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Chapter 01
01
A Career Built on Physical Performance
I’m José Fernandes, and I spent years playing football professionally, in Spain, Mozambique, Portugal, and Andorra, including experience at Europa League level. Playing at that level for that long meant living inside physical preparation, conditioning, and recovery every single week — not learning about it from a textbook.
At that level, a single week could include multiple training sessions, matches, and recovery protocols — all built around keeping the body performing and staying injury-free over a long season, not just peaking for one event. I learned what actually keeps someone healthy and progressing over years, not weeks: proper warm-ups, structured progression, and paying attention to small signs before they become real problems.
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Chapter 02
02
The Shift From Playing to Training Others
In my final seasons as a player, I worked as an assistant physical trainer — the point where my focus shifted from my own performance to helping other athletes train properly. That experience shaped how I approach personal training today: structured, safety-first, and built around real progression, not guesswork.
Working alongside other athletes, I noticed the same problems come up again and again, even outside professional sport: people who didn’t know where to start, people being coached without a real plan behind it, and people hesitant to push themselves before they’d even begun. That’s when I realised the principles that kept professional athletes performing applied just as much — maybe more — to people training for everyday life.
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Chapter 03
03
Formal Certification
That shift led me to train formally as a Personal Trainer at the European Health and Fitness School in Madrid, recognised through EuropeActive and EREPS standards, covering physical assessment, exercise programming, and safe instruction.
The course covered physical assessment, exercise programming, and safe instruction in depth — turning what I’d learned by living it as an athlete into a structured approach I could apply to anyone, not just people with an athletic background. It also meant learning to assess someone I’d never trained before: their movement, their limitations, and their actual starting point, rather than assuming.
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Chapter 04 · Today
04
Training in Cyprus Today
I’m based in Nicosia, and I work with clients in-person across Nicosia and Limassol — at home, outdoors, or indoors at the gym in Nicosia — and online with clients anywhere. My approach stays the same regardless of format: a plan built around the person in front of me, not a template applied to everyone. That’s the same principle that mattered most on a professional pitch — the plan has to fit the person, not the other way around.
Every client starts the same way — with a trial session where I watch how they actually move, not a form they fill in. From there, the plan is built around them: their goals, their schedule, and whatever they’re starting from, whether that’s their first time training or years of experience.
Why Technique Comes First
Every new exercise starts light, no matter how strong or experienced someone already is. I want to see how someone actually moves before any real weight goes on — the same discipline that mattered most at a professional level, where a small technical fault repeated under load is exactly what causes real injuries.
It’s a slower start than most people expect, but it means the progress that follows is built on something solid.
Credentials
Trained to train you safely.
Personal Trainer, European Health and Fitness School
- Awarded
- Madrid, 2026
- Recognition
- National & European
- Standards
- EuropeActive · EREPS
Registered with EREPS (European Register of Exercise Professionals) under membership number 155504, active through September 2027 — verify it directly on the EREPS website.
Four certified competencies
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UC0272_2
First responder
In case of accident or emergency situation.
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UC0273_3
Assessment
Determining physical, biological and motivational condition.
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UC0274_3
Programming
Planning conditioning activities to health and wellbeing criteria.
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UC0275_3
Instruction
Directing conditioning activities with training equipment.
Recognised by
