ABOUT CHARLIE COOKE
I did not come to this work because health and fitness were always easy for me.
I started from a very different place: challenged, overweight, autistic, struggling academically and with my mental health, and unsure how to build a life that felt under my control.
Boxing and fitness gave me somewhere to begin. Helping others became my purpose. Since then, I have spent more than a decade studying, coaching and testing what genuinely helps people change. I have trained through severe injuries, rebuilt after countless setbacks, and worked with people whose lives, needs and starting points were very different from my own.
That experience became the Fit For Purpose Method: a practical, evidence-informed framework for building health, fitness and capability around the life you actually want.
I do not coach from an armchair. I continue to apply the same principles, confront the same difficulties, and do the work myself.
QUALIFICATIONS & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Personal experience matters, but it is not enough on its own. My work is supported by formal education and professional training across nutrition, exercise physiology, personal training and boxing coaching.
Applied in professional practice
Boxing Performance Coach at Newcastle University · Founder of Union Jab CIC · More than 10 years of coaching experience
Enhanced DBS · Safeguarding certified · Fully insured
LIVED EXPERIENCE
The Fit For Purpose Method was not built in theory. It developed through the things I have had to learn, rebuild and continue practising myself.
01
I had spent my life battling with swimming. At 21, my fifth coach over 19 years recognised that the real barrier was fear of the water, not ability. A year later I completed a full-distance triathlon and became a confident sea swimmer. It taught me that the real problems and their causes often require a trained eye. No matter how obvious it may seem once discovered.
02
Before 22, I had dealt with meniscus tears, two knee surgeries, a fractured knee, a bulging disc, multiple torn muscles, and many others. I know what it is to feel let down by your body. I have also learned that injury rarely means movement is over. I continue to run long distances and recently completed 34.5 miles for Union Jab CIC.
03
I started boxing to lose weight and protect myself from some routine beatings. It gave me discipline, mentorship, friendship and a way to test myself. I later founded Union Jab CIC to offer those benefits to others, and I now coach boxing performance at Newcastle University.
04
I began cycling while completing my MSc dissertation and became absorbed by it. I have since completed multiple 100 km rides and continue to study the sport. I am not an elite cyclist - just someone who enjoys improving and finding another way to remain capable and enjoy the outdoors.
HOW I WORK
I work with capable, ambitious people whose health and fitness no longer support the life they are trying to build.
My role is not to take control for you. It is to help you understand what matters, identify what is getting in the way and build a practical route forward around your priorities, responsibilities and real life.
Through the Fit For Purpose Method, we bring fitness, nutrition, habits, mindset and lifestyle into one coherent system. Instead of treating each problem in isolation, we address how the different parts of your life affect one another.
The aim is not dependence on a coach. It is greater clarity, resilience and self-reliance, so you can continue making progress long after our work ends.
Better health should expand your life, not consume it.
Explore ways to work together
