Hi, I’m Andy. I’m from Birmingham in the UK, but I live in Tokyo.

I wear two hats in my professional life, both focussed on changing the fitness industry for the better.

🇯🇵 In Japan, I am known as the guy behind AthleteBody.jp, which is now the most trusted and widely read fitness information site in the country. We educate the coaches and personal trainers of Japan by translating the best information available and putting most of it out for free on our site.

🇬🇧 In the rest of the world, I am known as a fitness author and online training and nutrition coach. I specialize in helping experienced, male strength trainees get their abs for the first time. The majority tend to be executives and entrepreneurs – serious people who understand there are no shortcuts, prepared to focus and put in the work.

Both of these businesses happened entirely by accident after I just started writing, trying to be helpful.

• You can find my free articles, books, podcast and coaching service details on RippedBody.com.
• Spanish, Portuguese, German, or Croatian translations of my work are here.
• You can read the full story of how I developed my businesses here.

Why Japan and Why Fitness?

I can identify three defining moments in my life that lead me to this point:

1. Getting hit in the head with a glass bottle when I was 15.
2. Volunteering in Calcutta, India for three months when I was 19.
3. Realizing the fitness supplements industry was full of shit when I was 27.

The first led me to start karate classes, the second gave me a thirst to explore the world, and the combination of the two resulted in me boarding a plane to Japan after graduating, for lack of any better ideas on what to do. The third led me to start a little fitness blog to fight against the industry nonsense.

This site will be about non-fitness related things once I’ve figured out what I’m going to use it for.

Business and life philosophy

I put my success down to one part luck, one part ignorance of what I ‘should’ be able to achieve, and two parts persistence driven by a feeling of fortune at doing a job I love and the fear of losing it.

I make an active effort to surround myself with high achievers – they inspire, make me believe in myself, and drag me up in general.

I think a philosophy of trying to be useful first, while expecting nothing in return, has been the source of the most meaningful human connections in my life, and probably the reason why I feel that I punch above my weight with my friend circle.

I’m blunt, but I’m trying to be less so.

I don’t do well with people who faff.

I like most things involving speed.

I am blessed with loving parents.

I try to do one thing each day to make someone else’s day.

*

*