Progress One Coaching

Progress One Coaching Online fitness & nutrition coaching for real people. No fads, no pressure — just simple, sustainable coaching that works. www.progressone.co.uk

Level 3 PT | MNU Certified Nutritionist.

08/08/2026

For ages I avoided structured swimming. Not because I can’t swim, but because I could never remember the bloody workout once I was in the water 😂😂 peak ADHD for you !

Sets, reps, rest times, all gone the second my head went under. So I’d just swim without structure and keep going.

Then my coach .tc gave me the simplest fix EVER yesterday.

“Write your session on a bit of paper, pop it in a clear food bag, and stick it to your water bottle at the end of the lane. That’s it.”

Total Fu***ng game changer. Today I could just look at my bottle between sets and I know exactly what’s next. Fu***ng love it 😅

It’s such a small thing but it made a massive difference. And it’s the perfect example of why a coach is worth it. They spot the little barriers you’ve been tripping over for years and hand you the fix in about ten seconds. EVEN A COACH NEEDS A COACH

The small things really do add up and make a difference.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.Today I did my functional threshold test for running. Basically an all out effo...
07/08/2026

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Today I did my functional threshold test for running. Basically an all out effort that tells me exactly where my fitness sits right now, my threshold pace and heart rate. It’s not the fun part. It hurts. But it’s the part that makes everything after it actually work.

Here’s why testing matters, whether you’re a runner or just trying to get fitter:

You get a real starting point, not a guess. Your training zones come from your own numbers, not a generic chart off the internet. And in a few weeks / months I can test again and see, in black and white, whether my training is doing its job.

That last one is the big one. Progress you can measure is progress you can trust. No more wondering if you’re getting fitter. You’ll know.

Going to a gym and just going crazy on a workout with no meaning behind it is not making progress, it’s probably going to cause you an injury.

Right, off to go and not feel my legs for a bit. 🦵 that test is HARD

209 to 226.Did the ramp test on Zwift this morning and my FTP has gone up 17 watts.I only started cycling properly back ...
02/08/2026

209 to 226.

Did the ramp test on Zwift this morning and my FTP has gone up 17 watts.

I only started cycling properly back in March, so I’m pretty happy with that. No clever training plan behind it. I’ve just kept getting on the bike, including the days I couldn’t be bothered even more so during my time away from running with the pulled calf!

That’s honestly all it was. Five months of turning up.

Works the same for everyone. You don’t need the perfect plan, you need to keep doing the boring bits long enough for the numbers to move.

🔑

Haven’t run in weeks. I pulled my bloody calf, nothing serious, just needs time and I’m my own worst enemy for not givin...
01/08/2026

Haven’t run in weeks. I pulled my bloody calf, nothing serious, just needs time and I’m my own worst enemy for not giving things time to heal. Also very bad at not practicing what I preach.

So instead of sitting about waiting for it, I’ve been walking, swimming and doing easy low impact rides.

It’s not what I’d choose to be doing but it means when I do get back to running I’m not starting again from zero.

That’s worth a lot more than most people realise.

If something’s stopping you doing what you normally do, there’s usually still something you can do.

Today we pause all serious fitness business for a far more important matter.Yesterday was Jax’s birthday. 🎂🐾 🥳 7 years o...
19/06/2026

Today we pause all serious fitness business for a far more important matter.

Yesterday was Jax’s birthday. 🎂🐾 🥳

7 years of unconditional support, judging me from the sofa during home workouts, and reminding me daily that rest days are sacred and walks are non-negotiable.

He doesn’t count macros. He doesn’t track his steps (I do that for him). He just shows up, every single day, with the same energy, which, when you think about it, is more consistency than most New Year’s resolutions manage.

Happy birthday, mate 🐾 🐾 🥳

This is what proper training looks like.Not the gym. The sofa.Here’s the bit the fitness industry won’t sell you: you do...
11/06/2026

This is what proper training looks like.

Not the gym. The sofa.

Here’s the bit the fitness industry won’t sell you: you don’t get stronger when you train. You get stronger when you recover from it.

The session is the stimulus, sleep, food and rest days are where the actual adaptation happens.

Train hard 7 days a week with no recovery and you’re not “dedicated,” you’re just accumulating fatigue, sleeping worse, lifting heavier on tired legs and wondering why nothing’s moving. I see lots of gyms forcing this mentality.

A couple of genuine rest days a week isn’t slacking. It’s part of the programme. Same as the workout. Same as hitting your protein.
So if today’s a rest day, take it. Properly. Be more like Jax 🐾

06/06/2026

Two clients. One start line.

Over the weekend, ran his second ever parkrun in Dudley and grabbed a new PB.

A fortnight earlier he had a calf strain and running was off the table, on Saturday he ran the whole 5K without stopping.

Apex client was there too, a fair few parkruns into his own journey now and still showing up.

That’s the part that actually matters. Not one big dramatic transformation, just two normal blokes lining up on a cold Saturday morning and doing the thing. Setbacks and all.
Proud of these two.

Happy 21st birthday to my lad Ben. Hope you have a great day. These are the years where he doesn't want to do anything w...
29/05/2026

Happy 21st birthday to my lad Ben.

Hope you have a great day. These are the years where he doesn't want to do anything with his parents. Thanks Mother for photobombing our photo too! 😃

For about four years I ate around 1,800 calories a day, trained five times a week, and couldn't work out why I felt knac...
16/05/2026

For about four years I ate around 1,800 calories a day, trained five times a week, and couldn't work out why I felt knackered all the time and my training never moved forwards.

I thought I was doing everything right. Eating clean. Tracking. Hitting the gym. Cardio on top for good measure.

What I was actually doing was running myself into the ground.

The thing nobody told me, and the thing my MNU course later drilled into me with proper evidence, is that under-eating doesn't speed up fat loss. It does the opposite. You lose muscle. Your training quality tanks. Your hunger spikes. You binge at the weekend. The scale doesn't move and you assume the answer is to eat even less.

I look back at that version of me and want to grab him by the shoulders and tell him to eat his protein, eat enough carbs to actually train hard, and stop punishing himself for having a normal appetite.

I wasted years getting it wrong.

The reason I'm direct with my clients about calories now isn't because I'm clever. It's because I made every one of these mistakes myself, for far longer than I should have.

If you're in that same loop, eating less, training harder, getting nowhere, the answer is almost never to eat even less.

My free calorie & protein guide is in my bio. The version of you from four years ago will thank you.

Soreness ≠ a good session.This one cost me years.I used to walk out of the gym and judge whether the workout was "worth ...
14/05/2026

Soreness ≠ a good session.

This one cost me years.

I used to walk out of the gym and judge whether the workout was "worth it" by how stiff I felt the next day. Not sore? Obviously didn't train hard enough, right?

Wrong.

Soreness is your body reacting to something unfamiliar. New movement, new load, more eccentric work than usual. It's not a quality marker. It's a "you did something different" marker.

Plenty of well-trained lifters barely get sore anymore. They're still progressing. Still getting stronger. Still building muscle. They've just stopped using soreness as the scoreboard.

The actual scoreboard is simpler: are you lifting more than you were 8 weeks ago?
More weight, more reps, more sets, better technique?

That's training. The rest is noise.

Drop me a message if you want a programme that actually progresses you week by week.

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Halesowen

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