A New LifeSylvia Thompson talks to ex-marine Tony Kelly about how his lifelong love of fitness has formed a career
A passion for physical fitness is the key element that links the contrasting careers that Tony Kelly has pursued to date. Although working in the fitness business for almost 20 years now, the 47-year-old Dublin man still carries with him a reticence that would undoubtedly have been part of his early training in the Royal Marines.
"I was always very physically active and was attracted to the marines both for the travel and the massive physical challenge. When I joined at 16, it was the height of the Troubles and there was a heavy vetting system for someone like me as there were very few Irish guys joining at that time," he says.
His initial worries about being Irish were quickly allayed and he settled into the "very close knit community" of the 5,000 or so Royal Marines. He reminisces about tours along the west coast of the United States and Canada, the Mediterranean, the Far East and Australia, working with the United Nations in Cyprus in 1976 and then on combative duty in the Falklands war in 1981.
"We often worked in small groups ahead of the navy and the army, so to a large extent we were in control of our own destiny. We had our own escape routes worked out and didn't have to worry about large groups of military coming up behind us," he says.
However, although he admits to thriving on the challenging lifestyle in the marines, he decided that it was time to move on as he approached his 30th birthday. "I felt I was still young enough to make a new career although you don't have many credentials when you are leaving the marines."
So, rather than pursue work in a police force, prison or security firm as many ex-marines choose to do, Kelly decided to get involved in the fitness industry.
He reflects now on how lucky he was to attend fitness training courses in the United States and in England paid for by the marines before leaving.
"Following that training, I got my first real job as gym manager in the Barbican Health and Fitness Centre in London which was the first state- of-the-art fitness centre in Europe," he says.
"That was fantastic, as one of the great things in the fitness world is that the people who tend to work in the area are quite positive people. There is an energy around a gym with people who enjoy working out, being healthy and working with other people."
However, two years later, he had the "yearning to come home" and took a job in the Columbus gym (now the Westwood) in Leopardstown, Co Dublin. He soon realised that he had less interest in the management side of the business and more interest in personal training.
"The fitness/leisure industry is badly paid and so many good people leave the industry because of that. I also realised that I wanted to be self-employed," he says.
A chance encounter with Conor Gough (then part of the rock group Dignam and Gough with Christy Dignam from Aslan) set him on the road to full-time work as a personal trainer.
"Conor saw me lying on a mat in the gym one day doing sit-ups and he said, 'I want you to show me how to do that. I want you to train me to get clean' and within a couple of months, he looked fantastic and the good thing for me was that he has the biggest mouth in Ireland so I got loads of work from him," he says.
However, the desire for travel took over again and Kelly and his then girlfriend headed for Atlanta, Georgia where Kelly worked as a personal trainer while doing a course at the American College of Sports Medicine.
"I didn't like Atlanta so after a year - and a split with my girlfriend - I moved from Colorado to Chicago to New York and then to San Francisco for two years. I absolutely loved San Francisco," he says, mentioning stockbrokers and band members from Metallica among the people he worked for as a personal trainer.
"I got the travel bug again, this time to go to the Far East - Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia - but that didn't work out because there wasn't much of a fitness scene there so I came back home and started up my business," he says.
The birth of his daughter, Eron, eight years ago was to become one of his greatest reasons for staying in Ireland.
Star Fitness's slick premises in Bray, Co Wicklow stocks all the latest home fitness equipment and includes an upper floor of fitness studios where regular classes in Pilates, yoga, self-defence and salsa are held. Kelly also runs the fitness equipment store at Arnotts.
"I started off doing promotions of home fitness equipment in shopping centres before I got a small premises in Bray and later moved to this one.
"The key is to look at what people want - not just to be a sales agent. Sometimes, we'll tell people to buy trainers and walk the pier if we think that's what's best for them.
"Then there are a lot of people who don't want to commit to gyms, so we'll advise people on equipment, deliver and assemble it and provide them with a personal trainer."
Meanwhile, although Kelly's days as a personal trainer are over, he still works out daily himself - running, joining the hardy year-round swimmers in the Forty Foot at Sandycove, Dublin and doing classes in boxercise (boxing exercises) and spin, in which stationary bicycles are used to do movements to music.
"I see myself as becoming more and more involved in the fitness business, helping people get back into shape, teaching children how to keep fit. Ultimately, I'm interested in motivating people to get into exercise routines," he says.
See www.starfitness.ie