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http://www.amplifystrengthandperformance.com.au/

Amplify Strength and Performance, 16 Keith Street, Melbourne (2025)

02/01/2022

In the face of a global existential health crisis, the past two years have forced me to deeply reflect on what is important to me and whether the things I’ve was pursuing was serving me and nourishing me or depleting and diminishing me.

Here’s the thing, when our actions don’t align with our priorities, we feel stressed. Unhappy. Exasperated. Unfulfilled.

Recognising this, I’ve realised that as a Coach, it’s not enough to ask my clients to list what outcomes they want. I need to know their core values, what sacrifices they’re willing to make and what changes they’re willing to set in motion. These allow me to facilitate behaviour change.

This is why I have asked my clients to audit their time. This exercise allows us to see whether they are sacrificing what is urgent for what is important. It also helps us to identify opportunities for change.

Here’s how to do it:
1. Track how you spend your time during the week.
2. Organise your behaviour by time spent (slide 2).
3. Add a secondary axis of priority and map out how you spend your time against how important those things are to you (slide 3).
4. Evaluate what needs to change. Start doing more of the things that are a priority and less of the things that aren’t (slide 4).
5. Evaluate new opportunities. When considering new ways to spend your time, ask yourself: “Does this align with my priorities?”

Need some help setting and achieving meaningful goals this year? DM to find out how I can help.

22/03/2021

Recently, my friend and I got a chance to sit down and discuss the role that fitness has played in our lives.

In this short snippet, I talk about how my own struggles have made me the Coach I am today.

In upcoming videos, we talk about how we both got our start in the fitness industry as well the things that have influenced our training philosophies and our training styles.

28/09/2020

Scroll through your favourite Instagram fitness accounts and guaranteed it won't be long until you come across a b***y band workout. ⁠
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If you ask a fitchick what the benefit of using a b***y band is, a likely response is that they are performing a function of the glute med, which they'll happily tell you happens to be abduction of the thigh (moving it away from the midline).⁠
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This sounds fine in theory, however when performing closed chain exercises whereby the foot is on the ground, the major function of the glute med is actually to stabilise the pelvis in the frontal plane. (see picture 2)⁠
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This is because in closed chain exercises, the thigh is not free to move. Therefore, when the glute med contracts, the force of its pull is exerted on the pelvis instead, pulling it in a downwards direction. This is known as depression or lateral tilt to that side. If we look at the fibre orientation of the glute med, this makes a lot of sense.⁠ (see picture 3)⁠
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Now I know what you're going to say. "But I feel my glutes burning when I do these exercises." To this I'll firstly respond by saying check out my previous post on this very topic. I'll then follow that up by saying that the burn that you're feeling is likely coming from the deep external rotators of the hip which happen to sit underneath the glutes, not the glutes themselves. (see picture 4) ⁠
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Tag a friend who needs to see this. Life's too short to waste on crappy workouts 👊🏻🍑

25/09/2020

There's no topic more polarising in the fitness world than which matters when it comes to fat loss - calories or hormones. ⁠
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Like other similarly contentious topics of discussion like politics and religion - the extreme position does more harm than good. In the case of nutrition, the zealots on both sides of the debate miss two very important things:⁠
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1️⃣ calories and hormones BOTH matter.⁠ ⁠
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2️⃣ this nutritional tribal war undermines our ability to help people and in fact, actually serves to cause more confusion.⁠
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One of the issues that this tribalism poses is that we humans are cognitive misers. We take mental shortcuts in an effort to make quicker, more efficient decisions. Savvy marketers take advantage of this and use marketing buzzwords to gain market appeal and entice health conscious consumers. ⁠
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Case in point, the hormone hypothesis has led to fantastical leaps of logic. Even though these claims border more on science fiction rather than actual science, foods labelled low carb / paleo / dairy free / gluten free / sugar free / organic / vegan / keto are marketed as healthier options and thus perceived by consumers as being virtuous in all respects. This "health halo" is problematic for the following reasons:⁠
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✖️ "clean" foods still contain calories⁠
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✖️ consumers assume the aforementioned buzzwords mean that these foods are low calorie when in fact just one serving of some of the snacks in this video can contain enough calories for a meal (and you can bet that people aren't just having one serve of these)⁠
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✖️ the "health halo" effect leads people to consume these foods with reckless abandon in the belief that these foods are good for them and won't cause weight gain⁠
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✖️ these foods are often low protein / low fibre which means that they don't leave you feeling full and so are extremely easy to over consume⁠
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Have you found it hard to lose weight despite "eating clean"? Forget about the buzzwords on the front of the packet and learn to read the nutritional panel on the back. Comment below or DM if this is something you would like some help with.

25/09/2020

Has Covid has left you feeling a little more curvaceous these past 6 months whilst others have seemingly thrived and smashed their weight loss goals? Read on. ⁠
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To understand why, let's quickly re-visit some terms that your Year 8 Biology teacher might've terrorised you with.⁠
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Homeostasis - your ability to maintain a stable internal environment by keeping variables to a suitable a narrow range. ⁠(think body temperature and blood pressure) ⁠
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Allostasis - your ability to maintain homeostasis in the face of changing physical, psychological and physiological stressors.⁠ This is mediated by hormones like dopamine, cortisol and adrenaline.⁠
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Allostatic load - is the total accumulation of the stressors that you are exposed to. ⁠
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Picture allostatic load as a bucket full of water. Every time you are exposed to a stressor you are adding more water to your bucket. Every time you recover from a stressor, you pour a bit of water out of your bucket. If your bucket starts to overflow, your ability to handle stress diminishes. The hormonal response to these stressors affect your mood, energy, appetite, and motivation. ⁠
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For clients that have successfully dieted through lockdown, working from home dramatically reduced their allostatic load. Not having to commute to work or work in an office meant being able to sleep enough every night, not having to deal with a toxic work culture and having more time to prep their meals and fit all of their training sessions. Thus over the 6 months, their mindset has remained positive, their energy levels were better than ever, they were much better able to regulate their appetite and their motivation levels remained high. ⁠
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If you're someone whose water bucket was already quite full pre-Covid, then things like increased workload, financial insecurity and social isolation might've cause your bucket to overflow. This makes fat loss that much harder and over a longer timescale, this can also lead to the development of chronic disease. ⁠
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In the middle of a pandemic or not, actively trying to diet at times of high stress, is ill advised. In these situations, your time is better spent emptying your bucket first. ⁠

25/09/2020

The barrier of entry to calling yourself a "Macro Coach" is about as low as Britney Spears' dating standards. This is unfortunate because nutrition coaching isn't as simple as just setting someone's macro targets and then sending them off on their merry way. ⁠
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Most people think of nutrition as the food on their plate and seek help in learning “what to eat.” Indeed, nutrition coaching requires us to educate our clients about food quantity and quality. But the “what” is only part of the equation. We need to understand "how" they eat and "who" they are as eaters. We need to understand our clients' unique food stories. ⁠
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These food stories are often overlooked, yet they are powerful drivers that influence our clients' behaviours and habits around food consumption. Food stories are multi-layered and written over the course of many years. ⁠
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It’s how they talk about food and their body to themselves — and to others. It also involves how those around them eat and what they say (or don’t say) about their choices. ⁠
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It’s the way their mother was always on a diet, and how their father didn't care much for vegetables.⁠
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It’s the food they eat when they're celebrating, and the food they eat when they're heartbroken.⁠
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It’s the dish their family always made for the holidays, and the dessert they always order on their birthday.⁠
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It’s knowing they “should” be eating X, and eating Y instead.⁠
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It's that the theatre of fine dining represents a way for them to share an experience with their friends or perhaps the height of their culinary repertoire is scrambled eggs on toast. ⁠
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It's about childhood memories of making scones with Grandma, the traditional foods that connect them to their cultural roots, and foods that their favourite uninformed influencer has taught them to label as “good” and “bad.”⁠
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As you can see from the above, eating behaviour is complex. The greatest disservice we can do to our clients is to oversimplify their challenges and apply a one size fits all approach to their nutrition coaching. ⁠
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I'm curious. What's your food story?

25/09/2020

For our prehistoric ancestors, serious physical injury, predators and starvation were the primary threats to their survival. Each of these extremely stressful events demanded an immediate physiological adaptation - what we call the stress-response. ⁠
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This stress-response consisted of a physiological cascade of events that involved rapid mobilisation of energy in the form of glucose, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and increased respiration. This cascade was necessary in order to transport nutrients and oxygen to our muscles at greater rates and thus enable them to evade imminent danger. For our prehistoric ancestors, it also made sense to halt less immediate processes such as digestion, tissue repair, immune function and reproduction. ⁠Being able to make babies hardly matters when a saber-tooth tiger is trying to make a meal out of you. ⁠
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Fast forward a couple of millennia and as we have evolved as a species, the stressors that pose us harm are much different. Today for most of us, stressors are more likely to include long working hours, lack of recreation time, interpersonal relationship difficulties and financial troubles. The problem is that we are using a system designed to respond to acute stress to deal with chronic stress. What happens in time is that the very mechanisms that were designed to protect us eventually become damaging. This is how persistently high and unrelenting stress levels can contribute to the development of the conditions that most commonly plague our modern society - obesity, Type 2 diabetes, tension headaches and migraines, hypertension, chronic heartburn, IBS, anxiety and depression. ⁠
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Given the extremely unprecedented and challenging times we find ourselves in, it's time for us as a society to stop paying lip service to stress management. The ugly truth is that if you don't find a way to manage your stress, it will find a way to manage you.

25/09/2020

Is tracking macros necessary for everyone? Absolutely not. In fact, a majority of the general population would probably be better picking the low hanging fruit first. Things such as eating slowly and away from distractions, paying attention to hunger and fullness signals, eating protein and veggies at every meal and making time to meal prep to minimise eating out. These basic principles are what I've used to successfully coach clients to over 30kg of fat loss without ever having to set macro targets. ⁠
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However, if you've ever heard yourself say "I eat healthy but my weight won't budge." Or "I don't eat that much food yet I just can't seem to lose weight", then tracking macros can be a real eye opener. Advice to "just eat clean" or "just eat real food" has often led to confusion because "healthy", "low carb" and "paleo" foods still contain calories and over consumption of these foods will still lead to weight gain. ⁠
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Learning about macros helps bring awareness to what you are eating and how energy dense your meals are, which will ultimately empower you to make food choices that are better aligned with your goals. ⁠
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Read about just some of the clients that have benefitted from learning about macros and the energy density of different foods.

20/09/2020

Don't let the pastel coloured Ryderwear Scrunch Bum leggings fool you. Adding a b***y band to a movement does NOT automatically turn it into an effective glute exercise. ⁠In fact, the only thing that's likely to grow from the b***y workout videos your favourite Instagram influencer posts are their sponsorship deals. Meanwhile to your dismay, your derriere remains as flat and uninspiring as Miley Cyrus' vocal performances. ⁠
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If you're performing an exercise correctly, chances are you should be feeling the target muscle working. However, relying solely on "the burn" to dictate an effectiveness of an exercise could mean that you're leaving some b***y gains on the table. Physical sensation means nothing if what you're doing isn't able to elicit the physiological stimulation necessary to drive structural change. ⁠
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⁠Things you might want to ask yourself when you're assessing the effectiveness of a workout: ⁠
- what are the actions AND function of the glutes and do these exercises abide by these?⁠
- are you able to challenge the muscles through its full range of motion?⁠
- are you able to use the correct muscles to perform the movements or is there compensation occurring?⁠
- do the exercises adhere to proper loading parameters for tissue adaptation? ⁠
- does the resistance profile match the strength curve of the exercise?⁠
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If there's one thing that my clients complain of, it's that they don't have enough time. So rather than wasting what precious little they have of it by giving them fluff, I like to maximise their training time by picking the exercises that are going to give them the biggest bang for their buck. To give them glutes that are all show AND all go. ⁠
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If your results have been less than impressive, check out the following video for some exercise substitution suggestions. Tag a friend who needs to see this. Friends don’t let friends do saggy bottom workouts 🍑✌🏻

19/09/2020

A young Coach once said to me "I've been working really hard for weeks and I'm still not seeing any definition in my shoulders." I asked how much volume she was doing per week and what her training frequency looked like. I also enquired as to whether she was increasing reps or sets over time. I was met with a blank stare and a shrug. ⁠
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This young Coach made the same mistake most novice trainers make - equating level of exertion with appropriate application of stimulus. Unfortunately, how hard you subjectively feel like you are working, how much fatigue you've accumulated or how much you sweat aren't reliable proxies for muscle hypertrophy (aka the gainz).⁠
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If you want to have something to show for the amount of time and effort you put into training, you need to put the target muscle tissue fibres under enough mechanical tension to elicit structural adaptation. ⁠
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To do this adequately, the following should be noted:⁠
- heavier loads preferentially target fast twitch muscle fibres which have the greatest hypertrophic potential - the downside is that these fibres are easily fatigued so you are only able to perform a low amount of reps. Heavier loads can also be quite taxing on the joints. ⁠
- lower loads preferentially target slow twitch muscle fibres. Because these are much harder to fatigue and the sets need to be taken close to failure in order to be adequately stimulative, this necessitates working with higher reps. This can be both time consuming and uncomfortable. ⁠
- ⁠it's a good idea to work with a broad rep range, but the above considerations places the 6-12 rep range in the Goldilocks zone of not so heavy and not so light. Most of your time is likely best spent here. ⁠
- accumulate 6-8 hard working sets per session or 10-20 hard working sets per week per muscle group⁠
- hard working sets means that the sets should be taken to 2-5 RIR ⁠(Repetitions In Reserve - or how many reps you have left in the tank before volitional failure) ⁠
- train muscles 2-3x per week ⁠⁠
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In later discussions, we'll delve deeper into exercise selection, exercise variation and exercise progression. Do you have any training questions? Comment below or slide into the DM's.

19/09/2020

"Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things." - Jim Rohn⁠
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Will cutting out carbs after 6pm help me lose weight?⁠
Should I eat 6 meals per day instead of 3 to boost my metabolism? Should I take this fat burner to ramp up my results? ⁠Unless you are in an energy deficit, none of this matters. ⁠
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We store fat as a means to store surplus energy derived from the food we eat. In order to liberate and oxidise this adipose tissue, we need to give our bodies a reason to do so. If we take in less energy through food than the amount of energy we are expending, our bodies have no choice but to dip into these excess stores to fuel the activities of our daily living. ⁠
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When it comes to maintaining an energy deficit, this is more manageable when protein and fibre intakes are higher because these make you feel fuller for longer. (Pro tip: it's a lot easier not to consume excess calories when you don't perpetually want to eat your face off.⁠)⁠
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Need another reason to care about protein? Well, eating enough protein (in conjunction with resistance training) will also help to ensure that the weight that you lose comes primarily from fat cells rather than muscle tissue. So if you care about looking "toned" when you get to your goal weight, more than you care about just getting to an arbitrary number on the scale, it's probably best to prioritise this. ⁠
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Now you'll come across plenty of people yelling at each other over the internet about how much carbs and fats you should eat. However, there is overwhelming scientific evidence to suggest that once you've set your protein targets, how you choose to distribute the rest of your calories matters little. As long as your fat intakes are adequate for supporting hormonal health, choose the way of eating that fits in with your food preferences. ⁠
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Regardless of whether you choose to count your calories - and no one says you have to if you don't want to. Calories still count. If you want to stop wasting time and energy with your nutritional efforts and you want to achieve continued and lasting changes, learn what matters and when.⁠

19/09/2020

If keto diets' effectiveness for fat loss is due to limiting carb intake, then how does a high carb vegetarian diet accomplish the same task? ⁠
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If eating small, frequent meals works by ramping up metabolism, then by what mechanism does intermittent fasting work?⁠
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If "clean eating" and eliminating ALL "processed food" and sugar is the ONLY way to achieve a result, then how did the tw***ie guy lose 12kg in 10 weeks? ⁠
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Confusing. I know. But the long and the short of it is that all diet methods work. Some are easier to stick to over the long term than others. But ultimately, they all work due to one underlying principle - they put you in a negative energy balance. ⁠
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So please stop listening to Kathy from Accounting who lost 5kg of water weight in 2 days on her keto diet. Or to Wendy the wellness warrior trying to scare you into believing that your metabolism is broken. But don't worry, she happens to sell a natural supplement that will sort you right out. ⁠*insert eye roll*⁠
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Eat from mostly whole food sources. Prioritise protein. Consume lots of fruit and veggies of a vast array of colours. Minimise calorically dense, highly palatable foods. Eat to support your physical activity levels, not to fill an emotional void. It's all so fu***ng unsexy and unpalatable, I know. The metabolism hacks and the lose weight quickly promises sound so much more appealing. But I want you to stop wasting your time and money so let me hit you with an unpopular truth. Unsexy works. ⁠

19/09/2020

Details are important, but becoming mired in the minutiae ⁠
can sometimes lead to an inability to see the bigger picture.⁠
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Obesity is a complex health condition of low grade chronic inflammation. However, focusing solely on the inflammatory aspect of the condition ignores the complex interplay between genetics, eating behaviour and physical activity patterns. ⁠
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As a Coach, I've had countless women come to me after spending years spinning their wheels and getting nowhere fast. Little wonder when this is what they've been taught to focus on. ⁠
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▪️ Cutting out carbs to lower inflammation whilst completely missing the fact that you're still eating in a surplus of calories whilst consuming high amounts of saturated fat.⁠
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▪️ Adding cinnamon to your green breakfast smoothie to lower your blood glucose levels when you're consistently only getting 6 hours of sleep and barely hitting 3,000 steps per day. ⁠
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▪️ Popping hormone balancing supplements like it's going out of fashion whilst you work 60 hours a week in a toxic environment to fund a lavish lifestyle devoid of meaningful relationships.⁠
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When we find ourselves becoming too engrossed in one little detail, it might be a good time to step back, take a breath and try to remember what we are trying to accomplish to begin with.⁠
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Stop wasting time chasing the one percenters if you haven't nailed the basics. Instead, focus on executing on the behaviours that are likely to pay the biggest dividends. ⁠

Amplify Strength and Performance

02/01/2022

22/03/2021

28/09/2020

25/09/2020

25/09/2020

25/09/2020

25/09/2020

25/09/2020

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