Gold Standard Physiques

This needs to be addressed…
Not every coaching enquiry should become a client.

Because as a coach, there’s a limit to how many people you can properly invest your time into.

And every person you bring on becomes a reflection of the standard of your business.

That doesn’t mean you need to be perfect before you start.

It does mean you need to be serious.

Serious about changing your habits.
Serious about following the plan.
Serious about doing what you said you were going to do.

When you sign up for coaching, you’re not just making a commitment to yourself.

You’re asking someone else to put their time, reputation and energy behind your result.

I don’t want the most clients.

I want the right ones.

If you’re ready to actually change the standard you live at, then we can have a conversation.

I spent years getting better at the exercises I was already good at.

And wondering why my physique wasn’t changing.

The problem was simple:

I cared more about what I could lift than what I could actually stimulate.

60kg dumbbells sounded impressive.

But if my chest wasn’t doing the work, who cares?

Eventually I had to drop the weight, rebuild my ex*****on and start putting the movements I sucked at FIRST — while I was fresh enough to actually improve them.

That’s when things started moving again.

Your training shouldn’t constantly prove what you’re good at.

It should expose what you’re bad at and force you to improve it.

Drop the ego.
Fix the ex*****on.
Prioritise the weakness.

Your physique will thank you for it.

Glute machines are getting better.

But that doesn’t mean your glute training is.

The step-up machine is a perfect example.

Set it too low, let your hips drift backwards, or start bouncing off the bottom and suddenly the movement you’re doing “for glutes” becomes a completely different exercise.

Your checklist:

→ No more than roughly 90° of knee bend at the bottom
→ Hips travel straight up and down
→ Don’t throw your hips backwards
→ Control the lowering phase
→ The non-working foot touches the floor, it doesn’t push you back up

The machine isn’t the problem.

How you use it is.

Save this for the next time you’ve got step-ups programmed.

An everyday annoyance.

Ignore the breathing into the mic 😂 focus on the movement.

If 45° hip extensions “hurt your lower back”, there’s a good chance the exercise isn’t the problem.

It’s how you’re doing it.

A lot of people turn a hip extension into a back extension — lifting their torso instead of hinging and driving through the hips.

Core on.
Chin tucked.
Hinge through the hip.
Drive the hips through.
Keep the torso locked.

Your lower back shouldn’t be doing the job your hamstrings and glutes are there to do.

And don’t remove an exercise from your program just because it feels wrong the first time.

Fix the ex*****on first.

Because when you learn to load your hamstrings properly in a lengthened position, the 45° hip extension is one of the best movements you can have in your program.

Save this and fix yours next session.

We’ve all got that one photo.

The photo you’ve gone back to a hundred times.

Maybe you were leaner.
Maybe you were bigger.
Maybe you just looked better than you do right now.

And every time you see it, you tell yourself:

“I could get back there if I wanted to.”

You’ve probably told other people the same thing.

“I can get lean whenever I want.”
“I know how to put size on.”
“I’ve done it before.”

But here’s the part you probably don’t want to hear:

Why is the best version of your physique still sitting in your camera roll?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting your old physique back.

But at some point, the goal shouldn’t be to recreate who you used to be.

It should be to build a physique that makes that old photo completely irrelevant.

So if you’re still scrolling back years to find the photo of when you looked your best…

I’m calling you out.

Why don’t you look your best now?

Stop proving what you could do with an old photo.

Build something better.

Your logbook only tells the truth if your reps do.

10 reps last week.
11 reps this week.

Looks like progress.

But if rep 11 only happened because your range shortened, your tempo disappeared and your form broke down… you didn’t necessarily get stronger.

You just changed the standard.

That’s where a lot of experienced lifters get stuck.

They’re obsessed with beating the number in the logbook, so without realising it, they progressively make the exercise easier just to keep “progressing.”

Same exercise.
Same setup.
Same range.
Same ex*****on.

Then beat the number.

Because progressive overload only means something when the standard stays the same.