84 MAY 2017
I was trying to do at that time and I can
push myself in different areas now. A trainer
sometimes comes with their own ideas and
it’s hard for them to understand how I got
all my fucking injury problems. By training
yourself, you can be really responsive to how
your body feels and adjust accordingly. It
suits me at the moment. But who knows what
I’ll be doing next year? Training’s part of my
life and it’s always changing in some way.
Are there any things that you always do?
I always train in the morning. I’ve always
been a morning person, back from my days as
a diver when we used to do early workouts.
I’m speaking from my own personal
perspective here, but when you train in the
morning, you can never make the excuse
that you ran out of time, or this meeting
came up, or you couldn’t get back from
work. Those things don’t apply. If training’s
first on your list of things to do, it never gets
compromised.
Do you have any guiding principles for how you put
a session together?
I tend to combine some kind of Olympic lifts
with gymnastic training. And it depends on
the acuteness of that training. If I do some
heavy squats or deadlifts on the Monday, I’m
not going to do anything like that again until
Thursday or Friday. Recovery is a key issue
that I’ve always overlooked. In my earlier
years it was all about quantity and making
sure you got tons done, even if you felt tired:
just get in there and get it done.
You’ve obviously got a lot of bodyweight skills in your
repertoire: levers, handstands...
Yeah, I see a lot of the calisthenics stuff that’s
all over the internet and these people make
it look so good. And their physiques... I’ve
always been impressed by people who make a
muscle-up look as easy as these guys. They’re
the movements that I want to do.
Everything has to work in unison
for you to perform those static holds.
Exactly. Bodyweight training really
allows you to find your weakness rather,
rather quickly [laughs]. You need all the
components: flexibility, explosive power, the
lot. You can build a good physique just lifting
weights down the gym. But that doesn’t
necessarily give you the athletic agility. And I
think for what I do, agility is more usable than
just sheer brute strength. So that’s what I tend
to lean towards.
So doing handstands on the parallel bars
is about more than just showing off?
[Laughs] I actually do handstand dips on
those! You get big power lifters who can
lift a car above their head; for me, to do a
handstand dip, and get right deep into that
dip through the bars, that develops a great,
usable strength. And I always enjoy executing
a skill at the same time. It’s very hard to
develop bad technique with a handstand dip.
I notice you had some kettlebells in your set-up, too.
What kind of things do you do with those?
Again, the kettlebell is a fantastic piece of
equipment. You can get a whole workout done
with one of those. There’s that guy, he’s done a
couple of books, I forget his name now...Pavel Tsatsouline?
Pavel, yeah! He’s great. I’ve listened to him in
a couple of interviews – I think it was on Tim
Ferriss’ podcast. There are some great people
on his podcast. Charles Poliquin talking about
strength training, too. Joe Rogan’s another
really smart guy who I value and listen to
regularly. Really informative. They’ve all got
different ideas about training, so you get a
real slice of their experience and then you can
take it or leave it.Fast and Furious 8 is about to hit cinemas. What can
you tell us about the movie?
What can I tell you about the storyline? Not
much - I’m sworn to secrecy. What can I tell
you about the process of making it? It’s a big
beast. They spent a lot of money on it. The
stunts are great. Everybody gets stuck in. I
love working with the Rock. We’re just about
to start all the promo, so you’re going to hear
about it. People all around the world love
that franchise, so here’s another one. And it
keeps going.Speaking of keeping on going, you’re turning
50 this winter...
[laughs] I am! That’s right.How do you feel about that?
You know what, I feel pretty good. I’m in
decent shape. I’ve been harbouring a ton of
injuries and I’ve almost cured them all over
the past year. When we speak next year, I’ll
be giving you my road map to recovery! But
yeah, I’m moving better than I used to be
moving. I’m feeling pretty nimble. It’s about
the whole thing: training, eating, sleeping... all of those have a massive impact on how
you feel. And I’m doing better at all of those
things. Sly’s got 20 years on me and still looks
good so he’s part of my inspiration.
Is The Expendables 4 in the works?
I sat and had a meeting with Sly before I went
away. Any opportunity to work alongside that
man is a great one. He’s got such a reputation
and a charisma. What he stands for in the
movie business, and the fitness world... he’s
been an inspiration to so many people. He’s
a man that you can’t say no to. So when he
comes to me and says, ‘Listen, I want to make
another Expendables’, it’s like, ‘Okay, I’m in.’
He definitely wants to do one, so it’s real. But
there’s no concept yet; it’s still pie in the sky.
We’ve got to figure out what the story is - and
who comes to the party.