Jed Thirkettle is a Foundry member, founder of JUCED – the UK’s first fruit-based protein drinks company and a one-in-a-million statistic. This is his story.
Most people walk into a gym thinking about how they want to look. Jed walks in thinking about whether he’ll still be able to walk in ten years’ time.
That’s the reality of training with muscular dystrophy.
Told what he couldn’t do
Jed has been hearing the word “can’t” his whole life. Can’t exercise properly. Can’t lift weights. Won’t be walking by the age of 12.
The doctors weren’t being cruel, they were going by the statistics. Muscular dystrophy is a degenerative condition, and the conventional medical advice for years was to avoid weight training. That it would make things worse.
Jed went ahead and did it anyway.
“For me, training and weightlifting is like showering. It’s not an optional thing. Physically, if I don’t work out and don’t keep my body moving, my muscles are just going to deteriorate every single day.”
He’s 26. He’s still walking. And he’s figured out something that most people take decades to learn, that the question isn’t how you want to look. It’s how you want to live.
One in a million
Muscular dystrophy affects roughly one in every million people in the way Jed has it. He describes that statistic as both the best and the worst thing.
“One in a million means I’m the unluckiest person in the world to have got this condition. But also, I’m incredibly lucky – because I’m still mobile in spite of all my challenges.”
There’s no self-pity in the way Jed talks about any of this. There’s pragmatism, clarity, and a refusal to let a diagnosis become a ceiling.
“Being told you can’t isn’t the be all and end all. If you start to believe that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think that you can do something and do everything in your power to make that happen and it most likely will.”
Why Foundry works for him
Jed trains across Foundry’s City locations (Old Street, Moorgate, Aldgate) fitting sessions around the kind of unpredictable, city-wide schedule that comes with running a startup.
But it’s not just the locations that keep him coming back.
“Even in places like Foundry, I’m working out next to people who are stronger than me. But the community allows you to escape this idea of purely having a number. Everyone is there for their own goal.”
That’s the thing about training alongside six people rather than six hundred. When the group is that small, you notice each other. You stop measuring yourself against everyone else and start showing up for your own reasons.
For Jed, those reasons go deeper than most. Not PBs. Not aesthetics. Longevity — being able to walk, to lift his kids one day, to keep moving for as long as possible.
“It’s a form of defence almost.”
The mental side
Jed is clear that training isn’t just physical. Without it, his focus goes. His ability to work on everything else in his life suffers.
“Mentally, if I’m not exercising and I’m not working out, I can’t focus. It keeps my sanity while I’m working on other things.”
This is something coaches hear often, that the 50 minutes in the gym isn’t just about the body. It’s the hour in the week where you’re not thinking about work, or deadlines, or everything pulling at you. For Jed, that’s especially true.
From member to founder: JUCED
Twelve years of going through every protein drink on the market will make you either give up or make your own. Jed made his own.
JUCED is the UK’s first fruit-based protein drinks company, built on the premise that clean protein shouldn’t mean artificial sweeteners, unnecessary sugar, or dairy. Real ingredients. Nothing artificial. 15g of collagen protein per can.
It came from the same place everything Jed does comes from: noticing a gap, ignoring the conventional wisdom, and doing something about it.
We’re proud to stock JUCED across all Foundry locations and even prouder to have Jed as part of this community.
Watch his story here:
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