Most powerlifting stories begin with a desire to get big, a highlight reel on social media, or a background in school sports. Mine began in the summer of 2018, soaking wet, upside down, and trapped in a capsized kayak during a Cheltenham Round Table social.
In the process of untangling myself from the boat I felt a sharp pain in the side of my knee. Once I had paddled back to the marina, I had realised something really wasn't right with my knee. A few weeks later an MRI confirmed I had a partially torn tendon.
The ensuing months of physio after diagnosis were completely miserable. Physio was tedious, painful, and frankly, a bit of a chore. But sitting there, nursing a dodgy knee, a strange sort of logic took over: if therapy was going to be this hard, I didn't just want to get back to proper fitness. I wanted to get strong.
I was 35 at the time, meaning I was starting a sport like this decades later than the lads who found the barbell in their teens. I quickly realized my body didn't possess the Olympic-level flexibility required for weightlifting, so I looked toward the "Big Three." I found a powerlifting class running down at the local university gym and walked through the doors. The trainer leading the class would eventually become my coach. At the time, my starting stats were modest, to say the least: a 60kg bench, a 100kg squat, and a 100kg deadlift. A 260kg total. I was just a bloke with a bad knee trying to get a little stronger.
The road from beginner to competitive lifter is rarely a straight line, but my path felt uniquely stalled by circumstance.
By early 2020, I’d put the hard yards in and was ready to step onto the platform in May for my very first taste at competition.This comp was for the experience, there was no expectations. It was also meant to be the year I got married. Then, Covid put a proper spanner in the works. The pandemic put an immediate stop to both the sports world and our wedding plans, forcing everything into a holding pattern.
Two years later, in 2022, we finally tied the knot. We successfully made it through the ceremony, but just three hours later, having a bit too much fun and acting daft, I decided to go down a children’s slide. Absolute disaster. I fractured my thumb, almost tearing the tendon completely off the bone. Only finding out the extent of the injuries 3 months later when my thumb still hurt. It took until February 2023, when I finally underwent surgery to get the tendon reattached.
For many, a major joint operation after years of pandemic delays would be the sign to hang up the lifting belt. But the iron has a way of calling you back.
In February 2024, exactly one year to the day of my surgery, I picked up my phone. I contacted the very same coach from the university classes where my journey had begun six years prior.
"Let's do this," I told him. "Let's get back into it and compete."
Five months of intense, calculated training followed. In July 2024, six years after that fateful kayak accident and a year and a half after hand surgery, I finally stepped onto the platform for my first official competition at Navalia in Gloucester. I posted a 582.5kg total. It was a massive personal victory, and it officially qualified me for the England Masters. I hadn’t told my wife that I was targeting a particular total to make me eligible for a national competition, oops!
By February 2025, I was a completely different athlete, this time telling my wife what my targets were. At my next competition in Super Training Cheltenham , I pushed my total up to 637.5kg, an improvement of 55 kilograms in just seven months. This milestone punched my ticket to the biggest stage yet: the British Masters.
Four months later my wife and I traveled to Surrey Sports Park to compete against nine of the strongest men from across Great Britain. Stepping onto a national platform for the first time is an experience that properly tests your nerves as much as your muscles. On my third squat attempt, I called for a massive 250kg. I hit it cleanly, however, pushing your limits comes with its own risks, and during the tournament, I severely irritated the bursae in my right knee.
Despite the looming injury, I fought through the rest of the meet, securing a PBs in all 3 lift and a PB 670kg total,placing an incredible 6th in Britain.
The glory of placing 6th nationally was immediately followed by the harsh reality of injury recovery. The bursitis completely derailed my training cycle. I was banned from squatting entirely for two months. When I was finally allowed to put a bar back on my back, almost the entirety of my training leading up to the end of the year was restricted to box squats.
That lack of standard squat preparation set up a dangerous domino effect for the regional championships in November 2025, again at Navalia Gloucester. On the squats, I kept things sensible to look after the knee, hitting a conservative 230kg.
But without a solid, standard squat volume to build a foundation for lower body stability and leg drive, my bench press setup suffered. Eager to force a big total anyway, I set my opening bench press attempt too high. Fatigue and a compromised arch caught up to me instantly. A violent, agonizing cramp seized my upper body, and the lift failed. My wife described it as "Kayaking with 160kg above you head”, ironic considering where this all started.
The cramp was so severe that it stopped me from completing my second and third attempts. I "bombed out," disqualified from the meet, watching my qualification spot slip away while my wife watched anxiously from the crowd. It took three painful weeks just to physically recover from the spasm. Mentally it took a lot longer to recover.
Yet, if my journey has proven anything, it's that I refuse to let a setback have the final say. I spent the winter rebuilding and learning from my mistakes, and by March 2026, I stepped back onto the platform. Needing “only” a 570kg total to qualify for the English Masters, I cruised through the meet without pushing my limits, easily locking in a 600kg total. I felt so good I was back in the gym training just two days later.
When the English Masters Championships arrived at the start of May 2026, the stage was set for a head-to-head battle for the title. But the drama started immediately.
The first squat of any competition is always the most nerve-wracking. I took the weight up easily, but failed on a technicality; I didn't follow the referee's instructions correctly. 3 Red lights. Just like that, the pressure magnified tenfold.
Instead of playing it safe, my coach and I made a high-stakes gamble: we put the weight up by 7.5kg. With the entire competition on the line, I walked out, locked in, and crushed it. I added another 5kg on my third attempt to survive the round, though I still finished the squats trailing my opponent by 12.5kg.
Next came the bench press. I locked in a powerful 165kg bench—a massive 35kg more than my competition. In one swift discipline, I wiped out the deficit and rocketed into a 22.5kg lead.
By the time we moved to the deadlifts, the momentum was unstoppable. I pulled my first attempt cleanly. As the bar locked out on my second deadlift. I was 30kg ahead and my competitor was only putting a 7.5kg jump on his last lift. The math was done: I had secured 1st place and was the English Masters Champion. My third and final deadlift was no longer a battle against gravity or a competitor; it was a lap of honour.
Before the May competition, I had thrown my hat into the ring, applying for selection to the England squad for the upcoming Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships. A week after my victory, the initial roster came out. I was placed on the reserve list. It was a slight sting of disappointment, but after everything, being an international reserve was still an achievement.
Then, just one week later, a spot opened up. A lifter had dropped out, and my phone rang.
I had made the team.
In September 2026, at 43 years old, I will be flying out to Winnipeg, Canada, officially wearing the red and white singlet, lifting as an international athlete representing my country.
While powerlifting is often marketed as a solitary sport against a barbell, nobody gets to the international stage alone. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the team in my corner.
A massive shout out goes to my coach, Ryan Edwards. Thank you for all the work you've put into my training, for trusting in my capability when the weights got heavy, and for guiding me through the highs and lows. Our mutual trust proved definitively that "trusting the process" isn't just a gym cliché—it works!
But the biggest shout out of all belongs to my wife, Rach. She has stood unflinchingly behind me through every single step of this chaotic journey. She has put up with the countless hours I’ve spent away in the gym, endured the long travels to competitions, and faced the anxiety of watching me injure myself on the platform. I know she genuinely dislikes the nerve-wracking tension of watching me compete, yet she is always there, screaming in support.
Her dedication hasn't gone unnoticed; at the English Masters, she was unofficially crowned by multiple people as the absolute best supporter in the venue. I am incredibly proud to be taking her with me to Canada.
When I look back at the guy in 2018 hobbling into a university gym with a torn knee tendon, a 60kg bench, and a 260kg total, he feels like a complete stranger. He had no idea he’d have to survive a global pandemic, a wedding-day playground accident, a debilitating bout of knee bursitis, and a heartbreaking bomb-out just to stand on top of the podium as an English Masters Champion, let alone book a ticket to represent England on the world stage.
My lifetime competition bests now stand at a 250kg squat, 165kg bench, and 270kg deadlift, with a best total of 672.5kg. But those numbers only tell half the story. The true value of the sport is the resilience it builds, and the incredible people it brings into your life. It doesn't matter if you start at 15 or 35, or if your setbacks are caused by heavy bars or children's slides. What matters is that you keep stepping back onto the platform until you get your three white lights. In September, we take on the Commonwealth. Fingers crossed, I'll come back a success.