Where it started
Sport was central to my life from an early age. I played football, cricket, and basketball seriously and trained consistently from the age of 18. I was competitive, fit, and fully committed to sport in a way that shaped how I understood my own body.
The ACL injuries changed that. The first happened on a football pitch — I heard the pop, went down, and knew immediately it was serious. Surgery, months of rehabilitation, the long road back. Then I did it again — same knee, same ligament. Two full ACL reconstructions, and with them the end of any realistic playing career across the sports I loved.
It was a significant loss. But what came out of that period of rehabilitation was a genuine and lasting interest in how the body recovers, adapts, and responds to injury. That interest has stayed with me ever since and sits at the core of how I work as a trainer.
The qualifications
I studied Sport and Exercise Science because I loved sport and wanted to understand the physiology behind it — how the body works, how it responds to training, how it breaks down and rebuilds. That curiosity led me to complete a Diploma and then a full BSc Degree in Sports and Exercise Science.
Alongside the academic qualifications, I hold a Level 2 Gym Instructor Award and a Level 3 Personal Training Award — the industry standard qualifications that underpin practical fitness work. Between the degree and the professional awards, the foundation is both academic and applied.
I studied because I wanted to understand, not just to qualify. That distinction matters when you are teaching someone else.
A good trainer does not just tell you what to do. They tell you why.
The Chelsea and Kensington years
In the early noughties I worked in some of London's most established health clubs in Chelsea and Kensington. The clients were varied — competitive athletes, busy executives, complete beginners who found the gym environment daunting. Working at that level taught me things no qualification can.
After completing my degree I moved into a graduate job. Training continued on the side, though over time — as the demands of work increased — it gradually reduced to one or two clients. The work was always there, just in a different proportion.
Living and training with Type 1 diabetes
I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2008. By that point I had been training and working in fitness for the best part of two decades, so the diagnosis arrived as a genuine disruption. Managing blood glucose around exercise, understanding how exertion affects insulin requirements, learning what my body was now doing differently — it took time, trial, and a great deal of patience to work through.
There were sessions that did not go to plan, readings that made no sense, days where training simply had to wait. But I was not willing to let a diagnosis stop me from doing the work I had spent my life building around. Over time, with consistency and a better understanding of how my body responded, I found my way back to training regularly and well.
I mention it here because it is part of who I am. The body is more adaptable than most people give it credit for. Circumstances that feel permanent rarely are.
FA Coaching — Level 1 & Level 2
During my university years I wanted to become a football coach. I completed my FA Coaching Badge at Level 1 and subsequently Level 2 with that ambition in mind. Breaking into football coaching at any meaningful level is extremely difficult and it remained something I pursued at the edges rather than the centre of my career. But the badges are held and the love of the game never left.
Why I built this site
I first tried to build a fitness website in 2001 — 25 years ago. At the time I was using Dreamweaver, there was no social media, no YouTube, no AI, and very little in the way of accessible tools. I found it hard, the result was basic, and it never went anywhere.
That idea never went away though. Over the years I kept coming back to it, kept thinking there should be somewhere online that offered honest, qualified fitness guidance without selling anything — no supplements, no programmes for purchase, no sponsored content dressed up as advice.
Now, with better tools and a clearer sense of what the site should be, I am finally building it properly. People can follow this or they can follow influencers. That choice is entirely theirs. But for those who want guidance from someone with the qualifications, the experience, and no financial interest in what they decide to do — this is here.