It started after my first son was born.
I found bodybuilding when I was looking for something that was mine, at a point in my life when very little was. It turned out I was good at it. What I did not expect was how completely it would take over, or that nearly three decades later I would still be learning from it.
The sport taught me the thing I now teach
Every title I have won came from doing ordinary things properly for a very long time. There was no secret programme and no shortcut. There was a plan, there was consistency, and there were a lot of days where I did the session anyway.
That is the whole method, and it is why I am so suspicious of anything that promises to skip it.
Then I stopped being only a bodybuilder
I went and won strongman competitions, which taught me more about real strength than any amount of hypertrophy work. Then I took up Jiu-Jitsu, and have come away with double gold from every competition I have entered, including gold at IBJJF. That taught me what conditioning actually means when somebody is actively trying to stop you.
Three sports, three different definitions of hard. Coaching people across all of them is what makes my programming different from someone who has only ever trained for a mirror.
And I coach my own son
My youngest is a Jiu-Jitsu World Champion. I have also coached bodybuilding competitors and MMA fighters. Coaching an athlete who has to perform on a specific day teaches you things about recovery, timing and pressure that you never learn coaching in a vacuum.
What makes me different as a coach
I get it. Life is hectic, and cookie-cutter plans do not survive contact with it. I build programmes that fit around your week rather than asking you to rebuild your week around a programme. I have been the person with no time, no help and no margin, so when you tell me your schedule is impossible I am not going to lecture you about it.
I will also tell you the truth. If I think you need something I do not offer, or a different coach entirely, I will say so. That has cost me work and I would do it again every time.
