me a great deal about many subjects, for example, human behaviour and motivation and it laid the foundation for combining my part time passion with my full time career.

In the meantime Ford Motor Company bought Jaguar and I was asked whether I would like to help to set up a new research centre in Germany – Ford Forchungszentrum Aachen. This was an amazing challenge to experience a new culture and to become Ford’s international expert in human biomechanics ! Biomechanics concerns the loading conditions and motion of the human body and it finally allowed me to formally combine my career with my part time passion. I very quickly accepted the offer of a project manager role even though I could not speak German, I had just purchased an apartment in Coventry and was still spending all my spare time studying an MBA and fitness training !

I learned a lot of useful biomechanics knowledge and soft skills in my role as a project manager. Over a period of nine years I had unique access to thousands of state of the art technical and medical research papers on everything from injury mechanisms to computer modelling of the human body. In fact I wrote and presented quite a few of these computer modelling papers at international congresses ! Leading and inspiring teams to achieve effective results in international projects and cultures taught me a lot about empowering people.

In the last year of my MBA I was approached with the offer to formalise my human biomechanics knowledge with a five year PhD at the world renowned Cranfield University in the UK ….  It was a little challenging trying to continue fitness training with all my studying activities (two degrees at the same time) but I gradually developed my own exercise routines to fit in with my very tight schedule. They really needed to be fast and effective, especially since I also began to advise and help friends and colleagues with their fitness and wellness!

Before I finished my PhD, Volvo Cars Ltd approached me to ask whether I would like to work in Sweden as a resident project leader and biomechanics consultant. Again, I was very privileged to be offered such an opportunity and I readily accepted it (even though I did not speak any Swedish !).

There were three people that enabled me to pursue my passion for fitness and wellness and hence bring you our services. These were Dr. Frode Maaseidvaag, Professor Robin Sharpe and Anthony Robbins (the world famous life coach). Dr. Maaseidvaag supported all my qualifications and opportunities to move around the world. Professor Sharpe was my doctorate advisor and he taught me everything I know about the correct way to undertake, present and apply scientific research. And Tony ….

A year after I finished my PhD I completed a course ‘ Date with Destiny ’ in California with Tony (10 years after reading his book). This set my mind thinking about how it might be beneficial to take my first career break in 20 years and reconsider how I wanted to live the next 20 ….. Tony you have a lot to answer for ! ….

At the end of 2005, after almost 20 years, I left Ford Motor Company to take a career break and transform my own life. Back in Germany, I realised that although I was fit my wellness could be improved a lot. It was difficult to think clearly and I suffered from regular migraines whenever I was even slightly stressed. Despite my high level of fitness I had put on a lot of weight and there were a multitude of other indications that my body had become toxic.

Over the next 2 years I focused on detoxing, de-stressing, moving to Spain, researching wellness, fitness and possible new careers. Detoxing involved changing to a healthier diet, following herbal detox courses and lots of saunas. It was a slow but life changing process that totally transformed my health forever. Having gone through this process myself I know what is possible and I literally feel and look 10 years younger (most people are very surprised at my actual age !). Unfortunately I could not prevent a few grey hairs appearing but I guess some things are out of my control !

Sadly, during this time, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. My sister and I had learned a lot about wellness and health but not specifically cancer. Over a period of about 6 months I spent every day researching alternative cancer treatments and the link with wellness. We applied a lot of this knowledge to help my father, including the advice to never use chemotherapy or any other radiation treatment. Even though he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, we shrunk his tumour by more than 50% and extended his life (and quality of life) way beyond the doctor’s prediction.

At the end there was only one thing we could not control and that was his will to live. He developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s and without his willpower he quietly died after about 1 year. We had done everything we could at the time but if only I had known as much as I know now, just maybe we could have helped more …. One thing I do know is that this event motivated me even more to help other people never find themselves in his situation ….

In 2007 I successfully completed a master Personal Trainer qualification at the internationally recognised  European Institute of Fitness and started to research and prepare business plans under the trading name TAMAR (TAMsin MARk). After quite a few initial setbacks (e.g. I almost lost my life savings because a construction company went bankrupt), creating a new website, designing lots of marketing and administration literature (e.g. client questionnaires) and creating a whole range of e-products we were up and running ….

With my scientific background and passion for fitness and wellness, I offer you state of the art advice and a friendly shoulder to lean on to achieve fast and effective results ! I have been through the trauma of not feeling or looking fantastic and know how that can feel. My mission is to help my clients out of this situation and literally transform their lives. If you would like your life transformed just give me a call on 696204152 or E mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to arrange a chat over a coffee. I look forward to hearing from you !