In our latest episode of Supporting Champions, we had the opportunity to engage in a fascinating conversation with James Collins, recognised as a leading Sport & Exercise Nutritionist. In elite sport he has worked with Team GB Olympic teams and athletes over three Olympic Games. He joined Arsenal Football Club in 2010, where he spent seven seasons as the club’s first performance nutritionist. He has worked as a consultant with England Football, France Football (2018 World Cup winners), and is currently a consultant with Chelsea FC. He was a project lead of an international team of 31 authors to produce the ‘UEFA Expert Group Statement on Nutrition in Elite Football‘, the best practice guidelines within the sport, published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM).
James is Managing Director of INTRA Performance Group working with talent from elite sport and entertainment from their Harley Street clinic. He was previously elected President of The Royal Society of Medicine’s Food and Health Forum and is author of the acclaimed book ‘The Energy Plan‘ (Penguin Random House).
Throughout our discussion, James shares his journey into the world of sports nutrition, providing insights into his experiences and the lessons he’s learned along the way. His unique perspective, shaped by years of working with both individual athletes and team sports, offered a deeper understanding of the diverse nutritional strategies required in different sporting contexts. James has in recent years begun to branch out and apply his nutritional advice to businesses and take on interesting individual cases including a musician taking to one of the main stages in Glastonbury last year, the parallels between athletes and musicians seemingly not too dissimilar.
Links
https://twitter.com/jamescollinspn?lang=en
http://jamescollinsnutrition.com/
https://www.intraperformancegroup.com/
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/439206/the-energy-plan-by-james-collins/9781785042294
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Hi, I’m Steve Ingham Sports and Performance Scientist co-founder at Supporting Champions. I have the privilege of supporting over 1000 athletes of which over 200 have gone on to win World or Olympic medals. For the last 25 years I’ve been fascinated by, researched and applied innovative ideas to help people succeed and now I want to share those performance strategies with you.
I help aspiring and professional Performance Science and Support Staff improve their skills, experience and mindset for working with sports performers through a range of online courses and an exclusive community hub https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/onlinecourse
If you’re working in sports performance or business and want to get support to develop your team and systems – take a look at what I offer here – https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/speaking/
Listen to the podcast https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/category/podcast/
Links
Twitter at https://twitter.com/ingham_steve
@supportingchampions
Supporting Champions on Twitter www.twitter.com/support_champs
Supporting Champions on Linkedin, www.linkedin.com/company/supporting-champions
https://www.instagram.com/supportingchampions/
I think as practitioners now the responsibility I think as you mentioned have increased so what I mean by that is let’s say you’re a practitioner working within football I think if it was maybe 10 years ago 15 years ago a lot of your work would be player facing and you
Would be working maybe with a chef and you’d be working with other members of the multidisciplinary team doctor psychologist physio snc biomechanics Sport Science but now this team has extended you might be dealing with agents you know more and more you might be dealing more and more with Partners
You’ll be dealing with club and player liaison offices you might be dealing with Architects for the structure of you know new parts of training grounds you’ll be dealing with a bigger Chef team you might be dealing with the CEO uh you might be dealing with the exec team commercially legal team so actually
Your skill set now you’re being pushed and pulled away from traditionally what we’re taught through degrees and postgraduate degrees which is is ultimately working with the athlete and a lot more of these conversations are a lot more commercial in nature and there’s not a lot of things that prepare
You for these so at times you know I really believe it’s you know believe strongly that you need someone just to run through the examples with you know to test and to see how they would Apply well very warm welcome to the podcast James how are you today Steve I’m keeping really well I’m just down in London as we have this conversation slightly overcast and a bit chilly but I’m keeping well and it’s uh it’s really nice to be on here oh it’s so good to
Connect James we’ve how long have we known each other I don’t know maybe nearly 20 years or so but um so enjoy enjoyed working with you long time ago now um I’m Keen to ask you about what you’re up to at the moment your new Venture intra it’s probably not so so
New now is it you’ve been working away at that for for a while um but it’d be remiss of me not to tap into your Rich experience and insights um so before we go any further just just give us a bit of a background to you um how you got
Into the area uh some of your experiences yeah thanks very much Steve um I’m probably going to start back when we first got to know each other right so my you know I started working my work as a practitioner as a Sports Nutrition started with the UK Sports Institute
Obviously formerly to us known as the Eis and that was back in 2006 so I I was actually quite fortunate if I look back on this Steve because I just finished my masters in Sports Nutrition at lra and thinking back to the time there and I’m sure it was similar for you in
Physiology the amount of positions that were available within Sports nutrition physiology maybe even Sports Science especially when Olympic sports then were really limited and UK sport did this fast track program uh where they fast-tracked you in a year and I worked within the UK Sports Institute then and
My first sport was track and field and obviously that’s when we worked together I remember us meeting over a few athletes at lafra And discussing strategies for some of the middle distance Runners which was great you know I really enjoyed that first year and if I’m honestly that being my first
Sport Athletics I really enjoyed it from a nutrition perspective because it was so pure it was so measurable and you know I like the variety of being down in Le valy working with the sprinters and you know using nutrition to affect uh strength you know affect muscle mass and
You know explosive power that was great and likewise you know some of the athletes we were talking about we were looking at endurance as well and looking at the nutrition considerations there so I think for me that was my first step I think both as a practitioner but as a
Sport within track and field and I I worked with them through the Beijing 2008 uh Olympic cycle and that was an interesting one for us and stayed within the Institute up towards 2010 and at that time uh the job came up Arsenal and I guess many years ago I used to play
Football that was my main interest so for me to go into a club I was really interested in that they had a really interesting structure and I joined in 2010 and spent Seasons developing uh the nutrition service within the club so my role initially was as first team
Nutritionist and then we grew the service out for the women’s team uh for the academy and right across the athletic development pathway and you know I really enjoyed that role and at the time it was really about embedding a nutrition service within a team which
Was a very good team in terms of doctor phys therapy sports science but there was no nutrition previously and you know it had to to find its way and find its place both within the multidisiplinary team but also engaging the players as well so that was another challenge we
Might come back to that but stayed there for Seven Seasons uh and along the way consulted with England 2014 World Cup uh one of the most unsuccessful Steve really lot of learnings there I think it’s important to be transparent about these things and then with France which was better uh uh consulted with
Them at 2018 World Cup and I guess for me along the way with some of our meetings to one of my passions has always been the work within Elite Sport which I’ve Loved but I’ve always wanted to have a one foot outside of Elite Sport so at the time I had a private
Practice in Harley Street as part of the center of Health and Human Performance and essentially at that time we were really taking a lot of the work with practitioners in sport and applying it to the everyday consumer the weekend warrior you know we had business people coming through we had musicians we had
People doing latat people doing Akon kaga uh those doing Marathon theab so some really interesting challenges to uh to use nutrition within then and that sort of led me really you know coming full circle to this Steve in 2019 uh to set up intro Performance Group and that’s where we are today and
My passion has always really been to have a team working on different projects but also collaborating as a team and I guess intro Performance Group today we’re London based uh but we work internationally and uh we work probably in three key strands you know the first one is we work with individual talent
And I say Talent quite deliberately because we have individual Elite athletes uh footballers from the top five European leagues uh musicians and business Executives and we provide year round support to them uh as individuals the second is we work with organizations so historically we would embed practitioners Within organizations so we
Had a fiveyear sorry a fouryear project running with Chelsea embedding the practitioners there embedding them within different sports and more recently working with different corporate organizations to put on programs year round to I guess improve uh the corporate well-being outcomes uh for the different staff within these organizations and the third one is
Research and development and we have we do different work with confederations such as UEFA and fed National uh federations as well to help them answer different performance related questions as well and help them provide solutions to those so that’s pretty much where we are today uh Steve and I won’t go on for
Too much longer but hopefully that frames a little bit with you know some of my interests and know in as well love that so there’s been such a an interesting and varied but progressing Ever Changing demands on on you are how do you conduct conduct your nutrition in
Your life I’m always curious to this because I I succumb to training mistakes that I would never allow in athletes that I work with but when you’re when you’re thinking about your own nutrition if you got a particular Vice or you are you Monk like and that you’re a Puritan
That you would never never transgress well you know what’s the first thing I would say I mean I definitely have vices and I actually think it’s really important to have those and especially within Sports I think it’s really important to show those to athletes as well and I think
Within definitely within nutrition um maybe less So within Sports uh nutrition can almost be seen as this perfect discipline where you know work healthily all the time but actually the reality is sometimes it’s you know things are quite messy and we want people to eat in a way
Which is quite functional so it’s about results and I think there’s nothing there’s nothing more important maybe within the sport when you’re eating with the athletes you know to show them that you know at times you’ll have a pudding or at times that you know you’re open to
Wider experiences around food and I think that humanizes what we do I don’t want to bridge your answer too much because the question you’re asking about my viice is so for sure I’ve got a sweet tooth so for me pastry at the weekend p i mean that’s just it’s just it’s it’s
Midm morning I’m getting hungry listening to that what what um and how do you manage that that do you do you have a way of sort of capping controlling um or limiting what’s can can I get into your specific own personal tactic there so what I would
Say is here my own personal tactic I would have a rhythm to my week and I I probably use Rhythm as the right expression where you know what we’re not talking about is it being Ultra prescriptive but I have different principles about how are fuel different
Days you know for example for me just like I would say you you know to my clients so you know on days where I’m I’m training or maybe running and doing some weights I’ll lead slightly differently to on days where I might be a bit more desk bound I mean
Interestingly for me I’ve just taken up Pates Steve reform of Pates on Saturday which I’m absolutely loving whether way I’m a huge advocate and um you know for us there’s a social element to this too so we have a group that will do that and for us it’s about having a coffee having
A pastry and actually getting together after the session as well so I think in answer to your question building the different treats and Building Things in socially is is really important to me and I think to a lot of our clients as well uh you know whether it’s family meal times being together
Whether it’s teammates being together or whether it’s co-workers you know I think food plays such an important part for us as individuals and you know our culture that um it’s really important we acknowledge that yeah I mean I totally agree I mean cycling at the weekend with
Friends friends for 3 hours and I always a little bit surprised I come back and I’m a bit heavier maybe for a three-hour ride maybe too many coffees or cakes but that as a destination you know it it feels actually as though it’s it’s sort of becoming acceptable as part of that social
Experience talking to to a number of people about this idea of ways in which we can we can increase the the habits improve the Affinity with physical exercise and one of those being a social connection too so I I love that example it’s a really interesting point
Steve you know I think as we’re coming towards New Year now as well you know one I think one of the most interesting things around with have people making changes don’t we we have a lot of clients I’m sure that we’re making dietary changes in New Year exercise
Programs and just that I think that reminder to one make it fun but also to you know trying to make it so social where possible Right like you’re saying about the weekend ride like I’m saying about the group that I do the weekends it just it makes such a difference in
Terms of that sticking yeah and so did it always feel for you back in the day 2006 10 years after ID sort of started so I kind of I sort of tripped into the industry um had a background of applying my knowledge um 2006 we were sort of on
That upward Journey the the Olympics had been awarded in the in in London and what do you think looking back meant that in a pool of a small number of of practitioners that might be viable as employable uh prospects what separated you out from the rest what
Allowed you to sort of take the opportunity of those trainee intern programs at the time it’s wow it’s a really good question Steve um I think there’s probably a couple of things so I think prior to I think there was a life experience element of this and probably something that’s removed
From technical knowledge with nutrition so actually one I don’t often talk a lot about is previously so went to L Brun did my undergrad there but prior to that uh I was in the US on the soccer scholarship so I went out I left when I
Was 18 went straight out to Upstate New York didn’t really know what I was getting into and sort of threw myself into this experience and if I’m honest at that time that was probably where I had my first exposure deeply with nutrition because within a Collegiate sports that was already embedded it was
Part of the conversation a little bit and not only did I just love the Collegiate Sports side you I came back you know it really sort of took me on this journey it also the light came on a little bit with nutrition um so I think
There was an element of that you know alongside my work I I did s football coaching as well and got a couple of my coaching badges so one of the things I was learning at the time was just how to communicate uh with athletes how to
Learn how to communicate as a coach you know how to structure a session and how to and how to change this session and be open to different types of feedback so I think actually when I was going for this interview for the FASTT track program and you’re totally right at the time
There were lots of people going for these positions because the only reason they were created was because because of the funding right for 2012 so we’re incredibly fortunate but I remember drawing on the experiences and actually at that time the depth of experience within nutrition was relatively limited
So you know you know rightly or wrongly at that time I was drawing on these different experiences interpersonally having a process maybe with coaching and you know giving some examples here um I think on the other St Steve as well this is again being really transparent um when I was doing my MSC
At lro we had our projects um during the summer you you probably remember as well right you’re writing these up um during during your dissertation and I think at that time I remember thinking well at the end of this year I’m going to be applying for jobs I
Really need to get some deep exposure quite quickly and was really open to turning my hand at anything I remember do you remember lra Sports uh where there would be the opportunity to work with the different teams on campus so threw myself you know threw myself into
That initially it was a few present ations really just feeling what felt right again getting some you know really good feedback and I think I remember at the time Kate gooder was involved in that as well uh who’s obviously prominent psychologist and you know I remember distinctly that that was
Interesting but at the time you know I remember going up to Blackburn Rovers and this was at a time where Tony strudwick was in post of Blackburn Rovers who you know one o’ for 14 years later we were working in England together in Brazil but at that time he
Was looking for some support and I said look you know I’ll do it I I’ll come up there and I went up there a couple of days a week stayed over and it was just the best learning experience Steve because initially within a club environment going in as a practition I had no
Concept of how it ran no concept of what other team members were looking like absolutely no concept really of interdisciplinary support you know and how to link your service to strength and conditioning you know to Medical as well and I think it was those experiences and
I really enjoyed that work and that kind of gave me some momentum going into this interview and I was already making mistakes and learning and and I was enjoying my journey as well and I had some good examples uh to give and and I’ll be interested in your thought on
This Steve as well and I think when you’re younger as a practitioner and this was definitely true for me in the early years of The Institute you’re pretty Fearless you know I think at that time you probably don’t know what you don’t know um and this is probably linked to
You know the D Kruger effect and other other things as well but it’s uh it’s an interesting time so you really cavaliere but I think in a way sometimes you need that momentum to you know to get you in the door of places to help sell your
Service but along long with answer yeah those are just a a few points it’s it’s a delicate one isn’t it of having the energy and the confidence to knock on doors to say yeah I can do that um but not to the point where it’s arrogant or
I’m going to solve the world don’t you know what I’ve learned at various universities that sense of overconfidence but incompetent um the the confidence to try but but not necessarily to to present themselves as the the you know allseeing omniscient omnipotent uh practitioner so true yeah yeah it’s so
True there’s such a there’s such a balance to be had there isn’t there you you mentioned mistakes um when I I think this is such an important part of of growing as a practitioner and I don’t think it goes away because it’s important to always learn and review and
Reflect but but the tolerance for mistakes um I’m curious to know what your perspective is now for emerging practitioners people who you might be thinking right I want to put you in front of a client the the margin for error um seems to be getting tighter are we Keen to get
Your thoughts as to whether you know whe do you have that sort of perfectionist streak of thinking right that practitioner has to be 100% ready to go before we let them go um or or does does it have some learning potential in there wow that’s a really that’s a
Really interesting point Steve so how we set well how I deliberately set things up at intro was having a technical support and that really runs through and again going this is almost going back to learning you know Stephen and and one of the things that I was seeing especially
Within football and this is something we picked up on with our work with UEFA as well we speaking to different clubs across Europe a lot of the feedback we’re getting is that nutritionists can work in Silo especially Junior nutritionists going in because if it’s your first role and let’s say a football club’s
Advertising you’re looking for a foot in the door as you mentioned so you you start the process but you might not have the full understanding about how to work in an interdisciplinary way so a lot of your work can be conducted in you know in Silo so it might be delivered to
Players but it might not be as interdisciplinary as you’d like it and you might not have the supervision and the supervision is just a really important thing and I think we can all think of in es throughout our career where you’re going to have things that
Really test you and you need someone to be able to share Thoughts with and to get some technical support so much so Steve you know I have technical support now I think it’s I think it’s so important you’re never too old for it I think it’s really important to have
Meetings monthly with people to discuss technical cases now for me now the technical cases I discuss might be less as a practitioner and they might be more as a business professional perhaps but you know this is still really important I think the other thing linked to this
As well Steve is that I think as practitioners now the responsibility I think as you mentioned have increased so what I mean by that is let’s say you’re a practitioner working within football I think if it was maybe 10 years ago 15 years ago a lot of your work would be
Player facing and you would be working maybe with a chef and you’d be working with other members of a multidisciplinary team doctor psychologist phys IC biomechanics Sport Science but now this team has extended you might be dealing with agents you know more and more you might be dealing
More and more with Partners you’ll be dealing with club and player liaison offices you might be dealing with Architects for the structure of you know new parts of training grounds you’ll be dealing with a bigger Chef team you might be dealing with the CEO uh you might be dealing with the exec team
Commercially legal team so actually your skill set now you’re being pushed and pulled away from traditionally what we’re taught through degrees and postgraduate degrees which is ultimately working with the athlete and a lot more of these conversations are a lot more commercial in nature and there’s not a
Lot of things that prepare you for these so at times you know I really believe it’s you know believe strongly that you need someone just to run through the examples with you know to test and to see how they would apply it um and we try and do a similar thing with int
Really Steve you know and that the practitioners that we have for sure there’s a development curve here and what I tend to do is work very closely with our practitioners early on and the teamw work together just to try and get the way of working so our ethos around
How we apply support how we apply our programs so that we’re all really well aligned because you’re definitely right the one thing we would never do is put a practitioner into see an athlete until we were really comfortable that they understood our organization our ethos
How we L and I think then it’s really just about almost graded exposure uh to a degree and I think it’s um we tend to sometimes double up on clients as well where there’ll be a senior or technical support member and a practitioner and these different levels of service
Actually helped to uh protect the practitioner slightly but also help to give some confidence both to the practitioner and to the client as well but having these different levels of support for us are extremely important important and I think whether you’re working within a consultancy within an organization I think having some
Technical support or mentorship is just so crucial um I’m really interested in your thoughts on that Steve as well you know how are you seeing things you know with Sport Science performance practitioners can I can I ask you another question before I answer I don’t want to infect your
Answer um because you’ve demonstrated or you’ve you’ve mentioned your initiative your industry as a student you know that that sense of realizing okay the big bad world is about to to arrive I need to do this do that get on a bus um knock on doors uh meet people and start to see
What that landscape looks like and so that let’s take that as red that’s something that that I think nearly everybody recognizes that the student or graduate needs to to work in that space they need to do more than just the grades um but given what you just described about the complexities of the
Interactions what people will actually be doing as a practitioner provider and and if you think about your Olympic experience and your football experience if if you were to campaign or suggest a change to a university program that could make space for just a little bit more what would that be because I’m just
Sensing that you’ve got to know your stuff you’ve got to be able to work with other people you’ve got to be able to apply your knowledge which is a skill set itself but then there’s the whole complexity of the work environment and I guess not all of it
Can be taught um some of it might have to be supervised or taught outside what would you suggest if a university program was sort of better supporting a graduate um what would you love to see a little bit further progressed a little bit further developed before people sort
Of come out of their formal education again I think really challenging question Steve I think for me the example I gave earlier on is where I go with this and I would probably take elements of the UK sport FastTrack practitioner program and I would sandwich those into a postgraduate
Msse program so so we’re taking a lot of theoretical knowledge and like you say as R obviously young practitioners you have to have the technical knowledge you have to know to a degree how to apply that but it’s the situations like managing conflict and motivational uh motivational change and motivational
Interviewing you know how you work in an interdisciplinary way these were some of the modules um that I remember from the FastTrack program you know another one was having difficult conversations you know and I’m sure you remember your early days as well Steve you know those first conversations with
Coaches where you’re actually having to push back you know you’re the conduit between the coach and the athlete and your information is landing and it’s really tricky the first couple of times it feels really awkward but to have a process and have a confidence in your
Process to be able to do that I think is really important so I would in my first part is I would condense elements of this fast track program and I would put those into some msse programs along side let’s say if this is an applied route within the course so if people know
They’re going to be applying and being a practitioner I think there’s a pathway there if it’s research then it might be a slightly different pathway right I think the two might for out obviously as we know there’s strong overlap between the two now right you can be a really strong applied researcher and
Practitioner as well I think the other thing that I feel quite strongly about as well Steve um maybe this is on the course maybe it’s just a module I think that the industry’s really spread when it comes to nutrition in terms of career outcomes at the moment right and I think
Across all of the performance Sciences so for example you might be working inhouse at a rugby team a football team you might be working in a UK Sports Institute you know you might be working a researcher but if you’re not doing that there’s a lot of people here that
Are looking to build a business and a lot of a lot of people a lot of the practitioners that I speak to and I remember from my early experiences how do you go about doing that you know that that that thing where you know someone gave me a really good bit of
Advice early on that when you’re in a sports and someone’s P paying for your block of time your year service you’re working with an athlete you’re pretty Carefree because they know that you’re there to deliver the best service to the athlete and this is great it’s a really
Different thing when you’ve got someone on the other side of the table and they’re coming to pay an amount to see you the relationship changes it could be one pound it could be more but as soon as the money is changing hand what you have to deliver to them is
Value and how do you go about doing that how do you demonstrate the value how you really clear upfront about the delivery rules um and I think in terms of small businesses within the UK this goes across the entire sector right I think there needs to be more support for young
Entrepreneurs coming from building businesses but I think definitely this could be touched on more that if you building the future what does it look like in 10 years do you want to be in house you know one of the downsides you’re working within the team you might
Be doing lots of traveling now this might be great in the early years but when you’re settling down having a partner or family it might not fit as well so I think some of these almost these outcomes with these roles and then some support on how to do these
Definitely on the business side and how to develop a small business that’s that’s fascinating so I I want to ask you about that um entrepreneurial skill but going back to that experience you had as a f track practitioner program would it be fair to ask you
Whether that was the first time you sort of moved out of your comfort zone um and I’m I’m curious this is informed about the I suppose the I would see it as a a bit of a ball and chain for a lot of universities that they they almost feel like they the student
Satisfaction stops them from challenging stops them from moving students out of their sort of let let’s work in the library then you write it up then I mark it and then that’s the end of the transaction um rather than actually you know what today you’re going to feel nervous you’re
Going to feel like you’re deskilled um so so tell me how did it feel what was that sort of sense of of development that you had back then that we need to recreate a little bit more in in courses well I think in terms of being
Outside of the comfort zone I would say you know I’m I’m really honest going back a step that I was trying to do that for myself at doing these roles in the summer before the FASTT trck practitioner program but I think I could almost see on the horizon that there
Were limited jobs and essentially I had to be ahead of the people in my group that that was really important so I think from that point stepping out was important in terms of technically yeah I think you’re absolutely right a few of these a few of these courses I think
What thing did really well I think at the start was framing framing what you’re moving into and I think that just works wonders right Steve because the one thing we knew was over the course of this year you’re going to be put in difficult situations and I think because
We knew what from it’s this year is all about learning you know they said that mistakes are okay you’re going to be challenged at times you’re going to feel really uncomfortable at times I think we were ready for it and I definitely think my uh year group you know there were
Four nutrition interns uh there was obviously Kev Carl who you know well markis andari you know we were in the same year and we can almost work together as well and share these experiences but we knew we were going to be challenged I think when you know
Challeng is coming it’s easier to accept and throw yourself into that when it’s just the unknown you don’t know whether it should feel right or not but again this is probably coming back to this mentorship technical supervision support whether this is done by an organization or a mentor such as UK SPS Institute
Whether it’s done you know such as our consultancy or sport I think having this overarching support early on is is so important and you mentioned there a key word about value and that that sense of how it actually feels quite different when you’re charging somebody directly
For your time and that that sharpens the focus on you delivering value value is is the Assumption there that maybe you’re not as value focused if you’ve got the comfort of a salary if you are perhaps the exchange or the discussion with a coach or an athlete doesn’t go
That well oh well never mind or the trouble with them is it gives you an excuse not to necessarily review and uh refine your work is that what you’re implying there a little bit the relationship changes is for sure you know and I I’m sure you you know
You’re fill the same with your work as well Steve that part of having the Private Practice initially and you know I’m probably fast forwarding a couple of steps here I was working inh house at Arsenal you know delivering there and then you know suddenly you’re you’re on Harley Street and you’re delivering with
Clients and firstly you’re thinking actually what is the value of the service I’m providing you know where is this mapped with other services on Harley Street you know what’s my practitioner level what’s my competen and also what the deliverables that I can give to the client and you’re going
Through a bit of a journey earlier on to actually pitch your service at the right level but for sure I remember the first couple of consultations I’m thinking is it worth it you know it’s are they going to turn around and say James what I’m paying X you know for
This service no I’m not I’m not paying for it you know there there’s always part of you until you’ve tested something you’re you’re never quite sure and and I’m saying that because everyone goes through this process I remember at the start with the early clients you know we’re we’re testing the model for
Sure as well because we’re applying a lot of what we’ve learned in sport to the general public which at the time was quite unknown um and then we’ve obviously got the business side too but in answer to your question Steve yeah it does change the relationship and I think
I think for me for the better I think having a private practice or having one foot or having an interest outside of sports I think there are learnings that kind of cross pollinate so for example I think the business side outside of sport helps you to understand what it’s like
To build a case load what it’s like to charge clients what’s a business Stu you might need to build and then vice versa as well I think there are skills from that that you bring into the sports as well around your time management for example the one thing you know is if
You’ve got the clock on you for a consultation and it’s an hour and you’ve got eight clients in that day you’re damn sure you’re going to run to the hour you’re not going to overlap at all whereas sometimes in sport obviously it can be at times more fluid but I think
There are elements from your professional practice that you can bring in to your sports practice as well um and that’s definitely something I felt strongly about yeah and and to sort of come back to your question about where do I think things are at I think that there is a
Clear opportunity for everybody to play a greater role in this game whether it’s the universities whether it’s business whether it’s the industry of of professional teams or um Olympic teams for example but but equally governing bodies whether that is the skill set the accreditation systems that need to to
Modernize I I’m I’m thoughtful of uh a team that I had to work with during the pandemic who had Financial instability because of the pandemic sponsorships were unstable for example and and we had to revise the composition of a support team across different disciplines and I’m thoughtful of the
Nutritionist in that team um who was five days a week and who went down to three days a week and it meant then that that team not only had less resource to tap into but that person had potentially had the threat of losing a little bit of
Livelihood and so there was a need for for me to support and revise and sort of think about the model for optimizing the team team within a certain budget but then the what was really nice about that was that the the team manager wanted to provide them with some support to help
Set up their business um give them that type of mentoring support that I could provide to them that was just an example of of how the the industry is changing it’s adapting um the needs that were relevant yesterday are are changing all the time um about
What we need to sort of gear up for so yeah okay interesting interesting interesting a really important point you touch on there Steve um and if I may I’ll jump in because I think we need to recognize as well from a nutrition perspective nutrition isn’t as far along
It isn’t at the table as much as Sports Science as you know as much as physiotherapy for sure medical for sure strength and conditioning for sure if you look at all of the evidence that FIFA has published from around the the world the lowest full-time equivalents are psychology and nutrition and that’s
Really known and actually one of the things we need to think about with nutrition is it’s still in its infancy in terms of the research it’s still in its infancy in terms of developing its own practice as well so and I’m definitely thinking in terms of some team sports and particularly football
Here that you know you’re totally right unfortunately sometimes when there’s a cup or when there’s a you know a budgetary pinch Point sometimes it is nutrition that needs to go but I’m always really mindful in the conversations that we have with different federations and confederations as well just to really listen and where
They pitch nutrition as well because I think sometimes within our own industry we can see our own thing in a certain way right we can have a certain bias towards self discipline it’s sometimes really interesting to get medical perspective on your discipline or commercially where it sits as well or
From an overall performance perspective but there’s no doubt is it is it discipline nutrition we’re making great strides and it’s moving forward we’ve got more practitioners on the ground now you know which is great but I think Ro is just really mindful of there’s a lot
Of work to do in terms of full-time equivalents and one of the things we need to do to have those is to have an impact that’s the only thing if if we’re having an impact and we’re demonstrating a return on investment for that Sport and the sport is feeling it it’s going
To mean there’s more budget flowing down towards nutrition and create more jobs so I’m always really mindful of the sort of macroeconomic landscape for performance sciences and definitely how nutrition fits within that and and how’s that done in what sense D what would be what would be the way in
Which you’d create the business case um is that where there is greater evidence of impact that proves the point that means that you can get from the pro the the there a the problem with that athlete go and see them so that Bolton type service versus the proactive um
Integrating REM perhaps removing some of the decision making um aspects of of choice in nutrition what’s the what’s the way in which you’d love to see this progress in the future well I think for us there’s a couple of pieces here the the first piece is around understanding around stakehold management and understanding
So an example I’ve given a couple of times recently is obviously we have different generations of coaches and players now one of the things that we’re seeing at the moment is we’re now seeing let’s say for example within Olympic sports definitely within football and team sports as well athletes who
Practitioners when we were working within the institute in that sort of age when they were players they’re now coaches they’re now sporting directors so what that means is if they’ve had a good exposure as a player and good understanding it’s now more important to
Them you know and I can think of a few prominent managers now we’ve worked with on the way through and it’s really shaped their Ino ethos and philosophy around performance and around how nutrition fits in so I think that stakeholder management is absolutely crucial as well and I think there’s a
Really nice opportunity for that I think the other thing as well that we need to do Steve if I’m honest is create um to build evidence you know to to Really build evidence in terms of how we’re having an impact so for example with a business project that we’re working on at the
Moment a really important thing for us as a business is to create evidence you know in terms of the impact we’re having and that might be through the competencies of uh the different staff that we’re working with so for example one of the things that we tend to do is
That the different tools or actions that we’ve put in place for staff we actually ask them to capture the evidence of them applying these things so it’s something that we can build and it might be videos it might be other other things as well but when we’re feeding these back to the
Organization the evidence is there for all to see and in a way I think it’s a similar thing in sports you know what we’re looking to try and do is we’re looking for our athletes to demonstrate competencies and what I don’t mean by that is they can answer questions in a
Quiz you know what I’m meaning by this is we’re working with athletes coaching them we’re having lots of touch points so that in situations that are more stressful maybe around competition around matches the performance staff the executive are clearly seeing that they are using our strategies and using them
Well this might be really clear to a fitness coach who traveling with a team that on Match day they can see that through the understanding and traling of these different strategies athletes are asking for these I think one sport that did this really well Steve if I’m honest is TR field and I’m
Almost thinking back to some of our work then you know one of the things that we would see with the athletes is they would be great at taking on board the strategies and being really clear with their race timeline for the day when they’re fueling when they’re activating
Warming up when they’re hydrating all of these different factors it was really clear and tangible and I think actually with a lot of the work with the sports we need to try and find ways and sometimes be quite inventive to show our competency because again the more we can
Demonstrate that the more the sport is going to say hey look if I’m investing X in a service we can start to potentially start to map out our return and investment that’s a more complex model but we need to be having the conversations around that it’s a great answer and I think
That that that idea of evidence is probably pervasive um show me show me that it works show me it’s worth my time show me that it I’ve got a return from that I’m I’m curious and and and and I was just thinking of Athletics as you
Were sort of uh as you were explaining that but there tends to be a high level of literacy in the area people will know maybe what glycogen depletion really feels like um they will have periods of time where they are injured because they’re pushing the boundary so that
They know that there’s there’s something that they can do whilst they’re injured around their nutrition um there is a literacy around that in that sport most of the times what’s been your experience of being able to build that culture of of acceptance this is this as much as
Anything because nutrition is an emotive thing for a lot of people in business in football in Olympic sport um what have you been encountering when you’ve gone into those environments and what are the things that you’re looking for that informs your strategy Y and your approach about how you bring that to
Life and this is this is Steve around the culture of individuals or on building the culture to take a team forward I know it’s a big question isn’t it thank you for dividing it further but it’s what yeah both if you could if you could address that so if we can unpack this
Slightly then so let’s let’s have a look then firstly a team approach and you know what I would say is within the team sport we’ve I would say we have two trains running you know we have the team strategies so for example are use footall because I think it’s um it’s an
Example I think probably a lot of your listeners will understand you know in terms of the environment but obviously what we tend to have is we have different strategies for different days you know there might be a match day minus one and on Match Day minus one
There’ll be almost like a set routine around training so it means we can advise around nutrition on that day same with the match there there’ll be a plan throughout the day in terms of um travel in terms of nutrition in terms of Team meetings in terms of the performance
Itself in terms of recovery you know really nice flow so at A Team level one of the things that we’re trying to do is put in place really strong protocols for all of the team to follow you know which encapsulates the whole of the squad and takes them through now
Obviously that th those are on different days within the training environment there’s different monitoring and testing let’s not go on to those for the moment but within that we’ve got teams of individuals right we’ve got a lot of nuance here because the second part of this is that let’s say you’re working in
The Premier League at the moment if you’re working in the Premier League we know that approximately 60% of players are expatriate 60% pretty big number I mean this is this has grown since the mid 90s since the balsman ruling we’ve seen more and more free migration of players so
This will mean that if you’re working with a first team scored in the Premier League you might be dealing with 16 nationalities at minimum maybe up to 20 different nationalities it’s a it’s a big ask isn’t it you know I think if we said to someone in a business context uh
For someone to work in that way you know it’s a big ask there so how do we go about you know working with them well I think there’s a couple of really interesting points and I think the first thing is we’re trying to set up a couple
Of things the first is working in a way which empowers the players so we’re trying to get to players to understand why they’re doing things and this is really important understanding the why because as soon as players understand the why like you said in track and field which the athletes did really well
There’s more chance that they’re going to apply it for example composition of the the pre-match meal you know why am I eating these Foods why am I eating at this time you know what’s the reasoning that’s given to the player if for example let’s use a really small
Example here someone’s during the winter is taking a vitamin D supplement you know what’s that what’s that doing what does it look like what’s the function why are you taking it at that time of day because otherwise what we tend to see and what we need to try and avoid is
For example a supplement just looks like a pill you know to a player you’re giving a player a few different supplements unless they really understand you’re giving them a couple of different types of pill now obviously that that’s quite problematic so I think for us it’s trying to set up a culture
Where we understand about the player we’re trying to work with them and we’re trying to help them develop their own strategies helping them to co-create these strategies and this is probably coming on to a bigger Point here Steve the the two key things I’m kind of swimming into now are number one that
Players take ownership for their nutrition so for example whether it’s a match day whether it’s a training day we really need to strike the balance b as practitioners of educating upskilling then stepping back and allowing the players to execute the strategies themselves sometimes the tendency can be to step
Forward to and if we are stepping forward it can smother the players at times we’re desperate to have an impact potentially as practitioners so it’s really important for us we set up a nice process where we’re advising the players letting the players Implement and then
Also feeding B and this is coming on to my second Point here Steve as well one of the challenges that we have with nutrition historically is that with athletes it was often seen as a bit of a One-Stop shot and what I mean by that is
You go and see a nutritionist for a plan okay what’s my training nutrition plan you know what’s my plan for Match Day Etc it’s really important going back to this word framing that at the start of the journey we’re working with the squad as a whole and with individual players
And we’re saying hey look this is how we’re going to apply app nutrition the relationship that you and I are going to have is one where we’re working together but it’s an iterative process so what I expect from you is we might sit down and have a meeting for 10 minutes because
The thing that we’re working on is your recovery postmatch now what I’m going to do is I’m going to work with you to see about what’s the strategy you’re going to try this weekend you might try it and training first of all try it this weekend you’re then going to feed back
To me how did it go from your perspective where to speak to the other performance science team what data do we have to support your subjective View and then when we can say well look do we need to tweak this further or is that now stuck okay so we might be happy with
That we might then move on to another area it might be around sleep it might be around travel there are lots of these different scenarios that I believe over a period of time we’re working through with our athletes but it’s really important to be frame that it’s an iter
Iterative process to them so they understand this it’s not a massive process where we give them a plan where we give them we plate up the food you know where we give them a shake of some description it’s really important that it’s a two-way conversation I
Think okay so so I’ve heard over the years about this kind of the rise of the performance chef and nutritionists working with the catering staff uh which feels smart you know provide you with a selection of of options and within that range that margin you’re not going to go far wrong
And then potentially that there’s private chefs that are taking the decision making out effectively plating things up and providing good nutritious and hopefully tasty food for people who can afford that type of level of service but my concern over the years hearing that is that that does empower
The athlete and you’re still saying that’s important you’re still saying we do need to do the education so that they connect with it at a deeper level so that they’re motivated and and focused on taking those daily actions that they need to to to perform and to recover and to to optimize them
Themselves yeah I’m saying absolutely that Steve yeah and I’m what I’m not saying is that each individual will have a different way that they set up their food service some athletes and players will have private chefs that’s absolutely great some will have partners that will cook for them absolutely great
Some will cook for themselves whichever really works for that environment but whatever happens what who whoever’s preparing food in a club or a training environment or at home it’s still really important that the player or the athlete is part of that decision- making process because there’s times where and this is
The classic example for me if we take football as an example again because it’s quite an easy one to apply here let’s say you’re a premier league player you’ve got a really nice home environment set up you’ve got your Chef that comes in and prepares the food food
At the training ground is great different products are laid out you’ve got a really nice structure however what happens then when you’re on International Duty during coer America and guarantee the setup’s different so you’ll having then to take ownership on these things your your traveling strategy how are you preparing
For the match what food you eating as well so it’s really important and just this comes back to this empowerment piece that the athlete is driving this process and I think performance chefs can work really well all of these things can work really well but it’s just always really important the athletes in
The middle of it and tell me a little bit about your work with musicians then so what’s the approach there what what’s the demand now I’m just assuming that as a as someone who didn’t quite make it football but probably sounds quite handy on the park um you had an already a
Clear understanding of what demands of of modern day football are but talk to me a little bit about that work because that sounds like an interesting opportunity not only for impact um but but also incredible opportunity to Branch performance nutrition to a different industry yeah it’s it’s a really
Interesting one Steve I actually still remember the phone I got when the first musician that we really worked with in depth um and again I won’t name names on this but in terms of the profile of the musician had to call a prominent musician who was going to headline
Glastenbury headline the pyramid stage at glastenbury which for a musician is the biggest Accolade you know if you’re playing on the headline uh gig and I said look would you be interested in meeting there’s some work here to be done around nutrition I said well yeah
Absolutely this this is great and it was only then sitting down with a musician and understanding their goals and process that it was so similar to the work we do with an athlete you know there were there were certain questions that were bubbling up you know some of
These questions were hey look on the night so on the performance night it’s going to be a longer set the set’s going to be more energetic okay that’s really interesting okay so there’s going to be an element of improving physical capacity improving Fitness coming into this so that was a really interesting
Point first well we also know that when you’re playing Under The Lights there’s something around here the temperature on the night as well and the ambient temperature that we’d expect for that performance at that time of year with Glen bre so again there’s an interesting question but also leading up to that
Whilst improving Fitness there was a question around body composition and how and how that wanted to look as well alongside the training so before you know it we’ve actually got quite a lot of components here that are really very similar to the way we work with athletes
But with one really key difference it’s not Elite Sport it’s music and I think that contextual side of things was something I was quite aware of early on and I think for me it was really trying to understand the culture of this particular genre of music and I think
That was really important so I think at the start Steve it was about a lot of listening you know straight away because I think even in our first initial meetings even the way with some of the terminology we used or we refer to let’s say the day of the
Performance versus the match day there were lots of different things that were going to be obviously very different there’s time in the studio what does that time look like is it as structured as sport sometimes it is sometimes it isn’t so I think for me there was a real
Deep dive I would say over a few weeks to really try and understand not just the performer but their EOS system you know who do they have around them as well management tour staff what does a tour look like you know what foods available so I think for me the process
Was very similar doubt was really easy the contextual side was something deliberately I really wanted to ease into and I and just ask lots of questions and probably not pretend that I knew the environment because I didn’t know the environment so being I think really clear that hey look I have
Expertise in this spacee I’m going to look to apply let’s talk I’ve got tons of questions for you I’m really interested to hear about this this and this and I remember actually really landed for me Steve I remember going to see a couple of the rehearsals and it was real hairs on the
Back of your neck St you know standing up and I think it was only really then and seeing how the whole production came together you think okay this is this is really very interesting um I wonder how we can apply our service and actually make it more and more nimble because I
Probably haven’t quite got it to this point you know now we’ve got a bit more work to do before the uh Main Event amazing uh um and you know that that type of that type of um performance and thinking about what what determines effective performance what um
What goes into the preparation for that the the support team around that but also what could be the hijacks around that you know I’m sure you’re I’ve no doubt you’d be putting an immune support system pack in there around uh you know preventing or doing what you can to
Minimize the chance of upper respiratory tra infections because that that’s going to kaios a voice isn’t it I guess I’m just freestyling now yeah no you’re entirely right you know and I think this is part of a risk management for any for any client that you take on and the
Process is in the same Steve right we’re working backward from that day you know from that big day and it’s exactly the same for me I think there’s a real likeness here less so with team sport but there’s a real likeness that let’s say back in the day we had an athlete
Going to the world Champs I mean I think what was it 2007 was a Saka let’s say I think of my memory shows me correctly you know you’ve got an athlete peing probably for six you know six months going into that event and the training the detail the rest the
Recovery all of these things have to be going right because if it’s slightly wrong on the day you know it double things in Jeopardy so I would say there’s a really strong likeness maybe more so to the musician and some of our Olympic athletes rather than the team sport athletes
Yeah so many different insights from across the different uh ranges there um it strikes me as though the Common Thread is there staying curious and and being open to asking good questions understanding the culture working with the people around you as opposed to coming in with just a copy book of this
Is the way I do my work uh and and it sounds like that’s not only been Central to your work but also it’s quite Universal approach to the executive Market to musicians to sport team or Olympic over the years um how you’ve built your career yeah I think that’s right Steve I
Think the curiosity is really important I think probably the transparency I use this word transparency I think that’s really important we use that a lot within our team just about being being really transparent about what you do know and what you don’t know and I think that’s whether we’re working with
Someone outside I had a a conversation with a practitioner I worked with the other day we worked very closely and we just say hey look we’ll challenge each other and we have a relationship we work really hard to challenge each other so again we frame this relationship reltionship you said
To get the most from each other we’re going to make each other feel difficult at times but we’re really comfortable with that and if we don’t know the answer we’ll say and we’ll go and get that answer and I think I think it’s probably just this realization and to
Reinforce that within a sports setting you don’t have to know all the answers you know that that’s impossible so don’t put your pressure on yourself to do that but if you don’t you need to have people around you you can ask and help improve and and learn that knowledge as well so
I think that’s you I think that’s an important element superb James love love chatting to you and I’m just curious to know what’s next VI um intra is start to establish um where where um do you go next uh it’s yeah it’s it’s it’s a really interesting question probably
Relatively timely as well Steve um yeah so I think for for us on intra we’ve I think got a foothold now um we’ve got a nice team and I’m really looking for us to increase increase you know our work a big Focus for us is within individual athletes individual players as I
Mentioned and to work really closely with national federations and clubs to get the communication right around this pathway as well so that’s that’s one aspect for us that’s really important and I think the other side is you know how can we continue to learn within business and how can we continue to
Apply nutrition in different ways and and going back to this word of impact how can we demonstrate our impact in this setting where within corporate wellness it’s traditionally been a bit more difficult um for me personally um I’ve just actually embarked on a new Venture that I’m working in now and that
Is working um within Investments so I’m going going to almost be now working as an with an investment group to help looking at forthcoming performance Ventures as well to understand what can have an impact on society what’s going have an impact uh right across the board
So I’m really interested um in that next step as well this is alongside intro but I think for me Steve one of the big drivers is you know working on projects that will have a Bigg impact for individuals but as always you know how can we improve our ecosystem of
Performance and also wir Society so essentially how can we answer big questions and you know and work with trusted people to do those amazing sounds like a a challenge in itself for you but an opportunity for personal growth but much wider impact as as you allude to there so that sounds like an
Incredible next few years ahead for you James um thank you so much for spending the time to to chat to me great to catch up um after all these years um a real shot of clear thinking that I’ve I’ve enjoyed uh from you over the years um so
Thank you so much it’s my pleasure Steve and uh well then next time it’ll be a coffee down in London now yeah coffee down in by at the Arsenal training ground maybe yeah fantastic sounds great thanks for having me on steeve