The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep 174 Matt Jones - I wanna run fast

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

In this ep we are joined by the legend that is Matt Jones. We touch on all things running and training, give it a listen share it. 

How do we feel after last night? What happened last night? Come on, don't tell me you aren't watched. Come on, come on, tell me. Give me your analysis on the game. I'm delighted. I was up for England. Do you know that?

Oh. And it's not just because I had lots of money on England to win the World Cup. Why were you up for England? I won't, because I'll tell you why. Because I feel like England get a hard time. No, you just want to rage. pay people no I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like England get a hard time for for lots of different reasons and I think it's it's unjustified for people like Robb like

Rob's a good guy you know Rob didn't rob didn't do anything wrong to anyone that I'm that I'm aware of I don't know if we can talk about Rob's qualities were and I think and I think now I don't I don't think I don't think the I don't I think England had a good tournament I I don't, they, they didn't play enough ball last night to deserve the win, but it would have been, if they held on for eight more minutes, I was like, okay, this would have been a master class in defending until it wasn't. But they weren't really holding onto the ball at all, so they probably didn't. And we defended really well against Mexico and we've done it in previous games, but it just, like Argentina are just a different kettle of fish. Like, we could have won, but in terms of who was the better team, it was, it was. enough for sure.

They were definitely the better team, but it was like if, see, this is what my problem with English media is, right? Is that because you is lost, we only eight minutes to go, it's like they didn't hold onto the ball. He made the wrong subs.

They should have been more attacking. But if they went through, it would have been framed as, oh my God, England only had 11% possession. It was a masterclass in defending, in courage, and holding on. It all just depends on whether you go true or not.

That's all. Like the tactics go out, the tactics were either right or wrong depending on if you want or not, obviously. But then it's like you go out and try and play against the team like Argentina. You're not going to be able to play like Argentina. They're just far more technical in all domains on the pitch, I thought. I love how we bring a Welshman on to talk about how great England are with three,

two Irish lads. That's all big up England, should we? No, we have to. It's so sad. Of course I have to ask Rob, the only... Should I just go? No.

Did you cry, Rob? No, I think I was a little bit agitated by... This is going to sound pathetic, but right at the start when all the Argentinian fans were like jeering over the national anthem and stuff, it's the first time that's happened

in the World Cup, I think. It's just disrespectful. And there was just a couple of things that happened with the players that I was like, I don't think that's very good for like the future of football and like young kids seeing that and seeing how they're behaving and stuff. But they probably, people probably thought the same about some new England players. So here's a fact for you that's going to annoy a lot of people,

especially Irish listeners. So they, they did a referendum in the Falklands and they, they voted to stay part of Britain. So and and it wasn't, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, the British took over that island before Argentina was even a state. There was no such thing as Argentina. So there you go. It was actually always the British's. But all I heard was that. A slack for saying that.

But that is factual. And the Brits were happy to give it to Argentina. But the citizens in the Falklands voted to be part of the British Empire. So sorry, sorry, Salius. Sorry, Salis. Do you know that, Rob? There's a Welsh speaking place over in Argentina. Is there?

Patagonia, yeah. It's like Welsh speaking. So there's loads of Welsh speakers over there. Patagonia is where all the amazing hikes are, isn't it? Yeah, it's like predominantly Welsh speaking, which is pretty wild. That's mad. There's a lot of Irish in Argentina as well, I think. Don't ask me why, because my Welsh history isn't that good.

Anyway, do you want to, do you want to know what we're talking about today? Yeah, for us. That would be good. So we're going to talk about, and this actually before we talk about that, Matt, should you introduce yourself? No, I don't think you need to do you? If you want me to. Yeah, yeah, I don't mind introducing myself.

Who are you, Matt? And what were you doing today? So I was coaching. I've been coaching all morning. I don't do much in person stuff anymore. Most of it is online in terms of coaching. But when I do, I hit the ground running by giving myself like a full day at it. So from seven o'clock until, yeah, about one, which is a full day these days, right?

For us that are online, I've been coaching pretty much in person. Most of the stuff I do is online, though. Were you in the gym or are we on the track? Yeah, in the gym, doing strength stuff today, which is not necessarily the stuff I enjoy most, but I'm a massive believer in it, so I know how good it is for people. So, yes, I still get a buzz when I coach people through some strength stuff. Do you miss the in-person stuff? Or I suppose you still add an element of it into your online stuff.

Yeah, I think with, I've got my own run club. So it's, you know, I do quite a lot of in-person, you know, community events and stuff. So I think I get it through that. And I do a couple of classes in terms of like spin and basically stuff that I enjoy, which I think if you're lucky enough to be in a position where you get to choose which classes you take, that's that's a huge bonus isn't it okay right you want to know what we're talking about we're talking about messy today I don't know anything about any of this don't this chair don't worry this will apply to you as well as a

okay so I was watching I was watching a video earlier and it was on Escalone the Argentina manager and he was asked in a press conference conference so what what instructions do you give to Messi on the pitch and stuff like that and he goes like what what are you talking about instructions how do you tell messy what to do on the pitch it's messy and he's basically what I liked about it right was that everyone was kind of laughing about it but I thought it made perfect sense in my head that if you are self-aware as a coach right then you can understand that sometimes like being a good coach means not trying to overcoach or maybe not even coaching at all, if that makes sense.

And I think a lot of people try to overcoach, especially, I understand in if you're, if we're using the example of people that you're working with, right? Beginners, you might be a little bit more hands-on and stuff like that. But sometimes less is more when you're coaching someone who has a little bit of experience. And somebody who has a lot of experience or someone who has even more experienced than you. Sometimes then self-awareness as a good coach means, you know, instead of being very, rigid with that person. It's just like giving them freedom to express themselves. Agree or disagree?

Agree. Yeah. You can't, you normally give us things we have to agree with anyway. So what do you, Chair, what do you think when, do you find that in your work at all, does coaching become overcoaching and do you have to pull, pull yourself back from, from doing? you kind of naturally move towards not coaching as much. Like you can give everyone, give everyone the tools. If they're with you twice, three times a week, that's two to three hours. You can't live in their house.

You can't get them to do anything. I actually had a good example this morning. It was someone came in and they were like, I did a load of stretching and I actually feel better. Are you proud of me? I was like, no, you should be fucking doing it anyway. And they were like, you're meant to encourage me. And I was like, we've been doing this for a couple of years now. I think the stretching thing is just something you should fucking do.

I do plague them a little bit on that because I also know I'm bad at us. So it's, and it's, I think it's something, Carl, you know this. Like, it's somethings a lot of us are bad at is the whole fucking stretch mobility, all that fucking side of it. We love doing the workout parts. That's fine. But yeah, it's, there is a time where you do have to kind of step back and almost leave them learn their own lesson. Mm-hmm. To a point, there is only so much you can do, like.

Yeah, like you can't, I don't, even with, with stuff like that, it's like, if you, if you do the kind of like drill sergeant thing where you're constantly just, like, giving out to someone or telling them what to do, I don't take, I do. It might work short term, but it doesn't really work long term. But I think if you can have conversations with people and make them come to the conclusion by themselves that, oh maybe i should do some stretches in the morning or maybe it would be a good idea to make sure that i have breakfast before i go to work or maybe uh you know doing a bit of resistance training for my running is probably a good idea and they have the freedom of thinking that that's

that's their idea and they have the autonomy to then uh implement them actions i think that can that can be a stronger behavior change over time do you agree with that matt think we're probably going to say this a lot and I'm sure we say it a lot as coaches anyway, but I think context is everything, isn't it? And like my experience and why I enjoy coaching the most is group fitness classes, which is quite unusual in our industry. Most people don't prefer fitness classes. I always have. So I think leading from that angle, because it gives us a different angle as well, most people that are doing group fitness classes aren't necessarily there to be predominantly coached. Yeah. They're there to get a workout. They might be there to socialise.

they might be there for a little bit of a sweat to get their heart rate up to improve fitness. Yes, to get stronger, et cetera, as well. And I think I've seen it so many times where I'm like being sort of manager and gyms and head trainer and stuff and sort of in charge of staff and how they coach and giving them advice. And I've seen it a lot where the individual doesn't want to be coached. They just want to get on with the class. And then you almost have to pull them aside and be like, look, like I get what you're trying to do. You're trying to be helpful. but it also depends on what that person wants.

You don't want them to not turn up because they're just going to get overloaded because their techniques are bad crap. Yes, obviously, if they're at risk of injury, you're going to step in. But sometimes you just have to let them be. Yeah. And just to enjoy it, there's obviously times and places where you're going to coach more than not in certain situations. But I think group fitness in general, I've seen it a lot and I see it a lot now,

coaches wanting to coach every single part of every single movement. And when there's like 30 people in the class and you've got maybe one or two coaches in charge of the whole class, you can't overcoach someone anyway because what are the rest of the class doing? Yeah. Yeah. I found that in myself now with when I'm doing the group classes is I think for a while I got into the bad habit of.

being very like a perfectionist with form yeah and and because of that then I was kind of over queuing and like just saying too much and just talking too much and and and also just kind of making it enjoyable for people by like okay if there's a little bit of a round in the back journey and ordeal like yeah you know it's that's that's not going to mean that they're gonna break their back like people's bodies are very robust and like everything doesn't have to look perfect for it to be effective and I think sometimes when you do try to overcoach and you try to like be too control and it takes it sucks the enjoyment out of it for the person then as well it does yeah

100% I agree I find I find if I want to give a coaching cue to like maybe one person in some of my group trainings I kind of do a reminder for everyone. There's way man we do it as well like I often, like, even like you said an RDL, I sometimes do an RDL. And if one of the, if Jane or someone else in the gym, I'd be like, oh, will you have a look at it just to make sure I'm doing it right? Because you get so used to doing an exercise.

You're like, I have to be doing something fucking wrong. So that's normally how I do it in a group is I'll kind of remind all of them of one Q. So you're not just going over to one person. Like, give me a minute here so I can correct what fucking shit you're doing in the corner. Do you think the best coach sometimes is the person that says the least.

Someone that only needs to say the bare minimum, but only needs to, might be. What do you mean by that, Rob? I don't actually know. They get their point across in the fewest words possible. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, saying the bare minimum could be absolute crap. It could just be work out now.

But like if they're actually saying, unlike me right now, if they're actually saying what they mean and what is required of the people in front of them. Just saying as concisely as possible is really helpful. But isn't that what an expert is? Like an expert is, you know, explaining it in the most simplest terms. Like experts simplify and novices overcomplicate. We've talked about this before.

Like when we were doing S&C courses and they're there explaining body parts. and I was like, I can never remember the time I, like, I told the client what their litmus Dorsey was. I was like, this is your lat. See that part of your area. That's where you want to feel this. Like, you're not going to talk to them with fucking Latin. Like, it's not what needs to be done.

Yeah. Do you think, do you think good coaching looks different, like depending on the personality or the ability of the person that you're, like, of your coaching? And the environment, I'd say as well. Yeah, what do you mean by that? So you could be in a different environment. You could be coaching a sports team, for example,

or you could be coaching an individual, or you could be coaching, you know, an over-50s class. Like I take a, it's quite cool, actually. It's like a nationwide thing that a lot of the football clubs run around, yeah, Britain. And it's like a 35 to 65 health and wellness course that's 12 weeks as funded by the government and the English Football League.

So a lot of the people I get in there are 35 to 65. they've tried weight watchers, they've tried slimming world. And my hat is very different for them as it is to, you know, when I'm coaching my runners, for example, in person. So I think the environment obviously is a lot different there. So I've, I don't, I am still the same person, but as a coach, I'm coaching them slightly different. Yeah, that makes sense.

Do you, what do you think is the difference between, let's say, because I have a good a few kind of people in their 50s and 60s in the gym as well. And they're actually, they're the best, they're the best members. Like they're just great crack. They always show up. They're always consistent. They're always like coachable and they're always just up for a laugh and stuff like that as well.

They don't take themselves too serious. But they're very kind of dependable as well. And that way, what do you think the difference is between coaching, let's say, someone who's a senior versus, you know, you know, people who are that little bit younger, maybe in their early 20s. Ego. Do you think so, yeah? Yeah, man.

I think it's like I've said before, like, I predominantly coach women. I find there's a big difference between coaching men and women. Like, normally it's with coaching lads, it's like, what do you lift? Or they're straight in, they want to lift them where you can actually feel like female clients are listening to you the way. So, like, I find that with older clients as well. Like, they really want to get it right. but like as you said they're always they're generally always on time

John they they respect your time as well and they're eager to learn something they don't it's not I think it's in a gym setting they don't presume they know everything do you think there's a different so do you think it's more the ego things more of a male versus female issue or do you think it's more of an age and maturity issue it's a bit of column A column B yeah like John you can can say from my experience with coaching male versus female clients, I have that, but like age makes a huge difference, especially in here. I have guys that run their own big companies. And when they come in here, to say they're like a child in a classroom, but I mean like,

don't polite, well behave. They're eager to learn something. And then you might get younger clients, male or female. And it's like, when are we going to try to do this? When are we going to do this? So I'm like, let's walk before we run. Do you think, is there a good way, is there a good way to deal with or train someone who has a big ego coming into, into your vicinity? I did once. I did once.

I had a guy who told me, who's, I think I was talking about a 200 kilo deadlift and he was like, is that all? And I ruined his life with 10 kilo one and a quarter, he'll elevate goblet squat. I left my ego getting the way there as well. Yeah, that sounds more like you enforcing your ego to do anything else.

Do you guys think there's a more, there's a, what do you think is the most challenging, like, age group or generation you train? Do you think there is one? In terms of like frustrate, frustrates, I know we don't get frustrated much, but like the one that frustrates you the most or the one that you feel like you have to like, you have to really, really work for. and like hammer home certain points. Difficult one. I like I found, I went into a school to do like a PE class for a friend of mine who was a teacher.

And all the kids were like eight years or six to eight, I think. And it was just absolute pandemonium. I was like, oh my God, get me out of here. I'm never going to be a school teacher or a PE teacher ever. I was like bringing me back to the adults. I see, I have, I have a funny. I have teachers and they're worse

I'm like I have a group of teachers who came in and they're like we spend all day dealing with kids you don't understand I'm like I deal with adults with free will I'm like you question fucking everything I'm like yeah I have a kid's group as well

they're fine yeah I think it's it might be the way you deal with them do you think it's the best time you saw them maybe yeah do you think it's the maybe it's just your relationship with that age group like do you think some people are just suited better for coaching kids and some people are just suited better for coaching adults and some people are suited better for coaching athletes and some people are suited coached suited better for coaching um newbies and beginners like because you know the way there's like there's obviously tough love coaching and then there's you know handholding coaching and i know you can have i know you can have a mix of the two and you can coach dependent on the individual in front of you but there's obviously going to be more of an element of one over the other depending on the demographic that you're coaching.

I think. What are your age groups that you work with, Matt? Yeah, so pretty much everything and anything, to be honest, but predominantly female-based, and usually between 30 to 50, I'd say the majority are. And the majority of either parents or they're just busy, basically, you know, like in terms of like all my runners, the people are working. work with with Cardiff City and the people that I coach, I'd say most of them fall in that bracket. I've felt personally that like it's like my mum and dad's age, which are between 50 and 60,

I've always found them like harder to coach because they've had some experience in the gym, but they haven't had like as much experience in the gym. So it's like that midway where they feel like they know what they're doing and they don't necessarily want to be coached. Yeah. And they've all got their own stuff going on. they're all busy. They're all coming to the gym for different reasons.

And I've just found that overall, that is just a really challenging age group. That makes sense. I think someone who has no experience in a gym and comes in really nervous is great to coach because they take on board everything you say because it's just all absorb, absorb an information straight from the offset.

And no bad habits, man. It's a clean slate. They're like steering headlights, aren't they as well? So they're looking at you as like the safety points. So they're just taking on everything. everything you're saying because you're in the gym, aren't you? Here's a quote. Here's a quote for you.

A poor coach wants the athlete to depend on them. A great coach helps the athletes to trust themselves. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you know the thing even about the beginner there, right? So it's like at the start,

the beginner will depend on you. And it's actually nice that they depend on you because they're absorbing the information. You feel like you're giving us. good service as well but I suppose you don't like the thing of of messy and his and as manager it's like you want to create an environment where they have freedom to make their own decisions and they have their own autonomy and and they're not dependent on you they can they can make decisions for themselves but at the same time I think

making sure they're aware that actually working with other people is helpful yeah is all those things because if you just train them to become completely independent and not relying on you they might then go do you know what fuck this i don't need anyone else anymore i'm going to go and train by myself i'm going to do this by myself and then you kind of isolate yourself and then mentally maybe not in the best place that community aspect to things is important and with messy as well like if you're just saying to him go and do whatever you want to do if he then goes into like a ronal mindset and kind of starts becoming a bit selfish and doesn't really think of the rest of the team.

Not that I've just started another debate there, but no debate. It can be, that can be an issue, can't it? If you fuel their ego too much and don't remind them actually, I am important to you. Yeah,

but I don't think, I don't think you can't be a coach at the highest level and, and try and control a high level at Lee, because they already know they're, like, you know the way in terms of like, understanding the person in front of you. like you're you're not going to make messy dependent on you like it's messy it's the oh no i think i don't

think dependency is the thing it's just more an awareness of the value of other people yeah yeah well i think that's i think that's instilling like it's a team yeah well that's the environment you have to play as a team because like when i was rugby coaching like the head coach had like a specific game plan and like literally there was like weeks before a game where they'd set up different scenarios and different parts of the field and like this is how we're exiting here

this is how we're attacking here and like I used to do some attack you used to do road forwards and I used to say well if there's a fucking three man overlap I'm like go for it yeah of course yeah

but that's that's that's really important because that's all right you work you're creating an environment right and you're creating structure and you're creating a team ethos but you're also allowing you're not you're not trying to be overbearing or over

coaching you're allowing in that structure you're allowing allowing flexibility of the player to go and and do think something that he is going to see as an opportunity to do something yeah correctly like it's a game you can't plan exactly how exactly yeah you can't you can't have a rigid system there yeah whereas i feel like coaching people in a gym like I always say in my consuls, I'm like, in the politest way, I want you to eventually fuck off. So it's the idea is like, you do want

people to get to a point where they're confident enough they can go on their own. Majority of the time they come back, they want to step it up another level. Like, we have coaches. Yeah. Well, I think even in the gym environment, right, if you go into, if we look at that from the perspective of group classes, right,

of group training, like, you can build someone up to a, level that they're really competent in their training and they know how to hinge they know how to squat they know how to progress and regress exercises they still and so like you've coached them you don't need to be hands on with them anymore they still you still create an environment where they'll still probably want to show up and even if they change things around slightly in the environment for themselves you know that you can give them the flexibility to do that themselves because they're at a they're at a certain level where they don't need their hands held

and they can probably even help out with like I have loads of members who are so well equipped the trend or just helping out other members in the in a live on time in the gym do you know what I mean so that's what you want yeah so you're creating you're creating an environment you're creating structure and obviously you're coaching to a degree but you also still want to like you don't want to be like pressuring that person to be like oh no actually I said we're doing this and you're doing that and they're probably right because they probably know their body better than you know their body even though you know you've you've created the structure of the program they're like oh no my hip's tight today so i'm going to do this instead it's like okay that's fair enough that's probably a

really smart meal for you to make um an all um an on no world for me is would be well he's gone now um would be mad and running coaching shut in the window is a law and right fly described me not sorry so like obviously like we're we're coaching people so you know you like you're trying to get people to be at a level that they can do things on their own. But like, running coaching and like, would that be, would that be different? In terms of getting them to a place where they're... Yeah, because, like, to me, like, someone, like, first swimming thing, someone was like, what are you doing?

And I was like, oh, I'm just fucking swimming. Don't I'm changes. Like, we talked about the run before the half marathon it didn't make. And, like, I sent you a plan. I fucking hate running. I was like, I could still develop a plan. but like I know if I wanted to go on another further stage, I would need someone to coach me through it.

But with someone that's at a higher level working with you, does it get to a point where you might just tell them, you don't need me or you're good enough to do this on your own? Yeah, it depends on, you know, their goals and targets. But I think I wasn't thinking about this when I niched into the running space, but it's a really good business plan because they've always got events. Yeah. You know, if someone's, if you're training someone for fat loss,

if you're training someone to get stronger, yes, you can set little targets and stuff and it's great and it keeps them going. It keeps them happy. It keeps them challenged. But in the running space, people have always, the runners are always going to book half marathons, marathons, these little 10K events. So to be honest with you, I've found that there's a lot more longevity there in terms of, like, how long my clients are with me.

And also, if like you're speaking about there, Jay, right, if someone, is a little bit more experienced. They still want to be coached. They probably just don't want the level of attention that a newbie needs. Like I would just, if I would just want an expert who is an expert to tell me this is the plan and then I'm going to go and follow it

because I know what I'm doing, but I don't want the uncertainty of second guessing myself. Second guess on myself. So like if Matt was just to make me a running plan for a, and I have a race in 12, weeks. I know that, okay, I trust his judgment. I have my plan now. Now I can just follow it. And it might not be hands-on coaching, but it is still coaching because I'm just, I'm depending on

his expertise for me to follow. I have three clients like that. And I remember months ago, I'm like sitting there. I was like, I said to one of them, like, I don't really think you actually need me. Because like, I'm just doing your plan. And he's like, yeah, but I can't do that. Yeah. He was like, I don't need you to see if I'm doing the work. because I do the workouts. If I have an issue with, because he records all his videos for all these exercises and stuff,

he's like, if I think there's an issue, I'll send it on to you. I'll probably send them to you anyway. But he was like, just do the plan and leave me alone and I'll pay you money. But this is my whole point. This is my whole point about like sometimes less coaching

is better coaching because if you are insecure as a coach, you're going to try and do more. When that person doesn't need more, that person needs less, that person probably needs to just shut up and give them the plan. Yeah. What's nice. You sit there, you do a bit of program and you're like, right?

But that's what I mean. So when I'm talking about the, when I'm talking about the Argentina manager, right, I'm talking about how secure he is in himself to sit there in front of a hundred cameras and a load of news press and they're all saying, what do you say to Messi? What do you say to Messi? And he just laughs and shrugs his shoulders and I say, it's messy. What do you want me to do? I tell him to go and play football. Because he's so secure in knowing the, what, why he's,

what why he's trying to create and that he has someone who is has the ability to just make something that happen out of nowhere so he just builds the team around that and he doesn't he doesn't try to overcoach someone who clearly doesn't need overcoaching but at the same time it's a bit of a silly question like it's messy yeah it is a silly like you know like what what how do you coach one of the but there would be there would be insecure coaches out there who tried to walk into a dressing room then and try to dominate the dressing room and say, oh, well, I need to make sure that I'm the, you know, I'm the top dog in this dressing room and everyone, including messy, you know, looks to me first. And then what they do is they end up creating more problems than there

needs to be because they don't know how to deal with different personalities and different people and different levels of ability. Yeah, it's slightly going off on a different tangent, but it's relevant. But like you look at Manu and Ronaldo, because I'm a United fan for my sins, you look at Manuel and Ronaldo. And when Ronaldo came back, the manager was Ten Haag. And it was exactly that. Ten Haag had a big ego. Ronaldo had a big ego.

And they fell out because of like Ten Haag wanted structure there and he wanted Ronaldo to be doing this. And Ronaldo being one of the best players of all time, didn't want to do that. And he didn't want to stick to his certain things. So that's the exact opposite of what you're saying there with Messi and Scaloni, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah. sometimes a coach's ego gets in the way because they feel like they constantly need to like instruct to justify their role.

It's true. I was, I was similar with teaching to start off with like when I'm asking, like an insecure trainee teacher, which most trainee teachers will be, you just go in and you go, right, this is what I need to teach today. I need to teach this, this, this, this, this.

Start perfectly because everyone needs to understand that before I move on to this. everyone needs to know that perfectly. And all of my lessons to start off with, or like starters, would, like, run, like the start is supposed to be five minutes. It would go half an hour into the session. And because I needed it to be perfect.

I needed everyone to understand what was going on. Whereas actually, give them the question, throw them a bit of challenge, let them get used to it, move on to the next, explain it, but then move on to the next bit, let them all get the exposure to all of the work they're doing. And then if there's a,

common theme of like error throughout the session like Joe was saying just take a step to the side don't isolate anyone necessarily and just go through that this is what i was going to ask you right because i was going to say obviously when you're coaching people especially adults all right you're going to explain to people what they what they need to do but you're also going to open up some like freedom for them to make their own choices but is it different with kids because you know with kids they need they need certainty at the same time it's like you know like Sometimes, even, like, I've seen, I've listened on, on some podcasts about kind of parent and stuff like that, that parents don't parent anymore. And they're looking for other people to, or allowing kids to kind of make up their own choices where sometimes what a kid needs is, is actually instruction, not coaching, is certainty.

It'd be a mix of both, man. Yeah. Like, I have an 11-year-old. He's actually one of my best clients. which is just gas because like you'd expect trying to coach him doing stuff in the gym at the end of a school day would be impossible. Like, I had to get used to the fact that like he's literally staring at you when he's doing an exercise because he wants to know he's doing it right all the time. And I was just like, I struggle with keeping eye contact with anyone like so.

You know, I was just like don't be too fucking interested in what I'm doing, mate. Just do the thing you'll be fine. But like the difference between I suppose if you're, no, the three of us aren't parents. A match should answer this question. helicopter parenting worse like just leaving them do their own fucking thing man what do you think do you think that we're kids it do you would you create more like of an environment where it's like coaching where it's like oh well what do you think it would be the right option to do here it's like no this is what you need to do and like telling telling the child what they need to do

and create not certainty for them rather than them being unsure on what they need to do yeah i think it is a mixture of both and like like Jair just said, I think the helicopter parenting has been this big theme, isn't it? And I'm genuinely the opposite of that. Sorry, what's helicopter at Parrington? It's basically you've got the kid and then you've got a helicopter

over them and the parents just like going around looking after every single need. Controlling everything. Controlling everything. You don't leave them, you don't even make mistakes or fail. So they don't learn anything. Yeah. Overbearing, like my personality. Exactly like that, yeah. Especially after Obe.

The Gremlin. Yeah. But no, like I am probably the opposite of helicopter parent. I let my kids fail. I let my kids mess up. If they fall over, I'm like, let them either get on with it. Or if my boy falls over in football, he's pretty tough to be fair. But I'll be like, get up.

I'll be the first person to be like, get up. Yeah. So I think it's tricky because it does depend on the individual again. Like my son and daughter are both so different. My daughter needs more instruction. she's like ADHD up to the hills and my boy almost just needs to be like left to do his own thing

to like make mistakes and figure it out himself so my kids are two like complete opposite ends of the spectrum really yeah that's so interesting isn't it again it's what we came back to is like you still need to coach the individual in frontier even if it's the same age bracket as well mine's weird like I need it I need a bit of both I come from helicopter parents

and I'm ADHD riddled with a sprinkle of the tism. So I need a bit of instruction, but you need to leave me go off and do it. And come here, so in terms of then, right, let's say someone's, your parent is over, over parenting you, Jerry, right? Does that mean that you're allowed to make the mistakes, but someone else is cleaning up after your mistakes

and therefore you don't learn the lesson? Yeah, you like, I have a very good example recently. I was going getting a business loan maybe three, four years ago. And I had just said I had a meeting with the bank and my dad was like, what for her? And like, I'll tell him what I'm doing.

Like, you know, and he was like, well, why don't I give you the money? I don't want the money. I want a business loan because it'll look good for the business in the future. And he was like, what if something goes wrong? And I was like, well, then it goes fucking wrong. And he literally said this word for word.

If I can help, why would I let you fail? And I was like, it sounds lovely. Like, you know, like, the thing is, I will give you money to this. But you don't know then if you've achieved the thing on your own. That makes sense. You're covered all the time. So, like, I think, like we've said it before, failing is a great thing. You learn a lot more from that.

So much, yeah. So that would be my example. Okay. Next question I have for you, which is a little bit off topic. Do you, I'm going to start with you, Rob. do you choose your sport or does your sport choose you? I've heard this a few times with, I think it's Chris Williams and James Smith's talking about it.

I think it's definitely, it's both, but I think the example was a swimmer, like the swimmer's body illusion, isn't it? Yes. If you can't train yourself to look like a swimmer, you're kind of,

if you're a successful Olympic swimmer, you've probably already got those physical attributes and you're developing upon them. Yes, you could probably be a really short swimmer. I mean, like, Messi's proven that you don't have to be super tall to be an insanely good footballer, like, and really strong. Low center of gravity, good balance, close control,

acceleration, a lot like myself, but anyway, go on. Belling the short kings. Play with everything. The annoying answer is it depends and it varies, but I think you can, If you want to play a sport because you enjoy the sport, you choose it. Well, I think, I think, I think football is a good and bad example. Here's why, right? So you could have someone like Lionel Messi short, fast.

You could have someone like Christianel, Cristiano Ronaldo, tall, athletic, but you're never going to have a Messi playing centre half. Okay. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm not big and strong because I'm playing centre half. I'm set a half because I'm big and strong. Does that make sense? A football is not really a footballer.

There's loads of different professions within footballers. Exactly. Different positions. Yeah. But if we look at Michael Phelps, so kind of long wingspan, large hands, big fee, stuff like that. It's like, he's not like that because he swims. He swims because he's like that. I think it depends on context and where you are, the environment, what level you're wanting to compete.

If you just... Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you love swimming, swim. Yeah. I mean, I could be a swimmer, but I wouldn't be a professional swimmer, but I might be a professional horse jockey. I know, we've seen you in the pool in Bali. You're not a swimer.

Yeah. But you know what I mean? I'm never going to, I'm never going to make the NBA. Yeah. I was going to use that as an example. It's a good example. What was that really, what was that really short player that was in the NBA? There's an exception.

There's always an exception to the rule. There's always an exception to the rule. Of course, but most of us are seven. There's athletes. Just absolute athletes. It's like I didn't become professional badminton player. I was made to play rugby. Where do you think that example?

Where do you think that example falls in the fitness industry? Hmm. That's a tricky one, isn't it? So let's say you're selling supplements, right? So you get like BCAAs or whatever it is. It's like you get someone who's already genetically gifted, you know, lean, strong, muscle. maybe on pads, you know, whatever it is. Then, and they do a photo shoot or whatever.

And they go, you go, look at this physique. This is my physique. And now I'm selling these supplements. And then the, the consumer processes that as, oh, he's selling them supplements. If I buy them supplements, I will look like him versus the other way around. It's like he looks like that. And that's why he's selling that. But that doesn't mean that that's going to give you the results you want.

want just like me playing basketball isn't going to make me taller. Yeah, I get it a lot, I guess, with the strength, the strength training element. I've really said to you guys that I don't necessarily enjoy it, but I know it's good for me and I know it's good for my running, which is why I'd do it. Yeah. But because I've got quite a lot of lean muscle mass up a half, people assume when they look at me that I'm going to a gym three, four times a week and I'm a gym bro. Yeah.

And like, I'm not. So it helps, it helps me market like my business a lot more when I'm, when it comes to like strength coaching for runners 100%, but I'd be being a hypocrite if I don't say, look, I go to the gym like once, maybe sometimes twice a week. Yeah. You know, and like I think a lot of it is to do with genetics. It's, you know, where what you're doing day to day alongside the gym, alongside your training can play a part as well.

So I think that's really, I think that's a really interesting point in the fact that you've, you've mentioned the sort of photoshoots and stuff as well. Because who knows, isn't it? Who knows what their background is, their job. genetic basis. With someone, I remember I was talking to someone about this before and he was talking about like what most people will not tell you about elite level sport or a professional sport is a lot of it comes down to genetics.

People don't want to have that discussion. Like even in, even in regards to like injury prevention and stuff like that or like, because you know, some people are just, it seems like some people just have no look and they just constantly get injured and they never make it to the top level because of that versus some people you know they could go their whole career without getting injured and and obviously that's not to say that the people who are at the at the top level don't work extremely hard of course they do but i also think that if you're already genetically predisposed to a certain sport and you've got loads of reinforcement when you're younger how great you are at that sport makes it a lot easier to do that

day and work really hard at it. Yeah, I did think you were going to go down the coaching side. So like the, does your sport choose you or do you choose your sport in terms of what you prefer coaching? Ooh, that's a little bit even better question. What do you think? But that's, that's where I thought you were going. So I was getting my answer ready.

And I was like, well, what do you think with that? I think I know what you're going to say. But what do you think? Yeah. So I think for, if you want longevity in the industry or in any sort of coaching field, I think you almost, you have, there has to be a. balance of both, like Rob said, but I think longevity-wise, you have to choose what you enjoy. Like, I've been in it for 14 years, and I've, like, ducked and weave through so many different

avenues in fitness, and I stumbled on running, which I've been running my whole life, like, three years ago, and I haven't looked back since. Yeah. But there's still stuff I really prefer to do, and there's still stuff I don't enjoy to do. But also, there has to be an element of, okay, if that's going to make money and put food on my table on my kids table, I also have to maybe do that as well. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't think, I don't think it's one or the other. No. I think I'm sure there's plenty of people out there. I also think that you can stumble upon something that you didn't want and, and end up really enjoying it.

Do you know what I mean? I think it kind of, it reflect not just coaching, but if you went into finance and you ended up in this really difficult job in terms of like the pressure that's put on you, you could thrive off that or you could end up burning. And some people that go into finance, maybe then go into teaching or they'll go into coaching. And they'll be like, oh my God, why didn't I do this in the first place? Or they could love, it could go the other way around. They might go into PT work and thinking,

I'm going to have this route where I'm working with people, the qualifications to get into being a PT, don't require too much of a financial burden and things like that and going right not an easy route but you know what I mean like going into this job that is seen as an easy route in and actually really hating it and then going oh do you know what actually I thrive off the pressure of the finance work in London

I want to go and do the cocaine every weekend and all that sort of stuff like okay who are you talking to Jerr tell me you've never done drugs no they loved taking cocaine after work in London don't they

oh finance crowd man recruitment crowd yeah yeah finance bros love it man I never planned on coaching in a gym like I came back

you were gonna you were gonna you were gonna you were gonna coach rugby weren't you rugby like I was I was coaching ladies in Harvard

and I came back and I did did my what like 18 18 20 months in S&C so I just have an extra feather in my cap and I started

coaching in the gym just to make an extra bit of cash and then it kind of just I think it clicked to one client one day they were like you should just open up your own thing and literally they were like you can call it lifting and laughing and that's literally how lifting laugh fitness. Yeah yeah

so like yeah so like I had never planned on doing this and like I wouldn't have been my own boss I would have had multiple levels above me that I'd have to shoes and stuff like that And either way, I get to wear shorts, shorts and a teacher for a living. I kind of stumbled into what I'm doing as well.

I initially was going to do, wanted to do something in maths. And then I did engineering at uni because I was like, right, this is the route that's going to get me respect on my CV. And it's going to get me money. And I dropped, I did the course, but I didn't do any work after it. Did my teacher training, taught for a little bit. And like, psychology has always been the thing that I've enjoyed. And then I stumbled into PT work, worked in a gym. loved working with people while tutoring.

And only now am I kind of going, this is the job I actually want to do with this mental health stuff that I'm getting into. So, yeah, it's, I think you do need, like Matt said, for longevity, you need to pick it. Like, I picked tutoring because I thought that is a stable career path. And it was like, cool, yeah, let's make that work. And it picked me, kind of.

But actually, longevity-wise, it's not the right thing for me. like psychology is the industry that I'd want to be in. Matt, Matt, what demons got you into running coaching? Yeah, good question. It's just the fact that I've always loved running. Okay, so what demons got you into that? Who hurts you, Mass? Who hurt you?

A lot of trauma and realized that running helped keep it at bay or it helped being able to talk about it and stuff like that. It's always been like my safe haven. So I wanted to be able to, you know, for people to experience the same as what I got out of running because most people I work with come to me and they're like, I fucking despise running. How do you enjoy it? Like, how do you talk when you're running? You know, so I wanted to like almost people to get the same response as what I get for running. Well, question then. Okay, there's people listening to this

podcast now. They're training towards 10Ks, half Maradins, 5Ks. They need to get better at running. What's the biggest mistake you see people make when they get into running before they kind of start getting into coaching with you? Yes, I've been asked this loads. It's probably the most common question I get asked. Then it's just doing too much too soon, isn't it? And it would be the same in the gym. You know, people want to do everything and anything sometimes when they, when they first get in the gym. And it's the same of running. They want to be running. They want to be doing long runs. They want to be doing intervals. They want to be running with their mate. They want to be doing park run. They want to be doing a 10k with their friend on Sundays. So it's just literally doing too much

too soon and having friends on Strava. Do you think Strava's a net positive or a net negative for running? Oh, that's so hard. I'd say net positive because I've seen people that had it as a negative to start. I love a kudos. And now, and now they use it as a positive. But I think for beginners it is definitely a net negative for beginners it's a net negative why do you think so because if you've got other people on there which you're probably going to have friends on there you're going to be seeing their pace and if your pace is nowhere near theirs it's so disheartening it's like if someone was lift if you had you know two to one pt and you saw your mate lifting you know a 60 kg bench and then you're doing a 35 kg bench and it's the first time you've both

benched that's obviously on the coach to be like don't jump up differently, even though there's different strength levels, but I think it's demoralizing. I have a Strava for two years, and it's on private, and no one, no one's getting to look at it. Which is good. Yeah, my only pro is my swimming on it. Fuck my run. I haven't run since the start of June. Is Strava the new dating up, Matt? I mean, there's, there's correlation between people that give me kudos on Strava and slide into my DM, so. or like Love Heart a Story on Insta. So I mean, I can't, I can't, I can neither confirm or deny that.

It's the new way to date, isn't it? People don't want to use Tinder. They want to go for a long run on the weekend. It's also proof he's got endurance. Oh, that's the other side. This guy's actually fit. There's a difference between endurance and excitement there, isn't it? Like, you might have endurance, but if you get too excited, it doesn't really matter.

But also, if you're too fast, then they realize you can run away quickly. if you need to. That's true as all. If someone ever asked me out on a date for like a 5K and a coffee, I think I'd just be like, nah, fuck that. Would you not do it?

Would you not go for a run with someone? No, I think the only part, I've gone running with my brother twice. Yeah. But like I'm 130 kilos. My brother's bigger than me. They're fun runs. Because we just,

we chat and we go for a jog. We know our wheelhouse. It's slow, steady and keep going. Yeah, but that's the mistake that people, that's the thing that people should do but don't do, isn't it man? Yeah, yeah, like 100%. Everybody wants to run fast

and everybody enjoys running fast and fast as relative to everybody, right? But people don't start to enjoy it and almost run with a friend and run slower. People just... Do you think that it's easier for a beginner to hold their pace

if they're running on a treadmill in a gym versus outside because when they're running, running outside, they feel like people are looking at them so they end up going faster versus when you're on the treadmill, no one really knows your pace. Yeah, I'd say, it depends on the individual, but I'd say so if there's a level of anxiety there. If intervals, treadmill's always going to be better because there's more consistency there. But if you're talking about like an easy 5K, a lot of people that are beginners and maybe suffer with anxiety and body image and stuff,

you know, there's less happening usually on a treadmill. I had that for the half marathon. I was forced into going out at the same time as fucking Carl and I trained knowing exactly what fucking splits I needed to do at the start and we're, I think we go, I think we went out maybe 40 minutes ahead of what my time should have been and I think it was a, Anna was like watching my fucking tracking and she was like, you've done the fastest 10K and I was like, yes, at 13K I could feel it. I was fucking crying at 18 kilometers.

I was fucking done. Yeah, you got to go out at the right heat, don't you as well? Because you'll end up with the wrong paces. Says you're a man who was like, no, come up here and start with us. You'll start sooner. I just got, I just got impatient.

So I was like, come on, we're starting up here, Ger. Do you think, here's one for you, Matt. Is walking running? No. I fucking hate, I fucking hate walking. Okay. So what if someone's looking to get better at running, but every time they run,

run, they get shin splints or they get a stitch or they, you know, they can't maintain their pace. What, where is the, where is the line between, you know, I'm jogging really, really slow and I'm pace walking? Yeah, I, I don't, I haven't seen much pacewalk and I've worked, you know, with, with runners from like literally all abilities, people that will take four hours to do a half marathon, people that are doing in like just over an hour. So I mean, I've never seen walking. I would still class it as jogging

because without being too sciencey and the flex with the knee and stuff, right? Don't geek away, man. We're all geek there. Not today. I'm just glad he said four hours for the half marathon. You got to make it inclusive. Yeah, so I've never seen that.

Like, I've never seen like something I would define as like pace walking. It's always a jog. Yeah. I know where you're going with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so, right, the best way then to get better at running is to run more, I presume. So where's the sweet spot between someone running more and running too much and getting injured?

Yeah, the rule of thumb is no more than a 10% increase every week. And that's just a really good baseline. So my maths is awful, but say you start on 10K a week, you know, you're adding a kilometre or almost the week after, which might seem not a lot, but the amount of runners that get injured within the first two to three weeks of starting half marathon training is ridiculous. So I think that that's a really good rule of thumb to stick to.

And not only that, it's the intensity of the sessions. Like it would be in the gym, it's making sure that not every single session is like an eight, nine out of 10 RPE. You know, because your muscles and your body's adapting into probably something that's quite new. Running is so shock absorbent because it's impact and hips, knees, ankles, everything else.

I think you've just got to monitor the intensity as well and making sure you're not doing every single run at a 7-8 RPE, say, which I think is really common. What about race anxiety? Because I had a girl who was doing her first half, Marathon the other week over in Cluntarf in Dublin. And like even like a week, before she was saying, oh, I can't do this.

I've got injured and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She wasn't. It was just, it was all mental. It was all in her head. Do you find that way clients? Yeah, like I've got one at the moment, actually. We've got the Cardiff-half marathon now in October. So it's like, you know, 10 weeks away.

And I've got a client now that's struggling with the same thing. And my only advice to her is like, look, I still want you to enjoy the training. So if it's getting to the point where you're dreading every single run, then, you know, it might be time to be like, do you know what? Maybe now isn't the right time. But I think a lot of it stems from confidence, right? I think they've got confidence in their own ability. I've seen people not have confidence.

They'll do like a training run, you know, like a 14, 15K long run in the buildup to the half marathon. They'll be like, well, I can run 1415K so I can certainly run an extra 5K. Yeah, yeah. I think, so I think my answer is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah. No, I ran 14 men And I fully knew that extra Seven point whatever was going to be

Fucking miserable Yeah, but you showed up to the half-maritan Did you do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did do it Yeah, my physio was that I think I was fighting off Ripping my hamstring apart For the last six weeks before end as well

Did you find Jare when you were doing Your first half-marroning that Like them, them tots were creeping in Like, oh, maybe I can't do this Getting self-doubt And then feeling like you're getting injured Off the back of that I didn't have

I didn't really have the injury thing I thought it would get to a point where like I just couldn't do it like I took one I took one point where I was walking to like get a get a fucking gel into me because I thought I was going to throw up trying to trying to get it in

I was like this is the perfect time just slow it down for a second and get back to it yeah but even on the buildup to the race rather than the race itself like I was definitely definitely the maybe five five days a week beforehand

I was like, what have I done? Yes. It was like this was a terrible idea. I was like, I like it's, it's fucking 21K like. And I don't, I don't like,

I like when running's over. Like one of the lads laughed. He was like, the biggest joy of watching you running is that you go for a pint in the evening after it. And I was like, yeah, that's the biggest joy for me.

That was, that's why I was doing it. Like it was, I think 13K and, 18k were my were my hardest points pain zone yeah pains because like at 13k I was like right I've got around here before but you know what did you know what's my wheelhouse you know what the best way Matt you can dispute this if I'm incorrect but you know what the best way to um make a 21k

less donding dispute this match run 30k is that not true though so are you I remember my first half Marridden and I was like, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. I've never ran a half more, Marathon before. And like panic stations in my head. And then obviously I did it and then I did it again and then I did it again. And then I ran a 30 and then I ran a full. And now when I go to do a half, a half feels like a 10 for me. Does that make sense?

Yeah, but like a 10, a 10 now doesn't seem daunting. Exactly. Exactly. Sorry. Yeah, I should have. I do understand that. But like, even I was talking to a lady who just did the NAR channel there the other day. like that's a 35k swim as the crow flies.

I have to look at training for that as a 50k. Yeah. With currents and difference over that. So like that's, it's bad enough conditions wise and it being the most dangerous marathon swim. I am now looking at 50 kilometres of fucking sun. But that look, that's way less daunting to me than running a half marathon or a marathon.

Well, though a half marathon wouldn't be as daunting for you now, do you not think? No, I'd like to get like, John, at least maybe nine, ten weeks of training back before I'd go and do it. Like, I haven't, I need to get back into it. Like, I'm about two months now, not running, and I'll probably do this up.

I'd probably go out now and try to do a fight, not in this fucking ease. I'm waiting to this heat wave dies. Then I'll go back running. Matt, can I ask you a question? So, do remember when I was talking earlier about being real, like, rigid in terms of people's movement pattern with an RDL and almost,

if first being, it's not helpful, it doesn't need to be perfect in terms of how the RDRL looks and you're actually sucking the enjoyment out of it without actually having too many benefits because, like, you can still get away with it not looking perfect and still getting a lot of benefits out of the RDL. Is that the same in terms of, running like do you know the way people can be quite um rigid in terms of looking of looking at

how someone runs uh like their you know foot to ratio kind or foot to pass um how they're landing how they're striking and stuff like that um like is there a certain way to look when you're running or do you think that is overkill for people to worry about if they're if it's not causing them money injury. Well, exactly that. I think it's even more over pronounced and overcoached. It's overthought about is people say to me, I might be running the wrong way. Can you look at me and stuff? You know, coaching runners essentially for the last like 10 years, because I was still coaching people for half marathons and stuff back then. Yeah. I've never once changed anybody's running style because like people run in very different ways. Like you look at Paula Radcliffe, who's one of the

best distance runners of all time. She runs, like, so imperfect, but she's one of the best and most efficient, you know, long distance runners of all time. So I think people can overthink it so much, and they usually put it down to like, I'm getting injured because my running style is wrong. Nine times out of ten, it isn't because of the running style. It's to do with like their footwear, or it's to do with an imbalance, or it's to do with like sleep, you know, a million and one different things I'd look at before I would look at. running form. And I think us as adults as well, we've adapted and we've learned different things. It's a lot harder for us to change the way we do things, especially when it comes to running and

walking. Whereas if I was training like my own kids, for example, or a kid would come to me, you can, there's an element of that. You can tweak certain things in running. Because they haven't had as much experience doing one thing over and over again. Yeah. So you can, you can, You can you can coach good form when they're younger and that will, you know, lead on later in their life. But if someone's already running in a certain way, they're not getting injured and they're performing well. There's no need to change it. You can reinforce certain points. Like, you know, you need more of an arm swing when you're sprinting or when you're running up a hill or you lead to lift your knees higher.

But when it comes to like the degree of the angle of your knees and stuff, it's just overkill. Yeah. Is there a lot to be said for when you're running? Because sometimes I say it to myself in my head to keep my shoulders back and my chest up when I'm running. Sometimes I do be looking down at my phone. And I'm like I probably shouldn't be doing it. It doesn't help. Like I'm looking down like that.

Is it is that important then to like relax your shoulders, keep your chest up and like focusing on running in frontier rather than bad posture like that? Yeah. I think that's the most important thing is posture when you're running. I was talking to a client yesterday as I was running with them as our PT session and I was saying the best bit of advice I can give most people when they're running even like from 1K intervals

to like 10K 15 long runs is relax. Yeah. Because like people tend to run like this because we're quite tensed up, especially rugby blocs, Jeff. Because like we're constantly like... They're a lot. So it's like... They're very tense.

Very tense human beings. It's my friendship will carry for years. tense and tight. But yeah, no, I think people tend to tense up and you think about the pressure that's going on the neck, the lower back, you know, whilst you're running and creating loads of impact, that there's so much reason behind like relaxing when you run.

Yeah, have you ever see any of the pros when they're running the marathon? Even though they're running at like, what, 315 or something like that, they look relaxed when they're striding. You can't even see they're like the grimace on their face or anything. Everything is just so relaxed. It's wild. I think we're going to see when I'm walking out the door. Here, the most important question of the day,

why has running become so mainstream lately? And why are so many sexy people taking up running? Like myself. I want to make running taxi again. Like, I think that's going to be my new slogan is like, make running sexy again. It has got, it's very fashionable, though. Do you not think?

A sketchy acronym, though. M.R. you might know, you might want to tweet that. Do you not think, do you not think that running has gone really mainstream and a lot of like all the influencers are doing it now and it's gone very fashionable,

a lot of things are being, lots of, like I'd say garments and, you know, runners and everything else is. There's a new run club around here, man, nearly every fucking week.

Yeah, you should start one. Yeah, well mine, I do want to do a fun run where it's like an interval where you run one kilometre to another pub have a drink and then run another kilometre have another drink

and just do that. What's the meme of it is it the Globetrotters or something it's that that film and the lads of the gym and they all are wearing the same clothes and they come in like doing a dancing list. Oh Dodgeball. Dodgeball, sorry, dodge ball, yeah, yeah.

And they all the new run club in town or something that'd be the run club for me man. Like we all just like do a pub cross. We run from pub to pub. It's like Neve, Neve and fucking Florence,

uh, registering a Strava logging from fucking Tom and Park into the pub and yeah, yeah, she ran home, she ran home drunk and said it, yeah, yeah. So what,

have you noticed that Matt that it's gone mainstream? Yeah, I think COVID definitely kicked it off. Everybody in their fucking dog was doing like, what, five of a 5K and shit, one that? Um,

so I think everybody was getting on board from COVID and it's just kind of, it's just gone more mainstream from there because if you think about brands obviously picked up on it usually before anybody else so then brands were pumping more marketing into running all of a sudden there's more running on our feed isn't there?

They're reaching out to more influences who also run so then our feeds are just getting diluted by more running stuff so then everything looks cooler when people actually start running they think okay this isn't as cool because I don't feel very good at it

I'd love to say it's developed more because of people clicking on and figuring out like the feeling they get from running whether that's like social connection through a run club or whether that's, you know, going through a hard time and feeling like the endorphins plus fresh air does something to them more than walking because they're sweating as well. I'd love to say that's the reason. It's a big lie. It's a big lie. But I do think it is almost because it is more mainstream because it looks fashionable, it looks cool. Some people are probably in it for the wrong reasons of going to run clubs, hoping to find a partner and stuff like that. But it could be anything, couldn't it?

Do you think that social media and the mixture of Strava and social media has created a lot of validation online for people who are outrunnel? Because you can see now that it also is almost. almost creating like even people who are already maybe good at running, but everyone seems to be kind of trying to outdo the next person. Like every second time I scroll on my phone, someone's after running 300 kilometers. I saw one.

I saw one yesterday. There was a girl going around Ireland. John where it has on Strava, like your best efforts. Yeah. And like there's a list of people who've done it. She, her plan is to go around and beat every man that has done it.

Yeah. Wherever she's going, like John, I'm like, All right, cool. So it seems like the bar is continuing to be elevated. And I wonder, is that because of social media? And it's like the more extreme you're running,

the more engagement you get. And then it becomes a validation thing. Yeah, I mean, don't get me started on like these challenges people are doing. Like when they're fucking running like 100 kilometers and you know, stuff like that around the track and everybody seems to be jumping on the bandwagon of like running around the UK and stuff. that's like a different topic altogether and I think if they're doing it for the right reasons

amazing but it seems like they're trying to outdo each other with like the craziest feet and it's like why you know like that to me screams validation but what I was what I was also going to say which I've completely lost what I was gonna oh yeah I think the biggest kicker in the last three years has been high rocks yeah so like high rocks is like amplified running in a nutshell

because people realize that high rocks is 8K amongst loads of stations. So then the coolest high rocks clips are usually like gym based. So people then realize when they do a high rock, so there's a lot of running involved. So they're running more. So I think high rocks has played a part in the last couple of years like 100%. Well, that's also then then comes down to the validation of, oh, I'm doing a high rocks.

And now I can get a picture with me with my top off. and I can look shredded and I can share that and then I can get all the the likes and the clicks as well and that also reinforces the idea to do that for certain people. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob, are you ever going to go running? You did. I'm tempted to. I did for a month. Yeah, I did. I've done it since then. I don't know if I have. I did like a fundraising month.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, basically like for fundraising. to support families that have lost kids. And that was like at least, I think it was supposed to be 25K over the month. I can't remember how far it was. But that was just running every day of the month. But I think I went too hard too quick with it.

I've just done a 5K great, started trying to do it again, felt a little bit injured, didn't want to miss a day. So I ran the day after, didn't like rest and stuff. And just it started feeling really difficult because of that I should have started

maybe doing like the bare minimum first day, try the same again and just gradually build it up instead. Yeah, my ego got in the way with that. It was tough. Did you find that after you stopped playing sport, it was difficult to continue pursuing cardio? Possibly.

I was less interested in it. But then when I moved, I don't know how long ago it was, maybe like nine years ago when I moved down to Cornwall, One of the things I wanted to do to become more sociable was find a gym that did a load of good gym classes. Because that social aspect to it meant a lot to me. And it meant, like Matt was saying, you turn up, you don't have to think about what the program is.

You just do as you're told. And for someone who's kind of feels relatively confident with the movements, relatively fit but wants to get fitter. But mainly there to kind of interact with other people, that was, yeah, classes with the ideal. set up for that. So short answer, yes, it was difficult, but I found I was lucky to find gym classes. Okay, last question is for Jared. Ger, do you now love running or not? No, I still hate running, but I have a question for Matt. Okay, go on. I was like, how, so you said you want to make running sexy again. What about making running unhealthy but healthy? How would you train someone to run a marathon where you're going to drink at least two and a half

liters of wine throughout it. They've got to be good with a hangover because I'm fine. That's fine. That's possible. I'm going to ask them to do a run on a Sunday when they've had a few beers or some wine the day before. But I'm sure we all speak about alcohol a lot. I like a drink as well.

So I'm never going to be the coach to say that you have to cow booze because I wouldn't. Matt likes a drink so much that he missed his fly home from the London. Was that the drink? Yeah? Anyway. That was careful. But I don't, do you know the one over in Bordeaux? It's Marathon Dumaadok?

I've seen that, yeah. Looks what, like, to me, it's the wine one, isn't it? He's a disgrace, man. We shouldn't, you should, you should exercise and then drink, not exercise while you're talking. You're just an amateur, man. That's like, this is an event I could do well in. You know what that's, you're jealous that I'll survive and you just won't be

a gremlin in a bush somewhere. You're trying to do that exercise combination that doesn't work. It's like just do your squat and then do your overhead press. You know what I mean? I disagree. We should always pair one thing we like with something we don't like. Yeah, very hard. I have thought

about the BMIL though. I think like what you said earlier there's you got the milk mile which I want to do which is like a track session. You have like a pint of milk every lap. Oh, that sounds terrible. That sounds rough. And then you've also got the B. A mile. So you have like a pint. Then you'd do a lap of the track and basically keep going around for like, I can't know what it is,

maybe like, I don't know, like 8K or something like that. I just, I love that stuff, you know. Well, you should definitely do the AK beer challenge. I don't know about the milk. The milk one will go wrong and I do it probably closer to winter. Yeah, I'd come over to you guys and do that maybe. So then you guys can take the hit and not me. I can just piss off back to Wales.

All right. We'll leave it there. And we've concluded that England, did not deserve to win the World Cup. We have sympathy for Robert. Do we all agree on that? Yeah. Okay.

I have sympathy, yeah. For Rob, not England. Yeah. My pleasure, as always, my brother. Thank you very much for showing up. Adios. Appreciate it, lads. Remind me on, boys.

Nice one.