In this episode Chris and Ian are joined by Newport rugby legend Ashton Hewitt. He shares his insights on what it takes to perform in professional rugby and the focus needed to recover from injury. 

Ashton is also well known for his activism and passion on the key issues such as diversity and inclusion and racial inequality. This is a candid discussion where Ashton opens up on the reality of the challenges he faces. They are challenges we all need to hear about. 

Ashton is a busy man (as you will hear in the episode), so we caught up with him over zoom at home. We hope you enjoy this thought provoking discussion. 

In this episode Chris and Ian are joined by a guru in human performance David Osgathorp. He shares his insights on what it takes to keep performing in some of the most demanding environments using his focal point of the Oura ring ( well worth a google is you looking for some good data on your physiological performance).

After a little early season break, Chris and Ian are joined by Cat McCormick, a brilliant (i've been told by some the worlds best) physio from the world of elite athletics. 

Cat shares her perspective on high performance using the focal point of her trusted backpack that follows her to all competitions. She raises some excellent points and shares some fascinating insights from her unique vantage point. It was a pleasure to catch up with Cat in the months following a successful Summer Olympics in Tokyo. We hope you enjoy. 

In this episode Ian and Chris are joined by Ethan Smith, a health, fitness and wellness specialist based out of the KO8 gym in Dubai. Ethan is also the co founder of Liverpool Health and Wellbeing, a community initiative he started with his brother Jack in the city of Liverpool in 2019. 

Using his focal point of a sleep mask, Ethan takes us on a journey where we explore the benefits of shutting off and examine areas of our lives where shutting off more could be beneficial.    

Josh Kane is a priest whose parish is a community church in North London. Josh has been involved in the community throughout the pandemic, and also supports Innovista, a charity helping develop young church leaders. 

The focal point for the conversation was seeds, like those used to grow flowers in the church’s community garden. The garden became a shared place for connection in a socially distanced world.

For the final episode of this season Ian and Chris are joined by Sarah Cecil.

Sarah is the lead sports psychologist at the English Institute of Sport and has worked across a number of sports including, GB Snowsport, Tennis and the Premier League as well as supporting athletes at several Olympic and Paralympic games. 

With the delayed Tokyo Olympic games just around the corner, Sarah gives an amazing insight into the support provided to athletes by psychologists and how this helps them to perform on the biggest stage. This is all explained using her focal point, a standard safety pin.

Enjoy

In this episode Ian and Chris are joined by Josh Kozuch 

Josh is a mental skills coach for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball organization, currently working across their minor league programme. Josh holds a Masters degree in Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology.

The focal point for the conversation is a pen. Josh was inspired by the story of the US space programme spending hundreds of thousands of dollars building a pen that works in space, while their Russian equivalents used a pencil. This episode looks at the performance lessons we can take away from that story.

Enjoy  

In this episode Ian and Chris host Dan Cooke to talk about his focal point; a piece of wood he cut when undergoing training as an international rescue operative.

A former firefighter, Dan is a specialist in rescue operations for the charity Serve On. He has deployed to disaster zones all over the world, working in some of the most frightening and demanding environments imaginable, often being among the first outside help arriving on the scene after events such as earthquakes.

Dan now leads these teams and trains people to go wherever they're needed most, and his experiences give him a fascinating take on what high performance means and how people can achieve it.

Dan is the co-founder of Dark Swan, a company that specialises in developing skills and coaching by creating realistic challenge, and work with an impressive array of sports and businesses.

In this episode Chris and Ian are joined by Kathryn (Kitty) Stuart.

Kitty is currently the player insights scientist at the FA and has previously worked providing data and analysis for elite organisations including England Cricket, GB Para-Swimming and GB Boxing. She pioneered the What it Takes to Win (WITTW) approach to data.

This week Chris and Ian are joined by Dr David Henson MBE. 

Dave is a former British Army Officer and Paralympian, has been involved in the Invictus Games and currently works developing new prosthetic technology for use in low-middle-income countries.

In this episode Dave explains how the human knee is the epitome of high performance.