Hi, I’m Andy. I’m from Birmingham 🇬🇧, but I live in Tokyo 🇯🇵 .
I wear two hats in my professional life, both focusing on changing the fitness industry for the better.
In Japan, I am known for AthleteBody.jp, which I started in 2012. We are widely considered to be the most trustworthy nutrition and training resource in the country.
We sell books and online coaching. You may have heard of Starting Strength (English/Japanese) — we translated that. The translation of my own book, The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition (English/Japanese), went to number 1 in the “all book” Amazon charts for two brief periods in 2021 .
Elsewhere, I am known as a fitness author, podcaster, and online training and nutrition coach. You’ll find all details about my books, podcast, and coaching services on RippedBody.com.
Both of these businesses happened entirely by accident after I started writing online to help friends. I’m fortunate to have some international readers who think my writing is worthy of translation. 🇪🇸🇮🇹🇯🇵🇩🇪🇭🇷🇨🇳🇹🇼🇭🇰
Why Japan and Why Fitness?
I can identify three defining moments in my life that lead me to this point:
- Getting hit in the head with a glass bottle when I was 15.
- Volunteering in Calcutta, India, for three months when I was 19.
- Realizing the fitness 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 (that grew to two very big fitness blogs) to fight against the industry nonsense.
This site will be about non-fitness-related things once I’ve figured out how I’m going to use it.
Business and Life Philosophy
I make an active effort to surround myself with high achievers — they inspire me to do/be better.
Trying to be useful first, while expecting nothing in return, has been the source of the most meaningful human connections in my life.
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 and leave places I go a little better than how I found them.
