About us

About Matt Sirott — Swinging Steel Club

I guess you're probably wondering why I care so much about this way of training while also admitting it's not the most efficient method if your goal is purely aesthetics or hypertrophy. I believe in it so deeply because unlike every other training modality I've tried, this one taught me how to move again.

When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. I felt tremendous shame about it because my dream had always been to join the military and suddenly there was a barrier in my way that threatened to derail everything. So I carried on like nothing was happening. My friends didn't know. I made excuses for missing school and as soon as I was in remission I started hiding my symptoms from my parents too. Out of sight, out of mind.

For a long time it worked. I did everything my mates did, if anything more. Camping, hiking, rock climbing, jumping out of planes. All while hiding the fact that my body was quietly destroying itself.

But denial is a powerful tool. Not powerful enough.

At 18 I had emergency surgery to save my life. I had let the disease get so bad, too ashamed to ask for help and too proud to admit I was struggling, that by the time I stopped hiding it there was no other option. I spent months in hospital too weak to move. I dropped to 9 stone at 6'6" and was covered in bed sores. I had finally accepted my reality. The people around me finally knew. And who would have guessed, they were incredibly supportive.

For the first time since I was 12 I wasn't in pain. Things started to look up.

So I had to get fit. That wasn't easy after months of not moving and living with a colostomy bag, but anything was better than nothing. I started walking my dog every day, pushing a little further each time. Bodyweight squats and press-ups before every shower. And for resistance training, a 4kg pink kettlebell.

It wasn't a quick process. There were more operations, more setbacks, and each one felt like starting over. But the one constant was the training. The weight came back slowly. My strength returned. And as it did, my curiosity grew.

I didn't need aesthetics-based training. I didn't need a competition programme. I needed to learn to move again, and not just to move but to move better than I ever had. To build a resilient body that could withstand real life. That search led me to ancient training methods that warriors had used for centuries to build genuine functional strength. Steel clubs. Steel maces. Kettlebells. Tools built not for the mirror but for the body that has to actually live in the world. It became my obsession.

Years passed. I rebuilt myself completely. I pursued the military dream I'd been working towards my whole life. Interviews done, fitness tests passed, start date confirmed. Then I was flagged for medical reasons with no right of appeal. That was the hardest chapter yet. Being ill was manageable because I just took each day as it came. This forced me to look ahead for the first time and ask a question I'd been avoiding. What am I actually going to do with my life?

The answer had been in front of me the whole time. The one constant through everything, the illness, the surgery, the rebuild, the setbacks, was the training. So I went and got properly qualified. I became a certified strength and conditioning coach. I added TPI certifications in golf fitness. I studied movement, programming and human performance properly and from the ground up.

Then I joined a commercial gym and discovered the problem.

The industry I'd trained to enter was broken in ways I hadn't fully understood from the outside. Coaches were being incentivised to sell supplements, upsell packages and use fear-based tactics to keep clients dependent rather than empowered. The programming was generic, the culture was ego-driven, and the methods being taught had nothing to do with the tools and philosophy that had actually rebuilt me from nothing. I was being asked to be the kind of coach I would never have wanted when I needed one most.

So I left. And I built this instead.

Swinging Steel Club exists to offer something the mainstream fitness industry doesn't. Honest coaching built around tools with centuries of history behind them. Programming designed around how the human body actually wants to move, not how it looks in a mirror. A community where there's no pressure, no fear and no snake oil. Just good training, real results and the genuine belief that getting strong and moving well should be something you enjoy, not something you endure.

My in-person clients have shown better consistency training this way than with anything they tried before, because it's actually enjoyable and it doesn't need to consume your entire life. I want to bring that to more people.

This isn't a bid for sympathy. It's an honest story that I hope helps you understand why this matters so much, and why I built something I wish had existed when I needed it most.

Life is peaks and valleys. Until you get comfortable living in those valleys you'll never truly be content.

Get strong. Not stressed.