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How To Be Zack George, The UK's Fittest Man | On The Wall | Myprotein
Jan 30, 2025
Zack George is the UK’s Fittest Man. Before lockdown was announced, he was on course to compete in the 2020 functional fitness games — something he’d been working towards for nearly 7 years of his life. He didn’t let the disappointment distract him from his long-term goals though, and in this exclusive insight into his life and training his unwavering dedication to the sport shines through. It’s clear that he’s already turned this setback into a positive — fuelling his determination for bigger things to come in 2021. On The Wall is a documentary series where we follow some of our top Myprotein athletes in the run-up to big events, showing what it really takes to be the best of the best. These inspiring individuals truly embody what it means to be #ForeverFit. ** See more from Zack here: https://bit.ly/2HHQsJF ** At Myprotein it’s our mission to #FuelYourAmbition and push you forwards on your #ForeverFit journey. We’re here for active men and women who want to invest in themselves mentally and physically — for the long run.
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0:07
i don't really get nervous about
0:08
performing in front of people or
0:10
performing
0:11
the workout i get nervous about the pain
0:13
i've got to pop myself in
0:17
you've really got to be willing to put
0:19
yourself in a hole
0:20
every single day
0:23
you've got to be so good at so many
0:25
different elements of fitness
0:27
you can't just be strong you can't just
0:28
be fit
0:30
you can't just go to gymnastics you've
0:33
got to be good at swimming you've got to
0:34
be good at running
0:35
you've got to be able to lift ridiculous
0:38
amounts of weight
0:39
a single reps but then you've got to
0:40
have to lift lighter weight for multiple
0:42
reps literally got to be good at
0:44
every aspect of fitness it's just never
0:47
ending discipline and
0:48
it keeps you so motivated it's so
0:50
humbling
0:51
that's why i love competing in it and
0:53
that's why i love training in it because
0:55
it's so varied
1:04
there's no other sport like it
1:14
i was quite disappointed when i found
1:16
out i wasn't going to go to the games
1:17
the whole country was going to go into
1:18
lockdown so i knew something was going
1:19
to change so i already mentally prepared
1:21
myself for
1:22
something that's going to happen you
1:25
know you want to be given that
1:26
opportunity for something you've been
1:27
working towards for
1:28
six seven years you want to be able to
1:30
go and perform on the world's biggest
1:32
stage
1:32
initially they said there's going to be
1:34
no crowd um there's only going to be
1:36
athletes which is a big thing for me
1:38
because the massive thing about
1:39
competitive games for me
1:41
is living it with my family and my close
1:43
friends and experiencing with them
1:45
you said it's okay if if i can do it
1:47
once i can do it again
1:48
so i think mentally he was ready for it
1:51
it is what it is
1:52
and that was you know two three days
1:55
after there was there was that
1:57
acceptance of okay
1:58
next year we go again so it's not like
2:01
he's gonna rest now
2:02
he's probably gonna go harder than
2:04
before and get stronger than before and
2:06
faster
2:07
and that's what keeps him going because
2:10
every year there's a chance to improve
2:11
and get better it's about saying okay
2:13
well look how good i am now
2:15
imagine how much better i can be in 14
2:20
months
2:22
[Music]
2:34
but
2:37
yeah 7 30 last time
2:43
yeah i don't see it as a setback really
2:45
i've achieved what i wanted to achieve
2:47
which was to win the open in the uk and
2:48
be the fittest man in the uk and qualify
2:50
for the games
2:51
so for me i've already ticked off a
2:52
massive goal i've had for seven years
2:58
living with him is obviously great like
3:01
we get along really well um
3:03
i think i have to take into
3:05
consideration a lot that
3:06
you know being a full-time athlete you
3:08
have to be i don't want to say
3:10
selfish because he's not at all but you
3:12
know his life is literally getting up
3:14
having breakfast going training coming
3:16
home having lunch doing some online
3:18
programming having a nap
3:20
going back to the gym coming home eating
3:22
like it is the same thing every day but
3:24
i sort of know that from my background
3:26
anyway and
3:27
i knew what i was getting into when i
3:28
met him so you know and i love it and i
3:30
wouldn't
3:31
change it actually running quite low
3:34
this week because um
3:37
we had some p i had my family around had
3:40
some friends around
3:41
and they just love these meals they just
3:43
they always just steal my meals
3:45
so i'm actually quite low so these are
3:46
all sams so i've already got any left
3:49
hence why i'm having salmon and rice to
3:50
start but if i eat a lot of food i just
3:53
balloon in weight
3:54
so it will be good weight so it'll be
3:56
like good muscle but i'm already
3:58
100 kilos i don't need to be any heavier
4:02
so my fitness now is very different to
4:05
what it was when i was younger so the
4:06
journey has been
4:07
a massive journey so when i was the age
4:10
of maybe
4:11
10 11 i was very overweight kid a lot of
4:14
rubbish
4:15
all the time i'd have maybe four or five
4:17
mcdonald's a week kfc
4:19
my usual kfc meal would be i'd go to kfc
4:21
and just order a family bucket of kfc
4:23
and i'd eat all the skin off the chicken
4:25
and leave the chicken so i'd literally
4:26
eating like just fat
4:30
i never like to have my top off around
4:32
anyone else apart from my family
4:34
and we'll sit in the living room and my
4:36
parents had some friends coming around
4:38
and i saw them pull up through the drive
4:40
so i went to get up to run upstairs
4:42
to get a top and i remember my dad
4:44
saying just sit down like you shouldn't
4:45
be so
4:46
you shouldn't be embarrassed of your
4:47
body when
4:49
school had swimming on i'll just kind of
4:51
pretend i was ill
4:52
just so i didn't have to go swimming and
4:54
take my top off
4:58
my dad would offer me a ps2 to try and
5:00
lose some weight that was a big
5:01
shift in my sort of life to gear towards
5:04
like trying to get fitter and healthier
5:20
playstation that was a big thing at the
5:22
time so uh i think prior to andy robbins
5:25
was
5:25
on this thing of trying to get him to
5:27
lose weight because his
5:29
his head and his neck was the same it
5:31
was it was just a fun little just a fun
5:33
funnel and then the shoulder on the
5:35
promise of of this
5:37
playstation it um it was a spark for him
5:40
to sort of yeah
5:41
make the effort from the age of maybe 15
5:43
16 onwards
5:44
i was very aware of what i was eating i
5:47
was very aware of how much exercise i
5:48
should be doing
5:49
and that's when i really excelled in
5:50
sport started playing a lot of rugby
5:53
representing leicestershire in rugby
5:55
table tennis squash
5:56
and then 18 onwards that's when i really
5:58
started getting into the gym
5:59
because i became a pt and then it also
6:01
became my hobby and i was training
6:03
every day every other day sometimes
6:05
twice a day
6:06
so now we're gonna see where all my pt
6:09
started
6:10
where i used to train so as you can see
6:13
here this broken slab
6:16
when i used to do any sort of lifting i
6:18
had to do it outside here because there
6:19
wasn't enough
6:20
height room in the gym so i broke their
6:22
patio
6:24
and my parents are getting all their
6:25
garden done but
6:27
them bars there is where i used to do
6:30
pull-ups and toaster bar
6:32
yeah be sad to see it knocked down this
6:35
is where it all started so
6:37
yeah i don't think there's any kitten
6:38
here that's still left obviously got the
6:40
max
6:41
but the kit there's not a single bit of
6:44
actual gym kit in here
6:45
there's actually a video on youtube i'll
6:48
get it on my phone now
6:50
that was just there that's where the
6:53
cable machine was
6:55
we're doing like some weighted pull-ups
6:57
drop set or something
6:59
let's take the chains off and then do
7:00
more max reps all like into some rows
7:05
people always see me now and like they
7:07
see what time i wake up and obviously
7:09
i'm a full-time athlete so
7:10
i'm lucky to be able to train all the
7:12
time and work with some amazing sponsors
7:15
but they don't really
7:16
there's not many people apart from my
7:17
family who knew what my life was like
7:20
when i worked here which was eight nine
7:22
hours of pt a day like i said getting up
7:24
early in the morning
7:25
getting better at 12 getting up at five
7:27
just doing that pretty much every day
7:30
a lot of people don't see that sort of
7:32
that side of your life
7:33
they just see that the success you've
7:35
got but they don't really see all the
7:37
hardware that goes into it
7:39
[Music]
7:42
your typical athlete is what five foot
7:43
eight maybe like 85 kilos
7:45
that's six foot 100 100 kilos on a good
7:49
day
7:49
so he doesn't fit that typical mold and
7:51
he's never let that hold him back
7:53
he's never turned around to anyone and
7:54
said i can't do this because
7:57
because of my size i can't do this
7:58
because of anything he doesn't accept
8:01
that he can't do something even being
8:04
contentioned to be the fittest man in
8:05
the world
8:06
you have to be selfish you've got to
8:08
dedicate your whole
8:09
existence to training nutrition and
8:12
achieving that goal there's not a day
8:16
where i come in where i'm not in some
8:18
sort of
8:19
mental or physical pain through training
8:22
mentally when you're pushing through a
8:23
40-minute e-mom
8:25
20 minutes in you want to give up but
8:26
you know that mental strength's there
8:28
and you've got to push through it
8:31
there's always a point of workout where
8:33
the same thought comes into my head and
8:35
it's always when i'm
8:36
absolutely bad i don't know if i'm going
8:38
to be able to finish it but i
8:40
know i've got a chance if i keep pushing
8:41
through and i have that feeling every
8:43
single day
8:44
he gets out of my competition floor and
8:46
his mindset switches instantly and it's
8:48
exactly the same here in the gym
8:50
so a minute before a workout we'll be
8:52
laughing joking around uh
8:54
completely relaxed and then he's just
8:55
got that switch that you can flick and
8:57
just go straight into it
8:58
i can just hear the nine eight seven and
9:01
just listen to that buzzer
9:02
three two one and then it should go
9:05
i don't hear anything for how long the
9:07
workout is it's quite surreal how
9:09
you can hear everyone cheering before
9:12
you can hear all the music
9:13
you can hear everything as soon as it
9:14
starts it's like
9:16
you've got headphones and you can't hear
9:17
anything and then it's just i'm so
9:19
focused
9:19
towards that workout
9:29
he is definitely able to push himself
9:31
into those dark places and
9:33
to go to those places by himself you
9:34
know without without having a big crowd
9:36
behind him
9:37
but he's definitely a game day athlete
9:40
as well
9:40
i know you've got to be mentally strong
9:42
every single day but
9:44
there is going to be some days where
9:46
just your own self-motivation is not
9:48
going to be enough
9:48
and those are days where i rely on the
9:50
people around me where
9:52
they can see i'm in the gym and i'm
9:53
warming up and i can't be bothered and
9:55
like people like dan or bender likes
9:57
that come on like the opens in three
9:58
months let's get going
10:00
and then i thought right come on let's
10:01
do this and then an hour and a half
10:03
later we've had a wicked session
10:11
all right legs like five rounds
10:17
like if he wasn't here i don't think
10:19
we'd be training this hard as well we'd
10:21
be taking it easy
10:22
because of him um a lot of people here
10:24
got fitter
10:27
to be an athlete at tax level
10:31
it takes sacrifice there has to be
10:34
no deviation
10:38
from the plan if you move away from that
10:40
plan
10:41
then it's going to negatively impact you
10:43
and you can't let it negatively impact
10:45
you
10:45
so the number of times where he's you
10:47
know turned down
10:49
hanging out with friends turned down
10:50
different opportunities because he's
10:52
got to fit his training in because he's
10:53
got to recover because
10:55
that's what comes first that's the
10:56
priority he takes his weaknesses he
10:58
turns into strength
11:00
uh and he's becoming a more and more
11:02
well-rounded athlete
11:04
it's always in his head because if you
11:06
don't do it you're not going there
11:08
you can't make it even if it's like one
11:11
day you're getting lazy now
11:13
it's over you're ready to give it
11:15
everything you've got and then when you
11:17
finally get there
11:18
then you're like right now it's my
11:20
entire existence to get
11:22
even further than what i thought i could
11:24
achieve and then it becomes
11:26
an obsession you should never be
11:30
scared by your goals you can achieve
11:33
anything you want to achieve you put
11:34
your mind to it
11:42
[Music]
11:48
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