Alex: 0:37

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Working it Out podcast. Today I've got Martin Yelling with me. Martin is the CEO and founder of Stormbreak and also the founder and co presenter of Marathon Talk. Hello and welcome to the podcast Martin.

Martin: 0:52

Hello, Alex. Nice to see you.

Alex: 0:54

Great to see you. So we're going to jump straight into our first question, which we do with all of our guests. It's welcoming you to the Working it Out community and to do so, what we like to do is induct one item from your relationship with physical activity into our working out locker. So is there any item that initially comes to mind when you think this signifies my, relationship, or this was a really important item.

Martin: 1:17

Like a physical item,

Alex: 1:19

Yeah. Physical item.

Martin: 1:20

physical.

Alex: 1:21

Yeah. Physical item. You don't, you can keep it at home. You don't have to give it to me, but we're going to put it into our virtual locker.

Martin: 1:28

Yeah. So it can't be, something yeah, physical. I was thinking like around benefits. So I was thinking of virtual

Alex: 1:33

I will go there next. We go there next. Don't worry about that.

Martin: 1:36

So if it's a physical thing, so I'm lucky, and I'm lucky because. Physical activity and moving has always had this really important part in my life, but for different reasons and as I'm in my fifties now, those reasons have changed over the seasons that I've engaged with being active. I think probably the one thing stuck with me being active is running. So probably it means if I'm, if you're going to have something in your locker, I'll probably have to give you one of these. Look, it's one of these shoes,

Alex: 2:16

Amazing.

Martin: 2:17

running. And running's been a real constant for me and has taught me so much about myself and has helped me I guess become, I say running, but physical activities helped me become who I am today and also helped me do I do today and given me some absolutely banging opportunities, and so a running shoe I guess represents that. And these are special'cause they've got my name on. When

Alex: 2:46

going to say, are these special shoes or what? What are those specifically?

Martin: 2:49

Never been worn. They're probably too small now, would injure me immediately upon putting them on. There we go.

Alex: 2:55

That's amazing. Thank you.

Martin: 2:56

them, I'm actually going to keep them on the shelf.

Alex: 3:00

Yeah, I've got so many items in my locker now and I've nearly got a full running kit, which is fantastic. I've got. Gary Laybourne, as you, you've met him, his running vest, and I've got your running shoes, which is amazing. I've got a netball bib and compression socks. So I think we're on our way. And also a few trophies related to running too.

Martin: 3:19

Yeah

Alex: 3:19

yeah.

Martin: 3:20

Represents so much. That's why the shoes are in your locker, right? Running gives me travel, like running's helped me meet people, running's given me lots of work, through running all the coaching and the training and the, competing and, I met my wife throuh running. So I, I think a shoe probably, that's about it, isn't it?

Alex: 3:40

I said talk about your wife and running. I remember doing Poole Parkrun back in about 2012 ish and starting and having your wife whizz past me running with a pram thinking, blimey

Martin: 3:55

yeah, I know. I spent lots of years trying to keep up with my wife. She went to a couple of Olympics in the marathon and won a Commonwealth medal, won the national cross country multiple times. And, she also shares this passion for moving and running, but she's still the team GB, senior team manager. So she's still engaged and she helps the younger, younger athletes progress now and takes them on trips and things like that. But also been together for 32 years and she's not listening and she probably won't Alex, but I don't know, maybe she will, but she's 50 this year. Right. So she's 50 this year and I keep jumping ahead. It's 32 years we've been together when she's 50. So I've got to be careful of that. And in the same sense, that journey with Liz and the journey with running help has just helped us so much in, in everything we do. Yeah. So I'm sorry that she took you apart, pushing a buggy.

Alex: 4:53

I was mesmerized by it wasn't a negative thing, I thought that's incredibly impressive. And then, I'd like to do with not just talk about Liz, today we're talking fully about you. With when I was digging into your X, as it's now called, as I do with all of my guests, trying to find interesting bits. The amount of pictures I've seen from you, from falling over whilst running, or bloody toes, or cuts on hands, that you've posted on X. You can tell it's a real emotional rollercoaster for you running.

Martin: 5:22

Yeah, but I think that's what, like life is there to be rollercoastered through a little bit, and I don't mind a little bit of discomfort and, it's, it probably seems odd, but. One of the things that running and moving has given me is a capacity to tolerate Now, not just physical discomfort, but the many different ways in which discomfort can thread through your life, and understanding and an appreciation for some of that. And running has given, running has given me that. And that's how, probably how it started, as a kid thinking actually running something I can do and running something, something that made me feel better and running gave me a sense of escapism. But yeah, it comes with a few tumbles every now and again. Yeah. I've fallen off my bike loads of tripped over loads of, yeah. So part of the package of engaging. I think I don't say that from an elitist point of view as, as well. I'm really part of work and it has always been around taking what we know from experiences and implementing them in practice. I was just lucky that I could do things from a running point of view. I also understood, I did a PhD and a postdoc at Loughborough and so I understood, and that was in physical activity and behaviour change in children and young people. And so I understood the application of some of those things in everyday lives as, as well. So yeah, I'm not harping on about, how hard things has to be. But for me that, yeah, falling over happens to, then it happens in everything we do.

Alex: 7:02

I'm the most injury prone person out there. I fall over nothing. So I used to get that from my mum. And so which leads us on to, we've been digging into emotions a bit already, which is really nice. And you're saying that you've tolerated discomfort through, through physical activity. The next part is around your relationship again with movement, physical activity, sport. And if we could pinpoint one word, one emotion that summarizes your relationship with physical activity.

Martin: 7:31

Gratitude, I think.

Alex: 7:33

That's an amazing one. Can you tell me why?

Martin: 7:36

So I'm grateful that moving has been a constant thread in my own life and it has been, you know, and I hope that will continue, I hope I'm able to continue, as I, age a little bit more. My reasons for that gratitude have changed over the years. People immediately associate with participation, being thankful, but I am because it gives me like having a really lifelong relationship. And a trusted relationship that moving, being active, whatever form that takes, and it takes multiple different forms. It has done for me. And it will for people that will listen or really importantly, it will for the people who listen and the lives those people are trying to impact or reach with the work that they might do. And I put myself in that camp, how does, The gratitude that I have for moving and therefore the benefits it brings me physically and emotionally. How do we get that across in ways in which others can find gratitude in the movement that they do, so it can nourish them, can bring them joy, it can bring them happiness, all very complex things in, in modern life and not something that movement is a simple medicine for, but something which, you know, when you understand how to harness the capacity of being a regular active person. When you understand that and how to harness it, then you can deploy it with meaning and intent in your life. And so that's why gratitude works for me.

Alex: 9:23

I think you've started to pick that apart a bit there in terms of, and you can see how, when we talk about the work you're currently doing later on, how there is a real connect between your relationship with physical activity and the work that you do. Has there been times where throughout, throughout your journey, which you've maybe found it a bit more challenging in terms of mental health wise, or because like you said earlier, there's lots of like peaks and troughs in a journey with physical activity, isn't there?

Martin: 9:54

Yeah, there always is. And I'm still excited when I meet someone who's found moving physical, being physical, active, physically active for the first time. So for them, it's a revelation, right? An absolute revelation. And I've met people, for whom they say, I don't, moving is something I never thought I'd do, but now I can't do without it. Yeah. And yeah so it's always full of change and adaptation. But a part of the capacity to harness, is capacity to harness means understanding how to ride something when it's not always easy, right? And it's not always simple and it is complicated and like you have less time in your life. I've got three children, I might be injured, I might just not be feeling it, it's the winter, it's raining all the time. Like simple things or more complex things come into play in your life. And, so that sometimes means. I change what I do, motivation might take a dip and I'll do something else, stop doing it for a while, and pick it back up again. I hosted a marathon talk, you mentioned it at the beginning, with Tom Williams. Tom and I are really good friends and for 10 years we put out a podcast together. and every week we would interview someone a bit like this about why running was important to them. And for some people it was because they were trying to win the Olympic games, right? And some of our guests did win the Olympic games. and for others it was to overcome addiction, and for others it was to recover from grief, right? Or other trauma that they may have experienced in their life. And we told stories about what other, how other people benefited from having physical activity and movement in their life. And in doing that, I'm learning like soaking it up like a sponge thinking that's a fantastic piece of advice. From it, whoever it was, Olympic champion or nurse who's discovered running for the very first time and, how it helps her recover for her next really busy shift in A& E whatever. So is that a sort of answered your question with a bit of waffle? Yeah,

Alex: 12:18

great. And I think that the addiction part is one that's of real interest to me because I've always said I've had, unfortunately, members of the family have had a gambling addiction or a drinking addiction. And I've always said that my addiction, I'm just lucky that it's a physical activity sport. I'm doing it every day. If I don't my behaviour change, my attitudes change. I get the withdrawal symptoms from physical activity. And I've just, I've said that the traits are all the same, but I have to do it daily. I think about it all the time and I get that huge buzz from doing it. I'm just lucky. It's a positive thing.

Martin: 12:51

And, I have lots of conversations around that and, you will do, will in my kind of role as a coach with people, I've been lucky to have lots of really beautiful coaching experiences over the last 25 years in coaching. And it's not just a elite level. I love coaching people to do things, whatever that might be. And actually what I love to do with my coaching is to enable and empower real independence, right? And to then really deeply explore what independence means. And for me, coaching, isn't about building have a quite relational coaching style and, we build relationship and I understand humans and their behaviour. And I try and seek to understand, makes people tick. And once we do that, we can then put together the pieces that them achieve whatever they want to achieve. And for some, they might come and expect coaching to take the form of a more traditional, here's what you're going to do. And then you go away and do it. Whereas for me, it's so person and human centered, and emotionally and relationally driven, right? That what you think you want coaching for is often not the real reason for the coaching experience. And as we go through time together, just through what you've said, If we were, and we're not, but if we were in a coaching relationship, role would quickly become, what do you do when you can't move? Do you do when you can't? How do I equip you with the skills and knowledge, the understanding that yes, it's really good for you, but you are in control. It doesn't have control of you. You have control of it. If you can't run or bike or whatever else you do, for a month, it's going to be all right. It's going to be okay, and that will, if it hasn't happened already, that will happen. I want to encourage, I look to encourage real independence and real strength and real resilience and real human skillset for using moving to bring something to your life. So yeah, we're almost back to gratitude for trainers, aren't we?

Alex: 15:17

You just caught me and did my link for me, which is good. So we've covered the, in a lot of detail, kind of emotions linked to physical activity. And my next question is around earliest memory. So if I see what's the earliest memory of being physically active, it doesn't necessarily have to be a sporty one, but where does your brain go to from what, the youngest age, what, is there any standout memories for you, or earliest memories?

Martin: 15:41

I don't have a particularly active family. I don't come from, a particularly active family. My background was one of I, a pretty poor very poor, disadvantaged, working class background, being brought up with a single parent, sometimes with one parent, sometimes with another, then, not a bit of uncertainty about where we were going to be. And with that came a couple of things. The first thing was just being outside. I don't remember as a particularly young kid, I don't remember very much. I don't remember having a big garden to go and play in or anything like that, but I remember playing on the street, a bit older than you, Alex, but,

Alex: 16:28

No, I did it too.

Martin: 16:29

I remember being, playing out on the street and that's probably my first memory of escape. So freedom and creativity and independently learning how to do things as a growing boy that's, there's that bit. And then there's the competitive element and realizing that when I did sport, I could do it. And that's not because I had coaching or training or anything that we see now as structured, exercise or coaching that wasn't a part of my particular early memories. They were self driven because I didn't have that nurturing environment for sport and physical activity, so it had to come from me. And then, just being outdoors was something that I responded to, whether that was in a hedge messing about, so first memories were probably memories of being naughty, doing something I shouldn't be doing outside. So

Alex: 17:34

Yeah.

Martin: 17:35

right? So knocking on someone's door and running away was a good, fun game. I'm not saying that we should

Alex: 17:43

No,

Martin: 17:43

it,

Alex: 17:44

everyone did it. They'll be lying if they said they didn't.

Martin: 17:47

that's the sort of thing. And I, thought, this is fun. run away really quickly and I'm getting an adrenaline and then actually then putting into play. Okay. I might, I can't remember how old I was when I did a first sort of school, probably at primary school. So a first memory of I can do this was at primary school, a running event and thinking, hang on, I'm miles ahead. How does that happen? And then thinking if I do it again, it makes me feel better. And then I get friends because they see me doing it and they tell me that, wasn't it good to see me out doing it? And that gave me certain sense of feelings. And yeah, so I think probably those two things, reckless enjoyment of the outdoors, and then a little bit of capacity to be able to do stuff. And

Alex: 18:38

again, digging through your social media and all articles and stuff online, that's very evident as well throughout your life in terms of, you, it looks like you've traveled everywhere across the world running. It looks like you've been on adventures across the world. I've seen really cool trips to Africa. I've seen just holidays down on the coast, holidays abroad. There's always some top of a hill or edge of a cliff photo of you in running gear, which is really great to see.

Martin: 19:07

It doesn't mean that's for everyone, but that's what I happen to have learned about what I like to do now. I don't do any real like competitive running now. Yeah. But if you said, let's go for a run. I live in Dorset and run along the southwest coast path. Yeah, I'd be well up for that. Yeah, and with a little jump in the sea, and a play in the waves and a cup of coffee afterwards, days don't get much better.

Alex: 19:31

No, I agree. I think I went to a wedding in Montenegro and my friends thought I was mad in the morning going out for run. Cause we were on holiday, but I was like, how beautiful is it? Like running along the coast in Montenegro and then jumping into the sea. That's holiday. That is a holiday for me.

Martin: 19:46

Yeah, having the freedom and the time. When, before Liz and I had children, a holiday meant a training camp, when you live with someone who's going to the Olympics, like that is severe, like that's brutal. It's not normal behaviour. It's the unhealthy other end of the spectrum. But yeah, like you, it's one of the patterns of my life is to do a little bit of moving most days. And sometimes that's a bit more, and sometimes it's a bit less, one of the things around harnessing movement for effective ownership, of what you want it to give you is knowing what you need that day, which is difficult It's a difficult thing knowing what you need and then also knowing how to put the pieces around You know around yourself if you're able to and not everyone is and you know We should be really aware of that We sometimes can artificially place movement in very restrictive and constrained environments where it's really hard. If I think of myself as a kid, if somebody said, can you go and do that? The answer would have been no. One, there's no finance. I can't get there, so there's no ability for me to get anywhere to do anything. Anything had to be done myself. So we had no money to do for me to play any sport and I couldn't get to anywhere. So I had to do what I could get to happen to be a running track a mile away. I could get there. So sometimes. sector can be, I think we're much better now at listening to people who live in, spend time in intersecting inequality with health inequality with disadvantage, so that we can allow and shape movement to support them better so they can learn what to harness and how to harness it.

Alex: 21:42

That sounds great. And this is a part where we can start transitioning into the next half of the podcast, where we talk around the work that you do and and then how we're going to tackle an activity. And there was a great bit that you said, which relates a lot to what the work you're currently doing. So a little bit of moving most days. I think that was the line I really liked. And it was in terms of what you say you do. And I think people will see soon if I say, can you give me a bit of information about the work that you're currently working on with your organization? And it's linked to physical activity and movement. That comes through massively.

Martin: 22:18

I like to keep it relatively simple, and actually the key message. I used to work in sort of behaviour change, physical activity, promotion in kids and particularly around professional development in education. So that was what my postdoc was in. My doctorate was a little bit different. It was more focused on children's capacity to regulate using physical activity. And at the time, the landscape for that was very different to now. Now this is the back end of the nineties, the early two thousands. really different. A little bit like my own views. I used to be a teacher as well. And, when I started teaching back in the early nineties, like my own views on teaching and coaching have radically changed in the last sort of 30 years. So, what I do know though, is that for me and for some other people, a little bit of moving most days can really help. It can really help in lots of ways. The challenge is, what's a little bit? How can you do that most days? And I've spent lots of time exploring what was traditionally known as, barriers to adherence, right? And I think the big thing is that I am an advocate for and a huge fan of opportunity. And it doesn't take much, doesn't take much to help people see where the opportunity for movement in their lives exists. Once they begin to see the benefits that it can bring them and the people around them, you can't force people to move. You simply can't. They have to see where the capacity to harness the benefits are. They then have to grab the reins. They then have to implement that into their lives. So the simpler you make it, the better. The more accessible you make it. My kids use this brilliant word, funner. Like it was more funner, it's more funner. The more fun something is, the more social connection you can bring about sometimes, a lot of my moving, I like to do on my own as I'm a grumpy, miserable person that likes to spend a bit of time on their own, sometimes without this, but find ways in which movement helps people and communities feel nourished and empowered together. And, that's what we try and do with what I do now, which is Stormbreak, which is a charity that I set up off the back of lots of learning and lots of mistakes and, trying to spend time in physical activity, in a physical activity, sport and performance space. Which it was, very much, and then trying to take that learning and apply it to a more of a missional, visionary, scalable space of supporting children's well being, children's health, children's physical and children's mental health. And to do that through a very preventative stance. So strategically, I believe that, like I said earlier, when I meet someone who's embracing moving for the first time in their life, for them it's a revelation. Right? And they're so excited they go, you know what? I've done my first 10k or, I've walked the dog on the beach and I now do it every day and I can't do without it. Or, I've started to play this game. tennis with my friends or, whatever it is. I swim in a lake, I walk up a hill, I no longer take the bus. I walk two stops and they can't do without it. And for them, it's groundbreaking. So I was like, why do we wait for adults to have that realization, that revelation and realization where they're adults, surely there's scope to do what we do with children and young people better. when they're young so that they don't find it out by mistake. They don't wait, they don't have negative experiences that put them off, but instead they have positive, nourishing, affirming, empowering, independent experiences of moving that have stickability and traction for their whole life. And therefore, when they become a bit older, me, They've still got hold of the reins, and they're still harnessing the benefits for them. So that's what we try and do at Stormbreak is we try and package up moving into lots of different ways to create simple and accessible movement opportunities for kids to enjoy moving and its many benefits, whilst also directly, purposefully, and intentionally, shaping well being and skills to help those children recognize, talk about, their thoughts and feelings to respond to them. And sometimes we know kids don't respond to their thoughts, their emotions in what adults would define as appropriate ways. I was one of them, you might, you may have been, I don't know, people listening may think back to how they responded. I know adults that can't respond, don't respond particularly well, but in kids, we might see kids that withdraw. Kids that chuck things, kids that fight, kids that shout, kids who are struggling and right now this is a Significant issue across the UK and so why wait to teach kids to recognize respond and regulate emotions through movement when we have the capacity to start those changes early. So that's what we would, I was doing 20 years ago. That's what I picked up again in 2017. That's when we built a kind of a Stormbreak approach. And that's what we've been doing since 2017, 2018 we registered as a charity more formally is building ways in which kids can move to support their mental health.

Alex: 28:50

That's an amazing answer. I think so. Firstly, thank you for giving us so much detail because what you've done there is brilliantly answered the first part, which is okay. So if you were going to map out cause of inactivity, like, where would you naturally go? And where would you focus on? I think the part which would be interesting to say, this is where you feel you could have an impact personally and where your personal interest is in because you're swinging around opportunity and then the prevention start. Thinking thinking like England wide, is this where you see the priority is in terms of where investment should be? Or is it in terms of the overall approach? Is it that?

Martin: 29:25

There's lots of priorities, right?

Alex: 29:26

Priorities never used to be a word it used to be priority apparently this is as a fact but then priorities got added into the dictionary in the in this century

Martin: 29:35

priorities often come from a variety of different things, people's personal interests, right? You're shaped an organization that you may work for or support, your personal beliefs, your moral value. There's lots of things that shape what somebody perceives as important, which they then place enough status upon to become a priority. Particularly for me, me personally, it's this notion that moving has such great capacity for supporting emotional well being that we all have a responsibility to ensure that it's done to create enough opportunity in our young people that are that they currently, and when they are future leaders, young adults and growing adults and aging adults that a constant thread for them could be not necessarily just but could be the way in which they move in their world. That, therefore, the benefits of that are huge. We, we can start talking. Last week I read a report that said, 500 children a day are being referred for support for anxiety. Right? 500 children a day. Now, when we first started building, Stormbreak and we started talking about actually it's normal to worry. We all worry about things and worry is a normal emotion. We very much have a positive, being and a positive psychology coaching input. So worry is normal. We all worry. There are things you can do when you worry a little bit too much. And when that worry starts to impact upon your life, even when you're young there are things you can do to help you understand that's a normal emotion to experience and that you can change that emotion or you can just sit with it for a while. You can learn that worry and call it anxiety, anxiety is something that can be helpful sometimes. Right and movement is something that can help you regulate that, you know so sometimes I might have had a really rubbish day. I know that movement can help me with that rubbish day. Sometimes I might be apprehensive or worried about something and I know that moving can help me formulate a response to that worry to not let that worry get out of control. But I need the skill set right? So I need the skillset and I'm lucky. I've learned that over 40, 45, 50 years. But lots of people don't and won't and haven't and should have the opportunity to. So my view is that what we do at Stormbreak is we try and support trusted adults that work with children and young people that they have the power, potential and capacity to support young children's lives through moving. That's a complex sentence in itself because a lot of adults don't believe that they have that, but they do. It's our job to help them discover that, to nurture that, to give them the toolkit to be able to increase their competence and confidence to deliver in that style. And then that has a scalable potential for impact on children and young people's well being. So that my lofty ambition, is to have really healthy, active, happy children now that become the same when they're adults.

Alex: 33:14

So then this seems very as you said you've been doing this for a long time and it seems very natural and it's still challenging but it's part of your work with Stormbreak. For a traditional sports development, sports sector organization, who's been in the sector a long time, who delivers the sport and they're going through this process of transitioning to focus on the wider benefits of sport, as they may call them, rather than just for sport for sports sake, as it used to be called. How does One move like start transitioning or move to a place that is the apart from the answer being work of Stormbreak.

Martin: 33:54

So look, we are, we're probably all doing things like this because we do have a capacity to learn, right? And, human beings are amazing, aren't they? Because they have a capacity to see things, to learn things, to change behaviours, to do things differently. And very much in movement, we have seen a shifting landscape, particularly in the last few years, right? And, it may be there's a little bit of stuckness, A little bit of stuckness, but that doesn't mean to say it's insurmountable. I've seen significant changes in strategic priorities, in national organisations, significant changes, towards benefiting wellbeing and benefiting young people that sit far outside of the performance mindset or the, the old kind of more medals thinking. The, just be active and that'll do it and unfortunately it doesn't, I've seen so many things where just do this and that happens. But it doesn't. The reality is there's no magic process of osmosis where you suddenly soak up better resilience skills just because you happen to do this activity. It simply doesn't happen. You have to intentionally, purposefully, carefully understand the words that you use, the style and the approach that you do. If you're a traditional sports coach, you have to spend time understanding that so that you can support the wellbeing as well as the potential of the young people. So I'm really pleased that we're seeing a strategic shift towards well being first, when we were working with elite athletes and, like Olympians, Paralympic champions we've coached people that do that, have done that. And the platform for that success is wellbeing. It's wellbeing, general wellbeing, physically. and wellbeing emotionally. That's the platform. If you don't, if you don't have those pillars in play, then you're not going to get that kind of success equally. Now, if you want to live a healthy, nurtured, fruitful life, whatever that looks like for you. And I don't, subscribe to success metrics that other people might in life. That's why I work for a charity. You then see the potential of the value of your own wellbeing, right? And then if you've got the toolkit to embed the things to help you, then you're more likely to give yourself the best chance to have a healthier, happier life. So that's, I guess that's what we're about. Giving people chance and opportunity to learn what those pieces are from an early age.

Alex: 37:04

I think that's an amazing place to stop so really appreciate you coming on today Martin for those who are listening if you agree with what Martin said or disagree with what Martin said. The whole aim of this is to add to our working out map where we're mapping out the causes of inactivity and tackling inactivity and how we're going to solve this issue, as I call it of inactivity. If you're if once you're listening to this do head over to LinkedIn where I post this where I'm sure Martin will be up for a debate If not, I will definitely will be and it's really interested to see everyone's views. So yeah, thank you again for joining us today Martin.

Martin: 37:39

You're welcome.