The work
you don’t
see matters.

Growing up, school wasn’t always easy for me. I was often seen as the disruptive kid who struggled to settle, while behind the scenes I was dealing with OCD, anxiety and constant overthinking. I still remember being excluded from school, and how my dad took me to the gym and introduced me to CrossFit.

I always had a need to move, and fitness gave me an outlet for the thoughts and energy I struggled to manage. Training alongside people from different sporting backgrounds, including gymnasts and competitive athletes, opened my eyes to what the body was capable of. I began to understand the importance of technique, movement and strength, laying the foundations for my own journey into fitness.

Something that’s been a big part of my life, and something I’m passionate about speaking openly about, is mental health. I’ve struggled with OCD, anxiety and depression over many years.

There have been some really difficult periods. I know firsthand how challenging it can be when you’re dealing with things that other people can’t necessarily see. For me, fitness has always been about much more than how I look or how much weight I can lift.

Training has given me structure, something to focus on and an outlet when I’ve needed one. It’s helped me process my thoughts and emotions and played an important role in supporting my mental wellbeing. While training has been a positive part of my life, I recognise that everyone’s experience is different.

As a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer, I want people to understand that fitness is about more than physical results. Building a routine, developing confidence or achieving something you once thought was beyond you can mean just as much as the weights you lift or the distances you cover.

Physical strength doesn’t always reflect how somebody is feeling mentally. Understanding that is something I carry into the way I coach.

As my passion for fitness grew, my training naturally moved towards bodybuilding. I became really focused on building muscle, getting stronger and pushing myself physically. I loved lifting heavy weights and seeing what my body was capable of.

Alongside my own training, I had the opportunity to work with British national gymnasts, British Weightlifting coaches and experienced CrossFit coaches. Being around people from different sporting backgrounds opened my eyes to different approaches to training and the importance of technique, movement and developing strength with purpose.

A lot of my training was focused on strength, appearance and performance. But over time, my relationship with fitness started to change. What I got from training went far beyond the physical side: it was something I enjoyed, something I could work towards and a huge part of my overall wellbeing.

After years of strength training and bodybuilding, I decided to take on the Leeds Half Marathon to raise money for charity. What started as a fundraising challenge ended up becoming a huge part of my life. I discovered a real love for running.

It gave me something completely different from the gym: another challenge, another goal and another outlet for my thoughts and emotions. Running became a way for me to process things and find some space mentally.

Before long, I was training towards a sub-three-hour London Marathon. I loved the discipline, the progression and the challenge of seeing how far I could push myself. But just as running had become such an important part of my life, everything changed.

While training for my marathon ambitions, I suffered a femoral neck stress fracture. Being me, I kept pushing through the pain, not fully understanding how serious it was. I was eventually warned that continuing to walk on it risked compromising the blood supply to the bone and potentially leaving me needing a hip replacement. It would completely change my life.

I went from training towards a sub-three-hour marathon to spending around six months unable to walk normally. I was completely non-weight-bearing. There were countless appointments, MRI scans, bone density scans and blood tests to monitor how my body was healing.

For somebody whose life had revolved around fitness and movement, it was incredibly difficult. Everything I’d been working towards suddenly stopped. I found myself in a really dark place. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, that injury would shape the way I train, coach and approach life today.

One of the hardest things wasn’t just the physical pain or rehabilitation. It was having something that had become such an important part of my life suddenly taken away. Training had always been there for me. And suddenly, I couldn’t do it.

Losing that independence was incredibly difficult. There was frustration, uncertainty, setbacks and the mental challenge of not knowing how long it would take to get back to doing the things I loved.

Having experienced OCD, anxiety and depression over many years, I already understood the importance of looking after my mental wellbeing. But this injury gave me an entirely different perspective on the relationship between physical and mental health.

Recovery isn’t just about rebuilding muscles or getting moving again. It’s also about rebuilding confidence, learning to trust your body, being patient with yourself and finding a way forward when progress feels slow. That’s stayed with me ever since.

My rehabilitation was a long process, and it certainly wasn’t straightforward. After spending so much time unable to put weight through my right leg, I’d developed significant imbalances, with my left leg compensating by over 30%.

Things I’d taken for granted became things I had to relearn: walking properly, restoring mobility, rebuilding stability and gradually developing strength. I had to learn to trust my body again and appreciate just how much I’d previously overlooked when it came to movement, control and building a balanced foundation.

Throughout my recovery, I worked with NHS musculoskeletal specialists, physiotherapists, sports therapists and psychotherapists. I learned an incredible amount from the people supporting me, as well as from the setbacks, flare-ups and small improvements along the way.

The experience completely changed my relationship with training. I’d always been passionate about getting stronger and pushing myself physically, but rehabilitation gave me a different perspective. I began to appreciate the importance of single-leg strength, stability, movement quality and the foundations that allow a body to perform at its best.

Today, that experience shapes the way I approach coaching. For me, it’s about more than lifting heavier or pushing harder. It’s about understanding how someone moves, building strength where it matters and developing a body that’s capable, resilient and ready for whatever they want to achieve.

My injury was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. But it also gave me the push I needed to turn something I’d always been passionate about into my career. I went on to gain my qualifications in fitness coaching and personal training.

I wanted to bring together my early experiences with CrossFit, my background in bodybuilding, my passion for running, my rehabilitation, the knowledge I’d gained from professionals and my personal experiences with mental health. All of those things have shaped the way I coach today.

I didn’t want to simply tell people what exercises to do. I wanted to understand how they move, assess their strengths, identify imbalances and recognise where they needed to develop. From movement assessments and single-leg strength to isometrics, plyometrics and performance-based training, my approach is built around developing strong foundations, progressing with intent and building resilient bodies for the long term.