I’m Annie Dorward and I started working with Helena and Vitality Health and Fitness in May 2015 when we ran our first Wellness Retreat in Spain. Since then we have worked together on a number of successful client trips and this year decided to join forces in order to provide clients with a wider range of health and fitness services.

My Passion:

I have been passionate about health and fitness for as long as I can remember, and have worked in the industry for over 25 years. I enjoy helping people to achieve their health and fitness goals and embrace the challenge of adapting my approach to suit each individual.

My sporting background:

I have enjoyed competitive sport, in particular swimming and netball, since I started school and during University. My passion for exercise moved into new avenues when I joined the Metropolitan Police; running, boxing and self-defence. I have run several half marathons and participated in many cycling events.

Fitness Challenges:

One of my passions is endurance sport and I have helped clients to complete a variety of events and challenges including ‘The Three Peaks’ in 24 hours, an endurance running event across the Sinai Desert and more recently I trained a team to participate in Tough Mudder West London. By accompanying clients on such challenging events, I was able to explore different ways to motivate them and worked to ensure that they had fun achieving their goals.

During my training to become a qualified personal trainer, I became particularly interested in the benefits of sports massage, and extended my studies to become a sports masseur. I undertook an additional training course to use Hot Stone massage techniques, as this is extremely beneficial in aiding healing in clients with sports related injuries.

Fitness & Nutrition:

I am a firm believer that fitness and nutrition work together as a team and therefore I have trained as a nutritional therapist, so that I understand more fully about the science behind good nutrition and can educate my clients.This is a philosophy by which I live each day, not only in relation to my own choice of diet but also because I share this vision with my partner and our two daughters; we all benefit physically from eating well.

Yoga:
Throughout my life, I have had various experiences with different types of yoga and its practitioners. For a long time, I felt yoga was not for me. I smiled at yoga, shook my head, preferring instead to put on my trainers and go for a run. Eventually yoga caught up with me and I decided to train with Teach Yoga under the guidance of Elena Voyce, an outstanding yoga teacher and practitioner. I completed my British Wheel of Yoga training in 2013 and now love to create new ways for my clients to achieve their fitness levels through yoga. Yoga not only helps them to do this but in the process benefits both teacher and student alike in terms of the union it creates between mind, body and soul.