The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep.63 - Sam Grover Strength Coach

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

In this episode, we sit down with strength coach Sam Grover to dive deep into the world of coaching, strength training, and athlete development. Sam shares his insights on building strength, effective coaching strategies, and the mindset required for success in the gym and beyond. Whether you're a coach, an athlete, or just someone looking to improve your training approach, this conversation is packed with practical advice and expert knowledge. Tune in and get ready to take your strength game to the next level!Sam's Page

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. Okay, first question, what does it take to become Oxfordshire's strongest man? And how did you end up down this path, spending your weekends, lifting heavy rocks?

honestly I looking back it kind of makes sense looking forwards I honestly have no idea the the butterfly effect of me becoming a strong man I take back to university I was in pop world I can see the look on your face you're thinking I was in pop world I was very drunk and I met a good mate of mine and he was dressed as a crayon I was a nun and we just met him started I started chatting shy in the corner of Pop World. And you fast forward like five years. And he messaged me and said,

I'm running a strong man competition. Do you fancy a crack? And I was like, oh, I mean, it's been a while, mate. But yeah, go on then. What do I have to do? And I've been like a gym bro for like eight years, seven years up to this point. So I wasn't, I would suppose what you would call weak.

But I mean, I was by no means a strongest person in the gym or had done anything competition-wise at all. So when he messaged me out of the blue, I was, yes, surprised, but he said I'd put a tractor in it just sounded quite fun. So that was how I got into it. And then you fast forward three years through that. And it's, I love the expression, fuck around, find out. It's a lot of fucking around.

It's a lot of finding out. And it just became, to be honest, it's just fun. It's the best where I can put it. I say to all the guys that I've coached and trained over the years, if you find something you enjoy, you're never going to stop wanting to do. it. Did training get a little bit, because obviously you had been training up until this point, the training get a little bit

stale for you at that point? Yeah. Yeah, there's only so many sets of like, I'll do three by 12 on lap, and four by ten on chess that I had in my system, and it just tanked. And before I knew it, I was, okay, well, I need something different, I need something fun. Yeah. And apparently

borderline becoming roadside assistance with lifting vehicles, pulling them, and pushing them, became a little bit of me. Can you explain to the listeners and to me because I've never actually experienced a strong man competition Obviously I've seen stuff on social media And telling stuff like that But like what does it entail?

What are the usual competitions? Like what are the different lifts? Like what? Give me a complete lowdown description of what a strong man competition entails. So a standard comp has about five events. There's a push where you're picking something up over from the floor and placing it up overhead.

my worst events by far there's a deadlift of some description where you're just picking something heavy up off the floor and locking it out of your hips and then the last three events if you're running a competition you kind of have a little bit of fun sometimes there's a squat there's usually some sort of medley

where you're picking something very awkward up like an anchor or an anvil because why not you're running with it say 15 metres and then picking something else up and running with it sometimes throwing events for event number four and then number five usually is something to do with Atlas Stone, so the big rocks that you see across TV or all over my Instagram because it's apparently what I enjoyed doing.

Yeah, it's great for engagement as well. I love watching them. It's just fun to watch, to be honest. And like, but you know, when you're talking about like some sort of a squat pattern, some sort of a hinge pattern, obviously people would be thinking in their heads, like a standard barbell and stuff like that, but it's obviously different things. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for the deadlift, I've deadlifted cars.

I've run deadlift ladders. We've got like five bars in front of you and they get heavier each time. I've squatted with kegs on my back somehow, which is weird when I say it out loud. So, yeah, they're weird and wonderful. What way did I work like? Is there a weight class for these competitions, yeah? And what weight class are you at? So, yeah, so typical weight classes are under 72, under 80s, under 90s, under 105s.

under 120s and then the big opens. I sit around 120 kilos myself, so I will do an under 120, but I'll just do it for fun, but the most of my competition just opens. Yeah, okay, okay. And let's say preparing yourself for one of these competitions. The one that you won, was that, that was, I read correctly, was that in 2022?

The one I won was 23. 23, no, not 23, 24, last year. Last year, last year. So give us a little bit of an insight into like what it takes to basically achieve that in terms of like preparation. Like what does training look like day today? What does your nutrition look like day today? What does your recovery look like day today? Your overall routine?

Like basically how difficult is it to win one of these? I think because of my self-doubt, the fact I've won one tells me that it's not very difficult. Right, right, right. I'm very critical. But it's, I mean, it was, I could say. yeah, it took me 12 weeks to prep. It didn't. It took me eight years worth of going to the gym

pretty religiously because I fell in love with the process of getting better. And I mean, last year was I was by no means the favourite, but I had about 12 week prep. I wrapped up the calories. I think I was on about 5,000, 6,000 a day. Five, 6,000 calories.

For people who struggle to build science, please explain how you get 5,000, 6,000 calories on a day. I'm on 5K at the minute. And it's, I would say, relatively easy. Yeah. It's five bagels in the morning with four eggs. In my head doesn't sound like a lot, but I appreciate it is.

It's a protein yogurt and a protein brownie after. Vitamins, a litre juice. Yeah. Just for some easy carbs. A small bowl of cocoa pops is a little pre-workout. Nice. Because I've got a bit of a sweet tooth. And then...

You can allow it in the calories. Yeah. A couple of burgers afterwards. Yeah. And then dinner is a large bowl of like chicken stir fry with noodles. Yeah. So realistically, you're only, you're only hitting about four meals a day anyway to achieve that. Yeah, they're just relatively big meals.

I'm a man of convenience. I'm not one to meal prep or be too fussy. I will eat anything and everything that's in front of. But if you're, if you're trying to put on size for competition like that, you really can't, you really can't miss a meal due to, due to like, so your schedule kind of needs to be, like, if you have things on in the day that, like, throw you off your meals, then it's very hard to catch up on that 5,000 calls. Yeah, it's not easy and it usually means I'm sacrificing sleep at the end of the day for the

sake of the end of a thousand calories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, it comes with the lifestyle of being a bit of a PT and a coach that I can manage my calories quite well. Yeah. I appreciate, I've always said to a lot of people, like with a job like mine, I can eat a lot, and I do. If you're stuck at a desk nine to five and you've got an hour's commute each way, you're never going to have the same day and it's going to be 10 times hard

to get the calories in. How important is recovery and that for prepping for a competition like this and having as little stress as possible in your life? Yeah, pretty damn high. Pretty damn high, to be fair. I, yeah, it's sleep especially. I can tell if I had a bad night's sleep

and it's the training the next day. Yeah. I mean two, three weeks out, if I have a bad session, it's just mentally annoying because I know I should have done better. And if I miss a way or a rep doesn't go as well as it should have, it's little things that kind of just stack up confidence in your head. And whether you're thinking, oh, I've had a series of good sessions going into this competition or I've had some bit of a mismatch prep. It just, it just gives you the confidence to go in and sort of attack things that you know you can do. On your Instagram, it says, I help, like, newbies become strong and stronger people. become even stronger. I suppose

is that the difference between the two when you distinguish the two? It's like with the newbies you just want to get them in and being consistent but with strong people to want them to be stronger or for you trying to prep for competition it's like every session matters and the intensity of that session or the quality of that session matters.

Yeah, I've said this before. I've got a little sort of like switchboard in my head and if someone comes in through the door I knock them into a very crude either A or B category of athlete or general pop the gen population. And if it's an athlete in my head is someone who has some sort of performance goal.

It's as simple as that. It can be whether you want to jump a little bit higher or you want to run a little bit faster or you want to lift something a little bit heavier, there's some sort of objective measure. You've gone, I want to be able to do that thing. Yes. And you're training kind of tailors towards it.

If you're saying that, nine times out of ten, the issue isn't getting to the gym because you kind of have the drive to get there because you've got that really specific goal. so the training style and the coaching does vary quite a bit whereas like you said with gen pop with with someone who's coming who's a bit of a beginner unsure on weights intimidating by intimidated by like the free weights area it's just a case of how can we make this as comfortable

as possible for you how can make you enjoy it and most importantly how do we make it so you want to come back yes and that's not from a sleazy business point of view for me wanting those clients it's just exercises and training is an incredibly fun thing to do when you find what you enjoy and the more you do it the better you just the better you feel well i suppose like you wouldn't be able to get to the stage you are now if you didn't find the way to continue to keep going back yeah yeah 100% um what what do you think in terms of okay like let's say in terms of your client base at the moment do you get more people coming in who are more um you know strong people wanting to get stronger or do you get more gen pop just because i presume with the um with what you do you

you know it is very you know niche based it's very specific it's tailored towards you know probably hitting past plateaus that people have in their training so is it a mixture of the two or is it more laying to one lane more to one side definitely a mixture for so i've got a small training studio and that's that's a lot of it that is predominantly PT yeah so it's personal training usually more based towards sort of general population getting people in the gym where it's private people love the fact that there's not a hundred other people watching them what they do which i always appreciate um online side of things is where i would say i have a little bit more of my fun with sort programming and being a little bit more uh of a strength and conditioning coach as opposed to just

a personal trainer which is the the sort of stuff i really enjoyed doing so i get a nice balance of both yeah deadly and why strength training in the first place even before you got into strong man and you were just training in the gym, what sparked your passion to get into the gym and focus on getting stronger? Do you want the honest answer? I want the honest answer. So like most 18-year-old boys, I'd put on a T-shirt and I didn't fill the sleeves. And I can remember vividly, I was at house party and I was failing miserably at trying to chat someone up. And I believe the words out of her mouth was something along the lines of, oh, you'd be a lot more attractive, you know, if you were like big. And I was like, who, there's, there's the ego getting

kicked. I think it was about six hours later. I woke up and I was like, well, I'm going to the gym. Yeah. Every, every, every, every teenage boys story. It's just, I wanted to get girls. And I mean, it didn't help in the slightest. But all that there's, there's great memes online and it's like, I want to be, I want to, I want to, I want to be able to talk to girls. I'm going to go to the gym and then it's like your man comes out of the gym and he's like bigger he goes well that didn't help yeah and it's just what you get instead is a load of admiration from other really big yeah yeah yeah it's just it's just other men to come along your physique then yeah um and i mean it's don't get you wrong it's what started i think that first day getting in the gym it was a bit

of motivation and then i i stepped out the first time and i just had a feeling in my body i was like this feels different than any other training or thing i've done before i've done insanity when I was like 16 trying to get jacked, failed miserably. I played rugby for 10 years and just got bumped left, right and centre because I didn't have any weight behind me. And it just felt a bit different. I came out with a bit of a pump after probably the world's worst first workout I ever did. And it just spiraled from there.

And it was each week it was, oh, I did six reps on this weight last week for like three sets. Can I do seven this time? And it was just little wins like that that just fell in love with him, got a bit obsessed over. Yeah, I think one thing you said there, and I think that what people probably don't understand is they probably look at you and they see kind of the finished product in their eyes. Like they see titles, competitions, really big. But I love looking at when you share your kind of before and after transformations of when you're a younger. And like, you're not, you're not, you're not nowhere near as big as you are now. And I think people can probably fall into that.

Oh, it's genetics kind of thing. and not see like the years of hard work. So for someone who is struggling to get results at the moment and wants to get stronger and wants to put on size, what do you think they need to understand about that? Oh, great question. I bring it back to a handful of things. The first one is always, as I'll say like a break and record,

just find what you enjoy. Whether it's, we've touched on the different like squat hinges and push and pulls you can do. There's a hundred different ways you can squat in a gym. statistically 50 of them you might think are disgusting 40 of them might feel horrible 10 of them might be alright one of them fingers crossed you might think actually that was quite fun and if you find that one and you find out for a squat a hinge a pushing a pool then you've got a nice little bit of a workout plan and dare I say it you might want to go back next week if you

enjoy it and it removes this that thought process of oh I have to go to the gym I have to stay consistent and it becomes hey this is actually a little bit of a fun game and I'm getting something out of this and it's what I drew with all the PT clients I have just to make sure they enjoy the sessions and I'll say to them if they're having a bit of a bad day I'm like well the only aim is for when you leave is you're in a better mood than when you came in and if we do that something's winning that's the first thing just make sure you enjoy it um secondly to that if you have been training for a while and you get to a point where you feel like you've plateaued at some point or you're just plateauing in general.

It sounds really obvious and I appreciate it. Usually falls on deaf ears. Just reach out and ask for help. I think I've only had a handful of people ever come up to me in the gym and say, you kind of look like you know what you're doing. Could you give me some guidance on something? And I'm always more than happy to help

because I have found what I enjoy and I appreciate the big scary blokes in the gym always look terrifying. But they are usually the nicest people in there. Yeah, it's the paradox, isn't it? It's the ones that you're afraid to ask for I don't want you happy to help you. And yeah, that's a really good point even about finding exercises that you actually enjoy so you can get better at them.

I think there is probably a misconception that you have to do certain exercises in order to see progress. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I think that's the downfall of social media and people having biases online is that, oh, this is the best move for building your chest or building your legs. It's like, well, the best one's probably going to be the one that you do for 12 weeks straight. Yes. Yeah. The one that you're actually progressing.

Yeah, not the one that looks cool on Instagram, but... Yeah. So, yeah, you even said about reaching out for help, like how long did it take you when you were training before, you kind of reach it? Like, do you ever have any mentors or any coaches that have really helped you along the way in terms of your progress? In terms of, like, first reaching out,

I've got a really, really core memory. I know you share, like, a lot of, like, cool memory memes online on Insta, but I've got one of... I was doing cable rows like 10 years ago, and this bloke just walked past and gave me some advice and it just stuck with me and it wasn't because it was amazing advice it was just because he was a nice bloke

and he just wanted to see me do something a little bit better and after that I was kind of like oh people in here are actually quite nice so I reached out to a handful of people after that which was very sweet of him I've had a coach for three years for Strongman before that it was entirely I want to be able to do that

so I'm just going to fuck around until I can do that look around and find out. And it worked. It worked until a point and then I just basically hit a plateau around, I think my lifts were sort of commercial gym good, if that makes any sense.

So I was strong, but you wouldn't really think much more of like, oh, he'd probably go to the gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, there's such, like, with that first experience of someone coming up and giving you a little bit of a tip

when they see you doing something wrong, I think that's one of the big things in a gym, isn't it? That, like, people might see someone do something wrong, but they don't want to go up and give them any help because they don't want to come across as, I don't know, they're undermining them or they come across rude or something like that,

or how they're going to take your advice. Because sometimes you think that, all right, if you give someone advice, like it could fall on death fares or they're like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, no, 100%. And I mean, I bless him, I still see him every now and again in the gym.

And I don't know whether he obviously had such a big impact. But it was just a little point about using my back on a cable. And it made sense. it was a good point he was nice and courteous when he stopped me and suggested it and it was it went from there pretty much what what do you think in terms of strength training what's like something that you used to believe about strength training that you've since changed your mind on any any misconceptions or mistakes that you made when you're younger twice used to give out I think I think the fact that there's best things as we touched on is probably a big one I

I, for a long time on Instagram, and I'll hold my hands up and say this, I slagged off a fair few exercises for reasons of, okay, it's pretty pointless. And there are a handful that I would argue are pointless, but they were pointless at the time for the demographic I was trying to coach. So I was coming from a point of cognitive bias and saying, hey, this is pointless and you shouldn't bother doing it. And there were other people who weren't in my demographic were kind of questioning me being like, I'm actually doing it for this reason.

And they had a justifiable reason. I see that happen all the time on Instagram, doesn't it? I slacked off things like wrist curls because at the time I was a new PT and I didn't do Strongman. So the idea of if someone has two hours a week or an hour a week to go to the gym, why would you waste it with wrist curls? It's a very specific nuance thing. Let's get you doing lots of compounds instead. Now, if someone said to me, should I do wrist curls, I'll go, well, if you've got a strongman

com, well, yes, because we need good grip. So all of a sudden, my entire demean has changed on a certain exercise. whereas before I slagged it off and now I'm like, well, yeah, they're probably pretty beneficial. Now you're doing it in your videos. Yeah. And it's kind of gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. And I think it's just stepping back and saying my two, my two favorite words, it depends. And if someone asks me a question, they're pretty much the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

Yeah, that's so interested. And also, I think it also reflects the other way as well. So it's like, let's say I'm online and I see someone slagging off an exercise or slagging off a certain way or of eating or whatever whatever the point is and then my first initial thought is to go under the defensive and be like no you're wrong this is good blah blah blah blah but i'm not thinking in my head okay they're just saying that out of their point of view for the people that they're actually trying to talk to yeah you know what i mean and it's like it kind of goes about ways you're only thinking about your demographic when you're speaking and then people who get offended or misinterpret

what you're saying they're also thinking about it from their experience or their goals so everyone's essentially just thinking about themselves and having arguments from different courts and different sides of things and no one's actually coming to a conclusion that all right well this is actually nuance to what I'm talking about. Yeah. And in a grand scheme of things it doesn't really make a difference. So if someone was listening to this right and they want to maximize their strength at the moment and they only had like three or four days to work out to train, what would you tell them to focus on? Let's say we're talking about someone who is relatively new to the gym but just wants to get strong, wants to build a bit of muscle.

I would, broken record, fine exercises I enjoy, but I would set what I like to call them side quests and I talk to, I message my clients about them all the time. I love a side quest. When you say side quest, I'm thinking like I'm drunk and I leave my friends to go off and chat. The one that comes to my mind is less drunken adventure, more like I start up at some sort of video game and the main quest is to go and I don't know say super maria the main quest is to go and say princess peach but the side quest collect as many gold coins along the way as you can and it's the same sort of thing so it's obviously we like winning we like feeling like we've just achieved

something and if you say hey I want to go and win this competition the competition's in like two years you've got nothing to enjoy for the next two years yeah if you say hey I want to win that competition but if I could do all of these hundred things along the way, I'd feel pretty good pretty consistently. And again, it's just skin in the game. It keeps you in the gym, keeps you from thinking you're plateauing, which I feel like a lot of people get stuck on, even though they are progressing. They just don't really see it because they're not looking at the right things. And in turn, it will just keep you consistent and make you want to be there. So, side quests, absolutely love them. Don't think you can go wrong. On the back of that,

it's actually getting some sort of coherent plan on how to get there. I use the analogy of people. Someone comes to me and says, hey, I want to do X, Y, Z. I've got competition. And I'm like, okay, that's your destination. And we've got a nice big pirate ship. You're the captain.

I'm the first mate. If we don't know where you're going, there's no point trying to have a journey, because you're not going to end up anywhere. And I will guide you as much as I can stay on course. And if we can take some wins along the way, will feel 10 times better. And it's, it just keeps, I think, things in the forefront if you just have that program

because you just know where you're going. You've got your map to get to where you want to get to. And slow and steadily, you just work your way towards it. So let's say my journey is I want to get to a 300 kilo deadlift. So what, let's say, and I'm nowhere near that right now. How do you help a client get from, let's say, where they are to that goal? let's say you wanted to get a, you want to, you've hit a bit of a plateau and you want to get that 300 kilo deadlift. And you're also a good bit off it and probably need a few side quests along the way to keep you engaged.

Like what are, what are some things you do with a client to ensure that they hit that deadlift? So straight off the bat, we just acknowledge sort of a rough timeframe we're going to talk. And then if that's the macro cycle quest, if say we're looking at a year, then in a year's time, there's a hundred different things we can do in the meantime. in terms of writing out of program I'd put something together that I believe would be most beneficial for them so deadlifting maybe twice a week

you've got a lighter day where we can focus on the technique because it just needs to be well drilled if you're pulling 300 and a heavier day where we're going to actually build some strength two deadlift days on the lighter day I'd probably also be chucking in things like Good Mornings

just lower back strength, absolutely fry your rectors and when I chuck that in it's not just a case of oh do some good morning and get a bit stronger, I would turn around and say, a 300 kilo deadlift is pretty cool. You can brag about this to your mates around the table at the pub, but you could also brag about the fact that maybe you could do 100, 150 kilo good morning.

And I say that to people and they're like, really? That sounds really heavy. And it kind of like, no, no, no. I think if you're doing one, you're doing the other. Yeah. And the, I'd quote Lewis on this sometimes, and don't tell him, because I don't give him credit for it. But I like the idea of a rising tide lifts or boats.

So if you want a 300 deadlift, as opposed to just one isolated lift, why don't we do all the others and bring all the others up with it? So I'll be chucking in front squats and whether you like it or not, you're going to have a lot of side quests on front squats or back squats or high bars or whatever it may be. Same with some push work, some pull work. And it's just a case of 300 kilo might be the goal. But along all the other things, I want you to have like a 250 stiff leg, a 160 neural row, a 100 push press, a 180 front squat, 200 good morning. and all these other things and they just add up to a piece of a puzzle and before you know

once you start ticking all them off you get through nine months of training and then we can start a bit of a dead lift peak and see where you're at. Yeah, you're spreading your success across multiple areas so you can be successful in multiple areas rather because you're just setting yourself up for failure

just thinking about one goal really essentially, don't you? And like I presume you need to get stronger in all them things in order to achieve that other goal anyway because there'll be muscular imbalances, but they're not. Yeah, it's the way I like to see is that someone is actually strong as opposed to a movement-specific strength. I don't like the idea of having a very, very specific strength

with a very specific set of equipment that I can't replicate anywhere else. Yes. Because it, you know, lapping on loads and loads of equipment and gear so that it's not me doing the work. I just like knowing that my body can do everything with it. And as such, like the same thing for my clients. Yeah, that's, I suppose, the beauty of a strong man competition. It's like you're not lifting up a, you're not dead lifting a barbell, you're picking up a big heavy bow there.

Yeah, so it's like, if there's a weak link in the body, it will be exposed. And I think that's just quite like why I'm doing it. I'm assuming this is purely audio, so anyone listening will be able to see, but it's blurred out for you, Kyle. But all of these on the board here are my side quests for the year. Ah, very good. And they, if they're all ticked off in my head, I'll qualify for England's strongest man. if they're not ticked off, I have weak points. So although the main quest is qualified for England,

it's all of the side quests there. If I get them all done, I'll be in a good place to. How, how, well, I actually have two questions. I don't want to miss it before I go into actually qualifying for England. But you also said something, sticking on the deadlift PV, you also said something on your Instagram that I really loved. And it was like building strength versus exposing strength.

Is that correct? What did you mean by that? And how do people get that wrong when they're training for their max deadlift? So building strength is the premise that we, like, we're not always trying to extract something. So when you extract strength, the premise is that you are ramping something to sort of 95, 9,800% of your central nervous system. And when you do that, you really know about it because you feel awful after.

Like, it is very, very draining. Yeah. So central nervous system obviously just being our processor, it's our computer, and it's the same with all other life stress. So if you are particularly stressed out or you have no sleep or anything else or the computer's run down, you can't extract strength. So the premise of building it versus extracting it is that there needs to be a day where we decide we want to extract it or a week. And to get to that point, we need to prepare the central nervous system to get there and we do that through building. So when you're building strength, I'm not as a 300 kilo deadlift on myself. I don't rep

300 kilos to get stronger, I rep 240 to 270 because that's building. And then when I want to pull the trigger and extract all my strength and hit a new PB, I'll peak for it. So it's usually a competition and then I'll hit a new PB. What would be the cycle in terms of building up to that to that PB for people? Because obviously, I presume most people make the mistake of just going in and just trying to lift their heaviest load every single session that they go in. And I think lifting, like maxing out every single session, it works to an extent. It works maybe for your first year, year and a half to years because your body is so adaptable

and it doesn't have much progress to back on that it just makes progress so quickly. Once you, this is kind of where people then begin to plateau. Usually I would say once you hit around give or take the 200 kilo deadlift mark, the 180 deadlift mark, it's usually where like nuanced programming comes in and can be a lot more effective because it allows you to, because as someone who's been there and done it, I would never know how to write a program for building strength for 12 weeks.

So allow myself to extract it. As a, yeah, as someone who's been there and done it and then as a coach now coaching others to do it, it's amazing the difference that you can do just by saying, okay, actually, we're just going to focus on this thing, in particular for six weeks. And as you slowly ramp it up each week, you just prepare your central nervous system

to deal with heavier loads. and after the six to eight weeks it should be finding that you're firing pretty strongly so it is I think it can be irritating because you do want to max out every week obviously ego plays a part but it's you follow the program and you'll just get better rewards down the line

yeah I think that's the biggest mistake that we make isn't it is that we're not if we're not following a program and we're not looking at the number of saying right this is what I have to hit this week rather than just going off how you feel because you can feel great in the moment doing it and then that fucks you then for the rest of the week or a focus you from actually making the progress you want.

Yeah, yeah, entirely. And then it throws you off. And it's, I think you speak to anyone who's, I would imagine if you speak to pretty much damn near anyone who's pulled 300 kilos, it will be a case of, yeah, I had a program to do it or I had a coach to do it. It's not, oh, and in one day, I just felt good and it came up. Yeah.

Like, you're talking like 0.40% of the people that have pulled 300. Yeah, so that's essentially really the biggest difference between a novice Navas trainer getting a little bit stronger and then, all right, getting that newbie strength and now trying to push past that. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. How difficult is it to qualify for England's strongest man? What needs to happen there?

It's not easy. It's not easy at all. I would say I'm blessed in the position I am with my friendship group, so one of my good mates has been to England's two, three times now and has podiumed every time. So it's very inspiring to have that in a close circle because it sort of demonstrates the path that one needs to take. Yeah, I would imagine that's a really important part of it is the people that you surround yourself with.

Oh, definitely, definitely. And he was the lad that I met all those years back in Pop World. So kind of full circle from, I think he was a crayon to Britain's four strongest man. So he's done well blessing. But having that guidance is always, is very, very important to me. And it's not an easy feat by any means.

The qualifier this year, I think there's 80 people that signed up. I think there's about 60 that will turn up or something. Top six, top eight go through. I think we could probably, if you were to look at the names on the competition, you could probably pick the top six as it is. I'm not expecting to qualify this year. But they are, they're usually fairly what I would call staple events. So there's a push, there's a deadlift.

There's a medley, there's stones, and there's maybe farmers in yoke or throwing or some of that. So they're not weird and wacky. And I think with the diversity of events, there are ones that really suit me and there are ones that don't suit me so much. So throwing stones, front carries very, very good on. Usually collect quite a lot of points. Anything overhead usually lose a fair few. So it's just, it can, comp can kind of fall in your favour

and you can have a very good day. But I mean, for England's, I'm probably still looking at a year or two, I would imagine. Do you think it's more beneficial to go all in on the strengths that you already have or to work on them weaknesses or you kind of spread out between?

You need to spread it out between. You need to spread it out between. It's not, I mean, it's not unheard of for someone to win four events, not do the fifth and then not win a competition overall. So if you have a weak link, you, it does get exposed. so and I think again this is why I see the way I coach my clients so importantly we're not just looking at one lift it's yeah we're aiming for one lift but I want everything else in line with it yeah and if there is a weak link it will be exposed because you'll drop points and you won't be where you want to yeah that makes sense how many how many events throughout the year would you do oh this year I seem to be doing more and more each year this is now for coming into fourth year of the sport um first year was just 10

second year, I think, was four comps. Last year was five or six. This year, I have done one already. That was a Brits qualifier. And then I've got three in the next three months. One in July and probably two or three in the back end of the year. So I'm probably looking at eight or nine. Is that more beneficial?

Because instead of kind of getting ready, you're staying ready for each event? Yeah. So there's, I mean, each competition will have different events. so it can be weird and wacky. I think with the huge diversity of events in the sport, there's a lot of skill work that comes in, and I think that's off people often neglect,

and they don't think about the fact that actually, there's a lot of skill involved in some implements. For your first couple of years, if you just do everything and you build a working knowledge of how you lift an implement or what it feels like to yourself, your skill will get better, and then you're not ever learning the skill.

It's like learning to ride a bike. tap into it for three, four weeks before a competition and it comes back, the muscle memory works, and before you know it, you feel pretty ready for it. So there's a bit of skill work that comes in, but the other thing that I really like is a term GPP, so general physical preparedness. And it basically comes down to how strong is your body overall? Like any given day, what can you pull? Not in a peaked state, not with loads of equipment, not with the perfect setup, not with

the crowd roaring and everything like that, just your headphones in, your straps on, what are you pulling? And if your GPP is pretty high, then you can do quite a high level, or quite a lot of competitions, because if the weights aren't killing you, you don't need the big recovery. Yes.

So the competition I did earlier this year, I was back in the gym the next day because it just felt like a heavy training session. Yeah. Has your overall lifestyle changed to be involved in these competitions compared to maybe when you were younger? Yes.

I look at the calendar now that's on the wall next to me. Every other weekend is a competition, a client's competition, some sort of strongman seminar, something rather that will make me a better coach, a better strongman, or just more knowledgeable on a little nuanced topic somewhere in the sport. Yeah. And that obviously means, like,

for you to be, you know, meddling in anything else, it's going to take away from that, and that's too important to you at this point. At this point in time, yeah. I look forward to the day where I have free of weekends to have holidays again, but at this point in time, it's, I still young,

still learn, just absorb it all like a spandrum. How good is it going to, let's say, your clients' competitions and seeing them do well? Oh, it's a, I,

I, I mean, I'm stuttering because it is, for me, just. Very rewarding, I'd say. Yeah.

Like, just phenomenal. I had a competition. last year. I'd been gunning for this one for two years. And there's a trope the trophies you win axes. So I was like, I want an axe. I don't care. I failed to get one the year before. I was like 11th or something terrible. Got one this year. But the day before I had two clients that came with me that both that came first and second and both came away with axes. And getting them an axe felt so much better than finally getting one for myself. It just, I think it reinforces

the sort of self-belief that I have and know what I'm talking about, that I'm actually a pretty decent coach and just, yeah, the look on their faces when they achieve what they wanted to just can't be beaten. Yeah, the reward you feel for helping other people knowing that you help them,

like you can't really, I don't think you can top that really, even for your own ambitions, even though like how good they could feel, it always feels better even doing it for other people. Yeah, massively. Massively. What separates, the strongest lifters

from people who kind of never really break true what do you think it's is it the training is it the overall lifestyle is it the recovery is it the mindset what do you think

is the distinguishing factor that kind of gets people to that kind of next level in my head there's two or three and I am yet to decide I think which is best just give it

what are they number one genetics unfortunately they play a big role I say unfortunately because they're just you can't decide them but they do play a big role for something like Strongman if you talk about good grip

good grip predominantly a lot of it comes down to your hand size if you're born with small hands you're probably never going to have the world's best grip no but be good at massages I mean and there's little things like that that just it's the hand you're dealt yeah

however that being said, like some of the, and you'd assume therefore the bigger the better, some of the top lads at the minute in terms of just world are the ones who work the hardest and be obsessive in their craft and not just kind of relentless work ethic, but actually just being incredibly intelligent with it and saying, well, I've worked very hard, how am I recovering, is my meals always prepped, my smashing my nutrition consistently, and just making sure that every nuance is ticked off as well, as opposed to just being born a bit of a freak

and incredibly strong. And you put the two together, you're deadly, but I am yet to kind of pick the one that I would link to. I like the idea of working harder personally because it is accessible for anything. Yeah, it's you have that in your control, which, like, you don't, like, unfortunately, you just don't have your genetics in your control.

Yeah, yeah, I wish I did, It's not a matter bigger. But I suppose it has to be too. It has to be you have to have really good genetics. And that could that doesn't probably even just come in the form of, okay, your overall size and stuff like that,

but also even like injury and stuff like that. Because I know talking to like other kind of strength and conditioning coaches, even when they talk about things like in other sports, like a lot of it is like, okay, the look of you not getting injured so you can have a decent career. because just genetically you're a little bit blessed with that. Yes, yeah, 100%. And I think that a lot of it can come down to

whether you'd call it luck or fortune with, again, maybe the genetics you're blessed with just naturally, slightly stronger tendons, ligaments, etc. But again, little things that you can work on with that, just general years of training and longevity and whether you're pre-having exercises and things like that. And yeah, I think if you want to be the best at something, it's acknowledging that you're going to put the hours in

and you're probably going to have years worth of efforts just unrecognised before anything actually comes your way. And it's not inherently a fun path to walk, but it's worth it when you get to the end. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. What are some non-negotiable principles for getting truly strong? Oh, oh. Like if you, if you, if you could, if you could go back again and coach yourself,

like what would you tell Sam that he needs to do? Like what are the big, what are the big rock rather than the small pebbles that people get kind of, you know, focused on looking at the kind of next shiny object. Yeah. And the, the main principles. It's not big. It's not sexy. But get a coach or just get some sort of program that you're following.

I don't know how much progress I flush down the toilet by fucking around for seven years I dare not think about it in terms of strength training don't ignore cardiovascular benefits I know for years I was like oh I'm not I'm not doing cardio

that will waste my gains and if you're fitter you will just be healthier you will have more success with building muscle building strength of anything else it's just it's a well functioning car as opposed to something that's just trying to get bigger

what would you recommend in terms of someone that's going for like a strong man or just trying to get really strong but doesn't want to kind of over overdoing on the cardio as well. Assault bikes, fantastic. Just do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, do eight rounds.

Ski-urg, 250 metre sprints. Same with rowing machines. And you're talking like five minutes worth of effort here. Like it's not, you're not spending an hour on the treadmill. If you have the luxury or something, like a couple of what they're called. Not the treadmills, but the ones without an engine, they just rotate them, the curved ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Incredibly expensive bits again. If you've got the luxury of something like that, you can do sprints on there as well, slightly more beneficial with treadmill, in my humble opinion. Failing that, if you want something a little bit more specific, it's a strong run exercise called a heart shock or heart attack. It's a 20 metre jog, 20 metre sprint, and 20 metre bag carry, and you repeat that three rounds.

Nice. And that's one, and you aim to do it in less than a minute. And it's a little bit more. specific because we've added a bit of a jog and a sprint and a carry in there. And it's little things like that. It's not a lot by any means, but it's enough that you actually, you're aware that you have an aerobic system and it's getting better. So things like that.

Again, non-negotiables, just sleep. Don't ignore it. The amount of times I would stay up playing Call to Duty 6 or whatever it was until like 4 a.m. And then wake up the next day and be like, oh, I feel dreadful. I wonder why. It must have been because I like, I had too much past her last night, not the fact I got three hours of sleep. and just they're not big they're not sexy they're just naturally they're pretty obvious because

what time do you recommend what time do you usually get into the better this is where i'll shoot myself in the foot because i'm saying you should be doing it say as i do stay as i say not as i do uh it's usually about 11 it should be 10 um but i mean i stayed up till about midnight last night working because i had an idea and i wanted to get it done yeah yeah it's not it's not always realistic, but yeah. Ideally, eight hours a kit, but I mean, I think many people will tell you, regardless of sort of what professional, what you're looking at, if you get eight hours of kit, you'll probably feel pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah. Any other principles? So obviously, main thing is obviously, you know, ask for help sooner than you realize. I think every coach that I've ever spoke to have said the same thing. I've said the same thing as well. Like, I think that's one of the foundations to success is to kind of ask questions. quick and early and learn from your mistakes quick and early.

I don't think anyone can ever get that exactly as they wanted because we always could have kind of reached out for help a little bit earlier in hindsight. And then obviously sleep is obviously going to be foundational for recovery. Is there any other principles that people need to know in terms of or non-negotiables that people need in terms of getting stronger? We touched on it to be fair, but I think looking at your circle is quite important for it. that and that comes from a point of view of I so every Friday I train at the farm

but my mate owns there's five or six of us and for many years and to a degree for two of my closest mates I'm still the small one and I probably always will be which being six foot four 120 kilos sounds ridiculous but I'm the small one and it makes me want to work a little bit harder because I don't want to be the small one

and it's the circles that have like we I can remember I've had mates before I've said oh I just hit this deadlift PB and they're like oh but mine's 10 kilos more and I'm like well I'm not talking about you so fuck off whereas I tell people now I tell my mates oh I hit this deadlift PB

they're just happy for me and they want to see me do well and it's I can say this my place of luxury where I'm self-employed and don't have a lot of people in my life that I don't like but if you can make yourself circle people that want to see you do well you will naturally see things like getting stronger just happen, especially if they're in the same sort of realm,

because you just want to see each other do well. And it's amazing the difference that will make. Yeah, I don't make so much sense. Like your environment, like, as much as we neglect talking about that, we talk about the other things, like your environment is going to dictate a lot of your services. 100%. And it's, it can be, because you want to see each other up,

it can be whether you want to beat your mates, the amount of times my mate's done something like a training. And I'm like, where if you're doing it, I'm doing it. And I'm doing it twice because I'm beating you. And it just makes you stronger. It's little things like that that I truly think go a long way. And how did you find that circle of friends? Was it just true, the passion of strength training itself?

Yeah, so the mate of mine that invited me to this comp did it. Started training with him, so he's the one at the farm. And through just other lads coming and going and training, there's just a group of us that now pretty much comes fairly consistently every Friday night. and we compete against each other, we compete with each other, but on a Friday night it's just a group of mates all lifting together, listening to Nickelback, drinking far too much pre-workout and white monsters, and just having a good time.

And I know you touched on it there a little bit, but if someone's struggling to pack on size, what would you suggest? Let's say a newbie client that's coming to here that's always kind of being quite skinny and wants to get strong, wants to get big, but, you know, maybe struggles to eat a little bit more. What's your advice to them? It's my first point I'd probably say, especially if they're coming to someone like myself,

is as you mentioned, you're looking at what I would consider a finished product. You know, I've been lifting for 10 years. I've put on 50 kilos of mass because over the past 10 years, I've been to the gym pretty well literally, and there's no shortcut for that. You're not going to get my size in a year because it's, that it's 10 years worth of effort. So just to acknowledge in your time frame, I'm not saying you aren't going to get this big,

but like look at where I was a year after lifting, not 10. Because I know the vast majority of lads or people that kind of approach me, if they're young, they're on social media and they're like, oh, when I look like this bloke, I'm like, no, you don't. You don't. You want to look like the best version of yourself,

not like him. Very difficult conversation to have with boys who's probably view of physiques are probably distorted a little bit. Oh, massively. I mean, it still goes through my head when I see things online. So yeah, get, if someone's come to me and they've said that, the first point is, like, what do you actually want?

Where do you want to be? And then be a little bit realistic. It's not always the nicest conversation, because it's not about crushing dreams, but it's saying, I'm on chapter 10. You're in chapter one. How do we get chapter two? And whether that's the case of we then implement some of these side quests have mentioned, and they can be anything, they can be, oh, I want to weigh 80 kilos or 90 kilos. And slowly chip it up.

It's not just about objective performance. And slowly build from there. And, I mean, I am nowhere near the bloke I used to be. I'd like to think in a positive way before I start at the gym. And it's not just acknowledging that, oh, you're probably going to pack on some muscle. You're probably going to be a little bit of a different bloke. Because in finding things that you enjoy doing

and being happy in your body, you're going to exude some other characteristic. which are hopefully pretty positive. So just trying to wrap it all up into a nice little present for them and basically keep them in the gym. Yeah. I think that's the biggest thing of a coach, isn't it? It's trying to create adherence and consistency over time

because that's where even though it's not the sexiest advice, its fair results will come for that person. Oh, 100%. And if it can be difficult, someone should make a program for that. another thing that I wanted to ask you about, so I know there will be some kind of newbie lifters listen to this as well, and they might look at your Instagram

and they see that sometimes you're belting up for big lifts, sometimes you aren't belting up for big lifts. So can you explain when you would and when you wouldn't and why you would for them listeners? Yeah, belts are interesting. They are a piece of equipment, and ironically, the people that need them,

or the people that use them are arguably the people that don't need them. so they are not there to support your back they are not there to prevent you getting injured they are not there as any other reason than a tactile cue and reminder and something to brace against so obviously if you don't sound like a squat or deadlift

the movement comes from your legs you don't really want your back your core your spine to move it goes up but it doesn't shouldn't be moving with the muscles in it should be braced and held tight and when you put a belt it's a pretty thick piece of fabric if it's not you need a thicker one

it's a pretty thick uncomfortable piece of fabric that goes around your stomach or chest and you just push against it and it just gives you the cue to drive the air that's in your lungs outwards down against your diaphragm and will give you

the words have now completely eluded my head um uh oh they've gone It will brace harder and I'm going to absolutely kick myself because this call's going to end and I'm going to go, obviously that's what it is.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you brace harder and then once you've done your set, the feeling that you have should be that you want to rip the belt off. It's not something you wear and you put on when you walk into gym and you take off when you leave. Yeah, you stroll around the gym would have done your bicep curls. Oh, God, I hate it with a fashion.

But, yes, the words are still... So do you... So do you, when you're in competition, because I know in powerlifting competitions, that they don't wear any belts, right? You can wear a belt and powerlifting, but it's specific to like two or three brands. Okay, all right, okay. And what about in a strongman competitions? Strongman, you can wear what you want, you can do what you want, you can,

you can pretty much wear, try, do anything. I think there's no rule to say you can't wear three belts if you don't want to. like you can you can play around a little bit because it's it's a I like to use a term a low barrier of entry like there's no you have to have this equipment

if you do a power lifting meet you have to have a singlet you have to have branded knee sleeves you have to wear some sort of deadlift shoe deadlift socks the same thing with like belts wraps and everything like it all has to be from three brands

and familiar enough those three brands aren't very cheap so yeah it's a bit of a bit of a vehicle so what's your what's your kind of um philosophy for when to wear a belt and when not to wear a belt um if the weight makes you a little bit nervous it's probably a good idea to put a belt on yes um so if i'm looking if i've loaded the bar and i'm getting a little bit of squeaky bum time i'm kind of like this is this is making me nervous i might need something heavier in my headphones i might need a little bit of nickel back i might need some salts or i might straps or whatever, then it comes with the territory of I want something to brace against and I need to increase that ability to brace so a belt is a good thing to put on.

As it goes, in terms of, as we mentioned, like rising tides and rising strength, I'm a firm believer that if I got a belt when I could deadlift 140 kilos, but 120 makes me a bit nervous. So I put it on 120. If a year goes by and I can now deadlift 200, you shouldn't be belting at 120 still. That should rise with it. You should have what I call beltless PVs and belted PVs. Very good. And one thing you said there as well that I wanted to talk to you a little bit about as well,

you said even like if this makes me a little bit nervous if I have squeaky bum time. Like do you think there's a big degree of like psychology around this in terms of like, you know, sometimes you can fail a lift because you're a little bit scared of it rather than physically you're not able for it. oh without a doubt without doubt um in terms of like

psychological hyping there's a lot of research that I am not too familiar on because me I've named dropped him a couple times a bit of nickel back some smelling salts yeah and I'm pretty pumped and ready to go I know a handful of people that listen to like piano music or listen to listen to sort of like scores from Hans Zimmer

and it just gets them going and it like it works I get it and that's entirely their way of doing it. Yeah. And it's, it just depends how you want to heighten your sense of arousal. And if it's kind of this empowered feeling, then yeah, maybe a little bit hands.

If it's this, I'm angry and powerful, then it's maybe something a little bit heavy in metal. Yeah. Do you have a, do you have a certain route? Like when you're going for big heavy lifts, do you have a certain routine with all them things?

It's like it's the exact same song. It's the exact same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Creature a habit. It's, it's put the belt on loosely. If it's say a deadlift,

put the belt on loose. put the straps on loosely so they're on. Salt in my pocket. Cue the track. Put my phone up and film it. Hit skip so the track starts. Tighten the belt. Crack the salts.

Have a little bit of sniff. And I can picture myself doing it now because I enjoy them far too much. You love the salt, yeah? I don't know why. They're addictive. I think because it means it pumps you full of adrenaline at the other day. So it's a bit of an adrenaline kick. Yeah.

But yeah, a strap into the bar and start pulling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And hope the drop time as well. So how long have you been coaching now? So P-T-wise, three and a half years. Coaching, if I'm taking the view that I wasn't coaching beforehand because I was just telling people out to do a squat, probably about two years. Right.

So a relatively decent amount of time. What do you think you've learned about people in that time? Because we know coaching is a very personal career to have and you really get to kind of know people. You know, and there's a lot of skills. You kind of have to learn that, you know, you didn't think you would when you got into that kind of career. What do you think you've learned about people from coaching?

Unfortunately, I think about 95% of the fitness industry is full of shite. Yeah, yeah. That is the main thing. outside that in terms of like clients and everything I think I think what I initially thought one of the reasons I hadn't you know immediately dived into being a PT when I found the gym was because my perception was that they clean treadmills and answer phones

not that they actually have the potential to give someone the best hour of their day and I think the minute I realised that my eyes opened a little bit of what I was offering people and it wasn't just of oh I'm going to teach you how to squat it's how can we get you to enjoy this as much as possible because 90% of people that walk through the door for my PT haven't lifted a weight before and they don't know the joys that that will bring when they find things they enjoy doing and they hit these PBs. And I mean, majority of them don't come in, say they want to be

able to deadlift something, but a lot of them leave and say, if I could pick that up, that would be pretty fun. So it is, it's, I think when I, like I said, when I started, I thought it was about teaching squats, the more important word out of the name is personal as opposed to training by any by any means. And I think in realizing that it's not just made me enjoy my job more, but it's made me far better at it. Yeah, yeah. I always say, like if you want to get into the fitness industry, the biggest mistake people make is thinking that being in the fitness or working in the fitness industry is about being into fitness. When it's not, it's about being into people. Yeah, 100%. It's, you just have to be a people person. And if you're not, you unfortunately get spanked.

out and pretty sour pretty quickly because you see a lot of people doing you as you may call more be more successful around you because they're just simply good people yeah yeah absolutely people people people people get into the gym and they're like oh i like this and then they're like oh maybe i'll become a PT but like when they get into it they're they're coming from a place of take rather than give they're like uh yeah i look a certain way so therefore i should be successful so on so forth yeah yeah pretty much what um what um you i'm And you said that like 95% of the fitness industry is full of shit. And I would agree with you.

What is it about the, what are some things in the fitness industry that you don't like at the moment? Or you'd like to see changed or just annoys you. Oh, fuck me. Where to start, Carl. How long have we got? If I was to reel them off, if I was to reel them off, as you touched on there, the acknowledgement that I think a lot of people get, into the industry for the wrong reasons.

They get into it because they think, I'll be a coach, I'll make 10 grand. I'll work from Bali. And I won't give a fuck about the people that I help. Or I don't help. I don't think, although I obviously, my business runs off it, I don't think social media helps anyone at all.

I have a personal vendetta against companies like Jim Shark. At the beginning of the year, they ran some sort of Jim Shark 66 program. And I thought, you know what? They don't have an athlete. the premise is you become an athlete in 66 days. They don't have an athlete that's really talks about men's mental health.

Fuck it. I'll be the change I want to see. So I did it for four days. I didn't follow them prior. I followed them for four days. And after four days, my mental health got chucked in the bin because every time I opened Instagram, there was some dick skin shredded bloke on there with the caption like,

do you want it enough or something? And I was like, I'll just, I don't need this. Yeah, they say one thing and do it something else kind of thing. Yeah. And I'm like, well, you've got a filter. You've got a Photoshop. well, you've got a team of photo shoppers here. Like, and I, I appreciate where they're coming from.

It's supposed to be this empowerment thing, but it just doesn't help. I know countless, countless lads I've spoken to in the gym, and they're like, oh, you know, nah, like, oh, no, I can't take the top off, I don't look good enough. And I'm like, you're in the gym. You're trying to make yourself better. You should be feeling empowered that you're doing so, not comparing yourself to some tit online,

who's photoshopped his photos and thinks he's better than you. I hate it with a passion. The diet culture stuff and the crap you see on there, like if you want to have a sausage roll, just have a fucking sausage roll. Oh my God. I think if I saw someone walking down the crisps aisle in my local Audi being like, don't eat this, this is shit,

they'd be better than a crap. Deadlift. Yeah, I just, there's just so much. And it just pains me because as someone who enjoys his food, enjoys lifting because of how it makes me feel and the things it's done for my self-confidence and things like that. It just, it doesn't need to be overly complicated. Yeah. I'm things you enjoy

and keep doing them. Yeah. I think that makes perfect sense. And you know what? When you were talking about that even like the distorted reality people have from kind of even following kind of gym shack models and like people putting the most shredded people in the perfect light and up on their website and then every young boy aspiring to look exactly like that. Like I remember having a conversation down in the

gym where there was this 19 year old lad. He's a good lad, loves his train and, you know, a decent physique, like trains hard. And he was talking to me and he just got his PT cert. And he was like, oh, yeah, I want to get clients, but I'm just not big enough just yet. So I just need to really pull a lot into the next nine months. And then I'll be able to get clients.

And like, the first thing that just came to my head, like, nobody gives a shit what you look like. It's like, can you actually help these? Like, he was in perfectly good shape. in great shape for his age actually and like really dedicated towards his training but he has this disordered reality that he needs to look like this

certain image to be able to be successful in the industry and it yeah it's this just a disillusioned and distorted view of what people think they need yeah I think the last time I checked I think there was a study in like 2021 that was there was only something like 12 and a half million gym

memberships in the UK and it can't of course on up that much. You take a ballpark figure and say 15 million people have gym memberships. And there's like 70 million of us or something. Yeah. And I would imagine the vast majority of people don't have one potentially financial reasons or whatever. But in terms of the emotional reasons, it's why I don't like them. They're intimidating. And being bigger as a PT is never going to help people come to you for advice and help. It's what you know and how personal you are and whether you actually enjoy helping people and getting a kick out of it. Yeah, 100%. Do you think, and you touched

that in terms of how it's helped your confidence. Do you think the fact that you're in a sport where it's more about how you perform rather than how you look that helps you in terms of having a healthy mindset around training or did when you were younger? Oh, massively. Massively. I can remember having, I flipped through magazines just in shops when I was younger. That sounds dodgy, not those kind of magazines. It was like men's health fitness and it was like Greg Plitt on the front and I was like, oh, I'm going to look like that one day just because I just had this, this assumption I would that I was like, well, he looks good. I'll do what I, I don't know, I'll just look like that.

There was this naivety. Without kind of really questioning why I wanted to, what benefit it would give me to look like that and whether I actually wanted to deep down or whether it was just a, he's on a magazine, I'll do it. And I think for many years I chased the idea that bigger was better because coming from a size of 70 kilos at six foot four, like a strong wind knocked me over.

So it was always bigger was better. And it wasn't really until, I would say, Strongman, the principles of actually what can this body do, as opposed to what can this body look like, really struck me. And it's, a client questioned me the day. They were like, why, like, how are you ever tempted or like, how do you fight the urge

to not become, try and just get shredded? I'm like, well, I don't have the urge to get shredded because it doesn't really help me. I feel fit, I feel healthy. If you ask me to run 5K, I wouldn't like it, but I could probably do it. and if you asked me to lift that heavy rock, I'd like it and I'd do it.

So I get what I want out of my body and it doesn't, I don't ever wake up and go, you looked better yesterday because it's not something I look at. Makes sense. It's like sometimes you don't really need to change your self-image,

but it's your self-worth and at strength training you can improve your self-worth and your self-confidence. Realistically, the body's changed, but I'm still in the same body and my head hasn't changed that much with it. Well, that's the beauty of it, is that like because your mindset was right around your train and like your body composition improves as a byproduct anyway, but it's not the sole focus.

Yeah. Yeah. And don't get me wrong. There is a part of the ego that enjoys people being, oh, you're so big, you're so strong. But it's like it's nothing to compare to what I feel inside being like, oh, I feel pretty good because I'm full body strength. Yeah. I don't think it makes sense to diminish people's aspirational. to actually change how they look because like let's be real this people always want to change how they look they want to look bigger they want to look leaner they want to look more muscular and i don't think there's anything wrong with that but if it comes at the cost of your like well-being and your mental health because you think that's the like uh that's the pinnacle of yourself worth then you're going to run into probably problems with that yeah i think uh a really good tests i said to a couple of guys younger i didn't have social media when i first made the gym i think my instagram had photos of my my cat on it like and that was about as much

as the algorithm pumped for me. And I had about six Facebook friends. So like I didn't have a lot. So I wasn't fed this complete narrative that I needed to look a certain way. If I was 18 doing it again, the advice I'd give myself, to be fair, thinking about it, is delete Instagram, delete social media,

take a month off. And in a month's time, if I still wake up and say, I want to change how I look in the mirror, I'm doing it because I want to, not because I've seen something online that I want to be. Yeah.

And I think that sets you up from a much more healthy perspective to go and chase what you want as opposed to chasing what someone else has. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. One more question. I'll ask you. Well, two more questions. So we talked about, you know, getting into the industry for the right reasons that you actually want to help people rather than it being kind of this narcissistic viewpoint from yourself. But now that you've been a coach and you've coached people and you know that you know that, you want to help them?

Like, what do you think separates being, like, an average coach from a really great coach? At heart, I would have to say, just giving a fuck. That sounds very blunt. Yeah. But I've had conversations with people before, and I'm not going to name drop because I'll hurt feelings.

And they might be fantastic online, but they come across as very shit coach. is because the way they will talk about clients, I'm like, well, this doesn't, you know, this person is, if nothing else, helping your livelihood. Why don't you care about them? Why don't you want the best for them? And I think that comes across very, very quickly in the way that you hear people talk. And if the first thing that out of their mouth is, oh, I get paid X amount, where you're probably like we are doing it for the wrong reasons. I, you know, I am a decent amount. But it's not why I do it. I get a massive kick out of helping people. And like I said,

seeing lads on top of podiums or make, God, she deadlifts more than her X. that was a goal like fantasy like I was on a face then that was mint that's a that's a slogan that should be a slogan that's very wrong

and it like you can't beat stuff like that so like that's if you're doing it for the right reasons I think you know I think if you're doing it for the wrong ones

I think it's pretty obvious because there's usually a lot of pound signs floating around your head yeah here's a here's a more difficult question how do you think you can become a better coach

um I would say take the start that you always you always think you know nothing. Don't obviously don't put yourself down and be like oh you shit but I mean

likewise with yourself like we met through obviously like O'Sheen and Lewis and all these other lot and just turn up to events and meet people because I mean I always assumed I knew a lot about training

because oh bro I've been lifting for seven years of course I had and then I went to IFS and I met all these other people and I was like, oh, now I know nothing. And I'm sure you're going to be able to correct me because I don't know the name of it, but I'm sure there's a law there that the amount of you think.

Yeah, it's, so it's, it's, you think you know everything and you know nothing and then you start to know a little bit and then you realise there's so much more on this topic. I can't remember the name of it, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. It's not Murphys, is it? No, it's, um, oh, if I can find it here.

I'll find it. It's someone's, um, And yeah, and as a great example, like I, I now appreciate, like, there's so many people out there that I can learn off. And I am by no means afraid to stick my hand up and say, hey, actually, I actually know very little about this. I've done that very recently with a couple people because the way that I would program myself or the way that I would enchue myself to bench or to deadlift can be very different to someone who is a, like one of my clients, 65 kilo female. The cues are going to naturally be quite different because the. form will differ on something like a bench. So I'll stick my hand up and say,

I actually don't know much about this nuanced topic. Someone who's pretty good, can you come give me a hand? And I have no shame in doing that because it's not an area. That also comes from a confident. It's the Dunning Kruger effect, by the way. It's a cognitive bias where, you know, you're thinking, when you start out in your career, you think you know everything because you actually know nothing.

And then you start to learn a little bit and then you realize, oh shit, there's so many different avenues to this one topic that I coach. and then you know it starts to be like oh she i need i need to learn a lot and i think you're absolutely right i think that's to become a better coach it's just to have the uh awareness or the mindset that you're that i think that you're always learning and you can always improve your services and you can always improve yourself like you're you're a work in progress as well yeah i i think that that's a a big part there's a i did a course last year um and the lad running it was on a Zoom had said like, ideally you look back at your programs from one or two years ago and you

kind of think like, what was I doing? These are shit. And it's, and it's not because at the time there were bad programs. They clearly worked because hopefully you still got the clients. But it's that down the line, you know so much more that you can go, oh, I'd never do that again. I'd do this, this and this because it's so much better. Yeah, that makes that makes. If I can do that with everything, then hopefully I'm getting a little bit better. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. If you could give yourself, if you could give your younger self one single piece of

advice on, one on strength and one on life. Starting off with strength. What piece of advice would you give yourself in terms of strength if you were talking to your younger self? That's such a tough question because I don't know

I don't know about one. I think it's going to have to be just appreciate all the small wins that you're going to take along the way because I know when I first started out like a very dead set goal and for strength training it's not sexy it is a lot of people find it very boring

because you are in effect doing a lot of the same thing repeatedly and unless you find the little wins and the little joys out of it, like, you're never going to just think, I'm going to do this consistently, because it's just, it can be boring. Do you think that people make a mistake

when they're strong training, that they're always looking for novelty? Oh, God, yeah, yeah. You see, I think potentially exacerbated because of social media, because you'll see, like, oh, this is the best new exercise. As an exercise goes, like, again, is there a best, debatable?

Is this, like, really that great? Because if it was that great, someone probably would have already tried it. Yeah. And I just think for a lot of years, I just kind of got in, enjoyed it, messed about, left, and didn't really appreciate the,

sounds incredibly cheesy, but that like journey of just going through and fucking around, finding out, and just learning it all. So if I appreciate all the small wins a lot earlier, like the disgusting amount of side quests that are behind me right now. How many side quests is there to that, with that that main objective

that you have? 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23-ish, 20 degrees. That's a lot. So, like, that's, that takes into context when someone says, like, oh, I want to achieve this goal. And then, like, it's you breaking that down to be like, well, I want to achieve this goal. And I have 23, you know, side quests around that to keep me fully engaged in the mission.

Yeah. And that's pretty much it. And that, to be fair, that doesn't include other competitions. But, and it keeps me because I'm always appreciating oh I've achieved this and it's not just I've achieved this hey my body can now do this one of the ones that I neglected for age is when I used to when I first looked into my weighed 70 kilos

and I can now on any given day put 70 kilos above my head with one hand and that to chuck my old self above my head is just something that I'll watch a video and I'll be like this will never get old I do I think I ran one of your post and it was like I think I've eaten my younger self or something like that. That's the way it feels.

Yeah. And then the other one that I wanted to ask you was, like, if you were to, let's say to speak to your younger self, like, let's say 18 year old Sam, even in general about life, what piece of advice do you think you'd give them? Slow down. Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that difficult?

Yeah. Yeah. Slow down. For like, like, there's, I spoke to a good friend about this before. thought I was actually a good friend of ours. I was at his stagdo and I was sat around and there's eight of us around a table. Six of us were coaches and these other five were like all over successful. You can probably think about who the five were. And I was sat there like, damn, I'm not doing enough. Like this is fucked. And I went home later that day and I got a family

member that's not very well and I just sat and had a cup of tea with them. And I was like, you know what? I don't have zeros in my bank account, but fuck me, this is the wealthiest I will ever be right now, like, ever again, because I'm never going to have the wealth of just sitting and having a cup of tea with this person again. Like, you can't buy that. There's nothing that will ever change that. And I think the perception of that that hit me over the past year, just slow down. Like, is it not the same thing that we even speak about to kind of like young boys? It's that like they're comparing themselves to to other people's lives or you know where they're at their pinnacle in one single area and not appreciating what you have around in your life.

Oh massively like and it's just like I can remember being yoga, be like oh I wish I was that person. I'm like well no no I don't like I just there's everything that I've got and I'm grateful for and blessed. And I tell myself time or something again there's hopefully down the line like a point where you know I'm sat in a nice office I've got a nice laptop in front of me. and I'm doing my like expenses for the business and I've got some staff and all this other and I'm having a bit of a headache because I'm like I've got a sort of tax and pay you I and everything and I'll think back and be like there was so much novelty in just waking up going and

training like a handful of clients in my mum's garage yeah freezing cold laughing with them about their day and their work colleagues and then popping in and having a cup of cup of tea with my mum like there's there's so much novelty in that being my day and like the stress being like oh shit like Charon's a couple of minutes late like there's just slow down and enjoy it because there'll be a day where I'm sat in an office being like you're like fuck sake like I've got to do this this and this for taxes and that's just not something I look forward to so it just makes me just engage and be a lot more present with what I've got going on now yeah I think that's

the that's the big word there's it's kind of be present and kind of understand your surroundings and be grateful for what you have because it's very easy to be looking at the next thing and the next thing and the next thing oh, this is what I need to achieve. This is what I need to achieve. And then you can go your whole life and be like, oh shit, I should have actually enjoyed,

you know, the struggle or the build up because that was actually the best part in, when you, like, when you think back of your life and you're telling stories, it's like, it's the things when you were like,

you know what I mean, in a little bit of a struggle or, or just trying to build something. That was the, that was the best part of it. Oh, massively. Massively. Like, it just,

the, the, like, the good months I've had to come off the back of having shit months before and it's like it just it's something that I now don't take for granted because I like I wake up most days and I've got a roof over my head I've got 5k worth of food in the fridge to eat which it's a bit of luxury itself um and my body's fit and fit and healthy and especially with training like statistically I'm probably going to go downhill at 36 if I'm lucky and I'm like okay so I've got nine more years of lifting or eight and a half years more of like you know performance lifting

and it's downhill i can't lift every day i can lift probably four times a week so you're looking at that and it's not a load it's like 1600 sessions then suddenly 1600 sessions doesn't sound like a lot if i love the gym and i'm like well all of them aren't going to be extracting strength one in every 100 or one in every 50 might be extracting and all of a sudden i'm like i haven't got that many pbs left. That's such a good way to look at it. And it just, it suddenly makes me like, oh shit. Like it's, it's not that I won't still obviously pursue something once I hit like 36,

whatever it is. But in terms of like strength, if I love picking up rocks, there's going to be a day where I can't do it. And that's not going to be a particularly pleasant place probably for me mentally to be because I'll miss it. So I may as well make the most of it now whilst I still can. Yeah, that's such a great reframe for. it because it's like okay am i going to waste my time looking at the things that i don't have yet

by comparing myself to all these other people around the table that are you know successful in different areas that is in my area um or am i actually going to enjoy where i am right now and and what i'm actually doing yeah yeah 100% and it it's i i am a sucker for falling for i'm not there but it's the little reframes like that that just they they seem to knock a bit of sent in to me and I feel a little bit better afterwards. Yeah, I think, I think there's, I don't think there's a person on the planet who doesn't fall for that though. There's not a person on the planet who doesn't fall for, all right, this is what they're, they're doing or this is where they are. So this is where I need to be. And like, people will be looking at you and looking

at your size and your strength and being like, oh, I need to get to where to where Sam is rather than actually embracing and enjoying their own journey, which even you can fall into, they can fall into, anyone can fall into it. Massively. I think that, I think that's the, that's the, that's the perspective of having a coach because it's a coach that can actually talk you through your own thoughts and be like, okay, let's actually break that down. You're actually in a pretty good place where you are. Oh, massively. The amount of times someone's been like, oh, mate, like, oh, you know, I had that, I had that 200 kilo deadlift for like five and I only got four. And I'll just, I won't reply to that message. I'll scroll up like three weeks. And I'll be like,

you remember when you pulled 200 for the first time and you were just buzzing? And now you've called it for four and you're telling me it was a bad session like do you want to have a little bit of a word here or am i going to need to call yeah yeah like we we we have a we have a negativity bias don't we yeah and it's yeah and it's it's amazing how quickly you can kind of reframe it and go oh shit i pulled it for four like that's 800 kilos in like 20 seconds holy fuck i'm strong as opposed to like oh i didn't get fine like it's just it's phenomenal how quickly the brain turns to negative but actually all you should be doing is sat filling, like just filling it with positive violence, which is pretty much what I've rabbed about enjoying what you're doing

and just chasing your side quest because you'll just feel so satisfied all the time. Yeah. And I think essentially that is coaching. And speaking about coaching, so the last question I'm just going to ask you is like if someone wanted to inquire into your coaching services or just wanted to even ask a couple of questions about their own training, maybe about their form. I know you do forum videos and stuff like that as well, don't you? Just tell the listeners a bit about where they can kind of find it or or go to ask you a question. So all my socials, everything, Facebook, YouTube, Insta, TikTok is Sam Grover PT. And yeah, as you just said, there's a link on the Instagram bio to upload and book some free form reviews. It's the side of coaching

I really like because I like getting people lifting heavy and properly. So it doesn't cost you just jump on a call and we'll just chat through what pretty much whatever video you've got of say deadlifts or whatever and make them feel a bit better. Deadly. And we'll leave all the info on the show notes anyway. Sam, thank you very much for it today. I appreciate your time and I'll continue to watch a lift heavy shit and get inspired from us. So I appreciate you, mate. Thank you for having me, mate.

Always, always appreciated. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this, make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.