14/02/2025
*MILESTONE MOMENT*
Many of my clients like their privacy when it comes to their training and development however, what one of my regular clients, and more importantly one of my oldest friends, achieved this evening deserves a massive shout out! His FIRST plate loaded Z-Bar bicep curl and lift!
What’s more important is the story behind it…

A little over a year ago I saw one of my best friends in unimaginable pain after surgery, with even simple tasks such as lifting his arms past a certain point proving impossible. After many long conversations talking about how best to help him, he gave me the honour of helping him on his road to recovery.
Starting slow, we worked together to improve his mobility. Now most people may look at me a bit strangely if I said that the first 6 weeks or so we would be using tennis balls as our main piece of equipment, but he trusted my methods, and more importantly he trusted me. It allowed us to increase the movement in his arms whilst slowly increasing muscle in his upper body, whilst limiting any pain when tackling certain exercises. Over time this meant that his overall muscular strength and endurance improved which in turn meant that movement became easier. We slowly introduced other pieces of equipment such as resistance bands and medicine balls to make futher improvements.
As in all recovery stories there were a few bumps along the way and every so often it felt like one step forward and two steps back, but through trusting in the plan put before him and also understanding the importance of not rushing, even when there doesn’t seem like much progress is being made, he stuck with it and pushed through. A huge credit to him.
Now over the last few months I have witnessed incredible progress so today I decided it was time to kick it up a notch and load some extra weight to the exercises, and he absolutely smashed it out the park…and more importantly he achieved it without any pain, a feat which if he was asked to do so a year ago would of been impossible.
His story shows that progress can be slow but can also be incredibly rewarding. As his trainer I couldn’t be more impressed with his determination, as his friend I couldn’t be more proud, well done Chris! Now here’s to the next stage.
