Jim's MMA Health and Fitness

I agreed to give Jim's MMA a go after a friend had asked me to join her and check it out. Thinking I wouldn't get much out of it and would leave after the first class feeling awkward and out of place like you do after visiting most new places, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and decided to give the next night ago. I have now been attending 3-4 classes a week since mid year 2015, even while pregnant with my second child. Jim goes far and beyond to personalize his group fitness classes to suit all fitness levels and strives to help you achieve your individual goals. I have made awesome friends who I now call family, didn't bother to renew my gym membership and have recommended Jim’s to so many friends who now also attend regularly. I also plan to send our kids to the Cubs classes as soon as they are old enough to learn the valuable lessons of respect, discipline and self defense. I guarantee you will be hooked after the first week!

I have been training with Jim & Belinda for over 12 months, I had a knee reco and joined the club to add some additional training into my rehab, I have received some great personal results of getting my fitness levels back to where they use to be prior to the reco, i feel fitter then i did before the injury, & love coming to the club 2-3 nights a week. I also put my son into the bully proof program and this has helped so much with his confidence no longer is he the shy quiet boy that hides behind mum when we go to new places, his personality has grown and he has gained so much confidence in anything he does socially, everyone close to has has commented on the change in him. :)

Jimmy is a great character and cares greatly for his club, he always has constructive feedback for me and always keeps me on my toes, if you're looking for a great club for your health, fitness and self defence, you've found it!

In January, I had a goal and a plan. My goal was to travel to Canada in late March to ski one million vertical feet in 27 days at Whistler Ski Resort. For those of you who don’t understand mountain skiing, this works out to be a distance of about 2,250 km. Only one or two tiny obstacles stood in my path …. 1. I was 62 years old. 2. I was overweight and out of shape. I needed help, and I needed it fast. My daughter-in-law suggested I contact Jim O’Donnell at Jim’s MMA. So I gathered my courage and called Jim and made an appointment to see him the next day. In the car on the way to meet him, I prepared myself for the inevitable reality check – “No doubt you’ve gained at least 10kg”, I said. Then as the car got closer to his gym, I changed this to…”Just to be on the safe side, prepare yourself for even worse…go with 15kg…that way you know you’ll be in range,” I reasoned. Well, it turned out I hadn’t gained 10kg, or 15kg. Nope, I weighed in at 20kg heavier than I had been a year or so ago. No doubt my face was a picture when I discovered that particularly unpleasant truth. In a way, I think it was good that it was so bad, because it left me nowhere to go but forwards. When I told Jim what my goal was, his face was a picture all of its own. He tilted his head to one side, gave a determined but slightly frightening smile and said, “Then we’ve got an awful lot of work to do.” What struck me most was that he took me and my goal seriously, and that meant the absolute world to me. We only had 11 weeks before I was due to fly to Canada so there was not a moment to waste. Jim was fantastic right from Day One. He gave me excellent guidance about healthy eating, which I have followed absolutely. Physically, this change in eating made me feel better straight away. For my fitness, we combined personal training (which Jim tailored exactly to my needs), group classes (which have been so much fun with great encouragement from all the team) and “quests” which were special challenges for me to complete. I trained harder than I have ever trained in my life and bit by bit I got better. If I ever even thought of wavering, Jim was all over it. So, here I am 14 weeks later. I flew to Canada and began my challenge right on schedule. The results have exceeded my wildest expectations. I don’t actually know how much weight I have lost, but I am so much thinner, fitter and stronger that it is almost unbelievable. As well as that, I am vastly more confident. In the first week of my challenge, I found out that out of the thousands of skiers at Whistler, I placed 4th for the week!!! I was utterly blown away, so naturally I wrote to Jim to brag. In his charming way he wrote back basically saying that he hadn’t sent me to Canada to come 4th, so “lift your act”. I laughed but couldn’t resist taking the bait to try even harder and sure enough in Week 2, I placed 1st. FYI, to the best of my knowledge, I have never won any sporting event in my entire life. As for the million vertical feet, well I am more or less on target with seven days left to finish it. Every day, I check in back to Jim to let him know my progress and every day he responds with support, praise, nagging, etc. It would take a braver person than me to fail this challenge knowing he is waiting for me at the other end! So, I want to say thanks a million times over to Jim. I may be the one skiing, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this accomplishment belongs, 100%, to Jim. There are not words sufficient for me to thank him for making this possible.