‘I no longer enjoyed food or saw it as a source of pleasure – it’s only purpose was to fuel my body’
to be honest, I stuck largely to what he’d laid out for me initially).
I no longer enjoyed food or saw it as a source of pleasure. Flavour became less important. Its only purpose became to fuel my body and help repair my muscles. I’d be at my worst in terms of energy levels and mood at around 11.30am most days but my lunch would perk me right up and sort me out for the afternoon.
I’ve never been big on food supplements (I take a vitamin C tablet most days and I used whey protein after workouts occasionally). I always thought they must do something if the world’s best athletes took them but I was sceptical about their impact. But now I can unequivocally say that without them there is no way I could have trained at the volume and intensity I did, going to bed sore but still able to do an Assault class at 7am the next day.
Taking them required a lot of organisation and persistence. And when you lay out 11 tablets on your desk, you get some funny looks from your colleagues.
MOOD SWINGS, OBSESSION & INJURY...
The comments started in the second week. One colleague warned I was close to burning out, friends started telling me to be careful. I noticed myself becoming a bit obsessed.
When Jon took my body fat percentage at the start of the programme, we agreed that losing 2% over six weeks would represent success.
Personally, I wanted to lose 2.7% because it would bring me down to 10% body fat – which is where professional backs aim to be under.
I’d start listening to my gym playlist when brushing my teeth early in the morning and when I left work, trying to start sparking before my workouts.
I can be quite intense when I want to be and I began finding it difficult to bring myself back down to earth between finishing my morning workout and arriving at the office. One morning, two of my colleagues had me snapping like a turtle, obviously still fired up.
It was shortly after the warnings from my mates that I tweaked my hamstring doing a Saturday sprint session. I had to have three days off it so I altered rest days and did an upper body session.
After physio, stretching twice a day, icing it regularly and even wearing compression leggings to work I began to appreciate how resilient your body can be if you look after it correctly.
DAY 21: THE PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT...
Day 21 brought about the toughest one-off session of the lot.
I visited the Cardiff Blues’ Vale Resort training base for a session with Robin. I was in his environment and I was working on his terms. It would be the first real test of my hamstring.
At the Blues’ gym I gained a further appreciation for how meticulously professionals prepare for their workouts as Robin put me through a warm-up. The smallest of movements with a resistance band are vitally important to getting joints and muscles limber. This is a totally different environment to nipping to the gym with your mate for an hour.
After a strength session, I thought I was OK. Then, mirroring the environment of a pre-season session, we went straight outside for a power endurance circuit: assault bike, lifting a 30kg ball off the ground and throwing it over my shoulder, hitting a tackle bag, pushing a prowler and a drill that saw me running between cones on command.
My quads were flooded with lactic acid to the point that I almost fell over. My brain tried to fire a command to my legs but my body was totally haywired.
The circuit only lasted 10 minutes – I was working between 150 and 170 bpm – but my legs were totally drained. It was an eye-opening session, the intensity on another level.
A quote from Andy Farrell on the 2013 Lions tour has always resonated with me: “Shock yourself by going to another level.” That’s what I was doing. I was constantly surprising myself – and I was loving it.
My rest days became a real bore. I just wanted to train – I felt like each day I wasn’t training was a missed opportunity. That said, I knew mobility classes with Richard were vital and, again, I shocked myself at
how much control I was able to show with some of the exercises.
I felt rejuvenated as I set my sights on week five, which started with Barbell Club. This is a class for people looking to perfect their Olympic lifts.
A CRUSHING BLOW...
With my confidence at an all-time high, there was a crushing blow. A lump on my stomach, which I mistakenly thought was my belly button becoming more prominent as the fat melted away, was a small umbilical hernia. After four weeks of dieting and training, the medical advice was to stop immediately.
Following a consultation with a surgeon, I’ll be having surgery in April to repair the hernia and I’m left with an over-riding feeling of frustration. I was strict with my form and careful with the amount of weight I was lifting. At no point in the entire project did I feel that what I was doing was unsafe. I was preparing my body for exercise correctly and felt as strong as I’ve ever felt.
The doctor’s verdict, from looking at my before and after pictures, is that the hernia was there before this project started. All I did was aggravate it further.
THE RESULTS...
The past few weeks have made me consider my entire lifestyle. I was enjoying it, I learned a lot about nutrition and everything I thought I knew about exercise has been challenged.
I never thought this would be the case – I was working hard in the gym before all this but this is the first time I’ve seen genuine results from a workout regime.
It was easy to have complete faith in what I was doing because my lifestyle was constructed by people who regularly advise elite athletes and that made things easy. All I had to do was provide a bit of application and commitment.
I lost 1.73% body fat and stayed at 90kg, which resulted in a lean muscle gain of 1.52kg. With another two weeks, I’m confident I’d have got down to 10% and that eats away at me a bit. Going back to banging my head against the wall, aimlessly lifting weights and seeing very little results isn’t an option for me now I know what I’m capable of.
I might join ION. Trying to complete this entire project by training in isolation would have driven me insane but spending time in classes with people who are just as driven helped massively. It’s a great environment.
I’ve gained a massive appreciation not just for how hard professional rugby players work – that’s a given – but the extent to which their lives are consumed by their profession.
One thing I’ve learned is that the assault on body fat and ill-health is a three-pronged attack in the form of a balanced diet, food supplements and a meticulously-planned workout regime.
If one of those three was missing, I don’t think I’d have achieved what I did in four weeks.
The food prep, taking the supplements, icing sore limbs, stretching, mobility, physiotherapy – these are all just as crucial as shifting tin.
Ensuring your body is in peak condition is a 24-hour-a-day job but you can very quickly grow to embrace it and become addicted to the process.
I started this project to see if it was sustainable for a normal human to adopt the lifestyle of a professional rugby player.
The answer is yes, for a pre-determined period of time. But to do it indefinitely – that takes a special kind of person.
ION Strength and Conditioning offers a team of highly professional, experienced coaches, world class programming and a strong support system to help you achieve your health and fitness goals. For more information visit www.ioncardiff. com
PAS Nutrition was formed by Wales national team nutritionist Jon Williams and Olympic gold medalist Darren Campbell. They now provide the supplements that fuel a number of professional sports teams including the British and Irish Lions, Welsh football and rugby teams and all four Welsh regions.
For more information visit www. pas-nutrition.co.uk