Simon Passmore on Staying Young...and Ripped!!

Welcome to a new epidsone of Primal AF.  In this podcast episode,  Simon Passmore, who is an absolute beast discusses his training regimen for Spartan and High Rocks competitions.  You'll hear about  the importance of setting goals and maintaining accountability. Simon also shares his experiences with injuries and how he addressed them through targeted exercises. He mentions his upcoming races and goals for the future, including breaking records in his age group. The conversation touches on calisthenics and mobility training as well. 

Simon's Instagram account (@SiPass70) is mentioned as a way to follow his fitness journey.

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:00

Yo, what's good? Welcome to another episode of Primal AF. Today is a fucking great one. I got my dude Simon Passmore. I met him over in Midlands Spartan Race. This dude is a Hyrox AG Pro World Champ of this year. Age group Spartan champion dude is a fucking beast. the best part is he is a great husband, a great dad. Stay tuned. Here comes Simon. Hey, there he is,

Simon: 0:26

the animal.

Jimmy: 0:27

Hey man, long time no see.

Simon: 0:30

I know, I know.

Jimmy: 0:31

Midlands last year, right? Yeah, it was over at Midlands. It was pretty dope. Yeah,

Simon: 0:39

yeah, yeah. I didn't go to Midlands this year, but they've changed the venue. They've changed it to a better venue than last year. Because last year's was kind of round up cornfields, basically. Oh, yeah. Wasn't it? But yeah. It

Jimmy: 0:53

wasn't bad. How's

Simon: 1:00

Spain? Honestly, great. So we've got this, um, yeah, I'll show you. I've had lots of work done. We've got a little townhouse here. Oh, nice. And then we've had lots of work done to it, haven't you seen this one? Oh man, that's awesome. And, uh, so it's like a typical Spanish townhouse. That's great. You've got, like, three floors. And then, actually, you know what? There you go. And then we've had the kitchen all redone. So it's like a handmade walnut kitchen. Oh, get out, really? Yeah, the guy was brilliant, honestly. A little bathroom in that side, and like a dining bit. It's kind of all over the place before. I okay. Let me show you this. I don't know how much you can see in. Oh,

Jimmy: 1:53

wow. Get the hell out of here.

Simon: 1:59

That's like a, and then you see that this is our little place and it goes. Up, up, up. Three floors. There's three floors. Yeah. Three little floors. But yeah, three tiny floors and down, down the street there and then over the road you're at the beach. Yeah. So. So where in Spain? Back in the Wi Fi. It's in Marbella. Okay. So in the south of Spain. Man, that's beautiful. It's there. It's like, um, yeah. Lizarra, my, um, my wife, she grew up for about 10 years further along the coast. Yeah. In a flash, go back on that now. I grew up there, um, and then went back to Scotland, uh, after, yeah, after the 10 years being here. It's a very different place.

Jimmy: 3:03

Yeah. I mean, dude, it looks beautiful, but, um, dude, let's get into it. Like I got a bunch of listeners here and like looking at your pictures. On Instagram, you have for, I mean, not even for your age group, just in general, just dominated the, the fitness and competition and the OCRs, like wherever you go, like, how did you, how did you get started? Like, tell me like a little bit about like your

Simon: 3:34

past. Oh yeah, so yeah, so in the past I didn't, you know, I grew up playing football or soccer, um, a little bit of rugby. Uh, but mainly football, like team sport, and then that's all I was kind of really doing. I wasn't really focused on anything, you know, um, athletically or anything like that. Really, um, what it changed for me was going over to Hong Kong. Um, so I lived in Hong Kong for 10 years. And there you can go two ways. You can go drinking like crazy and you down rabbit hole.'cause it, it's 24 7. It's, it's quite incredible. Um, or it's a big outdoor area. Nobody realizes much that Hong Kong's actually 85% green land. Okay. You can. You can go, uh, kite surfing, you can go hiking, lots of trails and that kind of stuff to do. Um, so I got more into fitness there. I did dragon boat racing, um, when that season was on. So, but then I guess the thing that the big change for me is when Spartan came along, because I was doing fitness stuff before, but I was, I didn't have mainly weights. Um, at the, at the, at the gym, a little, you know, on the running machine a bit, not necessarily that coordinated in what I was any aim apart from the only aim I had was I've got a bit into the road running. So you should only have certain times of year, really in the winter, cause it's so hot during the summer. Um, so I did start like out doing half marathons, a little bit less than 10 K's and my goal was to get under 40 minutes in 10 K. Which took like seven attempts. It's like crazy.

Jimmy: 5:21

I'm still working on it.

Simon: 5:23

You see, it's, it's, it's like that, that barrier. Um, And it's only a lot of things are my mistakes, you know, just done things like not having all your equipment and stuff together and then realizing that when you're supposed to get on the ferry to go over to the mainland to race, you know, really early in the morning and having to run up the hill to get it. Um, yes, I, I wasn't really that focused apart from doing a little bit of running until Spartan came along and I just got hooked on, hooked on Spartan because it's just a, I'm not a runner really. I mean, I forced myself to do it, but I'm not like a natural Kenyan Kipchoge. Yeah. Right. Um, but Spartan combined the trail running, which I found some really cool trails. This is great with. You know, resistance exercise with, you know, just fantastic. Like, you know, you have to have mobility, you have to have some strength. And so the training style really changed into like a more of a functional start. Um, and that, that just made that, that made the difference. Once I found a spot on that, that was, that was,

Jimmy: 6:41

you know, That's how it was sold to me. It was because I was heavy in the lifting. I played American football, but the same thing, I didn't really have a purpose. And it was sold to me as. What if there was a race that had the weaknesses of two types of people? So the weaknesses of runners are lifting heavy things. And the weaknesses of people that are like bodybuilders are running. So let's even a playing field and put them all in the same place. I'm like, I'm in. Yeah.

Simon: 7:10

That's the perfect thing. You're right. Bang on. It's just because I knew some people that were, you know, guys, proper runners, they could do a, uh, a 10 K in 30, 32, 33 minutes, but they couldn't do them. You know, it could do the monkey bars, could lift the Atlas stone, could do those other parts. Then you've got these crossfitters. When at the very first couple of times, a lot of crossfitters were. Doing the spider, you know, big guys, muscles on them look great on the photos, but they didn't have running speed, as you say. Yeah. Interesting. They didn't have the, sometimes didn't have the mobility for some of the, the, um, the monkey. Initially, I think, I think it's like anything, right. You have to get used to the, um, the movement type, the movement pattern and get your body used to how I, how I navigate that obstacle. You know, that's why the obstacle dominators, the primal stuff with Matt and yourself, you know, packs for the great tips to go. All right. Okay. So the up and down monkey bars sideways, you give yourself a bit more time and you can really control it a bit, you know, a bit better.

Jimmy: 8:25

A lot of it is technique, isn't it? So like things like. Olympus wall and um, even like the, the twister and just a bunch of like the technical things. Like Matt does a really good job of like doing a little video out there. He's like, Hey, just look at this. Um, it's like, but like, it's on us to when you, when you go out, it's like, all right, man, you know, you're racing. It's like, I just got to send it. Just like.

Simon: 8:48

Yeah. And the interesting thing I found was your approach up to obstacles as well. So I find that kind of, let's slow the heart rate down when you get into the monkey bars and that, and this is really a lot, but yeah, when it was the burpees for the age groups and the elite, you don't want to get burpees, right? So, okay, it's better to just like slow the heart rate down, walk about 30, 40 meters into the, that obstacle, calm yourself down, right? Reset now, let's see how I'm going to do this. Because sometimes you, you rush, and I've rushed a lot, you know, and you, you see the bell, I don't know, okay, well you, instead of going another hole along to make it secure, then hit the bell, I said, all right, I'll go hit the bell, and then I missed it by a crazy amount.

Jimmy: 9:34

So Matt and Liam came over to Palmerton, and Matt was kind of running alongside me, and I did the same, it was the monkey bars, and they were there, so I'm running a decent race, and I started showing off, and, I, I, I jumped with my arms one bar early and I swung and I missed the bell. I'm like, Oh no.

Simon: 9:56

For me, Nirvana is having a clean race. I don't, you finish where you kind of finish that's going to happen, but to have a clean race, then you know, okay, I couldn't have done any better than that. Right. So that's the Nirvana. When, when I was back in Hong Kong, um, the great I had a bit of like a real transition, uh, from work into, from office work, um, finally getting out of, uh, finance and it was kind of just like a soul destroying kind of area. Yeah. Um, you know, you, you kind of, especially American banks, they kind of want their, want their pound of flesh. All the time. So the mental stress of working there was, uh, which was crazy. Um, then I got out of that. And then spent the next few months retraining, retrained as a personal trainer, group trainer. So because I started Spartan the October 4, this was in the following March, then, right, let's, let's get your, get your PT, uh, license. Then let's go get your Spartan SGX. as well. Um, and the guy, this little gym that was near a beach, you know, this, uh, the paddock out the back that I found, you had to kind of hack your way through to get out the back. And I found there was this whole horse stable that's disused a big open paddock and lots of trails. Um, so it made lots of obstacles. And we used to do a lot of training, um, for adults and kids. Doing, uh, doing the Spartan training, um, which is, which is great fun. You get to practice yourself, but you know, you, you built Olympus walls and Zed walls and put up ropes and spear throws. Yeah, essentially

Jimmy: 11:49

you just build a community.

Simon: 11:50

That's awesome. Yeah, it was, it was really good. The best, the best part of that, I got to be an ambassador for Spartan for a, for a couple of years out there. And then we had all the pro races. Um, in Asia came over to, to use it because at that particular time, there was nothing else like it in, in Hong Kong, um, that you could actually properly practice. You can go on a trail run and get some off school technique, um, going. Um, yeah, it was, it was perfect and get a great community. And the best thing was with the kids, you know, the kids absolutely loved it, you know, and the session. that we need to cancel because I could have poured out rain and when it rains in Hong Kong properly deluge of rain water, right? Um, that was the best session. The kids loved it in the rain. This big paddock, one of the, um, the mountain biking businesses, there was a couple of doors down from us. They'd also built some obstacles in the, in the middle of the paddock as well. Like seesaw, wooden seesaws, and we, we dug some trenches, which are now full of water. Um, so yeah, that was an awesome time. That was great. The kids were, were just covered in, covered in mud and had a great time.

Jimmy: 13:05

Yeah. I bet the adults too, because I mean, that's. When we get into stuff like this, it's essentially, you ever like take your kids to like a birthday party or something and they're like doing like some little gym activities and you're like, man, kind of wish I wanted to jump on there, but I'm like the only adult there. Like it's, it's kind of like taking us back. To like, fun and playing.

Simon: 13:29

You're right, you're right. You know, there's nothing but playing, right? Whether you're an adult or whether you're a kid. And I think Spartan, um, especially, it's, you're playing a lot. You know, it's good, you know, it's good fun. You're in all these different, um, terrain and You know, you get in muddy and you know, it's, it's, it's great fun and it's just like being a kid. And sometimes

Jimmy: 13:56

it's the views too, because like sometimes you'll just jump on some of these mountains. And I mean, I saw some that were in Italy and I was over on a mountain last weekend. It's like, you look back for a second. It's like, oh man, this is, this is really cool. I'm, I'm sucking wind, but like, it's a really cool, it's a really cool

Simon: 14:14

view. Yeah, I had that, I was really fortunate, so fortunate. It was a, uh, it was kind of like a, a present from my wife, Lazara, talking about views. I'd previously done the, um, Ultra in, uh, Ultra World Championships in Iceland. I qualified for that by winning my first age group race in Malaysia, a beast race, and they said, oh look, You can come and do the open in, in Iceland. So me and my friend, why not? This is like, yeah, it was fantastic to go to Iceland and race. And it was a 24. You had to start at 12 o'clock on Saturday. You had to finish between 9 and 12 the following day and do at least 60 kilometers. Um, and, and the circuit was. It was crazy. Like a 11 K circuit up into the, um, up into the mountains. You, by the time, you know, you got, when it was freezing cold, then you needed D spikes to get down. And the views there were, were, were amazing. Absolutely. You know, incredible. Because they only had four, they had four days of, of, uh, so four hours of, um, sunlight at that particular time. Oh, Jesus. When you had the, uh, when you had the early morning sunshine and the late. Like, um, late Sunday, that was fantastic, but Lazara like, I don't want you doing an event like that again, it's a bit crazy. And so I was looking at the calendar, and this is the other great thing with Spartan, you've got this kind of global calendar of where races are. The race that was right near her birthday was the, um, Hawaii trifecta. Oh, wow. One week away from her birthday, and it was her 40th birthday, right? Okay, let's put that up. And I see a place to race that that's, um, uh, ranch, uh, cooler ranch. He is where they filmed, um, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park. Yeah. Oh, just phenomenal. I remember, especially on the beast race, when you're kind of going up more into. Into the hills and just looking around it. This is, this is pretty phenomenal.

Jimmy: 16:28

So legit. So, I mean, when that pops up on the schedule, there's always like a. There's always like a, a piece of me that's like, Oh, I should probably do that, but it's a lot. Well, you, you do like the high rocks is too, is that how you say high rocks?

Simon: 16:45

Yeah. Yeah. So I, so I did a lot of Spartan and then I've been living in Hong Kong 10 years and then We moved, uh, back to Scotland in 2010 with my little daughter, Santia. Um, and I soon did the first year of the, uh, UK, the UK series age group. So I did that for the first time last year and that was, that was great. It went really well. And then, then Hyrox. I was listening, hearing about Hyrox, and okay, let's do that. And they had one in, in Glasgow itself. So February this year was my first, um, Hyrox race. And there's certain similarities, but it, it, it's really intense. I think Spartan, you know, you've got the varying distances, you're trail running and out in the obstacles. The obstacles are normally spaced a little bit, um, you get some clusters, but whereas Hyrox is, Hyrox, you don't have time to think, but you can in Spartan, you're just thinking how many laps am I doing, and then what's my next, um, exercise I need to do, a sled push, sled pull, whatever. Where is it an asset, you know, you're just kind of thinking like that all the time. And it's so, yeah, I'm really enjoying the, in the high rocks now.

Jimmy: 18:07

Yeah. I bet. So, I mean, well, the medals you're racking up, you're not doing too bad.

Simon: 18:15

No, you know, it's one of those things, you know, for me, it was a real, real new challenge. Cause I won by that time, probably 18 age group. Races, I was on a real good run of it all with Spartan and one of the UK series, and it's just having a bit, you know, another, another challenge. Um, when High Rocks came around, I didn't know how I was going to perform that, you know, especially one comes to runs when I'm not usually I'm fairly slow out of gate and then I kind of catch people up on the Spartan side of it. Um, here you've got to go out fast and then you've got to continue that. And it's a whole thing about compromise running when your, your heart rates are up, your lactic acid is kind of built up from the exercises. You've got to do that. So you do all these simulations in the gym, but actually doing a race is a different thing. So I did the first one in Glasgow. I won it by, I mean, hundreds of a second. Wow. Which is crazy. Me and this guy called Connor, um, we both got 103. 38. Um, which were great, uh, great times for our age group. Uh huh. Um, I think it was like the second, yeah, at the time, the second fastest time of all time. But, but, but at the same time, we needed to understand it. Like, we were just like hundreds, hundreds of seconds. And that's, and high rise can be like that. It can come down to, you know, split seconds and seconds sometimes, you know. That was a lot. You've got to push through the line. You've got to go through the line. You know, you've got to push yourself. Um, but yes, I did really well there and I qualified for, uh, winning that meant I qualified for the world championships in Manchester, right? In England. So last year, last year they had the world, they had the, um, world championships in Vegas. Fantastic, right? Go to Vegas, do the world championships. No, this year you go to Manchester.

Jimmy: 20:12

I've never been to Manchester, so I don't, I don't, I can't put the two together.

Simon: 20:18

Yeah, fair enough. You know, I hadn't been to Manchester for about 20 years. So, and, and Manchester is actually a really cool city. It's a really good city. Um, it's great fun, great venue, great pool, great, great fun. And for me, I could drive down there from Scotland in like three and a half hours. So, um, but I didn't know whether I'd be actually be able to compete because they made the race instead of open, they made it a pro race, which When you look at the second set push, you've got 175 kg plus the sled, a couple hundred kg push rather than 125 kg, you know, everything's heavier, um, from an exercise point of view. And I'm just going to... Well, I need to go to the gym first to see if I can actually push this shirt. Right. You know, can I push it? I don't know. Cause I'm not, I'm not big at all. You know, I've got some kind of strength to me, but you know, I'm not, I'm not big. Now I've got your muscles. So I'm more, I don't know, kind of base. So I had to go and kind of practice some of these things. Okay, I think I can do it. If I work on it, I can, I can do it. So I went and signed up, um, uh, for it and then, yeah, did the, did the world championships in Manchester. Before that, I had a race in Malaga in open and I managed to, that was my second open race. I managed to break the, the, the record for the age group. Um, so we've got the all time record there. Um, I didn't want to watch Manchester, uh, as, as well. So it's been, it's been a great start. A great start.

Jimmy: 21:56

How does, how does nutrition play into what you do? So what is that like? Cause I'm, I'm interested cause you know how, you know, I roll with Matt, but you know, what

Simon: 22:07

do you do? So it's interesting to nutrition because I know you guys, I mean, you, it's primal, right? You're gonna grab a cow and you're gonna And it's funny, you know, back in, back in the days, I love, I loved steak and I loved, uh, I loved meat. And then when I met Lazar and she was on the vegan diet, being on vegan diet, Um, since she was 17, um, and I just kind of went along with, with that. So I stopped eating, eating meat, uh, been, been five, five years now. And, you know, honestly, initially you get the kind of thing. I might have enough protein, you know, you've got a natural protein with, with, with, with meat and, and certain vitamins that come in, in, in meat that's difficult to replicate. Um, but there's lots of other ways of getting that, that protein. So I've been on a, a meat free now, now I eat, uh, fish, I'll have eggs. We're in Scotland and Spain. So you're near the, near the sea in both cases. So you get fresh fish. Um, so my diet really changed. I found a couple of things where my, my recovery was really good. Um, I just did a double race in High Rocks back in, in weekend before last in Madrid, the open hander pro in the same day with an hour and a half break, right? The next day, absolutely fine. No muscles, no, no problems. I could have gone and done another one, I think, in theory. Um, so my recovery is a lot better. Um, I've lost a lot of, of, um, of weight. I used to be fat fit. Yeah, me too. How much do you weigh? There's no definition. 70, 73, 74. And how old are you? Uh, 53.

Jimmy: 23:57

You're fucking jacked.

Simon: 24:00

You're fucking jacked. It's funny thing. I'm down to 32, uh, 32 to waste. I've been at for, for a long time. So it's going on this, this diet as well. Um, it's not diet actually, it's just a change. Cause if you use diet as a, I think that means you're trying to stick to a particular plan. And for me, you know, I'll go in and out of things. Obviously I'm not eating meat, but I'll go in and out of other things. Um, I'm not necessarily strict. You're going to treat yourself and all that. Um, but yeah, so all the clothes I had before, I'd throw those away and then came down. And now I'm at this, And it's just, now I can just maintain it, um, really, really, really well. In fact, the issue I have is actually eating enough a lot of the time, you know, trying to eat enough to keep going. But yes, the nutrition wise, you've got those elements there of better recovery. And, um, my body just works better. Everything works really, really well. And then, so when you have a Spartan race, I, you know, it's that whole carb loading a few days before and all that, making sure that

Jimmy: 25:01

we do like berries and,

Simon: 25:03

and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, and doing all of that, uh, all that. And I know Matt loves, you know, water and sticks some salt in it and that, which, you know, works.

Jimmy: 25:13

Dude, he switched it up. You switched it up. Now it's, um, orange juice, coconut, uh, water, and a shitload of salt.

Simon: 25:21

Shitload of Coconut water is a, is a, is a beauty. It's got everything in there. It's good for a few things. It's good for a few drinks, chuck a load of coconut water before you go to, go to bed and you'll wake up a lot, a lot better. You won't have any issues. Yeah. With hyroxys, um, so carb loading and spartan and obviously making sure you've got enough, um, uh, liquids on board and you should, um, sodium, potassium, but hyroxys, there's not only carb loading, but it's really all around making sure you hydrate it properly and trying to get that balance right. And so what I'll do is I'll have lots of electrolytes the day before. Of the day. I'll have water. I'll just have water because I get, sometimes I get a bad reaction. I get really dry mouth. Yeah. In races. And I think sometimes the, some of those, um, drink additives and stuff can give, give me that a bit. Okay. When I had it, I had it in Spartan. Um, actually it was Midlands race. I had a couple of gels. I don't, I don't bother taking any gels now because I don't, I don't, I find I don't get the benefit of it, but I had a couple of gels. I'd had some, uh, electrolyte stuff. I don't know if it's dry or anything, for about 5k. Unfortunately, the rolling mud came up, and I'm just like, I mean, it's pretty horrible stuff, but I can't get some water. I'm looking at the swamp for what it is. I just need to have some water. Like, just a night.

Jimmy: 27:09

I'm going to add some, like, penicillin at the finish line. Yeah. That's crazy. You're, you're training a lot. How do you, how do you balance, because you're, you're a husband, you're a father, right? And then you're doing, you're doing all the races. How, how do you balance all that? And I'm, I'm taking notes on this because my schedule, you know, it's back end heavy towards a year, so.

Simon: 27:36

You have a couple of kids as well. As well. Yeah, so primarily my main job now, which I love, is looking after Santia, my daughter. And she's a three year old kind of firecracker. She's so much energy, honestly. She's, you know, she's, she's just so active, been crazily active. And we come over to Spain, especially, she loves it. She's, you know, she's down at the beach at the moment. She'd go to the swim pass, go to the beach, be in and out of the water. But she'll still be up at 9, 10 o'clock. The

Jimmy: 28:11

energy they have is unreal. It's like, I, I need to somehow get some of that in. Into what I do because I'm like, I'm one o'clock man. I was like, I need a nap time. If we're going to be going past like dinner,

Simon: 28:25

I'm trying to work out. She seems to have a little bit of some little bits of downtime periods. And it's almost as if she's kind of charging a battery as well. And we find we've got to make sure that she's bathed or showered early enough because she then goes on this. An hour after Bartholomew shot where she's just kind of jumping around everywhere, she's dancing, she's doing everything. And then hopefully after that, then she kind of comes down downhill, but it's trying to spot that bit where, where she's actually is tired and go to bed. Once you, if you go past that, then she's up. Yeah, it's just manic. But principally I'm looking after, looking after her. So she, when we're in Scotland, she'll be in nursery Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, and I'll go, I'll do my runs and I'll go to the gym on the time that she's in nursery. Um, and then I've got to do other things as well outside of that, but that's what I train. So I train, I guess, fairly a lot. I'll do double sessions, you know, so I'll, depending on what I'm training for, so I'll be doing some longer runs, you know, for the beast races, etc. Um, and I'll start near the race times. I'll start. Putting in some of these kind of every kilometer on the kilometer, I'll do 30 burpees or I'll do press up or I'll do 30 squats and I'll, you know, find anything that's there to jump over on the way to, to do some pull up, so on or something. So I'll do those kind of runs a lot more, um, when I'm trained for, for Spartan. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'll do more speed work, um, when I'm training for High Rocks outside. Okay. Heels work for both, they're great, heel repeats work for both, really good for your, for your heart rate control. And then after doing a run, then I'll come into the gym and then I'll probably do a hour, hour and a half, or maybe two hour session in the gym, varying different exercises, you know, depending on what I'm training for. But really it's intense. You're kind of training for, for the three days and then there's rest days on the Tuesday, Thursday, when I'm looking at the center. Oh,

Jimmy: 30:44

that's not, that's not bad at all. So you get, you get a good balance of everything. Have you had to, have you had any, it doesn't look like you're very injury prone. Have you ever had to overcome an injury? Yeah.

Simon: 30:56

Yeah. So, and it's an interesting one because Actually, when I was training for Iceland, um, I got injured, injured at that point in Hong Kong because for training for Iceland, you're supposed to, when you do some sessions, get in 40, 000 steps a day. That's the whole thing you're supposed to do. And you're not running all the time, or hiking, and there's lots of trails in Hong Kong. So I do a combination of hiking and running. and things like that. But where I made the mistake was there's a place called the, the Peak. It's a big tourist kind of area. Um, but it's, it is right up. It's got an amazing view. So I went up and down the Peak. Seven times or something. And it was the downhills, uh, the next day. My knees were just in pieces, you know, the, the, I couldn't for weeks I couldn't sleep properly or do anything. So I went to see this guy that, um, I'd met through the PT course, um, a really interesting guy who was a, who was a physio and got some acupuncture. But what he did, I, I thought, have I done some kind of. Injury around, you know, the tendons and all this kind of around there, the meniscus, all this business. Because I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't walk properly, it was, but what you've got to be doing is all these little knee strengthening exercises for the, the VMO muscles and the lateral and the medius muscles of the knee to strengthen that, that area. And I did those. You know, every, every day. Um, for, well, actually, I, I, I still do, still do them, but you know, back then I was doing ev every day up until I had a race in Hong Kong, um, like about four weeks before this Iceland. And, um, I c I'd made it round, um, thought, well, I've made it around that, that I carry on. You know, with those exercises, when it got to Iceland, I was absolutely fine again. So that was the main time I'd had, um, an injury and just, I just didn't have the right muscle strength to be able to do the, you know, the particular exercise. And now the only other thing I had a little bit, I had some pain in my hips. And I think, oh man, okay, right. So I'm getting over it right now. He's not pleased. I don't want this to happen. Okay. Let's have a look at it. And I followed someone on Instagram, American lady called Megan, uh, Carol, and she's just awesome. She said she, she does the slowest muscles up muscle up I've seen. And it's just incredible. It's just what she did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did, did it all the way up and over as well. And she does training for people and all this, but she said a lot of content where it's all about strengthening your, um, hip flexors. Okay. And the issue was really the hip flexors. You know, my hip and my, there was a little bit of knee pain, but it's mainly with my, my hip. And I started doing these, these really simple exercises, do them every day again. Um, and you know, within a couple of weeks they're gone. So since then I haven't had any touch wood, any injury. But funny enough, both of them have been around like mobility or strength factors within, within certain muscles. Yeah, it sounds like

Jimmy: 34:38

you address, address the challenge really quickly and just, just attacked it. That's, I mean, it sounds like exactly what you do with the high rocks in Spartan. I mean, just, just attack, but I mean, good for you for staying so healthy. So the training must be, you know, it sounds like it's intense, but your body's like ready for

Simon: 34:59

it. Yeah. And I try to change that. That's, that's a good, that's a good thing of, of, um, you know, Combination between the running and. And the strength stuff, the resistance to, and when I go into the gym, I'll have an idea of what I'm going to do at certain times of the hierarchs, I'll do a simulation today, or I'll do a half simulation, you know, building things up, even the spot and right, I'll do some grip strength stuff, I'll do some switch grip things or some dead hangs, or I'll carry some farmers into the kettlebells and all that business. So there's a certain specific training. Other times, I kind of listen to your body a bit, a bit more, you know, and I've enjoyed doing, uh, especially with the high rock stuff, just doing mini, mini sets, like five rounds of two exercises, you know. And it is got basically like a, a high intensity resistance, um, exercise. Almost like simulation. Yeah, simulation. So, you know, when I, when I, if I run, then I'll run with a 12 k g bag and, uh, 500 meter run. Then I'll go do some farmer's, carries the weight for 200 meters and I go back again. And so I, I do a lot of that stuff because you get a lot of funny looks in the, in the gym. It's, it's, it is good. There's some great people in there, a lot of older clients. The times I'm going, obviously the younger ones will go before working that. Um, so you get some funny, funny looks and that. But, um, I, I do switch. I try and switch it around a lot, you know, just, just so that you get to work different muscle groups. You, when I was in finance, especially when I was going to the gym, um, I was finding, you know, and, and I, and I was when I found Spartan, so it's kind of like a period. Before I'd actually left finance and my training style had changed, then I'll be trying to get value for money out of the, the workout. Cause he had a limited time, you know, had to be back at your desk. Um, so I'll go upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body, upper body, lower, you know, no rest effectively. Um, because I needed to get as much. Yeah, so it's, it can work quite, you know, it's normally really intense and then there's a guy George Anderson that I listen to, um, mental strategies and he's like, put his phrase like put yourself in a bin. Um, so normally I've been put myself in a bit a lot, you know, just really working yourself. You know, hard, um, because I've got a day to recover, you know, and then on a Friday about two days, you kind of naturally those recovery periods mean that when I get to the gym the next time that I'm, I'm nice and fresh, I couldn't, you couldn't do that every day.

Jimmy: 37:53

No. Yeah, that would, I mean, that would wear you out. Like if you, if you take a step back from your day to day activities. What do you think is the idea or the thing that keeps you like motivated to train and to do the races? Is there a bigger and larger goal?

Simon: 38:15

I think, well, the bigger and larger goal is to stay as young as possible because Sanjay is three. I'm 53. Jeez, I want to be around, you know. We weren't expecting that to happen and she's, so she's like a little miracle in a lot of ways. Um, and so yeah, I just wanted to be as young as possible for, for her and, you know, that metabolic age, you know, down. So that's the biggest, biggest goal for Santiago, for my other daughter in New Zealand, Ruby is 13 as well. So that's the biggest thing. And then outside of that, on a much more micro level, it's just having goals. Because I found previously defining to my son, then he didn't have a goal. You know, I had that goal of the 10k. But the races in Hong Kong were, you know, eight months apart, so it's then having that goal, I've got that race coming up, I'm going to train for that, for that race, um, and the different types of races, et cetera. So it's just having those, those. Goals. I'm very good at goal orientating, I think, from, from work previously. And it helps. You know, you have a target, then you've got something to work towards. Yeah, it

Jimmy: 39:34

keeps you focused. I mean, it's just like, it's just like everything else. Like, I mean, it's hard to train for something. I mean, you can have an idea of like, I want to train for a Spartan, but until you actually sign up, you're not really training for a Spartan. You're just kind of. You're just kind of trainer or whatever, Savage Racer or High Rocks or whatever, but also we could like take that idea because we do the same things like with vacations. So the last day of vacation, we set up our next vacation because it's like something to look forward to and something that like motivates us to kind of keep on going and focus.

Simon: 40:08

Well, that's it. It's funny you mentioned that I'd forgotten that whole that mindset as well, because when I lived in Hong Kong that was the mindset that you had because Work was so intense, um, and Hong Kong was quite intense that you always had a vacation planned. You always had to have something planned. Okay, I know that that's my neck break. And a good thing living there was the ease of traveling, which would be long haul if you're back in the UK. So, you know, you can fly to Vietnam in an hour and a couple of hours, go to Cambodia, go to different places so, so easily. Um, You always, you know, you had all this planned out. Um, it's a great, it's the same way as you have races and it gives you a focus, gives you a goal, right? I'll make it to, you know, go to that race and I'll go to that holiday. Like throwing a spear. The great thing, the great thing with Spartan and with Hyrox, you know, you, you get to travel and, and she can combine, combine the two.

Jimmy: 41:11

Yeah. Cause I haven't, I wouldn't have, well, to be honest, I wouldn't have. done Midlands. I wouldn't have gone to London if I haven't joined the Spartans or, you know, joined with Matt. And I wouldn't have gone to like Savannah, Georgia. I wouldn't have gone to something Vermont. Like what the hell am I going to do up there? I go camping, but it gives, it gives purpose. And it's like just more experiences. It's, it's awesome.

Simon: 41:31

It's great. And so the funny thing for each, you know, when it goes to a Spartan, A lot of the guys, they've got their, you know, the family are there, trying to get Lazaro and Santia to come along to a bit of a field somewhere in England is not going to happen much. Hirox, because they're cities. Um, chips in, in nice in the south of France, on the coast and co Yeah. So she's gonna comes for sure. Yeah, I bet. That's, uh, so combine, combine the, the two, which, which makes it, you know, a lot better because I, I don't wanna, you know, too much. That's the thing. You can get carried away with it and you don't wanna be away too much from family, you know?

Jimmy: 42:15

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the other thing. Are there, um, are there any. Other goals or disciplines that you're looking forward to this year or next year?

Simon: 42:26

Well, so yeah, so my, so actually, so this weekend, I've got my last Spartan race coming up. The, the last, uh, conceivable future, um, is the last race in the UK. The series, um, so that's in Pippin, so that's the weekend. So the goal is to go there and try and win that. And there's me and a good friend, Danny, who's, he's, he's leading me a little bit. He beat me in one of the races earlier in the year. Um, so yeah, rep covers to, to do, to try and do as well as I can in that, that race, finish that off, um, nicely. And then, then I'm going to be focusing on Hyrox because I found trying to do the two this year has been a bit difficult. You don't get down season from either. Hyrox finishes in June and starts kind of September. And that's when a lot in the UK and Europe, a lot of Spartan races are in that, that period. I think it's being away too much, you know, it's trying not to be away too much. And I think with, with High Rocks it's a bit easier because it's in the city center, then you can kind of, I'm going to go to Dublin the end of next month, so I just fly in one night, do the competition, come back, so you're not away for the whole weekend. Um, so the goal with High Rocks will be to... in that race in Dublin, try and break the open record. Um, so do an open race there. Only issue I've got is the training. I'm in Spain now, so you're kind of in holiday mode and there's calisthenics stuff for you, which is, which is great, but you're not doing a specific, necessarily a specific training. So I'm kind of trying to replicate that a bit. Um, so yeah, um, try and make that open record. I've got pro races. in Glasgow and Malaga early next year and to try and break the prime record in my age group then I should have, I should have, I would have broken it in Manchester. If, if I hadn't got such a bad sense of direction, I wasn't, I went in the out gate and I got a minute penalty. Oh no. Which, which meant that I, I missed it by about 20 seconds. No. But, uh, so the goal is to break that, that record. And then you've got, um... I'm doing doubles with Danny in London, so we're going to try and try and break the, if we can, try and break the record for the doubles in age group, uh, as well. And then you've got the European Championships, that's an open European Championships, I'd like to go there, and then there's the World Championships again in Nice in June, so just trying to see if I can hold out, if I can break those records, and then... Then Windows Championships, really. And yeah, just take it, take it race by race. By race.

Jimmy: 45:13

Yeah. That sounds awesome. Well, I'll, I'll be following you. Um, for the listeners, um, you'd need to follow Simon. Simon. Where can they find you? Um, I

Simon: 45:23

guess if, if you do really do want to, then, uh, it's on Instagram. It's at IPAs, so S I P A SS seven zero, um, on Instagram. So yeah, I, I normally more from accountability point of view, I. Normally put on what exercises and what different things I've, I've been doing, um, just to keep myself accountable. You know, it's like, you say it out loud, but I'm going to race that, that, that a couple of weekends ago when I did the double, double race, you can say, okay, but this is what I'm going to do. Then you just go and do it in your account. You kind of have this accountability in your, in your

Jimmy: 46:03

head. And that accountability is a bitch because I went to dinner with a friend a couple months ago. And, um, man, accountability, I posted a picture of me eating like two cheesecakes. I was like, yeah, I've got to post that stuff too.

Simon: 46:18

Yeah, well, you know what, I think, I think with the food, and I'm, you know, I'm the worst, and the big change for me when it came to nutrition was cutting out, obviously, lots of chocolate, um, biscuits, like cookies, just a barrel of most of these things. So I can't cut that out now. Um, I will have. But it's just, it's kind of a take it or leave it. I think especially post race, the nice thing is kind of post race. You know, just like,

Jimmy: 46:46

yeah, just like have added

Simon: 46:50

double cheese, double pizza, double this and then go for it. That's, that's, that's the other good thing of doing these competitions. And that you can, you can eat well. You can definitely get away with more. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I know, and then, I said, like, Gold Wars, I was thinking, Gold Wars, I want to get back to doing that muscle up again. You know, I know you were doing some, uh, I was seeing you do, you know, some of the, those explosive pull ups you were doing, and you were kind of clapping about the bar, and you were doing, you know, doing this stuff. You know, I want to try and get back to like that body stuff, doing that kind of stuff. And this is where Spain being in Spain is great because they've got three lots of calisthenics stuff within a kilometer on the bars, on the beach, you know, this kind of stuff.

Jimmy: 47:35

My muscle ups aren't pretty though. It's, it's all, it's less form than it is muscle. It should be the other way around because there's people that do them with ease and it's, it's technique. I just. Once I get up there, it's just something kicks in. It's like, get up there, go!

Simon: 47:53

Yeah, it's, I've been chasing it for ages and I, the problem is when you get older, you lose certain things. You like, you lose a bit of that plyo strength. You lose the muscle, muscle mass. Some of that agility, you know, that you had, um, so when I did, I'd actually been on the beach down here, um, last year, the first time I, I did one, I was like, oh, it's such a great feeling, then you do sets of three or some of that, but for me, it's.

Jimmy: 48:23

Well, that's where I'm at now. I think because there's, I've seen people that will just like, we'll do like three sets of 10. I'm not, I'm not there. I mean, I didn't even know I could do it until last year. I think somebody else told me, I was like, Hey, you look like you could do a muscle up. So I just went on YouTube. I'm like, how the hell do you do this thing? Um, I tried it my way. It didn't work. And like YouTube,

Simon: 48:44

it looked good. You know, it looked good because, you know, the, you know, the crossfit style of muscle up, but loads of kipping, all that kind of stuff. And it wasn't, it wasn't like that. It was, it was a lot smoother, but obviously I haven't looked at Megalyn Calloway on Instagram. I keep plugging her because I think she's. She's just, you know, that power to weight ratio that she has and the control that she can go up and do these things. Well, that's

Jimmy: 49:08

how I did, I mean, that's exactly how I did the muscle up, but that, you know, like the, the row flow that I do, like all I did was, I mean, it's so, it's so good for you, but all I did was like, I would screenshot Matt when he did it. And, and Liam, and I would just, I get that rope to go over their head? I was like, fuck it. And, you know, I smacked myself in the face a couple of times, but I was just like, playing around and doing it, and same thing with the muscle up, just like, playing around, like, nobody's watching, just throw it. It's like, oh, shit!

Simon: 49:38

That, that rope moving you're doing, I get that people say that, it's just... It's every plane, you know, your transverse plane, every aspect, every plane is being used with that. And it's almost like yoga like in a way, the way that you kind of just relax in while you're doing it. It's just

Jimmy: 49:55

like, there's like, you know, there's flows for like meditation. I'll go out in the, in the backyard and I'll just close my eyes, just get some sun. and I'll just throw that thing around and, you know, hopefully don't step in dog shit, but but then like there's like a little bit more intensity ones where I'm like getting my heart rate up so I'm like and then you know it's all coordination and just it's easy on the joints but it's fun man.

Simon: 50:19

You should look at this, um, I, I trained in, became a level one instructor in animal flow, and that, that was a really good one. It's a very kind of primal thing, really. It's all, you know, contact with the, the, the ground. You know, you don't have any shoes on or anything like that, and you're doing these different movements, kind of crab and ape walk and all this kind of stuff, very controlled. It's kind of, uh, it's like an athletic version of yoga, probably the wrong way of describing it, because you're always Your muscles are always in engaged when you're doing these movements and you flow from one movement to another and you can kind of make it up as you go along as well. But it's, it's, you know, it's great for mobility and agility and squat

Jimmy: 51:04

depth. Like it's, yeah, you're right. Cause I've seen, I, I incorporate some of those like eight blocks and they're good on the hamstrings, the hips. That's, I mean, that's what I'm working on a lot too, is just hip strength and mobility.

Simon: 51:16

Yeah. It makes it, you know, the whole, obviously, Spartan, lots of sports, working on your core is a big thing, but that, that mobility, especially for, for Spartan, it's just such a, such a big. Keep up and for life generally, but you know have that mobility for for sparring to get over those walls and do all that business You know, it really helps them.

Jimmy: 51:42

Absolutely. Well Simon, man, I really appreciate you having on thanks for cutting out Uh some time for me and dude, it's great over there in Spain man. Enjoy it Good luck with uh, good luck with the high rocks and breaking all the fucking records and dude, you're you're an animal I appreciate you having um coming on

Simon: 52:01

I appreciate you having me, Jimmy. It's been great fun. It's great to watch what you're up to as well. So we'll, uh, we'll meet up again for

Jimmy: 52:07

sure. Hey, yeah, uh, really soon, really soon. I'll, uh, I'll hit you up and I'll head back over there. Great. Looking forward to it. All right, brother. Take it easy, man.

Simon: 52:18

Take it easy. See you, man.