Hi Harry, tell me about your background in sport, nutrition, lifting etc. How did you start out?

I started playing football competitively at about 12 years old and played for 5 seasons. I didn’t participate in too much sport after that, until I started competing in powerlifting when I was 27.

I had started lifting weights at about the age of 13/14 and have continued ever since. I started with my little home dumbbell and barbell set and bench and then started at a gym when I qualified as a personal trainer when I was 18. I have trained in a gym ever since.

I kept diet logs from about the age of 18 until about the age of 26-27. That’s how serious I got with my nutrition. I have learned to lighten up a bit now, I also know what the carb, protein and fat content of most foods are now ha ha.

Harry competing in a powerlifting meet.

So you obviously work with a lot of people - tell me about the different kinds of athletes or gym goers you see regularly?

I’ve worked with a wide range of people. I see your everyday gym goers who just want to get in shape for summer and lose body fat and I also train competitive athletes, at different age and skill levels. At the moment I am working with the junior squads of the Guildford Ice Hockey Team. I have just recently finished an off season stint with Surrey County Cricket Clubs Emerging Players Program (mouthful!) too.

Hopefully I have a good position coming up, where I will be one of the strength and conditioning coaches of a new MMA gym opening up.

I like working with everyday gym goers, I like seeing their transformations, but I want my future to permanently go down the athlete route and also to be working with developing young athletes.

You seem to know a lot about nutrition, how did you learn so much about food?

I got interested in nutrition by just being in the industry. I believe it goes hand in hand with exercise and training. I studied nutrition as part of my degree and have since continued to read and learn over the years. I enjoy eating healthily myself, and subsequently do a lot of research surrounding nutrition. So get reading basically!

The interest in nutrition led to Harry competing as a natural bodybuilder.

A lot of your videos involve 'complexes' - what are these and what's so good about them??

Complexes are a series of exercises completed in a circuit without putting the object down until the circuit is done. These can be done with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, and even weight plates. There are loads of adaptations and benefits from complex training, but mainly I use them for strength work, movement prep and fat loss, as they have a phenomenal effect on increasing metabolism.

I use a lot of complexes as finishers with my clients to ramp up their metabolic rate after we have done the main body of our workout so they burn more calories in the hours following the workout, and to also improve their conditioning.

What's your favourite exercise?

I go between deadlifts and squats, depends how they both are going for me! At the moment, I would say deadlifts.

And the worst exercise?

Long duration cardio. I can’t think of a better way to waste your time and your muscle mass away.

What are the most common mistakes you see people doing in the gym, whether beginner or advanced?

For beginners it is working out with weights and NOT doing big compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, standing press, cleans, rows, dips and pull ups. I see too many beginners doing bicep curls and the cable cross over.

Also, for the record, you can still be a beginner even if you have been going to the gym for years, so you could still be in this bracket. I see so many people who have been coming to the gym for a couple of years and they don’t change shape or improve at all. They do the same thing week in week out, month to month, year to year and they wonder why they never change, that’s their mistake.

Tell me something I might not know…

The pull up has more mean and peak muscle fiber activation in the Rectus Abdominis than crunches, planks, hanging leg raises, ab wheel roll outs and a ton of other exercises. Check out the full list at T-Nation.

Give me one thing almost everyone could start doing tomorrow to get stronger…

Start squatting below parallel

Same question but to get a better body?

Start squatting below parallel haha! Seriously.

So are being strong and having a better body mutually exclusive?

No. I have seen lots of people who are very strong and who are in great shape.

Thanks Harry, pleasure having this virtual conversation with you ;)

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