Coach Toby

What an amazing day yesterday for my clients at the Spring Classic competition who came away with 2 gold medals 🥇🥇 1 silver medal 🥈 and a bronze medal 🥉

went head to head against in the Women’s 84+kg Senior weight class. Laura outlifted Kathryn to win the gold by an incredible 2.5kg while Kathryn won the silver. Both girls each took home multiple PBs across all three of their lifts.

only went ahead and won the gold medal in the Men’s 120+kg Senior weight class, not even 2 months after his last competition. That pales in comparison to the even bigger achievement for Ryan of weighing in at the competition less than 300lbs, a number on the scale he hasn’t seen in years! A competition bench PB of 130kg was the icing on the cake.

won the rosiest of golds in the Men’s 93kg Senior weight class. He ended up adding 10kg to his competition squat and bench and surpassing his best competition sumo deadlift by 5kg in conventional.

Thank you so much to all of the spotters, loaders, admin, MC, referees, volunteers and crew behind the scenes who helped make the Spring Classic a fantastic experience.

Here’s to the next one.

And so endeth my academic career being one of the last members of the elite Team DB to graduate with a Merit!

It took a little longer than expected (thanks Covid) but we finally finished.

I learned how to strength and how to condition but more importantly met some cool people which is the main reason anyone does a post grad degree.

Congrats Class of ‘23

5 years ago today I took to the platform for my first ever powerlifting competition. I remember it like it was yesterday;

Driving to the venue on the other side of the country by myself knowing only one other person there. Warming up with what felt like 100 other people in the coldest gym in existence and driving home in the crashing rain with the biggest grin on my face.

I prepped a grand total of 8 weeks for that competition and I haven’t looked back.

I’d never have thought then that I would have gone on to experience what I have so far in the sport with representing Northern Ireland at 2 Commonwealth Championships and winning a silver medal at one of them. Not only that but I have gotten to travel the world and made lifelong friends around the world because of it.

If you are considering trying your hand at a powerlifting comp then just do it, it may just be the best decision you could make.

No one cares what you lift on the platform or if you fail. Everyone just wants to see you succeed!

How I be looking when a soyboy tells me they started yoga to focus on their mobility.

I’m all for yoga and pilates being incorporated into a well rounded training regime but it’s not the basis of one just like I’m all for plant based diets just not vegan ones.

You get the same benefits from stretching by training using weights and moving into full ranges of motion.

You also get more toned and become leaner as well but big yoga bois don’t tell you that 🤫

Take all of your lifts and accessories through their full range of movement under control and load them progressively and you’ll be more flexible than you can imagine.

Going into the new year there’s many of you who will be looking at making some positive changes around your strength, fitness and body composition goals.

To that end here is my advice;
Cultivate your social media feed to manage your expectations.

Depending upon who you follow, social media CAN be a useful tool. It will showcase what is possible for the average person to achieve in a realistic timeframe.

But if you follow the wrong people - the genetically gifted, young phenoms in the world who seem to just touch weights and add kilos to their totals instantly or who diet for a week and get diced (or even the fake nattys 👀) - it can very quickly lead you down a path that is a dead end and tank your progress.

Instead my advice is to follow real people with adult lives, responsibilities and stresses who have gotten similar results to what you hope to achieve.

There’s nothing wrong with following those other people for advice or motivation but they’re in their free trial phase of life whereas you’re paying to play.

Christmas is a time of the year to take the foot off the accelerator and enjoy your sweets, treats, food and drinks with those nearest and dearest to you.

But there is a difference between enjoying yourself and gorging yourself silly from the middle of November until 31st December because “iT’s ChRisTmaS.”

You don’t need to eat and drink everything in sight to make the most out of festive period.

Eating 5 selection boxes in one go is more than enough, you don’t need to eat 10 of them.

Enjoy yourself just don’t be a di****ad about it.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Take a minute before engaging in a habit, behaviour or pattern and ask yourself;

“Is this helping or hindering me?”

You already know what to do based on your answer.

So ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap on the 2022 Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships.

I want to take this opportunity to thank and the committee for organising and putting on the best competition I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of.

I feel like I have grown so much in a short space of time from the whole experience and I’m so grateful to have been afforded the opportunity to not only lift once more representing NI but this time to also coach on the international platform.

It has been an honour and a pleasure to lead up the team coaching and handling all of the lifters representing

As a team, we secured;
4 🥇 medals
8 🥈 medals
10 🥉medals
For our wee country.

There was blood, sweat and tears, PBs and craic had, new friendships made, old ones strengthened and memories created that will last a lifetime all around our passion of lifting heavy, colourful circles.

Time to relax and enjoy a nice performance enhancing pint.

Cheers 🍻

That is the 2022 Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships officially underway with one of the best welcomes I’ve ever experienced.

From only starting the sport 4 years ago to taking part in my second Commonwealths as an athlete and my first as the Head Coach of the team is pretty surreal.

Here’s to a week full of excitement, PBs and hopefully some medals for our boys and girls from our wee country.

Pai waimarie 🙏🏼

One of my biggest mistakes when first getting into training was not having a coach.

I pi**ed away 4-5 years of beginner gains by copying workouts from YouTube and T Nation. I got some results but nowhere near the amount that I could have gotten through having a coach in my corner.

If I could go back in time I would tell younger me to stop spending your money on crap and invest it in a good coach.

A good coach will keep you accountable to your goals. They will call you on your bu****it and cultivate the necessary environment for you to win. They will help you through the bad times and the good. They want to see you succeed as much as you do.

If you are interested in coaching then send me a DM.

I’m very excited to announce that from and myself will be leading our first joint Powerlifting Seminar in on October 8th

This is the perfect opportunity for those of you who are new to the sport or are interested in picking up a barbell to come along and learn from our combined knowledge and experience so that you can fast track your progress and avoid the mistakes that we have made.

To secure your spot send or myself a DM or follow the link in my bio.

To celebrate the launch of my new 8 week online Fall Down a Jean Size programme this autumn, I am giving you and 2 of your friends the chance to win your spots on it!

All you have to do is:
✅ Follow
✅ Like this post
✅ Comment the names of your 2 friends
✅ Share to your story

Good luck.

T&Cs:
- Entries close on Friday 9th September at 5pm.
- Winners will be contacted by this page only.
- Prizes can't be exchanged for cash value or passed on.
- This is an online prize only.
- Must have own gym membership/home gym.

We all get busy from time to time, some of us are even chronically busy.

I hear you.

You don't have to meal prep but you do have to prep your meals.

We can buy back our time through buying ready meals and pre cooked or prepped ingredients.

Just be sure to read your labels carefully and log everything.

This is how you can still stay on track with your food when life throws you a curveball.

Just one week to go before our quiz night at St Pauls Social Club in Lurgan.

All funds are going to help our powerlifters who have been selected to represent NI at the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in New Zealand later this year.

We have a ton of great prizes (to be announced shortly) and plenty of craic to be had.

See you there!

Last week I asked my followers if they struggled with being consistent with their training and diet adherence. 74% replied that they did.

I asked a few of them what particularly they struggled with and almost all of them said it was a time issue for them.

When it comes to scheduling your training sessions only you know when you're off work, when you're working, what errands need ran when etc.

I work with my clients to find the line of best fit for them and their schedules.

Some clients will do a 20 min session every day while others will opt for the every other day approach. For my shift workers, they will train Fri-Sun (or on their days off) while others will either train before or after work.

The moral of the story is that you need to do the work when you say that you're going to do it.

If you need help with your training and nutrition send me a DM.

Today is my 28th rotation around the sun.

The biggest lesson I have learned in the past year has been to just keep chipping away at *the thing*.

If you aren't seeing any progress then chip harder.

For my birthday, I would be eternally grateful if you could help our Powerlifting team to get to New Zealand to compete at this years Commonwealth Powerlifting Champsionships.

I'm already blown away by the level of support shown to us. If you can spare a couple of £ it would be greatly appreciated. Any and all donations are welcome, no matter how big or small.

The link to donate is through the link in my bio.

How consistent you are with your training and nutrition will determine how quickly (if at all) you will achieve your goals.

The more consistent you are the faster and more likely you will see results while the more inconsistent you are, the less likely you will be to see results.

You don't have to be perfect you just have to be better than you were yesterday/last week/last month etc.

A day off here and there is expected, but if you are more "off" than "on" then you're not going to be seeing many positive changes.

If you need help with being more consistent in your training and nutrition shoot me a message to see how I can help you.

Just want to shoutout my client for her incredible performance at Grappling Industries down in Dublin at the weekend!

We set ourselves the goal to "Make weight and dominate" for the tournament and she did exactly that with Chloe finishing 2nd in the 155lbs White Belt division and winning 4/5 of her matches.

Chloe is one of the hardest workers in the room. She's also a coach so has unsociable working hours and has to fit training around her work but she manages to show up and put the work in in and outside of the gym.

We have focussed on implementing and developing good habits over the past month and allowing her to eat all of the food she can and she feels great!

Next, we build.

If you want to find out how I can help you eat more, lose weight and look great then shoot me a DM.

Our first raffle for fundraising is now live!

Just follow the entry requirements to win.

There will be more raffles in the weeks to come with all proceeds helping us get to New Zealand for the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships this November.

Don't forget to like and share!

Thank you so much to Liam from for donating, feeding and kitting us out ahead of us going away to New Zealand to compete for NI at this years Commonwealths!

I know some of you know but for those of you who don’t I (and a few others from ) have been selected to represent NI at this years Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in New Zealand at the end of this year.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the sport there is extremely limited government and council funding, so it is entirely self funded.

We are responsible for covering all of our own costs; flights, accommodation, travel, food etc. and so to help with this we have set up a GoFundMe to help cover these costs.

I know that it’s a difficult time financially for many of us out there with the cost of everything but any amount you can spare will help in getting us to New Zealand to represent our wee country and shine a positive light on it.

If you want to donate you can do this here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/focus-powerlifters-travel-to-commonwealths-2022?utm_campaign=p_cf%20share-flow-1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&fbclid=IwAR1qAZ77s53rik9g7WGjAFQNV5Qa0ItP-YYm2PkKesEDwZDcFvrARsf8TGY

I am absolutely delighted to be selected to represent Northern Ireland again at this years Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in New Zealand! 🇳🇿✈️🏋🏻‍♂️

Paddle boarding is a fantastic analogy for fitness.

Sometimes the conditions are favourable and other times they aren’t for paddling. Either way, you are going to fall in and get wet sooner or later.

During the safety brief and walkthrough, the instructor said:

“Be an active participant in your own life.”


Kinda cool, right?

When we find ourselves at the mercy of Poseidon and drifting towards rocky shores, we…

“Paddle like f**k.”

When the results you thought you deserved from the effort you were putting in don’t materialise, don’t throw your paddle away and surrender to the waves…

Double down with your efforts and “Paddle like f**k.”

Big weekend helping out at the British Masters National Championships!

Shoutout to the for running such a stellar comp.

The standard of lifting, judging and most importantly spotting and loading from the crew on Day 1 was phenomenal 😏

I've been a little MIA recently on the posting front over the past few weeks because I have been working on my brand new website!

My goal for my website is to make it a platform where you can access educating fitness and nutrition content. There are already a few uploaded for you to read.

However, if you want to know more about a given topic, let me know, and I'll write something.

There are no tricks in this weight loss game but here exists the exception.

Only eat foods that you love…

…just make them better:

Add a bit more protein.

A bit more veg/whole grain alternatives.

Sub the oils, spreads and sauces for seasonings.

Seek out the uncomfortable. If something makes you uncomfortable then chances are you need to think about doing it.

Pushing the boundaries of our comfort levels develops resilience, it’s like strength training for the mind. Over time you become better able to deal with life’s upsets.

April fools!

Do your sessions as they are written.

Sleep like a log.

Eat like an adult.

^ that’s how you really get results.

Most people tend to struggle with food cravings to some degree during the day.

Here are a few things that you can do to minimise them:

1️⃣Sleep as close to 8 hours as possible. Sleeping more regulates hunger better and keeps your head screwed on so you’re less inclined to reach for the biscuits and crisps.

2️⃣Eat just enough calories to support your goals. Too many people think that if they need 1800 calories to lose weight they will lose more weight faster on 1200 calories. This creates a massive deficit and ramps up cravings.

3️⃣Eat protein, veg and drink water. You’ll be surprised how few cravings you get when you’re fuelling your body with the necessary micronutrients, you’re hydrating effectively and you’re filling up on protein instead of cake.

4️⃣Manage your stress through non-food related means. People rely on food to numb the pain that daily stresses bring on. Getting out for a walk, journaling, meditating, reading and listening to music are all much better alternatives.

I have a free resource that goes into how to manage your cravings. If you want it, DM me and I’ll happily send it to you!

2 years ago the country was thrust into lockdown.

No-one knew what was happening and everyone thought the world was ending.

The whole experience helped put life into a different perspective for not only myself but also many others.

I learned to slow down and be more present and mindful being sure to appreciate the small things.

Tomorrow isn’t promised so enjoy the odd bit of cake or meal out with friends and family.