One came from the military. The other walked through the door as a client. Neither planned to spend their lives helping people with chronic pain and hypermobility. But sometimes the thing that breaks you is the thing that gives you a purpose.
Adam was a Reconnaissance Soldier with the Household Cavalry. In 2009, he was involved in an IED blast in Afghanistan. A few months into civilian life, he developed chronic pain, migraines, and fatigue that nobody could explain. He was passed between specialists, given conflicting diagnoses, and eventually hit rock bottom on Tramadol.
So he did what he’d been trained to do. He improvised, adapted, and overcame.
What started as survival became obsession. Adam became fascinated by research – specifically the neuroscience behind pain, proprioception, cortical mapping, and motor learning. The stuff that most exercise professionals never touch. He qualified as a specialist personal trainer and self-defence instructor, studied postural dysfunction and movement impairment, completed pain neuroscience education, and picked up a Psychology degree when he got bored. But it’s the research that drives everything. How the brain maps the body. How sensory input changes motor output. How muscle tone, coordination, and stability are learned, not just strengthened.
A few years in, he discovered that the mechanisms he originally thought explained his results were wrong. Instead of defending what he’d built, he threw it out and started again. That intellectual honesty is what separates The Fibro Guy from everyone else in this space.
He’s since co-authored “No Pain, No Pain” with trauma psychologist Dr Mairi Harper, directed the documentary “Invisible Monster” on invisible illness, chaired the Newcastle Fibromyalgia Support Group, presented for EDS UK and EDS Wellness, and developed a charity-endorsed exercise DVD with Fibromyalgia Action UK, and worked with thousands of people both in person and online.
Jonny came to Adam as a client with fibromyalgia. At his worst, he couldn’t use his hands. He’d been through the same cycle most people in this community know: specialists, unhelpful advice, nobody understanding what was going on.
Working with Adam changed how he understood his own body. Not a magic exercise, but an understanding of why his body was doing what it was doing. Once that clicked, everything started to shift.
He qualified as a specialist personal trainer and self-defence instructor himself, and went from client to business partner. He wanted other people to have what he had: someone who gets it, who’s been through it, and who doesn’t make you feel broken.
Adam and Jonny are research-obsessed specialist personal trainers. Their work is built on cortical mapping, tactile sensory input, motor learning, and the neuroscience of how the brain organises movement and stability. This isn’t generic strength and conditioning. It’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about bodies with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and hypermobility.
They teach people how their brain maps their body, how those maps lose accuracy over time, and how targeted sensory input and graded motor learning can sharpen them again. They use the BPS Bubbles framework to address the biological, psychological, and social factors driving someone’s experience, not just the physical ones.
If you’re curious, start with our free content on the blog. There are hundreds of articles covering pain science, movement, hypermobility, and fibromyalgia, all written to be genuinely useful rather than just clickbait.
If you want structured learning, explore the digital courses. They cover everything from cortical maps and sensory input to motor learning and building stability, in a format you can work through at your own pace.
If you’d prefer to learn live with direct support, we run workshops periodically where you can ask questions and work through the material with us in real time.
And if you want personalised support, you can book a consultation. It’s an honest conversation about where you are and what might help.
Adam Foster - Founder
