Chris Peden MSc - Strength & Conditioning Coach

Home
United Kingdom
Portsmouth
Chris Peden MSc - Strength & Conditioning Coach

S&C Coach to Professional and Amateur Cyclists

30/10/2025

Exercises are tools and we don’t want to use the same tool all of the time.

We want to use them for a specific purpose at a specific time so that you can get more return from them.

If you’re always trying to use certain variations or certain advanced methods before you’re ready or before you need them, you’re robbing yourself twice.

Once now and once when you need it.

Train smart and Train hard 💪🏻

28/10/2025

Love is the compass that guides me. Strength is the anchor that keeps me grounded 🖤⚓️

This isn’t just another tattoo for me, these are symbols with meaning.

A small reminder of the journey I’ve taken through this life, the challenges I’ve faced and the lessons that have shaped the man I’ve become… and the one I’m still becoming.

Love hasn’t always been easy for me, both the expression and the acceptance of it. But I’ve learned that love is the way. It’s what now keeps me moving forward with connection, purpose and meaning.

Strength has always been my foundation. The ability to stand tall when life got heavy, to rebuild when everything felt uncertain and to hold strong to who I am.

Even when it hasn’t always served me as well as it should, it was what I believed was right at the time. But I knew I had to evolve.

So love now gives that strength direction. Two symbols. One truth. Guided by love. Grounded by strength 🖤⚓️

Huge thanks to for your time and attention to detail with how you work 🙏🏻

PS… my mum is going to kill me so if you never hear from me again, now you know why 😆

27/10/2025

Injuries are an unfortunate part of leading an athletic lifestyle and more so if you’re pushing the limits of what you are capable of, no one is immune to them.

But being stronger can help with a lot of factors surrounding them, especially with getting you back to sport faster.

Consistent S&C could be the key to unlocking your next level of performance 💪🏻

24/10/2025

What looks extremely fun, fancy and complicated rarely has any meaningful benefit and carry over into performance.

That doesn’t mean your training shouldn’t or can’t be enjoyable.

But your success lies in how well you execute your plan.

Simple structure

Simple exercises

Consistently executed really really well for as long as you can.

If you’d like to see an example training week, comment STRONG and I’ll get you the info.

Or if you’d like to find out how I can help set you up for success, comment or DM me UNSTOPPABLE and let’s chat further 💪🏻

21/10/2025

Trying to replicate your sport in the gym is a fools errand.

Let the gym be the gym and your sport be the sport as it’s the best way that they’re going to complement each other.

If you’re unsure on how to go about things this winter, comment or DM me the word UNSTOPPABLE and let’s chat further 💪🏻

18/10/2025

Just trying to be myself and have a little bit of fun whilst doing it 😊

17/10/2025

It’s that time again. After another standout year working with Endurance Athletes across every level, from dedicated amateurs to elite professionals, I’m opening up 10 new client spaces for athletes ready to take their endurance performance to the next level.

If you’re serious about, getting stronger and more explosive, breaking through plateaus, setting new PR’s and building a body that can perform and keep performing all year round… then this is for you.

Structured Strength and Conditioning that meets you where you are and evolves with your goals. A plan that fits seamlessly around your sport, your training schedule, and your life. Helping you stay consistently strong, powerful and resilient to injury.

Because strength should support your performance, not sabotage it.

If you’re ready to go from fit to formidable, drop a comment or DM me the word UNSTOPPABLE and I’ll send you all the details.

Let’s make this your strongest season yet 💪🏻

Please share with a teammate, training partner or someone you know who’s chasing that next level of success.

15/10/2025

This is a longer video than usual but if you can sit through it, it will give you an insight into how my brain works and I hope you’ll be able to take away some value from it. Please share if you do 🙏🏻

I think it will take a lot for me to be convinced that pre activation is beneficial to healthy athletes over a, or that it benefits a sports specific warm up.

However if you’re someone that is dealing with a certain injury, then certain exercises / drills prior to a more specific warm up prior to training has its place and is 100% necessary and beneficial. I won’t dispute that.

Now I’ve said it before, I don’t underestimate the importance of the Glute Med. I just think that for most healthy athletes, we can get more out of other exercises by training it’s integrated function and paying more attention to strengthening the posterior chain as a whole rather than isolating the muscle action of external rotation.

That’s my take on training and programming and other coaches and trainers will have other opinions and ways of going about things.

But as long as we’re doing no harm and helping make athletes fitter, stronger and faster. Then it’s all good 😊

20/02/2025

Cycling hugely popularises the use of bands before training sessions or races. But is it really doing what you think?
_
Bands are used in a way of pre activating the muscles as if there’s a cause and effect in which by using them, it will enhance a muscles ability to activate and produce greater amounts of force, therefore have a positive effect on performance later on. But is this true?
_
Muscle activation is an everyday real time process of the neuromuscular system which relies on motor unit recruitment and firing rate. Bands won’t enhance how much muscle we will recruit or the speed at which we do by trying to pre activate with bands.
_
Bands under stimulate you. High muscle activation (recruitment) depends on either high force or high velocity movements. Bands aren’t challenging the big locomotor muscles of the body enough with any meaningful level of resistance or speed for any meaningful levels of muscle recruitment. They may give a sensation of a stimulus but fail to recruit the high threshold motor units that are required for meaningful force production for performance.
_
This then makes band’s meaningless in warm ups before getting on the bike as they fail to provide the necessary stimulus. What you do on the bike is more specific to your demands which will be more effective and superior for muscle activation and preparation for your ride and performance than any band exercises.
_
Now could we be stronger to help with performance? Of course, but do so via a well structured S&C programme as this will be more beneficial to you. Band drills aren’t doing you any harm but equally they’re not doing what you think it is.
_
Let me know if this was useful and if you would like a programme to follow that will help enhance your performance, send me a DM to book a free discovery call.
_

19/02/2025

After starting work with last October, it was really great to see her put in a positive performance with a sign of good things to come this past weekend as she contributed to a 3rd place in the Team Pursuit and held onto 5th place in points race at her first elite Euro Track Championships.
_
Grace said, “It was the best I’ve felt in a long time which is a big positive. I’ve had a nice consistent winter working towards it and my starts have been seeing progress so it was nice to get some results that reflect the work”.
_
If you would like to see your performance improve and get similar results to Grace, DM the word STRONG I’ll get you the details.
_

_

13/02/2025

A common and likely very well meaning training prescription within cycling that I’ve seen over the years is for a rider to do ‘Light Gym’ with the idea of lifting light weights so to not create fatigue.
_
However, the trouble with this approach is that 1. It under stimulates an individual from the adaptations we’re chasing and 2. It’s easier to do more as it doesn’t feel like you’re doing much and this can be more damaging.
_
Instead, ‘Light Gym’ should mean that the overall volume of the session is reduced, think Lite as in a slimmed down version and not Light as in lightweight.
_
This way we can still lift between 70-80% and drive an appropriate stimulus but without creating a ton of unnecessary fatigue so that it still optimises and supports performance on the bike.
_
Drop a 🤓 if you’re lifting smart. But if you’re still unsure, leave a comment or shoot me a DM with your questions.
_

Address

Portsmouth

Website

https://linktr.ee/CPeden

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Chris Peden MSc - Strength & Conditioning Coach posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Chris Peden MSc - Strength & Conditioning Coach:

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Portsmouth?