About Me (My Skills):

I am a multifaceted professional with a passion for fitness, coaching, and content creation, alongside an unwavering devotion to the San Francisco 49ers.

My journey in the fitness industry commenced after completing my education at Sallynoggin, leading me to various roles from fitness instruction in hotel gyms, building up my experience, freelancing for years and now getting to work with some of the best coaches in the country at ABC Gym (mainly working from the Clane branch).

I continuously enhance my coaching expertise, holding a degree in Strength & Conditioning from Setanta College, along with several certifications including a CPPS certification with Joe DeFranco and James Smith in Orlando, Florida, and completion of the KG Elite Strength and Conditioning Certification.

Since 2013, I have been actively involved with CSF Women's Fitness in Castleknock, formerly known as Booty Camp, where I lead ladies' fitness sessions. Additionally, my proficiency in video editing which led to me getting accredited by DMI, has propelled me to serve as the Head of Social Media at ABC Gym while pursuing my personal creative endeavours.

With a diverse sports background transitioning from soccer to American Football, and now focusing on endurance running, I have achieved significant milestones such as completing 50k races, 80k trails, and personal challenges like performing 2000 pull-ups in a single day. My passion for running is showcased on the Any Given Runday Podcast, co-hosted with Eric Lawless, where we share our fitness journeys, insights from expert guests, motivational stories, and a shared enthusiasm for running.

Outside of my professional endeavours, I embrace the farming lifestyle in Kildare - well, I like to think I do but it really only goes as far as tending to a small flock of chickens on a farm, and indulging in my love for American Football, particularly cheering for my beloved San Francisco 49ers on Sunday evenings.

About CSF Fitness

I believe fitness and training are about much more than going into a gym or sports hall to do a gruelling workout, designed to torture you and work up a sweat towards getting sick, and then leave.

CSF Fitness and all the programmes we do with the CSF initials are based on three pillars: STRENGTH, HEALTH & COMMUNITY.

STRENGTH:

While I love running, I think that if everyone could only do one type of training, it would be strength training. Strength training, through building muscle (not making yourself big and bulky - if it was that easy, I would look like The Rock), can help you look and feel better and is great for losing weight. You do not have to do endless cardio to lose weight.

Benefits of Strength:

1. Obviously, muscle strength.

Making day-to-day activities such as carrying shopping or playing sports easier.

2. Less obvious to a lot of people is weight management.

Lifting weights will NOT make you big and bulky, but it can help you get leaner and more “toned”. It can help boost metabolism, which can lead to fat loss.

3. Stress relief.

We aim to make people feel better and have more energy leaving the sessions than before the sessions.

4. Improved cardiovascular health.

Yes, we do cardio sessions in the classes, but a combination of cardio and strength can positively impact the heart more.

5. Bone health.

Strength training can help reduce the risk of several diseases, including osteoporosis.

HEALTH:

While strength highlights a lot of the benefits to improve your overall health, I believe that health is about much more than getting fit. It’s doing the right exercises in the right order. being safe in your training. Enjoying your training and use the hours outside of your training to build on your health.

There is NO ‘one size fits all’ exercise that you have to do. We work the sessions around your fitness levels, and they are designed so that we can quickly provide you with an alternative exercise if needed.

We use our Coach Seán Fitness App will help keep you on track with your fitness goals and monitor your progress.

Our nutrition guidelines and eBook will help you build long-term sustainability in your nutrition and help you avoid all the fad and crash diets out there.

As well as the benefits of regular exercise, our sessions will help you improve self-esteem, increase energy and mood, improve sleep and decrease stress.

COMMUNITY:

Strength and health benefits are great but mean nothing if you don’t stick with them. That’s where the community aspect comes into our CSF sessions. It really has been the key to our CSF Womens Fitness sessions over the last 10 years. And it’s why we have so many long-term members who keep coming back to those sessions

The community aspect helps keep motivation up throughout the year. We never want you to dread going to a CSF session. We don’t want you just to make up another number or feel lost as you would in a bigger gym or feel like you are on your own for doing an online programme.

Our sessions are designed to get you involved with other members of our CSF Community.

The sessions are not easy. Fitness should be challenging. But not torture sessions. As with everything to do with fitness, you should compare yourself with no one but how much you are improving each week and each month.

The pillars of Strength, Health and Community are what we strive to achieve in our CSF sessions so that it is more than just a workout

ABOUT ME - Personally

Living near Straffan, Co Kildare, I've been involved in the fitness industry since 2009. Like most Personal Trainers, I started work in gyms as a Fitness Instructor, learning my craft and trying to gain as much experience as I can. I had the opportunity to work with East Coast FM for their 8 week 'Get Fit Challenge' in 2013 and it was during that experience that I truly realised that I wanted to dedicate myself to helping people.

I joined Booty Camp in December 2012 and have been with the team ever since. Unlike working in a gym, Booty Camp became a lot more self-rewarding as I feel like we are really making a difference to how the ladies approach their fitness and well being as opposed to the routine "here's a gym program, try to make a class or two, see you in 6 weeks approach" that was given in the gym over time due to the structure. We've documented a lot of the positive feedback and success stories we have received here: 

http://bootycamp.ie/success-stories/

I am constantly learning. After getting certified in Strength & Conditioning with KG Elite, I enrolled in Setanta College to further my Study in the S&C field, achieving my degree and also travelling to Orlando, Florida to become a Certified Physical Preparation Specialist (CPPS) as well as continuing learning from there.

In 2020, I joined ABC Gym, now working out of the Clane Gym, resulting in me mostly shutting down my Personal Training business. The training and principles of ABC aligned with mine and I feel that they do a fantastic job in semi-private personal training. So much so that I would recommend that model for 90% of people that are interested in one-to-one Personal Training today.

Outside of work, I played football in my teens and 20s before trying American Football and now into running marathons, ultramarathons and trail running. Running was always something I hated but a necessary evil for other sports I played. You can even find blogs on this page where I had the same attitude to running. That changed over my journey to get a sub 4-hour marathon time. Now, there are a few better things than sticking on the headphones and going for a run!

My journey with running led to me forming the Any Given Runday podcast in January 2020.

One of my main goals in my training is to find the sweet spot between outdoor fitness and gym work to feel good, feel fit and, vainly, look good too that will come from the right combination of training but, more importantly, working towards my fitness goals.

Like my sessions, I tend to not take myself too seriously yet I am always focused on the goals at hand. if I'm not doing something fitness related, you can usually catch me going on about my 49ers or tending to my chickens!

#LetsGoGetEmAgain