FROM ELITE ATHLETE TO ELITE PERFORMANCE

For more than three decades, Simon Kerle has pursued one question:

What separates great performers from elite performers?

At just 16 years of age, Simon was recruited to the United States on a full basketball scholarship. Offered a redshirt year at the University of Nebraska to develop before competing, he chose a different path, accepting a scholarship to Western Nebraska Community College where he could compete immediately. After an outstanding collegiate season, he returned to Australia to pursue his dream of becoming a professional basketball player.

That decision launched an 18 year professional career competing in Australia's National Basketball League and Italy's elite professional league.

Known for his relentless work ethic, uncompromising standards and fearless competitiveness, Simon built a reputation as one of the toughest competitors in the game. In 2001, he averaged 24.9 points per game, finishing second in the NBL scoring race behind Australian basketball legend Andrew Gaze. His performances earned international recognition, including a feature in SLAM Magazine, America's best selling basketball publication.

Then everything changed.

Over the next four years, three major ankle surgeries, chronic pain and lengthy rehabilitation cost Simon two half seasons and an entire season. Many believed his professional career was over.

Simon refused to let injury decide how his career would be remembered.

At 35 years of age, after spending 15 months away from professional basketball, he returned to the NBL for one final season with the Brisbane Bullets. Coming off the bench, he averaged 13.5 points per game and helped lead the Bullets to the NBL Semi Finals before falling to the eventual champion Sydney Kings.

He didn't return for another contract.

He returned because he refused to spend the rest of his life wondering whether he could still compete at the highest level.

That relentless pursuit of excellence became the foundation for everything that followed.

BUILDING ELITE PERFORMANCE

In 2006, Simon founded Atomic Living Health and Fitness, driven by an obsession to understand what truly separates great performers from elite performers. That pursuit led him into movement, recovery, physiology, yoga, meditation, nervous system regulation and, ultimately, breathing performance.

He later founded Raw Power Yoga, recognised as Brisbane's Number One Yoga Studio.

Over the past two decades, Simon has delivered breathing and performance programs with the Brisbane Lions for three years and the Brisbane Broncos for two years, worked with the Queensland Firebirds across two seasons, partnered with the Australian Defence Force since 2018, and worked with the English Cricket Team and English Swimming Team during their Australian tours. His individual athlete work includes Adelaide Crows captain Ben Keays, Brisbane Lions midfielder Zac O'Brien, Olympic athletes and many other elite performers.

His work also extends into corporate leadership, delivering breathing, resilience and performance programs to executive teams operating in high pressure, high stakes environments where clear thinking, calm decision making and sustained performance determine success.

THE DISCOVERY

Despite nearly two decades competing professionally and years studying human performance, Simon realised there was one performance system that almost every athlete overlooked.

The breathing system.

Athletes spend thousands of hours developing strength, speed, endurance and skill, yet almost none deliberately train the system that powers every second they compete.

Learning the Oxygen Advantage® method transformed Simon's understanding of performance. He became an Advanced Oxygen Advantage® Instructor and began applying advanced breathing performance methods with elite athletes, coaches, military personnel and corporate leaders.

The results consistently reinforced the same conclusion: breathing wasn't simply another performance tool. It was the foundation beneath every physical and mental quality an athlete depends on.

Simon created VINCERE because he believes too many athletes and leaders spend their careers training strength, skill and fitness while overlooking one of the body's greatest performance advantages.

He knows, because for much of his own career, he was one of them.

VINCERE

The VINCERE Protocol combines the lessons forged through 18 years of elite professional sport with advanced breathing performance science to improve breathing efficiency, build tolerance to respiratory stress, delay fatigue, accelerate recovery, maintain composure under pressure and sustain performance when it matters most.

Simon believes championships, careers and defining moments are rarely decided by talent alone. They are decided by those who can still think clearly, breathe efficiently and execute when the pressure is at its highest.

The name VINCERE comes from the Latin meaning "to conquer" and "to overcome." It is the foundation of words such as victory and invincible.

After more than three decades pursuing the answer, Simon's conclusion is simple.

The difference between great performers and elite performers isn't talent alone.

It's the commitment to train every system that drives performance, especially the ones most athletes overlook.

VINCERE
CONQUER. WIN. DOMINATE.