The Human Potential Project

In Episode #9 of The Health Club Tom McAdam speaks with Glen Burrows. Glen is the founder of The Ethical Butcher, an online marketplace connecting consumers with grass-fed, regeneratively farmed meat. 

We discuss:

• The ethical, environmental and health implications of meat and the way it is produced
• Why the common environmental arguments against meat might be flawed 
• What regenerative animal farming and holistic livestock management are and how they could help mitigate climate change and sequester carbon
• Glen's personal story: how he became a vegetarian after studying food science only to return to meat 25 years later. 
• The health benefits of high-quality animal products and why the evidence linking meat to disease risk is shaky

You can find the Ethical Butcher online at ethicalbutcher.co.uk and on Instagram @ethicalbutcher.  We hope you enjoy the conversation.

In Episode #8 of The Health Club, BJ Rule speaks with coach Andrew Marshall. We discuss:

• Lessons learned from Andrew's 20-year career as a personal trainer, strength & conditioning coach and gym owner
• Andrew's experience coaching everyone from general health enthusiasts to elite-level athletes
• Andrew's experience of fatherhood
• Andrew's approach to overcoming Crohn's disease

You can find Andrew on Instagram @villain_strength. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

In episode #7 Tom speaks with Jonny Landels. 

Jonny is the owner and head coach of Next Step Nutrition, an online coaching company that is centred around keeping diet and exercise simple. They offer seminars, coaching and programs to help their clients lead healthier, happier lives. Jonny is the resident fitness expert for BBC Radio Leeds, host of Next Step Espresso, a daily fitness podcast, and in his spare time likes walking his dogs, drinking great coffee, craft beer, and performing in amateur musical theatre.

We discuss:

• Fat-loss
• The importance of an incremental approach to behavioural change⁠
• How to create and implement better habits⁠
• The power of mindful eating for sustainable results⁠
• How to eat pizza and not get fat⁠
• Why food is not simply "good" or "bad" and the dangers of "clean eating" fads⁠
• How to find a balance between enjoying food and life and getting incredible results through nutritional change

⁠You can find Jonny Landels on Instagram @jonnylandels and you can find out more about Next Step Nutrition on Instagram @nextstepnutritionltd and online at nextstepnutrition.co.uk.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

In Episode #6 we speak with Ash Grossmann.

Ash is a former Management Consultant who now specialises in Biomechanics and CrossFit coaching.  He is head of education for Gymbox where we were previously colleagues, and splits his time between doing one to one sessions, remote coaching clients and CrossFit athletes online, and working with RedPill training where he continues his own education, as well as working with some of the best coaches and athletes in the business.

Ash is best known for his silly lunges - weirdly designed customised exercises to improve movement, either overcoming injury and pain or improving performance and efficiency, which you'll often see his athletes and clients doing and attracting some weird looks!

In this episode Ash goes deep on movement and performance, discussing things like the relative importance of mobility and stability and what really constitutes correct technique and efficient movement.

Ash’s perspective on these complex topics is pretty unique and comes from a deep understanding of the fundamentals of movement. If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of movement, you’re gonna love this episode. We even get into the very controversial topic of allowing the knees to come in during a squat.

Oh, and we also talk about fasting and the carnivore diet!

You can find Ash on Instagram @ashgrossmann.coach We hope you enjoy the conversation!

In episode #5 of The Health Club podcast Tom McAdam speaks with Michael James Wong.

Michael is a meditation and yoga teacher, speaker, author and community activist. Through the Just Breathe project which he founded, Michael’s mission is to help more people understand how to live mindfully through events, content and education.

If you have any interest in meditation, whether you’re a seasoned practitioner or a newbie interested and wondering what it’s all about, this episode is for you.

Michael really gives a masterclass in meditation and mindfulness, defining some of the fundamental terms, explaining what meditation practice actually is and giving practical advice on how you can build mindfulness into your life and start and maintain a meditation practice.

Tom and Michael also speak about Michael’s own personal journey into mindfulness which started some 20 years ago and spans 3 different continents!

And at the end, Michael discusses some of his projects and events with Just Breathe, including his silent meditation retreats which Tom is pretty keen to get involved with!

You can find Michael on Instagram through his personal handle @michaeljameswong or through @justbreathe. And check out Just Breathe at justbreatheproject.com


We hope you enjoy the conversation!

In today’s episode BJ and Tom talk with Alex Sesto.

Alex is a movement teacher and founder of the Flow State Collective. Alex’s approach to movement and training is broad and eclectic. Students of his will find themselves doing any number of things from mobility to gymnastic strength & skills to 'floor work' or locomotion, coordination, stillness (meditation), and breathwork amongst other things.

This conversation is wide ranging. Alex shares deeply and openly about his journey. We talk about his days as a footballer playing for Arsenal Academy, the injury that prevented him from taking his sporting ambitions further and the following circuitous route that led him to fitness via some unhappy days in the corporate world and too much partying.

Alex recounts his experiences with psychedelics and the impact they’ve had on the direction of his life and we discuss the emerging science of these drugs and their therapeutic potential.

We talk about movement in general: what it really is and why it’s so important. We talk about common challenges clients face in our modern world and we speak about Alex’s own movement practice: what he’s working towards and how he’s training these days.

Finally, we touch on the retreats Alex runs in the Welsh country where he takes people to reconnect with nature and with themselves.

You can find Alex on Instagram at @sestoflow and the Flow State Collective @flowstate.collective.

We hope you enjoy the conversation. 

In today’s episode BJ and Tom talk with Dr Sinead Roberts of Feed.Fuel.Perform.

Sinead received her doctorate in molecular cell biology from UCL where she studied the control of cell growth and fat metabolism.

Sinead founded Feed.Fuel.Perform in order to use her technical background to help CrossFitters, and other athletes, use nutrition to perform better, both in the gym and in life.

In this episode we go pretty deep on nutrition. We cover the fundamentals, looking at the macronutrients and their respective roles in performance and health, as well as looking at more nuanced topics.

Sinead gives us the low-down on which supplements actually help you perform better. Sinead also does some debunking for us, explaining very clearly why you should be very sceptical about the claims made in movies like The Game Changers.

If you have any interest in nutrition and performance, this episode is for you.

You can find Sinead on Instagram with the handle @sinead.feedfuelperform. Check out Sinead's website at feedfuelperform.com for some great information on nutrition and to find out more about working with Sinead.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

In episode #2 of The Health Club podcast, BJ Rule speaks with Giles Greenwood of Greenwood Weightlifting.

Giles has had an extensive career in elite-level weightlifting, both as a competitor and coach. Giles was 10 times British Champion and twice a medallist at the Commonwealth Games as a superheavyweight.

Giles held the Commonwealth Games snatch record (of 180kg) in the 105kg+ class for 16 years until the weight-classes were changed in 2018. Giles has coached multiple national champion weightlifters and was resident coach at British Weightlifting’s High Performance Centre in Loughborough University.

In the episode, BJ and Giles discuss Giles’ long career in weightlifting and lessons learned along the way. They also talk about Covid-19 and lockdown and the importance of thinking critically in the face of conspiracy theories.

BJ and Giles also touch on birdwatching!

We hope you enjoy the conversation. Connect with Giles on Instagram through the handle @greenwood_weightlifting

In episode #1 of The Health Club podcast, Tom McAdam talks with Toral Shah, a nutritional scientist, functional medicine practitioner, food and  health writer and Founder of The Urban Kitchen.

Tom and Toral speak in depth about the relationship between food and immune health, specifically as that relates to Covid-19. They also touch on a number of other interesting subjects like the mismatch between allopathic medicine and preventive or functional medicine and the special challenges that BAME communities face with regards to health.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

You can find Toral on Instagram with the handle @theurbankitchen and through her website at theurbankitchen.co.uk. Check out also @whatthehealthevents for events on a range of wellness topics.