A Newtownabbey PT says he has found his "vocation" in life training cancer patients and survivors after he was inspired by his sister-in-law's diagnosis.
Ian Dollin, originally from the Shankill, is the owner the GROK Primal Fitness and is passionate about growing his new venture 'Moving Through Cancer' to provide a safe environment for people with cancer to train and exercise.
This passion stemmed from the experience of his sister-in-law Natalie.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Ian said: "I got into training in general because I was interested in fitness all my life - from the age of 10 I was doing boxing and I just carried on from that.
"I opened up a gym around eight years ago because I saw a gap in the market regarding what I call relative strength and mobility. I have this real passion for taking people who maybe have issues such as in their shoulders or knees and teaching them how to move better.
"My sister-in-law got cancer about five and half years ago and what we noticed was when she came out of her treatment, she lived about 20 miles from me and every gym she tried to get into wouldn't take her on because of the liability and they didn't have the education to personal train her."
Ian realised that there was a real lack of knowledge and understanding across Northern Ireland about the benefits and ability to train cancer patients and survivors so he decided to work on getting his Exercise Referral qualification and Cancer Exercise Specialist qualification.
"With Natalie, I have been in contact with her oncology team as she still has more treatment and surgery to go through and she is in the process of being referred to me."
"The lack of help and knowledge for people out there who have cancer and are able to train is the issue and we would like to get the awareness out there in more gyms that there are qualifications so that they can take on people in their area with cancer that need help.
"It has been a long road and both of us have been learning on the job - it is great to have all the qualifications but until you work with someone who is going through it, you cannot know what it is all about," Ian explained.
He continued: "When Natalie started with me, she was still on a targeted therapy which caused issues with her heart and her fatigue levels were up considerably. She also had a full mastectomy of the right side and a lot of other treatments and it's been a journey trying to get her mobility back in her shoulder.
"Natalie would tell you herself that the difference in her mindset has really improved and she is a different person completely by being able to deal with cancer and its treatments through doing exercise a couple of hours a week."
Being able to see the difference training has made on his sister-in-law's life has been "unbelievable" and Ian hopes he can bring that confidence back to others like Natalie across NI.
"This has changed the trajectory of my life and my vocation - it's completely changed my outlook on how I look at individuals who come into my gym and what a goal can mean for each individual person," he said.
"When you meet someone who is going through such a disease as cancer and their goal is to survive, it goes past the superficial nature of the fitness industry and it has completely changed my mindset on what we look at as important.
"When Natalie got her diagnosis, her first thought was how am I going to survive for my two children - this has to all come from someone like her and others like her."
Ian explained how patients can be referred to Cancer Exercise specialists such as himself by their doctors and he hopes to raise awareness that others going through the same thing as Natalie can reach out for help.
He added: "Exercise can be part of their treatment, whether that is presurgery or while going through chemotherapy, to improve their quality of life. People can be referred to people like me and I have found that this information isn't out there and I want to help people know their options.
"Our dream within the next five years is to have the first 'cancer-cise' scheme in every hospital in Northern Ireland where I can go to train patients."
As Ian continues to grow his Movement Through Cancer venture, he hopes that he will be able to incorporate more people who are living with or have survived cancer into the business and help those struggling with employment after their treatment.
"There was something else from my training that I learnt and thought was madness - what actually happens with a lot of people after cancer is that they can find it hard to get back into work after treatment and our main aim is to have every person that we employ long term when we get the scheme running will be a cancer survivor.
"Anyone who is finding it difficult to get back into work, we hope we will be able to provide further employment in some way or another."
