Who inspires the most inspiring man in fitness?

Exclusive Ross Edgley interview

PhD ambassador Ross Edgley is a real-life superhero! In case you don’t know, he’s the guy who swam around the entire coast of Britain, and he’s soon on our screens in the new series “Limitless”, putting Chris Hemsworth through a series of extreme physical tests.

We managed to catch Ross on a rare restful moment and sat down with him over a coffee to ask where his incredible resilience comes from. This is an unusual and personal interview from Ross, and you can read the whole thing here. #meetteamPhD

Adventurer Ross Edgley reveals his childhood influences and sporting heroes

PhD ambassador Ross Edgley needs no introduction – his huge smile and incredible world-record achievements make him everybody’s favourite adventurer. But few people know about his background. What are the influences that made Ross so imaginative, ambitious, and resilient? We found out!

PhD: Ross, it’s nice to see you looking so relaxed. We wondered if this interview might be underwater or 1000ft in the air.

RE: Haha, I’m actually enjoying a break between projects at the moment, so I’m on my sofa at home with a cuppa.

PhD: We’d love to know what influenced your amazing achievements. Do you come from a sporty family?

RE: Yes, 100%. My Mum was a sprinter and my Dad was a tennis coach. One of my Grandads ran ultramarathons. As a family, we really bonded over sport. It’s what we talked about over Sunday dinner. My Dad was an epic sports historian, so I grew up hearing stories of all the great legends.

My Dad was the most stoically strong person I’ve ever met. When you see a loved one go through that, you look at your own short-term (and self-inflicted) discomforts in a different way!

PhD: And you were sporty yourself as a kid?

RE: Yes, my two brothers and I were all very sporty, and Mum and Dad did everything they could to encourage and support us. I’m the middle of three, so I had to level up and push myself if I wanted to do sport with my older brother. I did all sorts of sports at school, but really got into water polo. I competed in the under-18s England Schoolboys when I was only 13. Coach was always telling me I needed to get bigger, so that sense of playing catch up was in me from a young age. If anyone told me I couldn’t do something, I’d be like “brilliant, hold my beer!”

That sense of playing catch up was in me from a young age. If anyone told me I couldn’t do something, I’d be like “brilliant, hold my beer!”

PhD: One of your books is called “The Art of Resilience”, and you’ve certainly showed you have plenty of that. Where does that come from?

RE: My Dad, definitely. He was ambitious but practical, there was no barrier he couldn’t plan his way around. At family dinners I used to throw around ideas for charity events, and he’d get stuck in helping me with the logistics. I got the news about his cancer during my Great British Swim, and my first instinct was to call it all off so I could get to land and give him a hug. Dad said “make me a promise – you can give me a hug as long as you do it in Margate” which was the official end of the swim.

PhD: Papa Edgley sounds like a legend, and his influence on you is obvious. What’s your earliest sporty memory?

RE: This one makes me laugh. We were off on a family hiking trip, and I snuck upstairs to get my backpack. Mum and Dad found me putting weights inside it. I was 8 years old but already wanted to push my limits.

PhD: Did your parents make you take the weights out?

RE: They did, but I replaced the weights with all the food for our trip instead! Whatever we were doing, I wanted to do more.

PhD: What keeps you going during the toughest patches of your epic challenges?

RE: It’s a combination of my parents, and thinking about sorting legends who pushed themselves to new heights, like Emil Zatopek the distance runner. He came up with crazy training sessions which nobody else was doing at the time.

My Dad wanted to make sport available to everyone – he blindfolded himself to play tennis so he could get a better understanding of disability tennis (which, by the way, he just called “tennis”). He was still writing training programmes from his bed near the end of his life. He was the most stoically strong person I’ve ever met. When you see a loved one go through that, you look at your own short-term and self-inflicted discomforts in a different way!

PhD: Ross, you inspire so many people. We’d love to know who inspires you in sport?

RE: My great friend Eddie Hall is a huge inspiration. He broke barriers with that 500kg deadlift. Everyone said it couldn’t be done but he added 35kg to his own previous record.

Pat Rafter is another inspiration, I’ve stayed with him and seen how he trains. He’s an absolute beast, I’ve never seen anyone with lungs like that! And it’s that extra ability to suffer that meant he dominated tennis during that era.

I’d also say Mick Fanning, 3-times surfing world champion who is famous for surviving a for shark attack whilst he was competing. He has all of these natural physical gifts, but he’s learned to refine that in a really smart way. He’s also responsible for introducing strength and conditioning to the sport of surging, which is awesome.

PhD: Nutrition is a huge part of your training and challenges, why is it such an important part of the puzzle?

RE: I feel so lucky to partner with PhD, you’ve enabled me to work with the best in the industry like Professor James Morton at Liverpool John Moore’s. You can be the best athlete in the world, but unless you fuel whatever you’re doing properly, you’re destined to fail. And when you get it right, it all adds up to what I call “the aggregation of massive gains”.

You can be the best athlete in the world, but unless you fuel whatever you’re doing properly, you’re destined to fail. When you get it right, it all adds up to what I call “the aggregation of massive gains”.

PhD: How does nutrition help you prepare for your extreme challenges?

RE: Good nutrition is invaluable – for my Loch Ness swim I had to put on 12kgs but in a way that was heathy and fuelled the training. And then when I was dropping weight after that swim, I did it in a sustainable way.

The best diet is the one you enjoy, because you’ll stick to it. For me, the best fat loss supplement is PhD Smart Bars in Birthday Cake flavour! Everything PhD does is rooted in the behavioural psychology of nutrition, which is so often overlooked.

PhD: Can you let us in on any crazy plans for 2023?

RE: I was involved in the TV show “Limitless”, where my buddy Chris Hemsworth explores how humans can live better for longer. I taught him how to ice swim and got him climbing a 100ft rope dangling 1000 ft from the Blue Mountains. Chris is such a specimen – he ended up crushing an ice swim on 5 days of training and at single digit body fat. He defies the normal realms of conventional sports science. You have to watch it!

I’ve got about 5 ideas for 2023, but they’re all on the table. I’ll chat them all over with the family over Christmas, and choose the one that makes me feel fulfilled. Happiness comes from challenging yourself to do difficult things and getting through them with a smile – that’s what makes life worthwhile.

Happiness comes from challenging yourself to do difficult things and getting through them with a smile – that’s what makes life worthwhile.

Written by The Performance Solutions Team