Featured in Men’s Health: A Pretty Special Moment
Back in September 2025, the Commando Temple featured in the Men’s Health Strength Issue, in an article celebrating the gym as one of the best gyms in the world.
And I managed to sneak into the pages with a bloody great stone in my arms.
It was a genuinely proud moment.
Growing up with Men’s Health
Men’s Health was one of those magazines I remember from when I was younger. Long before I was coaching people for a living, travelling around lifting stones or spending most of my waking hours inside a strength gym, it represented the world I wanted to be involved in.
So there was something slightly surreal about picking up a physical copy years later and finding myself in it.
And I'm particularly pleased that the photograph wasn't of me doing something conventional.
I was lifting a stone.
Getting Stone Lifting Into the Pages
Natural stone lifting has become a massive part of my own training and coaching.
It's taken me around Britain and Ireland, introduced me to some brilliant people and eventually led to setting up London Stone Lifting and helping establish the collection and challenges we now have at the Commando Temple.
So if I was going to find myself in the pages of Men’s Health, I'm glad it was doing the thing I love.
Every time stone lifting appears somewhere outside its traditional circles, a few more people get to see what makes it special.
It doesn't require you to be a professional strongman. You don't need years of experience. At its simplest, there's a rock in front of you and you try to pick the thing up.
That simplicity is a huge part of its appeal.
The Commando Temple
The bigger story, though, was the recognition for the Commando Temple itself.
The article, “Temple of Gains,” celebrated the unusual training environment we've got tucked away in Deptford: martial arts, strongman training and all manner of conventional and unconventional strength equipment living under the same roof.
I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of interesting things through training, but so much of what I do now has the Commando Temple underneath it.
It's where I coach my PT clients. It's where we run Stone Club. It's where our natural stones live. It's where people who have never touched a stone before can find themselves picking one up for the first time.
Seeing that recognised in a magazine like Men’s Health felt like validation for a lot of the good work that goes on there.
A Physical Copy on the Wall
There's something particularly nice about this one being physical.
Web articles are brilliant, but they disappear surprisingly quickly into the endless mass of stuff on the internet.
A magazine is different.
You can actually hold it.
Our copy is now hanging up in the gym, and every time I see it I'm reminded of what was a pretty bloody cool moment.
Young me would have been delighted to know that one day I'd make it into Men’s Health.
I'm not entirely sure he'd have predicted that I'd do it by becoming obsessed with picking up rocks.
But I'm very happy that's how it happened.