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The Scoop Episode 3: Are You Really Fit If You Can't Run A Mile?
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Jan 30, 2025
What does it really mean to be fit? Is it the way we look, how heavy we can lift, or how far we can run? On this week’s episode of Myprotein’s The Scoop, we’ll be asking exactly that to Olympian hurdler and sprinter, Colin Jackson, and Strongman Champ, Laurence Shahlaei. Are you really fit if you can’t run a mile? Listen and subscribe to get the scoop.
View Video Transcript
0:03
it's david lalocca here and welcome back to my proteins brand new podcast called the scoop where we do
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just that we get you to scoop on the most nail-biting intense controversial topics in fitness with our
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expert guests providing the information to help you make your mind up on what to believe topics discussed in gyms pubs
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and just around about anywhere around the world surrounding sports nutrition and training this is where you're gonna get the scoop
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today's topic is definitely uh one that's debated in and around gyms and and around five asides um pictures up
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and down the country and that is are you really fit if you can't run them out
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uh to discuss this we've got two brilliant guests uh mr colin jackson a former olympic
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hurdler from uh 1988 to 2004 who coached other olympic hopefuls in swimming and
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athletics too currently working in the media commentating and featured on who do you think you are and strictly come dancing yes the tango
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i see you and mr lauren shackley aka big loss
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a gb and world strong man finalists uh europe's strongest man competition champion in
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2016 and a man who went on near deal or no deal lifted mr no edmonds himself
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after winning a glorious 20 000 pounds big loss colin jackson so good to
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have you both how are you doing really well yeah it is great to be here and we're going to start with um a
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little uh thing we call this or that so we're going to go through some quick quick five questions
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um i'm gonna start with you colin okay and it's either this or that don't think too long just go with your gut
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and go for it right right all right all right let's go sprinting all hurdles oh hurdles uh cook
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breakfast or roast dinner oh cook breakfast morning or evening training
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morning uh barefoot or shoes inside oh barefoot all day ketchup or brown
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sauce neither oh oh okay all right if you had if you had
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to choose one what would it be well it'd be on sausage sandwiches red
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sauce and on bacon sandwiches brown sauce okay all right okay we'll let you get
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away with that one all right all right lauren's over to you big loss okay um never exercise again or never
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talk again never talk again yes
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uh bed made or unmade unmade for me the wife will say made but
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yes she gets she gets annoyed with me for that [Laughter]
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would you rather live underwater or live underground underground i can still breathe i guess
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more of a badger than a fish i see you okay um uh twitter or instagram uh instagram
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uh eat before or after training both [Laughter]
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questions and during and during training as well sometimes depends how long the session
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is but yeah i'm just gonna crack it open
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and ask you guys like are you can can somebody actually really say they're fit if they
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can't run them up colin i'm gonna start with you oh i knew you'd go to me
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i knew you would say that and you put me under that pressure there um you know i would say listen when
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we're talking about running that mile i'm not saying to somebody to be a world record holder and run like
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sir more pharah over a mile distance we're not really asking that whatsoever but i think it is really important that
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you have complete fitness so you have the opportunity to be able to run a decent mile
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and be able to finish it and recover quickly because remember fitness is really only judged about how
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fast you recover more than whether you can do it because all of us can do a mile but we some will look like death's door once
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they finish and others will be able to do their shoe lacer and skip off and make themself a pasta meal to
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recover all right okay yeah no i hear that i hear that um so you must be able to so
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in a nutshell i would say yes you should be fit you should run a mile you should be fit you should it you need
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to be able to run a decent while it to be fit that's right i have to agree with colin there you
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know despite the fact i'm a heavyweight athlete that competes in a power sport
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i can easily run a mile you know if i couldn't i'd be very disappointed in myself and as a strong man you need that
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mobility aspect as well so i think pretty much every sport you need some kind of general fitness
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yes we're going to have specific training that we're going to focus on for our individual disciplines but at the end of the day if
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you can't run a mile like colin said you can't call yourself fit you just can't what what why is the mile
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well i don't know why is the markers obviously this is this is something that people throw in throw in there and and usually it's quite a bit of an
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over exaggeration because most actual people as as colin even touched on can can run them out
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or can do a mile do something running you know i mean obviously not at like
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break neck pace because that was it most people could actually get over the line maybe a brisk jog so on and so
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forth um but i think the deeper thing here is is it's talking about the cardiovascular
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area of fitness which is what i'm saying um and so
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is that the barometer of fitness as in if that is missing can somebody
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not be declared to be fit in essence right i get what you're saying i totally get what you say now and all
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of us will know clearly if you're working out in the gym if you're lifting weights we know our heart rate is being raised
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right we know that for that particular moment in time but that heart rate only raises for a
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tiny time in relative terms it's a really a fraction of of what we could be doing to mean
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that to get that general fitness up and running you've got to get your card you've got to get your heart pumping for an extended period of time
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so most people obviously um if you push yourself you know i always say to people everybody who has arms and legs can
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literally do a mile in 12 minutes right and you're just working your way all the way down from there until you
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get to what the world record is which is like three minutes 26 so i'm i'm not saying that you need to
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go out there and run 3 27. you know be a second off the world record you don't have to just destroy
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the world record but what i am saying is you should have a focus to try and get to out
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seven eight seven or eight minutes is a decent pace and it's the add-on to that um and the
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add-on factors are your body needs good impact you you know to
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make the bone stronger you need to have that impact in in in the way that you land on the
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ground never mind the cardio side of it so intense cardio keeping your heart at a high level for a
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good period of time which is not an extended period of time we're not telling people to run a marathon we're just saying a mile so you're
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pushing good pace seven eight minutes i think then you can truly claim that you're
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you know in half decent shape not only be able to bench 140 and squat 250. that's i just chucked those
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figures out i don't know why i checked those out i'm just saying what i do on a regular basis
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my warm-up i'm just writing my warm-up in there just you know what i mean just in case somebody was wondering i
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mean nobody asked about i love it a big loss obviously in your
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in your area of trading right you must have you must and we all do to be honest with you um
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enter the gym right and obviously you go to the gym sometimes you go gym on your own you got your own people you go to the gym
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but you know you always have your eye on what's happening in and around you and you there's always been times where you
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look around the gym and it's like i've never seen that guy on the bike or the treadmill like you
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know that where there's there's people that's out there and you're like hold on what's going on over here like what no leg day same way siblings
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similar to the fact that it's like you know people are like what's it like people go to the gym on a consistent
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basis and don't um don't add that cardio element um to their to their training why is that do
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you think it's simply because of uh the drive towards aesthetics when it comes to yeah
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partially i think um a lot of it comes down to what people enjoy so you you know going to the gym and
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just jumping on a treadmill is actually very boring and i think that's the quickest way to put someone off coming to the gym
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the way you know when we're talking about running a mile you're trying you're talking about something specific that every athlete as long as they're not you
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know don't have a physical disability should be able to run a mile if put on the spot but that doesn't mean
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you have to be going to the gym and running a mile every time you know you go there you've got to find things that you enjoy because if you enjoy
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your training that's going to be the key way to keep you interested and keep you coming back so for instance
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you know i might have this you know 40 year old woman that she doesn't like running she doesn't even go into the gym so we're going to try and
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get her to do something fun if i say jump on the treadmill and run a mile she's going to be bored within two or three weeks so we try and
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make it interesting whether you know with what i do i can make the strongman events much much lighter
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make a circuit out of them that where we focus a lot more on the conditioning and fitness side of things rather than actually lifting you know
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strong man weights you can you can bring things right down everything's loadable now in the gyms you create a little circuit there's a
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lot more fun short bursts of energy they go they work hard and then like colin mentioned earlier
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it's about them recovering quickly and just keeping it enjoyable so you get them doing that
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if you then four six weeks down the line you say right today we're going to try a little run
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get them to do that it's a one-off thing their fitness is going to be good enough to do it they don't need to be in the gym training specifically to run you know
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whether it's 20 minutes on a treadmill or a mile or whatever the distance is you know you don't need to be in the gym doing that every single session
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i think the most important thing is keeping things enjoyable and i actually see less and less people
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enjoying the gym these days because of things like social media instagram etc they see what the top athletes do and
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they just want to be there straight away rather than just enjoying the process enjoying getting you know as colin as an athlete i'm sure
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you didn't start off just thinking i'm going to be the olympic champion it was like this is fun i'm enjoying it and then you progress and you progress and
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you get better same with me with strongman i didn't start off thinking you know i'm just going to do this to try and be a pro
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it was something that was fun i got hooked and then as you progress your drive and your hunger become more
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increased and then you start focusing on new targets but if it's not fun to start with you're going to
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struggle to keep at it absolutely yeah you know touching on on um on what you mentioned there
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uh liz um colin do you want to just um yeah let us know how did you what what made you start how did you start yeah well i mean lots of stuff something
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perfectly well there really i mean i always said to people the first thing i did was have a good time and for me
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sport was about playing it wasn't about taking something very intensely in that
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sense and as i enjoyed it more and more and more i got better at it because i was putting
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more time and i was spending more time but doing something i found fun and then of course when you it
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becomes a little bit standardized doesn't it then when you start to do specific things so you know from going running between lamp
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posts as a kid all of a sudden you have to do run 100 meters and when you're running 100 meters then you have
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something to judge against other people so straight away you go okay i've done 100 meters in this time
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you live in birmingham i'll how quick can you do the hundred meters or you live in ipswich and how fast can
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you do it so you get that sense of a standardized distance and then you can compare it with the time and then you
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see how good you are and then at the end you know you keep pushing it you keep pushing it you end up enjoying it more more put more time
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and effort in there you get highly skilled and you become a
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how easy is champion the keys listen colin is dropping some gems here the
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keys all right that's it that's the playbook but yeah no honestly yeah biology please continue
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yeah so i think you know that's always got to be the most important message that you give to anybody you must have fun you know and you know
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lawrence you said so well i go to the gym now and i see people looking miserable right and i'm thinking
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if this is a chore for you don't do it you shouldn't you know i mean i have medals
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it was a chore when i was trying to earn medals now i'm just happy that i can come to the gym
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and chat i mean you know a couple of people i train with i mean we're big chatters and when we're at the
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gym at half past six in the morning and people are looking miserable the last thing i want to do is hear us a lot laughing right and i'm looking
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thinking well then go home because we're here to socialize and to work hard and we will go we will work hard we will
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work intensely but we are nobody could ever deny we're not having a good time yeah
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i i agree 100 you know if for me the gym is a bit it's like my
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social time i don't go to the pub and stuff like that so you know going to see my friends at the gym we do have a chat we do have a laugh
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you know but like colin said when it's time to work we work hard you get that you know that good feeling
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from a hard workout you you know you get those release of endorphins and you feel good in yourself after a you know a tough
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session and i love that feeling just pushing myself through the limits and then afterwards feeling like you
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know i've i've worked hard and i feel good and it just makes you happier you're around people that you like you
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have a bit of banter in the gym a bit of fun if it's if you're dragging yourself like
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people always often one of the things i get asked is how do you stay motivated and the easiest way to stay motivated in
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something is to enjoy it you know and you know colin and myself have both competed at a high high level
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and there'll be times where you don't enjoy it because it's becoming a job at that kind of you know stage but right now i'm not
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competing for anything i love going to the gym just just enjoying it you know getting out the house getting a sweat on
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pushing my body through some you know some tough workouts setting different types of challenges now than i was when i was
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competing full-time and it's it's still fun and as long as it's it's fun it makes it so much easier
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to drag yourself out of the house and go and you know get in the gym absolutely absolutely it's funny because
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both of what you're saying is literally the carbon copy of what i'm like to be honest with you like when i get to the gym there's a
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couple people that that call me and my people that we go to the gym they call us butterfly game because we're
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social with social butterflies in it like it's like you not come to the gym in a cage can you lift weights that's what
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that's what that's right we're like we don't talk in between sets we do sets in between talking
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that's that's that's that goes on but but it's like for that very reason i'm there on a consistent on a
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consistent basis from that on that from that perspective and even when it comes to running um a couple of months ago in the height
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of lockdown quite a few friends of us we just got on a on an app together and then we just said okay we're gonna
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do 100k this month we're going to do like yeah we're just going to challenge ourselves to do 100k this month people putting in videos in there just
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motivating and pushing each other and and that element of fun and some degree
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of competition but even just competition from the sense of we all want to get there um was something that
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pushed us all to do what we usually don't like doing because i'm not a runner i don't i find running
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boring if i'm completely honest like i find it i find it i find i know that i'm running and
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sometimes when i'm actually out there running i'm like why am i running no one's chasing me like it's like what
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you know it's just like i'm not my mind is just like oh wait a minute i'm not being chased i'm not chasing anybody what am i
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actually doing here um so so it's like i have to get myself into like a place
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in order to to get out there and do it and that's usually for me typically what what gets me their friends motivation
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and competition and i understand during these periods of time it's really difficult because i'm with you there to for because i'm not the world's
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best runner um i i i could do it in a group so yeah like you you mentioned you know
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i kind of had to do it when there was a group of people i thought we enjoyed running and going out for that particular run and that job
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and i i never use running funny enough as you know distance running we're talking about running middle distance running you know talking
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about running miles etc etc i never use that really as a training
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tool um i just use it as a benchmark so every six weeks when there was test
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things to do you know test sets of whatever then we'd always check the myelin as something that would be as a little
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tester and the real test was you know not whether i could run it in 6 30 or you know because i think my
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best was like something like 542 or something like this um it was how quickly we would get our
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heart rate back down to our resting heart rate so we'd run we'd run the distance
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then we'd be there and we'd be testing everybody going right what's your heart going and we were
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getting it really calmed down and once it come and it got back to resident then we knew that we were in great shape
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so we'd use it as a benchmark um in preparations for other things now
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that's that's incredible looking at yeah because most people don't look at all of these other factors or there's other factors and facets that you can
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look at with with stuff like cardiovascular training like running for example as a barometer for success or for a
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barometer or how far you've um you've come and go usually when it comes to
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weight training you can see okay i've added 0.5 this week or 0.25 and so on and so forth and usually running people see it as a
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standard of time but that's true it's interesting because i haven't i haven't personally ever um thought of there and now
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especially with all the technology that we've got out people can actually you know do that right from their wrists
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yeah with no no rush just easily nice cool and calmly and it would just go blink blink
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there you go i'm unfit
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it says it on your watch just look at it for it it must be right
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yes is is fitness based solely upon cardio
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or where does where does the strength element come into it there's a there's a lot to be said um
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and first of all when i coach athletes um i i try to get them prepared for
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being overall fit so that if they leave my group as
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sprinters or hurdlers they should be able to run a decent and train with the best 800 meter runners in
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the country and if they are um in my hurdle group they should be able to work out with the best triple jumpers
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and long jumpers in the country and if they're in the gym they should be able to weight lift with the best shot
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putters and discus throwers in the country so for me they it's all about complete
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fitness it's a 360. you get an incredibly high rate of general fitness and then add on to that
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you do your specifics for your event there is no shortcut i remember when most of the youngsters when i um
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that first get in contact with me they always ask me a question they always ask me the question is what did you do training wise when the
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year before you broke the world record and i said straight answers like don't even concern yourself what i did the
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year before you better look what i was doing 12 years before because what i was doing in the warm-up in my
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warm-up yeah the year i broke the world record you couldn't do now today there's athletes that i work and
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i'm not going to name any of them now but i have a stronger core than them now and i've been retired
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i haven't got enough fingers to count when it comes to years but i i'm telling
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you i do my core exercise they're taking through core exercises they are absolutely atrocious and
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they're out there this moment representing our country so it's getting that real there's no
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fast route it's getting the overall package absolutely spot on no hide in place
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work hard and everything you have to work hard at everything no just cardio
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no just weights mofar was great why he lifted with he sprinted with sprinters
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he ran with the best insist runners he was the complete athlete and that is the important structure of
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it and quickly before launch jumps in here there was a swiss a swiss shot putter by the name of
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vena gunter and he was the olympic champion and he was the world champion and
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um the first time i went to a training camp in lanzarote now this man my mum and dad nicknamed him the man
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mountain right this guy was six foot seven and he's a shot putter but he is like
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oh solid yeah right like the first thing i saw him do was hurdles
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he was going over the hurdles i was hurdling over that that's how agile that man was and i
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literally went [Laughter]
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i could not literally believe what i saw when vena gunter was going over there
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and so from there on in i knew i couldn't use any excuses yeah i couldn't use any excuses you know
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oh i'm too small to lift that amount of weight or bloody blah blah when i've just saw a man who's twice my
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weight twice my height hurdling i'll tell you what shot shot butters incredible athletes
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incredible all-round athletes tremendous power tremendous explosive power but they they're fit and they're fast and they're
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agile they need that that technical ability as well that they cover every single aspect that you need a
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fitness and i you know and i i know a few good um shot putters have done very well in strongman
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because they i think weightlifters transfer very very well as well they they learn incredibly good skills
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they get exceptionally proficient at the skills and they have a good general amount of fitness
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and then i'm sure you i'm sure when you were at your best colin you sacrificed a little a little bit in
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some areas of fitness so when you when you you did 110 hurdles yeah so for you the most important thing
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was how fast you were across the finish line for 110 it didn't really matter how fast you were to run a
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marathon did it you could no no exactly right and you know but i was generally very
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you know very fit i mean i was very impressive when i go to to lift weights you know we would and so with all the
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girls that we used to train with us and they were so impressive i mean one of the girls sprinter carmen she weighed
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42 kilos she was bench pressing 80 kilos reps of six 80 kilos um kay was cleaning
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nearly 100 kilos at 52 and a half kilos body weight they were exceptionally
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strong athletes i i gotta tell you this story because this made me laugh so much right
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now we were in a gym it was a friend of ours wedding and we we a whole group of us were going to the
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gym and so we we got to the gym and we were athletes so we were quite light i mean when i was competing i weighed
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like i know 72.5 kilos i was kind of slight yeah um and so were all of us all of us
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anyway we ran into this gym and um this guy was doing squats and he was squatting using squat and he was
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squatting 130 kilos to the bench so he's doing half squats to the bench and getting out there
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and one of our girls kay was literally just standing behind him like this arms folded like this and
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he finished his reps he turned round to her and he said oh do you want me to take some weights off this few love
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wrong person oh no so kay said nothing she just lifted
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a 25 and put another 25 on gave him the look went under the squat
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rack and just started repping him out right i never saw a man move from a gym
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so fast in all my days but this is the important thing you know
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is that you know you've got to respect what people are doing first of all you know they know what they're doing
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people are agile they may look slight but they're highly motivated because they're world-class athletes
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so they're going to push themselves to get a great level of fitness and i think this is a way that the general public
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should perceive themselves too in getting a high level of fitness not just don't go to yourself oh i'm not
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olympic athlete who asks you to be an olympic athlete what we're saying is is for you to have
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that genuine combination of overall fitness you can be super strong you can
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be big but you can also run a decent mile because that's all we're saying is a decent mile yeah
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exactly that people's perception is always kind of going to be there unfortunately you know i'm i'm a very large man at 25
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stone people will look at me and think i can't move i remember when i mean a funny story when i first met
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my wife she's you know really small you know about she was about 59 kilos at the time and
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i she challenged me to a race thinking i'd be really really slow now bear in mind i'm a 400 plus kilo
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squatter i've got exceptionally powerful legs even though i'm big there's a lot of power that i can produce and i
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absolutely blitzed i was just like a gazelle just kind of a jogging mode and she was left behind she's like i
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don't understand how you're so fast you gotta understand i'm an athlete i i you know
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like you have to be for hurdles for sprinting you need that power in those legs if you don't have strong legs you're not
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going to be competitive and you know although i was bigger i could move well and i i'm i'm actually a world record holder in a
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lot of moving events for strongman that was what i excelled at more so than than the static lifts i was good at moving with weights you know like yolks
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car walks things like that i was exceptionally fast at and um like you say people look at you and they think
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there's no way you can do that but i'm i'm good on anything to do is sprint so i'm extremely fast i've done the concept to 500 meter row
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in 114 which is wow world class times yeah that's well decent i might i might
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die if you asked me to do 10 000 meters right but nobody asked you to do ten thousand
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meters right yeah yeah but it's it again becomes you know that that specific training but you do have
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that ability to cross over and i'm sure with a lot of your athletes colin same with mine
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when they start you know people will see that they're focusing on one sport and they're gone they'll never you know they're too small
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to do this they're too big to do that they are training for something specific most general like good athletes can
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adapt to other things as well and you know the exceptional ones are the guys that can do everything
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hmm yeah and we get furious about them yeah we don't like them highly talented and
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motivated and i look at them i just i just hate them basically
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[Laughter]
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it's true because i was going to say quite a few people would probably look at strongmen and think you don't
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um possess the cardio type of and it's probably a common conception misconception um from that
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standpoint but it's it's probably like a common um conception for me it depends which level you go to there are people that use
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strong males and as an excuse to be overweight and and slow and not athletic there's so there's
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this kind of bad kind of myth that you don't need to be fit to be a strong man you know that people think
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you're just a big brute with with no kind of intelligence and you just like a neanderthal if you like
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but the top guys are all smart guys they all understand that you know smart training is important
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they understand that a general amount of fitness is important because in strongman it's not just about lifting a weight from a to b
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there's a lot of events that require time limits and repetitions and distance and speed so there's there's many many elements to
28:08
the sport and when i train people i try and make sure they're as good all round as possible you know there's there's always people
28:14
you know you might get someone who's a bench press specialist in powerlifting and all they do is bench press and they they can be incredible ventures
28:20
but their general fitness is not good but for to if you look at the top strong men in the world the top guys when
28:27
we're talking guys that can compete in any competition and do well they have good general fitness as well because they have to although they might
28:33
not be able to run a marathon they they need to be able to to work hard they need their heart rate up high for for a minute and a half sometimes
28:40
and like colin mentioned earlier they need to be able to recover quickly because if they can't recover then they
28:45
won't be able to perform at high level in the next event absolutely yeah that's it's very interesting very very interesting from
28:52
that perspective you touched earlier on about enjoyment and having to enjoy what you're doing
28:58
um in in order to start and i i did move on to colin to ask him how he got into it how about yourself lost because i
29:04
know the listeners will be like what what davey what you're not asking you're not fine i wouldn't know i don't know about loss as well so you just let some big loss
29:11
and just let us know how did you how did you start was you always um interes into lifting heavy was you
29:18
was you always bigger than everybody else or how did you yeah i was always sporty from a very young age from
29:24
like the age of three i was interested in sport i started off doing kung fu believe it or not i was um you know come through from the age of three to
29:31
about 11. when i got into secondary school i took up rugby athletics you know i played basketball i
29:36
was on all the school teams for everything i was just i was one of those kids that i wasn't so academic i loved sport i
29:42
loved all you know i used to love watching the olympics and you know at the time i was i'm not so into football now but i'd
29:47
watch football i like i played rugby for the south west and then as i got kind of older the training for
29:54
rugby i started doing more um strength training yeah and eventually it was like well this is for me this is more you know
30:00
what i want to do and um i found strongman when i was 21. um actually at the same time i was playing
30:06
table tennis believe it or not yeah i went from rugby to table tennis to strong man
30:13
and i used to coach table tennis actually i was um you know used to coach a lot of the the national juniors
30:18
and coach for some of the biggest clubs in the country but then i was trying to do strongman and table tennis at the same time
30:24
very different sports very different sports that require a lot of different types of training and the strong man was just
30:30
i was always a you know fairly strong athletic kid and the strong overtook that there i i
30:36
loved it so much as soon as i started it it was the personal challenge just wanting to push myself harder
30:42
make myself better whether it be getting stronger an event or a lot of strongman events are about speed as well so you know i
30:49
i taught myself how to be quicker and move faster um and i just loved it i did i think i did
30:55
um i did my first ever comp in 2009 uh sorry 2005 and then i was a world strongest man in
31:01
2008 so i i progressed very very quickly it just came i was a naturally good athlete
31:07
which helped and then over the years i've managed to to get stronger and stronger but being athletic
31:12
helped me more than being strong because in a strong man event where you've got six events only one or two require brute strength
31:18
the rest require speed endurance to a certain degree technique you know mental toughness as well there's so many
31:25
elements i've met many many really strong guys in the gym but as soon as it gets
31:30
it starts hurting in a contest they're useless and they just give up whereas the top guys have to have that
31:35
mental toughness to push themselves that little bit harder and you know when i was younger i loved it maybe maybe now i take it a little
31:42
bit more easy i've put my body through the limits but um you know back when i was in my early 20s i
31:48
absolutely loved that punishing my body pushing myself harder and harder i had a weird relationship with him i
31:54
like the pain absolutely i'm giggling i'm totally giggling you there
32:00
because i can't remember my early 20s
32:08
no you're right in that sense a friend of mine quite recently asked me um how i felt you know i i'm 53 now he said
32:16
how do you feel colin i said if i'm honest i do feel better physically now
32:22
than i did when i was in my mid-20s and early 30s and he went how is that
32:27
possible you're a performing athlete then i said well do you know what to be honest i don't know the aches and pains i had then
32:33
because training was punishing it was everything was it was relentless as you
32:38
know it's it's it's what your life is all about so even your recovery your recovery is based
32:45
around your training it's not the other way around you know your eating is based around your training you're socializing it's
32:51
based around your training so um there's no shortcuts if you want to make it to the top of your game
32:56
absolutely you've got to work hard you've got to stay committed and you know the thing i would always use is something called consistent
33:03
application isn't it is to apply your skills your work
33:09
and if ethic manage you can do that bob's your uncle funny's your aunt and you know the rest
33:14
of that saying because i really don't know it did you did you find when it was time to
33:20
retire it was easy for you or was it hard well easy
33:26
do you know what was always interesting i know dave is laughing there now but you know what i was so committed i
33:32
was really so committed to the support but i actually had enough of competing yeah i love the training element it was the
33:39
competing that was getting me down so i knew if i was going to stay on top of my game
33:44
i had to always raise my level of performance i had to kind of keep lifting myself and lifting and that part
33:50
of me had vanished i didn't have the same desire or the same commitment so i knew i was gonna have like 19 21
33:58
year olds 22 year olds beating me who i know if i really put my mind to the job they couldn't lace my shoes
34:03
yeah but i knew you know what i've had my time it'll be very much now time to retire i think
34:09
everybody said to me you know sorry there but everybody said to me when i was going to retire they went now you will
34:14
keep trading you will go down no spikes bin training
34:24
it's quite interesting hearing that because like um i picked up a real bad injury last year at world strongest man i was lifting a 610 kilo
34:31
yolk and my achilles out and at the time it was pretty
34:36
devastating yeah and i was i had i had to really kind of like
34:41
talk to myself and do i still want to do this and when i kind of look back i didn't feel i was hungry for
34:46
the last couple of years training and i decided right there and then i'm going to stop competing and focus on
34:53
giving back to the sport coaching you know doing other things i've set up my own business i've given myself new goals
34:59
i do commentary for strongman shows etc and i'm loving that i'm still involved but in a different
35:05
way it's like a new goal it's it's new things to focus on and i had to have that conversation with
35:10
myself because people like oh you'll be back you know you you'll have to be you you you know you're still one of the best guys you can you can still compete
35:16
and i i honestly believe i could go back and i could still hang on for a few more years but i don't want to hang on i want to do
35:22
it at the either absolute top and be the best i can be or i'm going to step back and let these new guys come
35:28
through and try and help them and it's it's interesting because so many people have said oh you'll you'll want to compete again and
35:34
honestly there's no desire to do it at all i'm quite happy being a fan now bringing my general
35:40
fitness better you know making my general fitness better still being reasonably strong but there's more important things
35:45
than just lifting the weights now and i can like you go to the gym and enjoy it a bit more than having that pressure of right you
35:51
need to do this today or else you're going to get a kick up the ass from the coach you know it's funny because you
35:58
know talking to a lot of athletes and former athletes is usually it's always usually one way or the other there's people there's there's usually
36:03
never people like in the middle it's either thank god i'm out and i'm enjoying life or there's people on the other side of
36:10
the spectrum that are like looking over the fence like oh my days you know what i could probably be in both um areas of sport are uh
36:17
extremely blessed to have the likes of both of you because as you i think as you both in essence
36:24
from very early on pointed out the importance of um of cardiovascular training to it you
36:30
in essence you both you both answered the question um profoundly uh are you really if you
36:36
can't run a mile both of you like nah you can't really be this bit um is that that
36:43
um you could be highly skilled and do something at a very high level but that doesn't mean you're fit [Music]
36:50
but then talking about our listeners we've got some questions from them for you okay um i'm gonna
36:58
kick start with big big loss okay um uh they wanna know what was your most
37:04
memorable strongman moment probably when i won europe's strongest man because it was the first time we did
37:12
uh like a huge show in an indoor arena um i had did you guys know half thought
37:19
bjorn he played the mountain in game of thrones yes so he's he's the five-time
37:24
european champion he's won five years in a row and the only guy that's managed to stop him is little old me
37:32
i i managed to beat him in 2016. i took the title off him and yes you know it was it was
37:38
the first time we did a we've done shows in front of maybe four or five thousand people before this time we've um sold out the first
37:46
direct arena in leeds there's about 12 15 000 people uh i i had actually i'd been working on a
37:53
film at the time and hadn't been training well i've been training hard but i was like literally on set to film at five in the morning
37:59
you work long days on films then my mate he'd open up his gym for me to train at like 11 12 at night
38:05
and then i'd sleep on his sofa ready for the next day of filming and no one knew i was doing it because
38:11
they were like oh you know when i won they're all like oh the only reason lost one is because thor was doing the game of thrones
38:17
i'd spent the last five weeks filming and ended up going there i knew the events
38:22
were good for me i trained hard i ended up breaking two world records in that contest and then
38:28
winning the contest as well um that was a big one for me he's not just winning the title
38:33
but who i'd be he's he's gone on to be one of the absolute best strong men of all time and um
38:38
you know it really helped mike tyson was tweeting about it actually when i won so that was pretty cool
38:44
i i i'd had a number of seconds and you know i'd come real close before but then i'd either come second or i picked up
38:51
quite bad injuries i had knockbacks and i actually retired in 2015. i i ended up tearing my tricep
38:58
and i was like you know i don't want to do this anymore managed to get back into the the gym my family were just really supportive just
39:04
go in like we said about earlier just have some fun enjoy it and the bug came back and for six months
39:09
i trained like a you know a machine i was hell-bent on doing the best that i could i didn't go in saying i'm going to win but in my heart
39:16
i knew i had a chance and it just everything went right on the day two world records performed really well on the rest of the events
39:22
and ended up toppling the mountain so to become europe's strongest man 2016.
39:27
yes big loss that that is epic you know i mean you you saved the accolades for last i
39:33
see what you did there that's what you did there but honestly i've i've won a version of a world title
39:39
but it's not world strongest mag there's a couple of different federations so i won
39:44
you might call it an easier world title i still be a guy called the adrenals obiscus who is arguably the greatest of all time but
39:51
he was past his best so you know for me being thor at europe's is bigger than winning the ultimate strongman world
39:57
title so i've you know i can i can call myself a world champion but sometimes when you think of
40:02
who you beat on the day that the certain victories are a little bit more important to you absolutely absolutely not thank you
40:10
thank you for that um colin over to you what was the toughest race that you've
40:17
ever run and why oh toughest was probably trying to beat my
40:25
sister to remote control and that was because i wanted to watch
40:31
green jill but um but athletically let's think now
40:38
um oh that is a really serious
40:43
good question and the answer is why most probably
40:52
the european championships me trying to win my very first european championships in 1990
40:59
and um and i was injured during that um actual build-up towards those
41:04
championships and at one stage i didn't think i was actually gonna get a run and i struggled to get through
41:10
all the rounds and when i lined up with the final um i had one of the my friend guy
41:17
called dalton grant he was one of the national high jumpers cut my hair in all sorts of funky styles
41:23
to try and distract from this massive strapping i had on my knee it didn't work um people still were
41:30
focused on this big strap that i had on my knee there because i tore some cartilage and i just literally lost all
41:36
the power etc etc and the person who was absolutely flying was my teammate tony jarrett
41:42
and so to go into the competition knowing that the person who's potentially gonna be
41:48
your biggest rival is also a fellow brit when you've been holding the mantle of being the best in your country was a
41:55
tough ask and i i literally won it on the dip
42:00
and i became the european champion for the first time and i remember when i went back to the hotel
42:07
my team colleagues applauded me and because they knew that i was under a lot of stress and i just went i'll be back in a moment and
42:14
i went into the bathroom and i just burst into tears i just cried there was you know the relief
42:20
of i've done it yeah but now i need to have an operation that's okay i've already got the title
42:26
i've got the talk a couple of weeks off i've got the title so yeah that was much probably my toughest race and and the reason why
42:32
absolutely yeah there's there's um there's a lot of areas in sport that a lot of people don't know that um or the extent
42:38
to which uh people compete with minor injuries or some injuries for quite a quite a long time i was
42:44
um talking to a a footballer quite a big footballer's name adebayo akinfenwa um he's known as the strongest man on
42:51
fifa um he's actually known as the strongest professional footballer from that perspective
42:56
if you see your size you think he plays for the nfl or or rugby he's actually he's actually huge but um
43:03
uh he was talking about that as well he just uh got his side promoted into the championship um plays up
43:10
up front for them um and you know i did a show with him recently for the fa cup and he was you
43:16
know on crutches and everybody's like oh my goodness and he's like listen i've been playing with this injury for for months you said
43:22
i'm saying and um i know i've known i need to have this operation but i wanted us to to win to get through
43:31
yeah and to qualify um for the for the championship which he did um and
43:37
then now he's like okay cool now i can actually have my operation i'll be off for a few months but it was all worth it the pain and
43:43
pushing through all of that um there was a lot of emotion a lot of the stuff that he spoke about in the post
43:48
post-matching interview went viral because of the extent of the emotion but nobody knew obviously on the surface that he was
43:54
carrying such um such a such an injury it's such a common
44:00
occurrence with professional athletes though there's you see people on like forums and online and they'll criticize
44:05
these top athletes and they have no idea the pain that they go through sometimes you know i i've had tremendously bad injuries
44:11
over the years the amount of muscles that i've torn and torn and still finished the competition yeah people people oh
44:17
you know you should have done better on that blah blah blah they don't know what you've gone through i mean not even
44:23
sometimes just the injuries but the traveling that you go through and how small i think often people don't
44:29
realize we're still humans you know they see you as robots and you'll have these these performances
44:36
that just aren't up to scratch and everyone will criticize you and slate you and at the end of the day
44:41
you know i i can think of multiple times where i've competed in a lot of pain but you just you block
44:49
it out and that's what champions do you keep pushing through and i'm sure colin's been in that situation many many
44:55
times where people have criticized your performance or and just not known what's actually gone on behind the
45:01
scenes to get you just to get you to the contest and you know and added to that i kind of
45:06
fall into that category myself now working as a commentator underperforms the first thing i'm doing
45:11
is giving them help instead of actually saying to myself well actually there could be some kind of
45:16
injury because i've been through there myself and i kind of know but also you know i i i was going to
45:22
chuck out to you guys then is that you know if you're on that start line you've declared yourself fit
45:28
yep yeah and so all of a sudden you can't go crying about what was wrong after
45:33
because once you're on that start line you gotta deal with any consequences because your opponents
45:39
see you as your name and you're fit to compete you're there to be slaughtered and i remember that's one of
45:45
the things my dad always used to say to me this is not a war don't take any prisoners kill everybody
45:52
so get on that line and that was my attitude you know so yeah so you can't um yeah unfortunately you
45:58
gotta you gotta you know take take the knocks if you underperform yeah but there's a high chance seven of those
46:04
eight guys that are on the starting line are all got something going on yeah that's just professional sport for you isn't it yeah
46:10
yeah that's the that's that's the continued hope when you're standing there as well with your own little niggling one as well
46:16
that guy's definitely suffering more than i am i was just thinking that if you're a male 100 meter runner and usain bolt was
46:24
injured you'd think well what can i do he's injured he's still going gonna run two meters faster
46:30
how can i live with this yes he'll still be celebrating before
46:35
the finish line all right long before
46:41
lois let me uh hit you with another one um what's your go-to uh post-competition
46:48
recovery meal i i tend to keep my diet pretty when i'm competing
46:54
it's pretty basic i tend to eat a lot of um white basmati rice and beef that's kind of my main meal so
47:01
post workout it'll be about 30 minutes after i've trained i'm getting rice and meat into me that's
47:06
just standard for a strong man to be honest my meal staple i tend to eat about 6
47:12
000 calories a day when i'm competing first meal is is oats and then i've probably got about four meals of
47:19
beef and rice uh green leafy veg and then before bed either like a yogurt or a cottage cheese
47:25
something like that which will give you kind of some slow release protein through the night but i'm real boring when i'm competing
47:32
when i'm off kind of training when it's just training for fun i i whatever i really need to kind of get focused now and tidy up my
47:39
diet i think that's what i've found quite hard since i've stopped competing it's like i can just eat what i want and that's
47:45
that's kind of become a problem especially over lockdown so now it's like right we i don't know if i could do that
47:50
mile run right now i need to focus i spent the last hour talking about it but really truly uh yeah
47:56
that's what commentators do isn't it now we just talk about what we could do
48:02
yes
48:10
[Music] if you could have if you could have had any of a career what would it have been
48:17
cricketer oh yeah yeah yeah i love cricket i still love cricket
48:23
um and it's um it was that camaraderie that you have in the cricket team as well that i thoroughly enjoyed so you know
48:29
you're and also it's not you you've got to be crazy not to want to do a sport where you have a
48:35
break for tea you come back and play right so surely
48:41
cricket gotta be the the game but if the on another level um again so as a team event it would always
48:47
be qriket as i say that that that that i'm not joking about but as an individual it would have been tennis i i thoroughly
48:55
enjoyed the game of tennis and also i kind of feel like tennis is a little bit investment into your older age as well
49:01
because you could be 75 80. i mean i played tennis with my mate's father who's 88. yeah wow and
49:07
he can still serve aces against us now i heard you all say what kind of play are you
49:13
with an 88 year old
49:18
so easy right but um the key thing is yeah it's having that sense of
49:24
sport and activity to me has to be still fun so whatever i invested into it would be
49:29
to to to make it fun and athletics for me obviously my speciality hurdles
49:34
you couldn't be doing flying over three foot six batteries at the age of um at the age of my age now 53.
49:40
but if you're a distance runner um you could easily be going out for a nice steady run in your group have that whole social
49:47
element of it again which is really important just to keep your general fitness up absolutely absolutely i think the the
49:54
the ongoing trend from from this conversation or the ongoing um theme from this conversation
50:01
is is enjoyment like do what you love do what you enjoy and you will continue to you'll continue to do it and at the same
50:07
time find some enjoyment from it so find a way
50:12
to engineer it if we're talking about running for example find a way to engineer that cardio area or cardio element of of
50:20
training um in a way in which that you can you can enjoy it so it wouldn't seem like a boring chore from that
50:26
perspective um and then i guess moving on from there um
50:31
what we'd like to ask all our guests um before they leave is to give just to let us know um one thing or one
50:39
person that's influenced them um in life and one piece of advice so
50:44
um i think that's a nice little segue from from you know thinking about ways in which
50:50
you can engineer for success in terms of enjoyment if you could um i'll start with you big loss
50:57
let us know one influence of yours and a piece of advice a big influence for me
51:04
believe it or not is um roger federer which kind of people look at me and go like you're a strong man what are you going on about tennis
51:10
players for but i'm a big tennis fan and with colin bringing it up then you know it just made me think of i really loved the way he he kind of you
51:17
know portrayed himself in his career you know real class act he he's obviously amazingly talented hard worker
51:24
but i just i just i respected that kind of the way he was and all the way still is to be honest
51:29
you know he's still going strong but i've never really been like a trash talker or someone you know it was all about just
51:35
being bettering myself with my career and i i sort of looked up to athletes like that when i
51:41
was first kind of starting out and you know i i really respected that but
51:46
you know i i guess when i was a kid you used to look up to like the likes of sylvester stallone arnold schwarzenegger
51:51
with the muscle guys and you wanted to be like big and strong um and then in strong man in terms of strongman there's a guy
51:57
called zadrina sobiscus who i always looked up to he's he's probably one of the in my eyes
52:02
he's the greatest of all time um won multiple you know world titles in in all the
52:09
biggest shows he's won you know countless times broken countless world records but again the way he sort of portrays himself
52:15
you know he's humble with it and i i massively respected that and i've always tried to be similar
52:21
myself um advice to to people starting out and i know we keep saying it
52:26
it is the most important thing is to enjoy it because if you don't enjoy it why are
52:32
you doing it and unfortunately i do see people in various different sports now coming into strongman as well
52:38
they they see certain fame that people get or whether it be on instagram or tv or
52:44
youtube or whatever it might be and they want the fame but they don't want to put the work into to be good
52:51
and if you don't enjoy the grind and the contest and the training and stuff like that
52:57
don't put your body through it because i'm sure colin can can testify for this as well it's hard it's hard being a top level
53:03
athlete it's really not easy it doesn't just you know you don't just wander into the gym do a few
53:09
like bench presses and then you know you're a world champion there's you know colin said earlier what was
53:14
people were asking what he was doing the year before it's the 10 15 20 years before that that you're putting that work in
53:20
it takes time i would say get around a group of people that have similar interests because again that makes it
53:26
easier learn from experienced people there's so much information out there now online but it's deciphering whether it's
53:32
good information or not you know there's there's almost too much information but you can you can find so much free information if you're looking again at
53:38
something like strongman get a coach that can help with um you know technique making sure you learn good form at a young age is
53:44
massively important but number one out of everything enjoy it because if you enjoy it then everything else will be easy you
53:50
can figure out the training the recovery the food you can go through the hard sessions without that enjoyment you're never
53:57
going to get to the top level colin please yeah over to you yeah and well for me my influence was daley
54:03
thompson um and for the real reason uh there's always a little joke towards
54:08
this with daley i met him when i was 16 and i was so like mesmerized because
54:14
he was a world record holder he was the world champion commonwealth champion european champion olympic champion and
54:21
all that was brilliant but for me what motivated me the most the man drove a porsche and i just wanted that
54:27
right so if the route to getting the porsche was me to be dedicated and committed i was gonna do that you know
54:34
and i was lucky enough to train with him when i was really young and he was brilliant because he did make
54:39
training fun so eight hours a day training with daley was such a was just like
54:46
with breathtaking because you knew you were training hard you knew you were training hard but also
54:53
um it was so much fun because he made it everything a little bit competitive and
54:58
you know whether we were throwing a shot or do the javelin it was something that was competitive and i remember this and
55:04
i'll never forget this we were throwing the discus and i just couldn't get the technique right and so i saw i'm giving up on this
55:11
i said i'm not doing this and he went why are you stopping i said because i got really small hands
55:17
right and i can't hold the two kilo discs so i'm out of there right he went come here
55:23
sorry i went over to him and he put his hand up and i put my hand up next
55:28
and they were exactly the same size and he said to me from here on in don't
55:34
ever make an excuse yeah stay focused stay committed and keep trying
55:39
and i took that right into my heart you know and i thought you know what those are really wise words from a
55:45
champion yeah don't so i looked for a really short coward's way out oh my hands are too small so i'm going i
55:52
didn't go the fact that actually i'm not throwing very far i'm not competitive in this so i'm just backing off you know
55:59
the idea is learn your trade well stick to it again you're over that consistent application
56:05
and i would have got that i'd have gone you know to throw a decent distance but i tried to look for the coward's way
56:10
out and he pulled me back in quickly and i learned that lesson as a 16 17 year old
56:15
and so i was able to use that all the time any time i felt low any time i felt like
56:21
this is a bit too much for me how big your hands son how big your hands
56:27
that's great advice to be honest just focusing on your own progress that's that's the most important thing you know not looking i i get it again in
56:34
in strong man people like oh i'm five for eight is that too short or i'm 19 and i can lift this and they want to
56:41
know if that's any good the most important thing keep trying keep getting better that's incredible absolutely incredible some
56:47
stone cold solid um advice there um and thanks for sharing that with us to
56:52
colin because you know it's we all we all do it you know in different ways we you know we all find an excuse an excuse
56:59
finds you when you're looking for it or even when you're not looking for it from that perspective and so um that's some some strong piece
57:05
of advice there that was very close to you so thank you so much um for sharing that
57:11
with us and um well that just about wraps up this week's episode
57:16
of my proteins the scoop podcast a huge huge massive thank you uh to our guests
57:22
colin and big loss who's giving us some incredible insight some real laughs and some real um insider uh stories and anecdotes of
57:31
um their professional careers please um guys keep the conversation going via social media using the hashtag the
57:37
scoop um and indeed get involved in the comments as well if you're watching this on youtube
57:42
please hit that subscribe button as well um and everywhere else hit the like button and get involved um don't worry
57:49
as well we'll be back soon for another episode um i've been david lauca you've been
57:54
watching the scoop thank you for listening
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