86 MEN’S HEALTH
Nicolai Myers, a strongman
champion, wasn’t sure if
Miles Taylor’s shaky, slender
body could handle the 14kg
medicine ball. But he asked
him to try to lift it anyway.
Taylor, a young photographer
from Maryland, quaked, flailed
and shuddered as he bent over
the ball, attempting to encircle
it with his hands and bring it
up to his chest. Attempt one:
fail. Attempt two: fail. Three,
four and five: fail, fail, fail.
Taylor has cerebral palsy,
a condition that makes your
muscles a mess. They can
become too loose or too
tight; they spasm and lack
coordination. They do anything
and everything you don’t
want muscles to do when
you’re trying to lift a weight.
At its least severe, cerebral
palsy affects one limb. At its
worst, you live in paralysis
and can barely communicate.
Taylor is somewhere in the
middle. He can walk and talk
but imperfectly, and he had
to go through extensive
childhood therapy to do so.
Learning to lift was like
figuring out a puzzle. Taylor
slowly pieced together each
requisite movement – hingeing
at his hips, bending his knees,
stabilising his spine, clasping
his fingers, straightening
his knee and hip joints – into
one, bringing the ball off the
ground and up to his chest.
“That’s when I got bitten
by the strongman bug,”
says Taylor. He had come
to the gym to photograph
a competition, but he left as
its newest member. That was
just over a year ago.
“For me, the hardest part of
working out has been control,”
says Taylor. “I have to focus
on every muscle and everyFive days after a tumour
the size of a golf ball was
removed from his backside,
Rhett Bowlden took that
backside into the gym. “Just for
some fan-bike work,” he says,
nonchalantly for a man who
was diagnosed with stage 3
colon cancer in January.
It was a natural follow-up
to the reps he’d done in the
immediate aftermath of his
operation. “They wanted me
walking,” says Bowlden. “There
was a chart on the wall that said
21 laps around the hospital was
a mile. I’d do 21 laps each time
I went to the toilet.”
The odds of a 39-year-old
male developing colon cancer
are small: about one in 10,000.
Bowlden was unlucky. But
how you live before, during
and after a cancer diagnosis
influences how you’ll cope.
You have a 50% chance of
developing cancer in yourlife. Will training alter that
figure? Doctors can’t say for
certain, but it can help you
survive it. Patients with low
muscle mass lived half as long
and were 150% more likely
to experience chemotherapy
side effects, according to the
Lancet. Another study found
post-cancer patients who did
high-intensity weight training
had better physical function
and a higher quality of life.
Two years before his
diagnosis, Bowlden was 18kg
overweight. “I was ashamed to
go out with my family,” he says.
So, he set himself fitness goals:
rowing 2km in under seven
minutes; deadlifting double
his bodyweight; completing 15
strict pull-ups. Spending five
hours in the gym each week
for a year, he took a minute off
his 2km row and added 36kg
to his deadlift for a 185kg max.
“Because of what I’ve done, I
believe myself when I say I’ll
beat cancer,” says Bowlden.COMING BACK
STRONGER
RHETT BOWLDEN - US BORDER PATROL OFFICER,
CANCER SURVIVOR
5FT 8IN / 91KG / 39 YEARS OLDDEFYING
THE ODDS
MILES TAYLOR - PHOTOGRAPHER, STRONGMAN,
INSTAGRAM STAR
5FT 8IN / 45KG / 24 YEARS OLDmovement to do any lift.” On
Taylor’s first deadlift, Myers
had to steady the new recruit
from falling as he practised
form with an unweighted
15kg bar. “His body will
never be able to get in the
traditionally correct position
for most lifts,” says Myers.
“With every lift, we go to the
drawing board and figure out
where he’s the strongest and
most stable, so he’s safe.”
Taylor first started going to
the gym once a week. Within
a few months, however, he was
a daily visitor. “I now realise the
strength I have, and I want to
keep getting stronger,” he says.
“I’m a very competitive person.”
In the winter, Taylor
hunched over a barbell and
ground out a 90kg deadlift,
sharing the video with his
Instagram followers. The
video promptly took off. What
the world didn’t see in the
30-second clip was how
much Taylor’s gym strength
has benefited his daily life.
“When I photograph activities,
I’m much more stable and
have more endurance,” he
says. Simple tasks that most
people take for granted – such
as carrying a pot of water to
the stove – are easier, too.
Fine movements are still
tricky. “He has a harder time
putting on his lifting belt
than he does deadlifting
90kg,” says Myers, laughing.
But he’s got help for that.
“The gym community is
like my second family,”
says Taylor. “We do group
workouts, and the atmosphere
is amazing. It pushes me
to keep working.” His next
challenge is to lift a 45kg
concrete stone and carry
it across the gym. Myers is
confident that he’ll nail it in
no time. “Miles just keeps
getting stronger,” he says.03