I wrote you guys a really nice and detailed about me, but Zoe said it was too long-winded. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version, but apparently you can click through to read more (if for some odd reason you wanted to). I’m the big boss around here, the head honcho… or at least, Zoe tries her best to let me think that.

Disgruntled with the industry and the lack of empathy and science, Zoe and I started Muscle Nerds in 2015. In that time we’ve gone from not knowing anything about starting and running a business, to creating a highly successful online training and education platform.

The idea for Muscle Nerds started in 2013, when a colleague of mine started a spoof page on Facebook called “Muscle Nerd Leaman.” Muscle Nerd, absolute brilliance. I kept that idea in the back of my mind until Zoe made it a reality.

I’m the big-picture person in the company, the dreamer. I create concepts and ideas, and Zoe makes it happen. I’ve never been much for the details, so together, along with our staff, we make a complete and conquering machine, like Voltron.

My daily activities include pestering Zoe, auditing and managing our online training, research and development, creating course material, lecturing, networking, deal-making, and staring at the wall waiting for ideas to pop up. I also practice Jiu-Jitsu on Daisy periodically through the day.

About Me’s are the hardest things to write. You feel you have a pretty good grip on who you are and what you stand for until you have to put it into words. Written words, that is. Because no one gets talker’s block – we only get writer’s block (what’s up with that by the way?!).

In short, I’m a Co-Founder of Muscle Nerds. I’ve been with the company since day dot – although you could argue it was brewing in the background long before Luke and I gave it a legal structure. My sole role in the company is to try and keep some form of order – not only in our accounts, in our team, and in our admin processes, but in the methods to our madness as well.

I am inquisitive by nature and I love to learn (almost as much as I love Luke, Daisy, reading, and having a tidy house). If you don’t find me working at my laptop, studying at my laptop, cleaning my house or at the dog park, you’ll see me in some shape or form trying to get Luke to either stop trying to pick things off the floor with his toes or getting him to take his coffee mixed with water, instead of eating the granules dry off a table spoon.

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions”
– Stephen Covey

We all have a story. A reason why we are where we are today. There is no reason why we cannot start rewriting where we want to go.

My passion for health, training and nutrition came about like an overnight obsession. I faced challenges growing up that one day flicked a switch which turned my world upside down. I could tell you about my education, my university degree, the countless seminars I attend to consistently stay atop my game and my relentless pursuit in studying and mentoring to ensure I always provide results. That is not how this started though. It started with the most torturously slow 50m jog while drenched in sweat and having every fibre in my body scream at me to stop and give up. Consistency, patience and a relentless desire to be the best is everything I am.

I came into the fitness industry in 2009, driven by the urge to share what I’d learned as I rehabilitated from a motorcycle accident. Since then, I’ve been on a mission to learn as much as I can and share what I’ve learned with whoever cares to listen.

I’m a personal trainer, a group fitness instructor, mentor, fitness and motivational writer, and coach the Metamorph group training program for Muscle Nerds.

I describe my personal training style as ‘tough love wrapped in kindness’. I specialise in post-physio rehabilitation, and love nothing more than working with someone to bring their confidence in movement back.

Oh, and did I mention I’m Vegan? 

Writing about myself is one of the hardest things for me to do. I always struggle to do it without rereading it and thinking I sound like a tool so here we go… hahaha.

I started in the fitness industry after being frustrated with the lack of preventative care in the “health industry.” After moving to Canada to get myself out of my training comfort zone I met my beautiful wife Courtney and ended up staying there for 12 years. Luckily during this time I focused on my programming education and landed a job at a great MMA gym in Vancouver. Over the subsequent years I had the privilege to train some great people, amazing fighters, physique competitors and even a pro skateboarding legend. During this time I got punched and kicked allot but loved (almost) every second of it.

After a good stint in the rain and cold we decided it was time to move back to Australia and start the new chapter of our adventure. About a year before moving back I had been lucky enough to train with Luke and Zoe right at the very start of muscle nerds and “prepped to prep” for a physique show. After 2 years working in a powerlifting and fitness training gym in Brisbane the stars finally aligned and I got the chance to join Muscle Nerds. So begins the story…

You are all probably thinking who is this kid… as Luke would say I’m the coaches PA (he wishes).

I’m just the other half to Shane. I have recently graduated with a sports and exercise science degree. It has been a long four years but I’m ready to use everything I have learned and continue to learn along the way. You may see my name pop up here and there or you may see me at seminars, but I am just really the backbone to Shane to ensure he eats, sleeps, poops and gets his work done.

I was the fat kid at school, through into my late teens and early 20s.  I was 118kg at my heaviest and was teased about my size for a lot of my life. However, I was very active playing for 3 Rugby Union teams over winter and a lot of Basketball in the summer – I was fit and strong for my size. Until one day I had the realization that I’m not “healthy” if I’m carrying around this kind of weight. 

Not understanding why I was so big, I tried many of the “fad diets” out there with little to no long-term results. I was determined to find the answers to the many questions I had.  Having qualified as a personal trainer in 2006 I realized there is far more to coaching an individual’s health and wellbeing than taught in those short PT courses. The realisation that there is not a one size fits all approach left me with many more questions.

Nothing works in isolation when it comes to the human body.  So, I started learning why people are where they are and how best can I motivate, educate, and guide them into a better state of health.

I see too many trainers focusing on just the training and not enough about nutrition, mindset, recovery methods, stress management, self-perception, and all of the other aspects that have huge implications on someone’s overall health.  We have a powerful responsibility as coaches, we can do a lot of good if we know what we are doing – and we can cause a lot of damage if we don’t.

I will forever be a student always learning and searching for answers to questions that come up.

There is a trend slowly evolving in the fitness industry, with it moving towards a more holistic approach using many methods and allied health professionals, not just physiotherapists, myotherapists, chiropractors, and osteopaths but also using naturopaths, integrative health practitioners, kinesiologists, doctors, counsellors, and psychologists to get a full body and mind approach – there is such a strong emotional connection to behaviours.

I have a deeper understanding of all these approaches with the experiences I have had over the years. I keep fine-tuning my methods for the individual and am proud to be able to recognize when to refer out if needed.

With the understanding that we often need a more Leastmode approach rather than a beast mode approach, we are able to get people into a healthier state to truly get them ready and benefit from the effort of beast mode training.

I am a firm believer that people need less stress in their lives and to stop training like a beast for 6 days a week on little sleep, crazy work, and a busy family life.  When people do that, they either do not get the results they are after or they get results only to crash and burn regaining everything they lost and losing everything they gained – and at a much quicker rate than they achieved the results in the first place.

Through stress management techniques, gaining lean muscle mass, aerobic conditioning, being more mobile, eating nutritious foods, improving ones mindset, motivation, self-perception, and much more, we are able to get someone into a truer state of health that sticks.

I’m Daisy!

When Mum and Dad rescued me, my name was Meg. But Dad didn’t like that, he thought it reminded him of Family Guy, so he changed it to Daisy. Mum and Dad tell me every day that I’m the most important member of the Muscle Nerds family.

I’m not very athletic (I have bad hips and bad knees, you see) but I am VERY smart. I’ve figured out how to open the front door so I let myself out whenever I want. Because I’m so independent, Mum and Dad make me Employee of the Month every month. I pretty much run the show though, all I need to do is cry and I’ll get whatever I want. Humans are so easy to manipulate.

Anything other than that you’re going to have to ask my family. Which is actually quite big. But I’m tiny so everything seems big to me….

Ha! Pablo thinks HE has a strong intuitive sense. He has NOTHING on me! I have this very very very strong urge (that I cannot ignore) to chase anything that moves. Pablo has more self-control. That tells me I’m waaaay more intuitive than him.

I do love Daisy and Pablo though. Even though they only love each other and don’t love me back as much. But I just attach myself to my humans and that’s all I need. That and a ball to chase. Or a bird. Or a light…