ABOUT US

This whole health and fitness stuff became my calling by accident, like a lot of people. Yes, for sure, growing up in a house full of boys, watching hulking movie stars like Arnold and Stallone, and anime like Dragon Ball Z, definitely shaped my perceptions, but I was never the “fit guy”. Doing sports like boxing, football, GAA, a little bit of rugby and whatever else was going when I was younger was offset by the fact that I also like my food a little bit too much. So, of course, that left me overweight and not in the best of shape. It wasn’t until I was about 12-13 that I made the connection between eating too much and carrying excess weight. So I began looking into the diet a little bit more. This may seem strange for a 12 year old, but I grew up in a household full of books, I spent way too much time as a child watching whatever documentaries were on and my family always encouraged thinking, discussion and debate. So when I wanted an answer to something, I would go about researching it, using whatever resources I had available to me. I was always trying to figure something or other out, so reading about nutrition was nothing out of the ordinary really. Obviously enough, the local library had books on “diets”, that I read, but of course, a lot of these were not exactly what I was looking for as they were mainly aimed at women trying to lose weight, reading them still allowed me to start connecting the dots about what actually worked with nutrition and what the common threads were.

At about 15, I joined a gym with my friend, and while we had no idea what we were doing looking back, we got some fairly decent results. Because I was reading so much about nutrition and training, he let me decide the workouts, and while they had way too much volume, we made some good gains. And this is where it all began. I began obsessing over training and nutrition, and really understanding how to manipulate different variables to get results. While I was still doing some sports, the gym was what interested me the most. I just loved the process of solving the puzzle of training programs and diet for different people, and I really enjoyed making workouts for my friends and family taking into account the different things they had going on. However, there was one problem.

When I grew up, there was nowhere you could really find any good training and nutrition information. Yes, for sure it wasn’t as bad as the information that would have been available in the 90s or before that, but at around the 2005-2007 time frame, we were basically all at the mercy of ridiculous claims. No one knew where to find good information, and while there was a lot to be found on the internet, there was just as much, if not more terrible information to be found. While I read voraciously, trying to devour every single bit of information I could find about training, nutrition and health, I still didn’t really know how to substantiate a claim. I mean, I would read things, they would make sense to me with the information I had already accumulated, but I didn’t know how to “read science”, so I was left leaving a lot of trust in others that had hopefully read it, and of course, I listened to their “experience”.

At this time, I got a job at a local gym that had a restaurant. This was a much better kitted out gym, and had a lot more serious trainees attending. I made friends with quite a lot of very big guys, and soaked up as much information from them as possible. They would give me pointers and critiques in the gym when they saw me training, and I learned an awful lot here. While my workouts were more geared towards improving my boxing (as that was my main sport around this time), they did provide me with valuable information. I also gained the most unrealistic expectations here, as all of these guys (I would later find out) were on the special sauce. But I just thought lifting heavy weights and getting insanely big was just a natural progression when you worked out consistently.

I was still getting a “proper” education at this time, and while that was obviously a big focus, I started working part time for a different gym. I continued to workout with unrealistic expectations and by the time I was 18 I had a 200kg deadlift and weighed 85ish kg. This is nothing to write home about now, but at the time, nobody was lifting that kind of weight unless they were on drugs. Life was good, and during/after my first stint in college, I began working at a different University gym. I loved helping people, and still loved researching everything related to nutrition and training. While I had learned to actually read and interpret research at this stage (this was something I struggled to teach myself at 18 in secondary school, but gained a much better grasp of it in first year of college), I would constantly find myself drawn to the topic of biochemistry. To me, it seemed like it kind of underpinned everything in this health and fitness sphere. So while I was devouring every book I could read on the topic, I wanted more. So I decided to enrol in college again and this time study biochemistry.

But before doing this, I also noticed the trend in the fitness industry towards online coaching. I started doing it myself, and quickly learned that while you could earn a lot of money quickly, if you wanted to actually help people, you had to set things up correctly and actualy have good processes in place. I enjoyed working for myself, but I still kept my foot in the door with some part time shifts in the gym I was working at. This kept me grounded in the real world of training people, and I would always recommend someone work doing in-person training before ever considering online training. I had basically spent the last 10 years working in and around a gym, and the knowledge learned here definitely stood to me with the move to online training.

After this, with the rise of social media and the ease of communicating with like-minded individuals, I met Gary. We would later go on to form TriageMethod as our vision for the future of the health and fitness industry aligned perfectly. The rest is history as they say.

Interests

I am interested in biochemistry, training, nature, hiking, mountaineering, martial arts, politics and philosophy. But the thing that brings me the most happiness is helping people unlock knowledge they never had before. I get immense satisfaction from feeling like I understand a topic, but that is magnified when I feel like I have passed that knowledge/understanding on to another individual.

Qualifications/Education

1. BSc. Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science (University College Dublin)
2. Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach
3. Certified Sports and Exercise Nutritionist
4. Certified Conditioning Coach 
5. Certified Maximal Aerobic Function Specialist
6. Certified in the Foundations of HRV
7. Certified Recovery Coach
8. Certified Yoga Instructor
9. Certified Mobility Specialist
10. Certified in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Unlike a lot of fitness professionals, I didn’t grow up with a love for sports. I mean, yeah, I played some soccer as a kid and thought I’d one day play for Manchester United, but that interest started to dwindle once I was 10 or 11. However, I was always very active. I grew up in a council estate in Killarney, Co. Kerry (Ireland), and so a lot of our fun came from kicking a ball around on the concrete, throwing stones, climbing trees, collecting for fires (and lighting them), building forts, fighting, and so on. Therefore, I certainly wouldn’t be accused of being the kid who sat around playing video games all day.

As I got into my teens, I did develop a bit of a video game addiction for a while (I mean who didn’t when Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 came out?). However, I was also a member of the “No Name Club”, which was essentially a club for teenagers who didn’t want to drink alcohol (until I was 16 or 17…). This meant that we engaged in a lot of activities, charity events, and discos. At the time, a dance called “Jumpstyle” was in quite a few music videos, so naturally, this was something that was cool to learn for those discos (or at least I thought it was cool – here’s some entertainment for you). That was a means of activity for a while, and we even began teaching classes to others, which really kickstarted my interest in teaching and coaching others.

Then came the turning point for me… I entered Transition Year (a bit of an easy year in school where you focus a little more on non-academic endeavours), which involved us getting our Gaisce Awards, for which one had to complete some form of physical training. At the time, I was far more interested in Call of Duty, so rather than actually signing up for a sport, I decided it would be a better option to just join the local gym and have them sign off on the hours I completed. What started as a compulsory activity soon turned into a passion. I wasn’t exactly “physically competent”, as I learned to do my first ever push-up at the age of 16, but from the get-go, I began getting more and more interested in the “why”. I wanted to know why we were doing what we were doing? What was going on in our muscles, why were they sore, how do they grow, were all questions I wanted the answers to. As I began seeking out these answers, I became the person who designed the workouts for my training partner and I, which then developed into giving more and more training and nutrition advice, and from there it all blossomed.

Throughout secondary school, I wanted to be a pilot, but due to the cost of attaining a pilot’s license, I decided Aeronautical Engineering (or any engineering) would be a good option for me since maths and physics were probably my favourite subjects through most of school. But, in those last few months of 6th year (final year of secondary or high school), I decided to change and pursue Exercise Science, as I had a bit of an aptitude for biology and a deep interest in the science of training, so my guidance counsellor wondered why on earth (pun intended) I was considering Astrophysics (lol). She let me know that there weren’t really many jobs in Exercise Science, but what do you care when you are 17/18?

After year one of Exercise Science, I felt that I was essentially studying something that I would have no problem studying in my spare time anyway, as I was interested enough to actually want to read about physiology, biomechanics, anatomy, etc., without needing the formality of university. Therefore, I felt that if I was going to spend 4 years studying, I may as well come out the other end with a professional qualification, and so I decided to pursue Physiotherapy. Back to first year of Physiotherapy I went…

During my Physiotherapy degree, I started up my own online coaching business, which grew quite quickly at the time. As a result of that success, I also began working as a personal trainer (one-to-one and group training) during a year out of Physiotherapy, in which time I developed a lot of additional skills relevant to the in-person training experience. These skills were further developed during Physiotherapy placements in hospitals and the community, where I had the opportunity to work with individuals with neurological conditions (e.g. stroke, multiple sclerosis), respiratory conditions (e.g. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis), musculoskeletal conditions (e.g. post-surgical rehab, tendinopathy), along with healthy individuals seeking to engage in exercise and other health behaviours in the community. These experiences have significantly helped shape my approach to coaching.

Of course, during that time, I met Patrick through social media. Specifically, our first encounter was on a Facebook thread where we were both trying to explain the concept of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) and step-tracking as a primary means of activity monitoring to some bodybuilders, who, at the time, were pretty dead set on just monitoring formal cardiovascular exercise and nothing else (of course, it’s now common practice for people to discuss NEAT and steps, but it wasn’t then). And, as Paddy said, the rest is history.

Interests

From a coaching perspective, my primary area of interest could be summarised as the promotion or exploitation of antifragility via graded exposure to stressors (e.g. exercise, nutrition, life), increasing the individual’s preparedness for all challenges presented throughout the lifespan. For this reason, one population I enjoy working with are those individuals whose pain/disability is a limiting factor. Through modification of lifestyle and physical stressors, I use my understanding of biomechanics, anatomy, pain science, and other such subjects to help individuals overcome their barriers to participation in sport, activity, and daily life. Along with this, I enjoy helping people adopt a flexible approach to health & fitness so that they can prioritise other areas of life, as opposed to allowing rigid training and diet practices to hinder work, education, or relationships. Ultimately, I love seeing people living up to their potential, and so anything that I can do to support that in my coaching practice is of interest to me.

Personally, I am very interested in the intersection between healthcare (the role of modern medical care and related professions) and lifestyle (the actions of the individual in their environment), which is one of the reasons why I pursued Physiotherapy and am currently studying Medicine. Therefore, the transition from the hospital bed to the home and vice versa is something that interests me quite a bit, particularly as it relates to the role of lifestyle in minimising time spent in the former. I’d be lying if I said I could specify my interests down to a couple of topics, as I prefer to study as a generalist while I am young; my personal studies include physiology, nutrition science and biochemistry, biomechanics, pain neurophysiology, all the way to a little psychology, a sprinkle of philosophy, and so on (far from an expert in any of those subjects).

As for training, I spend a lot of my time resistance training (barbells, machines, bodyweight, even trees and rocks every now and then), running (Read: Yogging), hiking, and grappling (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – White Belt). Again, as per my studies, I enjoy being a generalist, as it is personally fulfilling and also allows me to generalise my coaching skills, which suits the clientele that we work with at Triage.

Beyond all of that exercise and health stuff, I also enjoy traveling and engage in some charity work with the Burren Chernobyl Project. I travel to the Gorodishche Orphanage in Belarus multiple times per year and we have also run a number of fundraisers for the charity through Triage. Our latest fundraiser was very successful, and you can make a donation to the charity any time you’d like.

Qualifications/Education*

1. BSc. Physiotherapy (First Class Honours)
2. Medical Doctor (MB BCh BAO, First Class Honours)
3. Resistance Training Specialist
4. Personal Trainer
5. Sports and Exercise Nutritionist
6. Conditioning Coach 
7. Mobility Specialist
8. Certificate of Excellence in Lipidology (European Atherosclerosis Society)

*Not to be confused with knowledge, expertise or endorsement of any of these institutions. For transparency’s sake, the only course I would say is universally helpful is the Resistance Training Specialist course, and of course the Physiotherapy degree if you actually want to be a Physiotherapist.

I found my way onto the nutrition and health scene through a somewhat stereotypical series of events. I was your typical (very) skinny teenager and while I was getting on pretty well playing sports like basketball, I did decide I wanted to bulk up and get stronger to make me a better player on the court. With a hefty serving of childhood influence from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies I began training in a gym as soon as I could at age 16. I was fortunate to have some guidance from a personal trainer from the get-go and made some good progress overall. Like many people I became quite intrigued by how what you put in your body could have a huge impact on your results. I read as much as I could in the sphere of nutrition, health and strength training and consumed a lot of nonsense as a result!

When it came time to decide what I wanted to study in university, nutrition was an obvious choice as I had become more interested in the food side of this whole health equation as opposed to the training side. I studied for four years in University College Dublin and throughout I knew I aspired to help people in a personalised, one-to-one setting as opposed to going into academia or public health nutrition. When I graduated with a BSc in human nutrition I had a lot of knowledge of nutritional science but little training in the application in a real world setting and helping people achieve their goals using nutritional interventions. As such I completed the Precision Nutrition level 1 certificate in sports and exercise nutrition & the level 2 nutrition coaching masterclass  and began coaching people in 2017 with an emphasis on continuing education. You can never stop learning.

Since I started coaching I’ve worked with hundreds of people with an extremely wide variety of goals – from professional athletes to clients with specific digestive or hormonal conditions like IBS or PCOS to clients wanting to improve their health and body composition and especially clients who need help with their relationship with food and food fear or anxiety, disordered eating patterns like binge eating and overly restrictive eating behaviours.

It’s extremely fulfilling to guide people towards their goals and empower them so that they have the tools to proceed on their own and ultimately fire me! On excellent terms of course – tears have been shed. Experiencing client breakthroughs with their relationship with food where they can tell me they haven’t binged in so long or no longer feel anxious about eating meals out or eating certain foods and can ultimately enjoy their life a lot more without having these things hanging over them. I take a very holistic approach and explore and guide clients on many aspects of their health and mindset.

In addition to coaching clients I also have a great deal of experience in delivering seminars, webinars and speaking at health events like Wellfest as I’ve always enjoyed the role of educator and speaker.

Interests

In addition to coaching clients and everything mentioned above my interests lie in training – generally weight training, gymnastics strength training and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but I try to be well rounded and not neglect any area of fitness! This also involves being generally active and getting out walking and hiking in nature with my dog. I also like to read a lot and I enjoy psychology and philosophy, particularly Stoic philosophy. I love to travel as one of the perks of having a remote job and when I can, scuba diving is one of my favourite things of all to do.

Qualifications

1. BSc Human Nutrition, University College Dublin
2. Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr) of the Association for Nutrition and member of the UKVRN
3. Precision Nutrition Level 1 certificate in Sports and Exercise Nutrition
4. Precision Nutrition Level 2 Master Coach
5. Advanced Counselling Skills (London Centre for Intuitive Eating)
6. The Sensitive Gut (Harvard Health Publishing)
7. “Body Peace Eating Disorder Sensitive: Education for Physicians & Primary Care Providers” Certified
8. Trained on the use of a low FODMAP diet for IBS by Monash University
9. Trained in Body Image Fundamentals (Shannon Beer)
10. Trainee Counsellor & CBT Psychotherapist’

Wanting to be ‘skinny’ can take up a vast amount of space in our brain. Like many girls growing up, I struggled with body image issues and with my relationship with food. I have tried and tested all avenues of weight loss. I restricted food groups, tried “skinny tea” and did bouts of excessive exercise. It wasn’t until I started strength training that I began to focus on what my body could do, rather than what it looked like.

What I learnt from working with women is that the harsh criticism of our bodies often doesn’t disappear with age. We scrutinise every inch of our bodies and its appearance, yet we know very little about how it works. We’ve been let down in the education of the unique physiology women have. From the Menstrual Cycle, PCOS, Endometriosis, Fertility, and a whole host of other female-specific subjects that are glossed over in textbooks, it begs the question – why do we know so little about Women’s Health?

We’ve been left wondering about the changes our bodies go through, with some subjects like the Menopause, Pelvic Health and IBS still regarded as ‘taboo’ – only to be spoken about in whispers between friends.

I currently work as a junior doctor in a Women’s Hospital alongside my client work with Triage. I have studied and completed courses in Nutrition, Pre and Postnatal exercise, Menopause for Athletes, and Women’s Specialisation. By doing so, I’m hoping to bridge the gap between medicine, diet and exercise.

My aim with the women I coach is get every single one training, feeling strong about their bodies, and teach them about the unique physiology they have.

Education

1. Personal Trainer
2. Nutritionist
3. Medical Doctor
4. Female Health, Training and Nutrition Specific Continuing Education

Dean has been working in the health and fitness industry since 2016. First as a personal trainer and then progressing to an online nutritionist in 2018.

He has worked with a diverse selection of clients of many different goals, jobs and life circumstances. These include clients wanting to lose fat, build muscle, gain strength, improve their sleep hygiene, digestive issues, relationship with food and athletic performance, as well as clients struggling with obesity, night shift work, PCOS and many other unique challenges.

Dean’s coaching involves a thorough understanding of each client’s goals, needs, preferences, personality and lifestyle. He believes that every client has the potential to create amazing changes in their lives, once they are given the support, accountability and guidance from a coach. He views coaching as a marriage of science and art, combining evidence-based nutrition, personal experience and a genuine care for each client to create results.

Dean’s interests include strength training, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, playing the guitar, watching movies, listening to podcasts and reading about psychology, philosophy, nutrition, training and business!

Qualifications:

1. National Qualification in Exercise, Health Studies and Personal Training.
2. MNU Full with Honours Nutritionist.
3. Post Graduate Diploma in Performance Nutrition (Institute of Performance Nutrition)
4. Training in Motivational Interviewing (Hugh Gilmore Level 1,2 & 3)
5. Training in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (Steve Hayes ACT Immersion)
6. Training in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (Graham Nicholls REBT certification)
7. Training in Intuitive Eating Principles
8. Body Image Fundamentals (Shannon Beer)