Phil Vickery, the 2003 Rugby World Cup winner, has traded the Twickenham changing room for a very different backstage. Earlier this month, the former England prop made his bodybuilding debut at the Physical Culture Show in Hull — at the age of 50.
From Rugby Pitch to Bodybuilding Stage
What started as a simple ambition to get fit ignited something much deeper in Vickery. After a challenge from his friend Lee Powell, and with support from his physical trainer Dave Campbell, the former Gloucester and Wasps prop committed himself to bodybuilding, posing to the strains of the familiar World Cup anthem ‘World in Union.’
Waiting backstage in Hull, Vickery said the nerves felt exactly like a big game: the questioning, the self-doubt, and then the realization — ‘I’ve done the work. I’ve done the graft.’
A Zenith at the 2003 World Cup
It is 23 years since Vickery was part of the England team that won the Rugby World Cup final in Australia. A career that brought 73 England caps and five more for the British and Irish Lions has since branched into business and even a Celebrity MasterChef title.
But Vickery has also had to manage his mental health, including personal struggles and a diagnosis of probable CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), for which he remains part of a continuing legal battle. The gym, he says, gives him space to work — important for his mind as well as a body he describes as broken.
You Against You
‘What I’ve fallen in love with, with the bodybuilding, it’s a very singular, isolated sport, because it is you against you,’ Vickery said. ‘There is no out. You can’t hide behind a keyboard. You are stood on stage. Your physique and what you look like is a direct reflection of your effort and what you have done, and that is quite scary.’
The discipline of an ex-pro rugby player — turning up when it’s dark, dingy and cold — has carried him from a fitness ambition to a genuine passion for being the best version of himself. Also Read: Ellie Kildunne Benched as England Ring the Changes After Canada Defeat Ends 41-Match Streak
Source: BBC Sport — read the full story there.
