About
Who I help
I coach adults over forty who want to keep doing the things that matter to them—not only for the next six weeks, but for the next thirty years.
I also train coaches to develop the knowledge, judgement and confidence to help people well.
Elite Gym
Elite Gym applies this thinking to adults over forty.
The coaching is individualised around your body, your history and the life you want to lead—not built from a generic programme handed to everyone who walks through the door.
Elite Academy
Elite Academy helps coaches build the knowledge, judgement and confidence to coach real people well.
The education is organised around a simple framework:
LEARN • LIVE • LEAD
Learn the principles. Live them through practice and experience. Then lead others with competence, honesty and care.
How this started
My own relationship with training began when I was around 13.
I had gained a lot of weight and decided I needed to do something about it. I left my house in Mackintosh Park, ran as far as the Magic Carpet pub and came home again.
It was not a remarkable athletic achievement, but it mattered. It was one of the first times I remember making a deliberate decision to change something about myself physically—and then acting on it.
That first run led me into martial arts, boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and strength training. It also began a lifelong interest in why training works, why people change and what separates useful coaching from noise.
Elite is now my third gym. Over the years, I kept seeing the same pattern: the people who made the best progress were rarely the ones following the most extreme programme. They were the ones receiving the most appropriate coaching.
They were understood as individuals. Their training matched their needs. Someone paid attention, adjusted the plan and helped them stay with it long enough for it to work.
That observation gradually shaped Elite into what it is today: a focused, individualised and honest coaching environment for adults who are training for the next thirty years, not merely the next six weeks.
What I believe
I think of physical capacity as a pension.
Strength, fitness, muscle, mobility and confidence are assets built through repeated contributions over time. The goal is to accumulate enough capacity—and preserve enough options—to keep living fully as you age.
That does not mean training should become timid. People still need challenge. But the challenge should be appropriate, purposeful and connected to the life they want to lead.
The goal is not to become good at going to the gym.
It is to become more capable outside it.
Read: What Is a Physical Pension? →
A note on where this comes from
I have spent fifteen years coaching adults and have founded three gyms, which means I have had enough time to make most of the mistakes available to a gym owner. Elite is the current, and considerably better, version.
I founded Elite Academy in 2011. Since then, more than 2,500 coaches have trained with us.
Before moving into coaching full-time, I studied structural engineering and spent years training in martial arts. One taught me to think in systems. The other taught me that even a good system can fall apart when somebody punches you in the face.
I still compete in events including the Marathon des Sables, Backyard Ultras and ATHX. I enjoy competing, but the events also keep me honest. It is one thing to understand an idea in theory. It is another to find out whether it still works when you are tired, uncomfortable and questioning your recent life choices.
Essays
I write about training, coaching, ageing, physical capacity and the decisions behind all of them.
The essays are where the fuller thinking lives.