When I train with my son (25) and some of his friends I consistently get when doing some exercises, ‘straighten your legs more’. And my reply is always the same, ‘I can’t’. They don’t believe me. They just think I am making excuses for being old and lazy.

The point is, there are some things that you just can’t achieve when your body is a bit older and bent. The exercise is just as effective even if it is not aesthetically wonderful.

You just don’t get barked at for not keeping your legs straight.

I have a holistic view of training. It’s not just about exercise and nutrition. It’s about time, motivation, realistic expectations. This is why we go through the benchmarking. I want people to succeed and without baseline data, it can be very difficult to tell whether what we are doing is being successful. At least initially. In the longer term, it becomes obvious, but those first few months can be tough if you are not able to chart progress.

If you don’t like a form of exercise, it is highly unlikely you will keep it up. Callisthenics turns me on but if my only options were bench-pressing and bicep curls I would have to find something else to amuse me. Gardening maybe?

We try to expose you to as wide a range of exercises as possible to maximise the chances of finding the exercises that are you.

Similarly with food. If you wake up every morning craving Coco Pops, you may as well eat Coco Pops. And work a diet plan around them.