Ben is a quite extraordinary character with an amazing story, which seems to have been made possible by his determination and no-nonsense desire to succeed in his chosen profession. By his early 40s, he’d already gone from PE teacher to head coach of England Rugby 7s, resigned from that job and was hunting for a new challenge. He found one in Fiji, where Ben eventually took a group of spectacularly skilled but unfit and disorganised rugby players from underperforming in 2013 to Olympic Gold...

A 2 time National Champion swimmer turned elite mental performance coach, Seth Pepper has seen top level sport from every angle. His insight - hard-won from decades of experience - is fascinating and will of benefit to any athlete at any level. Even for those of us who watch on from the sidelines, he's got some superb advice.

A 2 time National Champion swimmer turned elite mental performance coach, Seth Pepper has seen top level sport from every angle. His insight - hard-won from decades of experience - is fascinating and will of benefit to any athlete at any level. Even for those of us who watch on from the sidelines, he's got some superb advice.

Sean Shelton is that rarest of things - a professional American Football player who plies his trade in Europe. The story of how he got from Tampa Bay, Florida to the Swarco Raiders in Innsbruck, Austria via Kansas, Paris and Helsinki, is fascinating, and his in depth analysis of his position on the field - quarterback - is staggering.

Joining me this week I’ve got an athlete turned psychologist who’s creative and fun approach to her craft is both fascinating, and clearly effective. Madeleine Eppensteiner competed successfully in climbing competitions but after completing a degree in psychology she decided to combine her 2 passions, and started climbingpsychology.com

Axel Merckx was a professional cyclist who competed in 8 Tour de France and won Olympic bronze, a Giro d’Italia stage and the Belgian National Road Racing Championship. Now he’s mentoring young cyclists and steering them towards careers as successful as his.

To call Steve Black - almost universally known as Blackie - a coach is barely to do him justice. He’s a manager, a motivator, a change maker, and so much more.  This is a no nonsense analysis of sporting and business success from a man who has walked the walk for over 3 decades. Enjoy.

I’m Charlie Boscoe and today I’m chatting to Jordi Cruyff - a man who’s experienced the highest highs and the toughest lows that professional sport has to offer. He played for Manchester United and Barcelona, was forced to retire due to injury and then came back a couple of years later just to prove he could. He’s been a sporting director in Malta and Israel and is now making his first forays into management.

Steve House is one of the World’s best alpine climbers, with an extraordinary mountaineering resumé and Scott Johnston has a long and diverse athletic background, having excelled in climbing, swimming and nordic skiing, amongst others. Together they’ve teamed up to create a company called Uphill Athlete, and have also written 2 training manuals for mountain athletes - Training for the New Alpinism and, more recently, Training for the Uphill Athlete. Both are available on their website...

As a rule, active athletes don’t open up about how they feel and sport, and the care of professional sportspeople is poorer as a result. Jamie’s searing honesty and openness should be an example to anyone of what courage really looks like. Forget the physical battle or rugby, saying that you’re not OK is sometimes the toughest challenge of all.

Bill Beswick is a sports psychologist who is famous for his work with the England football team, the England men's and women’s rugby teams, Manchester United and countless other sporting organisations on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s also, as he describes it, a man in shadows, quietly helping individual athletes and coaches with their psychology and mindset, and his list of private clients reads like a who’s who of British sport.

After 2 failed attempts at Olympic success, Ben Hunt-Davis and his teammates in the British 8-man rowing crew decided that, ahead of the Sydney Olympics, everything they did would be based on one question - Will it make the boat go faster? Come Sydney the boat did indeed go faster, and how. This is an amazing story of determination and a sheer refusal not to be beaten again.

As supremo of the SWARCO Raiders, Shuan Fatah is one of Europe's most successful American Football coaches. He started out in a (then) divided Berlin, and has since gone on to have huge success as a player and a coach of the game he loves. The lessons he's learned along the way have been many, and he's brilliant at talking about them. Prepare to be challenged, amused and engaged.

Aged just 19, Janja Garnbret is already one of the most dominant athletes in the World. She's got a far better winning percentage than Serena Williams, Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher, and she's only just getting started. Perhaps even more impressive than her results is her attitude - she's humble, motivated and keen to improve; traits she's going to need if she wants to become the first climber to win an Olympic gold medal.

Regardless of where and how you live, you need to breathe, so why not investigate how to do it better? That's exactly what Patrick McKeown has done, and the result is the Oxygen Advantage method. This is mind blowing stuff, so sit back, take a shallow breath (not a deep one, as you'll learn today) and get ready to change all of your preconceptions about the seemingly simple process of breathing.

Klaus Isele is a busy man - he runs his own physio practice, is the team physio for the Austrian Climbing team, is creating a whole new method of treating finger injuries, looks after the World's best climber, and has a family. He's pretty funny too. Sit back and enjoy some great stories, insight and inspiration.

Gym owner, athlete and family man Jay Collins quit his safe and secure job in his early 40's in order to open up his own gym. It was a big risk but it has paid off handsomely; he's got 300 loyal customers and a community constructed off the back of his total commitment. If you want a lesson in how sheer hard work and determination can pay off, here it is.

Back in Episode 2 of the podcast we chatted to skier, mountain guide and climber Tom Grant. At that time he was on a high having just made the first ski descent of the Caroline Face on Mount Cook in New Zealand. However, a few weeks after we spoke to him he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, putting him on the sidelines long term. We wanted to know what coming back from a big injury is like, and what advice he'd have for someone who found themselves in a similar predicament.

Erik Weihenmayer lost his sight aged 14 but has since climbed Mount Everest (and the highest peak on every other continent as well), kayaked the Grand Canyon, and helped thousands and thousands of people overcome their own barriers. Prepare to be inspired...

Sports psychologist, author and speaker Damian Hughes has just finished his latest book - The Barcelona Way; Unlocking the DNA of a Winning Culture - and we were keen to get him back for his second appearance on the podcast to discuss it. We cover building culture, getting buy-in, the effects of social media, coping with people who don’t fit into a culture, and much more.

Brista Mayfield is a Crossfit athlete training 4 - 5 hours per day, a wife and a mother. In other words, she’s pretty busy, but she doesn’t let that stopping her do what she needs to. That dedication and discipline recently paid off in a big way when, for the first time, she qualified for the Crossfit Games - the pinnacle of her sport.

Sport Climbing is an activity you may not be aware of but you soon will be - in Tokyo 2020 it will make its debut as an Olympic sport. Jim Pope is one of Britain's rising climbing stars and one of the sport's most thoughtful characters.

After 30 years playing and coaching in professional sport, there isn't much Tony Smith hasn't seen. He's now putting that experience to good use by helping football managers deal with the stresses and pressures with which he's familiar. 

Not many people, especially those who've had highs and lows like Peter Fox has, can say that they've never lost heart, never doubted that they would make it and never given up. He might not have been the most talented player but he out-worked everyone until he got what he wanted.