The Exercise Educator

I was recently asked what my highlight of 2025 was 🤔

There were a few good bits in there but this “full circle” moment has just struck me 😳

In 2021, stuck in the UK thanks to covid, I figured I might as well make the most of it and convinced and to attend the IFS in London with me (thanks guys! 🙌🏽)

I was pretty excited; it’s quite rare that there are decent industry events to attend and there were some “big names” as the presenters.

I was rather disappointed to see what our industry viewed as delivering value. There was, however, one standout presenter:
I’d never heard of him before, but he combined having extremely well educated and qualified thoughts with a balanced and nuanced manner of presenting them. I queued up afterwards to tell him quite how dramatically he stood out. I thought to myself at the time: I know all these people have tonnes of followers, but this is the person I’d be most chuffed to share a stage with.

Fast forward to Singapore 3 years later and we’re both presenting at the 😱 getting to hang out with someone you’d only recently thought “I’d like to get to where you are” about is always a cool moment.

Mike is an almost unbelievably genuine guy. He started off by saying “have we met?” and if he didn’t actually remember the occasion he did a bloody good job of pretending! I also admired how calmly later that day he dealt with someone quite rudely butting in with an attempt to answer a question I’d specifically asked him in one of his talks.

If you like people taking thoughtful approaches to the fitness industry and particularly the impacts it’s extremity can have on one’s mental health, give Mike a follow 👍🏽

See you at another event elsewhere on the planet mate! 🌍

I spent 3 days last week representing .global solo at the Beyond Activ - Sydney 🇦🇺

Most of my network on IG are fellow trainers, very few of whom are ever in attendance at events like these, that are primarily focused on industry businesses looking to work together… so I thought I’d share some candid insight into an honest estimation of what these events entail for me:

30% catching up with people who are quickly becoming mates having seen them at 2-3 of these a year! 🍻

10% hunting down known attendees who we think would appreciate having their trainers taken to the next level 👀

15% standing on the sidelines waiting for people to finish their conversation so I can politely introduce myself once I’ve found them 🤝

15% chatting to said people 💬

20% watching people on stage whose thoughts and topics of conversation I value 💭

10% on my phone taking notes about who I’ve spoken to and need to follow up with, and making sure the ops at RTS Global run smoothly while I’m away 📱

I’ve now attended both of the Australia editions and I’m finally getting a decent understanding of the local Personal Training market, primarily thanks to so many people being willing to share their insights on it 🧠 there’s no denying it’s a bloody tough nut to crack, this one.

We easily spend 5 figures a year on attending such events but it feels necessary if we’re going to take the world’s most advanced and reputable exercise education syllabus and have it more widely regarded as being so 🚀

Next stop: Riyadh in February 🇸🇦

Presenting on Day 1 of the was such fun! 🥳
I was privileged enough to be invited to share the stage with and on the subject of hypertrophy.

It’s a funny one, because it’s technically not something we study 🤔

Exercise Mechanics provides us with the world’s most in-depth understanding of stimulus, but hypertrophy is an adaptation 💪🏽

We don’t study adaptations, because the type, intensity and volume of stimulus that any individual might require or tolerate varies so much that it’s hard to apply what you’d learn from that to Personal Training - which is our primary focus .global 👨🏻‍🏫

So I used Exercise Mechanics to highlight the questions professionals should be asking of exercise studies before they blindly follow their conclusions and use them to understand what to do for hypertrophy goals with their clients 🧐

Eric looked at what the research has shown us about the necessary nutrition protocols for gaining muscle, and how “bulking” might not need to be as dramatic as we may believe 🍔

Martin presented his own meta analysis on relative abilities to gain muscle between Men & Women showing that there’s little relative difference, we merely start from different points so an 8% gain in muscle mass for a male seems much more significant! 🚻

Both were really interesting presentations that I thoroughly enjoyed 👏🏽

The highlight for me though was the stroke of genius by to have us all convene for a panel discussion afterwards. Not only was it highly amusing, but if you’d only watched our 20 minute presentations in isolation you might have thought we were in complete disagreement about hypertrophy and studies telling us what to do with clients, but in reality we were all on a similar page 📄

Eric closed one of his eloquent responses with “science isn’t meant to tell you what to do with Mrs Higgins (a character from my own presentation) on a Tuesday. It’s there to tell us what relationships exist.”

I wish more trainers would hear that message and think about what they’re spending their time studying (let alone arguing about in comments sections) 🗣️

- speaking of, continued below