Hey team, I’m James!

I’m originally from Pembrokeshire in West Wales and have now lived in the South West for over 15 years. I’m a part-time Coach at Valesco and typically coach at our St Philips site (V1). When I’m not at the gym, I’ll be at my full-time job working for a fairly well-known technology company.

I got into sport during my late school years, becoming increasingly involved in Athletics and specifically the shorter sprint distances. In an effort to improve my speed and power, I started to spend more time in the gym and, after growing to love the weight training just as much as the Athletics itself, I decided to lean into it with some purpose and started powerlifting! After a few years of full-time 1 rep maxing-out, shaving my head and growing a beard (which I can confirm adds ~10kg to all your lifts), I wanted to take on something new and see what else my body was capable of. I started to do some Functional Fitness workouts that I found online alongside my strength training and it didn’t take long for me to get hooked. Then, when worked brought me to Bristol in 2017, it didn’t take me long to find Valesco!

The family-vibe of our gym – throughout our coaching team and all of the members we get to meet and become invested in along the way – instantly made it feel like somewhere I wanted to be and I’ve never enjoyed training more than I do now.

I’m always happy to help, share my thoughts, offer advice and add value in any way I can – so if you want to chat about anything at all, just let me know!

My fun fact; I reached the live shows of the first ever series of Britain’s Got Talent and shortly after went on to perform on stage to a sold-out Royal Albert Hall… all drumming on Dustbins! It’s a long story…