SONNY WEBSTER | From Zero To Rio: A Life's Journey To The Olympic Games

Chris Williamson 0:00 (wind blowing) Look, he's learning already. He's learning to not put the can down too hard on the table. This is a man who's watched some podcasts.

Sonny Webster 0:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:15 Anyway, bang! Everyone who's listening, welcome back. Sonny Webster's joined me today. How are you?

Sonny Webster 0:21 Very well, thank you.

Chris Williamson 0:22 What's happening? Long drive today.

Sonny Webster 0:24 Long drive, five hours in the car, decent training session, considering.

Chris Williamson 0:29 Very decent training session, and worth it, obviously, to see me.

Sonny Webster 0:32 Of course. I'm looking forward to-

Chris Williamson 0:34 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 0:34 ... the later part of tonight's antics.

Chris Williamson 0:36 Yes. Of course. Um, those of you who know what I, uh, how I perceive drinking, I'm gonna suspend my drinking habits, or my lack of drinking habits for one evening. I can talk about-

Sonny Webster 0:48 Bear in mind, when I met you-

Chris Williamson 0:50 I was still in-

Sonny Webster 0:50 ... you were almost six months sober.

Chris Williamson 0:51 ... a six-month sobriety stint. Yeah, exactly.

Sonny Webster 0:53 And we still went out, and you were there, like, itching. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:56 Itching. It was difficult. But that was at the end of it. That was, like, uh, like, two weeks to go.

Sonny Webster 1:01 Mm-hmm, like, two weeks ago. Yeah, fair.

Chris Williamson 1:02 It was not easy. But yeah, that was, um, that was still a really fun night at Bodhi, at BodyPower in Birmingham.

Sonny Webster 1:06 So good, 'cause we literally met, like, a few hours before that as well, and we just, like, click.

Chris Williamson 1:10 Yeah. It's cool, man. It's awesome.

Sonny Webster 1:12 Lovely. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12 So, anyone who's watching on the brand new Modern Wisdom YouTube channel, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. If you don't know what Sonny does, Video Man Dean will make it appear here, and here, and also here.

Sonny Webster 1:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:34 So, Sonny is, uh, an Olympic weightlifter, represented Great Britain at Rio.

Sonny Webster 1:39 Yep, 2016.

Chris Williamson 1:40 Um, and now you are traveling the world doing weightlifting seminars and coaching people, doing a lot of PT work.

Sonny Webster 1:47 Having a lot of fun.

Chris Williamson 1:48 Having an awful lot of fun, and being a big-dick Instagram swinger, and-

Sonny Webster 1:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:52 ... all the rest of the stuff, man. So, for the people who don't know who you are, and for the people who do, can you give us a background? How did you start in weightlifting, and what, where does it come, where do you begin?

Sonny Webster 2:01 Yeah, well, I guess I have to take you right back to me even as a kid, and go back and talk about, I guess, um, what got me into sport. Like, I mean, I've always been a sporty kid. You know, you got those kids that are the sporty kids, and then you got the kids that are more, like, artistic, et cetera. I was always a sporty kid. Um, my dad was always into golf. So, like, naturally, before I could pretty much walk, my dad had golf, uh, covered my hands. And I even remember, like, he's still got videos, like, on, you know, the old video recorders, like, the tapes-

Chris Williamson 2:35 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 2:36 ... of him trying to teach me, and he was so brutal with me, like I'm, "My golf swing's pure," and he's like, "That's wrong, it's bad." And I'm there, like, "Ugh," like, like all set.

Chris Williamson 2:45 Three years old.

Sonny Webster 2:46 Yeah. So, um, my dad was, like, was pushing me with my sport, um, and going back to sort of, like, year ... When do you start, like ... Primary school? Year-

Chris Williamson 2:56 Five. You're five years old.

Sonny Webster 2:58 Yeah, so from primary school, really, up to, and that goes up to, what, year six, doesn't it? So, during that time of school, um, I was all, in, like, all the sort of school clubs, like gymnast, gymnastics, um, you know, athletics. The cricket ball throw was my event, um-

Chris Williamson 3:15 Nice.

Sonny Webster 3:16 ... 80-meter sprint until you get to year six, and it became 100, and I'd, like-

Chris Williamson 3:21 That last 20 meters just kill you.

Sonny Webster 3:23 (laughs) It just killed me. I was always, like, little, like, stocky, like, 'cause obviously my mum's from New Zealand, so I've got a bit of Maori in me.

Chris Williamson 3:29 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 3:30 So like, got that stocky sort of build, and I'd be, like, pssh, off for, like, the first, like, 40, and then I'd hang on for the 80 meters.

Chris Williamson 3:37 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 3:37 As soon as it became, like, 100 meters, I was finished. And it was always about being the fastest kid at school as well, wasn't it?

Chris Williamson 3:43 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 3:43 So, uh, yeah, that finished me there. I tried high jump. Obviously these little stumps are no good at that. Uh-

Chris Williamson 3:49 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 3:49 ... long jump was okay, but again, not great. And slowly realized that I was a kid that was good at lots of things, but great at nothing.

Chris Williamson 3:57 Yep.

Sonny Webster 3:58 Um, and I always tell this story, 'cause it's, there's one, like, key point for me in, I guess, my Olympic journey, if you like, that stands out for me. I dunno what it is about this moment, but it still, like, sticks in my head. But I remember being sat in maths class in school, year, I would've been, whoa, year five probably, um, and it's, I'm gonna say 2000 and, um, maybe it was 2002. And I'm sat in maths class doing maths, and, um, in the, the way that my school was, it was, like, three classrooms and they were divided by, like, sliding doors. And the PE teacher came running in, burst open one of these sliding doors and was like, "Stop! We've got to turn the TV on," and there was only one TV in, um, in the school. And so we were like, "Right, fine."

Chris Williamson 4:50 Sounds good.

Sonny Webster 4:50 Like, better, better than maths, we'll watch a bit of TV.

Chris Williamson 4:52 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 4:53 And, uh, Miss Cousins, I think the PE teacher name was, and she flicked the TV on, and it was right at the moment when David Beckham and Kelly Holmes were jumping up and down hugging each other. Do you know that, what I'm on about?

Chris Williamson 5:05 No.

Sonny Webster 5:05 Okay, so it's right when we won the bid for London 2012 Olympics, 'cause obviously them two were, like, key figures-

Chris Williamson 5:12 Ambassadors.

Sonny Webster 5:12 ... yeah, of, like, the, um, of the ...

Chris Williamson 5:16 Campaign.

Sonny Webster 5:17 Yeah, the campaign. So, um, that moment just sticks out for me as something that was, like, my first real recollection of the Olympics and what it was. Uh, I dunno if it is about that moment, but it still, like, makes me feel happy now.

Chris Williamson 5:31 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 5:31 But it was just how much it meant to them made me feel from, like, right from that moment, like, I wanna be part of that. I want that feeling, whatever that is. And, um, after then, for the next sort of couple of weeks, I guess, in school, they did a lot of, like, classes around the Olympics, what it was, to obviously educate us as to-

Chris Williamson 5:52 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 5:52 ... what the Olympic Games was. And, um, at that time, I could, could've told you every golfer in the top 10 of the-

Chris Williamson 5:58 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 5:58 ... knew nothing about what, you know, any Olympic sports.So we learned all that and, um, I guess then we got into year six and again I continued with the sports that I was doing and, you know, pundled sort of along. And then, um, we ended up moving down from year six to year seven, down to a school in Ivybridge so this is back in Reading, um, down to Ivybridge which is a little town in, um, Devon, near Plymouth. And, um-

Chris Williamson 6:25 So you are at the arse end of the country, there.

Sonny Webster 6:27 Yeah, so-

Chris Williamson 6:27 Like, you're as far away from here as possible.

Sonny Webster 6:29 Well, you can go further. You can go to Cornwall.

Chris Williamson 6:30 Oh, yeah, true. True.

Sonny Webster 6:31 But yeah, longer south.

Chris Williamson 6:32 Pretty south.

Sonny Webster 6:33 Yeah, so started for year six, um, year seven then at this new school and naturally when you start a new school and you don't know anyone, you're kind of like that loner and at the time I was living with my dad when we moved down there, when he first went down there. And I remember like my first day at this school and like you know how like your mum makes you packed lunches and she can 'cause it's your mum-

Chris Williamson 6:58 (laughs) Yeah.

Sonny Webster 6:59 ... and they know how to make a packed lunch.

Chris Williamson 7:00 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 7:00 And then it was like my dad was making me this packed lunch and like bless him, he tried to be hard but at the same time he didn't give a fuck what you was doing.

Chris Williamson 7:09 (laughs) So he'd just roll you into school with a single baguette and like...

Sonny Webster 7:11 (laughs) Yeah, pretty much like, uh, "Yeah, go in the shop and get what you want." And you're like, "N- no, I like to slice my sandwiches in triangles, Dad."

Chris Williamson 7:19 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 7:20 So, I just remember that first day being like absolutely horrendous, wanting to cry like-

Chris Williamson 7:26 Shit packed lunch.

Sonny Webster 7:27 Yeah. (laughs) Shit packed lunch. Starting this new school and just being like, "Oh, God, this is horrendous."

Chris Williamson 7:33 Fuck.

Sonny Webster 7:33 Yeah, fuck. New school and it was a big school as well.

Chris Williamson 7:36 Okay.

Sonny Webster 7:37 And it was, it was Ivybridge Community College and it's really well renoun- known for its sport.

Chris Williamson 7:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 7:42 Which is half the reason why we went there.

Chris Williamson 7:43 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 7:44 Um, and it's like, um, a community college. So it was like a normal public school.

Chris Williamson 7:50 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 7:50 Not private.

Chris Williamson 7:51 Yep.

Sonny Webster 7:52 And, um, yeah, so I started in this, in this school. No mates. Like shit packed lunch and I'd decided at lunchtimes, um, that I'd go and sit in the weightlifting gym and, uh-

Chris Williamson 8:04 So your school had a weightlifting gym?

Sonny Webster 8:06 Yes and it was-

Chris Williamson 8:06 That must be very rare.

Sonny Webster 8:08 It-

Chris Williamson 8:08 I'd think you'd probably be able to count the number of schools on one hand who-

Sonny Webster 8:12 Mm-hmm. Two at the time. When I started there was only two schools in the country that offered weightlifting as part of the GCSE curriculum so you could do it as like a, um, as part of your PE GCSE.

Chris Williamson 8:24 That's amazing.

Sonny Webster 8:25 Yeah, um, yeah, only two. The other one was in Birmingham, I think Baverstock. So yeah, really rare to come across this. Uh, but we did have also a golf academy even at, in that school as well so I've, in the summer I eventually joined the golf academy as well. But anyway, so I went and sat in this weightlifting gym and I guess each year maybe 60 or 70 students sign up to weightlifting club-

Chris Williamson 8:51 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 8:52 ... at lunchtime.

Chris Williamson 8:52 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 8:53 Um, from year seven. Um, but I wasn't really interested. I was just like killing my lunchtimes basically.

Chris Williamson 8:59 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 9:00 Watching people do it because they're not weights (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 9:02 Nothing else to do. Yeah, exactly.

Sonny Webster 9:04 So, I guess I'd been there for nearly two weeks, um, before the coach came up to me and said, "Look, you've been here now two weeks."

Chris Williamson 9:13 "You're weirding everyone out."

Sonny Webster 9:14 "You're weirding everyone out. You're also taking-"

Chris Williamson 9:16 "That That packed lunch is fucking shit." (laughs)

Sonny Webster 9:17 Yeah. You're taking the piss out of like some of the kids giving it a go and the coach was just kind of like, "Come have a go yourself."

Chris Williamson 9:24 Yep.

Sonny Webster 9:25 Like or, "Fuck off," basically.

Chris Williamson 9:27 "Yeah, take your shit packed lunch. Go home."

Sonny Webster 9:29 So, um, I was like, at the time like I didn't know that, that it was an Olympic sport and I wasn't really like, uh, for me sort of thing. I was like, "I'm, I'm a golfer," whatever.

Chris Williamson 9:40 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 9:41 Um, and the coach said, "Look, now. Come on. No, you've got to come tomorrow lunchtime like." And, um, I thought, "Pff." Like so after having my arm test I was like, "Fuck it. I'll go along and have a go."

Chris Williamson 9:51 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 9:51 Uh, so the next lunchtime I went along and purely because I'd sat there watching people do it, like anything if you watch someone do it enough, you have a pretty good idea of what you need to do.

Chris Williamson 10:00 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 10:01 Um, and I'd done that and after the first session the coach came over to me and said like, "Did, did, uh, that, that other coach teach you how to do that?" And I was like, "No, no. I've just been watching like I knew what I needed to do." And they were like, she was like, "Fuck," sort of thing and she was like, um, "You got detention every lunchtime. Do you want to be here essentially?" So that's how I spent the rest of my time, um, in the school was practicing Olympic weightlifting. And it started off, so fell into it by chance but then it started off just being like a lunchtime thing. I'd go in for an hour over lunch and do my weightlifting and I made some friends through that.

Chris Williamson 10:38 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 10:39 Um, so then it became something that we'd do, get up and go and do an hour before school and then it became like before school, lunchtime and after school and, um, yeah. I mean, within the first... I remember my first competition which was about six months after I started and it was actually at my school and, uh, I remember crying because I didn't, uh, didn't get all my lifts. I think I got five out of my six lifts and started crying like...

Chris Williamson 11:05 A perfectionist at an early age then.

Sonny Webster 11:06 Yes. Always. So, um, yeah, that's I guess from me, childhood to initially finding weightlifting.

Chris Williamson 11:13 Yeah. That's interesting. What I think's really interesting is that you've said about, um, your capacity to be able to look and then turn the movement just from visually seeing someone else do it. I think that's definitely the mark of a good athlete.

Sonny Webster 11:28 But everyone learns differently and I find this even as a coach now, where sometimes I can say something to one of the guys I'm coaching and they go, "Yeah," bang and do it.

Chris Williamson 11:36 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 11:37 Someone needs you to show them a visual cue of them like, you know, you actually doing a demonstration-

Chris Williamson 11:42 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 11:43 ... for them to understand. Some people need to see themselves in order to-

Chris Williamson 11:48 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 11:48 ... be able to interpret what they need to do rather.

Chris Williamson 11:49 Some people just don't get it at all, as well.

Sonny Webster 11:51 Yeah. (laughs) But that's the thing and everyone learns differently and I think I've always been very visual in the way that, that I learn like.

Chris Williamson 11:59 Yeah. The ability for your, the proprioception to understand where your body is from having just seen something-

Sonny Webster 12:05 Mm.

Chris Williamson 12:05 I think is definitely the mark of someone that has a natural athletic talent and I think...... the fact that you've started so young doing the golf swing. Golf's very fine-tuned movement-

Sonny Webster 12:13 Very technical, yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:13 ... yeah, exactly, very precise. And I can say the same for myself, to a degree. I did cricket for 10 years and that's exactly the same.

Sonny Webster 12:22 Really?

Chris Williamson 12:22 It's very technique-based. And when I started with Jordan at Reebok CrossFit Tyneside, I was able to pick up ... Like, the first time that he taught me to do a muscle-up, I got a muscle-up. The first time he taught me to do toes-to-bar, I got a toes-to-bar.

Sonny Webster 12:33 'Cause you have an awareness of your body and, like-

Chris Williamson 12:35 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 12:35 ... what, what it's being asked to do.

Chris Williamson 12:37 100%. And I think that people don't like to hear that there's a lot of natural ... uh, a, a big natural component in success within sport because it takes away someone's hard work capacity to get to the top.

Sonny Webster 12:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:51 But the bottom line is that some children and adults that start sports will naturally be able to learn faster.

Sonny Webster 12:59 Yes, they are.

Chris Williamson 12:59 They'll be able to pick it up more quickly. So you've started your weightlifting. You're doing it up to, what, three hours a day now?

Sonny Webster 13:05 Yeah. So, um, yeah, I was doing up to, I guess-

Chris Williamson 13:08 What, what do you lift?

Sonny Webster 13:09 ... three hours a day.

Chris Williamson 13:09 As a, as a 11 or 12-year-old, what's y- what do you lift?

Sonny Webster 13:12 So-

Chris Williamson 13:12 Can you remember what your openers were?

Sonny Webster 13:13 I can go ... I can tell you sort of what I was lifting at 12. I would've been snatching around 70 kilos, 12, 13, about 70 kilos, clean jerking around 90.

Chris Williamson 13:23 At 12 and 13 years old?

Sonny Webster 13:24 Yeah. 55.

Chris Williamson 13:25 There's CrossFitters up and down-

Sonny Webster 13:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:27 ... the country that are listening to this that are burying their head in their hands right now.

Sonny Webster 13:29 At 55 kilo body weight or something like that.

Chris Williamson 13:32 (laughs) .

Sonny Webster 13:33 I used to compete in the 56-kilo class.

Chris Williamson 13:35 Hang on. You were 55 kilos at 12 years old?

Sonny Webster 13:38 (smacks lips) Yeah. No, no, I would've been ... I started ... When I first started, I was 46, and then went up to 45. The lightest men's category is, uh, 56 kilo.

Chris Williamson 13:49 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 13:49 So that was, like, my category that I competed in.

Chris Williamson 13:50 (laughs) .

Sonny Webster 13:51 So yeah, I suppose then we're nearly two years in, um, and it was about, yeah, two years in. So I'm ... maybe I would've been 13 when I did those weights.

Chris Williamson 14:01 Yep.

Sonny Webster 14:01 And, um, I'd won everything. Like, the British under-13s, British under-16s, under-17s. I broke the records, thought I was the dog's bollocks.

Chris Williamson 14:11 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 14:11 I was now gone from, like, barely no mates in school to really obviously popular kid in school-

Chris Williamson 14:16 The jock.

Sonny Webster 14:17 Yeah. Like ... And, uh, I got selected for my first, um, international.

Chris Williamson 14:22 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 14:22 Then I would've been, like I said, 13, 14. It was a European under-17s in Pavia.

Chris Williamson 14:28 So you're competing against 17-year-olds-

Sonny Webster 14:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:30 ... at the age of 13 or 14?

Sonny Webster 14:31 Yeah, but that didn't bother me. I was like, "I'm gonna smash this as well."

Chris Williamson 14:34 Bring, bring it on then.

Sonny Webster 14:34 I'd never lost, so I was like, "That's the ... I'm gonna win this as well."

Chris Williamson 14:38 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 14:38 Cocky, definitely.

Chris Williamson 14:40 (laughs) .

Sonny Webster 14:40 Um, I went to the competition and ended up getting six out of six, broke the British re- my, my own British records by a kilo in each lift. Yes. Finished 22nd out of 23.

Chris Williamson 14:51 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 14:51 That was only 'cause 23 bombed out. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:54 (laughs) .

Sonny Webster 14:54 Bollock last. And I ... Again, I remember that feeling of getting, like, working, watching the scoreboard going, "What is going on here?" (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:04 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 15:04 Like, "Am I in the right category?" Like, "Surely there-"

Chris Williamson 15:07 You'd got my name, you'd got my name right.

Sonny Webster 15:07 There was women out-lifting me, the whole shebang, and I was like, "Shit."

Chris Williamson 15:11 Wow.

Sonny Webster 15:12 So, uh, yeah, one of the best things that happened to me though, so early on as a kid, in sport, because I very quickly realized that it wasn't about being the best kid in your country or the best at your age. You had to look so much further past being the best in your pond if you wanted to compete at the highest level.

Chris Williamson 15:33 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 15:34 And yeah, like I said, one of the best, uh, one of the best lessons I learned really early on. Um-

Chris Williamson 15:39 Humbling, I suppose, when you said you, you were kind of big-dicking it for a little while.

Sonny Webster 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:42 And yeah, bringing yourself back down to earth was probably what, what you needed to, to recover.

Sonny Webster 15:46 Yeah. But at the time, obviously you don't notice it, but I look back and reflect now on my career, because, I mean, I've been doing it 12, 13 years. I've had a lot of years lifting in me and there's cer- definitely certain points of my career that I pinpoint and go, "That was a turning point," or, "That was when things went to the next level."

Chris Williamson 16:02 So how did you react once that had happened? What happened to your training? And what happened to your approach to the sport overall?

Sonny Webster 16:07 Yeah. So over the, the next couple of years of coming back from that, I decided that I needed to work much harder in my training and, you know, the ... I just started working a lot harder than the other guys. But, at the same time, straight after that, so 2000 and ... coming into 2008, shortly after that first international, um, I actually ended up, um, having my back injury.

Chris Williamson 16:31 Okay.

Sonny Webster 16:32 So, um, it started off just being, like, a nervy pain in my back when I was lifting, and I was like ... It just didn't feel comfortable. But it progressed to the point where I couldn't walk, I was in that much pain.

Chris Williamson 16:45 How old are you here?

Sonny Webster 16:46 So 2008, so that's 10 years ago now, so it would've been like, yeah, 14 years old.

Chris Williamson 16:52 Right.

Sonny Webster 16:54 And, yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:54 That's a young age to be having a t- what feels like a severe problem.

Sonny Webster 16:58 A severe problem, to the point where I ended up having crutches for eight weeks because-

Chris Williamson 17:03 Oh.

Sonny Webster 17:03 ... to help me walk round school, because, like, couldn't do anything else.

Chris Williamson 17:06 You weren't able to train? You weren't able to walk without crutches?

Sonny Webster 17:08 Nothing. Nothing. And obviously that made me, like, extremely upset, even at that age, because, like, I was training every day and that was my life.

Chris Williamson 17:15 Huge part of your life.

Sonny Webster 17:15 Yeah. Already, at that age. So, um, we went to see a physio, um, and it was actually Tom Daly's physio at the time, Amanda Booth. 'Cause my coach when I first started, Michaela Briese, was a Commonwealth me- uh, gold medalist. She'd been to the Olympic Games. She was my first coach. Um, so she took me to see this Amanda Booth and, um, she was like, "God. It's bad, though. Not seen anything like this before. Go and see a doctor." Um, so then we went up to Bath University from Devon to, uh, see a back specialist there, and had the scan. And obviously the scan came back, and it was like ... At the time I only had two dehydrated discs. I'd, I'd had one extra by Sids' sad luck. Two dehydrated discs-

Chris Williamson 17:58 Dehydrated?

Sonny Webster 17:59 Yeah. So basically, obviously you've got fluid in your disc-

Chris Williamson 18:01 Okay.

Sonny Webster 18:02 ... and it's gone overfill and it's, like, compressed, so-

Chris Williamson 18:05 Okay.

Sonny Webster 18:06 Dehydrated discs. So instead of them being like that thick, it was like that. So I already had that, like, compression of my discs. Um, and then-... basically, um, sacrum, first vertebrae were fused together. So, um, that put pressure then on the disc above, 'cause obviously you'd have an extra disc there normally-

Chris Williamson 18:26 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 18:26 ... that if you imagine when your back goes into flexion, gives you a nice-

Chris Williamson 18:29 Curve.

Sonny Webster 18:30 ... curve. But because mine was like this to begin with, and you'll still see when I'm back, when I set my back, the first bit of it stays flat-

Chris Williamson 18:37 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 18:37 ... and then I get my curve. But obviously that disc-

Chris Williamson 18:40 Like someone shoved a rod in it.

Sonny Webster 18:41 Yeah. But obviously that disc then above where the two are fused-

Chris Williamson 18:45 Has to take more-

Sonny Webster 18:46 Force.

Chris Williamson 18:47 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 18:47 And it caused it to, um, come out basically.

Chris Williamson 18:51 Slip.

Sonny Webster 18:52 Buttured, yeah, um, slightly and then, 'cause I was so young, the bone, 'cause my bones were growing, the osteophytes had grown over the top of the disc, like out over the disc to like protect it, I guess.

Chris Williamson 19:08 Okay.

Sonny Webster 19:08 And that's what was actually pushing on my sciatica nerve causing the-

Chris Williamson 19:12 The pain.

Sonny Webster 19:13 ... the pain. So there-

Chris Williamson 19:14 So you've, you've walked in and you're just like a glossary book of back injuries, right?

Sonny Webster 19:18 Yeah and the doctor's like... I remember going back up to Bath for my consultation. He's like, "I've never seen anything like this from someone your age." He was like, "Can we take this to the world, um, you know, medical conference to discuss it?" I was like, "Yeah, no problem," and they did.

Chris Williamson 19:34 (laughs) They had to call in an expert from-

Sonny Webster 19:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:36 ... Lithuania.

Sonny Webster 19:37 He sort of came back and was like, "You have two choices really. If you carry on lifting, you're going to be in a wheelchair, um, or do you give it a go rehabbing it and see what happens?" Uh, but he was basically saying, "You need to stop weight lifting." So that was obviously really upsetting, down, and I guess I had like sort of two weeks of not really knowing what to do. And then Amanda Booth came back to me and said, "Look, let's, let's give it a go and just try and rehab it and we'll just see what happens." So

Sonny Webster 20:07 we went back to working, um, on low level core stuff and I'd go see her three times a week for rehab, et cetera, and, um, at the time, after a little while, I started just when I could walk, et cetera, again and was in very little pain, started snatching just with a five kilo bar.

Chris Williamson 20:29 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 20:30 And again, this is one of like the things that I think, and I mean, Ben Bergeron did a really good talk about injury, like a while back and, you know, about when I, in his talk, he's talking about how when his daughter broke her, uh, tore her LCL in a lacrosse thing and it's like that really like made me realize back at the same point when this back injury happened to me, it gave me a point to actually correct things that were wrong in my lifting because although I was a really good lifter, there was, I was making like little technical mistakes. Like my knees used to come in when I used to clean. I wasn't really strong enough for how good I was technically.

Chris Williamson 21:09 Yep.

Sonny Webster 21:09 And the bar used to crash on me, et cetera, my arms were like little spindles.

Chris Williamson 21:13 Yep.

Sonny Webster 21:14 And it gave me time to sort of as I was rehabbing and coming back, I spent a year snatching just 15 kilos.

Chris Williamson 21:21 Just working on fundamentals and technique.

Sonny Webster 21:22 Technique, ingraining it, which is like why I think now nearly 10 years on, my technique's really good and really consistent.

Chris Williamson 21:30 Greed and proved.

Sonny Webster 21:30 Because I had that time to correct those issues earlier on that a lot of people don't, 'cause they keep going, keep going, keep going-

Chris Williamson 21:37 And then you get a big-

Sonny Webster 21:37 ... they get a bad injury and then that's it.

Chris Williamson 21:39 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 21:40 Or you just never be able to progress because those technical patterns are-

Chris Williamson 21:45 So this is-

Sonny Webster 21:46 ... ingrained.

Chris Williamson 21:46 ... an, an interesting segue there. So I started boxing, uh, about three, four years ago.

Sonny Webster 21:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:52 And it was originally to do a white collar boxing fight against another promoter who's a good mate and, um, I- I loved it. I actually, I really, really enjoyed it and decided, "Oh, fuck it, I'm gonna continue." And went out to Thailand and went to Thailand to do kickboxing and Muay Thai and stuff like that and I absolutely loved it. What I found was that because I'd spent so long doing bodybuilding, that, I mean, you can hear, that little click there, that's my wrist. (snaps fingers)

Sonny Webster 22:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:16 Which I- I swear that I didn't mean for it to happen at the right time, but... (laughs)

Sonny Webster 22:22 (laughs) Full pay for the ... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:23 Yeah, exactly. Um, just gonna pop it away from the mic or else it makes that beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and I get annoyances off the audience. So I'm boxing and what I found was that because of the years of doing like chest press and stuff like that, my power of being able to throw punches was super, super high, but because my technique wasn't there, I actually ended up-

Sonny Webster 22:48 Causing your-

Chris Williamson 22:48 ... injuring my wrists-

Sonny Webster 22:49 Pain, yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:49 ... so badly. And I'm like, "No, this can't be the way, like it can't be that I'm too powerful for my own body. I don't even know how to throw a punch properly yet." But that was the case and it sounds like the same for you, you were almost too strong for your own biomechanics?

Sonny Webster 23:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:03 Like you were able to lift weights that your body wasn't able to support.

Sonny Webster 23:05 Well it's just, yeah, I think it was the other way around, like technically like I was enable-... it was enabling me to lift heavier than my body was actually-

Chris Williamson 23:13 Yes.

Sonny Webster 23:14 ... ready for. But yeah, same principle, yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:15 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 23:16 Sure.

Chris Williamson 23:16 But coming at it from a different side. So you've spent your time snatching 15 kilos.

Sonny Webster 23:21 And yeah, came back 2009, so this is... I had well, I can remember doing another Europeans, another juniors and I was successful in those years up to the point where I finished, um, coming up to year five or six and, um, I think through having done that, having, having that injury, I started to question, um, I guess bits of what my coach was getting me to do, 'cause I was going to competitions and nationals and seeing other guys that were far stronger than me lifting differently to me and I was like to my coach, "Why won't we doing so much deadlifts and pulls and squats as the other guys?"

Chris Williamson 24:04 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 24:05 And the coach was like, "Oh, you don't need that. It's all about, you know, speed and technique." And I was like getting to the point where I was lifting as much as she was and I guess I got to the point where I believed that I needed someone who was lifting-... more weight-

Chris Williamson 24:23 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 24:23 ... to understand what it takes to lift that weight.

Chris Williamson 24:26 Yep.

Sonny Webster 24:26 And now being in that position on now, like, you know, 10 years on, I, I think it was the right choice that I made.

Chris Williamson 24:33 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 24:34 So, uh, we did have a bit of disagreement, a bit of a falling out, and it got to year six, where you decide sixth form, college, et cetera.

Chris Williamson 24:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 24:41 And I was still playing golf at this point, and I was playing to a good level. I mean, I was playing off, like, four, three or four handicap, alongside my weightlifting.

Chris Williamson 24:50 Wow.

Sonny Webster 24:51 Like, so, um, I was good, and, uh, my dad was obviously really wanting me to crack on with, um-

Chris Williamson 24:57 Golf.

Sonny Webster 24:57 ... my golf. And, um, I had to make a decision what I was going to do, basically. So I ended up finding a weightlifting coach in Bristol called Andy Suter, and it was a really well-renowned weightlifting gym. It was the closest to, um, Plymouth as we could find home, and one of my friends was going to university there. So I was like, "Well, I'll move to Bristol and go join this weightlifting gym," and off we go.

Chris Williamson 25:22 Were you gonna go college as well, like sixth form or whatever? Or were you just gonna go to weightlift full time?

Sonny Webster 25:27 To weightlift, like, that was it. I was doing that.

Chris Williamson 25:30 Single-minded?

Sonny Webster 25:30 Yeah. And, um, I had good GCSEs. I had, like, six A stars, six As, and four Bs, four Cs, like. Did all, like, the triple awards and all the extra ones. So I had good GCSEs. Um, and so I said to my dad, "Dad, I want to move to Bristol to, uh-"

Chris Williamson 25:47 Weightlift.

Sonny Webster 25:47 "... come weightlift there."

Chris Williamson 25:48 At the age of 16.

Sonny Webster 25:49 And he just looked at me like, "Are you dumb? (laughs) You're not doing that."

Chris Williamson 25:52 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 25:53 Um, so anyway, I went away for a couple of weeks and I went on the computer, did a bit of research and stuff, and, um, ended up finding a golf academy in Bristol.

Chris Williamson 26:00 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 26:01 So I went back to my dad. I said, "Dad, you know what? Scrap weightlifting, like. I want to join this golf academy." And he was like, "I'm not stupid," like.

Chris Williamson 26:07 (laughs) Aw.

Sonny Webster 26:08 He was like, "Right, I'll let you go, but on one condition." I said, "Okay, go on." He said, "I'll give you £200 a month for six months, and if you don't find your own way in six months, you have to come back home."

Chris Williamson 26:21 Mm.

Sonny Webster 26:22 So I was like, "Fuck. Okay. Well, let's give it a go."

Chris Williamson 26:25 That's flying the nest, big style, right?

Sonny Webster 26:27 Yeah. So at 16 off I went. Like, I hardly knew how to wipe my own bum. Went to Bristol and, um, my mate was obviously just started uni there, and, um, slept on his uni hall floors for the first two months of being in Bristol.

Chris Williamson 26:42 Wow.

Sonny Webster 26:42 As you can imagine, Freshers' week, went out, got hammered, had my mate's ID. Like-

Chris Williamson 26:46 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 26:47 ... made every mistake you could make as a 16-year-old moving out from home and having no responsibilities. Just-

Chris Williamson 26:53 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 26:53 ... do what you want. Um, but at the same time, like, great, I had so much fun. I got to the b- I managed to get to stay there to the point when, um, someone actually dobbed me in for being 16 to the security guard.

Chris Williamson 27:05 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 27:06 For reasons that we won't mention. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:09 (laughs) Yeah.

Sonny Webster 27:10 Um, and I ended up having to find a room then to rent. But obviously living off £200 a month was very difficult, £50 a week-

Chris Williamson 27:17 (laughs) Yeah.

Sonny Webster 27:17 ... like, food, everything, like, and it was tough. And, um, I used to get the bus down from North Bristol down to, um, the center of town, to, um, walk to the gym. And the gym was in St. Paul's, which is a notoriously, like, bad area, rough area. It's got a bad stigma behind it, like.

Chris Williamson 27:37 Okay.

Sonny Webster 27:38 And, not now, but at the time it did. Um, but the Empire Sports Club were there and like I said, this was a proper gym. Like this is an old church, and anyone who went to the Empire, it was known everywhere, you trained properly. There was weightlifting in there, there was boxing. We had like world champion boxers coming out of there. Mr. Universes, bodybuilding-

Chris Williamson 27:59 Ev- everything was done to a high, a high degree.

Sonny Webster 28:01 Yeah. Precious McKenzie trained there, like, the lot.

Chris Williamson 28:05 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 28:05 Um, so if you went there you were serious. And used to, I'd get off the bus and I used to walk down to this, um, to the gym. And, um, I guess it got to mo- month five of being in Bristol and, uh, just having a whale of a time, like, I kind of, you take for granted all those things that your parents do for you. Washing up, washing your clothes.

Chris Williamson 28:26 Sandwiches, and cut, cut the corners.

Sonny Webster 28:28 Cut s- (laughs) cut sandwiches.

Chris Williamson 28:29 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 28:29 Et cetera. And, uh, yeah, I had to grow up really quickly, I guess. And it was coming up to, I guess now we're looking about a year out from London 2012.

Chris Williamson 28:41 Yeah. Was that in the back of your mind? Were you thinking-

Sonny Webster 28:43 Of course, like-

Chris Williamson 28:43 ... when you first started, were you, was that the goal? Was it London 2012? "I want to compete in my home nation"?

Sonny Webster 28:47 Of course. That's what I mean. My dream was always to go to the Olympic Games and that was definitely in the back of my mind. And, um, even in my coach's, that there was a good chance. Because when you're at the Olympics in your home country, you get quota spots. So the qualification isn't like how it is now, where it's, you have to be like top 10 in the world and it's really difficult.

Chris Williamson 29:06 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 29:06 This is like you have, um, you have to, um... Yeah, so you get quota spots. This is like you ha- you don't have to be top 10 in the world. So there are three spots basically, so it's much easier to qualify.

Chris Williamson 29:19 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 29:19 Um, so yeah, it was definitely in my, on my compass for sure. So, um, like I said, I was used to getting there, walk down through St. Paul's to the gym and I'm in month five of being there and I'm working out how I can try and stay in Bristol, 'cause I'm two months out from the World Championships, which was the first, uh, one of the last qualifiers to the Olympic Games, and I was like, "I need to stay in Bristol to do this." And, uh, I walked into the car park one day and, like I said, I would've described what the Empire was like old church in a shithole area.

Chris Williamson 29:48 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 29:48 But there's this brand new white Porsche 911 Turbo S parked in the car park. I'm just like, "Fuck." Like that is...

Chris Williamson 29:56 You're brave.

Sonny Webster 29:56 Yeah. That is nice car. What the fuck is it doing here?

Chris Williamson 30:00 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 30:00 And, um, I walked into reception and I said, um, to my coach, Andy, who was behind the bar. I said, uh, "Andy, who's, uh, who's car is that parked in the car park?" He goes, "His name's Geoff. He's in the main gym, in the bodybuilding gym." So I thought, "All right, fine." And, uh, walked off into the main gym, kicked the door open and I just shouted, "Who's Geoff?"

Chris Williamson 30:21 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 30:21 And the room's like, I'd probably say like six times the size of this room.

Chris Williamson 30:24 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 30:24 It's quite a big long hall and there's everyone in there, like I said, is serious training in there.

Chris Williamson 30:29 Massive. Yeah.

Sonny Webster 30:29 ... and, uh, they've all sort of stopped because they've come in and said that it was Jeff. And Jeff's on the other end of the room, um-

Chris Williamson 30:36 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 30:36 ... sat there doing bench press and he sat up and he goes, "What do you want? I'm Jeff."

Chris Williamson 30:40 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 30:41 And I just said, "Fancy sponsoring me?" First thing I said to him, like. And, uh, he goes, "Well, um, how much is it gonna cost?" And like I said, at the time, I was living off £200 a month and, um, I was like, "He's obviously got a few quid, I need to be here two more months, um, extra hundred quid, get some trainers, £500." He said, "£500?" And he went, "What? A month?" And my jaw sort of like hit-

Chris Williamson 31:08 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 31:08 ... the floor at that point, bearing in mind I was living off £200 a month.

Chris Williamson 31:11 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 31:12 Everyone in the gym probably only just about earned £500 a month and this guy is gonna give it to me, the little kid. So everyone stopped what they were doing, they scrapped their sessions and they're just watching this conversation just go back and forth now. And I went, um, "Yeah, okay then." And he just went, "Sound," and just led back down to carry on bench pressing.

Chris Williamson 31:29 (laughs) What a story.

Sonny Webster 31:31 And I'm just kind of like, "Has that really just happened?" But, okay-

Chris Williamson 31:35 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 31:35 ... walked out and got on with my session. And then about an hour later, Jeff's come out and he'd gone, uh, "Here, lad, what's your bank details?" So I give him my bank details and sure enough, the next month, £500 had come into my account. And, uh, I rang my dad up and I said, "Dad, I'm staying in Bristol. Fuck golf." I'm-

Chris Williamson 31:53 Yeah, exactly.

Sonny Webster 31:54 "... gonna try and go to the Olympics."

Chris Williamson 31:55 He's gonna throw your baguette down the b- down the drain.

Sonny Webster 31:57 Yeah. And, um, I guess after that, me and my dad didn't really speak so much-

Chris Williamson 32:03 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 32:03 ... for a while. Um, our relationship definitely, like, sort of went- went apart, but-

Chris Williamson 32:07 You think he was predicting that you were going to end up going back home?

Sonny Webster 32:10 Um, I don't think so. I think he knew that I was very determined to do what I wanted to do. Um, but because we sort of drifted, and I'll go back and tell you a little bit more about Jeff, because he's kind of a really big part to my success and my story. Because from that moment on, um, so I'll go back and tell you about Jeff anyway. So Jeff used to race BMX as a kid and he was a really good BMX racer. And, um, he was European number two and good enough to go to America to turn pro. Um, but unfortunately his, um, his parents didn't have enough money to send him out to America, so he subsequently ended up quitting and, uh, stopping his sport. But off the back of that, he ended up setting up a telecoms company and now is an extremely successful telecoms company-

Chris Williamson 32:59 In his own right.

Sonny Webster 33:00 ... in his own right, multimillionaire. Um, but at the same time one of the most down to earth, nicest, funniest guys you'll ever meet. And he saw me in a similar situation. I had a dream of, you know, going to the Olympics. He was very aware of me and my circumstances, um, you know, 'cause at the club I was obviously well known, um, of what I had dreams of doing. And, uh, he saw me in a similar position to him as a young kid, but he was in a position where he could help.

Chris Williamson 33:27 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 33:27 And, uh, so he did.

Chris Williamson 33:29 A lot of, uh, sort of poetic irony, poetic justice in that situation, right? That you happened to come across a guy who was in such a similar situation to you and then not only was in a similar situation, but had the resources to be able to-

Sonny Webster 33:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:43 ... assist you with that.

Sonny Webster 33:44 I think, yeah, definitely it's a stroke of- stroke of luck for sure. But the thing that I take away from that and the thing that I try and... 'cause people go, "Oh, Sonny, like, you managed to get sponsors. No one else did," et cetera. And it's- it's as simple as if you don't ask, you don't get. And that wasn't the first time I'd asked someone for sponsorship. That was probably about the 150th time after countless letters I'd sent out and just n- no replies, et cetera. It... Although, yeah, it's great, but it doesn't necessarily happen the first time. But if you don't have the balls to ask someone, then how are you ever gonna know?

Chris Williamson 34:20 Do you think that that little situation that you've said there and the- the framework that's around it is a microcosm to a degree for weightlifting? That people see you walk onto the platform, they see you snatch 160, 180 kilos, they see you put these lifts up and they go, "Well, like, of course he can do that. Look at how strong he is." And you go, "Well, hang on. You haven't seen all of the fails that I've done in the gym. You haven't seen all of the hours that have had to go into it."

Sonny Webster 34:46 Of course, and that's- that's the thing about any sport when you're put in the- the limelight and you have to perform for that one moment and no one sees the- the backstory and everything, the sacrifices and stuff that you go through along that journey.

Chris Williamson 34:59 The walking on crutches for eight weeks at the age of 14.

Sonny Webster 35:02 The- the... All of that stuff. And I mean, like from that moment on, you know, we- we went on and I actually ended up missing out on the, um, London 2012 Olympics by one kilo. It's heartbreaking for me at the time.

Chris Williamson 35:14 By one kilo?

Sonny Webster 35:15 Yeah. By one, two kilos I missed out on it. But... and, you know, it was heartbreaking for me. And again, like you- you learn from that experience and, you know, Jeff went to me, "Well, you know what?" Like, "Why don't we just carry on with the sponsorship deal and you try and qualify from," um, "try and qualify for Glasgow 2014?"

Chris Williamson 35:35 What's... What was that? Is that-

Sonny Webster 35:36 That's the Commonwealth Games.

Chris Williamson 35:37 Yep.

Sonny Webster 35:37 So that's like your next biggest thing really in weightlifting so the Olympics and... I guess for me that moment, that heartbreak, that failure and the disappointment, I still remember how it felt. That was like my catapult to make sure that for the Commonwealth Games, that wasn't gonna be the same thing. I wasn't gonna miss out on being there. Um, but it kind of worked both ways for me because I made sure that, you know, I stepped up my training, et cetera, and made sure I hit the qualification total and I did and it was great. And I went to that competition to take part. That's exactly what I did. And I had no aspiration for anything more than just to be there.

Chris Williamson 36:16 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 36:17 And that was, again, another big learning curve for me because it made me actually think of the psychological side of how you approach, um, competition, performance and events. And, like, for me, like- like I said, I... all I had was the aspiration to be there. I ended up lifting-... weights that I was capable of, um, and finishing in fifth place. And I think, what if I had fucking tried and actually gone into that competition believing that I could win? And if I'd lifted out of my skin, reached PB heights, there probably would have been a good chance that I could have maybe snatched a bronze medal. But because I didn't believe that I was gonna do any better than just be there, that's all that happened.

Chris Williamson 37:02 Do you think that that was an artifact of not making it to 2012?

Sonny Webster 37:07 Um, I, that thought process, I don't, I don't, because I'd never been in a position where I was competing in major championships like that. Um, so, but I definitely-

Chris Williamson 37:17 You, did you, did you feel like you'd already accomplished what you wanted to accomplish simply by being there?

Sonny Webster 37:22 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 37:23 Okay. Yeah.

Sonny Webster 37:23 And, you know, I think whether I'd lifted five kilo more or five kilo less, it wouldn't have made any difference to me because I just wanted to be there.

Chris Williamson 37:28 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 37:29 Because becoming, at the time, getting to the Commonwealth Games was a massive thing.

Chris Williamson 37:33 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 37:34 And, um, I'm gonna sidetrack a little bit here because like, I think this is another like, valuable thing that I learnt from reflection on that, was that like, at points of my career, the things that I thought were of most importance, now I've got older, I've actually realized that they weren't, and like, if I could go back and change or change my thinking, it, it would be that.

Chris Williamson 38:00 What sort of stuff?

Sonny Webster 38:01 So for example, like, I used to hold my body weight down at like, 56 kilos or 77 kilos, or at certain weight categories far longer than I ever should, starve myself. I used to live off Jelly Babies and make myself sick so that my body weight wouldn't go up, 'cause I had no knowledge of any nutrition, in order to break a British under-17 record.

Chris Williamson 38:22 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 38:23 Which, in the grand scheme of things, means absolutely fuck all. No one remembers who won the Youth Olympic Games 100 Meter Sprint, do they?

Chris Williamson 38:32 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 38:33 No one remembers seeing a thing. But at the time, as a kid, and growing up, you think it's the most valuable thing on earth, and you'd do anything to achieve it. And just like I did, get just getting to the Commonwealth Games.

Chris Williamson 38:44 I think what's interesting there is that perspective is something you naturally get as your frame of reference is wider.

Sonny Webster 38:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:49 And this is for everything, right? Like, your first breakup feels like your world's collapsing.

Sonny Webster 38:55 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 38:55 Well, maybe not for you, but you know what I mean. Like, your first breakup feels like your world's collapsing, but ten years hence, you're like, par for the course. Like, easy come, easy go, so to speak. And you're totally right. I can remember playing cricket, and I got accepted to play for Durham Academy. And for me, like, I got to warm up with the Australian team when they were playing at Durham against England.

Sonny Webster 39:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:19 So I got to bowl against Ricky Ponting and, like, some of the best players on the planet. And I remember thinking, like, "This is like, the pinnacle of, like, what I can achieve." And I'm like, "You're not even on the strip. You're like, in the nets. You're in the nets, in the arse end of the stadium." And, but at the time, you've got that... Do you know what I mean? You're so, you're so overwhelmed by the experience.

Sonny Webster 39:41 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:42 And, uh, you know, I think for young athletes, any young athletes that are listening, I, I, I like what you said at the beginning, which was that you, you expanded that domi- what, your perceived domain of competence to be global. That it was like, "Okay, I don't just need to be as good as the people in my town or in my region or in my country, or even in, like, my continent. I need to be, if I want to be the best in my sport, I need to be the best."

Sonny Webster 40:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:08 Period. And I think what's interesting is that there's still little artifacts of that that are percolating through. And obviously, for someone who has made it to the top of the sport, it's interesting to hear that they are still subject to the same kinds of cognitive biases and, and, and thought processes that a lot of people will.

Sonny Webster 40:32 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:33 They sell themselves short of their own-

Sonny Webster 40:35 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:35 ... of their own talent.

Sonny Webster 40:36 Yeah, and of your own expectation. And I mean, going on from that, like I said, that being a, like, quite a big point, I guess, in my sport, or realization of myself and actually h- having, like, maybe even a thought about the psychological process. 'Cause prior to that, I d- I think there's no way that sitting with a psychologist and talking about, um, scenarios such that could ever make me lift any more weights.

Chris Williamson 41:01 Well, when, when your nutrition, the zenith of your nutrition is Jelly Babies-

Sonny Webster 41:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:05 ... like, psychological training is probably not top of your list.

Sonny Webster 41:08 No, but as a kid, y- there was no support. I mean, there's very little in weightlifting, and I mean, up to that point, um, the men's team had had very slim amount of funding up to the Commonwealth Games. And afterwards, it stopped. And after Commonwealth Games, half the team retired. They stopped, because there was like, there's no way that I can continue training this hard, et cetera. And I, and like I said, I was training, um, six days a week, and it would be, three of them would be two, three sessions a day, and the other ones would be one, two sessions a day. So, you know, racking up at least, like, nine to twelve sessions-

Chris Williamson 41:45 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 41:46 ... um, a week. You commit your whole life to it, and the, the guys were a little bit older than me and they were like, "I'm 24 now, I need to go and get-"

Chris Williamson 41:52 A job.

Sonny Webster 41:53 ... "a job and earn money, because this isn't paying me anything." And they ended up quitting. But for me at that point, it was like, "I'm not gonna let the fact that I'm not getting any money stop me from wanting to achieve my dream of going to the Olympic Games." And that's, again, like, my second, like, I say most valuable thing that I can say is that if there's any obstacles, regardless of whether it's in sport, in life, there's always a way around them or a solution. You've just gotta be that, I guess, pigminded to wanna be able to go and solve it. And a lot of people give up that really quickly. And I think this is like, we're going back to saying about traits of a good sportsman or a good athlete. They don't give up that easy.

Chris Williamson 42:34 Isn't it-

Sonny Webster 42:34 They go and find a solution to the, to the problem.

Chris Williamson 42:36 Isn't strange that stubbornness is a virtue sometimes?

Sonny Webster 42:40 Yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 42:41 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 42:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:41 Like...

Sonny Webster 42:41 Of course, but like, yeah, great in sporting a-... sporting situation in a relationship.

Chris Williamson 42:46 Probably bad in a relationship.

Sonny Webster 42:47 Yeah. (laughs) So-

Chris Williamson 42:48 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Sonny Webster 42:48 ... swings and roundabouts. Um, so yeah, Commonwealth Games is gone, um, and now two years out from the Olympic Games, and obviously, um, that was well and truly then my next biggest focus. And don't even... The whole way through this, like I said, Jeff's still there supporting me with various bits and bobs. And it got to the point where I was about 15 kilos off after the Commonwealth Games, what I would need to do in order to qualify for the Olympic Games. And the last two years prior to that, I'd probably put, like, maybe four or five kilos on my total each year.

Chris Williamson 43:27 Ooh.

Sonny Webster 43:28 So a very small amount. Yeah, a tiny amount.

Chris Williamson 43:31 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 43:31 Um, so it was going to be difficult to sort of reach that, and I had to look at things. And like I said, my training was bang on, I was working super hard in the gym, all of that was good, but I had to look at things outside of just what I did in the gym that could potentially help me with my performance, and that's when I started to look at nutrition, started to look at, um, psychology, started looking my lifestyle-

Chris Williamson 43:54 Sleep.

Sonny Webster 43:55 ... lifestyle, recovery, all of these other aspects, and what I liked to see it as is like a spider's web, um, of my life and that could potentially contribute to, uh, my performance. And, um, I looked at, um... I guess we'll talk firstly about psychology, 'cause we're kind of on that, and, um, like I said, as a kid I'd had no belief at the, at all that some guy could help me actually put, improve.

Chris Williamson 44:23 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 44:23 But I started working with this psychologist, one, my friend's dad, Martin Fricker, and two, David Riedl. Um, and they're both of the same school as sort of the Steven, Steve Peters, is it? Chimp Paradox, et cetera. And, um, I guess the key things I'm gonna extract that they, that helped me with my lifting, one was developing a process, um, for when I'm lifting, so a routine that I go through every single time before a lift in order to develop consistency, and also to be able to carry over any performance that I did in training into an environment like a major championships, 'cause commonly you see athletes that can do bang on bang in the gym, put them on a platform and go, do something different or lose their rhythm and don't actually deliver on the day. So, they talked me through having to do with a process. Um, and the second thing was only, like, worrying about the things that I could control, like, so again, like, outcomes were, they're just byproducts of whatever the process was, so. Um, I guess those two things, without going into too much depth, really helped me-

Chris Williamson 45:30 Mm-hmm. Can you, can you explain what your process is-

Sonny Webster 45:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:33 ... before you do a lift?

Sonny Webster 45:34 Okay, yeah, and this is something that's really independent to everyone, and I think the sooner you become aware of your individual process, the better chance you've got then of obviously being consistent. So for me, I pace up and down the bar, backwards and forth, I stand back behind the bar in I, what I like to call my think box. So this is where I'm thinking about the two, the technical side of things that my coach has taught me, whether it's to stay over, keep the bar close, et cetera, my technical cues there, and I visualize myself, um... This is always a good question, because people always ask this, do you visualize watching myself or in my own body?

Chris Williamson 46:14 From first person.

Sonny Webster 46:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:15 Yep.

Sonny Webster 46:15 So I visualise watching myself do it, and, um, executing the lift and it being a great lift, and, um... Yeah. So after that, then, um, I approach the bar, and that's when my, like, that's my trigger then to just go through my routine. So my routine is always right arm first, then left hand, and then I set my feet, I shape my arms, I get my breathing controlled, and then I set my s- I start counting then, three, five, four, three, two, one mutter it very quietly under my breath. When I hit one, I lock in and go. And for me, like, 'cause I always used to have that issue which a load of probably the listeners will as well, and anyone who does weight lifting, um, right before you come off the floor you think, "Fuck, this is going to be heavy."

Chris Williamson 47:01 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 47:01 Or, yeah. Well, you laugh because you know exactly what I'm going on about-

Chris Williamson 47:05 Yeah. (laughs)

Sonny Webster 47:05 ... and that doesn't change whether you're an Olympic athlete or it's your first day. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:10 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 47:10 You go, "Fuck, this is gonna be heavy," or, "I might hurt myself here." But again, they're negative outcomes, like, of whatever your process is. Um, for me, just by counting down before I lift and going like, one, like a gunshot at a race, it distracts your mind from thinking about those negative thoughts. So that worked really well for me. Um, so yeah, th- that's, that's how it goes.

Chris Williamson 47:32 And that's the same for both snatch and clean and jerk?

Sonny Webster 47:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:35 Okay. And what about, 'cause I've always, I've always wondered this, once you count to one, and once the movement has begun, do you just let the training kick in, in the same way as a boxer doesn't think too much? But there must be a point, in snatch I can see that it's one more fluid movement.

Sonny Webster 47:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:53 There must be a moment once you've cleaned the bar and then you stand up?

Sonny Webster 47:56 You do the exact same thing, but a shorter version of it.

Chris Williamson 47:59 Okay.

Sonny Webster 47:59 So I get out the top with my clean, my foot comes in, feel the weight on my heels, three, two, one, bang, go, jerk. So exactly the same thing for a consistency.

Chris Williamson 48:10 That's awesome.

Sonny Webster 48:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:11 That's a lovely little framework for people to use, and it sounds so stupid that I've stepped up to the bar, like, in-

Sonny Webster 48:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:17 ... workouts or even, like, going for max lifts, and I've just, like, ap- approached the bar, like, gripped it-

Sonny Webster 48:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:24 ... hoped for the best, but I don't have a, I don't have a process.

Sonny Webster 48:27 No, and that's why you won't get consistency.

Chris Williamson 48:29 Yeah. Again, to draw this back, I feel like I'm talking about a sport I haven't played for nearly 10 years now, cricket an awful lot today, but it's the best analogies that I can find, and for that, you can imagine as a bowler runs in, so you've got a bowler who's running in from the back of his run-up, especially if it's a fast bowler, you've got five seconds from when this guy sets off until, (smack) like, when he hits the crease-

Sonny Webster 48:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:49 ... and releases the ball, and during that time...... a lot, uh, you've got-

Sonny Webster 48:54 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:54 ... an awful lot of time-

Sonny Webster 48:55 Think things out, yeah. Of course.

Chris Williamson 48:56 ... to think and you're like, you end up getting trapped within your own thoughts.

Sonny Webster 48:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:59 And that's the last thing that you want, especially when you're talking about someone who's pitching a ball 80, 85 miles an hour. If you think, y- y- you don't have time to react.

Sonny Webster 49:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:09 You need to allow whatever your movement is to just carry through-

Sonny Webster 49:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:12 ... and just have the, the essences of where the fielders are positioned, how you know he typically bowls, what the, what the pitch is gonna be like, all of the little things that come through. You need to still have those in your mind, but not consciously.

Sonny Webster 49:25 Mm. But this, it's interesting that you, you, you draw the comparison because you have to remember in weightlifting, y- like, sorry, in, in cricket, in football, your action is a reaction of something else. Whereas obviously in weightlifting, you, it's not the same.

Chris Williamson 49:42 Total controllables.

Sonny Webster 49:42 Your, yeah, t- total control so you initiate the movement when you want to and it's, there's definitely a difference there in terms of you having that (snaps fingers) split second to make a decision.

Chris Williamson 49:54 Yep.

Sonny Webster 49:54 Whereas, like, f- for weight lifting, you're just executing that process. The same as in a, in a golf swing and that's what I love about, um, individual sport and like, being like, I guess the only one there and the spotlight on you because at the end of the day, it's down to you then as to whether it's a good lift, a bad lift, or the execution and, you know, you can have a great performance one day and you know that, okay, there's other people involved, the support teams, et cetera, but it's down to you. And if you have a shit day, you know it's-

Chris Williamson 50:30 It's uh-

Sonny Webster 50:31 ... over you.

Chris Williamson 50:31 ... it's strange. It's both, it's both liberating and terrifying to think that if you've lifted, if you've snatched 180 kilos before in the gym, you can snatch 180 kilos on the platform. There's no reason why you can't, which puts the power firmly in your hands. But it also means that the failure is in your hands as well.

Sonny Webster 50:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:51 And I think that it must be, for the guys that are at the top level of their sport, and the same for CrossFit, like especially with, when you look at stuff like regionals.

Sonny Webster 51:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:00 Um, they release the regionals ev- events in advance. The athletes will have tested the events at home. They know exactly how fast they can go. They may have even done a practice weekend where they've gone, "Okay, we're gonna go back to back to back. This is the timings. This is it." But ...

Sonny Webster 51:14 This is quite easy for me to, to answer that, that thing because this is the thing that people don't really take notice of when you talk about someone's performance in competition versus their performance in training. When you're in training, you've slept in your own bed the night before. You've woken up and eaten out of your same cereal bowl you're used to eating from-

Chris Williamson 51:33 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 51:33 ... with your same cereal. You're lifting with your favorite bar, with your favorite plates, on your favorite platform, and you've got your favorite coach there with you watching you train. And that is your ideal environment to perform. And I, that's why I don't think, I think everyone's different in terms of like, you know, what p- f- competition can bring out of you. You know, some people do their best in competition. Some... But there's, I don't think it's necessarily, um, a surprise that people sometimes perform best in their own environment.

Chris Williamson 52:03 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 52:03 Because when you travel to say, Berlin, sleep in a hotel, maybe get woken up by the cars that you're not used to, go down to breakfast and there's shit food there, et cetera, um, regardless whether you've done the workout or not before, you're not in your best environment to perform and it's only the real top athletes that can rep- replicate as much of what happens at home in the com- when they travel for competition-

Chris Williamson 52:27 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 52:27 ... that really perform.

Chris Williamson 52:29 So you go back to controllables and uncontrollables to a degree that you said is the second part-

Sonny Webster 52:33 Of course.

Chris Williamson 52:33 ... of your mental strategy and you're totally right that I've said it must feel terrifying and liberating in the same degree. But as you say, if you take everything back to the process and you grease the groove and you have a plan and you stick to the plan and the plan is I, I know that I perform best when I eat these kinds of foods, pack 'em in your bag. Like-

Sonny Webster 52:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:57 ... I know that I need to have silence when I go to a hotel room, pack some earplugs.

Sonny Webster 53:01 Definitely, well, this is-

Chris Williamson 53:02 Like, those are controllables.

Sonny Webster 53:03 Yeah, and this is the, the follow on from this story is gonna be quite funny for you now. So, um, I've identified all these things, what I need for competition, et cetera, my best stuff, et cetera, um, down to my nutrition, started working with a nutrition company and had my food prepped, et cetera, and there's good bits and bad bits of that. But carrying on from what we're actually discussing, so I know what I need to perform, the weight of things suit, et cetera, my boots, prep everything. So whenever I go to a competition, it's all there, exactly how I had it, practiced it in training.

Chris Williamson 53:40 Yep.

Sonny Webster 53:41 And six months before the qualifiers now for Rio 2016, I've gone away and done all this, sorted out my nutrition, sorted out my sleep, recovery. I lived like a Mormon for six months, did s- went to bed at the same time every single day for six months, ate the same thing every single day for six months, didn't have a drop of alcohol, didn't socialize, like ...

Chris Williamson 54:03 It's a very monastic lifestyle, isn't it? Being a monk.

Sonny Webster 54:04 Yeah. Tu- I turned myself into a robot, turned myself into a robot for those six months.

Chris Williamson 54:09 That's what... Are, are, are these the sort of sacrifices and beyond that that you need to make to get to that level?

Sonny Webster 54:13 Oh, of course. I... And you, I mean, even going back into childhood, I'm, I can count on one hand how many times I spent kicking a football round in the playground.

Chris Williamson 54:20 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 54:21 I can count on like, all our hands, how many holidays I missed out on, parties I didn't go to, because, like, for me, there was much more bigger things at like the age of 16. Okay, maybe I hadn't like tried a drug and like done all the things that m- you know, loads of 16-year-olds do, but I traveled to like maybe like majority of the continents of the world and seen like 15 places, which at like 16 years old, not many people get the opportunity to do. And that was for me, more important than those things. So it's swings and roundabouts. I wouldn't say like you're hard done by, but there's other things, you know.

Chris Williamson 54:53 I think what you're doing is you are-You've chosen your values at an early age, which not a lot of young people can do. You've decided what is of value to you and what virtue and integrity with that value percolating through looks like. And you've gone, "Okay, I'm gonna get after it."

Sonny Webster 55:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:07 Like, I'm not gonna allow, um (smacks lips) social norms or what I should be doing at this particular age to dictate how I-

Sonny Webster 55:17 Oh, yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 55:17 ... how I, how I need to behave.

Sonny Webster 55:19 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 55:19 And again, we come back to the stubbornness and the pigheadedness and kind of the, the, um, desire to chase what you feel is your own, your own path. And it, in this sense, yeah, it's absolutely a virtue.

Sonny Webster 55:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:34 You know, it can be a nightmare for a parent trying to bring a child up who's got this sense of, uh, like, direction and idea because they're not gonna compromise. And it can be-

Sonny Webster 55:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:42 ... you know, a nightmare in a relationship. It can be a, there's a whole host. It's swings and roundabouts again. But, you know, if you wanna be a good athlete and you don't compromise on things, like, it's probably a pretty fucking good foundation to start with.

Sonny Webster 55:54 Yeah. So going back to like what I was saying, like so the six, uh, the six months have gone. It's now competition day of the qualifiers for the Rio 2016 Olympics. Like my, my day of reckoning, D-day, whatever you wanna call it. Now I'd had special weightlifting shoes done that were black and gold that I made. I'd had a special Nike weightlifting suit that was black and gold. I had like a Nike track suit that had like my special logo stitched into it, brand new pants, brand new socks, like everything, snap back black and gold, like-

Chris Williamson 56:31 You sound like a baller.

Sonny Webster 56:32 Yeah, I was like... But this is exactly how I'd been envisaging it for-

Chris Williamson 56:36 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 56:36 ... months. This is my day and this is how it was gonna go.

Chris Williamson 56:39 Yep.

Sonny Webster 56:40 So all of this prepped and ready to rumble.

Chris Williamson 56:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 56:43 And, um, anyway, Jeff's come to pick me up in his car, just like we'd planned, and we're driving up to the competition and, um-

Chris Williamson 56:49 Where's the competition?

Sonny Webster 56:50 It's in Coventry and, um, we're about an hour away, I guess, from the venue now. And um, I'm watching the competition on the live stream, like just seeing how my friends and people were getting on. And, um, the guy walked, a guy walked out. I thought, "Oh, he's got a similar weightlifting suit to me." And it was just as I had that thought, I went, "No." And I was like, "Jeff, pull the car over, mate. I need to check my kit bag." Went in the back of the car, bearing in mind I'd done 60, 70 competitions plus, big major competitions at this point. I'd left my weightlifting shoes and my weightlifting suit at home. To the biggest day of my life, to something I'd thought about every single day for six months. And I was like, "Fuck." Like we were too far away 'cause we would have missed the weigh-in to go back.

Chris Williamson 57:39 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 57:40 Had to end up getting Jeff's wife to bring up one of his old weightlifting suits. And my coach just so happened to have one of my old pairs of weightlifting shoes in his car. So going from like the most prepped I'd ever been to exactly how this day was gonna go, to all of a sudden, like spanner thrown in the works, like my suit's not there. But do you know what? And this is why like when people ask me, "Do you, are you stereotypical about anything now or in competition?" I'm not. Because for me, I learnt from that day that regardless of what happens, if you've prepared well enough something, like you could have stuck me in a pink tutu that day and I would have still lifted the same, 'cause I was that prepared for the competition. So I've rocked up, dusted these boots off, got my suit on, weighed in, and the competition had began. Now it was a, there's a really good clip on YouTube, um, of the-

Chris Williamson 58:37 Dean will make sure that the link is here or here.

Sonny Webster 58:41 Of the actual-

Chris Williamson 58:42 Somewhere.

Sonny Webster 58:43 ... um, of the actual fight for the qualification between me and, um, another weightlifter called Owen Boxhall. Really good lifter. And, um-

Chris Williamson 58:50 So you must have known going in that it was gonna be between you two for this.

Sonny Webster 58:53 Well, for my weight category, definitely. And then my best friend who's in a lightweight category, Gareth Evans, was also in the mix, but it's done, it was done on like points. And, um, but I knew I had to beat Owen, like minimum requirement. And, um, notoriously when me and Owen have competed, it's been very like back and forth as to like I win, he win, et cetera. He always used to snatch more than me.

Chris Williamson 59:18 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 59:18 Um, but I used to always clean and jerk more than him, so...

Chris Williamson 59:20 The snatch comes first, right?

Sonny Webster 59:22 Yeah. Um, so anyway, we've gone on to, um, gone on through the snatch and I've ended up, um, beating Owen by like a quite a f- I think it was like two kilos in the snatch, which is like unheard of. And I was like, "Whoa, this is a great start. Perfect." Snatched at 153, I think. And, um, I was like, "This is it. I've done this pretty much." And, uh, Owen's opener was like 175. My opener was like 185. And I was thinking like one, like I easily open 185. So I thought "I'm like 10K on the opens." And his opener's gone up. I thought, "Fair play." And you know he's come out on like 182, which is like his PB. I thought, "Whoa."

Chris Williamson 1:00:05 What, for his second lift?

Sonny Webster 1:00:06 No, for his first lift. I thought, "Fair play. He's going for it." And he came out and he did it. I thought, "Fair play, mate." Like I come out, did my 185. I'm put like four kilos ahead now.

Chris Williamson 1:00:15 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:00:15 And then he's gone like 189.

Chris Williamson 1:00:18 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:00:18 And I'm, I was going 190 anyway, so I thought, "Yeah, no problem. Whatever."

Chris Williamson 1:00:22 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:00:22 And, um, he's come out and done 189. So he's like ahead now again on body weight. I'm thinking, "Bastard."

Chris Williamson 1:00:28 (laughs) Shit the bed.

Sonny Webster 1:00:29 So now on my second lift, and I've hit 190, and I thought, "Oh, that's it now. There's no way, like, he's got another lift in him." And sure enough, he comes out 193 and makes it. He's made a 12 kilo PB on his final lift.

Chris Williamson 1:00:45 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:00:46 And he's like... For some reason, the way the numbers were, I thought that didn't matter that he got 193. I thought I was still in, in the lead.

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:00:55 And I'm in the back like chilling like this. I don't even need to do my last lift of one. And my coach comes out and he goes-... so you need to make this lift. You need 193." And I was like, "No, no, put 194 on, it's fine."

Chris Williamson 1:01:08 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:01:09 And he's like, "You only need 193 to put 194 on, no problem." And I put my hat on and I spun my hat back round, 'cause I'd taken my hat off 'cause I always lift in my snapback.

Chris Williamson 1:01:17 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:01:17 Put it back on and off I went out. Like, nothing had fazed me and, like, everyone is, like, on the edge of their seats, like. And it was for, like, a British record. And I've come out and I've cleaned the weight, 194. As I'm standing out of it, I threw up in my mouth.

Chris Williamson 1:01:32 Why?

Sonny Webster 1:01:32 Swallowed... I don't know, just swallowed it down and then just nailed the jerk and it was like, that was the only way that day was gonna go, like.

Chris Williamson 1:01:41 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:01:41 Regardless of the scenario and this is what I say, like, when you prepare for something that well, it, it didn't matter how good the outcome for me for that day.

Chris Williamson 1:01:49 Wrong kit, wrong shoes.

Sonny Webster 1:01:50 Didn't matter.

Chris Williamson 1:01:51 All of the worry before, all the anxiety before, thrown up in your mouth.

Sonny Webster 1:01:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:56 Some guy's lifted his 12 kilo PB-

Sonny Webster 1:01:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:59 ... but because you've greased the groove that hard-

Sonny Webster 1:02:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:01 ... and because you've done the work, you're able to trust the process.

Sonny Webster 1:02:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:05 The outcome's almost inevitable.

Sonny Webster 1:02:06 Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, and then that was me on my, on my way to Rio.

Chris Williamson 1:02:12 Get on your fucking way to Rio.

Sonny Webster 1:02:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:14 That's amazing. Are you allowed to life in a snapback?

Sonny Webster 1:02:17 I was the first person to start doing it and-

Chris Williamson 1:02:20 'Cause I saw you-

Sonny Webster 1:02:21 ... I'll explain my reasoning for doing it, because initially when I started doing it, a lot of the weightlifting community were like, "That's really bad, you shouldn't do that, it's disrespectful."

Chris Williamson 1:02:31 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:02:31 But for me, you watch weightlifting, a guy walks out, he lifts his weight-

Chris Williamson 1:02:36 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:02:37 ... makes some sort of celebration sometimes, then walks back out the back. You get no understanding or connection to that person as an athlete, as a performer. It's going back to like we say, you don't see all that stuff that goes back.

Chris Williamson 1:02:50 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:02:50 Whereas, like, I love what I do and I wanna show a little bit of my personality, a little bit of my charisma when I'm lifting, so yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:58 So like a signature?

Sonny Webster 1:02:59 Yeah. So this is me, this is me, snapback, a bit of me. And instantly when you see that, you get like a little inkling maybe-

Chris Williamson 1:03:05 "Oh, that's the guy that, that's the guy that wears the snapback."

Sonny Webster 1:03:07 ... about that person, just for seeing the red snapback.

Chris Williamson 1:03:10 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:03:11 And that was my reasoning for doing it. And yeah, it made me feel comfortable when I did it and I didn't care that people didn't like the fact that I wore it.

Chris Williamson 1:03:18 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:03:19 It was me and, you know-

Chris Williamson 1:03:21 It's cool that, um, it's cool that it, it's allowed in the...

Sonny Webster 1:03:25 It's counted as part of your body, so if the bar was to touch it or if it was to fall off, it'd be a no lift.

Chris Williamson 1:03:30 Okay.

Sonny Webster 1:03:31 But yeah, it, it is what it is and, like, nowadays you'll see, there used to only ever be, like, when I started, one type of weightlifting shoe that would be the same color.

Chris Williamson 1:03:40 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:03:40 There'd be one weightlifting suit. So everyone's in the same suit, the same shoes, coming out lifting the bar the same. Boring as shit.

Chris Williamson 1:03:50 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:03:50 Yeah? It's different now 'cause of CrossFit. Yeah, there is, like, multiple different weightlifting suits, multiple different shoes. So if you do have any sort of inkling of fashion sense, you could put together something that almost looks like a planned outfit.

Chris Williamson 1:04:04 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:04:05 So it's different and maybe you... But, like, yeah, that was my, that was my reasoning for doing it.

Chris Williamson 1:04:10 That's cool. I think it's really, uh, it's really interesting. I've got, for the listeners at home, Johnny who is a nationals level powerlifter was making me laugh the other day as he said that he couldn't believe in powerlifting that when you deadlift, your socks aren't allowed to touch your knee sleeves. If your socks touch your knee sleeves...

Sonny Webster 1:04:30 That used to be a rule in weightlifting but it's-

Chris Williamson 1:04:31 Three red, three red lights and-

Sonny Webster 1:04:33 Yeah, it's changed now.

Chris Williamson 1:04:33 ... Yousuf once got three red lights on a lift for putting his one foot on the platform, like on the corner of the platform, basically off camera, before his clock had started.

Sonny Webster 1:04:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:44 Like, just had his foot, you know, like resting your foot. Had his foot-

Sonny Webster 1:04:47 But there's all those sorts of rules in weightlifting as well-

Chris Williamson 1:04:49 Oh, okay.

Sonny Webster 1:04:49 ... that you wouldn't, that you wouldn't know about.

Chris Williamson 1:04:50 But for some... Like, somehow having a hat has like-

Sonny Webster 1:04:55 Yeah, so they did.

Chris Williamson 1:04:55 ... subverted that, that rule.

Sonny Webster 1:04:56 Well, the reason, yeah, how it does is because they changed the rules only a few years back so that Muslims could, female Muslims could compete in weightlifting.

Chris Williamson 1:05:06 Ah, so they can wear the... Is it the, the hijab?

Sonny Webster 1:05:08 Yeah, so that they could wear that, so that they had to class then any headwear as part of the body.

Chris Williamson 1:05:14 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:05:14 Which is then how wearing a snapback-

Chris Williamson 1:05:16 You gotta capitalize on that. (laughs) Give me, give me the snapback.

Sonny Webster 1:05:19 (laughs) I'm taking the piss a little bit, but that's how wearing a snapback is, is there, you're allowed to.

Chris Williamson 1:05:24 That's funny. So roll it forward to Rio.

Sonny Webster 1:05:27 Yeah. Wow, so, phew, I guess going there, like, going back and talking about kitting out, I guess, 'cause for me as a kid, like, as a athlete representing your country, getting your kit is like one of the proudest moments ever. And, um, it is one hell of an experience. Like I'd alw- I'd heard stories about people that had been to the Olympics, um, about what kitting out is like and, um, I was like, like kid in a candy store basically. I'd been to the Commonwealth one but it's never the same as like what the Olympics are, 'cause they absolutely go nuts for the Olympics.

Chris Williamson 1:06:02 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:06:02 Like, so you go into this big hall, it's the NEC, and, uh, you have a personal shopper and you go through, like, different sections. So you start off with, like, formal wear and you've had, like, this suit made for you with, like, you know, um, the Olympic crest on, et cetera, and every detail of it has got, like, really individual to you. And we wore that when we met, like, um, Princess Anne and any royalty, you wore your suit. And you get these cool shoes and then you go into, like, village wear.

Chris Williamson 1:06:32 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:06:32 And then this is stuff that you wear around the village. Do you know how many it is? Stacks and stacks and stacks of stuff, right?

Chris Williamson 1:06:36 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:06:36 And if you sh- d- you get, like, wea- weather gear for, like, Rio and it, we did actually need it in the end but like... (laughs) Um...

Chris Williamson 1:06:43 Just senseless amounts of stuff.

Sonny Webster 1:06:45 For any possible scenario and then you go into, like, um, training wear-

Chris Williamson 1:06:50 Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:06:50 ... and then footwear and then-

Chris Williamson 1:06:52 What were you most excited about?

Sonny Webster 1:06:53 Um, whoa, probably the trainers or the footwear. Like it was all the, uh, the weird sort of thing. There was a few jumpers and stuff that I'd seen, um-... I can't remember what I said, my f- the, the certain top was my favorite piece that we got. But, um, you c- you get so much stuff and yeah, you get your accessories. But then the final bit is quite personal because you imagine, like, I was the only male weightlifter going, and there was one other female going. So when it comes to making what they, what you perform in, they're essentially making you an outfit for your biggest day of your life. And it's just you that's gonna have that.

Chris Williamson 1:07:30 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:07:31 So obviously, for a weightlifter, your weightlifting suit and you go into this waiting room for a minute and they, um, have like a, um, (clicks tongue) a mannequin-

Chris Williamson 1:07:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:07:41 ... of, you know, just normal mannequins. It's not obvious-

Chris Williamson 1:07:43 Is it your, is it your dimensions because you are not-

Sonny Webster 1:07:46 ... normal shape. No. But they have a manne-

Chris Williamson 1:07:46 You are not the traditional dimensions of a person. (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:07:48 Yeah. So they have a mannequin of a human and it's like a big reveal, where you walk through and there's your lifting suit on a mannequin, like-

Chris Williamson 1:07:54 Like when you get a new car and they pull the-

Sonny Webster 1:07:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:56 ... the drape back.

Sonny Webster 1:07:57 Oh, and they've made it just for you. And they're so proud of it because obviously, they've done it from scratch to be, like, for you.

Chris Williamson 1:08:03 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:08:03 And it's, it was really cool. And you do like some photos and stuff and then you go through ... 'Cause Audi sponsored it.

Chris Williamson 1:08:08 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:08:08 So then, uh, you take all of your stuff onto ... The bags, the suitcases, they've got like six bags, like different suitcases and bags and all of this stuff. And, um, that was very special. (clicks tongue) And, um, that's when I guess it starts to feel real, that you're going.

Chris Williamson 1:08:24 Does it kick in big style then?

Sonny Webster 1:08:25 Yeah. And then, um, the next thing was the holding camp in, um, Belo Horizonte. And bearing in mind, like I said, as a weightlifter, you have like no, no one really cares about weightlifting.

Chris Williamson 1:08:38 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:08:38 It's not a very popular, famous sport. Um, there's very little funding for it, et cetera. And all of a sudden, you're flown out to this purpose-built place or like fitted out place for Team GB's preparation for the Olympics. And we get to the airport and it's like, "Get on this bus." Just three of us, three of us, two weightlifters and a coach on this bus. And it's like an eight-police motorcycle escort through Belo Horizonte, shutting roads for us as we're going through, like we're celebrities or like really important.

Chris Williamson 1:09:11 Fucking Donald Trump's just arrived in

Narrator 1:09:13 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:09:13 ... Britain. Yeah.

Sonny Webster 1:09:14 And that was like weird, 'cause like I said, all of a sudden we're now just as important as the sprinters or the boxers-

Chris Williamson 1:09:20 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:09:20 ... and stuff like that. And you get to this hotel, nice hotel. Again, normally you'd, we'd get put in the shittest hotel you can find.

Chris Williamson 1:09:28 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:09:28 And you've basically got these people there that are there for you, for what ev- anything you could possibly think or want. There's a physio full-time, there's a doctor, there's recovery people, nutritionists, sleep helpers and all sorts of stuff. They'll get you whatever you could possibly want. And it's really weird 'cause like I said that, and I was always told that, "Don't do anything that you don't do at home." So obviously, I'd never had any of that at home. So like you kind of just don't make them ... Don't use it. You do what you're used to and eat what you're used to and stuff. But-

Chris Williamson 1:09:58 No, I had Coco Pops, please.

Sonny Webster 1:10:00 (laughs) Yeah. Exactly. Like they're coming over with like caviar, yeah. Bottle of Coco Pops. Uh-

Chris Williamson 1:10:04 No, I'm all right. Yeah. D- just to interject there, do you think that there is a ... It definitely sounds like there's a disparity between the level of support that's given to you at anywhere which isn't the Olympics-

Sonny Webster 1:10:16 Mm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:16 ... and then at the Olympics. There's like this Pareto distribution of like nothing-

Sonny Webster 1:10:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:20 ... nothing, nothing.

Sonny Webster 1:10:21 Bang. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:21 Everything.

Sonny Webster 1:10:22 And it's overwhelming and then it's like, going back to like you said about it being like in competition scenarios, it's all of these things that's all of a sudden overwhelming. Like, you go to training while we were there and they've got 15 cameras pointing at you, just flashing while you're training.

Chris Williamson 1:10:39 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:10:40 I was like, "This is like

Narrator 1:10:42 Fog the popper."

Chris Williamson 1:10:42 Did you want to be back in the church?

Sonny Webster 1:10:44 No, I was kind of loving it a bit, like you know (laughs) what I mean?

Chris Williamson 1:10:46 That's awesome.

Sonny Webster 1:10:47 It's like, "This is sick, like."

Chris Williamson 1:10:47 So you could embrace it-

Sonny Webster 1:10:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:48 ... and take it as your power, right?

Sonny Webster 1:10:50 Yeah. Well, it was nice to feel like important, that people wanted to come and f- have photos of you and like interview you and stuff like that. And it was incredible.

Chris Williamson 1:10:57 Do you think that says a lot about your personality, that you almost took energy from that?

Sonny Webster 1:11:01 Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't have said like necessarily energy that would've caused me to compete or perform any better. But I'd say it made me feel special and, you know, proud of what I'd achieved. Um, but at the same time, very draining, like ... And the point from the qualifiers to that, to the actual Olympic games was very small in weight. There's a six-week window. And this is the thing with our sport. I went balls to the wall to qualify that there's no way, it don't matter who you are, can you hold that level of performance for six weeks-

Chris Williamson 1:11:38 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:11:38 ... without your body falling apart. You have to taper. And w- I tried to hold that standard of lifting there up to like what I did at the qualifiers, but it's just no chance. And I was in, I was on more sleeping tablets, painkillers, everything you can imagine, just to be able to lift. And (clicks tongue) we've flown down to the village now, about two weeks out from, uh, lifting. And I just said to myself, before we went into the village, I said, "I don't ... Regardless of what happens on the day, you've got to remember this experience and that day, (clicks tongue) like as the best day of your life. Because you're never gonna get that opportunity again. And that, in regardless of whether you go see the Olympics again, that one day, you got to live with that for the rest of your life." So I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it.

Chris Williamson 1:12:22 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:12:22 So I just said that to myself and I kind of like took a little bit of pressure off myself in terms of what my training and stuff was going like. Um, and then we went, um, into the village and it's like you hear the stories about the Olympic Village and-

Chris Williamson 1:12:36 Yeah, damn right.

Sonny Webster 1:12:36 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:12:37 This is what everyone's tuned in for.

Sonny Webster 1:12:38 Yeah. But it's like ...

Chris Williamson 1:12:39 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:12:40 It's not like that. Well, either, either that or it wasn't I'd missed out or, or you-

Chris Williamson 1:12:43 Were you in the wrong h- ... You were in the wrong area, right?

Sonny Webster 1:12:46 No. Uh, uh, but I didn't think I was, but it just like, it didn't seem like that, about what everyone sort of im- imagined.

Chris Williamson 1:12:53 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:12:53 So we went on to ... Um, got into the village and obviously that I was just the only weightlifter, male weightlifter.

Chris Williamson 1:13:00 Mm-hmm.

Sonny Webster 1:13:01 But like everyone else is like a team of hockey players, a team of sevens, a team of like athletics. And it's just the weightlifter in like standard, like the weightlifters are just like-

Chris Williamson 1:13:12 Put in the corner.

Sonny Webster 1:13:13 Yeah. 'Cause it's, "Well, they're not winning any medals." So ...

Chris Williamson 1:13:16 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:13:16 And, um-... they were like, "Right, do you wanna go and share a room in, with the ping pool," uh, uh, "ping pong." (laughs) I shouldn't say that.

Chris Williamson 1:13:23 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:13:23 Table tennis guys. Or you can share with the gymnast lads. And I was like, "Oh, I know a couple of the gymnast lads from the Commonwealth, I'll stay with them." They go, "That's fine, you'll have your own room, but you're in the cleaner's, like, cupboard." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:13:38 (laughs)

Sonny Webster 1:13:38 Fine. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:13:39 Okay.

Sonny Webster 1:13:39 My room was probably about this big.