Last Summer I was lucky enough to join the nation's favourite uncle Harry Redknapp as he assembled a team of England football legends. My job? Get them back in shape for one last job – redemption against Germany!
David Seaman, Mark Chamberlain, Ray Parlour, Lee Sharpe, Mark Wright, Steve Howey, Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock, Rob Lee, Paul Merson, John Barnes, Chris Waddle, Matt Le Tissier and Robbie Fowler is a line up that in their heyday would have given any team in the world a run for their money - and speaking of money - what price would they all fetch in today's market?
Having 12 weeks to get a team of retired superstars back to match fitness is a whole different kind of challenge for me as a trainer – this couldn’t be treated as a football focused strength and conditioning project, nor a celebrity 'get fit' challenge.
Given these players were all now retired, they had for the most part been spending their recent years making up for the lost time with their families, playing golf and generally enjoying life (some a little more than others). As a result, the knocks and niggles from their playing days began to creep back pretty quickly.
The plan, therefore, had to deal with the inevitable weight loss as well as keep in mind these guys didn’t just want a nice ‘before and after’ pic, but to be able to get through 90 mins of football against their arch rivals, in front of a full stadium and the ITV cameras.
Taking on an entire team of clients, all based in different parts of the country, meant that encouraging them to make sustainable lifestyle changes was going to be the way forward on the weight loss front, and creating programs that they could (and most importantly would) follow on the days that I couldn’t get to them. The filming schedule meant that I would see the players as a group once a week, but that day had to also include their ball work with Harry.
I have always maintained that the most important consideration in any training program – regardless of the goal – is adherence. Consistency is key. So creating sustainable changes to the players diet and exercise regime was my goal – going too hard, too early and being overly draconian about all the things you now ‘cant’ do is a sure fire way to make a task seem alien, impossible and unobtainable.
So it was all about bite sized changes (pun intended) to diet and exercise that got stricter as the 12 weeks rolled on. Tips such as ensuring the players all ate breakfast then became telling them exactly what to have for breakfast. Weight-supported conditioning sessions on a bike, initially given to protect some vulnerable hips and knees, gradually made way for hill sprints, box jumps and agility drills. We could do this because we had built a solid platform of strength and conditioning – but also, to be brutally honest, because some of the players who were initially carrying a bit too much extra weight now were not, meaning the impact to their joints was now placing them at far less risk.
I’m not giving too much away to say we had some incredible transformations with the players – with fat loss in some cases in excess of 10kg and increases in fitness testing by up to 50%. However, for me the greatest outcome was being able to see the players, some of whom adorned my bedroom wall in my teenage years, do what they love to do one last time. Friendships and rivalries were re-ignited, and in Harry, I got to work alongside probably the nicest man in football. All in all, not a bad gig.
Harrys Heroes is on ITV1 on Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 March at 9pm
