One-on-one with Dovies: Adebayor’s physical trainer

The human body needs regular physical training not only to appear good, but also to stay healthy and avoid diseases, Dovies, the physical trainer for international soccer great, Emmanuel Adebayor, has told NEWS-ONE.

Dovies explained that the lack of regular physical training could increase the risk of preventable diseases like heart diseases, obesity, high blood pressure anxiety, depression and stress.

“Physical training is something everyone should take serious. You have to train not only because you want to gain weight or lose weight but basically to keep fit and be healthy. In the days of old, people did more vigorous and energy sapping work like farming, hunting, walking long distances and what have you. But, these days, our lifestyles have changed and we need to make time to train. We have to train to maintain good health,” Dovies stated

He is a Ghanaian and arguably the physical trainer with the most visible social media presence on the African continent, as his Instagram page alone has over a million followers.

Adebayor told NEWS-ONE how he came in contact with Dovies and their experience working together, saying, “It is a beautiful feeling working with Dovies. He is an African brother I got to know through Instagram and I contacted him and he was available to work out with me. Dovies has his own way of working out which is different from what I have been seeing abroad. And it is beautiful working with him.

“He can form a work out session out of anything. You put coconuts there and he knows how to make you work out with it. You put a bottle of water there and he knows how to use it to do work out. I like working out with him and we normally play African music in the background. I believe we should learn to promote our ‘own’ and this guy is doing a great job,” Adebayor told NEWS-ONE.

Below are excerpts of a brief interview NEWS-ONE had with Dovies:

Why Dovies?

The name is Foster Agyei, but my brand name is Dovies. It is a name I had from my teen days. I had a lot of doves I kept and people started calling me the ‘dove-guy’ or ‘the guy with the dove’ and then at a point it became ‘dovies’ and people got to know me as dovies. So when I needed a brand name, I went in for that. That was over 15 years ago and I don’t keep them anymore. And Dovies signify peace, so my name means peace.

Many believe ‘macho men’ are violent.

That’s what most people think. But at the end of the day, there are people who are violent whether or not they have big muscles. I did not take years to get these muscles so as to beat up or bully people. At best, we should use our muscles to protect people from bullying and danger rather than be the ones who become the bullies. If you have big muscles and you think that you are strong so you want to beat someone or bully someone then I think you actions are just stupid. We should stop using our muscles to scare people. It makes no sense and that is criminal.

Who are your clients and what exactly do you do?

I train people who want to learn about fitness. I take them through the process and guide them on how to go about it. It is all about losing or gaining weight. It depends on whether you want to gain weight or lose weight. When I say gain weight, I mean it in a healthy way and not to gain bad fat.

I have clients in many places the world over. Some are not celebrities or names you know. I have trained with Stephen Appiah, Joselyn Dumas and now Emmanuel Seyi Adebayor.

You train females too? Is that not tempting?

You just have to be professional and focus on the job. There are also female trainers who have male clients. The most important thing is to be professional and focus on the results of the training and nothing else. It is a job and it is your profession so I have closed my mind to that.

How is it like training Adebayor?

He is a great footballer and all that but I can tell you he is very respectful and does just what you ask him to do. It is easy working with him because he already knows what to do, he wants to do it and he has passion for it. When we have a session, you can’t tell who the trainer is and who the client is. We work like brothers and it is fun training someone who is already fit.

There are some clients who do not know much about fitness and it becomes a challenge reshaping the way they think and the type of food they eat. But Ade is different. He understands the essence of fitness.

How do you give instructions to Emmanuel Adebayor in his own home?

When the work starts, I do not see him as ‘Emmanuel Adebayor’. I see him as a client I have to train. When I give him a task, he has to do it and even if I yell at him, he understands I am only urging him on and not showing him disrespect. We have mutual respect for each other and he is a very cooperative trainee. I have to be honest with you, Adebayor is a very respectful person and in this case, he understands the job we are doing so he goes all out to make it work out well.

Do you travel with him everywhere?

No not everywhere because when he is out here, the team has its own training sessions and everything is on a strict timetable so I won’t be need. But when he comes to town, I fly in from wherever I am and we train back and forth. When Adebayor is not playing football, he is either in Ghana or in Togo and we move in and out of the two countries training.

Employing a physical training is expensive.

You would spend more in curing ill-health than what you spend on the cost of training. Most people think you have to pay huge sums to learn about fitness. But, there are a lot of trainers out there who do not charge much. I do online programmes where I have my own training sessions that I share. That’s how come I have close to a million followers. When it comes to fitness, I have the biggest fitness page in the whole of Africa and all we talk about there is staying fit.

Anything you want to add?

I want to urge everyone to go into fitness. Going into fitness is not just to look good when you are naked. You have to be healthy and look good at the same time. Our lifestyle is causing several health problems which can be avoided by constant training. No one wants to be a 23-year-old with a heart problem or obese with excess fat. Each and everyone should spend time going for a walk, a run, or doing some form of exercise to look fit.

If you are skinny and not doing any form of physical activity, there is still a lot that can go wrong with your health. In our schools, that is why we have physical education. It is to teach our children the need to stay fit. I train kids as well and it is sad many parents do not put their children through any form of physical activity.