Lift With Leighton

Sick of seeing how weak and fragile people are becoming because they’re scared of their numbers on a screen going down.

If there’s one thing you can’t quantify with a score, it’s just how much s**t we can put up with.

Imagine watching people run 250 mile ultra marathons, seeing women go through pregnancy, coaching people who work two jobs and STILL get their training in…

And then deciding that your sleep score was too low to take that extra rep in the gym.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t look after yourself - of course you should.

But stop being scared of things not being perfect. Life very rarely behaves the way you want it to. Brute force is an excellent tool to carry yourself through the tough times.

Biohacking is one of the stupidest fads I’ve ever seen.

Spending a ridiculous amount of money on things that help you gain an imperceptible edge - for what?

Here’s a better idea:

Live your life like you mean it.

Do good, train hard, socialise, get in the great outdoors, share experiences with people, do something that scares the s**t out of you.

A really cool way of thinking about life is this:

“What can I do right now that will look and sound amazing when I show my kids”

Your kid won’t give a f**k that you took methylene blue for a month or skipped caffeine in the first 30 minutes of the day.

But they will sure as s**t want to hear about the time you hiked the largest mountain in Asia, or look at your old training pictures and think you were an absolute stud.

I just saw Brian Johnson decided to skip basketball training because he drank caffeine too late in the day and disrupted his sleep.

Be the guy that still turns up to the gym with a hangover from an amazing night and still smashes a PR without giving a single f**k about your ‘health markers’.

For what it’s worth, I have never really understood the concept of balance. Some plates have to spin faster than others at pretty much all times.

Life is seasonal - we can excel in training, but maybe work takes a back seat for a few months. We can be more social, but that might mean coasting in your sessions for a while.

I am, however, a massive believer in always finding the time to be intentional about reducing stress and grounding myself.

There are incredible benefits in learning to activate both branches of the nervous system when we need to.

The parasympathetic (rest and digest, or ‘feed and breed’) helps us to relax and think rationally.

The sympathetic (fight or flight) can be switched on when we need to be aggressive in our training or our work.

One cannot exist without the other. All PNS = no drive, no ego, no achievement. All SNS = burnout, stress, health issues.

Be intentional where you need to be, but also just learn to chill the f**k out. We get one trip around, make it one you are proud of.

Chest pump on a leg day, must be the banana pancakes 🥞

About 4 hours kip each of the last two nights, keep getting woken up by f**king roosters and a cardboard bed 😂 but took major progressions regardless

Oldest of old school gyms today, rusty plates and broken equipment 100% makes you go harder. Keep your health club gyms

3 years of engagement to this 💎

Can’t promise you a wedding anytime soon since we’re spunking the pot travelling the world, but here’s to an indefinite amount of time globetrotting and making new memories ❤️

Very happy with Layton’s gaining phase - all starting to come together.

There’s a 4KG difference between these two shots that are around a year apart.

Which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re at his level of training advancement, it’s absolutely huge.

Similar levels of body fat here, but what’s most remarkable is this:

He’s training 3 days per week on a lower volume split.

As a new dad who works two jobs, we realised that we needed to take the approach that maximised results for minimum time spent in the gym.

Priority #1: Spend time with his missus and little girl

Priority #2: Keep building his coaching business along with his full time role

Priority #3: Keep pushing the needle where we can

There’s been a massive mindset shift that we needed to make, too - he gets 2-3 hours of sleep at best (newborns for you), and yet we are still able to take progressions on a weekly basis by managing his load and life stress, and with a few little tactical tweaks here and there.

The goal is to push him to 90KG (7 more to go, probably take another year) and then peel everything back to achieve his best physique to date.

Couldn’t be prouder of this fella 🙏🏻