Health and fitness has always been a passion of mine from an early age. In the years that I have been training I have utilised different methods consisting of endurance and cardio to bodybuilding and powerlifting. Doing what I do came from a desire to overcome my own health and performance challenges. Now I intend to pass on my experiences from years of training myself and teaching others to help you look, feel and perform better. My own journey in fitness has been a slow one but with all the relevant knowledge I have gained from immersing myself in books, podcasts, courses, workshops and learning from some of the best in the industry, I can offer an approach that is accessible to all with no intimidating factor and gets you right where you need to be.
In recent years my approach has changed to more of a movement and holistic style. Adopting methods from different modalities such as gymnastics, calisthenics, dance, yoga and other movement practices. This change largely came from becoming very unwell. I had developed chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and as someone who loves exercise this was devastating to me. I was severely limited to just doing the bare minimum in daily tasks because I was so tired all the time for a long time and the repercussions from trying exercise was so great that it just wasn’t worth it. This instead gave me a lot of time to reflect and figure out how I could get back to how I was prior to illness. I adopted a holistic style of eating to lower my levels of inflammation, I added meditation to my routine daily, improved my sleep hygiene, and tried to be social when possible. Addressing these things helped considerably but I wasn’t out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.
In making slow habitual changes to my lifestyle I began to re work the pillars of my health, paying attention to areas where they had crumbled. Doing this gave me a bigger understanding of how I had got into this state in the first place and seeing clearly where I had let my health down.
After a year I could add in exercise without needing to repay the debt accrued to Mr Sandman. This however was really tricky to get right. it was like walking a tight rope, one wrong step and that’s a few days or weeks in sleep jail. But with persistence and experimentation I discovered stretching was a perfect approach with its restorative qualities and immense benefits for resistance exercise. As I got more comfortable and gained more energy I could continue my movement practice into things like handstands and the use of gymnastic rings, parallettes, and other resistance exercises. Stretching is key for skills like handstands and gymnastic rings. I could improve and move in a way I wouldn’t have imagined before having CFS.
Five Pillars of health
Sleep
Nutrition
physical
mental
social
Before I had ME I was inflexible but strong. I could lift heavy weights and had a good level of cardio vascular fitness. I worked a full time job + overtime, trained 5 times per week, did an internship at a gym, and an online course. I’m not surprised It all fell apart, I was burning the candle at both ends.
Now I see Health and fitness very differently with a greater emphasis on being flexible and strong through movement practices and adopting a holistic approach to reinforce those pillars of health. Having my body fight back and say enough is enough was the biggest wake up call ever! It changed my perspective and got me to see value in areas that I would have otherwise overlooked, not just in myself but towards others. Suffering is part of the human experience and we are all going through something immensely challenging, big or small no matter what your perception may be on the outside or inside it’s still hard and my empathy towards others is much greater. I have had to be patient for myself and I’m patient for the people I train. I take a rehabilitation approach when needed for injury, aches and pains and adopt an individualised approach to yield the best results for people of all ages.
There has been so much change from such a harsh lesson in my own health that from the bad it's evolved to something really special. I want to help you get the best for your own health and show you what you’re capable of.
Joseph