Latest / The PCR Sports Show / The PCR Sports Show - Friday 19th September 2025 - The Strongman special with Aaron Throne and Alan O'Connor.

Transcript

The PCR Sports Show - Friday 19th September 2025 - The Strongman special with Aaron Throne and Alan O'Connor. · The PCR Sports Show

0:00
Well, good evening and welcome to another edition of PCR
0:04
Sports, the start of your sporting weekend.
0:08
Tonight we've got a real heavyweight show for you.
0:11
Tonight we've got a couple of people who can lift more than
0:15
most of us can imagine, strongman, competitor, local
0:20
powerhouse and proud Peter Borian, Aaron Throne.
0:23
And we've got his coach Alan Connor as well, who also is a
0:28
strongman and compete. So loads of stuff to talk to
0:32
them about tonight. And starting off with a bit of
0:35
Metallica in this show, which was a real treat for everyone.
0:38
And that's that's what Alan gets psyched up to before he's going
0:42
to compete in the head in the headphones.
0:45
Alan chose that song, which was better than his other choice.
0:48
He was told to play some Spice Girls, but I know we talked him
0:52
out of that one. But as always, we'll start off
0:54
with the headlines. And this week, it's Nilesh.
0:57
Thank you very much Nigel and we'll start off with some ice
1:00
hockey this evening and summer. Signing Dylan Lawrence scored
1:04
twice as Peterborough Phantom started the National League Cup
1:07
season with a terrific 4 three win over Leeds nights at Planet
1:10
Ice on Sunday. It was a fine all round display
1:13
from the City side who showed off their attacking prowess in a
1:16
four goal first period before defending doggedly after the
1:21
visitors had fought back to four three not long after the match
1:24
midway point. Phantoms have an early season
1:27
reunion with their long serving coach Slava Kulikov tonight when
1:32
visiting the Sheffield Steel Dogs in a 7:30 PM face off
1:36
before a Saturday home game with Telford Tigers in a 7:00 PM face
1:41
off. Telford also beat Leeds over the
1:43
weekend. Telford and Sheffield have won
1:45
their opening two matches in women's football.
1:49
Local women's teams have been handed plum home draws in the
1:53
qualifying round of the FA Cup Stand ground.
1:56
Cardia Sports and Spalding United will both host National
2:00
League opposition in Worcester City and Leaf Field Athletic
2:04
respectively on Sunday October the 5th.
2:07
Posh enter the FA Cup at this stage and will play divisional
2:10
rivals Notts County at Pyms Park, Netherton United have been
2:15
given a kinder draw as they will entertain Dronfield Town at the
2:19
Grange. The teams both play at East
2:21
Midlands Division One level and Peterborough United Women will
2:26
take a break from their league programme this Sunday where they
2:30
will be taking on Tier 3 Rail Bedford in the FAWNL Cup.
2:35
Having made it 5 league wins from 5 with A62 win at Worcester
2:40
City last weekend, Jake Poolside will be looking to carry over
2:44
their good form and finish the group phase strongly.
2:49
In field hockey, The men's City of Peterborough hockey club
2:52
returned to National League hockey in style with A42
2:56
Midlands Conference win in Banbury on Sunday.
3:00
City were relegated from the upper echelons at the end of the
3:03
2324 campaign but bounced back at the first attempt after
3:07
running away with the East Premier Division title last
3:11
season. With the rising standard,
3:13
players who had left the club came back and two of them, Joe
3:17
Finding and Matt Goodley, were responsible for three of the
3:20
four City goals in a competitive clash at the North Oxfordshire
3:24
Academy. City host St.
3:26
Albans at Bretton Gate on Sunday in a 2:00 PM push back.
3:30
The City of Peterborough Ladies side were also relegated at the
3:34
end of last season and they opened their East Division One
3:37
season with A22 draw at Norwich City.
3:40
The home side scored first from the penalty spot, but goals from
3:44
Lily Craven and Hannah Brown saw City in front by the break and
3:48
they held the lead until a penalty corner equaliser 3
3:51
minutes from time. The Ladies are at home to
3:54
Cambridge City on Saturday in a 1:00 PM push back in some para
4:01
athletics news and Peterborough and Neen Valley ACS, Lydia
4:05
Church is off to India to compete in the World Para
4:08
Athletics Championship in New Delhi.
4:10
The tournament stretches from September the 27th to the 5th of
4:14
October with Church competing in the F12 shot put on Sunday,
4:19
October the 4th. The visually impaired athlete
4:23
has a fine pedigree in international competition and
4:27
picked up a silver medal in the 2021 European Para
4:31
Championships. Her best finish in the World
4:34
Championship was fourth place in 2023.
4:38
Church missed a large portion of the 24 season due to injury but
4:42
has been back to her best this year.
4:45
She threw 12 metres 67 centimetres at Loughborough in
4:49
June, which was just three centimetres down on her 2022
4:53
personal best. It's also further than she has
4:55
thrown in any of the other major championships to date.
5:01
Peterborough Sports News and the National League North Side for
5:06
It's just eight games old, but a new look side is being hastily
5:10
assembled by recently appointed Phil Brown.
5:13
Jez Davis, Malik Cadogan and Richard Fake arrived in time in
5:19
an abandoned basement battle at Southport last weekend which was
5:23
the second outing for the other newcomer Marcel Oakley, or could
5:28
be in action on Saturday when Sports travel to Harborough Town
5:31
in an awkward looking third round qualifying FA Cup tie.
5:36
Sports beat National League Syth Hornchurch in the previous
5:40
round, which was Browns first match in charge.
5:44
His second match at Southport last weekend lasted just 63
5:48
minutes before it was abandoned because of a waterlogged pitch
5:52
caused by persistent heavy rain. Sports trail 21 at the time
5:55
after conceding 2 first half goals, including one in the
5:59
first minute. The match will now be replayed
6:02
in full on a date to be rearranged to be arranged.
6:06
Sorry, two more FA Cup wins. We'll see sports reach the first
6:11
round proper for the first time in the clubs history, but
6:14
Harborough are unbeaten it leaders of the Southern Premier
6:18
Division Central one level below the City side and are our side
6:23
with considerable financial muscle.
6:26
We'll finish with a little bit of rugby.
6:28
Borough felt they were unlucky 2924 losers in their top of the
6:32
table clash in Regional 2 Midlands E against title
6:35
favourites Bedford Athletic at Fengate.
6:38
The City side were peeved by refereeing decisions that went
6:41
in favour of their visitors in a physical and absorbing contest.
6:47
Burrough director of rugby Shane Manning commented.
6:50
I'm really proud of the effort and heart the lads showed.
6:53
I thought we had done enough to win the game but it wasn't meant
6:55
to be. We had a dominant scrum and more
6:58
but didn't get a lot from the referee who also refused to show
7:01
yellow cards for repeat offences when two weeks previously he had
7:06
showed 5 yellow cards in one of our games.
7:09
It was really frustrating as the guys work so hard.
7:13
Borough are without a league fixture this weekend and those
7:17
are your sporting headlines this week Nigel.
7:20
Thank you very much. Loads and loads going on as
7:23
usual and Posh at home tomorrow against Lincoln.
7:26
They are yeah, posh on the back of two good performances and two
7:30
good wins. Much needed as they've had a a
7:33
difficult start to the season. But yeah, beating Wickham 21 at
7:36
home and then a little bit back to the ball against Plymouth
7:39
last weekend but coming away with A1 nil win.
7:42
Fabulous and sports, as you mentioned there, away to Harbour
7:46
Town in the FA Cup, so lots of good football to look forward to
7:49
tomorrow. We're going to pop off for a
7:51
break and then we're back with the heavyweight stuff for this
7:55
evening. Aaron Throne and Alan O'Connor,
7:59
both strong men in Pittsburgh. PCRFM If your house has got too
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You're listening to PCR sports. Welcome back then, to this
10:50
week's PCR Sports. If you can't stay for the whole
10:53
show, don't worry, we will have an opportunity or you will have
10:57
an opportunity to listen again. We'll put that out on our
11:00
socials this evening. The link to that.
11:04
Please do so and please do because it's going to be a great
11:07
show tonight we've got Aaron Throne and Alan O'Connor.
11:11
Welcome guys. Thank you.
11:16
It's great to see you and this is, this is all new for me.
11:18
I've not been in the presence of of two strong men before.
11:24
So this is going to be really, really, really exciting.
11:28
Let's start, let's rewind, let's start right from the beginning.
11:32
How, how did your journey begin there?
11:34
We'll bring you in first, Aaron there.
11:35
There's obviously loads of young boys and girls who want to be
11:38
footballers and racing drivers and stuff like that.
11:41
But so did you wake up 1 morning and think, I want to be a strong
11:44
man? I was initially a rugby player
11:46
and I felt a lot out of love for the game and most of my weekends
11:52
were taken up so I had a void to fill.
11:55
For one of my birthdays my sister bought me 20 vouchers to
11:58
go to a local gym in in Werrington called Elevate.
12:02
I enjoyed it but I noticed I was quite good on the on the strong
12:06
element of it of lifting quite heavy.
12:08
So I decided to enter a local competition in Peterborough
12:13
beginners level. I done really well.
12:16
I came second for OK, done a ticked off a list, carry on.
12:23
Then about 3 weeks later I was Stamford and I was meeting up
12:28
with my wife. Dad would be at lunch and I
12:29
bumped into a certain Alan O'Connell who watched me during
12:33
the day and said you've done really well there son, see me in
12:37
about four weeks time and we'll see where we can go from this.
12:41
Then Alan opened up a local gym, a strongman dedicated gym
12:45
invited me to come along, and nearly two years into it, I've
12:49
not looked back since. Amazing.
12:51
So let let's bring you in Alan. So you, you coach Aaron and and
12:56
you're also a professional coach.
12:58
You, you coach other people as well.
13:00
So did that all start from that gym then?
13:03
No, no, no. So the gym's been open now about
13:05
two years. I've been in the game for
13:08
probably around 25 plus years, 30 years.
13:12
I was originally just a general personal trainer, but then I
13:15
took it further, sort of strength and conditioning,
13:17
coaching, etcetera, etcetera. But I was also a rugby player
13:21
and sort of kind of watched strongman all my life as
13:25
everyone did every Christmas, you know, Jeff Capes, etcetera.
13:28
But I retired from rugby and it was similar to most guys like
13:32
Aaron and myself. Like what do I do now?
13:34
What do people do? I don't understand, you know,
13:37
without the rugby life, when the raw stops, I think they call it.
13:40
And yeah, a friend of mine in the gym said why don't you try
13:43
this? You know, you're pretty strong,
13:44
you've been training a long time.
13:46
I love the sport anyway, so I gave it a go and again, never
13:50
looked back. Same as Aaron, but the coaching
13:52
side of things. Yeah, I've always done that in
13:54
other gyms. I've always done it on the side.
13:56
I did have normal jobs, but now I I literally do this full time
14:00
and I have done for years and years and years to, you know,
14:03
I've worked for myself and I'm longer than I can remember.
14:06
But the best thing I ever did was open the gym because the gym
14:09
has given the likes of Aaron and other guys that are girls that
14:12
have come along. We've actually got nearly a 5050
14:14
membership of male and female. We've got age group from 14 up
14:19
to 828282. Yeah, absolute war hero is but
14:25
the stronger side of it. I've I've done for the last 8
14:29
1/2 years. I've been competing and I've
14:32
kind of, if you like, work my way through the ranks and got
14:35
myself up to quite a high amateur level, should we say,
14:39
not pro, but like an amateur level, which is called official
14:42
strongman game. So the OSG level it's called.
14:46
And I've competed in England's, Britain's, Europe's.
14:49
I've qualified twice now for Worlds, but I need sponsorship
14:53
to get out there because it's in America so.
14:55
That's that's not cheap. That's not cheap.
14:57
So you mentioned it's really interesting that you buy from a
14:59
rugby background. And you also mentioned Jeff
15:03
Capes there. Lewis and Lawson Capes are
15:05
friends of the show. And of course Lewis's dad, Jeff
15:10
Capes famously went from put in the shop to twice being crowned.
15:14
I think world's strongest man. I I, I was naturally thinking
15:18
that it was that athletics background, but you're going to
15:21
tell me a lot of rugby players become stronger than they.
15:23
Do yeah. And we have a local, we have a
15:25
guy by Terry Hollins, he's an ex World's Strongest Man competitor
15:29
and he's an ex rugby player as well.
15:30
Quite a lot of guys are because it transfers the skill of good
15:34
engine, good strength, good endurance, the mindset of a
15:37
competitive athlete, sportsmanship, etcetera that you
15:40
can take into strongman. Strongman isn't just about
15:43
lifting weights. It is a mindset, it's an
15:44
attitude and it's transferred for both of us.
15:47
Both me and Aaron are very good engines.
15:49
We're both very good at sort of moving events.
15:51
We're very strong with it as well.
15:53
There's a saying, it was said to me a long time ago, there's no
15:55
good being able to bench press a cow if you can't outrun it.
15:57
Yeah. So it it's kind of the the
16:01
transferable skills between rugby and strongman are are
16:03
very, very good. OK, OK.
16:05
And, and tell us maybe bring you back in Aaron, tell us is where
16:11
does Peterborough rank on strongman map?
16:14
Is is is it a a hive of activity?
16:17
No, not really. It's, it's, it's a, it's a very
16:19
niche sport. Ours is, as we said, it takes a
16:22
lot of dedication. It's not a a sport.
16:25
You can just go into a commercial gym and lift a
16:28
heavyweight for an hour, looking at your phone for 10 minutes and
16:32
then decide you've done for the day.
16:33
It takes hours of hours of training.
16:37
It takes a lot of most of your life to be fair as a hobby.
16:41
And as I said, it's a very you've got to be dedicated.
16:44
You, you can't just, you can't just go on a whim because you've
16:48
got so many different athletes from all around the country
16:52
competing in like Allen's compete at high levels.
16:55
Some of these athletes are training probably 4 to 5 hours a
16:58
day in a gym, probably 5 to 6 * a week.
17:01
Some of these top athletes even sudden, even professional strong
17:04
men twice a day and the sport is still fairly not professional.
17:08
A lot of these world champions have got full time jobs.
17:12
So it's a sport similar to what you guys do on the radio where
17:16
you've got to have a passion for it.
17:18
If you don't have a passion for it, you don't get well in this
17:20
game. And you can't just turn up on
17:21
Dave, think you're going to be the strongest person because
17:24
you're only, you're only found bottom of the tree thinking
17:27
what's happened. It's but yes, it's changed my
17:30
life effectively. I, I, I didn't really have
17:33
confidence in myself most of my life in the sense of who I am.
17:38
I noticed I was actually good at lifting heavy.
17:41
And now with Adam giving me direction, my confidence has
17:45
gone through the roof and a lot of support's getting into it.
17:49
And yeah, I can't thank him enough.
17:50
And hopefully, well actually I'm not saying hopefully it will
17:53
happen, I will be dead lifting 300 kilos this year.
17:58
But back to your question, hopefully by doing this,
18:02
speaking like it is, we can bring the sport bigger and
18:05
better in Peterborough. Yeah, exactly.
18:07
And, and just thinking back to your, your journey to, to this
18:12
point, if you like, was there one moment where you thought,
18:16
you know, I'm not just strong, I'm, I'm strong, man, strong,
18:18
you know, was there one moment that really, really made you
18:21
think you could do this? I think I always think back of
18:24
it. It's my very, I've not done many
18:25
competitions. I don't know about 5, but it's
18:27
my very first competition and we had uneven numbers.
18:31
So I was the very last person to go up and it was, it was versus
18:35
each other, but I was by myself because of uneven numbers.
18:39
So I went in and I'm very nervous and I'll be very, pretty
18:42
honest. I completely smashed the event.
18:46
And then I thought here, you know what, I can make a good go
18:48
at this. And also I had a very Beady Eye
18:51
in the background that I didn't realise at the time, Mr. Allen,
18:55
who was actually watching me, actually encouraging me and
18:58
giving me advice for the day and for the day going on.
19:02
I, I just fell in love with it. It was like, it was almost like
19:06
addiction, if you know what I mean.
19:07
It was almost like the thrill of it.
19:09
And I feel like with this sport, if you don't have the passion
19:14
and I'll keep harping on, but it is very a passionate sport, you
19:17
can't, you can't go into a lift thinking, oh it's just heavy.
19:21
You've got to go with it all, all you've got.
19:24
And the thrill when you get it is indescribable, to be honest
19:28
with you. There's a, there's a real unity
19:29
here, isn't there? There's a real community feel to
19:32
this in terms of the togetherness.
19:34
You know, you, you're supporting each other.
19:37
It's the inference I'm getting. You know, there's nothing over
19:39
here that oh, you know, I want to be better than him.
19:42
I want him to do well because that'll help me and help others
19:45
as well. No, completely agree with you.
19:47
It is our our community, our gym is is a second family.
19:52
It is we are very dysfunctional. We have got some weird and wacky
19:56
characters, me yourself included, but it's just.
20:00
It's a where me and Alan, when we, I don't know how Alan would
20:04
agree, but we being a rugby background, it was almost a team
20:08
effort and we've always had the team effort mentality.
20:12
So when we we're not just there for ourselves, we're there for
20:15
each other. So when we when we see people
20:18
struggle and lift, we're there to pick them up and we're there
20:20
to cheer them on when they get the lift.
20:23
And to be fair, what Alan's built is indescribable.
20:27
It's. Just just just while we're on
20:29
that, Alan, what's your memories of that day watching Aaron
20:33
compete? Oh, he was awful.
20:35
He was terrible. He was terrible to what he
20:38
needed a coach and how long I came.
20:42
But you saw potential. Yeah, yeah, I saw potential.
20:44
No, I did, of course. No, he was fantastic.
20:46
I'll go. He Aaron's a great athlete.
20:48
He's a very coachable athlete. Not everyone is coachable.
20:51
But no, the memories of that day was watching him try his his his
20:56
hand and a sport that is very niche and it's a very technical
20:59
sport, albeit doesn't it doesn't look it.
21:02
One thing I was going to add to what Aaron was saying though,
21:05
about community and what he was on about and stuff is strongman
21:08
is a very individual sport. We come from a team game
21:10
background where you've got 1518 thirty guys and you've got your
21:13
coaches and all your bits and pieces.
21:15
But it's a team game. So you can actually, you can
21:18
drag your feet a little bit and you can be picked up.
21:20
But in strongman, it's an individual sport.
21:22
You stand in an arena on your own, you stand on a platform on
21:24
your own. And I always say this, it's an
21:26
individual sport made possible by the people you've got wrap
21:28
around you. So I've got a coach, I've got a
21:30
mentor, I've got my misses, I've got this lot, you know, And
21:34
these are all mental, you know? The back of this teacher.
21:37
It does say we are not normal. We we couldn't all leave my gym
21:41
and go down to pure gym or one of the local commercial gyms.
21:43
We couldn't because it's, it's a different mindset.
21:46
It's a different attitude. I've never been in a sport and
21:49
I've played sport all my life where the I've, I've competed at
21:53
European level and the guys against you're against are
21:56
literally willing you to make that lift.
21:59
They want you to win. They want to beat you, but they
22:02
want you to win. It's a really weird thing for a
22:04
lot of people to get around their head around, you know,
22:06
and, and I think that's what we've created in our gym.
22:09
You know, we've got a small niche group of guys and girls of
22:14
all different ages and abilities and it's fantastic to see.
22:16
I'm mega proud of. Amazing, amazing.
22:19
Well, unfortunately we've we've got to get this fascinating
22:21
stuff, but we've got to take a break unfortunately.
22:23
But we will be back soon with Aaron and Alan and we'll talk a
22:28
bit more about that training and what they get up to, what their
22:31
life looks like it during the week right back after this.
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Join me, Les Wheeler, every Friday between 7:00 and 9:00 PM.
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and PCR 103.2 FM. Welcome back then to Part 2 of
26:01
the show. We've got Aaron Throne and Alan
26:04
O'Connor here. They're both strong men from
26:06
Peterborough. This is PCR sports.
26:10
We're on every Friday from 6:00 till seven.
26:13
You can get us on one O 3.2 in great Peterborough that's on FM,
26:18
we're on the smart speaker, we're on Crystal clear DAB and
26:22
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26:30
on a Friday. So Alan, we'll bring you back
26:33
in. Now I want to talk a little bit
26:36
about training and what how much training and what you physically
26:40
have to do. So give us a peek into your
26:42
week. What does that week look like
26:44
for Aaron? For Aaron I, So what I do with
26:48
all of my clients, I sort of sit them down and we find a goal.
26:51
We find out what competitions they've got, what generally what
26:54
they need, specifics. And then I sit down and I put
26:57
together like a bespoke training plan for him.
27:00
And it will depend, it will be in phases.
27:03
It will depend on how long we've got until the next competition
27:05
and where we're at. And I think we spoke off about
27:08
offseason. When he's got a competition on,
27:10
we'll plan it in what's called blocks.
27:12
So the blocks will be a strength phase, then we'll have a
27:17
conditioning phase, then we'll put the events together and then
27:19
we'll kind of mix them all together and so we'll bring them
27:21
all to us. So when we get nearer the
27:22
competition, he'll be kind of starting to peak in his
27:26
strength. So he won't want to peak early
27:27
doors, he'll want to peak when he hits the competition.
27:30
And obviously when I mean peak, he mean he hits his peak
27:32
strength, peak condition, his mindset, everything there will
27:35
be at its absolute optimum by the time he hits the comp.
27:39
So it's weaker look like 4 to 5 sessions a week.
27:42
Aaron does 5 at the moment, but there are times where you've had
27:44
to drop it to four because the intensity, because it does get
27:47
quite, quite hard on the body and the mind, it can hit the
27:50
mind quite hard as well because you, you will get tired and you
27:56
will get times where you won't be hitting things, you won't be
27:58
hitting numbers because we all have jobs.
28:00
So you know, that does affect your performance.
28:03
Home life, outside life does affect it.
28:06
And yeah, you know, we check in every week.
28:08
He's at the gym, we talk about it, we sort of progress it.
28:11
And I just generally behind the scenes, just create a map if you
28:16
like, for him to get to his competition in the best possible
28:19
shape he can. So it's, it's more to it than
28:22
just lifting stuff, lifting after stones and logs, Yeah.
28:26
And what about the cardio stuff? Is is there any of that involved
28:29
or or is it mostly? Strength, cardio, OK, so cardio,
28:34
the people are listening and they know me.
28:36
They're going to know what I'm about to say, so I won't go into
28:37
the long winded. Cardio doesn't mean a thing,
28:40
it's a word. Cardio.
28:41
What I mean by that you're meaning about actual fitness.
28:44
So fitness isn't the ability to do something, it's the
28:47
capability to recover and do it again.
28:49
That's fitness. So the way that we do our
28:51
cardio, as we call it, is conditioning is we'll do stuff
28:55
that will get us the ability to sort of pick heavy things up,
28:59
carry and run with it, pick heavy things on our shoulders,
29:01
carry and run with it, be able to go for a minute.
29:05
Dead lifting, for example, is very, very, very difficult.
29:08
So we need to condition ourselves to be able to do that.
29:10
So we'll have many different ways of doing it.
29:12
And they're not they're not rocket science.
29:13
They've been around forever. You know, an E mom, which is
29:16
every minute on the minute exercise.
29:18
You know, we've all done it. There's an AMRAP every as many
29:21
reps, as many reps as possible. So all these testing things that
29:25
we do in the gym, we're actually testing our body to the limits
29:28
to allow it to then compete for. We'll do like a 1516 week prep
29:34
for a competition that is 5 minutes work.
29:37
Well. And that's when you look at it
29:39
like that as an athlete, it's kind of like, but then you look
29:42
at Usain Bolt, he trains for four years and he and he runs
29:45
for 9 seconds. So it's all worth it in the end.
29:48
And I, I call it, I've got a lot of things like this because
29:51
we've been around a long time, but I call it like, we do all of
29:53
this for small moments of greatness.
29:54
And it might be a win, it might be a Rep, it might be finishing
29:57
something, it could be anything. But you'll just come away from
30:00
that competition with that little small moment of greatness
30:02
and you'll feel amazing and it'll make you go back for more.
30:05
So, so that's the that's the build up to competition.
30:08
Then Aaron will bring you back in here.
30:10
What about the recovery? How, how long does it take you
30:12
to recover from an event? Are you straight back in the gym
30:15
or? Well, I've I've got a bit of a
30:18
nickname in the gym. It's called Wolverine because
30:21
they can't believe how will recover.
30:23
How long will it take to recover?
30:24
Which is a matter of hours. But yeah, it does take a time
30:28
for more. For me it's more mental,
30:31
especially when you've come into the gym and like Alice said,
30:34
you've missed that Rep or you've not picked the sandbag up or
30:37
you've you've you've missed the heavy lift.
30:41
So for me it's more mental. Body can recover as but your
30:45
brain needs to cover 1st and then it's a sport where it's
30:49
unforgiving. You have to keep pushing
30:51
through. There's not one single strong
30:54
man out there. I can actually say it's 100%.
30:57
We're all carrying niggles. You just got to go through it.
31:01
Why I try to do tender recovery is a lot of I've got just eating
31:06
well, stretching well. And it sounds a silly thing, but
31:12
a lot of injuries I found when I've been into commercial gyms
31:16
is, which Alan's actually point out to me is when you lift
31:18
incorrectly and you don't think do things right, you tend to
31:22
injure yourself more by not doing it right or you going for
31:26
a really heavy lift when you're not ready.
31:28
So Alan, Alan coaches me in a block that he knows potential
31:33
failure. But what we'll tend to do if we
31:35
know if we've missed a certain exercise, we'll go right, we'll
31:38
review it. It might be the case of the
31:40
weight might be too much, or it might be I'm doing too many reps
31:43
And we tailor around that to stop the high injury
31:47
possibility. And it's similar to what
31:49
everyone else is an RG and he tailors everybody for that
31:52
because everyone's got different recovery levels.
31:55
Some people like myself, train five times a week, some maybe
31:58
only time times, three times. But it's all about tailored to
32:01
what you can do and where you can push yourself.
32:04
Sure. And we'll we'll come on to
32:06
injuries in in just a minute because that's obviously a big
32:09
part of your sport. But we touched on this just
32:12
slightly there. How much of this is strength and
32:15
how much is is technique? Yeah, that's the age-old
32:20
question with this sport. Yes, incorrectly.
32:24
And incorrectly, that's the way. No, I, I found a lot with this
32:28
sport when I was doing it by myself, I was doing it wrong.
32:33
I was relying a lot more on my actual strength than relying on
32:38
proper technique. Alan's now guided me in my
32:41
proper technique. And I've looked back and I've
32:42
looked back at some of my past videos and I've gone.
32:46
What were you doing there, Aaron?
32:48
He's surprised he never got injured.
32:50
But I would say I really think with this sport, really more
32:56
than technique, more than it is, it's a mental thing.
32:58
This sport is unforgiven. Some of the stuff we have to do,
33:02
we have to carry things on our back.
33:04
That could weigh up anything to 2:50 to three, 5300 kilos dead
33:09
lifting, over 200 kilos, benching, carrying heavy
33:14
sandbags. That could be up to about 1:20
33:17
to even 140. If your brains not ready for it,
33:21
it's it's not going to do much. So doesn't matter how much
33:24
technique and how much strength you have, if you've not mentally
33:26
prepared for it and you're willing to do it, you're not
33:29
going to, you're not going to do it.
33:31
So let's let's talk a little bit about injuries then.
33:35
And I'm going to bring you back in here, Alan, because off a
33:39
lot. Well, yeah, off air.
33:41
You were telling us about some pretty horrific injuries that
33:44
you've had. Partially built titanium, yeah,
33:49
no, injuries are a huge part of the sport.
33:50
You can't really get away from that.
33:52
It's like any sport, you know, we've all played rugby, we broke
33:54
things, we've had stitches and bits and pieces.
33:56
Any sport is going to be an injury level with strongman.
34:00
You've got muscles being torn off, you've got muscles just
34:03
tearing slightly. You've got you can't have bones
34:06
breaking, you can dislocate. There's, there's a lot of scary
34:09
stories and scary videos out there, but the reality of it is,
34:12
is your question about the technique and strength is so
34:17
long as you manage the situation, IE you're, you've got
34:21
to have all your, your things in order, your nutrition's in
34:23
order, your training plans in order.
34:25
Your, your mindset, your attitude have got to be, they're
34:27
the two key things. And under those are lots, all
34:29
the other buzzwords, focus, intensity and all that.
34:32
But your mindset and attitude has got to be right.
34:34
You get all those in order, you get to the right gym and you
34:36
train efficiently. Rather than a busy fool.
34:41
You recover well, you sleep well, he says, getting about 5
34:45
hours of sleep a night and working 16 hour days.
34:48
But you as long as you have those in order, the minim, the
34:52
minimizing risk, that's what you're doing.
34:53
You're sort of limiting the possibility of getting an injury
34:56
and that's all you can do in our sport.
34:58
And then when you get an injury, then you have to, you have to
35:01
manage it. Like I said, off.
35:04
I'm currently still recovering off a tricep reattachment.
35:07
It tore off last November. But I've managed to because I've
35:12
done it before and because I'm, what am I, 2627 years old,
35:16
Because I've managed to kind of work my way through a lot of
35:19
injuries in my life. I've known what to do.
35:21
So I've done my own rehab. I've done really, really well.
35:24
I'm nearly a year in and I've done three national
35:26
competitions. So it's that's down to mindset
35:30
and mindset alone because when I did the injury, I sat in A&E
35:33
just to get my referral and I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm
35:37
injured, you know, where is me? I was thinking, right, OK, how
35:40
do I get back? Yeah, I'm going to England in
35:42
June. How do I get back?
35:43
And I will get back. Recovery started then.
35:45
The recovery started the day as soon as I stepped into A&E.
35:48
Yeah, and that injury didn't sound any better the second
35:51
time. You told me that it did the
35:52
first it's. Awful or it's probably my worst.
35:55
I'd say tearing your tricep off is worse than your bicep.
35:58
It's it's an awful. Incredible, incredible.
36:00
OK, we're going to go to another break.
36:02
We've still got some more with Alan and Aaron, and I've not
36:06
tripped up over Alan and Aaron yet.
36:08
I'm going to be. Actually doing very well.
36:11
I've only REST. Yeah, we're not there yet.
36:14
We're not there yet. So we'll be back in after these
36:17
breaks and we're going to talk to the guys a little bit about
36:20
competition and what's coming up.
36:22
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O33O3551285. You're listening to PCR Sports.
39:20
Welcome back to PCR Sports. What a fantastic show this is
39:23
tonight. Really, really enjoying this and
39:25
it's just flying by. So we've got Aaron and Alan in
39:29
here. They are both strong men from
39:31
Peterborough. So Aaron, then talk to me.
39:34
We, we said a little bit about where Alan has competed.
39:39
What about you? We've got that.
39:41
We've spoken about that original event you had.
39:44
What else have you done? Where have you competed?
39:47
I've still I've not competed, I've been mostly local to be
39:51
fair, and I've done quite a few competitions in Peterborough,
39:54
only a few in Saint Ives. I did have a competition up
39:59
north but unfortunately that fell through.
40:01
So next year, what we'll do once we've done my progress of where
40:06
we sit for my offseason, me and Alan will sit and discuss.
40:09
We'll pick out some competitions where we feel like my next step
40:14
will be and where's best suited where I can.
40:17
Hopefully I have a long term goal.
40:19
So I Alan's mentioned before he competes at the OSG level which
40:23
is an aged level. So I'm currently 36, be 37 next
40:27
year now. I look a day over 20 now.
40:31
Very useful sports. I want to compete the same level
40:35
as Alan in England's over 40s. So my long term goal, like I
40:39
said, I've got a very long term goal.
40:41
I want to get to that England and I want to win it and then I
40:45
want to follow the same path as Alan.
40:47
It's very hard in this sort of community at our age for
40:51
especially my age now to compete probably at open category.
40:56
So I'm prepping my body for that journey.
40:59
So the next year will be my step towards OSG over 40s and then
41:05
I'm going to keep building from year from year.
41:06
But the big thing, like I said, we have a local competition.
41:09
We do our gym a deadlift competition.
41:11
It's our first one. Last year went really, really
41:13
well. Last year I only dead lifted 240
41:18
kilos because I failed my third lift.
41:21
Only. Yeah, so this year I'm going for
41:24
the 300. It's my it's my goal.
41:26
It's been my goal since I finished my competition in
41:29
August. That's my pure focus.
41:32
Plus with all the other extras that I was making me do, which
41:35
is killing my body, but my main goal is the 300 and once I hit
41:39
the 300, Sky's the limit for me. And and where you know, where is
41:44
the the end goal for you? Are we going to see you on New
41:47
Year's Day when the rest of us have had too much to eat and
41:50
drink? Well.
41:52
Christmas presents. Yeah, maybe Knowles Christmas
41:55
presents, yeah, being a guest, but now hopefully competing at
41:59
that level is the sport is becoming very popular now I
42:02
found. So hopefully when I'm competing
42:04
at that level, he can be advertised well, like Alan's
42:07
competed and in the NEC he's competed in York, so he's
42:10
becoming a much wider audience. So hopefully when we're there we
42:14
can see hopefully, maybe see me on the telly.
42:16
You never know. Can never say never, can you?
42:20
Let's hope we do. So Alan, finally I want to talk
42:24
to you. I want to bring you back in just
42:26
to talk a little bit about the pathway to the top for a strong
42:30
man. You were saying off air earlier
42:32
on that everybody needs a coach. Is that it?
42:35
Is there a pathway to the top or is it just getting a coach and
42:38
just go for it? I think I actually got a new
42:41
client today and a new member in the gym and she came to me with
42:44
that kind of that kind of question about what she was
42:48
going to do and how she wanted to do it.
42:50
My advice to anybody who wanted to get into this sport is to
42:53
contact somebody like myself. Contact us if the local MP to
42:56
work in contact with the dedicated strength Jim or myself
43:00
through social media platform and find out what it is that
43:06
you're looking to achieve what you're wanting to do.
43:08
Get yourself a coach because you'll waste a lot of time
43:11
thinking you know what you're doing.
43:12
You're possibly you're open yourself up for loads and loads
43:15
of injuries and join a gym like that is like minded for what you
43:19
want to achieve. And if you want to do strongman,
43:21
join a strongman gym. You know, they're great
43:23
communities. They are a lot of gyms say
43:25
they're communities where strongman gyms are very, very
43:28
different. Just get yourself a coach, get
43:31
yourself to a gym, join the gym and then follow and trust your
43:35
coach. You've got to sort of put your
43:36
sort of life in their hands as to what you want to achieve.
43:40
The path that I have taken and sort of if you if you want to
43:43
sort of look at you've got beginner level, novice level,
43:46
intermediate level and then open level.
43:48
You have weight classes. It's quite a long winded thing
43:51
which I won't bore you with on that sort of thing.
43:53
But I sort of went through the novice, intermediate, open level
43:56
and went through that, sort of worked my way up, got stronger
43:58
and stronger, was able to compete at sort of UK novices
44:02
and and all that kind of thing. And then I got an opportunity
44:04
where I could do like a qualifier for England Strongest
44:08
man. And I, I went for it and I got,
44:11
I got down there, I ended up in Gloucester competing at
44:13
England's strongest man in my first attempt and I won it.
44:17
So I actually just thought, well, I'll throw my hat in the
44:19
ring and let's see what's going on.
44:21
But actually doing it, which was probably one of my greatest
44:24
achievements so far. He doesn't mention it very often
44:27
at all. Amazing.
44:30
So we we're fast running out of time here, but I just want to
44:33
give you the opportunity before we do go to mention some
44:37
sponsors you you mentioned getting, you know, needing more
44:40
sponsorship to, to actually progress and go over to America.
44:44
I guess you've got some guys involved now that you can give a
44:46
shout out to. Yeah, we've got Neil McCulloch
44:49
over at Ensure Wise. He sponsors myself and Aaron.
44:53
I've got the Iron Grass clothings, Lovely guy Tommy.
44:57
He sponsors me with my clothing as well.
44:59
I've got my coach, Ryan Naylor over at Maverick Strength.
45:04
He looks after me and he gets me to where I want him to be.
45:06
I gave him the the premise of get me to Europe, get me to
45:09
Worlds and he has. So you know, if I can I just say
45:13
like, if anyone is looking and getting involved with the sport
45:16
and they want to get into sort of the total beginner level,
45:20
don't be frightened. Get in touch with us on social
45:22
media. It's dedicated under score
45:24
strength gym on Instagram, it's beard strong UK at beard strong
45:28
UK is my personal one message any of them and I will get back
45:33
to you. I'll call you that day and then
45:34
come down to the gym and meet us and have a chat and we'll we'll
45:37
take you to wherever you want to go.
45:38
And, and I can, I can endorse that these guys do look a little
45:42
bit scary, but they're great guys.
45:43
Go and talk to them. Oh.
45:45
Yeah of course I do have a one shout out for one of our
45:48
sponsors which is a local, a local farm that fuels me.
45:52
It's called Moor Farm, just a between Forney and Peacock.
45:56
Lovely local local source food, really good CAF as well.
46:00
Have you ever fancy a nice cooked breakfast?
46:03
But also I am a very big advocator.
46:05
I do want to promote my my good friend here, Alan, because in
46:09
fairness, he's guided me to where I am now.
46:12
He's he's taught me where sometimes be like we said, in
46:16
this sport, you do you need help and coaching does help.
46:20
And this sport is quite expensive and what we're doing
46:23
and how we're doing it. So any small gestures where we
46:27
can help me and Alan will be greatly appreciated.
46:31
I just need to mention Liz AKA Betty.
46:34
She's back at the gym. If I didn't, then I'll be a.
46:36
Lot. She's the 4th strongest woman in
46:39
Britain and she's absolutely diamond.
46:40
I couldn't do without her. Brilliant look, guys, you've
46:43
been amazing. It's been a great show.
46:46
We're going to go out we we entered with into the sun man
46:49
and and we're going to we're going to go out with weather
46:52
girls and it's raining men, which is a little bit of a
46:57
difference, but look, thank guys.
46:59
It's been a brilliant show. I can see you're going to become
47:02
friends of the show and I think we'll we'll definitely thank.
47:05
You thank you very much.