I'd really like to know where the left hand turn was, for where we went wrong as a fitness industry. Personal training is really at the core of every strength and conditioning coach, of every nutritionist, and every athletic trainer, Any person that works with an athlete or private sector clients, bariatric patients and anything in between, it always comes back to personal training. My title as a strength and conditioning coach is just that. I work on building strength and increasing an athlete's conditioning. I do that through understanding the principles and methods of exercise science. Sadly, the title strength and conditioning coach seems to be becoming more watered down and more flippantly used than ever before. And I think...

I tell you what, having the pleasure of being able to speak with Birdy is a real treat. He’s been around this game long enough to drop a few gems. Here is what I asked him…   A) What is it that makes a brilliant high performance coach? Your ability to communicate.  From pre-elite to elite youth athletes, from semi-pro to professional, from coaches and general managers and key stakeholders in the board room. It all comes down to your ability to communicate your message in a language that your audience will understand. Irrespective of the standard of athlete, you can design the best training program but if you cannot get the key messages across to engage your athlete in...

From the work I’ve been doing with basketball athletes over the last 10 years, one area of concern that many of them have is that they don’t want to be ‘too big’. The idea that putting on muscle mass immeadatley grants them entry into the next Mr Olympia competition. It sounds pretty silly when you spill in out like that but sadly that’s the perception of many untrained athletes. Just because you have extra muscle, doesn’t mean it will weight you down. Sure, if you’re 100kg of lean muscle, you’re going to have certain limitations on the basketball court compared to an 85-90kg athlete. There are obvious limits that having more muscle have but for the most part, a few extra...

I’m pretty excited to write this. It’s been a a long time in the making for Sami and I to launch a training campaign together. It first started when we had a chance to work together before he first stint in France which lead onto a 2 year deal with the Seattle Storm. She came to me in a little F45 near the beach (of which holds some of my most enjoyable training memories with amazing people) for a quick training program before she had to head overseas. We kept in contact ever since then and kept each other in the loop from a far. But it was only until late in 2020 that we got in front of each...

 Change of direction (COD) and agility – they sound exactly the same right? They both involve being “agile” and involve some sort of directional change making them both different from straight-line sprinting. Further coaches, athletes and even researchers use these two words interchangeably when assessing an athlete’s ability to change movement direction. However, it is important to note that COD and agility are two distinct and different qualities that have very different assessment protocols to effectively evaluate an athlete’s ability to execute both movements.   What is Change of Direction and Agility?   First off let’s start by defining these two terms so these differences in each become clear. Change of direction is used to describe a pre-planned testing environment, whereby athletes change movement...