Summer 2014, on holiday in Devon with my first son Oliver (see photo above).  His birth was the catalyst for me to decide to leave professional sport strength and conditioning, and take this passion to risk everything by starting my own physical training centre – I’m Dave Cripps, Founder and Director of Coalition Performance.

A year before this, I sat in Dubai Airport on my way back from a coaching trip in Australia. Several years into being a strength and conditioning coach at Premiership Rugby Club Leicester Tigers, I realised the support athletes I coached received, was not available to those outside of elite sport – regular men, women and children. People who could actually benefit from this expertise, more than anyone.

In fact, there was no where that offered genuinely qualified strength and conditioning support in the entire UK. Therefore, people were left to train in unenjoyable gym environments, only able to access support from often unapproachable trainers, with very few qualifications, experience and care to trust. This created lacklustre results but also a limited sense of quality, value and enjoyment in their training…