Aiming for the top Scaffolder one of UK’s strongest men
EIGHT years ago, Ryan England was in a crash which changed the direction of his life. The 35-year-old from Crew’s Hole was driving his van when another vehicle smashed into it, injuring his back and putting him out of work for five weeks. Once he recovered, Ryan started going to the gym to build up the strength in his back again.
But he was never a fan of conventional gyms, and so he found one which was designed for strongman training – and now, eight years later, he competes as a strongman at the highest level.
“I fell in love with it and just carried on doing it, and now it’s almost like a second career,” he told the Post.
In between his work as a scaffolder, Ryan trains four times a week, and last month he competed at the Britain’s Strongest Man contest in Sheffield, where he finished seventh out of 11 contestants.
When he first started competing, his family thought he was crazy.
He said: “I tried it and I was quite good from the start, [but] I think they thought, what the hell is he doing now!
“When I started to take it more seriously, I got better and better. They saw me grow as a person and as an athlete as well, and backed me all the way, financially as well because it’s an expensive sport and it’s all self funded.”
Ryan spends 100 hours per week working and training, which means that often he only sees his family once per week, and he has sometimes missed his children’s birthdays because he has had to fly abroad to compete. The financial side of it is tough, too – much of his training is self funded with the exception of his sponsors, and at Britain’s Strongest Man he only won £750 in prize money, despite competing in front of a sold-out crowd of 8,000 people. All the big sports teams get funding, but I’m competing in the [equivalent of the] Champions League of football, but on my own back,” he said.
But, he added, his family are very proud of him, and he shared a nice moment with them when they travelled to Sheffield to watch him compete in February – particularly when people came up to him for autographs.
“I just see myself as a normal person, I don’t know why people want my picture but they do,” he said.
“My son was signing autographs as well, he’s only three so it was quite nice to share that moment with him.”
At Britain’s Strongest Man, he competed against 10 other contestants, including five who have performed at the World’s Strongest Man contest.
He took part in five challenges over three hours, including an axle deadlift with a 360kg weight, and a shield carry, in which he carried a 200kg weight as far as he could.
He said it was physically exhausting and he needed two days to recover, but it also took a toll on him mentally.
He struggled to sleep the night after the competition as his mind was racing over what he could have done differently, and said returning to his regular life felt slightly deflating.
“You do that and then you come back to work the next day, you have a couple of days where you feel quite down afterwards. I was doing autographs and taking pictures for two hours, and then you come back to work – it’s quite mentally throwing.”
But Ryan has big aspirations for the future – he hopes to open a strongman gym in Bristol this year, and he wants to reach his full potential in his sport.
“I want to be World’s Strongest Man, I want to compete at the highest level I can, I want to see more of the world.
“But I also want people to realise that if you do anything with hard work, you can achieve what you want to.”