SHOW OF STRENGTH

Award-winning, premium strength sports brand SBD Apparel marks ten years of trading this March and as a measure of the success they’ve achieved over that period they can now be found in around a quarter of the countries you might find on a strongman’s atlas stone.

Ahead of their milestone anniversary, UnLTD’s Ash Birch caught up with SBD’s William Islip and Luke Brocklehurst to find out how they became one of the heavyweights of strength sports and helped lift the industry to new heights…

If, like me, your knowledge of the world of strength sports and its related apparel extends as far as flicking over to Channel 5 during the post-Christmas perineum and listening to presenter James Richardson drown you in puns, while great hulking men impressively man-handle massive boulders for the title of World’s Strongest Man, you’d be forgiven for only knowing the brand SBD as the main sponsor of your favourite festive viewing.

Despite having their logo emblazoned across the whopping real estate of every athlete who competes in WSM’s chest, you’d also be forgiven for being ignorant to the fact that SBD is actually based right here in our region. That’s right, the world leader in strength sport apparel actually manufacture and despatch the majority of their highquality products from their base in Catcliffe, Rotherham, a far cry from WSM’s sun-kissed California residency.

Incredibly, from a couple of units on an industrial business park, SBD have become synonymous with elite strength sports; making, selling and marketing everything from their OG knee sleeves, to their innovative powerlifting belts. Their success can be measured in line with the rise of the sports they support, and as a result, like the bulging muscles of a strong man, they are bursting out of their current home. In order to meet this high demand, later in the year they move into an all-new, state of the art manufacturing and office space, complete with ‘creative campus’, gym, and fully funded onsite staff catering. Ahead of the big move, and for this month’s cover feature, we headed down to the current SBD offices for a natter with SBD Commercial Director William Islip, who previously worked for NatWest as a chartered banker, and Brand Director Luke Brocklehurst, who recently returned to the UK after a 12-year hiatus in Australia, where, as Creative Director for the regions largest sports retailer, he worked with eminent sports brands like Nike, Adidas, Under Armour to name a few.

William and Luke both joined the company within the last 15 months, but despite being relative newcomers to the business, they both talk passionately about their experiences with SBD and were happy to fill us in on the potted history and humble beginnings of the brand.

“Our founder, Ben Banks, was a powerlifter at a very high level,” explains Luke, “He was training under a railway arch in Peckham and suffered with tendinitis in his knees because of the cold. All of the medical supports that were available on the market at the time were predominantly cheap imports and he would blow through them because of his intense training and competing regime.

“Rather than accept his fate, he got his problem-solving hat on and started to think about how he could create something better. That’s how he met Rob Smith, who is Head of Manufacturing here.

“Rob’s family’s company Namron made high-grade neoprene for the medical and aeronautics industry and they discussed how that technology could work for a knee sleeve initially, and it went from there. At the time, Ben was working in finance, but was also thinking of potential business ventures that he would also be passionate about, and the two worlds coalesced and became what SBD is today.”

William added: “If you speak to Ben, he’s more excited today than he’s probably ever been. As he’s built the business, he’s also built the management team, that Luke and I are a part of. We’re presented with a lot of opportunities and now, for the first time, we can pursue a lot of those opportunities, where previously there wasn’t always capacity.

“The business is quite unique in what we do. We work with some very well-known athletes all around the world.”

Approved by the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) in 2013, the SBD knee sleeves made their competition debut at the 2013 IPF World Classic Powerlifting Championship in Russia.

Immediately seen as a game changer by elite athletes and coaches alike, demand skyrocketed, and SBD began distributing to Finland, USA, Canada, Norway, Australia and Russia that same year. Then 2016 saw the launch of the SBD belt which, with its patented adjustable lever technology, soon became one of the brand’s flagship products and is now ubiquitous in powerlifting and strongman.

SBD sponsor over 130 athletes worldwide, across the sports of powerlifting, strongman, weightlifting and CrossFit, and include ‘The Mountain’ from Games of Thrones, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, and reigning World’s Strongest Man, Scotland’s Tom Stoltman on their roster.

As well as sponsoring Tom ‘The Albatross’ Stoltman and many of the WSM competitors, they are also the headline sponsor for the whole competition, and also recently signed an exclusive partnership with the International Powerlifting Federation and the European Powerlifting Federation until 2029, allowing them to be the sole partner for clothing and supports at powerlifting events around the world.

Luke said: “One of the secret’s to SBD’s success, I believe, is the culture. Genuine passion for what we’re working to accomplish is writ large across all areas of the business, not least amongst our community of elite athletes. All our athletes are genuinely invested in the brand and it’s a true partnership built on a mutual love of the sport”.

“Ben was super excited when Kimberly Walford became the first athlete to start using the kit, over in the US, and it’s grown and grown to the point where we’re working with the best athletes in strength around the world. I mean, it’s incredible.”

William added: “We began predominantly as a powerlifting company, but strongman came into the business when Ben spotted an opportunity with the World’s Strongest Man. That’s televised in over 90 countries around the world, but despite that exposure the athletes were not being supported with equipment at the time.

“Filling that gap helped us by providing a huge amount of marketing and brand awareness, because being involved in the World’s Strongest Man is headline grabbing. People in the UK can relate to it because it’s part of many people’s Christmas traditions.

“The athletes that we’re working with are breaking world records wearing our stuff, so it’s got to be of a standard to enable them to do just that. Our price point is at the higher end of the market. We are a premium, high-quality brand, and customers expect that, not just in our product, but in their customer experience as well, and that’s something that we work very hard on.

“These people are working incredibly hard, training day in day out, and we want to give them products that are going to get them to where they want to go.”

To ensure that quality, all of SBD’s products are made in England, which means they have full control over the design, material selection, and construction, ensuring superior quality in each of its products. William tells us: “We’re proud to make all our products within the UK, with the vast majority of them made here in South Yorkshire. That’s something that we want to retain.”

Luke adds: “That decision obviously has the advantage of supporting the local area and the British economy, but Ben is absolutely obsessive over quality and it also ensures we retain that mark of quality. We’ve got 20 People in quality control alone, handling each and every single product, and that’s something we’re never willing to compromise on.

“Inferior brands just go for a cash grab. They import and badge generic gear that falls apart after a few uses - that’s not what SBD is about. We’re obsessive about strength sports and want to share that obsession with like-minded people by giving them the gear they need to smash their goals.”

SBD supports those athletes and weightlifting enthusiasts with a range of five strength products, including sleeves, belts and clothing, with plans to bring more products to market this year, aimed specifically at the powerlifting community.

Back in 2013, SBD launched its first knee sleeve, which is now relied on by athletes around the world, but an equally positive story is the creation of their powerlifting belts in 2016, which have fast become SBD’s flagship product, thanks to the innovative design of its buckle.

Luke tells us more: “We’re a founder-led organisation and Ben’s dad actually machined the first buckles for the belts. It’s a unique design, because in the past, you had to literally unscrew the buckle to make the adjustments, which isn’t practical in the slightest.”

“With this in mind, Ben made some sketches for his dad, who’s a precision tool maker, and between them they designed what we see today. We still have the original in the office, which is going to end up in our museum over the road.”

‘Over the road’ is a rather modest way of addressing what is actually a very overt show of strength on the company’s part. Later this year, they move into a brand new 100,000 sq ft premises on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, thanks