Injury
Andrew asked how you stay motivated when you're injured or ill. Start here: almost nothing stops you training. It changes what you train. We see it in our coaches. Ali has trained through back and shoulder injuries. Lauren through a back injury. I came back after a double
Squat
If you only ever trained one movement for the rest of your life, it would be the squat, and it wouldn't be close. The squat is how you get out of a chair. Off the floor. Off a toilet, in and out of a car, up from the
Training
Mira asked about the kit — grips, belts, tape, when to start using them and how much of it is theatre. Some of it is theatre. Most of it isn't. Here it is in the order you'll need it. Grips. When you're doing volume on
Women's Health
The single most common reason women give me for not touching the heavy weights is that they're afraid of getting bulky. Big. Manly. So they stay on the light dumbbells and the cross-trainer, doing the one thing that won't get them what they actually want.
Lifestyle
Chris asked me about training on holiday. The more useful question is what happens when you get back. The holiday isn't the problem. Two weeks off does very little to you. The problem is the Monday after, and the enthusiasm that walks through the door with a tan
Nutrition
Alex asked which supplements are worth taking and which are worth skipping. Here's the whole list, with doses, and nothing on it I don't take or wouldn't give my own family. Creatine monohydrate. 3 to 5 grams a day, every day. The most studied
Training
Jas asked me how muscle is actually built. There are four things. Everything else you've read is a variation on them, sold back to you with a name. One: the set has to get hard. A set only counts when the last few reps are genuinely difficult — two
Support Systems
If you've driven past our unit on Raans Road and wondered what goes on in there, then talked yourself out of finding out, this is for you. People picture the internet version of CrossFit: ripped twenty-five-year-olds throwing barbells around a warehouse. That exists. It isn&
Training
Lauren asked me what she should actually be doing after a session — stretching, foam rolling, all of it — and how to catch up if she's neglected it for a couple of years. My answer surprised her, so I'll give you the same one. Stop planning the
Training, nutrition, and longevity advice from CrossFit Chiltern, Amersham
Alex asked what she should be eating before a session. The two things that decide it: how long you've got, and how long the session is. How long you've got. Two to three hours out, eat a normal meal. Protein and carbohydrate, the plate method, nothing
Jas asked me about Zone 2. Zone 2 is easy aerobic work. For most of us it is easier than you think — you can hold a conversation the whole way through, in full sentences, without gasping. The benefits: more capillaries feeding the muscle. Better use of fat as a fuel.
Marion asked me a question last week that I suspect half the gym has been thinking. What difference does heat make to our training? Your blood has two jobs during a session: deliver oxygen to the working muscles, and carry heat out to the skin so you can shed it.
In a month, something predictable happens. The first week of September arrives, the holidays end, and a wave of people decide this is it — the restart, the new routine, the year they finally sort it out. September doesn't lack motivation. Motivation will be everywhere that first week — it&
Of all the things we do in the gym, the deadlift is the one that scares people most and serves them best. Say the word and a lot of people picture a strongman with a bulging neck and an imminent hernia — something dangerous, something for the young and reckless. The
Somewhere in your first few weeks of training, you'll catch sight of someone who makes it look effortless — heavier weights, cleaner movement, not even breathing hard — and a small voice will say: everyone here is in a different league, and you don't belong. That voice is
Stand up from a chair without using your hands. Now lower yourself to the floor and get back up, using as little support as you can. How that felt — easy, or a production involving the worktop, a wobble and a grunt — tells you more about how well you're
If you've recently moved to Amersham or one of the surrounding Chiltern villages and "gyms near me" is open in a browser tab, here's something worth knowing before you pick one on price and parking. The gym you choose in a new area isn&
There's a quiet plan a lot of people are carrying around right now: September. New term, new routine, back to the gym, sort the eating out, properly this time. It's easy to think this on a lazy August-bound Sunday. It's also, for most
If the word "gym" brings up a specific kind of dread — strip lighting, a wall of mirrors, machines you're not sure how to use, a bunch of youngsters, half of them filming their next TikTok reel and the other half walking around in a pack carrying
You can eat well, barely touch a drink, train regularly — and still feel puffy, wired and shattered, with a stubborn bit of middle you can't shift and sleep that won't come. It's easy to read that as failure: you're doing everything right
The school holidays are a few days old, the screens are winning, and if your child is the sporty type you've probably already got them booked into a camp. But if they're not — if they're the one who dreads being picked last, who'
