About me

About Me

 

Hello! 

I’m Steve

Husband, father of 2 and personal trainer.

I believe that if your life is crazy, you need sanity in your training. Most of the advice and programs on the internet tend to be overly confusing and only add to the crazy. My aim is to be an antidote to that.

I’ve been in this game for a while -here’s what I wish I had known before I started, and what I’ve picked up along the way.

1. It's super important to...

FInd a trainer/gym that value you, as a person. Finding a gym or trainer that truly want to help you, share the same values that you do and, most importantly, listen to you, is the 1st step in the process. Finding somewhere that you can feel safe, and people that you can trust to help you achieve your goals, is possibly the most important step for achieving long term success.

2. Boring works!

There is a ton of conflicting advice out there. This is due to 2 main reasons, the first being that there is a lot of money to be made from the health and fitness industry. The fact is that the most effective diet and exercise programs all have a common theme; they’re boring! Effective strength training for example, is cycling the same 20ish exercises over and over again till you die- which for obvious reasons doesn’t sit well with magazine feature writers that need new content on a weekly basis. Popular diets are exactly the same, as you need to at least partially reinvent the wheel in order to sell your idea as something new and innovative. Sorting the wheat from the chaff can be an impossible task, but part of my service to you is to keep up to date on the research and shield you from all the guff that’s out there!

3. Consistency is everything.

This statement almost feels like too much of a cliche to mention, but I definitely underestimated its importance in the past. In my own life, being consistent in my training has what I like to call a ‘cascade of positivity’ that trickles down to every other arena of my life. The specifics of my training have changed a lot over the years, as there are so many factors that influence it (having a baby, living through a pandemic, or simply wanting different outcomes can have a huge impact on how and how often you get your sessions in), but I’ve found that sticking with SOMETHING has always enhanced my ability to avoid junk food, manage my mood and how I react to stressors, and just stay generally content and happy. Physically, your training boils down to adapting to greater stimuli over time, which also requires you to be consistent. Your body is a remarkably adaptive machine and will adjust its structure and output to whatever you throw at it, so allowing too long in between training sessions will allow it to adapt back the way! Which feeds perfectly into the next point…

4. Fitness should be life long

Accept that this is a long journey and enjoy it. This can be a daunting thought, but when you enjoy pushing yourself in your sessions and start to see your goals being realised…you won’t ever want to stop! Life happens and can definitely get in the way, and things will pop up that just zap away your motivation. These days are where you have to really dig deep and let me know, so we can figure out a solution or just talk it out! Being able to accept your bad days for what they are- moments in time that will pass, will allow you to pick yourself up afterwards and hopefully prevent old habits from creeping back in.

5. The 'Hidden body'

The next point is more of a philosophical one, and is more relevant to those with either physique or body recomposition goals. I believe firmly that we should be striving for what I like to call the ‘hidden body’. This is a state where you are so comfortable with your physical self that you pay it no mind, you wear what you like without second guessing yourself and can go days without looking at yourself in the mirror-and not because you’re avoiding it. This is much less about how you look than it is how you feel in yourself, and you’ll know you’ve attained it when you start to forget about what you look like! For me, the hidden body state is achieved when I feel strong and have just the beginnings of abs showing – any leaner or more muscular and I become too aware and start stressing out about how much effort is required to maintain my present state. The same goes when I ‘let myself go’ for a bit too long or neglect my training. The happy medium is where I feel most comfortable, which has the added bonus of being pretty easy to maintain. What this feels like for you will be entirely unique and personal, but it is my mission to get you there!

6. It ALL adds up

An Ice cube is sitting in a room that is sitting at -5 degrees. At -4 degrees, nothing happens. It’s still the same ice cube. At -3, -2 and -1 still nothing happens, but then it gets to 0 and it starts to melt. It could be easy to say nothing happens between -5 and 0, but actually, work was being done to bring the temperature to a high enough point where it starts to melt the ice cube. This analogy can apply to many aspects of life, but is particularly relevant in fitness. Like I said before, results can take time. Just keep in mind that every workout and healthy meal you get through adds up. At times it might feel as though you’re progress has stagnated, but if you keep grinding on that ice cube will melt!

7. Positivity 'cascade'

Training has such a huge effect on your whole life, outside of the typical benefits of looking and feeling better-mobility in old age, decreased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, reduced muscle wastage (a leading cause of death in old age, grim but true!) to name a few. But even with that knowledge, finding the ‘get up and go’ can be tough because a lot of those benefits are long term .Even at my ripe old age, I’m not quite at the stage of squatting to fend off brittle bones! So, when I need that extra short-term boost to get me going, I consider the impact it’ll have on me right now. A good lifting session fills you with happy chemicals, which can change your outlook and how you handle life that day. But I’ve also found that this feeling cascades out into the choices I make and the habits my brain favours that day. After a good workout I have a reason to eat healthy food, and the strength to control myself around the foods I find highly palatable (notice that I don’t say avoid, balance is key!). I also have a reason to train again when my body recovers, as I want to capitalise on any adaptations made previously. The second my training starts to slip, everything else starts to go with it. Keeping this ‘cascade of positivity’ in mind on your dark days can make a huge difference!