Most trainers stop learning the day they qualify. We have spent 20 years watching what happens to the ones who keep going
The fitness guru is dead and the conveyor belt replaced them. Here is why the myths you were sold persist, and what a year of challenging your own bias actually looks like.
Read the article →Nothing matches that — try fewer words or another category.
Sports Science & S&C
Is a Level 4 S&C worth it? The certificate is the cheap part
The honest routes into strength and conditioning, and why the tools that train an Olympian also give your 50-year-old client with a dodgy knee a better session.
Programming Specialist
Your client gives you three hours a week. How much of it deserves a warm-up?
Warm-ups get front-loaded into every session on faith. The injury-prevention evidence is weaker and more specific than you were told, and your client's time is finite.
MSAS
What does a movement screen actually tell you about the client in front of you?
The Functional Movement Screen is everywhere. Its ability to predict injury sits close to a coin toss. Here is what a screen can and cannot honestly tell you.
Core & Pelvic Floor
Your Level 3 mentioned the pelvic floor once. Your clients noticed.
Kegels help some conditions and do nothing for others. Taping and fascial release are weaker than sold. Here is what the evidence supports, and where movement beats a fix.
Injury to Performance
Cleared to train, refused by trainers: how to help the clients others turn away
A doctor says they can train. Three trainers have said no. Here is how to work out whether you can take them, and the system that protects both of you if you do.
Coach Level
Feel like you should know more? What confident trainers actually know
Confidence is not more exercises. It is knowing the client will come back, and knowing the movement you cause after the session beats the movement you cause during it.
Business
Qualified, quiet diary? Check your OMF
Operations plus Marketing equals Financial. A formula from Robert Craven that explains why your diary is empty better than any six-figure guru can, and what to fix first.
Train to be a Trainer
How to become a personal trainer in the UK: every step, every price
Level 2 is £600, Level 3 is £900, both together plus Movement Trainer is £1,500. Here is the full route, what each part costs, and the bit nobody warns you about.
Chronic Illness & Health
Breathing and Training the Pelvic Floor: What the Evidence Says
Breathing exercises are widely promoted for pelvic floor health. Here's what the systematic reviews and trials actually show — and why PFMT remains the gold standard.
Injury & Pain
Pain Science: The Role of the Non-Medical Trainer
Pain is an experience, not a simple readout of tissue damage. That single idea redraws the line between trainer and clinician — and puts your language, delivery and design of experience at the centre of the job.
Workouts & Exercises
Skeletons and Blocks: How to Build Programmes on the Spot
The FASTER way to write programmes fast without them all looking the same — skeletons for the shape of a session, blocks for what goes inside.
Coaching & Mindset
Personal Trainer Imposter Syndrome, Part 4: Owning Your Authority
The final step isn't the disappearance of doubt — it's the arrival of authority. Here's how to lead sessions instead of just surviving them.
Coaching & Mindset
Personal Trainer Imposter Syndrome, Part 3: Programme Design
Imposter syndrome shrinks when programme design stops being guesswork. Here's the FASTER order of priorities — long-term plan, session design, and story beats.
Coaching & Mindset
Personal Trainer Imposter Syndrome, Part 2: A Programme Design Checklist
Imposter syndrome when writing programmes usually means you're missing a system. Here's the checklist I use to cover every angle of programme design.
Coaching & Mindset
Personal Trainer Imposter Syndrome, Part 1: Programme Design
Programme design is where imposter syndrome hits many trainers hardest. Here is what a programme really is, and why doing it right builds your confidence.
Become a Personal Trainer
10 No-BS Tips to Become a Successful Personal Trainer
Personal training is not all mirror selfies and motivational quotes. Here are ten honest habits that separate the trainers who last from the ones who quit.
Sports Science
The Needs Analysis: The Cornerstone of S&C Practice
A needs analysis is what turns generic programming into evidence-based strength and conditioning. Here's the three-phase process that aligns training with the real demands of a sport.
Workouts & Exercises
5 Core Momentum Trainer Exercises
A simple Core Momentum Trainer workout for the abs and supporting muscles, plus how the CMT actually builds core strength through force you have to control.
Injury & Pain
Everybody Hurts — If You Listen to Personal Trainers
I used to find a dysfunction in every client and sell the fix. Here's the honest rethink of injury prevention, pain and performance — and how to define the vague words we hide behind.
Workouts & Exercises
5 Favourite GRIPR Exercises
Five practical GRIPR drills that train the deep core and add an unpredictable, reactive element to your sessions and small-group training.
Chronic Illness & Health
Breathing and the Pelvic Floor
Can breathing exercises really 'fix' core function and the pelvic floor after birth? An honest look at what the evidence does — and doesn't — support for postpartum clients.
Workouts & Exercises
6 Exercises With GRIPR and Suspension Trainers
A full-body strength and core session that pairs an unstable sandbag load with suspension-trainer bodyweight work — six exercises, four rounds.
Biomechanics
Anatomy and Function of the Foot and Ankle
The bones, joints and movements of the foot and ankle a personal trainer actually needs to know — including why some movements couple together and others simply can't.
Research
Applying Motor Learning Theory to Personal Training
How the science of skill acquisition helps you coach movement better, set smarter goals, and get results that stick.
Coaching & Mindset
How to Spot a Dodgy Fitness Technique or System
The fitness industry has more answers than questions. Here is a simple filter for working out why a technique seems to work — and whether it actually does.
Become a Personal Trainer
Becoming a Personal Trainer in Canary Wharf
A practical guide to building a personal training career in Canary Wharf — from getting qualified to landing your first clients in one of London's busiest fitness markets.
Become a Personal Trainer
The Benefits of an Online Level 3 Personal Trainer Course
Studying your Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification online means learning around your life, at a lower cost, with the same accredited certificate at the end.
Biomechanics
Falling Into the Biomechanical Cure Hole
How a well-meaning trainer gets pulled into the Biomechanical Cure Hole, why its promises are so seductive, and what it takes to climb back out into evidence.
Biomechanics
Biomechanics Are Misunderstood
People are calling biomechanics rubbish — but they're confusing a genuine observation skill with the guru techniques built on top of it. Here's the difference.
Injury & Pain
The Biopsychosocial Filter, Part 2
The honest story of unlearning the biomedical model — and why every solution you give a client passes through a biopsychosocial filter, even a simple one.
Injury & Pain
The Biopsychosocial Filter, Part 1
How a good client result made me feel like a fraud — and how the biopsychosocial model finally explained what my hands-on 'fixes' were really doing.
Sports Science
Boosting Strength With Plyometrics: A Guide
A no-nonsense guide to plyometrics: what jump training is, who it is for, how to build up to it safely, and how to program it.
Become a Personal Trainer
Now Is the Time to Become a Personal Trainer
Changing career to personal training gives you a skill that earns a living you control. Here is a four-stage route from qualified to established.
Chronic Illness & Health
CrossFit and Powerlifting During Pregnancy
Is heavy lifting during pregnancy really dangerous, or is the caution built on thin evidence? A look at what the research actually shows, and how to coach it.
Coaching & Mindset
Using Games with Clients in Pain
Why bringing games into sessions with clients in pain builds engagement, gives you real-time assessment, and helps people rebuild a healthier relationship with movement.
Workouts & Exercises
Exercise of the Day: Medicine Ball Russian Twist to Rotational Pass
A medicine ball drill that uses post-activation potentiation — a standing Russian twist to prime the muscles, then a powerful rotational throw.
Injury & Pain
Falling for Curing
The honest story of how I became a 'guru' who fixed people with posture, fascia and symmetry — and how reading the research properly forced me to bin all of it.
Coaching & Mindset
Putting the Fat Personal Trainer Debate to Bed
Does a personal trainer have to be lean to be good? The industry loves this debate. Here is why it measures the wrong thing entirely.
Business & Clients
How to Find Personal Training Clients From the Gym Floor
Competing for clients has never been harder. Solve two problems at once — dull cardio and standing out on a busy floor — by making speed training your signature.
Business & Clients
Finding a Personal Training Client's True Goals
The goal a client gives you first is rarely their real one. The Why Why So So technique digs out what actually drives them — and why that goal matters enough to keep them going.
Business & Clients
How to Find the Personal Training Clients You Want
Your price is not a report card, it is a targeting decision. Here is how to research, position and market yourself to attract the clients you actually want.
Business & Clients
Morning Blues and Fitness Business Anxiety
The dread of opening your emails on a Monday is real. Here is the ritual John Hardy uses to manage fitness business anxiety and keep the business moving.
Biomechanics
Foot: The Lot of You — My Relationship with the Foot and the Industry
The honest story of how I became a 'foot expert', why I stopped believing my own techniques, and what I teach instead now that the evidence caught up with me.
Biomechanics
Functional Anatomy and Biomechanics: How to Learn Useable Anatomy
Anyone can learn to see and predict movement in real time. Here is the map-and-story method behind the HMAC — and a five-step drill to learn the bones and joints for good.
Workouts & Exercises
Can a Functional Trainer Deadlift?
The labels — functional, strength and conditioning, holistic — are a distraction. Great trainers all work through the same system, and it shows in their programmes.
Workouts & Exercises
A Functional Training Circuit Workout
An example functional training circuit using ViPRs, kettlebells, CMTs, sandbags and GRIPRs. Try it if you are fit, experienced and injury-aware.
Workouts & Exercises
A Functional Training Workout Using Medicine Balls
The medicine ball went from ignored corner prop to genuine functional tool. Here are three of my favourite medicine ball exercises and the training principle behind each.
Business & Clients
Get More Personal Training Clients
Working hard isn't the same as working with focus. Here's the measurable system that tells you exactly where your business is leaking clients — and how to fix it.
Business & Clients
Grief, Loss and Your Fitness Business
Running your own fitness business means feeling loss often, from missed sales to lost clients. Here is how to feel it, learn from it and keep going.
Business & Clients
How to Break Clients and Lose Money
Selling with fear breaks clients and empties your diary. Here is why the create-a-pain-then-solve-it model fails, and what to do instead.
Become a Personal Trainer
The Importance of Continuing Education in Personal Training
Why continuing education keeps personal trainers competitive, renews certification, widens the clients you can work with, and improves the results you deliver.
Sports Science
Improving Sprint Speed: A Science-Based Approach
Sprinting is more than strength and power. Here's the science behind acceleration, top speed and speed endurance — plus reflexes, stiffness and a dynamic-systems approach to training it.
Become a Personal Trainer
Kickstart Your Personal Training Career: The Richmond Guide
A practical roadmap to starting a personal training career in Richmond — from getting certified and finding your niche to building a brand and winning your first clients.
Chronic Illness & Health
The Benefits of a Level 3 Pre & Postnatal Training Course
What a Level 3 pre and postnatal qualification gives you, why the demand is growing, and how it helps you support women safely through pregnancy and recovery.
Sports Science
Level 4 Strength & Conditioning Coach Certification: A Guide
What a Level 4 Strength & Conditioning qualification actually is, who it's for, what you need to get on one, and where it can take your career.
Business & Clients
Building a Long-Term Personal Training Business
A lasting PT business rests on three pillars: Operations, Marketing and Finance. Here is the OMF triad that has grown FASTER over a decade.
Business & Clients
Marketing Content for Personal Trainers
A repeatable system for creating personal training content that isn't cliche: free writing, mining your real ideas, and structuring them with a story spine.
Workouts & Exercises
How to Teach a Client to Do a Headstand
A step-by-step guide for trainers on teaching a client the headstand safely — from building the foundation to correcting the mistakes that cause injury.
Become a Personal Trainer
Mastering UK Personal Training: A No-Nonsense Guide
Personal training in the UK is more than knowing your deadlifts from your burpees. Ten practical moves to build a business that actually lasts.
Workouts & Exercises
Medicine Ball and Kettlebell Workouts
Two tools, one full-body session. Why the medicine ball and kettlebell each create force in their own way — plus a six-exercise interval workout to try.
Business & Clients
Messages That Find Clients
The industry is crowded and getting louder. Here are 12 things to do consistently so your message stands out, finds the right clients, and keeps them.
Business & Clients
Misunderstanding Customer Experience: The Costly Mistakes
Everyone talks about customer experience, but few define it. Get the definition wrong and you'll build the wrong service — here's what experience actually is.
Sports Science
Why Trainers Should Become Motor Skills Specialists
What a Motor Skills Application Specialist qualification actually gives you — from designing safer, more effective sessions to standing out in a crowded market and charging what you're worth.
Sports Science
The Science of Muscle Hypertrophy for Trainers
Mechanical tension, not muscle damage, drives muscle growth. Here is what the research says and two techniques, drop sets and cluster sets, to apply it.
Become a Personal Trainer
A New Career as a Personal Trainer
What it really takes to start a career as a personal trainer in the UK: the CIMSPA-recognised qualification, where the work is, and how much you can earn.
Injury & Pain
Pain Is a Feeling, Not an Output
Stop calling pain an 'output'. Pain is a feeling — an interpretation of filtered feedback — and understanding that changes everything about how you help clients who hurt.
Coaching & Mindset
New Year, So What? Trainers and Weight-Loss Preaching
Exercise is not just for January. A trainer's job is to help people reach their goals when they are ready, not to guilt-trip them into a workout.
Sports Science
Is It Time Personal Trainers Stopped Stretching Clients?
The reasoning behind flexibility training is thinner than most trainers think. Here is what the research says about stretching, and what to do instead.
Coaching & Mindset
Success Series: Truly Knowing Yourself and Your Clients
The self-awareness exercise that underpins everything from marketing to retention — because long-term success as a trainer starts with knowing what makes you and your clients tick.
Coaching & Mindset
How Not to Finish a Client Consultation
A popular bit of consultation advice — 'is there anything important we haven't covered?' — is worse than it sounds. Here's why, and what to do instead.
Business & Clients
Personal Training Promotion Ideas
When summer thins your client list, dropping your price is the worst first move. Six operations and marketing ideas to protect your income instead.
Business & Clients
Writing Social Media Posts That Attract Personal Training Clients
How to write a social media post that actually wins clients: the five-step client journey, a title-writing process, and the three keys to a post that converts.
Injury & Pain
Posture, Fascia, Pain and Other Manipulations
Every new discovery becomes a bandwagon in this industry. Here's why the real problem isn't fascia or posture — it's who gets to set the questions.
Injury & Pain
How to Train a Client in Pain
More clients arrive in pain but cleared to train — and training often helps them. Here's how to approach programming so pain becomes a hurdle to the goal, not the whole focus.
Research
How to Read Scientific-Sounding Fitness Blogs
Plenty of fitness blogs dress up opinion as science to win an argument. Here is a simple way to break one down and find the useful parts, if there are any.
Research
Research in the Fitness Industry
A practical system for reading research so you give clients the best advice, filter out weak papers, and know when you're stating fact versus opinion.
Business & Clients
A 6-Step Process to Keep You Current and Grow Your Niche
The repeatable process I've built since 1994 for turning every client session into a step towards your natural niche — and a happier, better-paid career.
Business & Clients
A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your First Personal Training Client
Your first client sets the foundation for everything that follows. A practical, step-by-step path to attracting them — from niche to marketing to service that keeps them.
Biomechanics
Strength and Conditioning: Kinematics and Kinetics
The two halves of biomechanics every aspiring S&C coach needs: kinematics (the motion) and kinetics (the forces behind it), and why both sharpen your coaching.
Sports Science
Why Personal Trainers Invest in Strength & Conditioning Courses
A strength and conditioning course broadens your skill set, widens your client base and lifts your earning potential. Here is what it does for your career.
Workouts & Exercises
A Tri-Set for All Planes of Motion, With Hops and Pushes
A simple three-exercise tri-set that trains hops and pushes across the planes of motion — good for strength, coordination and range, and genuinely fun to coach.
Biomechanics
Tricks to Boost Your Anatomy Knowledge
Anatomy doesn't have to be a wall of Latin names. Practical, proven ways for personal trainers to actually learn and retain it — visuals, plain-English concepts, hands-on practice and self-testing.
Become a Personal Trainer
A Guide to UK Personal Training Courses
Thinking of training as a career? Here is a plain guide to UK personal training courses, from Level 2 and Level 3 to specialist and CPD routes.
Become a Personal Trainer
UK Personal Training Courses: A Practical Guide
What a UK personal training course should actually give you, how to judge the accreditation, and which key components to look for before you enrol.
Biomechanics
Understanding Knee Abduction
Knee abduction is one of the hardest motions to observe. Here's what's really happening at the joint, why the patella misleads your eye, and how to spot it in a closed chain.
Workouts & Exercises
Unleashing Potential With Functional Training
Functional training builds strength you can actually use. What it is, how it differs from isolation work, and how trainers are using it to get clients results.
Chronic Illness & Health
Weight Loss and GLP-1 Jabs: Programming for Trainers
Clients on GLP-1 weight-loss jabs arrive lighter, less hungry and sometimes weaker. Here's how to train them so the weight lost is fat — and strength is protected.
Become a Personal Trainer
What Does a Personal Trainer Do?
Before you sign up for a course, know what the job actually involves: the different roles, the business side, and what you do once a client is in front of you.
Become a Personal Trainer
What Do I Need to Do to Be a Personal Trainer?
The honest guide to becoming a personal trainer in the UK — the qualification you actually need, the industry myths to ignore, and what carries you through your first 90 days.
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