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How Strictly's Gemma Atkinson and Gorka Marquez keep their romance alive

Couples that train together, stay together...

Sharnaz Shahid
Deputy Online Editor
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Ever since they confirmed their romance in February, Gemma Atkinson and Gorka Marquez have been littering their social media with envy-inducing posts of their couple's workout sessions. The Strictly Come Dancing couple, who met on the BBC ballroom dance show last year, regularly hit the gym and keep each other motivated, and it seems their love of fitness has kept them strong, well, according to their personal trainer Steve Chambers. "It's a case of couples that train together, stay together," the PT told HELLO!. "It seems to be true in their case, they both obviously have a massive interest in fitness which I assume is one of their common grounds."

gemma atkinson gorka marquez training© Photo: Instagram

Gemma Atkinson and Gorka Marquez often share posts of their fitness sessions

He added: "Even when they are both not in with me, they both will send me videos from their workouts. It's something they definitely enjoy doing together. They train three to four times a week depending on their schedule - one hour sessions." Steve has known Gemma for a couple of years before she started dating Gorka. The former soap star then brought the professional dancer to her weekly sessions, introducing Gorka to a whole new training plan with Steve.

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"When it comes to training, Gorka - being a male - he prioritises his body a little bit more, whilst Gemma focuses on her legs and bum area," explained Steve. "I make sure that the other person also trains the other body parts of the other person. So Gemma had to do the same muscles and upper body parts as Gorka - and Gorka had to do the same lower body movement parts as Gemma. It motivates them quite a bit. This has made them more involved in each other's training sessions rather than training completely separately."

When asked about their individual goals, the personal trainer - who works at Ultimate Performance - revealed: "Gemma is more focused on her weight than Gorka. She is always at looking to lose weight. However, its more to do with the body composition, is it more body fat or is it lean mass? But how are those weights made up - is more muscle or is it fat?" He added: "It does comes down to what was your original motivation was, if it was enough of a reason for you to start training - don't lose sight of it. Gemma and Gorka are in the public eye so there's the added pressure to good look."

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But the best piece of advice Steve has to offer is not to overcomplicate the process. "Everyone wants to go in and do everything in one go," he said. "Everyone wants to all of a sudden eat well and train hard, they want to start training seven days a week, do too much which is too overwhelming for most people. Only do what you can do now and then slowly build up on that." When it comes to food, he continued: "Everybody has a fear of carbohydrates – as soon as people start dieting, the first thing they do is to cut out all carbohydrates or take out foods that they think are carbohydrates. People think that fruit is a healthy option, but it you have an abundance of it – there's a lot of sugar in it. It's all in moderation."

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