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Adaptive Health

I help people become healthier, happier, fitter and stronger!

05/03/2026

Gonna drop 5 videos over the next while, on the main methods I use to help athletes cut weight on fight weeks.

First up is low fibre / low food volume.

A small but worthwhile effect.

The unique draw of this method is that it’s minimally invasive towards performance, even with an instant or same day weigh in. Plus it rewards having a habitual high fibre intake which is something most of us could do with improving.

5-15g fibre per day for 2-3 days before weigh in, ideally dropped from a normal intake of 25-30g+ along with lower volume foods is all we need to do

Stay tuned for the next instalments 🫡

03/03/2026

Nothing better than getting people moving, performing and feeling their best.

Whether that’s getting through training feeling more confident in your bodies capability or in your shape, or whether it’s preparing for a world level event.

Every client comes with unique circumstances, goals, hopes, fears, doubts, worries, challenges, strengths, flaws, beliefs, injuries, capabilities, experiences and needs.

Good coaching for nutrition and S&C has to go beyond just the science. It’s knowing what approaches to take, when to take or adjust them and how to deliver them for that specific client.

That’s coaching

27/02/2026

Loaded core training is a must for combat sports

And it’s not just sit ups / core flexion

That is one movement pattern we want to train, although it doesn’t have to be sit ups. Cable / machine crunches, reverse crunches, knee / leg raises all work too

Alongside that we want to hit core rotation and lateral flexion

Loading these movements up over time will mean better force transfer between the lower and upper body, meaning better power production

It’ll mean better stability, giving better posture, resistance of sweeps, etc

It’ll mean better movement in scrambles, clinches, takedowns, etc

It’ll mean better lower back injury resilience

And we don’t need all that much. I’d treat it like any other muscle group or movement.

Work in a rep range where you can get a good challenge and progress on the stimulus over time

And see the work pay off in your sport

25/02/2026

Calorie banking works on paper.

Once you’re in a deficit on average over time, for fat loss it doesn’t matter how that deficit is distributed. For example if aiming for 2000 calories, fat loss (assuming output is equal), will be about the same whether you have 6 days of 2000 calories, 3 days of 1600 calories + 3 days of 2400 calories or 5 days or 1200 calories and 1 day of 4800 calories. It all adds up to 12000 calories across 6 days, or 2000 on average

But, where the idea falls apart a bit is it when it comes to performance and adherence

If you train, especially at a high intensity and frequency, going lower on calories as part of a calorie banking approach will likely just leave you with reduced training performance and recovery. Especially if your low calorie days fall on training days.

Output will drop, you’ll gas earlier and won’t recover as well.

On top of that, you’re more likely to get sick or injured, along with increase disruptions to metabolism and hormones.

Add to that the increased pressure it puts on adherence (it’s usually ok for the first week or 2, then becomes more difficult to stick with the lower calorie days), and I feel it’s really not worth it as an approach for most people, least of all athletes.

I much prefer to work with a consistent intake target when dieting.

Then on days where there are occasions on, meals out, etc, we can just aim to bank some calories within that day by planning for it where possible and potentially something like sticking with lower calories / higher protein + fibre for other meals that day.

This approach likely also supports a better relationship with food for most people, with calorie banking potentially leading to getting stuck in overeat / restrict cycles.

23/02/2026

Energy Availability, RED-S and Female Athlete Triad aren’t perfectly clear concepts.

But what is clear, is that they do exist and there’s a strong link between chronic low energy availability and a boat load of health and performance issues.

It’s part of the reason why constantly cycling through dieting phases, cutting significant amounts of weight, and overly focusing on body composition is such a problem for combat sport athletes.

There may be times where we have to run some periods of low energy availability.

The goal is that we keep those times to a minimum and set up them up in best way possible to support, or at least reduce the impact to, health and performance.

Because a healthy person wants a thousand things but a sick one only wants one.

And if your sport is your priority then the goal is performance, not physique.

*Excerpt from a recent nutrition webinar for the Irish TKD team

20/02/2026

Easy job fuelling camp for camp getting him on weight for his pro debut 🥊

Refuel time now for tomorrow night, let’s go bro 👊🏻

Footage from

19/02/2026

Everybody got time for the sparring sessions but we get reeeeal busy when it comes to getting that S&C in 😅

And I get that you want to spend most of your training time and effort on your sport. That’s where the fun is and it’s the smart thing to do if your sport progress is your priority.

That’s why I typically program “as little as we can get away with” when it comes to S&C for most fighters.

Unless you love your gym work or have the time and recovery capacity for more, why do more than necessary

Most of my athletes hit 1-3 45-60 minute S&C sessions a week, usually landing around 2 sessions.

We might have some extra aerobic work alongside that then, depending on the athlete.

A session or 2 a week to be fitter, stronger, more explosive and more injury resilient sounds like a fair trade off to me

18/02/2026

I love helping to build fitter athletes.

From hobbyists who just want to feel their best in their training or comps, all the way up to the guys and gals at the top levels.

“I train enough in my sport, I don’t need more cardio”
“I’ll just spar extra hard, that’ll fix it”
“I just naturally have a bad gas tank and can never improve it”

👆Some of the stories that we sell ourselves in combat sports.

And look it’s not always a conditioning problem, sometimes it’s an output management or recovery problem.

But if your conditioning is your what holds you back and something you want to improve, we need to get to work on it and it can be done.

And will need to put time and effort in, but it wont need to be hours and hours of work.

You just need an approach that’s tailored to your needs and changeable as needed.

Troubleshooting and feedback along the way, and accountability to get it done.

11/02/2026

“I eat well but I’m not performing well”
“I barely eat but I can’t lose weight”
“I eat loads but never gain muscle”

For most performance and body composition goals, your nutrition numbers are what have the biggest impact on progress.

For performance, enough calories and carbs
For recovery, enough protein
For fat loss, calories low enough
For muscle gain, enough calories and protein

Even for health, enough calories, macros, fibre and micros

Yes quality is important, but quality in the absence of appropriate quantities won’t get us there

Most of us are way off with our estimates of how much calories and macros we actually take in

Bringing some awareness to it with some tracking, even temporarily, can be huge

So many people sit firmly in one of two nutrition camps. It’s either:

“Calories don’t matter, eat like our ancestors, just eat healthily”

Or

“Calories are all that matter. Eat what you want, once it fits your macros”

Why can’t we appreciate and focus on both?

10/02/2026

You don’t need to be crawling out of the gym to get the benefits for combat sports

Training like a bodybuilder, lifting 5 times a week or doing 30 sets per session to failure is probably all overkill and will just detract from your session quality and progress in your sport

But a lot of athletes go to the other extreme and treat their S&C like an afterthought

Only showing up every now and then, or faffing about when you do go, might work for a while, until it doesn’t

Get in, get some high quality work done, get out and do it consistently

That’s how you’ll build strength, power, conditioning and muscle for combat sports

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http://www.adaptivehealth.ie/

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