Thirty years in.
Still learning.
I have spent my adult life training, coaching and learning how the body responds to exercise, injury, age and consistency. Two ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstructions. Type 1 diabetes since 2008. A BSc in Sports and Exercise Science. Still training at 50. Here is the full picture.
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 am currently studying for a Masters in Computer Science — which also explains why this website exists and why it looks the way it does. I built every line of it myself. Old school work ethic, new school skills.
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 how and more importantly why.
— oldschoolPT
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 fourteen years, 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.
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.
Long before this site existed, I was writing about training and nutrition from library research alone — at 18, with no internet and no coach. Books, academic papers and magazines from the newsagent were the only sources available. That original archive, compiled from years of reading and personal experience in the mid-1990s, is now part of this site. You can find it in the Nutrition section.
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.
Chelsea and Kensington
I worked as a personal trainer in Chelsea and Kensington from 2000 to 2004. During that time I completed my BSc in Sports and Exercise Science alongside my coaching work. I left to pursue a graduate career, continuing to train clients on the side — and the passion for coaching never went away. It still has not.
Fitness should be taught. Not sold.
I do not believe fitness should be sold through fear, shame or fantasy. I have watched the industry move in that direction for three decades and I have never been comfortable with it. People do not need to be frightened into training. They need to be taught — properly, honestly, and with respect for how difficult it actually is to build a consistent habit.
This site exists for people who want to understand what they are doing and why. No supplements. No programmes for purchase. No sponsored content. Just experience, education, and the honest realities of training across a lifetime.
"Old school work ethic. New school skills. The same belief it has always been — that fitness, done properly, changes lives."
— oldschoolPT
