Coach · he/him · at Forge since 2019
ArjunMenon
Ran the conditioning side of a rugby academy for six years. Now runs most of the lunchtime and evening conditioning classes.
Arjun played until his knee stopped agreeing with it, then spent six years doing strength and conditioning for a rugby academy, which is mostly the job of keeping teenagers available to play rather than making them impressive in a gym. That is a more useful background than it sounds.
The Level 4 lower back qualification came after his own disc injury in 2018. He took it because he wanted to know what he was doing rather than guessing, and it has since turned into a genuine speciality — a decent share of the 09:30 class is there because a physiotherapist sent them.
How he coaches
He asks a lot of questions before he lets you do anything, which some people find slow. What hurts, when does it hurt, what have you already tried, what did the physio actually say. Then he gives you a version of the movement you can do today, rather than telling you to avoid the movement.
His view, more or less verbatim: being careful with your back for two years is what makes a back worse. The way out is loading it properly, in small amounts, under supervision.
What he is less good at
Silence. If you want to put headphones in and be left alone, that is a perfectly reasonable way to train and Arjun is not the coach delivering it.
On the timetable