Problems with the fitness industry
- Cookie-Cutter Programs: They sell a one-size-fits-all program as the "magic bullet" for your fitness goals.
- Unrealistic Demands: Presumes you can and should train 5-6 times a week and meal prep like a reality TV chef.
- The "Do As I Do" Paradigm: They teach by example, thinking if it’s worked for them, it will for you, not by understanding your unique needs.
- Energy Drainers: Promote restrictive diets that sap your energy and cripple performance in every other aspect of your life.
- Macro Misguidance: They claim, "If it fits your macros, it's good," oversimplifying nutrition to detrimental effect.
- The Influencer Trap: Coaches who focus more on social media fame than client success.
- The Professional Bias:They forget that fitness isn't your career or all-consuming passion, as it is for them.
- Photo Finish: They prepare you for a photo-shoot, not a healthy life.
- Ghosts in the Machine: Amazing on social media, yet inexplicably absent when you need real-time support.
Our Coaching Methodology
- Programs that meet you where you are: Our plans are built around your schedule, your health, and your goals.
- Efficient Workouts: We optimize every minute you spend training—because not everyone wants or has time to live in the gym.
- Life-Stage Adaptability: Different training methods suit different life stages. We get that and adapt accordingly.
- Educational Focus: We're committed to not just getting you results, but teaching you how to sustain them.
- The Long Game: Life isn’t a photoshoot or a rehearsal; it's the main event. Our coaching aims for sustainable excellence, not temporary perfection.
- Decades, Not Days: With over 12 years of experience, we know a thing or two about long-term success.
Who Benefits From The Status Quo?
- Fitness trend followers
- Aspiring influencers
- People looking for quick fixes.
- Holiday preppers looking to get in shape 2 weeks before the beach
- Dabblers that are always seeking the 'new thing'
- Seasonal Gym Goers
- Individuals who seek instant results but aren't consistent
Who Benefits from Choosing Us?
- Those ready for lasting lifestyle change.
- Individuals wanting to understand why they’ve failed in the past.
- Busy professionals juggling life's complexities.
- People looking for health-oriented, not trend-oriented, solutions.
- Anyone who wants a roadmap to sustainable well-being, without sacrificing other life priorities.
- Those that simply want to feel confident when they go clothes shopping
We Believe Results only count if you can maintain them
You’ve likely seen those reality weight-loss shows, where contestants shed astonishing amounts of weight in what seems like a blink of an eye. But what the camera doesn’t capture is the tragic aftermath—many gain back even more weight than they initially lost. The fitness industry often glamorizes this ‘quick-fix’ approach in dramatic before-and-after photos. But let’s be real: Starving yourself and pushing your body to its limits may lead to temporary weight loss, but is that a victory if it can’t be maintained?
We’ve worked with clients who’ve followed such extreme regimes that they’ve disrupted their menstrual cycles, destroyed their gut health, unbalanced their hormones, and even damaged their joints. These practices create a psychological aversion to fitness that lasts long after the program ends.
Our philosophy is straightforward: True results are those that you can sustain. While that may mean a more measured approach, it ensures that your victories—be they a slimmer waist, better muscle tone, or just a sense of wellbeing—are victories you can actually keep
We Believe Results only count if you can maintain them
The reason I exercise is for the quality of life I enjoy
Imagine a life where every moment is amplified by your vitality. For us and our community, joy isn’t found in the complexities; it’s in the simple acts—walking the dog in the crisp morning air, feeling the earth beneath your feet on a short run, or immersing yourself in the serene beauty of nature. Now, picture sharing these moments with those who mean the world to you. Whether it’s a spirited game of tag with your kids or sharing an effortless, intimate moment with your partner, life’s richest experiences are best savored with a body that’s primed and a mind that’s present. Fitness isn’t just about sculpted abs or personal bests; it’s your ticket to a life fully lived, felt, and shared. Welcome to a way of living that elevates every ordinary moment into something extraordinary. It’s one thing to be alive, it’s another thing entirely to truly live.
Feel Better Every Day
One of the major drawbacks of a busy, modern lifestyle is that as you shoulder more and more responsibility and work load you start to lose track of what feeling.
Daily sun exposure
Drinking more water
Improving Digestion
A boost in energy
Less aches and pains
Less reliance on Caffeine
More Restful sleep
MEntal Health Matters
Amid the rising concern for mental well-being in today’s fast-paced world, exercise stands out as an underutilised but highly effective first line of defense for alleviating symptoms of anxiety and depression. Multiple studies back the profound impact that regular physical activity can have on our mood, thanks to the release of endorphins—often termed ‘feel-good hormones.’ But it goes beyond momentary mood boosts; consistent exercise serves as a powerful vehicle for cultivating self-esteem and confidence.
As you overcome small challenges in your workouts and witness your body’s capabilities expand, you’re not just building muscle or increasing endurance; you’re also constructing a fortified sense of self. And as you start to develop resilience and stay consistent, you’ll begin to trust your will-power again and there’s no telling what you’ll go on to achieve.
Treatise
How we get our Results
When you’ve worked with as many people as we have, you start to see patterns. Which means that we understand the most common mistakes and misunderstandings people have when it comes to trying to achieve results. We’ve covered all of these subjects in more detail in our comprehensive fitness guides, but here is a run down of twenty of our biggest findings over the course of over a decade of coaching, and below them the references to take them up.
Fundamentals
Consistency is King – It’s not sexy but it’s true. We all know the fable of the tortoise and the hare, in the world of fitness aim to be the tortoise. Consider the results you achieve on any training program are only as good as your ability to maintain them. If you can’t maintain a healthy weight and aestetic you aren’t yet in control. Whilst it’s true you can see short-lived succes by over-doing things, the tax on that approach is going to have to be paid before long. A failure to make healthy living habitual, negates the utility of any program no matter how well designed, because it’s only going to be effective if you actually implement it.
Entropy Chases Us All – It’s tempting to view achievements in health & fitness as you would attaining a qualification or leveling up in a video game in that once you have it, you’re fundamentally operating at a higher level or are entitled to some kind of benefit. Unfortunately the laws of nature don’t work that way, results are never really yours to keep, at least not without maintenance. Inactivity invites entropy, which means on a long enough time line what you’ve worked for will be lost, unless you find and maintain the minimum threshold of activity your body needs to stop this happening. When it comes to exercise, once you’re in. Think about your fitness efforts as a framework and set of habits rather than simply a workout program, a framework represents how you live, your normal every day life apart of which is exercise, whereas a workout program well that has a start and an end, you must have a plan for the day after any specific program or your results will be short-lived.
Beware The All-Or-Nothing Mindset – Be careful about identifying yourself as an ‘all-or-nothing’ kind of person, you’re effectively labelling yourself with an identity trait that condemns you to never achieving lasting fitness. What you’re describing isn’t your character, it’s just previous behaviour, and that need not be the same going forward. Most attempts at ‘all’ are brief and lead to burn out, and ‘nothing’ isn’t maintenance, it’s the beginning of losing your fitness, strength, endurance and a decline in body composition due to entropy. You don’t have to make fitness your life,or live in the gym but it should feature in some capacity year-round or you’ll simply never be able to maintain what you achieve.
Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff – As it stands today we’re been exposed to thousands of social media posts not to mention decades worth of fitness magazines debating the best exercises, workouts and training splits ad nauseam. However at a certain point it’s all academic if your aren’t eating well, getting good sleep, staying consistent and effectively managing stress. Focus on the fundamentals and almost any workout will deliver for you. Workout design matters, but it’s the final 20% of the puzzle. You simply won’t get optimal results from a great workout plan if you’re physically comprised by stress an fatigue so fix that first and don’t overthink the details
Break The Chains of Comfort- If you simply cannot bear to start exercise, it makes sense to establish the habit with any activity you enjoy, it’ll be your best shot at making it pleasurable enough to keep doing it. However, if you’ve historically built your exercise routines based solely on what you enjoy, you should assess how much of a deviation your preferences are from your actual goal. For example, let’s say you want to gain muscle, using dumbbells instead of barbells is a preference and that’s fine because the goal can easily be achieved with either, but attempting to gain muscle without resistance training, or eating in a calorie surplus so that you can keep leading a program with cardio and dieting or looking to lean up and insisting on long hard runs over proven HIIT protocols because it’s what you’re used to or prefer, thats self-sabotage and it’s more common than you might think, put simply, your preferences can get you into a lot of trouble
Cast Aside Your Crutches – Establishing a consistent exercise practice takes grit and resilience, and that’s forgied in the fire of showing up no matter the circumstance or how you feel. In a sense, for many exercise is more of a mental challenge than a physical one. The goal should be to be capable of showing up for a workout with nothing more than a positive mindset. Headphones, a training partner, a pre-workout supplement or even a personal trainer waiting for you at the gym are all nice to have, but if you won’t train without them, you aren’t yet fully in control and thats a precarious place to be.
Workouts Have a Purpose – If you aren’t where you’d like to be with your health & fitness right now, theres no time to waste so each workout should have a deliberate plan of action. You should always know ahead of a session what your workout will be, and it’s purpose. That purpose is to ask slightly more of your body than it’s currently comfortable with, this forces an adapation and thats how progress is made. To make this possible you must plan and track workouts. If you are already where you want to be, fill your boots with diverse workouts you love, but until then you should have a plan and the more uncomfortable you with where you are at the moment, the more direct route you should seek
Habits vs Goals – There is a difference between having a training goal and a habitual exercise practice, the former is aimed at achieving a particular outcome, but won’t necessarily help form lasting habits. Let’s say you start your relationship with exercise with the goal of running a marathon, what happens the day after the race? Or perhaps want to lose 50lbs, what do you do once you’ve achieved it? Would you continue to run as far as 20 miles in one go, could you do this all year? Would you stay on a caloric deficit despite being at your goal weight? Probably not advised. Regardless of your current training goal, seek to establish a framework that includes eating well, activity, and various forms of exercise, this way whenever you achieve a specific goal you can return to what you know is a very effective baseline. Essentially, some goals require a gargantuan effort to achieve, and that’ great, but don’t conflate that with what you have to do an an effective baseline or you might find yourself stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset
Don’t take cues from Professionals – In the social media age, we’re bombarded with inspirational messages from all avenues, none more so than body builders and athletes. However, you have to make sure the advice and examples contextually apply to your situation. Most busy people don’t need more than 3 hours per week of actual training to achieve their goals. So when you see bodybuilders and athletes working 6-7 days a week at high intensity, remembers thats their hobby and profession, it’s not necessarily yours so their workload is not your barrier to entry, starting out and getting results takes far less than that. The further down the road you in a sporting discipline or with exercise in general the more you have to settle for incremental improvements, whereas right now a little will go a long way for you, and you’d be better served focusing on developing a consistent training schedule you could maintain year-round than adopting a professionals routine.
Be Active Every Day – Our bodies evolved to move and be active, at the risk of sounding alarmist, inactivity kills. However, this is where we need to make a nuanced distinction between a workout, and general activity. We know that a workout must have a purpose, which is to ask just enough of the body to force a change. Conversely, activity is simply something the body needs each day to function well, it could be sports, a hobby or simply getting out for a walk in nature. Workouts and activity certainly crossover but they have very different purposes. Let’s say this, fitness goals aside, you don’t need to ‘workout’ to be healthy, but you must stay active. This then allows us to touch on step count, many people look at step count as a contributory factor to fat loss “i get my 10,000 steps” but steps is a health marker, it’s great for your spine, it counteracts inactivity and it’s good for your mental health, but don’t mistake it for a fat-burner. Whether you burn fat walking or not is going to come down to the heart rate you do it at, not the number of steps. Let’s say you and I go to a theme park tomorrow, with all the queues and walking around we might clock up 20,000-30,000 steps, but do you think we’d get shredded if we went to a theme park every day for 6 months? Let’s say instead we go for a little 40 minute hike on a cross country trail, we’d clock up about 6,000 steps about a quarter of what we got at the theme park, but our average heart rate would have been around 100-120 BPM thats a heart rate where stored body fat is actually burned in the moment, whereas at the theme park it would have been around 70-80 all day (except the roller coasters) a subtle difference, but an absolute game changer if you want to lose fat.
Don’t Equate Knowledge & Experience – if you were to read every word on this website it would take over 100 hours, and that’s before you even discover the podcasts, in fact I’ve made sure there are enough free resources to equip you to pursue just about any fitness goal. However there is a big difference between knowing how fitness works and having the experience of implementing the methodology, because what works is contextual and must always be matched to your current circumstances, which is a moving target. Meaning what works today because it’s novel eventually won’t work perpetually, not because of the methodology but because you’ve changed to the point where it is no longer a challenge. This is where hiring a fitness coach can pay dividends as even when you know how to achieve your goal intellectually, you may benefit from working with a fitness coach who can help you see around corners and determine what should come next.
Coping vs Thriving – You’re probably stronger than you give yourself credit for, no doubt you’re keeping your head above water despite stress, work pressure and what might feel like a gulf between where you right now and where you would like to be, whether physically or emotionally. Whilst coping is admirable, you might be surprised how far from optimal you actually feel on a daily basis because it’s been so long since you felt your best. Many people just get used to poor energy, digestive discomfort, dehydration, immobility, aches and pains, poor sleep and more insidious, even looping thoughts about being out of shape or knowing something must change. Don’t settle for this, with a few small lifestyle changes you could open up a whole new quality of life.
Perfectionism Kills Progression – Exercise doesn’t work like some areas of life that operate on more of a pass/fail basis, obviously pass being good and fail being bad. If you’re used to this the world of fitness can be a little jarring because progress is actually built on a foundation of failure. It sounds strange, but in fitness, particularly resistance training we must chase failure, constantly rubbing up against the threshold of your current ability is the way progress is made. Basically there’s’ not much progress to be found in the comfort zone, if you started a 6 week training program and it never taxed you enough to at least question whether you can complete a workout, then the program has been a failure, after all it’s not an exam. The body must be exposed to challenges whether exercise itself or hormetic stressors like cold, heat or fasting. Your body is an ‘antifragile’ system and will only go strong when exposed to challenges. Embracing this mindset is hard to accept if you excel in academia, but it won’t make it any less true. I’m talking to you doctors, mathematicians, coders, lawyers, scientists, engineers and architects. Learn more here. Interestingly, the more advanced you get with exercise the more there should be a mild sense of trepidation before every workout, because you know you’re working at the capacity of what you’re capable of.
Age Is No Factor – The frequency with which age is cited as a cause of declining health and body composition on my consultation calls is almost sad, more often that not it’s being stated as fact by those who’ve just turned 30. Let me tell you at 30, there is an absolutely negligible difference in what you’re capable of compared to yourself at 25, what’s changed is not your body, it’s your lifestyle. I would hazard a guess that like most people, in the pursuit of your career or in devotion to your relationship you probably sleep less, eat more, suffer with all sorts of new forms of stress and generally get less activity than you did ten years ago. The funny thing is that belief in what one is capable of tends to see a resurgence at 50, just have a look at my results. Do you want to know why this is? Because nothing has really changed all that much physically in terms of what we’re capable of and at some level conscious or otherwise we know it. The data shows that the decline in metabolism and muscle loss with age amounts to about 6% a decade, that’s hardly the anvil dropping off a cliff effect we all fear. Not only that, but statistics can be misleading, that 6% decline is a 6% decline of your maximised potential. But let’s say you didn’t do much exercise throughout your thirties and forties and then you arrive at age 50 and decide to eat well, lift weights and stay active every day it only stands to reason that by age 55, you could have 10-15 lbs more muscle than you ever had in your thirties, notwithstanding the change to your metabolism it’s all relative. The good news is that age is not the factor you thought it was. The bad news is that it’s not the excuse you thought it was either.
You Must Rest – One of the most important aspects of your ability to get results in fitness is going to be how you interpret your need to rest. Consider this: a workout is only as effective as your ability to recover from it. If we take that to be true, this must then inform how often you should exercise, at what volume and then be cross referenced with other lifestyle factors like stress, sleep and nutrition. So you could have two very effective workout programs on paper, but if one is an unrecoverable load for you, you’ll burn out. There is no linear relationship between more work and better results in fitness, because the rate limiting factor is always going to be recovery. It’s a fundamental mistake, don’t make it. So many well intentioned people burn too bright, too soon and actually work themselves into poor results. As counterintuitive as that sounds. A good analogy would be, if you had a machine in a factory that you kept running 24 hours a day, it may run for 2-3 weeks at full pelt and you’d have an amazing output, you’d think you were going to be rich! But before long it would start to overheat, parts would wear down and break, quality would suffer and you’d have to hire someone just to spot defective items, eventually the machine would grind to a halt forcing total shut down and you’ll have to spend unproductive time and money fixing it before you can operate again. Or you could have a 16 hour daily output, and utilise 8 hours for cool down and daily maintenance this way you might be able to operate at 80% optimally for years without ever having a forced shut down. That’s how to think about rest, in the world of fitness that first approach is called ‘overtraining syndrome’.
Don’t Over Correct – One of the biggest mindset pitfalls to avoid in fitness is resisting the temptation to over-correct after a lay-off, set back or missed training session. It circles back to the idea that more is not better, and it’s the kind of thought process that betrays an all or nothing mindset. Best practice would be: If you suffer a setback, just get back to your optimal program as soon as you can, there is no need for overcompensation, if your program is well-calibrated to be maintained year round, simply get back to it and it will self correct. When you consider that what caused a setback will typically illness, stress, lack of sleep, travel or an injury doing more than would be of utility immediately following this event would be the very worst time to overwhelm the central nervous system but so many do it.
Fitness vs Sports – Fitness training, and health improvements, are the kind of goals a personal trainer is likely to help you achieve. It’s important to acknowledge that this is wholly different to sports. Philosophically, athletes acknowledge that they may face a point in the pursuit of sporting prowess in which they actually have to knowingly and deliberately take a deviation from what could be considered ‘healthy’ or ‘optimal’ to achieve great things and that’s a personal decision to make. So unless you have specific sporting goals, you might not want to take your training cues from competitive athletes, at least not until you’re physically and mentally ready to. Whether historically accurate or not, there is a lesson to be learned from Pheidippides and the battle of marathon. But what of Crossfit? you may be thinking, it’s true that contrary to what I’ve said above Crossfit is literally the ‘sport of fitness’. Whilst that’s a great workout, it might be useful to think of it as the best expression of being at optimal fitness, but not necessarily the most linear route to getting there.
Nutrition
Calories Must Match Goals – Counting calories can be a chore, and you certainly don’t have to live like a bodybuilder to achieve great things in fitness, however you do have to have some bearing on the amount of food you’re eating to be sure you are going to get results. You could be doing everything right in the gym but if the numbers don’t add up in the kitchen, you could be making it a mathematical impossibility to achieve your goals. This primarily applies to goals that seek a change in weight or body composition. Should you have performance or fitness goals, don’t worry so much about the numbers just fuel your activity. It’s worth noting that if you’ve experienced disordered eating in the past, calorie counting may not be comfortable and you might be better with a more intuitive approach to managing food.
Macros matter – You could have your calories perfect, but if the ratio between protein, fats and carbohydrates isn’t correct, you may undermine your goals entirely. For example a low protein intake for a muscle building goal or an unnecessarily high carb intake on a fat loss goal could completely hamstring your ability to achieve results. Calories don’t have to be perfect, neither does your macronutrient split, simply aim for the best combination of both on a daily basis, as long as you stay there or thereabouts you’ll be fine.
‘IIFYM’ works on paper, not in practice – it’s tempting to think about food in a very two dimensional way, however our bodies operate like a mathematical equation and studies have shown that despite what you may have been told, a calorie is not just a calorie. Calories from different food sources act differently in the body. This matters when it comes to being able to predict your intended composition change, and even more when you consider the health implications. Fitness results don’t operate in a vacuum, seek aesthetic change at the cost of your health and you might regret it later. Absolutely Work within guidelines, but aim for high quality, nutrient dense food and listen to what your body tells you about it. Put it this way, if all that mattered in losing weight was calories why don’t we work out exactly the number of calories to lose weight and then just eat that number of calories from jelly babies and donuts, it would be delicious, we would achieve our weight loss goal, and we could feed ourselves for about £10 a week. I think the answer is obvious, what you eat matters not just how much.
‘IIFYM’ works on paper, not in practice – it’s tempting to think about food in a very two dimensional way, however our bodies operate like a mathematical equation and studies have shown that despite what you may have been told, a calorie is not just a calorie. Calories from different food sources act differently in the body. This matters when it comes to being able to predict your intended composition change, and even more when you consider the health implications. Fitness results don’t operate in a vacuum, seek aesthetic change at the cost of your health and you might regret it later. Absolutely Work within guidelines, but aim for high quality, nutrient dense food and listen to what your body tells you about it. Put it this way, if all that mattered in losing weight was calories why don’t we work out exactly the number of calories to lose weight and then just eat that number of calories from jelly babies and donuts, it would be delicious, we would achieve our weight loss goal, and we could feed ourselves for about £10 a week. I think the answer is obvious, what you eat matters not just how much.