I’m a celebrity trainer – here is how many hours of cardio you should be doing a week and why you should NEVER listen to influencers

Celebrity trainer Matt Roberts has helped the likes of Adele, Naomi Campbell, Ellie Goulding and even David Cameron.

The PT built up his business before the boom of TikTok, which led to streams of fitness influencers sharing their home workouts.

It comes after a report last month revealed that just 50 online workout pros collectively influence over 700 million people across the globe.

However, Roberts revealed he thinks they ‘don’t know a huge amount’.

Celebrity trainer Matt Roberts has helped the likes of Adele, Naomi Campbell, Ellie Goulding and even David Cameron 

He told The Telegraph: ‘There’s a whole load of people out there who are summed up as being some form of fitness influencer, a ridiculous title, and most don’t really know a huge amount.

‘It’s more about them than the product. It’s image heavy, not content heavy. 

‘It’s not really designed to give you anything other than ‘they look great’. The programmes we do see are so basic they’re laughable’.

As one of the most successful personal trainers in the business, Roberts has a career spanning 25 years, having coached thousands of clients.

He takes a holistic approach to training, with his website explaining that he considers the interconnectedness of various aspects of a person’s life: ‘addressing not only physical fitness but also emotional, mental, and social well-being’. 

The fitness fanatic believes personal training can help you later in life – being able to play tennis aged 80 and run up a hill at 90.

Impressively, he claims that now at age 50, his body fat percentage and weight are the same as they were were he was just 20.

The only thing that has changed is his cholesterol, which is actually lower – however, this ‘takes work’. 

From experience, he knows it’s important to ‘see the red flags’ and ‘make positive changes’.

Robert’s father died of pancreatic cancer aged 69, his grandfather died of a heart attack aged 47 and his uncle at 40 from a heart complaint.

He told The Telegraph : ‘There’s a whole load of people out there who are summed up as being some form of fitness influencer, a ridiculous title, and most don’t really know a huge amount’

He would encourage anyone to make healthy choices, no matter what age.

The PT told The Telegraph: ‘Whether you’re 50, 60 or 70, you can do something to make a positive change’.

His weekly lifestyle includes four hours of low intensity cardio, two of high intensity cardio, as well as lifting and tennis squeezed in between.

Stressing that it’s important to enjoy what you’re eating, he chows down on a 70% vegan diet, with a lot of fish and a weekly portion of red meat, advising: ‘There really isn’t one food that’s a bad food’.

When it comes to exercise, he recommends between 200 and 250 minutes per week (just over 4 hours) of moderate activity and 60 minutes of more vigorous cardio exercise, for the average middle aged person.  

The advice comes just after Michelin star chef  Sat Bains revealed he was forced to turn his life around after having a heart attack, and shared the changes he made to his diet that ‘saved him’.

He was previously on a low-carb high-fat keto diet, which he swapped for more fruit and vegetables, lean protein and ‘good fats’.

Bains had to start from scratch and ‘relearn’ what he ‘thought he knew’ – going from gorging on chocolate and steaks, to limiting himself to just two Freddo bars a week.

Before his heart attack, Bains would have easily polished off at least two steaks a week, which is now limited to one every two or three weeks without the fat.

He told The Times: ‘The whole point is moderation and balance. I’ll have lots of fish, venison, game birds, which are very low in cholesterol’.