ABOUT

Hi, I’m Toby, the owner of Restoractive.

 

I can’t remember exactly when it began, but I played full contact rugby at seven and regularly walked around with a pair of ankle weights on. I loved exercising and was extremely dedicated and disciplined even at that young age. I was also fascinated by how the body worked.

​

From rugby I moved into athletics – becoming a competent triple jumper – before, one winter’s evening, we escaped a wet running track and sheltered in the local sports centre’s gym. There were two gyms: one for general use, and another called The Dungeon, where the serious training took place. That’s when I fell in love with the energy of a competitive gym. From then on, I just wanted to lift weights.

​

At 20, after just a few years of training, I entered a bodybuilding competition and won the Natural U21 Bodybuilding Mr Britain. ‘Natural’ meaning without drugs. I was featured in magazines and, despite being young, was bigger than many men. I was also becoming strong – squatting over 200kg and pressing 140kg overhead, all without a belt (or doing Pilates!).

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around this time I also began incorporating bodyweight training, encouraged by Ruben Martin, who ran a small gym tucked inside a dance studio closer to my home. In his day he had been part of a famous hand-balancing act. He was incredibly strong and not a man to be messed with. Twice a week I trained with him, practising handstand press-ups on parallel bars and performing countless pull-ups. For him, there was no point in having muscles without the ability to control and use them.

​

At 21 I began working in the sports centre where I first trained. It was a great place to work – extremely successful, winning numerous awards and becoming the first gym in the country to adopt GP referral and cardiac rehabilitation schemes. During my time there I carried out well over 5,000 gym inductions and programme reviews, meeting thousands of people and gaining an enormous amount of experience at a young age. These days that level of experience is rarely achievable, as most gyms no longer offer inductions and programmes – except Restoractive.

 

After six years working there, and stepping away from competitive bodybuilding, I took a leap of faith and became self-employed as a personal trainer. The transition was tough. I worked a full 40-hour week in the gym while trying to build a client base outside of it that could support me once I left. I was exhausted, and when I finally stepped away my income initially dropped. But through past connections, a little synchronicity and some good fortune, the business slowly began to grow. I picked up clients, often by simply bumping into former gym members who wanted my help. It soon became one of the best decisions I ever made.

​

Self-employment not only gave me emotional freedom but also physical independence, allowing me to relocate twice and rebuild my client base from scratch each time. During these transitions I expanded into soft tissue therapy – a hands-on treatment working with muscles, fascia, tendons and ligaments to improve how the body moves and functions. It complements personal training perfectly, allowing me to identify and address postural issues and movement patterns almost immediately when someone walks through the door.

​

Now, after nearly 30 years in the industry, delivering an estimated 20,000 personal training sessions and a similar number of treatments, I had the opportunity to open Restoractive. This was another huge leap of faith. I had no idea where the resources would come from or how a business on this scale would work, but it felt like the path I was meant to take. I wanted to create a place that combined strength, recovery and wellbeing – a community-based gym that supported people not only in training, but in looking after their bodies as a whole.

​

There have been difficult moments and times when I’ve felt vulnerable, but when you believe in something it’s worth continuing. As long as there’s an open mind, good people around, and the willingness to keep learning, the journey continues.

 

And for me, that journey is what Restoractive is all about.

 

A little piece of trivia. I've also written, illustrated and published children’s books… But that’s an other story entirely…! You can take a look at tdmbooks.com