Following on from our social media post (which showcased a rather ‘lovely’ photograph of us!), we thought it right to reintroduce ourselves and let you know a little more about who we are, what we’ve been up to and where we are now.
We’re Ross and Lu, a husband and wife team living in South Wales and running Perspective Health & Wellbeing, both here and online. We offer a variety of fitness, wellbeing and therapeutic services, all with the same aim: to help people live as well as they can, in a way that actually fits into real life.
We may not look like your standard fitness professionals or therapists. We love food. Our own training can be sporadic. You might see us at parkrun looking like we’re battling through five metres of deep, sludgy mud, and there may be a certain amount of loopiness surrounding us, rather than the traditionally calm, low-voiced presence you might expect from a therapist. đ But that’s us – real people, living real lives, dealing with the same things that can make looking after yourself difficult. We don’t believe you have to become a completely different person, spend hours in the gym, obsess over food or have your whole life organised around your health to make positive changes. Itâs about it fitting into your life, rather than it taking over, in order to have the best impact on your wellbeing.
We’ve been together for more than 23 years, and during that time we’ve experienced plenty of the things that life can throw at you: education, working life and its stresses, marriage, parenting, mental health struggles, long-term health challenges, unexpected house moves, beautiful places, amazing friends and plenty of adventures along the way. Some that have made life easier. Others, not so much. All of them have taught us something about how difficult it can be to look after yourself when you’re also trying to just make it through each day and also enjoy things too. That’s one of the reasons we chose the name Perspective. We want to bring some balance and perspective to health and wellbeing, helping people find approaches that are achievable, enjoyable and sustainable in the realities of daily life.
Ross has always had an active lifestyle, from walking as a mode of transport to kayaking and hiking for pleasure. His main focus during his teenage years and early adulthood was cycling, although he has since switched to running, which he now enjoys with Lu.
He’s also participated in Tae Kwon Do, reaching green belt, and has stayed active through a variety of physically demanding jobs, including warehouse work, care work with people with multiple conditions, entertaining children when assisting with Lu’s previous childminding business and lorry driving (which included playing with grown-up Tonka Trucks, and Lu isn’t entirely convinced that wasn’t the main attraction!).
Ross is a fully qualified personal training and fitness instructor and enjoys putting his knowledge into practice to help clients achieve their own goals and improve their health. He later added the exercise referral qualification while working in a gym in Bristol, allowing him to provide additional support for people living with health conditions or other circumstances that can affect exercise. His love of the outdoors and of training in different environments means he particularly enjoys creating exercise programmes that work for the person and the space they actually have, rather than expecting everyone to fit into the same mould.
Lu is also a qualified personal trainer, fitness instructor and hypnotherapist. Her career path has taken a few different turns over the years. She initially qualified in Early Years and Childcare Education and worked with children from babies through to secondary school age, from private day nurseries and childminding to working in schools as an SEN/ALN teaching assistant with children who had a variety of additional needs.
Lu’s interest in fitness and how the mind works began in her early teens, initially through running and the good old-fashioned world of fitness DVDs and reading any psychology book she could get her hands on. It wasn’t long before she was researching a variety of theories and also how to write her own programmes and finding safer and more effective ways to reach her own fitness goals. Throughout her career in childcare and education, her love of fitness, psychology and helping people never really went away. She went back to school herself, gradually gaining qualifications and experience in areas including counselling skills, neurodiverse conditions and fitness before deciding to train as a personal trainer.
Over the years, life, marriage, having children and living with a disability all changed what fitness and looking after your wellbeing looked like for her. Struggling to manage her weight and her mental health, she plodded on each day not really knowing what she was doing and wishing she had space and support to do things. She didnât have family or financial resources available for childcare and even though she was juggling fitness with busy life and small children at home, over a long period of time, she achieved a four-stone weight loss using simple approaches that have remained part of her life ever since. It was in this period that the fitness world lacked a place where people could exercise without having to put the rest of their life on hold and that was real, not an idealised plan that wasnât conducive to lifeâs curveballs, childrenâs bathtimes and tantrums, and fatigue! That idea has helped shape how they work at Perspective. One being that parents can bring their little ones along to some of the fitness classes they run. Later, after experiencing difficulties with her own mental health, Lu sought help through hypnotherapy and was amazed by the difference it made. It felt like magic! Her fascination with how the mind works, and her desire to find more ways to help people, led her to train as a hypnotherapist herself, allowing her to offer the same kind of support that she had benefited from.
Both Ross and Lu have also studied life and mindset coaching, using these skills alongside the others to support people through change, whether that’s within a fitness programme, therapeutic work or simply helping someone work out what might make their next step possible, most importantly not being a one-size-fits-all, clipboard check list. What we use, and how we use it, depends on the person sitting in front of us, what they want to achieve and what might genuinely help them, not just a number on a scale, a fitness test or a list of things they think they should be doing. (There may be a huge dislike of the word âshouldâ for Lu!)
Each week, at Perspective Health & Wellbeing, Ross and Lu provide a range of services from their own studio space, which they’ve created to provide a private and welcoming environment for clients.
We offer:
- Fitness classes for different abilities and circumstances
- Classes where you can bring your little ones
- Exercise support for people with additional conditions or those moving on from physiotherapy
- One-to-one personal training
- Small-group PT Pods
- Hypnotherapy for a variety of goals and difficulties
- Remote sessions where appropriate
- Support at your own location if necessary
- A free social Walk & Talk
- Buddying and encouragement for people wanting to attend parkrun
- And are always open to creating ways to help people better themselves
We’re particularly passionate about making health and wellbeing accessible, which is why we also offer the free opportunities for people to meet us, get active and become part of our little âfamilyâ without having to sign up for something. We know firsthand that the hardest part isn’t always the exercise or fighting the mental demons, it’s walking through the door to do them in the first place. You donât need to do it alone, full of energy or perfectly. We’re not about that at all, not interested in pretending that motivation never disappears, that life never gets in the way or that everyone has the same abilities, circumstances or goals. Itâs about doing what we can, little by little, making the difference in whatever way works for each individual. Sometimes that might mean getting stronger or fitter. Sometimes it might mean improving confidence, changing an unhelpful pattern, managing a particular challenge or simply finding something that makes you feel a bit more like yourself. It might also mean doing all of that while laughing at ourselves, eating something delicious and accepting that trudging through mud (literal or metaphorical!) is at times, a part of life.