From Zero To Rio: A Life's Journey To The Olympic Games - Sonny Webster - #026
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Hi friends, Sunni Webster, Olympic Weightlifter and General All-Round Big Dick on Instagram has joined me for a discussion about his career. We did this before we went on a night out in Newcastle and I think the night out is probably worthy of a podcast as well. But today we're going to find out exactly how Sunni got into the sport of weightlifting, his entire journey from starting at school right through up until he walked out at the Olympic opening ceremony next to Andy Murray holding a tiny little flag. So I absolutely love this episode. The storytelling and the narrative of Sonny's career from when he started,
up until when he decided to leave home at the, basically at the protest of his dad, to go and live on his mate's university halls of residence floor, because that was where he needed to go, because he wanted to live. It's an incredibly grounding story and it provides a lot of perspective, I think, that we can apply to our own lives. And on top of that, it's just fucking cool. Like, we get to find out what the kit selection process for the Olympics is like. What it felt like to walk out at the opening ceremony. What it feels like as you're warming up backstage before you go out to make a lift on the biggest stage in the world. It's a really, really interesting story. The plan will be to have Sunni back. We got up to the Olympics in super detail and then it was two hours deep. He desperately needed a wee and the
place we were going to for food was going to close in about 30 minutes time so he will be back. There's a lot more to Sonny's story that we're going to go through and if you want to ask him any questions head to youtube and post in a comment section I will make sure that he logs on and has a little bit of a look now and then but for now enjoy the journey of an Olympian from zero to Rio, his Sony Webster. Everyone is listening. Welcome back. Sony Webster's showing me today. How are you? Very well. What's happening? Long drive today. Long drive, 5,000 car, decent training session consider. Very decent training session. And worth it, obviously, to see me.
Of course. Looking forward to it. The later part of tonight's antics. Yes, of course. Those of you who know what I, how I perceive drinking, I'm going to suspend my drinking habits or my lack of drinking habits for one evening. I can talk about it. I'm going to met you. I was still being used to my sobriety sting. Yeah, exactly. And we still went out and you were there like itching. It was difficult, but that was at the end of it. That was like, I'd like two weeks ago. Yeah, sure. It was not easy, but yeah, that was,
that was still a really fun night, it built it with body power in there. So good, because we literally met like a few hours before that as well, and we just like, click. Yeah, it's cool, man, it's awesome. So anyone who's watching on the brand new Modern Wisdom YouTube channel, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. If you don't know what Sunni does, video man Dean
will make it appear here, and here, and also here. So Sunni is an Olympic weightlifter, represented great Britain at real. Yeah, 2016. And now you are traveling the world, doing weightlifting seminars and coaching people, doing a lot of PT work. I have a lot of fun. Having a lot of fun and being a big dick Instagram singer and all the rest of the stuff, man.
So, for the people who don't know who you are and for the people who do, can you give us a background? How did you start in weight lifting right where does it come where do you begin? I guess I have to take you right back to me even as a kid and go back and talk about I guess What got me into sport? I mean I've always been sports kid. You know you get these kids The sporty kids and then you get the kids that are more artistic, etc. I was always a sporty kid. My dad was always into golf so naturally before I could pretty much walk my dad a golf cut my hands and even remember like he's still got videos on you know the old video recorders
like the tapes of him trying to teach me and he's so brutal with me. My golf swings purely, he's like, that's wrong, it's bad, I'm bad. I'm like, I'm golfing. Three years old. Yeah, so, my dad was pushing me with my sport and going back to sort of like year, when do you start like primary school? Yeah. Five. Are you five years old? Yeah, so from primary school really up to what year six doesn't it? So during that time of school, I was in like all the sort of school clubs like Jim Nath, gymnastics, you know athletics, the cricket ball throw
was my event. And 80 meter sprint until we get to year six and it became 100 and I like last time you meet me just killed me I was always like a little like stocky like obviously my mom's from New Zealand so I've got a bit of marion me so like that stocky sort of build and I'd be like oh well like the first like 40 then I'd hang on to these meters as soon as it became like 100 meters, I was finished. It was always about being the fastest kid at school as well, I was looking to. Yeah, that finished me there. I tried high jump. Obviously, these little stumps and no good at that. Long jump was okay, but again, not great. And slowly realised that I was a kid that was good at
lots of things, but great and nothing. And I always tell the stories, there's one key point for me in, I guess, my limbic journey, if you like, that stands out for me. I don't know what is about this moment, but it still sticks in my head, but I remember being sat in a mass class in school. Yeah, I would have been poor. Year five probably and it's, I'm going to say 2000 and maybe it's 2002 and I'm sat in mass class doing mass and in the way my school was it was like three classrooms and they were divided by the side and the doors and the P teacher can run again burst open one of these silent doors was like stop we got to turn the TV on and there was only one
TV in in the school and so we were like right fine like that's better to bet the mass watch for TV and Miss Cousins I think the P-teach knows what I was and just fit the TV on and it was right at the moment when Dave Beckham and Kelly Holmes were jumping up and down hugging each other. Do you know what I'm on about? No. Okay so it's right when we won the bid for London 20th of Olympics because obviously them two were like key figures.
Yeah of like the campaign. Yeah the campaign so that moment just sticks out for me as something that was like my first real recollection of the Olympics and what it was. And I don't know what it is about that moment, but it's still that makes me feel happy now, but it was just how much it meant to them made me feel from like right from that moment,
I wanna be part of that, I want that feeling, whatever that is. And after them for the next to be part of that, I want that feeling, whatever that is. And after them for the next sort of couple of weeks, I guess, in school, they did a lot of classes around the Olympics, what it was to obviously educate us as to what the Olympic Games was. And at that time, I could told you, every golfer in the top 10 of the new nothing about well you know any Olympic sports. So we learnt all that and I guess then we got into year
six and again I continued with the sports I was doing and you know, pundals sort of along and then we ended up moving down from year six to year seven down to a school in Ivybridge so this was back in Reading and down to Ivy Bridge was a little town in Devon near Plymouth. And you are the arse under the country there. Yeah. Oh yeah true. True.
But yeah. Longer. Pretty south. Yeah. So it started for year six, year seven then at this new school. And naturally when you start a new school and you don't know anyone, you kind of like that learner. And at the time I was living with my dad
and we moved down there, and we first went down there. And I'd remember like my first day at this school and like, you know how like your mom makes your pat lunches? And she can, because it's your mom, and they know how to make pat lunch. And then it was like, my dad was making me this pat lunches and she can because it's your mum and they know how to make pat lunch and then it was like My dad was making me this pat lunch and like blessed me tried to hard but at the same time it never fuck you's doing So you just roll you into school in a single biget and like yeah pretty much like yeah go in the shop and get me one
You're like no it's like my sandwiches and triangles that So I just remember that first day being like absolutely horrendous, wanting to cry. Like, shit, act lunch. Yeah, shit, act lunch, starting this new school and just being like, oh god, this is horrendous. Yeah, fuck, new school and this big school as well. Okay. And it was, it was, Ibridge Community College, it was really well-renowned for its sport, which is half the reason why we went there. And it's like a community college,
so it was like a normal public school, not private. Yeah. And yeah, so started in this, in this school, no mates, like, shit, pat lunch. And I decided at lunch times that I'd go and sit in the weightlifting gym. And do you school had a weightlifting gym? Yes, and we must be very rare.
And I think you'd probably be able to count the number of schools you've done one hand do. Two at the time, and I started, there was only two schools in the country that offered weightlifting as part of the GCSE curriculum. So you could do it as like a as part of your PE GCSE. That's amazing. Yeah, and yeah only two. The other one was in Birmingham, I think Bava Stop. So yeah, really rare to come across this, but we did have also a golf academy even in that that school as well. So I hope in the summer I eventually joined the golf academy as well. But anyway, so I went and sat in this weightlifting gym and I guess each year maybe
60 or 70 students sign up to weightlifting club at lunchtime from year 7. But I wasn't really interested. I was just like killing my lunchtime's basically watching people do it because Nothing else makes So I guess I've been there for two weeks and before the coach come up to me. I said that you've been in our two weeks You're weeding everyone out. You're weeding everyone out You're also taking that pack of lunch. He's fucking yeah You're taking the piss out of like some of the kids giving it a go. And the coach is just kind of like come have a go yourself.
Yeah, like or fuck off basically. Yeah, take a ship pack of lunch. Yeah. So, um, I was like at the time, like I didn't know that it was in the limpy sport. And I wasn't really like, for me, sort of thing. I was like, I'm a golfer, whatever. And the coach said, look now, come on, you've got to come to my lunch time.
And I thought, so after my arm just as I fuck it up, go along and have a go. So the next lunch time I went along, and purely because I sat there watching people do it, like anything, if you watch someone do it enough, you have a pretty good idea of what you need to do. And I done that. And after the first session, the coach came over to me and said, like, did the other coach teach how to do that? And I was like, no, no, I've just been watching, like, I knew I need to do it. And they were like, she was like, fuck, sort of thing. And she was like, you got detention every lunch time. so you want to be here essentially so that's how I spent the rest of my time in the school was practicing
and then to wait for thing. And it started off, to fall into it by chance, but then it started off just being like a lunchtime thing I'd go in for an hour of lunch and do my wait with them and I made some friends through that. So then it became something that we do get up and go and do an hour before school. And then it became like before school lunchtime and after school. And yeah, I mean within the first, I moved my first competition, which is that six months after I started and it was actually at my school. And I'm in the crime because I didn't get all my
lifts, I think I got five out of my six lifts, it's like crying. The perfectionist at an early age then? Yes, always. So yeah, that's, I guess, for me, childhood to initially finding weight lifting. Yeah, that's interesting. What I think really interest me is that you've said about I think it really interests me to be able to look and then turn the movement just from visually seeing someone else do it. I think that's definitely the mark of a good athlete. But everyone learns differently and I find this even as a coach now where sometimes I can say something to one of the guys in coaching and they go, yeah, bang and do it. Someone needs you to show them a visual cue of them,
like, you know, you actually do a demonstration for them to understand. Some people need to see themselves in order to be able to interpret what they need to be wrong. Some people just don't get it at all. Yeah, but that's the thing. And everyone learns differently. And I think I've always been very visual in the way
that I learn that. Yeah, the ability for the appropriateception to understand where your body is from having just seen something. I think it's definitely the mark of someone that has a natural athletic talent. And I think the fact that you've started so young, doing the golf swing, golf's very fine. Sure, tenu, yeah, exactly. Very precise.
And I can say the same for myself, two degree. I did cricket for 10 years and that's exactly the same. It's very technique based and when I started with Jordan and Reebok CrossFit Time side, I was able to pick up the first time that he taught me to do a muscle up. I got a muscle up, the first time he taught me to do toes. Do you have any awareness of your body and what is being asked to do. 100%. I think that people don't like to hear that there's a lot of natural, a big natural component in success within sport
because it takes away someone's hard work capacity to get to the top. But the bottom line is that some children and adults that start sports will naturally be able to learn faster, they'll be able to pick it up more quickly so you've started your weight lifting you're doing it up to what three hours a day now? Yeah so yeah I was doing up to... What are you lifting as a 11 or 12 year old?
What are you lifting? Can you remember what you're opening as well? I can tell you sort of what I was lifting at 12 I would have been snatching around 70 kilos, 12, 30, about 70 kilos, clean joking around 90. At 12 and 13 years old. Yeah, at 50. This CrossFit is up and down the country that are listening to this, that are burying the head in the hands right now. At 55 kilos, body weight, I was thinking like that.
I used to compete in the 56 kilos class. Hang on, you were 55 kilos at 12 years old. Yeah. No, no, I would have been, I started, when I first started, I was 46, and then I went up to 45, the lightest men's category is 56 kilos. So that was like my category that I competed in.
So yeah, I suppose then we're nearly two years in, and it's about two years in, so maybe I would have been 13 when I did those works. And I'd won every fint like the British under 13's, British under 16's under 17's, I broke the records, thought I was the dog's bollocks, I was now gone from like Billy Nomates in school to really obviously popular kid in school. The job? Yeah, like. And I got selected for my first international,
then I would have been, like I said, 13, 14. It was a European 17s in Pavia. So you're competing against 17 year olds at the age of 13 or 40? Yeah, but that didn't bother me. I was like, I'm going to smash this. Bring it on. I've never lost.
So I was like, that's the other thing I'm missing over in this as well. Cockey, definitely. I went to the competition thing I've been missing out of when this is about. Cockey, definitely. I went to the competition and ended up getting six out of six, broke the British record, my own British record by Kilo and each live. Yes, finished 22nd out of 23. That was only because 23 bombed out. Bar look, last.
And again, I remember that feeling of getting like working watching the scorebook or going what's going on there like my right category like surely there was women outlifting me the whole shabang and I was like wow yeah so yeah one of the best things that happened to me though so early on as a kid in sport because I've very quickly realized that it wasn't about being the best kid in your country and the best at your age. You had to look so much further past being the best in your pond if you wanted to compete at the highest level. And yeah like I said one of the best best lessons I learned really early on. Humbling I suppose when you said you were kind of big dick in it for a little while and bringing yourself back down to earth was probably what you needed.
Yeah, but at the time, obviously you don't notice it, but I look back and reflect now on my career because I mean, I've been doing it 12, 13 years. I've had a lot of years lifting in me and there's set definitely certain points of my career that I pinpoint and go, that was a turning point or that was when things went to the next level. So how did you react once that had happened? What happened to your training and what happened to your approach to the sport overall? Yeah so over the next couple of years coming back from that I decided that I needed to work much harder in my training and you know I just started working a lot harder than
the other guys but at the same time, straight after that, so 2000, come into 2008, just shortly after that first international, I actually ended up having my back injury. Okay. So it started off just being like a nervy pain in my back when I was lifting and I was like, it just didn't feel comfortable
But it progressed to the point where I couldn't walk I was in that much pain. How old are you? So 2008 so that's 10 years ago now so I would have been like yeah 14 years old And yeah, it's a young age to be having a what feels like a severe problem a severe problem to the point where I ended up having crutches for eight weeks because to help me walk around school because that couldn't do anything. You weren't able to train, you weren't able to walk with nothing. Nothing can obviously that made me like extreme, you're upset even at that age because that I was training every day and that was my life. Huge five year life. Already at that age. So we went to see it, Physio, and it was actually Tom Daly's Physio at the time, Amanda Booth, because my coach, when I first started,
Michaela Breeze, was a Commonwealth gold medalist, she'd been to the big game, she was my first coach. So she took me to see this Amanda Booth, and she was like, God, this bad, I've not seen anything like this before, go see a doctor. So then we went up to Bath University from Devon to see a back specialist there and had the scan and obviously the scan came back and it was like at the time when I had two dihydrated discs, I've had one extra once in a sudden, two two dihydrated discs. D-hydrated? Yeah, so basically you've got fluid in your disc. Okay. And so I know if you're feeling it's like compressed, so. Okay.
The dehydrated discs, so instead of them being like that fit, it was like that. So I already had that like compressing my discs and then basically, the sacrum first but I broke a fuse together. So that put pressure then on the disc above, because obviously you'd have an extra and the first part of the day were very refused together. That put pressure on the disc above, because obviously you'd have an extra disc there normally, that if you imagine when your back goes into flexion, gives you a nice curve.
But because of my members like this to begin with, and you'll still see when I'm back when I set my back, the first bit of it stays flat and then I get my curve. But obviously that's how much you have to rod in it. Yeah, but obviously that disc then above where the two are fused has to take more force. Yeah. And it caused it to come out basically. It's slightly protrude. Yeah. And slightly. And then because I was so young, the bone, because my bones are growing, it osteophytes it grown over the top of the disc,
like out over the disc to like protect it, I guess. Okay. And that's what was actually pushing on my satagon nerve, causing the pain. So you've walked in and you're just like a glossary book of back injuries, right? Yeah, and the doctors, like, remember going back up to back on my consultation he's like I've never seen anything like this from someone
in your age he was like can we take this to the world you know medical conference to discuss it? That's a young problem and they did you to call in an expert? Yeah and the way he sort of came back and was like, you have two choices really. If you carry on lifting, you're going to be in a wheelchair or you give it go, re-having it and see what happens. But he was basically saying you need to stop waiting. So that was obviously really upset me down and I guess I had like sort of two weeks of not really knowing what to do And then Amanda Booth came back to me and said let's give it a go and just try and rehab it and we'll just see what happens so
we went back to working on low-level core stuff and I'd go see a three times a week for rehab etc and At the time after a little while I started just when I could walk etc again, I was in very little pain, started snatching just for five-kidded butt. And again, this is one of the things that I think, I mean Ben Verron did a really good talk about injury, like a while back and you know about when I in his talk he's talking about how when his daughter broke a Tore OCL in a lacrosse thing and it's like that really
like made me realize back at this same point when this back injury happened to me. It gave me a point to actually correct things that were wrong in my lifting because, although I was a really good lifter, there was, I was making like, little technical mistakes, I'm a knees used to come in, when I used to clean it. I wasn't really strong enough for how good I was technically. And the bar used to crash on me, et cetera,
my arms like little spindles. And it gave me time to sort of, as I was rehabbing and coming back, I spent a year snatching just 15 kilos. Just working on fundamentals and technique. Technique in graining it, which is like why I think now nearly 10 years on my techniques, really good and really consistent because I had that time to correct those issues earlier on that a lot of people don't because they keep going, keep going, keep going.
And then you get a big injury and that's it. Or you just never be able to progress because those technical patterns are... So there's a thing going on. And an interesting segue there. So I started boxing about three, four years ago. And it was originally to do a white collar boxing fight against another promoter who's a good mate. And I loved it.
I actually really, really enjoyed it. And decided, I'm, fuck it, I'm gonna continue. And went out to Thailand, went to Thailand, did kickboxing and white tie and stuff like that. And I absolutely loved it. What I found was that because I've spent so long doing bodybuilding, that I mean, you can hear that little click there, that's my wrist.
I swear that I didn't mean for it to happen at the right time. But four people are cool. Yeah, exactly. It's gonna pop it away from the mic, else it makes that. Bidididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididididid I'm boxing and what I found was that because of the years of doing chest press and stuff like that, my power of being able to throw punches was super, super high. But because my technique wasn't there, I actually ended up injuring my wrists so badly.
And I'm like, no, this can't be the way. It can't be that I'm too powerful for my own body. I don't even know how to throw a punch properly yet. But that was the case. And it sounds like the same for you. You were almost too strong for your own biomechanics. Like you were able to lift weight that your body wasn't as strong. It was just, yeah.
I think it was the other way around, but technically, like I was enabling me to lift heavier than my body was actually ready for. But yeah, same principle. Yeah, sure. But coming out from a different side. So you've spent your time snatching 15 kilos. And yeah, came back 2009. So this is hard. Well, I can remember doing another Europeans, another juniors. And I was successful in those years up to the point where I finished
finished coming up to year five or six and I think through having done that, having that injury, I started to question, I guess, bits of what my coach was getting me to do because I was going to competition in Staten Island and seeing other guys that were far stronger than me lifting differently to me and I I was like, to my coach, why won't we be doing too much dead lifts and pools and squawks as the other guys? And the coach said, oh, you don't need that. It's all about, you know, speed and technique. And I was like, getting to the point where I was lifting as much as she was. And I guess I got to the point where I believed that I needed someone who was lifting more weight to understand what it takes to lift that weight. And now being in that position on now like you know 10 years on I think it was the right choice that I made. So we did have a bit of a discrepancy over falling out and it got to year six we decided to form college etc
And I was still playing golf at this point and I was playing to a good level. I was playing off like 4, 3, 4, handicapped alongside my weightlifting like so I was good and my dad was obviously really wanting me to crack on with golf. We got off. And I had to make a decision what I was gonna do basically. So I've ended up finding a weightlifting coach in Bristol called Andy Souther. It was a really well-known weightlifting gym. It was the closest to Plymouth as we could find home. And one of my friends was going to university there.
So I was like, well, I'll move to Bristol and go join this weightlifting gym and off we go. Were you going to get a college as well like six form or whatever? Or were you just going to go to weightlifting full time? To weightlifting after that. That was it. I was doing that. Single minded. Yeah. And I had good GCSEs. I had like six A stars, six A's and four B's, four C's that did all the triple awards and all the extra ones. I had good GCSEs. So I said to my dad, I want to move to Bristol to come wait there for 16.
And he just said, you know, you don't have to do that. So I only went away for a couple of weeks and I went on the computer, did a bit of research and stuff and ended up finding a golf academy in Bristol. So I'm back to my dad. I said, Dad, you know what, scrap weight, if thing, like, I want to join this golf academy, and he's like, I'm not stupid. But he was like, but I'll let you go. But on one condition, so okay, go on. He said, I'll give you 200 pounds a month for six months. And if you don't find your own way in six months you have to come back home. So I was like, fuck, okay, well let's give it a go. That's flying the nest, big solar.
Yeah, so at 16 I went like hardly no other white moon bum went to Bristol and my mate was obviously just started uni there and slept on his uni hall floors for the first two months of being in Bristol. I'll actually imagine freshers week went out, got hammered, had my mates ID, like made every mistake you could make as a 16 year old moving out from home and having no responsibilities, just do what you want. But at the same time, like, great, had so much fun, I got to the I managed to get to stay there to the point when someone actually dobbled me in for being 16 to the security guard for reasons that we weren't mentioned and I ended up having to find a room there to rent but obviously living off 200 pounds and that was very difficult 50 pound a week like through everything like it was tough.
And I used to get the bus down from North Bristol down to the center of town to water the gym and the gym was in St Paul's which is notoriously like bad area rough areas got like a bad stigma behind it, like, and not now, but at the time it did. But the Empire Sports Club had there, and like I said, this was a proper gym, like this is an old church, and anyone who went to the Empire, it was known everywhere, you'd train properly. There's a weightlifting and there was boxing, we had like World Champion Boxes coming out of there, Mr. Universes, the everything was done to a high, a high degree. Yeah, precious McKenzie train there, like the lot.
Yeah. So if you went there, you would see it. And I get the person I used to walk down to this gym. And I guess you got to month five of being in Bristol. And having a whale at the time, like I kind of, you take for granted all those things, your parents do for you, washing up, washing your plans. I'm using cut the corners. Cut sandwiches, etc. And yeah, it had to grow up really quickly, I guess. And it was coming
up to, I guess, now we're looking about a year out from London 2012. Yeah, was that in the back of your mind? Were you thinking, of course, when you first started, was that the goal? Was it London 2012? I want to compete in my home nation? Of course, that's what I mean. I dream was always to go to the Olympic Games
and that was definitely in the back of my mind. And even in my coaches, there was a good chance because when you're at Olympus, you're home country, you get Quilted spots. So the qualification isn't like how it is now, where you have to be like top 10, the world. It's really difficult. This is like you have to, yes, you get Quilted spots,
this is like you don't have to be top 10, the world. So you had three spots, basically, so it's much easier to qualify. So yeah, it was definitely on my compass for sure. So I guess I used to get there, walked down through the samples to the gym, and I'm in month five of being there, and I'm working out how I can try and stay in Bristol, because I'm two months out from the world championships,
which was the first one of the last qualifiers for the Olympic Games, and I was, I need to stay in Bristol to do this. And I walked into the car park one day, and like I said, I would describe what the Empire was like, old church, shit, old area. But this is brand new white Porsche night at the end of the west parked in the car park.
I'm just like, fuck, like that is. Your brave. Yeah, that is nice car. What the fuck is it doing here? Yeah. And I walked into reception and I said to my coach Andy was behind the bar. I said Andy, who's a... who's caused that part in the car? I guess his name is Jeff. He's in the main gym in the bodybuilding gym to the floor. All right, fine. And walked off into the main gym, kicked the door open. I just shouted, who's Jeff? And I root the room side, I'd probably say like six times size this
room, it's quite a big long haul and there's everyone in there like it's serious thing and they've all sort of stopped because they've come in and said to his Jeff and Jeff's on the other end of the room sat there doing bench press and he sat up and he goes, what do you want, I'm Jeff. And I just said, fancy sponsor in me, but I said to him that. And he goes, well, how am I just going to cost? And like I said at the time, I was living off 200 pounds a month. And I was like, he's obviously got a few quid. I need to be here two more months. I'm extra 100 quid, get some trainers, 500 quid. I need to be here two more months. I'm there, extra 100 quid, get some trainers, 500 quid. So 500 quid, and he went, what a month? And my jaw sort of like hit the floor at that point, bearing my nose, living off 200 pounds a month. Everyone in the gym
probably only just about earned 500 pounds a month, and this guy is going to give it to me, they look here. So everyone's stopped what they're doing, they scrap their sessions and they're just watching this conversation, just go back and forth now. And I went, yeah, okay then, and he just went sound and just let back down the kind of thing that's it. And story. I'm just kind of like, is that really just happened, but okay, walked out and got on with my session? And then about an hour later, Jess come out and he got on
Yeah, I was your bank details So I give my bank details and sure enough the next month fire equipment in my account and I ran my dad up and I said dad I'm standing Bristol Fuck golf. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, try and go to them throw you a get down the bit down the drain and I guess after that, me and my dad didn't really speak so much for a while. I really shit definitely like sort of when when a part of you think he was
predicting that you were going to end up going back home. I don't think so. I think he knew that I was very determined to do what I wanted to do. But because we sort of drifted, I'll go back and tell you a little bit more about Jeff, because he's kind of a really big part to my success and my story, because from that moment on, so I'll give that and tell you about Jeff anyway. So Jeff used to race BMX as a kid, and he was really good BMX racer. And he was European number two, and good enough to go to America to pro.
But unfortunately his parents have money to send him out to America, so he subsequently ended up quitting and stopping his sport. But off the back of that, he ended up setting up a telecoms company, and now as an extremely successful telecoms company. He's on right. And he own right, more to millionaire, but at the same time with the most down to earth,
nice, his funniest guys, love me. And he saw me in a similar situation. I had a dream of, you know, going to the Olympics. He was very aware of me and my circumstances, you know, because at the club I was obviously well known of what I had dreams of doing. And he saw me in a similar position to him as a young kid, but he was in a position where he could help. And so he did. A lot of sort of poetic irony, poetic justice in that situation, right, that you happened to come across a guy who was in such a similar situation to you and then not only was in a similar situation but had the resources to be able to assist you. Yeah, definitely it's a stroke
up, a stroke up for sure but the thing that I take away from that and the thing that I try because people go, well, sunny it, like you managed to get sponsors, no one else did, etc. And it's as simple as if you don't actually don't get. And that wasn't the first time I'd asked some of a sponsorship. That was probably about the 150th time after countless letters I'd sent out and just no replies, etc. Although, yeah, it's great, but it doesn't necessarily happen the first time. But if you don't have the balls to ask someone, then how you ever gonna know? Do you think that that little situation that you've said there and the framework that's around it
is a microcosm to a degree for weightlifting that people see you walk onto the platform. They see you snatch 160, 180 kilos, they see you put these lifts up and they go, well, of course you can do that. Look at how strong it is and you go, well, well hang on you haven't seen all of the fails that I've done in the gym you haven't seen all of the hours they've had to go into it. Of course and that's the thing about any sport when you're put in the limelight and you have
to perform for that one moment and no one sees the back story and everything the sacrifices and stuff that you go through along that journey. The walking on crutches for eight weeks at the age of 14. All of that stuff, and I mean, from that moment on, we went on and actually ended up missing out on the London sway 12-odd in picks. But one kilo, that's heartbreaking for me. That's one kilo. Yeah, but one two kilos I missed out on it by and, you know, it's heartbreaking for me. And again, like you, you learn from that experience and, you know, Jeff went to me, well, you know, what? Like, why don't we just carry on with this bunch of deal when you try and qualify from, um,
try and qualify for Glasgow 2014? What, what was that? Is that come off games? Yep. So that's like, you know, it's biggest your next biggest thing really and weightlifting to the Olympics. And I guess for me that moment, that heartbreak, that failure and the disappointment, I was to remember how it felt. That was like my catapult to make sure that for the come off games, that wasn't going
to be the same thing. I wasn't going to miss out on being there. But it kind of worked both ways for me because I made sure that, you know, I stepped up my training, et cetera, and made sure I hit the qualification total when I did, and it was great. And I went to that competition to take part. This is actually what I did. And I had no aspiration for anything more than just to be there. And that was again, another big learning curve for me because it may be actually think of the psychological side of how you approach competition, performance
and events. And like for me, like I said, I all had the aspiration to be there. I ended up lifting weights that I was capable of and finishing in fifth place. And I think what if I had fucking tried and actually gone into that competition, believing that I could win? And if I'd lifted out of my skin, reached PB heights, there probably would have been a good chance that I could have maybe snatched bronze medal. But because I didn't believe that I was going to do any better than just be there. That's all that happened. Do you think that that was an artifact of not making it to 2012?
That thought process I don't, I don't, because I'd never been in a position where I was competed in a major championships like that. So, but do you feel like you'd already accomplished what you wanted to accomplish simply by being there? Yeah, exactly. And you know, I think whether I lifted more or more, it wouldn't have made any difference to me because I just wanted to be there. Yeah. Because, becoming at the time, getting to the come-off games was a massive thing. And, um, I have sidetracked a little bit here because I think it's another valuable thing that I learnt from reflection on that was that at points of my career, the things that I thought were
of most importance. Now I've got older, I've actually realised that they weren't and if I could go back and change or change my thinking. It would be that. What sort of stuff? So for example, I used to hold my body weight down like 56 kilos or 77 kilos or certain weight categories, far longer than I ever should. Starve myself, used to live off jelly babies
and make myself sick so that my body weight wouldn't go up because I had no knowledge of any nutrition in order to break a British under 17 record, which in the grand scheme of things means absolutely buckle. No one remembers who won the Youth Olympic Games 100-Meter Sprinter there. Everyone remembers the thing, but the time as a kid and growing up, you think it's the most valuable thing on earth, and you do anything to achieve it and just like I did get just getting to the come off games. I think what's interesting there is that perspective is something you naturally get as your frame of reference is wider and this is for everything right like your first breakup feels like your world's collapsing, why are they not for
you? Your first breakup feels like your world's collapsing. But 10 years hence, you're like, part for the course, like easy-come easy goals, so to speak. And you're totally right. I can remember playing cricket, and I got accepted to play for Durham Academy. And for me, like, I got to warm up the Australian team when they were playing at Durham against England.
I got to bowl against Ricky Pond in, and like some of the best players on the planet And I remember thinking like this is like the pinnacle of like what I'm gonna shave I'm like you're not even on the strip. You're like in the nets You're in the nets and the ars end of the stadium and but at the time you've got that you know, I mean you so You're so overwhelmed by the experience. And, you know, I think for young athletes, any young athletes that are listening, I like what you said at the beginning, which was that you expanded that, what you're perceived domain of competence to be global. That it was like, okay, I don't just need to be as good as the people in my town or in my region or in my country or even in my continent, I need to be, if I want to be
the best in my sport, I need to be the best period. And I think what's interesting is that there's still little artifacts of that that are percolating through. And obviously for someone who has made it to the top of the sport, it's interesting to hear that they are still subject to the same kinds of cognitive biases and thought processes that a lot of people will. They sell themselves short of their own talent. Yeah, and off you're an expectation and I mean going on from that, like I said, that being like quite your own expectation and I mean Going on from that like I said that being a Like quite a big point I guess in my sport or realization of myself and actually having like maybe even a thought about
Psychological process because prior to that I think there's no way that's sitting with a psychologist and talking about Sinai as et cetera could ever make me lift any more ways weights. Well, when the zenith of your nutrition is jelly babies, like psychological training is probably not on the list. No, but as a kid, there was no support. I mean, there's very little in weight lifting and I mean up to that point, the men's team had had very slim amount of funding up to the Commonwealth Games.
Afterwards, it stopped and after the Commonwealth Games, half the team retired. They stopped because there was no way that I can continue training this hard, etc. And I said, I was training six days a week and it would be three of them would be two, three sessions a day and the other ones would be one, two sessions a day. So, you know, racking up at least that nine to 12 sessions a week. You can make your whole life to it and the guys would look at me and they were like, 24 and I need to go and get a job and earn money because this isn't paying anything and they end up quitting. But for me at that point, it was like, I'm not gonna let the fact that I'm not getting any money stop me from wanting to achieve my dream
of going to the big games. And that's again, like my second night, I say the most valuable thing I'd say, is that if there's any obstacles regardless of whether it's in sport, in life there's always a way around them or a solution. You've just got to be that, I guess, pig-minded to want to be able to go and solve it. A lot of people give up that
really quickly. I think it's like we're going back saying about traits of a good sports and a good athlete. They don't give up that easy. They go and find a solution to the sport. It's strange that stubbornness is a virtue sometimes. Yeah of course, yeah of course but like yeah great in the sporting, sporting situation in relationship. Probably bad in the relations. Yeah, yeah. Swings around that. So yeah, Commonwealth Games has gone and now two years out from the Olympic Games and obviously that was well and truly then my next biggest focus and don't go the whole way through this like I said Jeff's still there supporting me with various bits and bobs. And it got to the point where I was about 15 kilos off
after the Commonwealth Games what I would need to do in order to call it hope for the Olympic Games. And the last two years, the price that I'd probably put like maybe four or five kilos on my total each year. So very small amount, yeah, tiny amount. So it was going to be difficult to sort of reach that. And I had to look at things. And like I said, my train was bang on, I was working super high in the gym all that was good but I had to look at things outside of just what I did in the gym that could potentially help me with my performance and that's when I started to look at nutrition start to look at um psychology start looking my lifestyle sleep lifestyle recovery, all of these other aspects and what I like to see as like a spider's web of my life and could potentially contribute to my performance. And I looked at, I guess we'll talk firstly about psychology because we're
kind of on that. And like I said as a kid I had no belief in the tool that some guy could help me actually improve. But I started working with this psychologist, one my friends dad, Martin Fricker, and two David Reedle, and they're both of the same schoolers, sort of the Steve and Steve Peters' it, Jim Paradox, etc. And I guess the key things that I'm going to extract that they helped me with my lifting, one was developing a process for when I'm lifting. So a routine that I go through every single time before I lift in order to develop consistency. And also to better carry over any performance that I did in training
into an environment like a major championships because commonly you see athletes that can do bama vang on the gym put on a platform and go do something different or lose their rhythm and don't actually deliver on the day so they taught me to help into a really the process and the second thing was only like worrying about the things that I could control like so, like outcomes weren't there just by products of whatever the process was. So, I guess those who think about going into too much depth really helped me. Can you can you explain what your process is?
Yeah, for you to do a lift. Okay, yeah, and this is some of this really independent to everyone. And I think the sooner you become aware of your individual process, the better chance you've got then of being consistent. So for me, I pace up and down the bar back and forth. I stand back behind the bar and I like to call my think box. So this is where I'm thinking about the two, the technical side of things that my coach has taught me, whether it's the stair, or if I keep the bar close, etc. my technical cues there, and I visualise
myself, this is a good question because people was asked this, do you visualise watching myself or in my own body? Yeah, so I visualise watching myself do it, and um it and executing the lift and it being a great lift and Yeah, so after that then I approach the bar and that's when my like that's my trigger then to just go through my routine So my routine is always right out first then left hand and then I set my feet. I shape my arms I get my breathing controlled and then I set my, I start counting then, three, five, four, three, two, one, very quietly under my breath, when I hit one, I lock in and go. And for me, like, I always used to have that issue which is loaded probably the listener as well as well and anyone does weightlifting, right before you come off the floor, you think, fuck this is
gonna be easy. Or, yeah, well you laugh because you know, there's exactly what I'm going on about. And that doesn't change whether you're in limbic athlete or it's your first day. You go fuck this, you have it, or I might hurt myself here. But again, the negative outcomes like of whatever your process is. And for me, just by counting down before I lift and going like one, like a gunshot at a race, it distracts your mind from thinking about those negative thoughts. So that worked really well for me.
So yeah, that's the same for both snatch and clean and jerk. Yeah. Okay. And what about, because I've always, I've always wondered this, once you count to one and once the movement has begun Do you just let the training kick in in the same way as a boxer doesn't think too much But there must be a point in snatch. I can see that it's one more fluid movement Yeah, there must be a moment once you've cleaned the bar and then you stand up
He did is that same thing but a shorter version of it So I get out the top of the theme. My foot comes in, full the way at my heels. Three, two, one, bang, go. So it's exactly the same thing, broken to two. That's awesome. That's a lovely little framework for people to use. And it sounds so stupid that I've stepped up to the bar
like in workout or even like going for max lifts. And I've just like approached the bar, like gripped it at home for the best, but I don't have a process. That's why you won't get consistency. Yeah. Again, to draw this back, I feel like I'm talking about a sport I haven't played for nearly 10 years, and I'll crick it an awful lot today, but it's the best analogies that I can find. And for that, you can imagine there's a baller runs in, so you've got a baller who's running in from the back of his runner, especially if it's a fast baller, you've got five seconds from when this guy sets off until, like, when he hits the crease and releases the ball. And during that time, a lot,
you've got a lot of time to think. And you end up getting trapped within your own thoughts. And that's the last thing that you want, especially when you're talking about someone who's pitching a ball 85 miles an hour, if you think you don't have time to react, you need to allow whatever your movement is to just carry through and just have the essences of where the field is positioned, how you know he typically bowls, what the pitch is gonna be like, all of the little things that come through, you need to still have those in your mind,
but not consciously. But it's interesting that you draw the comparison because you have to remember in weight lifting, like you're starting to incricate in football, your action is a reaction of something else, whereas obviously in weight lifting, it's not the same. Total controllable. Yeah, the total control. So you initiate the movement when you want to, and there's definitely a difference there in terms of you having that split second to make a
decision, whereas like, for weightlifting, you're ex-cuna process. The same is in a, you know, golf swing. And that's what I love about individual sport. And like being like, I guess the only one there in spotlight on you, because at the end of the day, it's down to you then as to whether it's a good lift, a bad lift or the execution and you know you can have a great performance one day and you know okay there's other people involved, support teams etc but it's down to you and if you have a ship there you notice. It's strange it's both liberating and terrifying to think that if you've lifted, if you've snatched 180 kilos before in the gym, you can snatch 180 kilos on the platform. There's no reason why you can't, which puts
the power firmly in your hands, but it also means that the failure is in your hands as well. And I think that it must be for the guys that are at the top level of the sport and the same for CrossFit, like especially when you look at stuff like regionals, they release the regionals in events in advance, the athletes will have tested the events at home, they know exactly how fast they can go, they may be even done a practice weekend, where they've gone, okay, we're going to go back to back to back, this is the timeings, this is the thing. But this is quite easy for me to answer that thing because this is the thing that people don't for me to answer that thing because this is the thing that people don't really take notice of when you talk about someone's performance in composition versus their performance in
training. When you're in training, you've slept in your own bed the night before, you've woken up and eaten out your same cereal bowl you used to eating from, with your same cereal, you're lifting with your favorite bar with your favorite plates on your favorite platform and you've got your favorite coach there with you watching you train and that is your ideal environment to perform and that's why I don't think I think everyone's different in terms of like, you know what Competition can bring out of you, you know some people do their best in competitions and but there's I don't think it's necessarily a surprise that people sometimes perform best in their own environment, because when you travel to a save Berlin, sleep in a hotel, maybe get woken up by the cars that you're not used to, go down a breakfast in this shit food there, etc. regardless whether you've done the workout a lot before, you're not
in your best environment to perform. And it's only the real top athletes that can replicate as much of what happens at home when they travel of competition that really perform. So you go back to controllables and uncontrollables to a degree that you said is the second part of your mental strategy. And you're totally right that I've said it must feel terrifying and liberating in the same degree, but as you say, if you take everything back to the process and you grease the groove and you have a plan and you stick to the plan and the plan is, I know that I perform best when I eat these kinds of food pack many bags, like I know that I need to have silence when I go to a hotel room, pack some earplugs.
This is controllables. Yeah and this is the the follow on from this story is going to be quite funny for you now. So I've identified all these things, what I need for competition etc, my best stuff etc, down to my nutrition, start working with a nutrition company and I had my food prep, etc. and there's good bits and bad bits of that, but carrying on from what we're actually discussing. So I know I need to perform the weight of things to, etc. my boots prep everything. So whenever I go to a competition, it's all there, exactly how I have it, practiced it in training. Six months before the qualifiers now for Rio 2016, I've gone away and done all of it, sorted
out my nutrition, sorted out my sleep recovery. I lived like a Mormon for six months, it went better the same time. Every single day of six months, the same thing every single day of six months, didn't have a drop of alcohol, didn't socialize that. It's a very monastic lifestyle. Yeah, it turned myself into a robot. Turned myself into a robot for the six months. That's what it's like.
Are these the sort of sacrifices and beyond that that you need to make to get to that? Of course I, I mean, even go back into childhood, I can count on one hand and many times I spend kicking a football round in the playground. I can count on like all our hands, how many holidays I missed out on parties I didn't go to because like for me there was much more bigger things that like the age of 16 okay maybe I hadn't like tried a drug and like done all the things that you know those 16-year-olds but I I'd travel to like maybe like, majority of the contents of the world and seen like 15 places, which like 16 years old,
not many people get the opportunity to do. And that was for me more important than those things. So, if swings and roundabouts, I wouldn't say like you're hard done by, but there's other things, you know. I think what you're doing is you are, you're chosen your values at an early age, which not a lot of young people can do.
You've decided what is on value to you and what virtue and integrity with that value percolating through looks like, and you've gone, okay, I'm going to get after it. Like I'm not going to allow social norms or what I should be doing at this particular age to dictate how I need to behave. And again, we come back to the stubbornness and the pigheadedness and kind of the desire to chase what you feel is your own path. And in this sense, yeah, it's absolutely a virtue. It can be a nightmare for a parent trying to bring a child up who's got this sense of direction and idea because they're not going to compromise. And it can be a nightmare in a parent trying to bring a child up who's got this sense of Like direction and idea because they're not gonna compromise and it can be a you know a nightmare in a relationship
It can be there's a whole host it swings around about to gain, but You know if you want to be a good athlete and you don't compromise on things like it's probably a pretty fucking good foundation Yeah, so Go about like what I was saying, there's six months of gone. It's now competition day of the qualifiers for the Rio 2016 Olympics. So, my day of reckoning, D-Day, whatever you wanna call it, now,
I'd had special weightlifters used to earn that were black and gold that made. I'd had special night weightlifting suit that was black and gold. I had I'd had special night weightlifting suit that was black and gold. I had like a night track suit. I had like my special logo stitched into it. Brand new pants, brand new socks, everything. A snapback, black and gold. It's not that a ball. Yeah, I was like, but this is exactly how I've been envisaging it for months. This is my day and this house is going to go. All of this prep is already rumble. Anyway, Jeff's gonna pick me up in his car, just start with the plan,
and we're driving up to the competition. Where's the competition? It's in Coventry. We're about an hour away, I guess, from the venue now. I'm watching the competition on the live stream, not just seeing how my friends and people were getting on and the guy, what the guys, what was that for? He's got a similar weight lift in suit to me and it was just as I had that thought I went no and I was at Jeff Paul car ever and I needed to check my kit bow. Went in the back of the car, buried mine had done 60, 70 competitions past, big major competitions at this point. I definitely might wait the things shoes, I might wait to insert it at home. To the biggest day of my life, to something I thought about every single day of six months.
And I was like, fuck, we were too far away because I would have missed way in to go back, had to end up getting Jeff's wife to bring up one of his old weightlifting suits, and my coach just so happened to have one of my old pairs of weightlifting shoes in his car. So going from the most prep that I'd ever been to exactly how this day was gonna go, to all of a sudden, like,
spannerphone in the works, like my suit's not there, but do you know what? And this is why, like, spannerphone in the works, like my suit's not there, but do you know what? And this is why, like when people ask me, do you stereotypical about anything now or in competition I'm not? Because for me, I learned from that day that regardless of what happens, if you prepared well enough something,
like you could have stuck me in a pink tutu that day, and I would have still lifted the same because I was that prepared for the competition So I've rocked that dusted these boots off got my suit on way then and the competition began now It was there's a really good clip on YouTube Of the Dean will make sure that the link is here or here of the Dean will make sure that the link is here. Oh, here.
Of the actual fight for the qualification between me and another weightlifting called O'Neill and Boxel, really good lifter. So you must have known going in that it was going to be between you two for this? Well, for my weight category definitely and then my best friend who was in a lightweight category, Gareth Evans was also in the mix, but it's done when it was done at points. And, but I don't know how to be on minimum requirement. And notoriously, when me and I have competed, it's been very like back and forth as to like,
I win, he win, et cetera. He always used to snatch more than me, but I used to always clean dirt and warm him. The snatch comes first, right? Yeah. Anyway, we've gone on through the snatch and I've ended up beating Owen by like, I think it was like two kilos in the snatch, which is like unheard of. And I was like, boy, this great start, perfect. It's not at 153, I think. And I was like, let's see, I've done this pretty much. And Owen's open, it was like 175. My open was like 185. And I was thinking like one, like, I easily open on 185. So I
thought I'm like 10K on the open. So his open has gone up. I easily open on 185. I thought I'm not 10k on the opposite. His open has gone up. Fair play. He's come out on 182, which is like his PB. I thought, poor. No, for his first death, I thought Fair play is going for it and he came out and he did it. Fair play mate. I come out and did my 185 and put like 4 kilos ahead now. And then he's gone like 189. I was going one 190 anyway, so I thought, yeah, I know from whatever. And he's come out and done 189. So he's like, head now again on body weight. I think bastard.
Shit the bit. So now my second bit, I've hit 190 and I thought, Paul, that's it now, there's no way he's gone. Another lift in him. And sure enough, he comes out in him and sure enough he comes out Three and makes it it's made a 12 kilo Pb on his file there and he's like For some reason the way the numbers were I thought that didn't matter that you got one nine through I thought I was still in the lead. Yeah, and I'm in the backlight chilling like this
I don't even need to do my last lift of one. And my coach comes out and goes, so you need to make this lift, you need one nine three. Now I was like, no, no, I put one nine four and it's fine. And he's like, you only need one nine four, put one nine four and then put my hat on and I've spanned my hat back around. So I take my hat off, cause I always lift my snap back,
put back on and off I went out, like nothing had phased me and like everyone is like on the edge of their seats like. And it was for like a British record. And I've come out and I've cleaned the way it one known for. As I'm standing out of it, I threw up my mouth. Why? I don't know, just swallowed it down and then just nailed the jerk.
And it was like, that was the only way that day was going to go like regardless of the scenario and this is what I say that when you prepare for something that well it didn't matter that was the outcome for me for that day. Wrong kit, wrong shoes. Didn't matter. All of the worry before all the anxiety before thrown up in your mouth, some guys lifted his 12 kilo PB but because you've greased the group that hard and because you've done the work, you're able to trust the process. The outcome is almost inevitable. And that was me on my more way to Rio. Get on your fucking way to Rio. Yeah. That's amazing. But you allowed to lift in a snapback. I was the first person to start doing it.
Because I saw you. I'll explain my reasoning for doing it. Because initially when I started doing it, a lot of the weightlifting community were like, that's really bad, you shouldn't do that, it's disrespectful. But for me, you watch weightlifting. A guy walks out, he lifts his weight, makes some sort of celebration sometimes,
and he walks back out of the back. You get no understanding of connection to that person as an athlete, as a performer. It's going back to what we say. You don't see all that stuff that goes back. Whereas I love what I do, and I want to show a little bit of my personality, a little bit of my charisma, when I'm lifting.
So you're signature. Yeah, so this is me. This is me, snap back a bit of me. And instantly when you see that, you get like a little inkling made. I have to go to where's the snap back. About that person just for seeing the red snap back. And that was my reasoning for doing it.
And yeah, it made me feel comfortable when I did it. And I didn't care that people didn't like the fact that I wore it. It was me and, you know. It's cool that it's cool that it's allowed in the... It's counted as part of your body. So if the bar was to touch it, or if it's to fall off, it'd be on the left.
Okay. But yeah, it is what it is. And like nowadays, you'll see, they used to only have to be like, when I started, one type of weightlifting shoe, they would be the same color. There'd be one weight lifting shoe. So everyone's in the same suit, the same shoes,
coming out lifting, above the same, boring as shit. Yeah, it's different now, because across fair, yeah, there is like multiple different weight lifting suits, multiple different shoes. So if you do have any sort of inkling of fashion sense, you could put together something that almost looks like a planned outfit.
So it's different and maybe you, but like, yeah, that was my reasoning for doing it. That's cool. I think it's really, it's really interesting. I've got, for the listeners at home, Johnny, who is a national level power lifter, was making me laugh the other day as he said that he couldn't believe in powerlifting that when he deadlift your socks aren't allowed
to touch your knee sleeves. If your socks touch your knee sleeves. That used to be a rule of making the three red lights. You should once got three red lights on a lift for putting his one foot on the platform, like on the corner of the platform, basically off camera, before his clock had started, like just had his foot, you know, like resting your foot, had his foot. There's all those sorts of rules and weight of thing as well. Okay. That you wouldn't know that. But somehow, having a hat has like some narrative. Well, the reason, yeah, how it does is because they changed the rules only a few years back so that Muslims could female Muslims could compete and wait Nothing so they can wear the is it a job. Yeah, so that they can wear that so that they had to class that any headwear
As part of the body which is then how which is then how wearable eyes on that. Get me the snap back. I've taken a piece a little bit, but that's how wearing a snap back is, is there, you're not too? That's funny. So I've brought it forward to real. Yeah, wow.
So I guess going there, like going back and talking about kicking out, I guess, because for me as a kid, like as an athlete reps in your country, getting your kit is like one of the proudest moments ever. And it is one hell of an experience.
I'd heard stories about people that have been to the Olympics about what Kicking Out is like. And I was like, like Kicking a can is sort of basically, I've been to the Commonwealth one, but it's never the same as like what the Olympics are like. So they absolutely gonna nuts for the Olympics. So you go into this big court as you see,
and you have a personal shopper, and you go through like different sections, so you start off with like, form a wear, and you've had like this suit made for you with like, you know, the Olympic crest on, et cetera, and every detail of it is, it's got like really individual to you and we wore that when we met like Princess Anne and any
rules that you always do. You get these cool shoes and then you go into like village where and then this is stuff that you wear around the village. I mean it's stacks and stacks and stuff and And you get like, what, weather gear for like, Rio, and we'd actually need it in the end, but like, senseless and almost stuff. For any possible scenario, and then you go into like,
training wear, and then, footwear. What were your most excited about? Probably the trainers of the footwear, like it was all like the weird sort of thing There's a few jumpers and stuff that I'd seen um I can't remember what I'd say my certain top was my favorite piece that we got But um you get so much stuff and yeah, you get your accessories
But then the final bit is quite personal because you imagine that I was the only male waitress to going There's one other female going so when it comes to making what you perform it and they're essentially making you an outfit for your biggest day of life and it's just you that's going to have that. So obviously for a weightlifter, you weightlifter things and you go into this weight and you're waiting for a minute and they have like a mannequin of, you know, just normal mannequins. Is it your dimensions? Because you are not, you are not the traditional dimensions of that. They have a mannequin of a human and it's like a big reveal.
You've got walked through and there's your lifting suit on a mannequin. Like when you get a new car and they pull the drive line. And they've made it just for you and they're so proud of it because obviously they've done it from scratch to be like for you in it. It was really cool, you do like some photos and stuff and then you go through it because Audi sponsored it. So then you take all of your stuff onto the bags, the suitcase, it's got like six bags
that are different suitcases and bags and all of this stuff and that was very special. And that's when I guess it starts to feel real that you're going to kick in big style then. Yeah and then the next thing was the holding cap in better horizontally and bearing in my life set as a weightlifter you have like no no one really cares about weight, I think it's not very popular, famous sport. There's very little funding for it, etc. And all of a sudden you've flown out to this purpose built place or like fitted out place four teams, you'd be preparation for the Olympics.
And we get to the airport and it's like get on this bus, just three of us, three of us two weightlifters in the get on this bus, just three of us, three of us, two waiters is in the coach on this bus, and it's like an eight-place motorcycle escort through Bella Horizonte's shutting roads for us as we're going through, like we're celebrities, like really- Fucking dull trunks just like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was like, whib, because like I said, all of a sudden, we're now just as important as the sprinters or the boxes and stuff like that. And you get to this hotel, a nice hotel, again, normally we'd get put in the shitest hotel you can find.
And you've basically got these people that are there for you for anything you could possibly think of, want, is a physio for all times, a doctor, there's recovery people, nutritionists, sleep helpers, and all sorts of stuff. They'll get you whatever you could possibly want. And it's really weird, because like I said that, and I was always told that don't do anything
that you don't do at home. So obviously I never had any of that at home. So like you kind of just don't make them, don't use it, you do what you used to and eat what you used to and stuff. But, cock up, pops please. Yeah, is that coming over with like, caviar? Yeah, yeah. Bonito, bonito.
All right, yeah. Just to interject there, do you think that there is a, it definitely sounds like there's a disparity between the level of support that's given to you at anywhere which isn't the Olympics, and then at the Olympics, there's like this per distribution of like nothing, nothing, nothing, everything. And it's overwhelming and it's like going back to what you said about it being like in competition scenarios, it's all of these things, it's all of a sudden overwhelming like you go to training while you're there and they've got 15 cameras pointing at you, it's flashing, but you're training.
I was like, this is like, I wanna be back in the church. No, I was kind of loving it a bit. Like, you know what I mean, it's like this is sick. So you could embrace it and take it as your power, right? Yeah, it was nice to feel like important, the people, it's coming, I've photos of you and like interview and stuff like that.
And it was, do you think that's a lot about your personality that you almost took energy from that? Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't say that necessarily energy that would have caused me to compete or perform any better, but I'd say it made me feel special and you know proud of what I achieved But at the same time very draining like and the point from the qualifiers to that,
to the actual Olympic Games, was very small in my experience, it was a six-week window. And this is the thing with our sport. I went balls to the wall to qualify, that there's no way that, no matter who you are, can you hold that level of performance for six weeks without your body falling apart, you have to taper and I tried to hold that standard of lifting there up to like what it did to qualify But it's just no chance. I was on more sleeping tablets pain killers everything you could imagine just to be able to lift and We've flown down to the village now about two weeks out from We've flown down to the village now about two weeks out from lifting and I just said to myself for wearing it in the village, I said, I don't, regardless of what happens on the day, you've
got to remember this experience and that day, like as the best day of your life, because you're never going to get that opportunity again and that, regardless of whether you go to the limits again, that one day, you've got to live with that for the rest of your life. So I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it. So I just said that to myself and I kind of like took a little bit of pressure off myself in terms of what my training and stuff was going on. And then we went into the village and it's like you hear the stories about the Olympic Village.
Yeah, downright into what everyone's tuned in for. Yeah, but it's like, it's not like that. Well, even that wasn't I missed out. Well, you were in the wrong area, right? No, but I don't think I was, but it just started, didn't seem like that of that what everyone sort of imagined. So we went on to,
got into the village and obviously, that I was just the only wait-lift, a male wait-lift there. But everyone else is like a team of hockey players, a team of sevens, a team of athletics. And it's just the wait-lift there, and like standard like the wait-lift. This is just like putting the car in.
Yeah, because it's not winning any medals. And they were like, right, do you wanna go in share a room with the ping pong? I should say that. Table tennis guys, or you can share with the gym nationalads. And I was like, oh, I know a couple of the gym nationalads from the Commonwealth stay with them. It's going, as far and you have your own room, but you're in the cleaners that cupboard. But my room is probably about this big. It's absolutely fine.
I walk in and Max Whitlock is in there doing his stretches on the floor like. He comes straight up, is that how you doing to a bag in my room? We all just like click just like that. So it's me, Max Whitlock, Nile Wilson, Brun Bevan, Christian Thomas, Louis Smith, and Nathan Hall. And... Niles just rang you there, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we're all like seven lads in an apartment, young lads, there's prikes going on, there's superglueing toothbrushes down to tops and all sorts of random stuff like because just send lads and impartment. And they really made me feel like one of their team,
like straight away, like I'd have team meetings with them. Like I would go for breakfast with them, then with them, that was really nice. That's kind of like gaining some routine. But definitely for the first week, I was round the village like a Fango, like like you so many celebrities everywhere you look like fuck photos selfie like these people that you're like you've only ever seen them on TV and then all of a sudden the day in cocoa pop so yeah and so I was like wow basically for
the first couple of weeks took a lot selfies of selfies and that lots of famous people. And then it was, who is your favourite person you got a selfie with? Hmm. I got, I got lots, but I'd say for the reason, I wasn't the most famous, but for me as a kid I was going to play golf and Justin Rose was like a bit here and we sat in a queue waiting to get on the bus to go to the ceremony and that's like the big thing that we ceremony like I'd sat as a kid since even way before then I'm watching it in the ceremony on TV and all of a sudden I was in my only ceremony gear on my way to go to it myself and I would just get back to get on the bus and I've seen Justin Rose stood there and I've kind of gone.
I've got to go out and ask him for a photo and I've gone over to ask him for a photo. He's like, yeah, no problem, I made a photo and then he just started chatting to me and he's like, what's the point you do? I'm going to end up getting on the bus together then and sat together for like four or five minutes on the bus. You just did it yourself, the whole time. Yeah, and but like at the same time having the most normal conversation like we are and then he is Mrs Face Times and he's like oh yeah I'm just saying I was standing, he's a weightlifter like I'm like hey that's a roses missus, weird and then we get off the bus then we start to walk in
you get like water around like the house is basically before you prayed in because it's all done in country order. And he started like telling stories and about like being on the tour and tiger woods and like how the houses next to each other and Barbados and all these various stories like golf related stuff. Wow, how is it going to happen? Yeah, and like Andy Murray's there as well, like in a couple of the other tennis guys. And all of a sudden, we're there, and we're just about to walk in. And I had my phone out, like that,
to try and video, or take a photo, and I was just like, no, there's no way that you could capture what that experience felt like in any sort of picture. like you know that is the one of the most bestest moments ever for me like in my life walking out to that stadium the size of it everyone's looking at you and I managed to get like right on the front row right next to Andy Murray so I'm gonna put it in Andy Murray's there with his massive flag and then I'm there with my little paper.
Do you think that's symbolic the size up like, I was going to say how long did it take to get to sleep? Oh, you've been to this. Yeah, I didn't get it, but after that, that, um, incredible experience that, um, and then you're kind of like getting towards, um, opening ceremony, competition day, like I did various equating to that meetings with other athletes then. And I will come back on Tandy Murray because obviously he got asked to be the flag bearer and I guess in the media and the Murray comes across like you know very emotionless quite a lot some some would say yeah and
He's not like that at all like and I was very fortunate to spend like sit down Have lunch with him one day when we were at the school and meet him there because we had like a school outside The to go and try and I got to spend a bit more time listening to him talk and chat and Once he started to talk and you know, you got to listen to him more actually like in my opinion He's just a little bit socially awkward awkward, and by no means that arrogant or he's just a little bit shy, and I think with all of the famous things he's had, he doesn't find it as easy as to express his emotions. And that was really like,
I guess, humbling to see that someone that's successful and has achieved that much is still like almost a little bit shy. Do you think it's quite a deed to him now? Yeah definitely, definitely from that experience. In the same with Justin Rose, in him giving me that the time of his day, like knowing how much I looked up to him as a kid, to spend time with him on a level and the same with Greg Weatherford and like triple jumper, triple jumper, Olympic gold medalist, one everything. And I'd be sat down having food to this day, Greg would come up and be like, hell, I was training suddenly, you good.
And it's like, and still now, Greg watches my Instagram story like every day and we chat regularly. It's like, these guys are like super sized, but it makes you realize that they're no different from anyone else. They're like exactly same as me and you. They've just had to predict the huge dedication to whatever they've wanted to achieve. And I think it's an interesting point there that you talk about to do with the way that the meat that athletes to portrait in the media. Like, you can, through hard work and dedication
and natural talent and all the rest of it, become really, really good within a particular discipline. That has no bearing on your capacity to talk to a camera at all. And I think that in this day and age where social media's transparent window into people's lives and There's such an interest in athletes private lives, you know Some footballer signs for a different
Football club the story gets 10,000 retweets some footballer cheats on his wife with another wife It gets 50,000 retweets. Do mean, it's almost like everything's become reality TV showized now. And people want a narrative that's constantly going on and you're totally right with the Andy Murray thing, although I've heard that, you know, that rhetoric, like Andy Murray, like, miserable Scottish guy. And you think, well, hang on a second, like, is he?
Well, what happens if you are not someone who's super comfortable on camera? How does that make you come across? Oh, actually, it makes you come across. Exactly, the way that he's coming across. Exactly. This person has decided to chose him to be good at their craft and now has had all of these
other demands put on them. I mean, like, well, fuck, like, is that fair? And now you're judging him, you're judging him not based on his performance. Like, he's doing good at his performance thing. Like, leave him alone. And yeah, I think people want the whole package now, right? And especially, I guess, sponsorship money and all the rest of it. People buy into the character as much as they do the performance. But then this is when people go back to me and
it is commonly asked questions to sports people. What's who's your biggest inspiration, who's that your idol? And for me having been through that experience, the Olympics is not about now an individual or an individual person. It's traits of people that have been inspiring and it's like I said that the way in which you know some of the most successful people in the world are so like humble, that for me is an inspirational trait and I find that through more now than a specific performance that anyone's done inspiring. It's interesting we were walking into the gym early on and there's a guy who you won't know but Nathan Muffet
he'll be listening and Nathan was walking out and he's been in Newcastle. He's been in Newcastle for years. These moved to Australia and his goal is to make it to regionals I think within the next couple of years and he walked out recognizing he said hi to me, turned around, recognised you, shook your hand and he walked away and then turned back and said oh you helped me with my clean over Instagram DMs, like a few months ago, thanks for that. And you're like, oh yeah, like, cheers, no problem.
You know, like one just one guy and I'm aware that, you know, it's not meeting Andy Murray in the Olympic Village, but to the same extent, it's the same call message, right? This is exactly that, you've like hit the nail on the head and this is where like through for me now when people do semi-direct messages when people do ask for a photo
and it's like, it's still weird for like someone and like me getting that that sort of tension but I do do my hardest to like, you know, even respond if it's the smallest little thing because I remember what it felt like having, you know, Justin Rose be like that with me and think that, you know, if I can do that small thing by, you know, offering someone a couple of words of motivation or advice or liking their video and then be jumping up and down for the rest of their cost mean nothing, but
you then are passing that same sort of message on in terms of what you aspire to be like. And that's not to self reply to every single message I've ever been sent because it's not realistic but as much as I can, I always do try to do that and it's purely from, you know, having experienced that myself. Good role models to a degree of people who have made it to the top of the sport. Of course, yeah. So what was it like stepping up the platform in Rio? Yeah, wow, like again, it gives me goose bumps, now I just thinking about the actual... Tell me what it looks like.
So first off, actually, I want to find out, and I'm sure that some of the people will be interested at home. Anyone who follows ATG, or what's the other one? Yeah, I'm hooked. Yeah, so both of them, amazing Instagram accounts, you should follow them. They do a lot of backstage stuff, right? At big competitions and they'll track.
If you go on the YouTube channel, they go like, dick and balls, they'll go from like empty bar to final warm up lift and they'll track everything and they'll pop it up. So talk me through your routine, your pack your bags, you've arrived at the lifting hall, what happens?
Yeah, so it does really seem like a little bit of a blur now thinking back like because that day for me right from start to finish, I've never felt that way on a competition day, I think because like, you know, like, and it's again, it sounds weird because we're talking about just another competition, but you've dedicated, you've talked about my whole life today. So you're 11 years deep. Yes, but all of that, all the things we talked about is funneled to that one moment.
And it's really hard to kind of in capture how that feels. And I never felt emotional in a competition experience before like that and it was kind of like really hard to kind of you know, keep your focus like you would never have any other competition in terms of like you routine, you warm up and stuff because it was like I want to remember this and enjoy it and because it was like, I want to remember this and enjoy it and set take, soak everything in because it's such a special day to me and like, I know in myself everything that I've sacrificed for that one moment. And I remember, as you go and you get weighed in and then you sit in like a room,
what category do you want? Night, four key, low class, B group. Okay. And there's a room out the back that has loads of drinks and food and stuff and I have my food and I went to put my weight lifting suit. And again, which is like quite special on peeling your suit. I pull mine on it just rips in half, right my fucking hands. Like, but luckily I bought a second one.
Second one's on fire night night so I ripped my suit in half. And you go into the warm up room and you get given your platform and we had a few photos and stuff. And I had this grin on my face that I just couldn't get rid of. I was so fucking happy. I like my cheeks hurt by the moat from the moment I woke up until like that whole day that's that smile and Grim just did not leave my face and we've got to now obviously in the warm up room and then you get called for presentation which is kind of like right this is it like competitions that start and I remember coming out walking out and them seeing sunny webs too great, and like it was so hard not to cry like and I saw them at
now like thinking like don't cry. So many people are watching don't cry don't cry and I kind of like how it back and was like you know because you know like so many people have sat there watching, you know you and it's like, and then like, I looked up and Jeff's in the crowd came flat to re-o to watch me, and another friend of mine, Suzy, was there like who came out to watch, who's again, there's no me since I was young in my career, and you know, it was real special moment and you go back in, then afterwards and you have to kind of like try and throw that away and just be like, right, you're here to perform and lift, but it's so difficult.
That's a good point. Just before you go on, I'm going to interject. Do you think that the ability to think outside of yourself and soak the situation in is the ability to think outside of yourself and soak the situation in is contrary to focusing on the greased groove of the movements it seems to me like soaking the situation in by it's very virtue is going to take you out of that routine to give away from what you're used to doing in every other situation, but in every other competition other than the Olympics, yes, but I think that is the most difficult one to do, especially in like, you know, as you're, as your first at the Olympics, but even people say to me that have been to multiple like, that I know what to expect the next, if I was to ever go to the Olympics
again, what that's going to be like, and you can kind of kind of prepare for that a little bit, but even people that have been multiple times said that everyone's dimmed in, that you're always fucked in something that's been in the big games, it's the biggest stage in the world, right? So yeah, I think it does to a degree but I had to kind of put that to one side and remember that I was there to lift but you got to remember as well, I'd had the worst couple of weeks training up to this event and like I kind of just warmed up and you know I tried my hard and like the coach has said to me they've said you want to bring your weights down and you know just go through some easy lifts
and I was like I haven't trained my whole life to come here and sandbag myself and look back on it and think I could lift it more. I would rather have tried my hardest and you know Got one lift and say well at least I've went bulls the wall I just didn't make it and that's exactly what I did Yeah, I stuck to my plan went out and I made one snatch and then miss my minute night I miss my opening snatch got my second and then miss my third and Then for the creaman Jerk, I got my first Clean Jerk,
my second Jerk and then missed my last. They were like, they were about ways I could have done, but like every lift regardless of whether I missed it or made it, I still finished the lift and soaked it in and enjoyed the experience. And like a lot of people would have looked at it and looked at it upon like, oh, he didn't try hard enough.
Or he didn't look like he really cared. But like, for me that was a bit annoying because like people don't know what goes into that. But I didn't want to walk off the platform kicking myself and think like, I knew I wasn't in the best shape and I knew I could have gone like a sandbag there. But I now look back on that moment,
still for smile on my face and with no regrets, and that's what I wanted to do. So regardless of what, you know, the pub perception was, et cetera, because they don't know all of that stuff that I just said about, you know, my sleep, my body, my body was et cetera. Six weeks to taper down and then you know.
You know, I mean, they don't appreciate that, they probably need never seen you lift before they just go and that's their perception but fine. I know myself because at the end of the day, I'm the one who has to live with that day that I try as hard as I possibly could and I enjoy every moment of it, every second of it. And I look back on it now with a smile on my face, I retail the story with a smile on my face, I retail the story with a smile on my face and I will do again in 20 years time probably. So yeah, a very special moment, but you kind of go on from that peak, the best day of all life and then reality's here and you're back at home and no one cares, no one's there with a big money pot
for you like sponsorship deals checks. It's kind of like you get back home with your normal life and all of the sudden you've sacrificed your whole life for this one moment and now you're back. And it was difficult I think initially because I did feel quite depressed coming back from it and you get those Olympic blues, etc. And it only wasn't really until I started doing the seminars after the Olympics where I kind of found my passion back for the sport again, if you like. Broadly, it sounds like a version of PTSD almost.
Yeah. It's like you've gone through such a lation that there's like a come down on the other side of it. Yeah, but people talk about all the time, I think it's genuinely a thing, Olympic blues is a thing. Like the Ibiza blues. Yeah, I've had them twice this year. So let's get on to the seminars now. So, you know, that's how I got to know you was Yeah, I've had them twice this year. Yeah. So let's get onto the seminars now.
So, you know, that's how I got to know you was through your lifting online, through the, you call it, circus lifting? Yeah, it's kind of been branded that now. I don't know if it's a substitute. I guess for me, the circus, if thing came about because I watched a lot of weightlifting online, I saw a lot of weightlifting accounts and I don't know, like, it's going to be a surprise, but I find it boring and shit watching people just posting a snatch weight. And I can't imagine how even more boring it is for someone who has no understanding that I invested in the sport.
Yeah, but no, like, understanding of the weight and how heavy it is. You watch some, you know, I get now that a crazy do come out and snatch one 19, you start, fuck. And that's it. Well, I mean, as another example to bring it back to ATG or HUCGRIP, they'll have on their Instagram, they'll have one video at like 100 frames a second. And obviously the reason that they do that is so that the technical experts can see just how close the pull is to their legs Just how much they dip under the bar etc etc Regardless even the normal speed videos. It's 10, 15, 100 guys on there all snatching waste. Is that same lift? To me, that's a bit boring. Whereas that's for me, I'm like,
oh fuck it, that's just things up a bit. Like, do something a bit crazy, add a bit of a complex together, and it just gives someone something different to watch other than the same shit, the same two there. Dean will make some of these appear as we are talking around the screen. Thank you, video guiding. So yeah,'s how the surface of thing came about. So it's got for people who haven't seen it or who are watching it. What's going on around the screen around our heads at the moment? It's me sticking various different movements list together until basically I'm not having energy. But it kind of shows like I guess a real control of the bar and understanding of the
technique in order to be able to do that is extremely difficult to do and if he's going to try at home, he'll be like, so as few people have done it, so that is essentially that. But I think, like, as well, I'm a Mr. a massive chunk of my story out because I have actually done a degree in sports performance of Olympic weightlifting which I missed out studying at Bath University during I guess that time when I was trying to qualify for the Olympics which I completely missed out but did four years at university, PURIT BATH on sports forms at Olympic weightlifting. And that's an incredibly specialized sports performance for Olympic weightlifting.
Yeah, so what you do at BATH is everyone in my class was either in national air sport, there's six Olympians in my class, and the class of only 36 people. So everyone was national in national air sport. And very set group group you do the course based around your individual sport. So there was for example a rhythmic gymnast in my class. So it went to the Olympics in 2012. She did her course around rhythmic gymnastics. So we do
different sectors. So for example nutrition, she had nutrition for rhythmic gymnastics. I would usually just wait for it to be a psychological aspect. And you lay everything back to the sport and So, for example, nutrition, choosing nutrition for a gym, that's how do you usually play it thing. There'd be a psychological aspect, and you'd play everything about your sport, and do all your dissertation, et cetera, your studies. What was your dissertation, and what was your title? The efficacy of caffeine in power-based sports, sir.
And how effective is it? Yeah, but it is effective, obviously, high doses for power-based sports. So I was talking, I was is effective, obviously, high doses for power-based sports. So I was talking, I was looking at like real high doses, so we were looking like 600 to 800 milligrams of caffeine review. Which is what, like about 12, 15 cups of coffee, something like that? Yeah, a lot. Did you see this?
Did you see the study that happened at North America University? Yeah, I suddenly it like 10 grams of No, it's 50 grams instead of 50 milligrams. Yeah, so I'm gonna give them 50 grams of caffeine or two of them and they had to be The RV. Yeah, so I was doing that and during that time I was training throughout the day I'd go home. He Get in my car at like 9.5 at night Drive to university, which was now away from Bristol,
studied 10 to three, four in the morning, drive her and sleep three hours and then do it again, train. So how long? Well, last, therefore, yes, I'd do in term time with that time. Yeah, it's nine times, he'd do a lot of sleep, thinking that it's, I'm trying to lot of sleep thinking that I'm trying to
juggle training with that was extremely difficult. So yeah, I kind of like side track to get there, but I missed that out, but going back to what we were saying about the circus lifting, the coaching, like that was kind of like, I guess adds a little bit to, you know, what I do now in terms of delivering the seminars, coaching people, helping people with their techniques, etc. I have done the theary side of it as well as much as the... You drill yourself into the ground with that right? Yeah. So now you're, as you move forward, coaching people, I know that you're going and doing these seven hours where you've got between groups of what 10 and 50? Yeah, what's the biggest seminar that you've got between groups of what, 10 and 50?
What's the biggest seminar that you've done so far? I've probably had four C people once, but like for me, ideally, 20 people is a really good number because any more than that, I don't feel like I'm giving each person any personal attention. And I like everyone, my seminars just much about having fun as they are about learning. So for me, I wanna try and make sure that everyone leaves that day with individual technical
pointers, but also feeling like they've met and hung out and spent time with me and got to know me as a person. I've been seminars before where there's 50, 60 people and you may even not get one direct person from one direct word from the person that you've paid for in the city. So yeah, I think for me, yeah, I think that's there. So it's your goal, your goal at the moment, as you move forward, obviously you're having a, for anyone who doesn't know, we will make sure that Sunni's dates for his tour in October. October. And you're beginning in October and finishing in January
going that way around the world, sorry, through Doha, Australia and finishing my that beyond going and I guess accessing as many people as you can up to this 20-ish limit. Where do you see your career going from that? Is that sufficiently fulfilling for you or are you eyeing up trying to take some young blood and get them to the highest level of sport or? I think for me like like I said I said dedicated 12, 13 years my life solely to being a competitive athlete and you sacrifice so much like I said already in that process and 24 years old now and there's a lot of things that I've missed out on and things that you know not I would ever change and go back I wouldn't but there's certain things I want to do and live like a bit more like a normal life I've been able to travel a lot more this last few years, go on holidays, go to more parties and you know I want to spend a little bit more
time for myself and focus on business side of things in terms of with my seminars and you know I'm really enjoying at the moment the getting to meet more people, building my, I guess, there's very few people out there that provide education for an input weight lifting and you know, want to sort of become an expert in that field in terms of wanting to help people, improve with their lifting. Obviously, I've made a bit of lifting. Obviously I've made a bit of an impact in the CrossFit community in terms of giving it a go myself and obviously a lot of the gyms I go to coach at CrossFit gyms. So I'm enjoying learning something new, a new challenge, it's extremely humbling, doing CrossFit workouts and sucking at them. Because like I said most weightlifting stuff now I've been doing it most of my life I can do it with my eyes closed but maybe you run a mile and I'm dead so but that's
really nice I'm enjoying that feeling of having to learn a new skill. Being an obvious at something again. Yeah and you know applying the skills I learned through weightlifting to something else so that's enjoyable and I'm not really thinking I guess too much further ahead as long as I'm happy and I'm enjoying what I'm doing then that's kind of like the the key main focus for me at the moment. I do have in terms of aspirations to compete again. I don't know 100% yet. I mean I got out, I wanted to go to the Olympic Games, I did that. One last thing that I haven't done that I wanted to do as a kit was when I come off court metal.
And there's potential to come back and do that in Birmingham in 2022, which is, yeah, potentially something that I made up at near the time. So would you be prepared to make the sacrifices to your lifestyle again? Again, to do that. This is a thing, and it's a really good question because I know what it would take to go back and do that.
And I think it's kind of good in that respect to know is actually if I wanted to achieve that. Know what you're in for. Yeah, know what I'm in for. And I guess I'd have to look at it close to the time. I couldn't definitively say right now that that's a die-hard priority of mine. It must be in the back of your mind though.
100% it's in the back of my mind and it definitely like features as a thought as something that I've kind of a stone that I've won the stones up left. But at the same time, weirdly, over the last, I guess, six months, more, I guess, attention and aspirations has gone to maybe wanting to compete in the CrossFit Games, especially after coming back from regionals and watching the atmosphere of the competition and the sacrifice of those guys putting to what they do.
It's a head of a challenge, but again, like I know what sort of training and dedication it will take to reach that sort of level of sport. And until I'm in a situation where with the best coach, with the best training partners, I'm 100% focused to that goal. I'm not going to do it half-heartedly, I would rather just enjoy what I'm 100% focused to that goal. I'm not gonna do it half-heartedly. I would quite rather just enjoy what I'm doing. It sounds like a common theme that's sort of come about through. This has been a single-mindedness for your... You've understood where... broadly where you're going to one degree. And it's funny that it almost sounds at 24 years old. Like you're taking kind of like a semi-retirement. Semi-retirement, yeah.
Um, where you're just like, okay, like, oh, you know, you've done, you did four tours in Afghanistan, like, I'm gonna just give me a break and I'll go back out there maybe, I've still got the skill set. Like, and it's cool, it's interesting to think that, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if young athletes suffer with burnout, I'm sure that I won't do. Give him my body arrest as well, it's nice not being in as much pain that I was day in day out before as I was training. I do have other aspirations outside of sport in terms of business aspirations and other things I want to achieve.
So yeah, there's definitely other things outside of sport for me there. What would you need to, what would your total need to be do you think ish at the Commonwealth Games to be able to pull a gold? I know it's heavily dependent on what the other competitors are doing, like I mean, I think can happen. I know that it would need to be probably close to a 160 snatch, which I've done in training, obviously, around that 160 mark and clean jerking around the 200 to 10 mark, but I mean, so it's big numbers. Yeah, it's big numbers. It need an improvement, but there's guys out there that are doing more than that at the
moment that, you know, make it to go on, they may move up weight category, all the weight categories are changed down. For me, weightlifting is a sport. It's really struggling. And I think, although a CrossFit has raised the awareness of it a lot more, I think that now that is a more attractive proposition for me in terms of where the sport is and where it's going. Could you see yourself competing in CrossFit over the coming years? Yeah, I'm doing a charity one for Battle of Cancer with...
One in October in London? Yeah, so I'm competing in that. I'm competing against you. Well, I quite like my team. I hope the dog won't go ahead to having you on a single rep. Got a sack of George. Have you? Yeah, it's that George and the lean machines are in our team.
It's a pretty solid team. Well, I mean, even if you don't win, you've probably got the most Instagram followers if you're part of it. That's number one. But no, yeah, definitely. I'm not putting too much pressure on myself because, like I said, for once in my life, I don't have to. Yeah.
That's cool. It must feel very liberating to have something that's kind of close to what you've done before, but also it must feel like a holiday, like a holiday doing the same thing that you've always done to a degree. Like it's kind of, there's a lot of crossover, but also some humans. There's a lot of things that I think are actually
having done across fit has assisted my weight of things. And made me learn about the way that I train and how hard I train in terms of, you know, there's maybe doing a little bit less, but training a little bit smarter and maintaining like still different levels of my lift thing. So we talk about this a lot. We've mentioned it on the podcast with Jordan Paul in 10 before about just how sophisticated the sport's becoming now and it's interesting that you've got this massive lift off. You know, weight lifting not so long ago included it was a clean and a press, right?
And then it was a clean and jerk so there's three components like power lifting and that changed. But because it's been around for so long, the adolescence of the sport was like Frocknall's went, like early 1900s maybe, something like that. But with CrossFit, the site's only existed since like 2002. The literally the site has existed since then, and the event that they've done it this year's CrossFit Games 30 Mustops for Time was on the site in 2002, That's 60 years ago. You say this, but you look at a lot of people thought when I, because obviously Matt Fraser was a weight of 30
sector and when they started hearing that I was doing weightlifting moot crossfits training and they go, wow, it's going to be the next Matt Fraser and it's like hang on a minute. I'm not being funny how I don't know. There's very, like, I reckon my value of actually competing as in the athletes, more valuable than my skills as a weightlifting, because even then, like, you look at what these guys are lifting,
then lifting there enough, like, top level weightlifting weights anyway. But it's a completely different energy system, like, then it is when you're doing a one-wret max lift. There's very little carrier, but I say, like, my ability to know how to train hard is more valuable than my weight of thinkability is that. But I picked up a lot of the movements quickly
because more going back to like what we're saying about having an understanding of the body and how it moves. But there's still so much to learn. It's a very... So, principles instead of specialities to a degree isn't it, that you understand how to eat and how to train and that athletic ability. Of course. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that CrossFit is bringing to the forefront of people, the forefront of the general public's mind, weightlifting and strength sports in general.
It's made it a lot more sexy. Meaning you a lot of the time when we speak, we make jokes about powerlifters. You are really, really strong, but you are cursed with not very interesting looking kit. But you look at CrossFit and it's like a fucking fashion show, to a degree, and everyone's able to dress cool and all the movement to the cool. It's a bit like a community slash people will call it cult. Oh, I'm certain.
But it's strength sports for the fucking Instagram era, right? Like it's weirdly very attracted to a very wide Diversity of people and I think it brings people together really well And that's why I think yeah people do class as a community because you know You can have your four-year-old mum of two training with 20-year-old land that's just been on the piss night before with 20 year old lad that's just been on the piss night before, chocolate birds, you know, I mean, trained together and they can be complete different abilities and work out together and bring two very different people together and it be that on level.
Yeah, I think it's one of the only sports that you get like that, which is taken what is typically very individualistic as you said, you know, I'm sure that you had a lot of friends that you wait lifted with and they would stand around the platform while you were training and support you and stuff like that, but there must be times that it feels very lonely. Oh, extremely lonely. And that's why I said that after training that long, like, it's very independent for the last sort of four, five years in my career. Yeah, it's shit and it's boring. And that's why I say to
people that it is very boring sport, going into a room full of people, training together is, you know, sick, sorry. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a strange world to be in where you've got such a diverse number of people that are all doing the same sport. And it's really cool to hear
that you're maybe going to make that transition over. I wish that we could go on, but I'm I'm dying for a wee. You need a wee, you've had too much natural, you need a beer, I'm full of fit aid and I know that Shark Club stopped serving wings in about 45 minutes. So I'm going to get you back again, it's quarter to ten. Wow, come on. We've been going. So, man, thank you so much for coming down I'll make sure. Can you tell the listeners whether I can find you online, please? Yeah, so mainly on Instagram Sunny Webster GB. I do have a Facebook page as well. Sunny Webster, but any enquiries you've got about anything, whether it be seminars, programming, etc. as well, you can email me at info, website info, at webstar-hive and perform the stuff on. Webstar, right? Webstar, not Webstar, Webstar. Exactly. So, man, thank you for coming on. I'm getting
getting back. We've got so much to go. I might just like video one of our, I won't video one of our FaceTime calls, that's a bad idea. But maybe one of the more PG ones. We could have gone into like some of those very small aspects of spoken for the brand you already did. And well, you know, if people want you back in the comments below in YouTube, I'll make sure I'll give Sunni a kick every couple of weeks and I'll make him log on, I'll make him go in and have a little bit of a browse through the comments. So if you are watching on YouTube, make sure you do that.
Subscribe, modern wisdom, please share the episode if you want follow Sunni online here, video guide Dean, thank you very much and yeah we'll see you next time, bye bye you