Steve became New Zealand’s first qualified personal fitness trainer in 1987 and has been coaching, programming, and writing about training ever since. The certifications kept stacking — ISSA Master Personal Trainer, Fitness Nutrition, Group Fitness, Strength & Conditioning, Sports Nutrition, and Transformation Specialist — but the core focus has stayed the same: explaining the why behind every exercise, set, and nutritional choice so the reader can make their own decisions when there’s no coach in the room.
That education-first approach is why Steve writes the bulk of the exercise-alternative guides on this site. They’re some of the most-read pieces we publish, because they answer the practical question every home-gym lifter eventually asks: “My gym doesn’t have a cable crunch / pec deck / battle rope. Now what?” Steve’s answers come from 35+ years of programming around limited equipment for real clients.
Outside training, Steve is a working historian and the author of more than thirty books on great battles throughout history. The crossover is more useful than it sounds — long-form research and writing demand the same disciplined, source-led thinking that good training programmes do, and the work has shaped how he edits a guide before it ships.
Steve trains and writes from a small home gym in Tauranga, New Zealand. He sees Strong Home Gym as the place where lifters from anywhere — whatever their gear, whatever their experience — can learn the principles that work in any setup.