The Progress Pod - Ep 4 - My Journey with Raymond McNamara

In this episode of the progress pod, the host is joined by Raymond McNamara, the head coach of the progress project. They discuss Raymond's fitness journey, including how he got into fitness through rugby, his injuries and struggles with maintaining his condition, and his current training and nutrition goals. Raymond shares his plans for upcoming events like the Glasgow Half Marathon and the Lead Marathon, and how he plans to gradually increase his training volume. The host praises Raymond's progress and dedication to his goals. Hello and welcome to episode 4 of the progress pod and today something a bit different. We've got a first ever guest on the show. I'm joined by Raymond McNamara who is actually head coach on the progress project and we're going to just be chatting through Raymond's journey from how he entered fitness, where he is currently in terms of his training and nutrition, his current goals, how he juggles training, being a coach, being a dad, currently working shifts in his own job and also what's his biggest piece of advice and what's he's excited for. So it should be a great episode and I'm really looking forward to getting into this. So we'll just start by introducing Raymond. So how are you doing mate? Just a wee bit of intro to yourself for my listeners. How are we? So Raymond McNamara, 27 years of age, from Coatbridge and full time job out with the progress project and came on board a few months ago as head coach. So doing that part time a few hours a week at the moment. So busy, busy. Especially with a family and a young son. So we're busy mate. Definitely mate. Everybody's taking to it like a duck to water. Honestly mate it's been great to see. In terms of your own background, in terms of fitness, how did you get into fitness? What's your background in terms of your own training and sport wise, fitness wise? Yep, so I played football in school in my early first, second year. Never overly good at it and then just by luck found rugby. So that's all my mates. Stayed in a wee estate from Perth in Coatbridge and of all places. My mate went on holiday to Jamaica and met another guy from Coatbridge. He was quite a big boy in my pal at the time and got talking and he was like, where do you stay, Coatbridge etc. And he was one of the founders of the rugby club. So when he got back to Jamaica, didn't want to go to training himself and he was like, do you want to come with me? And I just thought, why not, give it a bash. And he ended up doing it for two weeks and I'd done it for nearly eight years. So started playing under 15s and then that took me through to the first team. But got into the gym as a result of playing rugby. Didn't know what I was doing back then, just kind of went in, threw a bit of outside in my mates and then I just kind of fell in love with it, mate. Done my first triathlon when I was 20 and never really stopped training. Stopped playing rugby when my son was born because he got too much, really, really busy. Never really looked back after finding rugby at 14, just kind of took to the gym through that naturally because it kind of helped with performance and playing. So, I don't know, 14, quite late to start, I kind of sport more, played since I was four or five years old, but I was quite late. Never the best at football, but rugby was definitely the one for me and that's kind of led me nicely into the way we obviously train now and the functional aspect to the progress we'll get through strength and conditioning and rugby. Yeah, no, definitely, mate. Since that though it's not all been sort of plain sailing because maybe over the last couple of years you've had a few injuries and maybe let yourself, the condition, you weren't in the best condition in terms of your standards at some points. Oh, definitely. So, it was 2020 and 2021. I think it was kind of a few nails, like you know yourself when you're younger, you don't stretch, you kind of power on. I would train Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, rugby training, a few gym sessions and then I would play rugby on a Saturday and a Sunday because of my age. I managed to play under 16s and under 18s, so you're a superman at that age. You wake up after a game, no aches and pains, you don't know how to do any stretching, rehab and stuff, so I think it was just a few years of doing that and then work takes over. I thought it was a first full-time job and wee niggles here and there and you neglect them. You neglect them, you push through and then push take the job and I felt the effects of it in 2020. I ended up taking, I think it was two, three months of work at one point and then you know, you're back into the gym, you know the numbers you should be lifting, you get quite frustrated, you see other folk progressing and again you just push through hard, you don't stick to the plan and then it happened again with my back injury. It reoccurred until the end of the year and then Covid hit. Obviously everyone found their feet doing flying kegs and stuff but only being limited to one hour exercise a day, it was quite tough and then the takeaways roll on and you just get a really, really bad headspace mentally and everyone's the same. Everyone's like, oh I'm dirty bulking, you know, you almost convince yourself that, oh it's fine, I'm bulking, I'm trying to put on a bit of size. Looking back now, I don't think I actually realised how bad it got and until you look back at the pictures, it's probably the worst I've ever been. I think my highest weight was 103.7kg, which is absolutely disgusting unless you're like a big, ripped bodybuilder that weight. What are you now, mate? Can you confirm? 79.8. So we're talking what, 25kg nearly that's been dropped since September? September, yeah. I think that my highest weight before the cut for the photo shoot was 101kg but I know for a definite, I was close to 140kg at one point and the way I think about it now is my wee boy weighs 12.5kg so when I'm out having this fun, I'm like, I don't know that, just walking about on a daily basis. That's a kind of scary thing for that, that just thinking about the pressure on your knees and your ankles and going out and trying to run, it's crazy. I think I'll never, I won't go back to anything like that. I think max I would give to now is high 89kg, which is 10 for now but never again. But it's nice to be able to look back and go, how far have you came? I definitely think, I noticed it, I know you were saying that you were going to struggle with injuries and when you got back, I could tell that you weren't happy with your condition so that's when I kind of put the feelers out and said how about we sign up for a photo shoot maybe over the next six months and we just knuckled down and straight from there, mate, you literally just were like a man of the nest in terms of your goals, what you're doing and dropping that amount of weight and transforming your condition. I think this is probably the most consistent analysing you've been training anyway and then obviously taking that on board, I know you're into a more sort of functional style with regard to your training and then that was obviously something that we're looking to build on within the progress project so getting you on board just seemed like a really natural decision to make and just in terms of your current training, current nutrition, where are you kind of sitting yourself? Yep, so I came off the photo shoot a few months ago and we've pushed calories up a wee bit so I'm considering 2.7, 2.8 a day right now which is really, really good compared to how low it got so we're just kind of maintaining it now, obviously I've got my stag 2, I'm going to Ibiza next week so the goal's been since the photo shoot just to try and maintain condition as good as possible as well as wrapping the calories back up so I'm feeling good training, pushing the weight because of the excess calories. And then once we get back from Ibiza it's a big focus ahead of me, I've got a really, really busy couple of months coming up, first one is going to be the Glasgow Half Marathon in October, that's going to be the furthest distance I've ever ran before, obviously we're back to triathlon a wee bit different because it's running, swimming and biking but this is definitely the longest I've ever ran and then we're aiming for potential doubles, high knocks in February next year which will kind of go nicely after building a good capacity up from the Half Marathon. And then we've just went, jump in, both feet met, we're going to do the full lead marathon next May so it's a nice gradual progression, I've got the Half Marathon and another 3-4 months of high knocks and then a wee 2 month buffer for the full marathon but it's going to be a really, really intense training block in the next 12 months, a lot of focus and it's quite nicely spread out as well, we're not trying to do it too much too soon so again we need to take into account injury and stuff because it's going to be, the volume's going to ramp up quite nicely. But we've got a nice wee gap so that's the next 12 months mate, that's where the focus is. Definitely mate, I think sort of last August-September when you were up there and you were doing your heaviest and if I'd said to you in the next sort of 12-18 months you've done a full shoot, a Half Marathon, completed a high knock and completed a First Marathon, it's just like it would be, you would not have believed it but then you kind of mentioned it there in terms of just having to not have everything too close together, putting too much pressure on yourself because obviously as you said you've still got a full time job, working shifts, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've still got a full time job, you've 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