Playful Nature Podcast by WildStrong

Movement is about far more than muscles, mobility or exercise programmes. At its best, it helps people build confidence, connection and a greater sense of belonging. In this returning conversation, Andrew sits down once again with Erin Eleu, founder of Agents of Movement, to explore how her thinking has evolved over the past 18 months. Together they discuss why movement leaders should think beyond...

It's one of the questions we're asked most often, especially around our strength courses. Will I lose weight? Will I tone up? Will this change my body? In this episode, Andrew and I go for a walk and talk through the many reasons why we deliberately avoid making those promises. We talk about growing up in the 90s and the era of Heat magazine, celebrity "circle of shame" features...

Why do so many of us struggle to become more active when we already know exercise is good for us? In this episode, Andrew speaks with Dr Nikita Rowley , Chartered Psychologist and researcher at Coventry University, about the psychology of behaviour change, exercise referral schemes, physical activity pathways and which interventions help people move more. Drawing on her PhD research evaluating exe...

In this episode of the Playful Nature Podcast, Andrew is joined by Dr Sarah Court, physical therapist, co-founder of Movement Logic , and co-host of the Movement Logic podcast . Together they explore the modern fitness and wellness landscape, particularly the abuse of scientific-sounding claims, ageing, strength, pain, and “optimisation”. They talk about fear-based marketing, the pressure to const...

In this episode of the Playful Nature Podcast, Andrew is joined by movement coach and author Graham Tuttle, aka The Barefoot Sprinter. They discuss what it means to be capable and how we can reframe the idea of exercise and movement around real life abilities. The conversation moves through athleticism, capability, pain, fitness culture, meaning, modern society, and the difference between training...

This episode starts under a heron’s nest (with a slight risk of getting drenched) and turns into a walk and talk on what strength training is really for. After wrapping up another  Strong for Life  course, we reflect on what changes for people - it's not just strength, it’s confidence. and permission. It's very joyful watching people move from “I can’t” to “I’ll give it a go.” From there,...

What does it really mean to be strong? In this conversation with Laurel Beversdorf from The Movement Logic, we explore the gap between being active and actually building strength -  and why so many people (especially women) have been left out of that understanding. We talk about the rise of strength training inside spaces like yoga, the tension between different movement worlds, and why blending p...

Andrew had a great conversation with Dr. Ciaran Fairman, PhD, CSCS about how to make exercise meaningful and why so many assumptions about exercise optimisation don't resonate with regular people. Ciaran spoke about the difference between applying either a physiological or behavioural lens to exercise prescription and how sometimes exercise specialists fail to think about real life barriers and en...

In this episode, Andrew Telfer speaks with Dr Katy O’Neill Gutierrez, founder of Blaze Trails - a UK-based parent and baby walking community that has grown from a small local group into a nationwide movement supporting over 28,000 parents. Katy shares how Blaze Trails began as a way to stay connected to the outdoors after becoming a parent, and how it evolved during COVID into a support system for...

We could have called this - everything we've learned by making a bunch a mistakes. When we first started running sessions for older populations, they did what most coaches do - a lot of research. Then we scaled recommended exercises and tried to help people move “correctly.” And it didn’t work.. Working with older adults quickly exposed a gap between what looks good on paper and easily quantif...

Dan Edwards returns to the podcast to talk what he calls a “quiet crisis” in parkour coaching - a drift from a real-world practice into something more standardised. Andrew and Dan explore why this drift is  understandable  (insurance, schools, certifications, parent expectations, safety rules, social media), but also what gets lost when coaching becomes too legible: the spirit of parkour as a prac...

In this episode of the  Playful Nature Podcast , Andrew and Gill discuss a debate that seems to be everywhere on social media:  should people lift heavy weights or medium weights to improve bone density and strength as they age? The argument itself may be missing the bigger picture. For someone who has never lifted weights before, the distinction between  70% or 85% of a one-rep max  is largely ir...

Andrew chats with Gareth Williams, a primary school PE teacher on the Kent coast who’s built Play Folke, a weekly “playground games for adults” session designed for people who do not feel at home in gyms, bootcamps, or traditional sport. Gareth’s story starts in the familiar place of someone who lived inside sport. He trained full-time for a year at Crystal Palace, played semi-professional footbal...

In this conversation, Andrew sits down with physiotherapist and first-year PhD student Becky Dunphy to explore what changes when you stop treating movement like a neat mechanical problem. Becky traces her journey from a “black and white” early-career physio mindset (find the faulty part, prescribe the fix) toward a public health lens shaped by COVID-era NHS strain, inequality, and the reality that...

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Dr Gillian Bartle, lecturer in education, researcher, and Research Lead for the International Physical Literacy Association. Drawing on decades of experience across physical education, teacher education, further education, and academia, Gillian reflects on how we learn to move and what gets lost when movement is over-structured, over-measured, or over-scripted....

In this short (ish) Gill & Andrew chat, they tackle one of the biggest topics they get asked about every week:  pain, recovery, and coping when your body doesn’t feel like it used to . They start by talking through the  three broad pain categories : nociceptive (often linked to acute tissue injury), neuropathic (linked to nerves), and nociplastic (often chronic, where the alarm system can beco...

Be careful what you ask for folks! A lot of you asked for more from Gill and Andrew together, here's our first shot. A bit of a chatty one - we have a Part 2 to this coming shortly on pain and moving with pain. What if some of the advice meant to help us actually makes things worse? In this episode,  Gill Erskine and Andrew Telfer  unpack the  nocebo effect  - the lesser-known counterpart to place...

In this powerful conversation, Andrew speaks with  Lorraine Close , Outreach Director of  Edinburgh Community Yoga , nurse educator at the University of Edinburgh, and long-time facilitator of trauma-informed movement programs across prisons, the NHS, psychiatric hospitals, addiction recovery centres, and local communities. Lorraine shares her personal journey into yoga - from teenage drinking cul...

In this episode, Andrew speaks with  Dr. Lawrence Foweather , researcher and lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and one of the key contributors to the  Physical Literacy Consensus Statement for England (2023) . Lawrence has spent two decades researching how children, adolescents, and adults engage with movement and physical activity. They explore: the origins and evolution of  physical l...

This week, Andrew speaks with Dr Charlotte Marriott - NHS Consultant Psychiatrist, Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician, medical educator and nature-based coach. Charlotte works with people living with complex mental health challenges, while also championing evidence-based lifestyle change and accessible, community-led movement. Together they explore why health is simple but society makes it har...

Andrew sits down with  Jarlo Ilano,   Physical Therapist (MPT) since 1998 , former  Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist (OCS) ,  Certified Therapeutic Pain Specialist (TPS) , co-founder of  GMB Fitness , and martial-arts teacher of 20 years — to explore how people actually learn to move, heal, and keep moving across a lifetime. Jarlo traces three decades in physiotherapy: from a rigid, structural,  bi...

Tim Gill is a writer, consultant and independent researcher championing children’s everyday freedoms, especially their freedom to move and play outdoors. He’s the author of No Fear (on risk aversion) and Urban Playground (child-friendly planning and design), and has worked with NGOs and cities internationally to put children at the heart of neighbourhood design. Tim is particularly focused on the...

What if fitness isn’t really about exercise, but about belonging? Katie Rose Hejtmanek is professor of Anthropology and Children and Youth Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is the author of  Friendship, Love, and Hip Hop  (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and co-editor of  Gender and Power in Strength Sports  (Routledge 2023). Hejtmanek’s work investigates cultures and processes of self-transformatio...

This week Andrew speaks with  Alison Crouch, a Pilates & movement teacher of 25+ years, osteoporosis specialist, and creator of the MoveSmart Method. Alison shares her personal story of reversing early bone loss, navigating a genetic predisposition to osteoporosis, and later facing her own diagnosis. We cover: Why the “fear-based” diagnosis conversation is so harmful, and how to replace it wit...

In this episode, Andrew speaks with writer and researcher Matthew Remski — co-host of the  Conspirituality  podcast and author of  Practice and All Is Coming  and  Surviving Modern Yoga . Matthew shares his journey from cult involvement to cult journalism, yoga teaching, and now writing on antifascism. Together they explore cult dynamics, the contested language of “high demand groups,” abuse in mo...