FITNESS
MAN MOUNTAIN AUSTRALIA’S FITTEST MEN
Chris Feather, Gym Jones disciple and founder of notorious Sydney gym 98 Riley St, is living proof that true fitness starts in the mind > BY
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A ARON SCOT T
P H OTO G R A P H Y BY
JASON LE E
JULY 2017
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FITNESS
or Chris Feather, revelation came in the form of humiliation. It was 2011. The Yorkshireman had called time on his professional rugby league career a year earlier and moved to Sydney where he’d founded his gym, 98 Riley Street. A towering figure at 196cm and 119kg, Feather thought he was in supreme shape. At 98 Riley, he was pounding out brutal hour-long sessions that involved intervals on the rowing machine interspersed with crushing sets of deadlifts and bench press. His numbers were staggering: he was snapping out 2km time trials on the rower in a tick over six minutes; he was benching 160kg, deadlifting 225kg. Then he met Mark Twight. The founder of the notorious Gym Jones training facility in Utah was at 98 Riley knocking Russell Crowe into shape for the movie Man of Steel. Twight watched one of Feather’s sprawling sessions without expression. When it had finished, he wandered over. “Have you got 16 minutes?” Feather shrugged: “Sure.” Twight instructed him to grab a pair of light dumbbells. Feather hoisted a pair of 12.5kg ’bells. Twight outlined the protocol: 30 seconds of overhead press, aiming for a minimum of 15 reps; 30 seconds of holding the weights above the head, arms at full extension; repeat the sequence four times. Keen to impress, Feather went hard. “The first round I hit 25 reps, the second round 12, the third round eight. By the final round of holds I couldn’t even keep my hands up. I thought: I’m bench-pressing 160 kilos but I can’t do this? This is ridiculous.” Twight gave Feather a two-minute break, then they moved into the second phase of the session: 30 seconds of air squats, minimum 15 reps; 30-second isometric wall sit; repeat four times. Feather grins: “You’d think I might have learned. Well, no. First round I slammed out 25-plus reps – by the final round I couldn’t hold myself in the wall sit.” 76
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The final phase of the workout: 30 seconds of kettlebell swings, 30-second dead-hang from a chin bar, repeat four times. This time Feather girded himself, determined to get through the four minutes without failing. He grabbed a 16kg kettlebell – half what he would normally use – and paced his efforts on the swings. But his grip gave way on the dead hangs – he couldn’t hold his body weight for a full 30 seconds. “And that was it,” he says with a rueful smile. “A simple, 16-minute session – and it made me look like a child.” For Feather, the lesson was clear: he’d been playing to his strengths for too long, focusing on a handful of fitness skills at the expense of all others. He shrugs: “I was just resting on my laurels; just doing what I was good at.” Feather’s fitness had become onedimensional. He was strong in certain areas, weak in many others. For a man who prided himself on the functionality of his body, the realisation stung. That evening over dinner, Twight outlined the principles of Gym Jones – the primacy of the mind, the value of suffering, the benefits of all-round fitness. The conversation lit a fire in Feather’s mind.
FEATHER’S VITA
He ig ht
L STATS
19 6c m
We ig ht
119 kg
20 00 m Ro w PB
6: 11
De ad li ft
26 0kg
PB
Sq ua t PB
20 5kg
St ri ct Ov er he ad Pr es s PB
12 5kg
Be nc h Pr es s PB
16 0kg
St ri ct -F or
18 re ps
m Ch in -U p PB
10 0 Bu rp ee s Fo r Ti me
5: 54
“I suddenly realised that – as a six foot five, 120kg guy – I should be smashing twokay time trials on the rower or deadlifting 200-plus kilos. But what’s my 10-kay run PB? What’s my 100 burpees for time PB? What’s my 50 box jumps for time PB? Mark showed me that you need to hit certain standards across the board. And I was nowhere near some of his standards.” Two days later, Feather booked a training course at Gym Jones and flew to Utah. Over the following three years he returned to the US six times, eventually becoming – along with John Negoescu, founder of The Mill in Fremantle – Australia’s first fully qualified Gym Jones instructor. These days, Feather targets his weaknesses with relish. Yes, he still smashes out furious intervals on the rower and the SkiErg. And, yes, he still racks up herculean numbers on the bench and the lifting platform. But he also embraces exercises where his height and bulk work against him – burpees and box jumps to name two. The result? A body and mind that can face up to the fiercest physical challenges (see “Feather’s Vital Stats”, opposite). Consider this PRINCIPLE NO.1 in Feather’s fitness manifesto: build a body that’s good at everything.
PRINCIPLE NO.2
PRINCIPLE NO.3
“I see so many people who have incredible physical attributes,” says Feather, “and I think, God, you should be smashing this weight. But they’re not. And that’s because they don’t have it in the head. They can’t push past the point of suffering.” Feather dismisses the notion that your pain threshold is immutable. For him, a willingness to suffer is something to be honed. “You’re not born mentally tough. It’s built through environment and experience.” Want to boost your pain threshold? Push yourself to failure on the rowing machine, under the iron, on the running track. Become accustomed to the burn of lactic, to the feeling of your muscles working at peak intensity. “Use your experiences to create a benchmark of suffering,” says Feather. “Then, when a training session gets tough, you can look back and think: at least this isn’t as hard as that.” Feather plucks his phone from his pocket and reads a quote from an anonymous Navy SEAL: Under pressure, you do not rise to the occasion; you sink to the level of your training. He grins: “If you’ve trained to failure, trained to failure, trained to failure – your failure point will be higher than everyone else’s.”
A little over a year ago, Feather felt his training was starting to drift. So he set himself a goal: complete a 42.2km marathon on a rowing machine. After four weeks of dedicated training, he thrashed it out in two-and-a-half hours. (It was, he admits, the hardest thing he’s ever done: “It ruined me for about two months.”) The take-home: “You need to find a reason for training and you need to value that reason. Don’t go into a gym and just move around for an hour. Find a goal, find a number – and hit it. That way you’re not just exercising – you’re training.” A corollary to this point: never train mindlessly; always concentrate on what you’re doing. “Whether I’m doing a recovery row or my hardest session of the week,” says Feather, “I make sure I do the workout with a clear goal, and my full effort and attention.”
PREPARE TO SUFFER
TRAIN WITH PURPOSE
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The Standards
Hit these 98 Riley St standards of fitness and, in Feather’s restrained estimation, “you have a good state of general physical preparedness”. How do you measure up? 1
2000m Row: sub 7 minutes
2
Deadlift: 2 x body weight
3
Back Squat: 1.5 x body weight
4
Strict Overhead Press: 75% body weight
5
Bench Press: 1.25 x body weight
6
Strict-Form Chin-Ups: 15 reps
7
100 Burpees: sub 7 minutes
8
50 Box Jumps: sub 3½ minutes
9
10km Run (flat): sub 50 minutes
10
Plank (on hands): 5 minutes
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THE INFERNO
THE LEVELLER
Author’s note: This workout is brutal. In my first max effort on the Airdyne bike – a piece of equipment I had never used before – I pushed into the red-zone, burnt 42 calories, and never fully recovered. At the end of the workout, I stumbled onto the footpath outside 98 Riley and vomited four times.
Author’s note: I completed the intermediate level of this workout, finishing in 16 minutes and 49 seconds – an effort that left me prostrate for several minutes afterwards. Tip: don’t tighten the foot straps on the rower. Every second is valuable in this session – you don’t want to waste time fiddling with foot straps.
Feather loves this workout because it pairs rowing (an exercise that suits taller, heavier trainers) with burpees (a movement that plays to smaller, lighter trainers). Feather also grins at the malevolent set-up of this session: the slower you go on the rowing machine, the more burpees you end up doing.
Test your mental toughness with this standard 98 Riley St session. The key with this workout, according to Feather, is to make the max efforts legitimate max efforts. Leave nothing in the tank. Record your numbers after each round. These numbers should not be consistent – they should taper off each round.
WARM-UP 1 2 3 4
5 mins easy pedalling on an Airdyne bike 10 air squats 10 bodyweight lunges 10 shoulder dislocates
WORKOUT 1 2
3 4
10 x goblet squat (24kg kettlebell) 60 secs max effort on an Airdyne bike (aim to burn more than 30 calories). Complete the exercises as a superset, then rest for two minutes. Repeat three times then have a five-minute break. 10 x kettlebell swing (24kg kettlebell) 60 secs max effort on a rowing machine (aim to go further than 300m) Complete the exercises as a superset, then rest for two minutes. Repeat three times then have a five-minute break. You should need it.
WARM-UP
‘‘ People’s perception of failure is not high enough. Your limits are higher than you think’’
2 3
PRINCIPLE NO.4
YOU’RE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK
150m max effort on a SkiErg Kettlebell hold (rack two 24kg ’bells at your chin) Planks (on your hands, not elbows) Complete the exercises as a superset. Note your SkiErg time – this is how long you need to hold the kettlebells and plank. Repeat three times, resting two minutes between each superset.
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WORKOUT
Beginner 1 200 calorie row 2 Every minute, on the minute do 3 burpees
The author delves deep into the “pain cave”. Feather watches on.
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2
5 mins easy pedalling on an Airdyne bike 30 secs overhead press, 30 secs overhead hold x 4 (6kg dumbbells) 30 secs air squat, 30 secs wall sit x 4
Directions Select your level and complete the workout for time, aiming to finish in less than 25 minutes. If you complete the workout in less than 20 minutes, move up a level. The technique for the burpees is chest to the ground at the bottom, feet 15cm off the ground and hips fully extended at the top.
FINISHER 1
1
The inevitable rejoinder to Principle No.3: what about the threat of overtraining? Feather grimaces. “Overtraining” is not a phrase he likes. Yes, he admits you can’t push to failure every single session. (“In fact, I wouldn’t be pushing to failure more than once a week.”) And, yes, he accepts that rest, diet and sleep are just as important to physical development as hard labour in the gym. “But I feel like people’s perception of ‘failure’ is not high enough,” he says. “Your limits are higher than you think.” In Feather’s estimation, if you’re
training only three or four times a week you can push yourself hard – very hard – without fear of pushing yourself over the edge. “Trust me, unless you’re a professional athlete training two, three times a day, you’re not overtraining. For a lot of people, overtraining is just an easy way out.”
PRINCIPLE NO.5
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Feather applauds those who can slam out impeccable clean-and-jerks with serious weight on the bar. But for the average gymgoer (“and I include myself in that group”), he questions the worth of spending weeks
and months learning complex Olympic lifts, then grinding them out with only moderate weight on the bar. Instead, he reasons, why not do box jumps – a simple power movement that involves the shifting of your entire body weight? The risk of injury is low while the physical payoff is high. For this reason, Feather’s workouts are invariably comprised of basic movements. He doesn’t want mental bandwidth being soaked up by complex movement patterns and intricate technical cues. “Instead, concentrate on your workload. Concentrate on your work ethic. Concentrate on working hard.”
Intermediate 1 250 calorie row 2 Every minute, on the minute do 4 burpees Advanced 1 300 calorie row 2 Every minute, on the minute do 5 burpees
For more workouts visit chrisfeather.com JULY 2017
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