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Jonny Pain

@jonathanpain

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Strength & Endurance Coach
Father of 4 · WR Holder · Self-Protection Instructor
Strength · Resilience · Capability
Be Your Own Hero.

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Looking fit is still nice. I’m not going to pretend I suddenly don’t care about that.

But somewhere along the way, my idea of what fitness is for has changed.

I want a body that lets me participate.

Run up the hill.
Swim the river.
Carry the load.
Climb the thing.
Keep up with my kids.
Be useful when something goes wrong.

And ideally, still look pretty decent with my shirt off.

Maybe that’s the real goal as we get older.
Not simply preserving youth.
Preserving capability.

Train for a life that demands something from you.

#FunctionalFitness #HybridTraining #StrengthAndConditioning #FitOver40 #TrainForLife by @jonathanpain

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a month ago

I suppose this is the formal introduction.

I’m Jonny Pain.

For over 25 years I’ve worked in strength & conditioning, performance nutrition, combat sports, endurance, and hybrid performance.

Some highlights?

• Consulted for Tyson Fury during the Deontay Wilder camp that became one of the most iconic heavyweight fights in modern boxing.

• Coached Billy Joe Saunders to become a two-weight world champion.

• Built Omnia Performance and developed programming systems and methodology still being used successfully today.

• Wrote and taught university-level Strength & Conditioning curriculum while simultaneously completing a degree in Performance Nutrition.

• Consulted into some of the largest fitness organisations in the world.

• Set world records and completed endurance projects that pushed me physically and psychologically far beyond comfort.

But honestly?

The older I get, the less interested I am in pretending achievements alone matter.

Because I’ve also experienced:
burnout,
injury,
collapse,
rebuilding,
loss,
addiction recovery,
and having to reconstruct myself from the ground up.

Which means the coaching I offer now is built on both high performance and lived experience.

Not theory alone.

This page is for people interested in:
real performance,
real resilience,
hybrid capability,
mindset,
fatherhood,
mountains,
strength,
endurance,
and becoming harder to break.

Welcome.

#HybridTraining #PerformanceCoach #EnduranceTraining #HumanPerformance #beyourownhero by @jonathanpain

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5 months ago

I AM GOING AGAIN!

Project Vertical:
The World’s First Vertical Marathon. ⁣
⁣
28/10/2024
42,200m elevation gain.⁣
Ben Nevis x32.⁣
540km.⁣
Finishing at 11am on 11/11/2024 to honour Remembrance Day alongside @reorgcharity
⁣
Monotony. Dread. Loneliness. Pain. Darkness. Doubt. Fear. Fight. Shame. ⁣
⁣
Everything that this project represents, and sadly, what thousands of men suffer from in silence every single day. ⁣
⁣
This doesn’t have to be the case. ⁣
⁣
We all have our own uphill battles to face, but there is no reason for us to fight them alone.
⁣
I will be open, I will be honest, and I will be vulnerable for the sake of progress - as we all should be.⁣
⁣
We need to take a stand against stigma, a stance against shame, and galvanise a genuine, positive change for the sake of people everywhere. ⁣We need to open our hearts and minds and wrap our arms around each other creating supportive community and surrounding ourselves
⁣
So please share far and wide, donate where you can, and most importantly, start those conversations that could save your life, or that of another...⁣ Details on how you can be more directly involved to follow!⁣
⁣
Some people will call this insane, foolish, potentially worse... But you know what’s truly insane? The fact that so many men choose death over honesty.⁣
⁣
Take it from someone who’s been there - be a man of more words, as talking saves lives.⁣
⁣
#CHALLENGEYOURLIMITS
#CLIMBYOUROWNMOUNTAIN⁣
⁣#BEYOUROWNHERO
⁣
-⁣
⁣
@grenadeofficial
@thrudark⁣
@ebwatches⁣
@builtforathletes
@godheadcoffee
@ineos_grenadier
@omniaperformance by @jonathanpain

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2 years ago

There’s an enormous amount of conversation about what men should be right now, and increasingly I think we’re confusing a narrow definition of masculinity with a strong one.

I believe in strength, courage, discipline, responsibility and physical capability. I’ve built a large part of my life around those things.

But they aren’t the whole of a man.

The old idea of the philosopher, artist and warrior appeals to me because none is diminished by the presence of the others.

A man can be physically formidable and intellectually curious. He can be courageous and tender. He can endure extraordinary discomfort and still be moved by music, literature, art or the sight of somewhere beautiful.

I’ve played music for most of my life. I sing and play several instruments. That part of me has never felt at odds with the part that lifts weights, fights, climbs mountains or deliberately seeks difficult things. Quite the opposite.

They give one another context.

Perhaps that’s what gets lost when masculinity becomes an endless project of becoming harder, richer, tougher and more difficult to kill.

Capability matters.

But so does having something beautiful in your life that makes being capable worthwhile.

We don’t need smaller definitions of masculinity.

We need men with enough breadth to think deeply, feel deeply and act decisively.

Philosopher. Artist. Warrior.

Three parts of a whole man.

I said what I said.

#ModernMasculinity #Masculinity #MensWork #MensDevelopment #BeYourOwnHero by @jonathanpain

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2 hours ago

I’ve spent most of my adult life in predominantly male environments and I like them. I like the camaraderie, the irreverence and, yes, the dark humour. I’ve laughed at things that would look absolutely fucking appalling written down without context, and I don’t believe that automatically tells you very much about my values or those of the men beside me.

But there’s a distinction I think we need to become much more comfortable making publicly: sometimes someone isn’t joking.

Sometimes a man is testing what the room will tolerate. Sometimes genuine contempt is hiding behind humour. Sometimes a story stops being funny once you actually consider what happened to the woman involved.

Good men generally know where that line is. The harder conversation is about what responsibility we have when another man doesn’t.

Because men influence other men constantly. We tell our mates when they’re too drunk, too aggressive, taking the piss too far or generally behaving like dickheads. We establish the boundaries of our groups without even thinking about it.

There’s no reason that instinct should disappear when those boundaries involve women.

That doesn’t mean sanitising male spaces or treating every offensive joke as evidence of misogyny. Nor does it mean policing women. Women should be free to be traditional, independent, flirtatious, conservative, sexually expressive, contradictory or anything else they choose to be.

That freedom requires us to understand something very simple: her expression is not our permission.

And when another man doesn’t understand that, the most useful intervention often isn’t a lecture or public humiliation. Sometimes it’s simply a respected mate saying, “Nah, mate. That’s not fucking on.”

Being a good man has always meant knowing where your own line is and refusing to cross it.

But if you’re fortunate enough to be a man other men listen to, there’s another responsibility that comes with that influence.

Make the line visible.

#ISaidWhatISaid #BeYourOwnHero #MensCulture #HealthyMasculinity #MensMentalHealth by @jonathanpain

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5 days ago

We all talk about ‘fitness’ but perhaps sustainability is the real test

Starting is easy.
Novelty carries you. Praise follows. Progress feels fast.

Then the plateau arrives.
Fatigue builds. Life interferes.
The work stops feeling heroic and starts feeling repetitive.

This is where most people disappear.

Not from lack of potential,
but from lack of pacing.

Sustainability is not weakness.
It is competence.

• Too much, too soon creates fragility
• Ego burns out
• Injuries are warnings, not trophies
• Recovery is discipline
• Longevity beats intensity

Those who last don’t chase peaks.
They build foundations.

They learn when to push.
When to hold.
When to rest.
When to adapt.

The work will outlast motivation.
Progress comes in waves.
Doubt is part of the process.

The answer isn’t more force.
It’s better behaviour.
Better standards.
Better consistency.

The ones who endure don’t burn brightest.
They burn steadily.

Because the real skill isn’t pushing harder.
It’s staying in the game long enough for the work to compound.

#beyourownhero by @jonathanpain

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6 days ago

I’ve spent much of my career around people with an intimate relationship with fear: fighters, soldiers, specialist police, elite athletes and people pursuing goals where failure has real consequences. I’ve also taught self-protection for many years.

One thing becomes obvious: the most capable people aren’t fearless. They’re familiar with fear. They recognise the racing heart, altered breathing, narrowed attention and urge to act, but they’ve learned that none of those things has to make the decision for them.

We teach this deliberately in self-protection. We make candidates speak publicly because it introduces fear in a safe environment. Then we let them sit in it. Marinate in it. Notice what happens and learn to function anyway. Your first encounter with your fear response shouldn’t be when someone is threatening you.

This matters when we talk about men and violence because fear doesn’t always look frightened. It can look like anger, aggression, posturing or refusing to back down. We mistake that for power. A man at the mercy of his own physiological response isn’t in control simply because he’s moving forwards.

Real capability is retaining choice: walk away when your ego wants to stay, de-escalate when your body screams for action and, when necessary, act rather than simply react.

Modern life has made us extraordinarily safe. That’s progress. But danger and fear aren’t the same thing. Somewhere along the way we started treating fear as evidence that something should stop.

Every time avoidance becomes the automatic answer, we reinforce the same lesson: fear must be obeyed.

We need opportunities to learn the opposite. Compete. Risk rejection. Have difficult conversations. Learn things you might be terrible at. Accept appropriate physical challenges. Allow your children appropriate risk.

Not recklessly. Deliberately.

You don’t need to eliminate fear. Learn to recognise it, accept it, harness it and retain choice.

The reckless man ignores fear. The avoidant man obeys it. The capable man listens, then decides.

Fear isn’t the opposite of courage. It’s the prerequisite.

#ISaidWhatISaid #BeYourOwnHero #Courage #Resilience #SelfProtection by @jonathanpain

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7 days ago

There’s a particular kind of strength that doesn’t show up in your training numbers.

It’s the ability to keep your shit together when life is doing its level best to pull it apart.

David came to me as a coach himself. He knew how to train, knew how to programme and already had a pretty good understanding of what he needed to do. What he wanted was someone who could take him further than he could take himself.

Then, a week into working together, life went sideways.

And this is where I think the distinction between programming and coaching becomes particularly important.

The answer wasn’t to push harder, demand more discipline or insist that he stick to the plan. It was to understand what was happening, adjust what needed adjusting and recognise when training was becoming an escape rather than something that was helping him.

Sometimes coaching means pushing someone beyond what they think they’re capable of. Sometimes it means having the experience and the relationship to know when to pull them back.

Four months later, David is stronger, leaner and better conditioned. But the thing that matters most to me is what he says about no longer being one bad month away from falling apart.

Because the objective was never simply to make him better at training.

It was to make him better equipped for life.

And that, for me, is what this whole fucking thing is about.

If you recognise yourself in David’s story and want to find out what working together might look like, I’m currently taking applications for 1:1 coaching.

Drop me a message. We’ll have a conversation.

#PainlessPerformance #StrengthAndConditioning #OnlineCoaching #PerformanceCoaching #BeYourOwnHero by @jonathanpain

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12 days ago

I knew exactly what I was doing with that first slide.

But “useful” isn’t a synonym for tough, masculine, strong or handy. And this isn’t some nostalgic argument that men were better when they could rebuild a gearbox but couldn’t tell their children they loved them.

It’s about competence.

Modern life has given us the extraordinary luxury of being able to outsource almost everything we don’t know how to do. Mostly, that’s progress. But it also means we can move through adulthood without ever being forced to become particularly capable.

And I think we should resist that.

Learn to use your body. Learn first aid. Learn to cook. Learn to fix things. Learn how money works. Learn to navigate. Learn to keep yourself and other people safe.

But also learn to regulate yourself. To listen. To apologise. To comfort someone. To admit when you don’t know. To ask for help.

I’m 50 and there are still glaring holes in my own competence. Good. I intend to keep finding them and filling them for as long as I’m able.

Because the objective was never to become completely self-sufficient.

It’s simply to become the sort of person whose presence makes difficult situations better rather than worse.

Keep collecting competencies.

Be difficult to make helpless.

#ISaidWhatISaid #BeYourOwnHero #Masculinity #MensHealth #SelfReliance by @jonathanpain

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14 days ago

A few years ago I was at a watch show as an ambassador for Elliot Brown. Across from me was a stall selling watch accessories, with an old Land Rover Defender as part of the display.

The guy running the stall was wearing an Elliot Brown Holton. His colleague was wearing a Rolex.

“Why do you wear that Rolex?”

His mate looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a Rolex. It does everything your Elliot Brown does, except better. And…it’s a Rolex.”

The Holton owner looked at him.

“Can it do this?”

He took his watch off and absolutely fucking leathered it against the side of the Defender.

THUD.

He checked it, put it back on his wrist and nodded towards the Rolex.

“Your turn.”

His mate declined.

I still think about that exchange. Not because it proved the Holton was tougher. It didn’t. The Rolex might have survived exactly the same impact.

The point was that nobody wanted to find out.

And somewhere in there is why I’ve loved Elliot Brown watches for years.

There are more expensive watches, more prestigious watches and more recognisable names. But “better” depends entirely on what you think the thing is for.

When Elliot Brown first sent me a watch, there was a note in the box:

“Do not look after it.”

So I didn’t.

I wore their Holton through Project Vertical. Later they gave me one of the first Beachmaster Automatics, which came across the Arctic Circle with me. They’ve been frozen, soaked, smashed against rock and treated less like jewellery and more like equipment.

I’ve since been fortunate enough to appear in their campaigns and lend my ugly Scottish voice to their films, so I’m hardly impartial.

But this isn’t an advert. It’s a love letter.

I love these watches because they’re built to a philosophy I recognise. Make it useful. Make it robust. Don’t pretend. Then go and find out what it’ll take.

My Holton feels exactly like that. Heavy, deliberate, overbuilt. Like it’s there to do the work it said it was going to do.

THUD.

Your turn.

#ElliotBrown #Holton #Beachmaster #AdventureReady #BeYourOwnHero by @jonathanpain

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16 days ago

For most of my life I measured progress by PBs, podiums and performance.

I still love all of that.

But at 50, I think a better metric is first times.

The first time you admit you’re scared of something. The first time you become a beginner again. The first time you stop letting an old story decide what you’re capable of.

I’m not trying to become younger.

I’m trying to become someone who’s still willing to grow.

What first are you collecting?

#BeYourOwnHero #AdventureReady #Longevity #MensHealth #NeverFinished by @jonathanpain

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18 days ago

That opening slide is deliberately ridiculous.

The subject underneath it isn’t.

I wasn’t initially sure these two stories belonged in the same conversation, but I think they do.

I understand the criticism of the Sydney Sweeney advert. Female athletes have fought for generations to have their sporting ability valued independently of their sexual attractiveness. But Sweeney is also an adult woman choosing to use her sexuality commercially. We can question the advert and what it contributes to sporting culture without turning that criticism into another set of instructions about how a woman is allowed to inhabit her own body.

Joanna presents almost the opposite problem. An elite athlete’s body did something involuntary under extreme exertion. That isn’t shameful or something that should diminish her dignity. But respecting the athlete doesn’t require abandoning ordinary standards either. Once faecal matter is contaminating a shared competition environment, officials should intervene. Joanna deserves dignity AND the other competitors deserved a hygienic, fair environment. Both can be true.

That’s why I care about this as a dad. I don’t want my daughter believing empowerment means rejecting femininity, or that femininity requires performing attractiveness. I don’t want strength to make her less feminine, beauty to make her less credible, or being human to make her ashamed of her body. I certainly don’t want “empowerment” becoming another fucking box she has to squeeze herself into.

I want her body to belong to her. Then I want sport to judge what she does with it: her preparation, performance, behaviour, sportsmanship and treatment of others. The same standards we should apply to everyone.

Perhaps progress isn’t finding the correct way for women in sport to look or behave. Perhaps it’s accepting there isn’t one, and allowing women to be powerful, glamorous, muscular, vulnerable, messy, beautiful and imperfect without requiring any one woman to represent all the others.

That’s the sporting world I’d like my daughter to inherit.

#ISaidWhatISaid #WomenInSport #FemaleAthletes #SportCulture #beyourownhero by @jonathanpain

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21 days ago