[0:01]What's going on? God, you're really um, you're really on me with this thing.
[0:15]Let's go, mate. Not fucking about. Let's go. Where are you from? Uh, I'm from Kent. Like, literally, you just go down till you get to the sea. That's where I live, mate. I live in a town where the average age is about 90. So, it's a nice contrast, like I can go and do mad stuff and then come back home and it's just quiet and you can just get on with your life, and I like it. How old are your kids? Uh, 9 and 4, almost 5. Boys? Two boys, yeah. Lovely stuff. Absolutely monsters, mate. Yeah, I know. They're genetically gifted. Are they? They've hit the lottery. They've hit the lottery. Do you know what I mean? They're lucky. They know how lucky they are, basically. Uh, Also, my wife is also pretty genetically good. So I think they've they've hit the lottery. Do you know what I mean?
[0:51]Are they actually? So so so so. Take me through the 9-year-old. It's just a monster, mate. He's just an athletic. Just yeah, just a big boy. Uh no, average average size, but he's he's pretty jacked, but he just knows he's just it's only a matter of time. Do you know what I mean? Until he realizes his physical potential. You've said before that you um your physicality when you were younger was um kind of a cross to bear almost. Obviously great in being, you know, athletic, but um you said that you were more imposing than your peers. I got into I think my uncle gave me a set of like adjustable dumbbells when I was about 14, 13. So I just started just aimlessly doing bicep curls in my bedroom and stuff like a little weirdo. Um so I was above average in terms of like muscularity and I think I think I was genetically predisposed to being more muscular. And then obviously when you couple that with actually doing training, that obviously helped. Um and I think I always wanted to be like I remember as a kid like I loved like WWE wrestling, right? So like The Rock was like my hero as a kid. Do you know what I mean? I used to love like So I think I think it's pretty common for like young boys, right? You want to be You watch like action movies and stuff and you want to be a massive just jacked sick guy. And now I am. So that's all set. So So you you've always been into bodybuilding? Uh, I I think I I mean I You're like an Arnold's fan. Arnold Schwarzenegger. So so bodybuilding, technically, bodybuilding is like training in the pursuit of competing as a bodybuilder. You're trying to get bigger and then potentially have the aspiration to compete. I've never had any interest in competing as a bodybuilder. So as a even though I've trained as a bodybuilder at times, I've always been more focused on like function, I think. Like, whether that's like strength or speed or now with Gladiators, like, you know, doing the specific games. It's more kind of, because for me, bodybuilding is like just boring, mate. It's like there's there's very unless you are like I said unless you're competing and you have that objective outcome. If you're just going to the gym to look good, I just gets boring. Do you know what I mean? It's very it's very vague and subjective, and it's like I need I need more than that. I need a more I need a I need a more tangible outcome. I need like I want to lift this much weight. I want to be really good at this game on this day or I want to win this competition on. I need I need more. Do you know what I mean? I need that kind of outcome. Are you bored of everyone telling you how you need some complex daily routine that starts at 4:00 AM and somehow you're supposed to also find time for your job, family and friends? I love pushing myself, but sometimes you just need to fuel yourself for the day without wasting any time so you can achieve your goals. 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That's like an extra shot of espresso without needing the espresso, and it is espresso not expresso. So if you're serious about recovery, or you just want to wake up feeling like a better version of yourself every single day, the Pod 5 is worth checking out. Head to eightsleep.com/untapped and use code UNTAPPED for up to 400 pounds off the Pod 5 Ultra. What a deal. So what does a typical kind of training week look like to you? Uh, it varies on the time of the year. So when I get near So we film the Gladiators. The TV shows filmed in the summer, right? So when it gets to kind of March time, I'll go into my more Gladiators specific training. So at that point, I'm training like twice a day, six days a week. And there there is an element of having to look and appear. Like, you want to look big, bulky. Yeah. You want to look clean and there there must be diet elements to it. Like, it's a bit of a conundrum, right? Because the priority is being good at the games. If you're bad at the games, you're a bad Gladiator, right? But you need to look good. Do you know what I mean? There's no good being good at the games but looking like a beanbag. You need to you need to look good, right? So it's combining those two things. And they don't go hand in hand. Do you know what I mean? Like, doing doing some chest flies doesn't make you a better Gladiator, but you need that shit to look good. Do you know what I mean? So it's getting that balance between doing enough hypertrophy style training to look good, but whilst still be having enough time to do all of your functional stuff and not that, you know, the the the hypertrophy training not carrying over and impacting your functional style training. So it is a bit of a balance. Can you run? Uh yeah. I'm I'm more of a sprinter. I'm not like a obviously I was a triple jumper to the years. That's very reliant on speed. So I'm quick, uh but I'm not a I'm not an endurance guy. Endurance is not my forte. I'm very much a short burst kind of guy. And even more so that I'm, you know, I'm heavier than when I was a triple jumper. I was kind of, you know, 80 kg. I'm now like closer to 100. So I'm not a Yeah. I might I I'm good I'm quick over 20 m. Beyond that, it starts to get ugly. Take me through some of the more intense kind of calorie challenges that you've done. You you've consumed 25,000 calories in a day before. How do you even go about doing that? Uh, that's a pretty horrible 20 hours. Um, this is a so these are a long time ago. So basically, going back to my formative YouTube years, I had like three, four, five years of just grafting making content. Uh, and then the the thing I said about there understanding what, you know, what's going to perform well. We kind of at that point, calorie challenges were like that was a thing. In the fitness scene on YouTube, it was like 10,000 calorie challenge, 15,000 calories. So I was like, well, I'm going to make one of those. So I made a 10,000 calorie challenge and the video did was like my best performance video of all time. It got like, you know, not sorry. At that point, it was like massively exceeding anything else I'd ever done before. But then what you soon realize is that's not sustainable content, right? I made those videos because I knew they were going to perform well, and they did, and they grew my channel, but you get guys that that is all their content. It's just them doing calorie challenges, you know, like crazy, like you said, hotdog eating or eating the world's biggest breakfast. Like, you're going to kill yourself doing that. Do you know what I mean? Doing that stuff long-term is going to have serious like health repercussions. And obviously that's a very unhealthy way of eating, but it's it's impressive nonetheless. To get that in and that's why the content does well. Um, have you come across that uh Japanese e-eater called Kobayashi? Do you know who that is? I think I I think I know what you mean, yeah. He's absolutely ripped, right? Like like he he is in like he he kind of looks like you, I think. He looks a bit smaller. He's got like an eight-pack with with I I'd say he maybe has 5% body fat, 6% body fat, walks around like that. Like just huge shoulders, like dead hangs. Like in the gym all the time, you know. Uh Have you YouTube'd his eating challenges?
[8:35]And by the way, if if you're listening to this, like, have a look, it's the most impressive thing. He takes on a bear at one point, right? In a hotdog eating contest. He eats like a 100 hotdogs. He scoffs them down. He does this he he does this um how many pints of chocolate milk he can drink in like a certain amount of time. And he has like he has like 20 pints of chocolate milk. Yeah. It's it's just like I don't I don't really understand like how it's possible. So that's that's I know what you mean and like that's it's almost a misconception. So you'll if you actually look, most of the top competitive eaters are very small. Like, diminutive slim people, right? Because ironically, being huge, like if you've got a huge amount of body fat, that compresses your stomach. You haven't got space. Do you know what I mean? So, most of the best competitive eaters, I know, is a girl Leah Shchetkova. She's like a small, you know, small girl. She can eat a ridiculous like I've never seen someone consume food so quickly. It's not about your size. What what they what those guys do is, for start, so let's say they do that eating challenge once every two weeks. The other the other 13 days, they're eating super clean, low-calorie diet, right? Because obviously you need to otherwise you'd be 30 stone, right? They also they train their stomach capacity. So those guys will drink like huge amounts of water in the run up to literally stretch their stomach. They'll also do things like uh I know this is guy another guy, Eric the Electric. He told me that back in the day, he used to again, he's another competitive eater. Ridiculous capacity to eat food. Eric the Electric. He used to go to like all you can eat buffets, but just eat vegetables. So he'd eat like, you know, the volume of vegetables, right? Just huge amounts of vegetables. Again, it's not many calories. You're not going to gain fat from that, but you just your your stomach capacity just becomes ridiculous.
[10:20]So these guys, they're in good shape because you don't want visceral fat around your organs, because that's that that reduces your ability to to stretch your stomach. So these guys are in good shape, but then when they go and do these challenges, like they're just yeah, you kind of like you said, you can't you're thinking, how hang on, how is that possible based on the size of the guy? But you've got to bear in mind, they're doing this thing once every so often. It's not a daily thing, because if it was, they'd be dead, right? Or 30 stone. It's pretty impressive. It's very impressive. Also very weird though. And like you I feel like it's a slippery slope. You get you get into that you're like I've now got to do a mad eating challenge for every video, which is I used to feel a bit sorry for. I mean I I really loved watching the show.
[10:56]Can you remember man versus food? I've I've no exactly what you mean. And I I felt a little bit sorry for him because because it's kind of like he was obviously kind of overweight and clearly very unhealthy, just like touring around America eating rubbish all of the time, you know. Uh and uh he he's now in okay shape and, you know, doing much better because he's he's panned off the show. But, you know, that was quite a uh it was a really entertaining but a difficult watch at times, you know, because you kind of see him kind of half collapse. Make that kind of epitomizes like YouTube and social media and media generally. Like people fall into the trap. You you basically you start making things. You make content because you think it's going to perform well, not because you want to make it, right? So you make a you you one of those guys does an eating challenge and it gets loads of views and you think, oh, you know, I made some money from that. That did well. I'll do it again. And before you know it, that's all their content, right? And you need to keep making that content to continue growing your business. But you're like, well, hang on a minute, I don't enjoy this. I'm now really unhealthy. But I mean you get you and it that applies to other walks of life, you know, other I've done it before where you make again, you do, I don't know, some kind of other fitness challenge I'd rather not do, but you do it for content. And then you're like, I don't want to keep making. Do you know what I mean? So it's that balance between wanting to your content to perform well, but still making content that you want to make or at least don't hate making, right? Because that will catch up with you. Let's talk a little bit about Gladiators. Do you do the celebrity versions as well? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. What attracted you to the show in in the first place and and do you do you love it? Mate, it's like as a child, like I'm I'm 40, right? So as a child, that was like prime like in the 90s. That was it. That was like that was top tier. That was. Do you know what I mean? Every family in the UK would sit around and watch Gladiators at night. I I was raised on Gladiators. I love the show. Like I used to So even up to like five years ago, if you said to me, what would be like, you know, what's what is your goal? What's like the dream?
[12:46]Like, I I would struggle to think of a better occupation than being a Gladiator. Do you know what I mean? I'm literally a Gladiator. That's pretty much I feel like it's a as a UK individual, that's pretty much as good as it gets. Do you know what I mean? There aren't many things I can think that I would rather be doing. Um, so it's just yeah, it's just a pretty incredible thing to be doing. Do you do the celebrity versions as well? Yeah. Yeah. You've got to let them off easy, you know. Uh, yeah, these guys are pathetic, It's like embarrassing. Yeah, yeah. It's like it is embarrassing. It's we yeah, we have to take it easy cuz otherwise someone's going to die, basically. Did you uh did you So how how does that work? So before do they get all of you lads in a room and go, listen, come on. Nobody break Pete Wix, you know. Uh well it's not that over, but you that along those lines. You I mean it's you know, you kind of get the assignment, right? Like I I had a not this one, this gone, the one before. I had Rob Beckett on Jewell, and you're like, oh, I mean, you just kind of Does a part of you just want to just bash their head in? Just just like not not in an aggressive way. No. Rob's a nice guy. I like Rob so no, but I know what you mean. There are some celebrities that I would actively enjoy doing that. Yeah, definitely. But in that scenario, no, but I know what you mean. Part of me is like, I would be quite quite. So who would you love to give a filthy battering to? Like, like, you know, filthy battering. That made that sound weird. Well, in Gladiators. In Gladiators, uh there are a few like politicians and just yeah, there's a few people. I feel like it's probably slippery slope Let's this Let's this but yeah, there are some people that would be very it would be very satisfying just to I don't know how you hold back, because you you strike me as a very competitive athlete, right?
[14:19]So if you're stood there on the, you know, on those things where you got either you the the thing what's it called the podiums, right? Uh Jewell, yeah. Physical stick, yeah, yeah. And surely you're stood there sometimes just opposite like as you say, you know, Rob or Romesh or someone and you just go, oh God, it's just be great just to, you know. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. You still yeah, I still hit him like I you can watch the clip like I at one point he was on all fours and I was smashing him on the across the butt cheeks with my It's quite satisfying. Simon had a question, I think. Go Simon. Has um celebrity or contestant Have you like kind of liked someone and then like they've done or said something kind of like during the filming you've gone, right? Well, I'm obviously going to launch them off, right? Yes, numerous times. So, more so for me, right? So, my like, the nature of my character, I am very arrogant and confident. So, it's natural that I attract a lot of like, where the contenders come on the show and they all want to try and beat me, right? They all want to try and beat me and they want to try and like have a dig at me as well. So, I invite that and that's fine. I mean, yeah, it never happens, you know, they they no one's ever able to do that, but they all have a go every series. It happens. And it's like, yeah, that's that's I guess that's a good reflection on what I've done so far to this point. But numerous occasions where a contender said something and I've kind of yeah, stored that in my mind, and then for a good example, right? Series 2, we had a contender called Muss who was like rapid on the wall, like the fastest contender we've ever had on the wall by some distance. He was flying up the wall. Now, as a Gladiator, the event is stacked in the contender's favor because they get head start, right? If you give someone the wall is like 10 m high. If someone's good at climbing the wall and you give him a head start, they're gone. You're not going to catch Do you know what I mean? Like, Usain Bolt's really fast, but if you if you have a 20 m head start, you're going to beat him. Do you know what I mean? It's only so much you can actually maybe not, but you know what I mean? If you get a big enough head start, he's not catching you, right? It's the same 20 m. I'll be fine with 20 m. Oh, you think Usain Bolt's pretty fast. 20 m. But you know what you know what I mean, right? You give him a head start, no one's catching him. Now, he we had a couple of uh of wars over the series. He beat me both times with a head start. And he was every time he was given it a big one. I beaten Legend. Beaten Legend. So when the final, we changed it to a straight race. We removed the head start. We had a straight race. Just cuz he was so fast. Because it's like, what's the point? Who wants to see? Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know what's going to happen. If someone's quick on the wall, they can't be caught with the head start because you don't have time to make it up, right? So we thought, I thought, why not? Let's just make it a straight race. If you're so good, let's have a straight race. And he was like, yeah, let's go. And beat him, mate. Destroyed him. Got to the top. Had time to had time to make a cup of tea, chill for a bit, do my hair. He was still climbing up. He was embarrassing. Listen, I think uh it goes without saying that I need to get into this thing, you know. Does it go without saying? It does. I'm going to come and see you guys on the. Special. Get get involved. Yeah. Well, my wife you just because you've just said you've just said to me earlier on your angle was, don't you want to really batter the contender on the special. I think that's That's free rain. Okay. That's fine. Okay. Okay.
[17:10]No, no, you can take the cotton buds to me as hard as you like, my friend. I've got a strategy for that for that. What is it? I'd love to know what that is. Why don't I tell you what it is, mate. Just we're going to end up against each other. Okay, I'll look forward to you for next year's Christmas special. Yeah, I think you'd be good to be fair. I think you'd be good. The the the skill set requires to be a contender. Are you what are you like with contact though? You got any background in contact? I played rugby, mate. What kind of stuff, mate? That's key, because what you get is you get contenders that are good athletes, but they've got no experience in contact. So you get injured. You got to be resilient. You got to take hits. I'm I'm a jiu-jitsu practitioner, mate. Ah okay, you're You've got to be. I'm a four-stripe blue belt. And that means one more than you've got up to. What's what's after that? Purple belt after that. Then brown, then black. But like blue belt's are good, mate. Like like blue belts, you've been rolling for several years to be where I am. Tragic. You're lying. No, that's not. No, I don't believe that. You've not made the blue belt. Oh, that's why he's laughing about me being a fat man. I'm savagely athletic, mate. I would dump tackle some of your peers. Probably not you. They they're most of them are bigger than me. So I don't think that what's the the When I get invited on, right? I think you're all going to be quite. You also don't you're trying to get the balls in that you're not you're trying to you're trying to avoid being tackled. You're not you're trying to tackle the Gladiators. It's not going to help you. It's not how the show works, mate. You know, you don't It's not Gladiators vs Gladiators. So we're together then. Essentially. Well, we're not no, no one I'm I'm a separate entity. But yeah, technically, we're all Gladiators. We've all shared goal, which is to stop contenders from accumulating points.
[20:58]You're like Terminators. You're all too big to tackle me, mate. Slow. You can withstand that. You know what I mean? The shit load of running repetitive stuff. I've got a Tokyo Marathon coming up, so I'm I'm I've got to do long slow things so that your legs like feel this pain so that you get like miles in the legs. Yeah. What do you do when you're running? What are you what's happening in your head? Do you listen to music? What are you doing? How do you like you know?
[21:38]I didn't have music for Berlin and it was like the worst day of my life. You can overcome that. I can't even get to my top speeds. My legs feel like it's like a I think it's like a Yeah. You feel like you've been running and running and it's like a long slog and it's like you're not getting any quicker so you actually it's like the pain in your head. Do you know what I mean? That's what it's like.
[22:24]And it was like the pain in your head. Do you know what I mean? That's what it's like. You know, I had lots of voice notes from Simon as well. Well, you don't need a lot of voice notes to get to Simon.
[22:49]We're going to leave you in the hands of the Untapped Podcast, and we'll see you very soon.
