"I eat well all week. Why am I not losing weight?" It's one of the most common messages I get. And it's a frustrating place to be, because you're doing what you think is right and getting nothing back for it. Nine times out of ten it comes down to one of two traps. Either you're eating more than you think, or you're eating so little that you can't stick to it. Sometimes it's both in the same week. In this post I'll cover how fat loss works, why guessing your calories lets you

Can't walk down the stairs after leg day? That doesn't mean it worked. I hear it all the time. People training four times a week, chasing that sore feeling, and wondering why their body looks the same as it did six months ago. They're turning up. They're putting the effort in. It's just not the kind of effort that builds muscle. In this post I'll cover why soreness is a poor measure of progress, how hard your sets need to be, how much training you need each week, and why doin

The plan was right. I broke two of its rules. My training block for the Loch Ness Marathon was the best plan I've ever followed. I still broke two of its rules. (The full story, splits and all, is in my Loch Ness race report.) I raced a half marathon that should have been the controlled first half of my peak long run. I stopped for 30 minutes, tried to carry on, and my calves cramped. The most important session of the block was gone. Then on race day, the arch of my left foot

Finish time: 4:39:53. Projected finish at 27km: around 3:50. That gap is the whole story, so let's start there and work backwards. The build I ran Brighton in April, took a month off, and started running again in June with no plan whatsoever. No structure, no targets, no progression. Just getting out and remembering why I liked it. That lasted two months and I don't regret a single run of it. It wasn't optimal and it wasn't meant to be. In August I looked at the data properly

A no-nonsense, evidence-based guide to building muscle without the noise Written by Andrew Caine, BSc Sport and Exercise Science, MSc Strength and Conditioning Everyone has an opinion on building muscle. Your mate down the gym, the bloke on TikTok, the influencer flogging a twelve week programme. Most of it is noise, and most of it is exactly why you feel like you train hard and get nowhere. So let me cut through it. This is the full picture, backed by the research and explai

The gym half of my Loch Ness build. What I keep, what I cut, why I stopped training for the camera, and the science behind why a runner should be lifting at all. Training like a petulant child who has just discovered the gym is a sure way to fuck yourself up and destroy your running prep. Now, I was not doing anything terrible before. I trained fairly smartly, picked the right exercises, did not overload myself into the ground. But if I am honest, I had got hooked on how it a

Training for the Loch Ness Marathon, and what changed when I finally coached myself the way I coach everyone else. Here is the confession first. I coach running, strength, fat loss and wellness for a living, and for a long stretch I was quietly making one of the most common mistakes in the book. Nearly every run I did sat in the same place. Not easy, not hard. That comfortable, breathless middle ground where you feel like you are working but you are not really building anythi

When Matt first reached out, he had a problem most people face but few admit. He'd signed up for Brighton Marathon on impulse. No running background. No training plan. Just a big goal and the vague hope that somehow it would work out. Sound familiar? What happened next is worth paying attention to. Not because it was easy. But because it shows what actually works when you stop treating fitness like a crash course and start treating it like something you're building to last. T

Brighton has come and gone I crossed the finish line on April 12th with a time of 3 hours and 58 minutes. A personal best by 16 minutes. I should have been proud of that, and in some ways I was. But I walked away — barely walked, if I'm honest — knowing there was more in there. The legs went at 34km. Not dramatically. Not a collapse. Just that moment where the body sends you a message and you have no choice but to listen. I slowed down, managed it, and picked the pace back up

Monday, March 30th — 13 days until Brighton Marathon When I wrote the first blog in this series back in February, Brighton felt like a long way off. 64 days. Plenty of time. The training block was fresh, the legs were fresh, and the redemption arc was just getting started. Now there's 13 days to go. And I'm sitting here writing this feeling genuinely excited. Let me catch you up. Forest of Dean Spring Half Marathon — March 22nd This was always the tune-up race. The chance to

I spent this week on a ski trip in New Hampshire with my brother and his family. First time on skis. First time hitting the slopes. And a week where marathon training took a backseat to making memories. Here's what went down. The Plan vs. Reality Let me be honest—I knew going into this week that I wouldn't be able to stick to my training plan exactly. But sometimes you have to let life get in the way. And when that life involves watching your niece and nephew play ice hockey,

Sunday, February 15th - 57 days until Brighton Marathon 15 kilometres around Grafham Water. Cold. Wet. Miserable. This is the side of marathon training nobody posts about. No sunshine. No "feeling blessed" captions. No perfect running photos with motivational quotes. Just me, soaked through, asking myself "what the fuck am I doing this for?" The Run Physically? Felt better than expected. I'd been dealing with shin splints on my last two runs, so I went into this one cautious.