The Uneducated PT Podcast - Episode 137: Fuelled by More Than Weight Loss – Panel with Rick, Matt, Clodagh & Ian

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

What if your biggest fitness breakthrough had nothing to do with the scales? In this powerful panel discussion, we’re joined by Rick, Matt, Clodagh, and Ian to explore what truly fuels long-term fitness — performance, purpose, and sustainable habits beyond just weight loss. From cardio myths to endurance training, injury setbacks to daily performance rituals, this conversation dives into the realities of training for life, not just aesthetics. In this episode, we discuss: The truth behind the debate: Does cardio really kill gains? Performance vs aesthetics — why performance-focused goals often lead to better long-term results Top tips for getting into running, Hyrox, Tryka, or endurance-based goals while staying injury-free How to stay motivated through injury and setbacks, with real coaching and personal experience The key exercises and daily habits these coaches rely on to perform their best — in competition and in everyday life We wrap up with a rapid-fire Audience Q&A, answering real questions from people working toward their own fitness goals. Whether you’re training for your first race, coming back from injury, or shifting your focus from weight loss to performance, this episode will leave you inspired, informed, and ready to train with purpose.

A big round of applause for our running panel, running on injury preventants. Can we start by just introducing yourselves, say a little bit about how you got into the industry, what you do, all that stuff? Cool. How's it going? My name is Ian Malfi. I kind of gradually got into coaching, started doing kind of mixed martial arts about 18 and 19, and just was all in on that for a few years. Slowly started to kind of coach some young kids and stuff and the younger guys in the club, cornering guys and stuff. and so kind of simultaneously you got an appreciation for coaching people alongside seeing the benefits of strength training

for performance so a lot of my mates would have been kind of in the gym and then they kind of came down to like wrestling sessions and jihitsu sessions and just picked things up quite quickly because they were strong and I was like okay there's probably something in this so slowly kind of started to dip my toe into strength training kind of mid-20s

and then that kind of just took over kind of left MMA and did a PT course and slowly got into coaching and now myself and my partner run a gym around the corner that's it, that's it, thank you. There you go. It teaches me how to do I'm Shannon.

How's it going? I'm Rick Nally. So my journey is actually something similar to something Killian mentioned earlier of I was the classic, very scrawny, very athletic kid and I just love to play every sport and I sucked at every single one of them I tried.

I got to college and I found running and that sounds crazy, but I just didn't know running was a sport you could do and compete in. It just wasn't in my world. So it coincided me with doing a degree in sports science. So I kind of used that as a way to understand training more effectively. I got really into the running. At the end of that sports science degree, I was not ready to face the real world.

So I discovered in this kind of, again, journey of things outside of my world that the NCAA was a thing. So I went out with the States, do a master's degree in exercise science, and ran over there as well. did not go well talk about that maybe when we get to injuries and things like that there's a lot to discuss there but what I do say for that

is it really shaped how I coach now because my ethos is really around running shouldn't just be about how many miles can I run how lean can I be how fast can I run

I was on that kind of trajectory because I was trying to be the best possible runner but now that I'm not competing at the same level I've found a lot more joy in running by also including other things, strength training,

different training modalities. And it's actually made me just, A, probably a better runner, be a much healthier and happier humans. So that's kind of the approach I like to take with my training when working with clients. There's more to life than just being the very best at one thing. And I suppose that's why I'm on the hybrid wanker panel. Oh, I have this one here, yeah.

Excuse my voice if it's a bit shaking. I'm quite nervous. But anyways, my name's Clodagh, and I started in the gym when I was about, 15, 16 years old, boot camps, circuit classes, things like that with my sister. Then I got into CrossFit, Olympic lifting, did that for about two years. Then strength training. I've done power lifting. I've done strong man. I'm starting to do, well, I am doing high rocks. So I really have like a mix of a background. What is it? Jack of all trades, but master at none. That is me. I'm

subpar at every sport probably. Um, but, but, uh, that's a definition. That is why I was so happy when I saw a hybrid wanker panel, I was like, yes, that is me. Run slow with slime. And tell everyone. But yeah, so I'm also an online coach, and I love to just teach people how to enjoy training because I always saw it as something as how do I lose weight, how to get thinner, and just the negative side of things. And then I start just teaching them, guys, it's literally about having fun, like you're improving

your health. It's not just how good can I look in a dress for Christmas or for my birthday. It's how good can I feel, how much weight can I lift, how far can I run, how much can I push myself? Because that's how I feel my journey went. And that's what I try to teach my client. On a hybrid banker panel. Yeah, I'm not from here. I'm from South Wales.

I'm at. I've been the fitness industry for about 13 years. Started off through football coaching. Most of you guys will probably know that as soccer. I found out this morning. So yeah, I started off through football coaching, did that for 10 years, started very, very young into coaching, and then that sort of brought me into the coaching aspect, did my PT qualification, obviously quite a while ago now. And then background-wise, I started off in strength and conditioning, so that's what my background has been in, coaching general population to get stronger, healthier, fitter in general. four years ago, I kind of niched into the sort of running space just because I love running.

That was the main reason. There wasn't any other sciencey reason, sorry. It's just the fact that it was a passion. I thought if I can combine my passion for running and my experience with strength and conditioning, I can kind of combine both, which is basically what my business is now. It's strength and conditioning for runners. Very much the same way as what Rick just said as well. My sort of background in running was performance-based.

I went into the Royal Marines. Everything had to be a certain time. Everything had to be a certain pace. And now I try and get my clients to essentially think about running as the opposite. Think about it more as a feeling. Yes, I coach people for events, high rocks, sort of races and stuff like that. So there is an element to that. But when you're training for a race and very much of the mindset that sounds cheesy

and you guys have heard it, I'm sure a lot, and you probably will today, but to enjoy the process. Because at the end of the day, if you're not enjoying the process, you're not going to get out there the next day or you're not going to get into the gym the next day as well. Does cardio kill games discuss? Yes, if you don't eat properly and if you're being a fool about it. It's like running a car. You can't expect to get from Limerick to Dublin

if you only fill it up by a tenor. You need to fill it up fully so that you can get there safely on time and not ruin your body or the car. Yeah, 100% agree with that. There's a real shift, and this is something I love about the kind of hybrid movement, the idea that you can only do one thing and be very good at that, and it's the only thing worth chasing. And kind of reflecting on the previous panel who are talking about gen pop,

like most of us here are going to be talking about gen pop, because there aren't that many elite athletes in the world. And yet we all are training and aspiring as if that is what we are aiming for. but the reality is most of us just want to be a little bit fitter, a little bit healthier, feel good, like how we look, all these things. And you don't have to be the best at one thing. You can be a little bit shit at everything. So therefore, it's true, doing one thing without any focus on anything else is going

to negatively impact other things, but that's just a reality of life. Whereas if you are taking a mindset and approach of, I would like to get better in multiple areas and you are taking a considered approach, making sure that you're not, you know, you're eating, you're sleeping, you're training in a way that reflects that, cardio does not kill gains. Having a poor outlook or singular training focus kills gains. Yeah, the way I'd kind of look at it is everything interferes with everything, in a sense. So like the guys said a minute ago, potentially three training sessions a week could be better than four or five training sessions a week. So it's the same with conditioning versus strength and strength versus skill and all that kind

of stuff. Like I kind of mentioned skill there, but the way I kind of like to look at training is it's all skill-based stuff. So you have to look at it in ways that like what can I or how much work do I need to do to get better at something. And it's not always the case that you need to do more to get better at something. If you're starting to combine goals, if you're trying to start to combine strength with endurance, with skill-based stuff, the way I like to look at it is like, let's kind of start off with a manageable amount and try to build momentum in that. And it's a case of if you're feeling good and if you can manage the workload and you're making progress, like, shit's working. Keep doing that. And if you have a coach, it's like continuous

conversations. I'd only kind of change that, like, the logistics of the week or the logistics of your program, if any of those things change. So if you're not having fun anymore, if you're progress stops if you're feeling really bad. So yeah, I think everything interferes or everything, it's just about finding a good starting point and build the momentum from there. Yeah, I think the guys have covered pretty much everything that I was going to cover. I wouldn't really add much. All I would say is we've spoken about it already today on about the sort of recovery side of it.

I think if we're recovering efficiently, I'm quite lucky genetically that I've never been small in a way and I like food. So even though I'm running, sort of 40, 50K a week, I still manage to keep, I still manage to keep some muscle mass, not based around the fact that I'm in the gym four or five times a week because I'm not. I strength train specifically once, maybe twice a week every week. The rest is conditioning and running based. The way I keep muscle mass is through recovery, it's through nutrition and through eating enough

protein. Can I jump in there on that? Just interestingly, exact opposite. Small, scrawny, worked very hard. to be slightly less small scrawny now in my life. So it's just another thing that I love about the idea of the hybrid movement is it does recognise as a lot of different paths to the same place. So having someone who naturally is large, thanks for rubbing that in, good for you.

I suppose my end, I always found kind of cardio and running and keep my weight down very easy. But we're moving in kind of similar directions, but we're taking very different approaches. And again, it comes down to that idea, do I have, one single focus, am I sacrificing everything to do that? Or am I willing to accept there's multiple routes to get to where I want to go and which is the one that is going to suit me best and to really hammer home? Something said a lot in the first panel, do I enjoy it? Because if I enjoy it, I'm going to keep showing up.

And if I keep doing that, I will eventually make progress. So most people in this room will probably want to do a little bit of strength training. They want to get stronger. They do probably want to get fitter as well. They might want to run their first 5K, 10K, maybe their first hybrid event. How do they make sure that they do that the right way and that they don't get injured or go backwards with their training? Don't use run a. That's all you need.

So it's a big question. It's complex and there's a lot to that. Working with a coach is obviously a huge step forward in the right direction because when you have multiple goals, it becomes more complex. As I said, there's a lot of interference. between different elements within this. So someone who can set you in the right direction of having a clear target first and foremost, realistic expectations,

and basically stop you from doing dumb stuff. And I say this as a coach who has a coach, because if I'm left to my own devices, I will do dumb stuff. What does dumb stuff look like? Oh, God, we have time. You can, you know, basically, you will generally always do things

that you wouldn't recommend others do. If you were trying to advise a friend on how to lose weight, you probably wouldn't tell them to cut out all their food and do a juice cleanse. But man, I can do that. I'm special. Same idea with running. You wouldn't just double your running overnight and sign

up for a marathon three weeks beforehand. But... Yeah. That wasn't... In fairness, I think Carl had a good eight week. Carl was really on it. And he did pretty well, in fairness. But it's about having a clear plan, ideally having someone to work with that can keep you in check and accountable.

And then taking a slow and long-term view is key. Because if you want to do lots of things, it's more complex. And because there's interference within them, it's going to be a slower process. So I cannot get jacked, lift heavy, run fast, do high rocks, etc., simultaneously without them interfering with each other. So there needs to be a bit of a realistic expectation and a timeline that makes sense. Yeah, I think to almost counter that and sort of bounce off the back of it as well, I think most people in this room can attest to this as well. but I think when most people look at doing sort of races and events, they're probably going to book it eight to 12 weeks in advance.

That's what a lot of my clients tend to do. They're like, by the way, Matt, I've got a half marathon in two weeks. I'm like, thanks. We kind of slightly need to adjust the programming. So I think it's being aware of if you are looking to hit an event in eight weeks, it's like, okay, what can I do in this next eight weeks that's going to set me up to feel confident and ready on that start line, are not burn out, and that is very much similar to what these guys have spoken about already.

It's making sure we're not trying to do everything at once. And again, that's where your recovery really plays into it as well, I think. Yes, the programming is important. Yes, it's important to get out probably two, three times a week, every week to running. But it's also important to manage the volume around what you're doing alongside the running, and it's important to manage your recovery, even more so if you're giving yourself, a bit of a shorter window. Can you just talk about, sorry, go ahead, Dave.

Yeah, like, just to kind of piggyback off your point there. It goes back to the benefit of having a coach stuff. I feel like I'm kind of just advertising everybody's service here. That's what we're here for, right? No, yeah. But there's kind of two things that you mentioned there. It's like an event that's coming up soon, and then the opposite of that is like just giving yourself the capacity

to be able to do an event. So it's kind of like bottom up versus top down. And the conversation just has to be around, there's no optimal way to be like, I'm going to do this, this and this, and then I'm not going to get injured. It's just not how it works. So the conversation then becomes, all right, if you want to do this thing in eight weeks time and you currently haven't got the capacity to do it, the risk of hurting yourself or something along those lines is higher than if you're to just train to get that capacity to do it without any kind of imminent timeline. and because the mindset changes around it like if you have eight weeks to do something like you've never done before all of a sudden the kind of auto regulation side of training

I'm not feeling too good today I'm going to pull back a little bit it kind of gets pushed to the side a bit more if you're like well I have to hit these numbers and otherwise I'm not going to be able to complete this race and that's just a conversation that you have to have with yourself and with your coach and I think probably the best way to go about it is trying to look at training more in terms of a long term thing. So this is going to sound a bit mad to someone who's quite new to training but

something I kind of did it myself a couple of years ago was like what do I want to be able to do at 40 that I can't do now or like what's 10 years down the line look like? And it is that all cliche of people drastically underestimate what they can do in 10 years but they

drastically overestimate what they can do in six weeks and once you kind of draw that picture of like right in 10 years time I want to beat this and it could be kind of vague goals but then he can start to kind of bring it back and right what's the building blocks to get to that point and the idea like what we try to do with our clients down the gym and stuff is just give them a wide base of whether it's endurance strength a little bit of skills that at any one time they're like a few weeks away from entering into a training block that's more top-down orientated and I'm going to

train towards this race um but yeah I think there's trade-offs to both of them and it's like do we want to build the capacity to do the thing or don't want to like train specifically and do this in a short period of time and there's yeah just a conversation around that I want to talk about injuries but before I do that just a while I have it in my head do you think that because running has become very mainstream that people's accomplishments like get running your first 5k or running your first 10k it's it's it's almost being watered down that people don't understand that's the inflation yeah I will do you know okay so I was going to So mine just being bitter.

I used to run competitively. And when I ran competitively about 10 years ago, no one cared. So I'm quite upset by this that like I would have been able to say some impressive stuff back when I was fast, not anymore. But yeah, I think that's huge. And it's still so mad to me the way the marathon has just become this. It's kind of an arbitrary thing now. It's not even meant to be a big achievement. And it's great in a sense because obviously I love running.

I think a lot of people should be doing it. It's very good. It's very accessible. But the inflation of nothing is really cool enough anymore. And I was actually chatting about this with a friend, a mentor very recently. The inflation, when I was running, if someone did a 100K race, they were a psychopath. And now it's 200K, 200 miles. It just keeps going.

So one of the biggest issues I have with new people coming on and quick, I got a little question, If you've seen, if you follow my social media and you've seen this, don't answer. How long should you train for a marathon? Someone be brave. Every three weeks. No possible. Wait, you guys are training them. So, most people say something along the lines of like a 12 to 16 week block for a marathon prep.

And I would actually say if it's your first marathon, it's probably going to take at least a year. Because there's these milestones along the way. And that's not to say that those ones along the way aren't important, but if you have this, what is a pretty lofty goal, there's a lot of steps to get there along the way. And also, the marathon is not the be-all and end-all. I hate running the marathon. I was like mid-distance guy on the track. I liked running 1,500. So three minutes and I'm done. And there's plenty of great stuff. serious exaggeration in that case well that would be a world record so no exaggeration but just there isn't a level because someone's done 200k it doesn't mean you can't do a 5k and love it and get really good enjoyment and progress from that there is no standard you have to reach enjoy any step of it maybe you do more and along the way up you're like this is great I'm in loving this. You find that the 5K leads the 10K leads the marathon. Maybe you get to 5k and you're

like, this is lovely. I'm really enjoying this. There's nowhere you have to get as always. And something I say to all my clients, we're not elite athletes. Are you enjoying it? At the end of the day, that's the only really thing that matters because there's no paycheck. Do something you enjoy. How many people here run? Is there anyone here who wants to start running? Hands up if you want to start running. So I've only been running a year and a half, which might sound like a lot, but in like, in the grand scheme of things, it's literally like baby steps. So I remember when I started running, it was to do darkness into light 5K,

and I was like, not a chance I'd be ever able to do a 5K, even though in lockdown apparently 5K was just every day you do that. I did that once, couldn't finish it, said I'd never run again. But then because it was for charity, I was like, okay, I'll do this. And I remember when I completed my first ever 5K, I genuinely thought I was the best person on earth. I was like, look at me around 5K, even though it took me like 40 minutes to do it, which there's nothing wrong with that. I was so proud of myself. Whereas now, I like, I went for a run yesterday.

I did 6K and I was like, oh, that was so, that was nothing. That was literally nothing. I do, like, I did a half a marathon, so anything short of like a half a marathon, I'm like, just to run. whereas me a year and a half ago you did a half marathon what are you talking about you you choose a sport where you run like over 8K on purpose is

crazy so don't let like I always look at Lucy Davis because she's fucking class but like she runs four minute paces I barely break the six minute paces I'm like I want to be her I want to be her like there's no way I could get to that in the next few weeks months even years

and then I won't let that like take away from me either. I have to like pull myself back, like, she's literally elite athlete. She's getting paid to do this. This is her life. I am literally just a girl who has pink hair goes to work, coaches people, and does my little 6K here, my little this and that there. And like, that is enough as well. You don't need to be doing 5Ks every day. You don't need to be doing half marathons every month. It's about being better than the day before and being proud that you're actually able to do it because running is hard. Fun fact, it's not meant to be easy, even if you ask elite athletes, even like yourself, if you were to ask you,

how hard is the 1500 meters? You're like, Jesus Christ, is so hard. And you've been doing it how many years? Well, not anymore. But yeah, yeah, it never gets easy. That's another really big thing for I think for everyone in general. Can you also talk about the tradeoffs of going for the being the like one percent and two percent the like being at that extreme level and trying to be delusi Davis or who else rather than just go now and wanting to do a five day and be content at whatever time? Sure. But first off, I think that's a generous comparison, put me in that category, but I appreciate it. It's something that the guy is alluded to in the previous panel and like everything has a trade-off. And it's something I said

earlier, the idea that if you are going to go after one element of fitness or sport to the maximum extent, you are going to lose other areas. But we were just talking about it from a fitness perspective. The reality is it's you're going to make trade-offs in all of your life. I did this when I was in college. I ran competitive for about six years. And when I was doing that, I woke up at 7 a.m. I went down to UCD where I was studying. I'd swim for an hour. I'd bring my packed lunch and go to my lectures. I'd go run for an hour in the evening. I'd go to the gym. I'd go home at about 9 o'clock. So I'd train two to three times a day. I did that every day for about six years. And I was really lucky that I have a girlfriend who's very patient. somehow put up with it but honestly I did not have a huge amount else going on in my life I loved it I enjoyed it and running gave me a lot so I was very thankful for that and it worked out very well but the reality is I didn't go out I didn't party I didn't have much other

socialising without runners everything in my life was orientated around that which again if that's what you want that's awesome but there's the reality of I did that while I was in college, I did it for a little while while I was in the working world and the difference of difficulty was huge. And then it just wasn't worth the trade off to me anymore because my life was literally stagnant. I was trying to make progress in running, but my career was going nowhere. I was tired and sore and exhausted all the time. I wasn't really meeting new people or doing new things. So again, coming back to that idea, and I know I'm going to keep saying it, but it's so boring, but it's just so important to try and internalize that idea that being an elite athlete

is not what most people actually want. You want to be healthier, happier, and maybe get a little bit better, whatever you're doing. If you can achieve that, it's probably going to fit into your life a lot better and be a lot more rewarding. We need to move on to injuries before we do a Q&A. So, Ian, I'll start with you. How can people stay motivated and not get frustrated when they get injuries and you know they've been making progress with their training and now they're pulled back two or three steps and maybe talk about your own experience as well um yeah i think kind of on the topic of hybrid training or concurrent training as well like i think having a few different things going on at any one time helps um that's kind of what led me i was like very strength-based

like after m-ma it was like kind of went through a PT course that was like very powerlifting and just went down that rabble hole of powerlifting didn't compete around but that was just style of training for a good two, three years, and then had a very bad injury, couldn't train for like 18 months, and then even kind of like the entry point into it, basically an artery in my brain imploded. So it was like 18 months of like excruciating headaches and stuff. Any kind of movement was tough. So any kind of like, especially like lifting weights and stuff, it was like trigger kind of pain back again. So it was a very gradual. process to get back into strength training and it was like two steps forward one step back

for a long time and I'm kind of in that process and just hopped on a row machine hopped on the air bike and just kind of was like okay I can do this and like all the while doctors were like you shouldn't be doing this but it's that thing of well if it can do the air bike for an hour I can probably walk around the block with 10 kilo kettle belts I think about started high rocks actually and never I think of it and that was my training for like a year it was like it was like wrong machine kettlebells around the block wrong machine kettlebells around the block and then um so that's obviously an extreme example but like it was just like all right what is what can I do right now and and in that extreme

example I had to kind of just reevaluate every single week because that would change week to week to week it's like what is my current situation and what can I do let's do that because I'm saying in respect to we might have someone who has an injury they might go over on their ankle they might do something to their hamstring whatever it is and then the mindset might be um all right well i can't train now so i'm just going to stay at home yeah so do you think that doing something over nothing is always yeah like it's always gone like i ruined this wrist back in july and it's still giving me trouble like you don't you never figure it out it's not like oh i've went through this bad injury i figured i have to get over it so then like all injuries become easy to get over it

And it's going to be constant trial and error. But even if you look at it from a health perspective, like being more healthy increases your chances of getting over an injury. So if you have a back injury or a hip injury or knee injury, it's like, is there any kind of endurance stuff that you can do while you can't strength, train? Or like this wrist is like one part of my arm. I can still use this arm.

I can still use my legs. I can still like swim and stuff. So I just kind of flip it and look at like, right, can I do? Usually, from my own experience, usually what prevents an injury from getting better faster is trying to get it better faster. So trying to like rush the process. I'm terrible for it. Like this should not be going on three months. I just keep training. And yeah. You're on the other extreme. I'm doing every day. Yeah, like I always like to kind of like save a client, gets hurt. It's the old thing of like, do what I say, not as I do. Is that the same?

But like, my general process is if a client gets like a bit of a niggle, whether it's outside or inside the gym, it's like, all right, lightly poke at it. Like, let's kind of figure out, like, what's the triggers? Is it flexion, is it extension, rotation? Like, what is the triggers here? And then if there's nothing, then it's like, right, is it a load thing? Can we put some load on it? How much low can we put on it? Is it a rep range thing? And just try to draw a picture of like, this is what I can do, this is what I can't do. And let's work within what you can do for a couple of weeks.

So sometimes it's not even avoiding the movement but focusing on the amount of load that you can go through that movement. Like, without sounding too dumb about it, it's like don't piss it off for a couple of weeks. And then if after a couple of weeks, like nothing has changed, I'll generally just refer out.

Like, have a couple of good physios that we know. It's like, all right, go chat to the lads. they'll kind of fill us in but rarely rarely is complete rest the best thing I never real it out like in hindsight I went to see a specialist they were like you should have just rested

for like a month as in like rested this three inches of my body like but but isn't that usually the general advice because it's better for them to it's more saving for them to tell you to rest

than say oh just do a little bit you'll be all right that was the so going back to the kind of head injury when I went, going to see the consultants, they were obviously covering their ass, which they're going to have to cover their ass. So they're like, we don't recommend you lift weights. And then being the annoying fuck that I probably was,

I was like, oh, like, completely understand. I get you. But I was like, I'm just wondering, I have a nephew, he's three years old, like babysitting all the time. Like, can I pick him up? And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So I was like, all right,

what's the difference between him and the kettlebell? and then he was like ugh and so I was like well if I can lift 10 kilos you know 10 different 10 kilos is different to me than it is to you

so like what is the stimulus I'm trying to avoid as opposed to just arbitrary don't lift weights and so he was kind of like right off the record he was like avoid Val Salva avoid exert yourself too much and

and yeah just that the kind of guidelines then Danny has have any experience with injuries such as you want to do? Yeah so I think the physical side of it is essentially exactly that I couldn't agree more with what you said especially about it's finding something that you can do

that gives you a very similar stimulus and response without pissing something off I think what isn't spoken about enough in my experience and from my own experience of being injured in regards to injury prevention is almost just the mental side of it

like getting an injury sucks if you can't do something that you have been doing and that you enjoy doing for me it's running so when I fractured my ankle probably five or six times what's the one thing that I can't do it's go for a run so that is really annoying really frustrating so I think to give you guys an example if you enjoy fitness classes for example and then you get an injury that means you can't do fitness classes you're probably not just relying on that fitness class for a fitness aspect. You might be focusing on it or relying on it as a sort of social element as well. So it's understanding, understanding you why, understanding why you do that class and trying to almost find something that gives you a similar response in terms of mentally, because I think

as you've said as well, getting over injuries and almost trying not to get injured is very much a mindset as well. Easier said than done, like I haven't fractured my ankle a few. few times just from not thinking about it. It's happened. But I think if we're in a better place mentally and we can understand the alternatives, it's going to save you from getting frustrated when you do get injured, which is a huge part of it. Does anyone have any questions? One or two and then we'll move on. If you don't, that's absolutely fine. Go throw one more bit at the end of that real quick. Just I think that's really nice covering the kind of like practicality side, the emotional side. And the last thing I'd probably

touch on for that in terms of injury is the most. motivational side, and it's just coming back, having a clear goal is great, having a deeper understanding of why you want to achieve that goal is more important again because I want to run a marathon. I want to run a marathon because I want to move my body, feel good, and I enjoy the thought of becoming a healthier person. So if I get injured, I am going to not have my entire idea of the identity I've created just wiped away. If you have a deeper understanding of not just the goal, but why it's important to you, it becomes much easier then to kind of find alternatives. Because if I can't run and I only thought about thinking myself as running the

marathon, I'm probably going to stop. Whereas if I still think, okay, I can not run this marathon right now, but I'm going to take some steps towards being healthier. I will put more work towards my diet. I might do some cross-training. I think it's just an important factor that underlines everything that guys said here. I think it's also about putting yourself in a good position that when the injuries heal like almost like, sorry, I think... That's from my YouTube. The way I look at it now, like, I am, I get injured fucking annually.

Like, something happens every year and I'm like a child in a gym, like it's just, I've kind to come to learn things, like I'll try myself for a while and then I'm like, right, I'm getting carried away. I'm going to hire a coach for a couple of years. And that's just a tendency that I've become aware of, so I need someone to put a leash on me. And that's what she said. But I think the way I kind of look at it now, the best way to look at it, like, everybody gets injured. There's going to be ups and downs and training. But if you just stopped every time you get injured, like you'd be fucking nowhere so yet the way I look at it is like right what can I do in this meantime to put myself in a good position that when this heals I'm still my legs are still strong

I'm still fit and I can kind of get back into it and because like you don't lose your gains you know what I mean like your body learns how to train like you'll pick things up fairly fast so just leave yourself in a good position and also do your rehab okay go to physio find out what the problem is don't be humming at home because you're just going to waste time it's going to get worse it get better. Do your rehab. I'm talking to myself here. Realistically, nobody does their rehab. But it's what helps. Well, what I was going to say? Do you think they're better off if they do

get injured to maybe even do their rehab in the gym? Because it keeps them consistent. Absolutely. Realistically, are you going to do it at home and a place you associate rest? No. No. Maybe sometimes if it's like piss and rain and you don't want to leave. Just when I told them later that if you get injured, you'll have to come to the gym. Well, just to legitimize that blatant coaching plug, just it's about what the guys talked about in the first panel, the consistency and routine.

Keep doing something if there's something you can do. And if that means you can come in and just foam roll and stretch for a bit, it's a lot better than nothing. The biggest difference from my experience between people who achieve good results over the long term and those who don't is just they keep. showing up and it's exactly as Ian said you can always do something and you know when we're on the team of the States there are guys who are you know running at a high level very injurious sport you get a lot of things like stress fractures and repeated movement injuries but you still had to go to training every day there would be a guy who come with us to go into the team briefing and then we'd all get in the bus and go to the trails and he'd go off to the rec center but they showed up

every day because that's what the team did and if you're on the team you kept Yeah. Big round of applause for our Howard and thank you. I'll get a time. I got told me to mark for two minutes. Well done.