Adam Bishop
The former Harlequins strength and conditioning coach talks about his journey from rugby academies, bobsleigh try-outs, to eventually becoming a two-time Britain’s Strongest Man with his eyes on the world title. This is Adam Bishop’s Rugby Life.
Harlow RFC was my first club, I started playing there when I was 10. There was no minis section, so I went straight into under 13s. I’m not sure that would be allowed now. By the time I was sixteen, I was playing regional stuff. Then I got involved in the Saracens academy and from there I got a scholarship for Llandovery College – my parents are Welsh.
The two years there were the best two years of my life, it was awesome. I managed to briefly get into the Wales squad. I was in the same year as Leigh Halfpenny, I never heard him say a single word. He was a proper quiet bloke, but a quality player. It’s usually pissing it down in Wales, so you just try to keep your head down and do your best.
I didn’t get a cap for the under eighteens. After leaving school, I got offered a full-time academy contract with Saracens. I was there for a year, and they offered me another contract, but it was a risk. I had a place at Loughborough University to study sport science, so I went there so I could play rugby while I was studying.
Growing up, Richard Hill was the man at Sarries. I was playing in the back row, so he was the one who inspired me I’d say. Getting the chance to train with him was awesome. I came through that year of the 2003 World Cup, so all those guys were immortals to me – the likes of Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallalgio. They were the guys I looked up to, playing wise.
I was lucky enough to play one game with Courtney Lawes. It was one of those weird fixtures – London Acadamies versus France U19s. We were literally just thrown together, some guys from Saracens, London Irish and Harlequins. It was just, ‘call on the fly, here’s some basic lineouts, some basic backs plays, see what you can do’. I knew from then that Courtney was a super tough player.
I played in the back row growing up, but ironically, I was told I wasn’t big enough. I had a lot of pace though, so I actually moved out to the wing. I had an awful moment playing against London Irish. Edd Thrower was playing full back and he’s run all the way to the try line and I’m supporting him but fully expecting him to just put the ball down. But for some reason, he ships one more pass which goes straight through my hands, hits my chest, and goes forward. Try butchered. It was not enjoyable watching that under review on Monday.
I always loved preseason, which is probably the exact opposite of every other player in the world. I was a really good, all round athlete. I was gifted in terms of speed, strength, stamina, but I just wasn’t a good enough rugby player to go on and play in the Premiership, for example. That’s probably why I enjoyed preseason so much. That was my domain – the measurable fitness tasks.
I had a go at bobsleigh. When I left the academy, I got contacted by the English Institute of Sport, who at the time had this programme called pitch to podium. If you were part of a football or rugby academy, they would try and talent ID you for an Olympic sport. I went for a physical testing day, and they said, ‘you should try out for skeleton bobsleigh’. The whole aim was to bring home gold at Saatchi in 2014 at the Winter Games, and obviously in that training group was Lizzy Yarnold, who did win that gold and went on to be very successful.
It was a crazy experience going and sliding on the ice. I didn’t really fit. I was a lot bigger than most of the skeleton bobsleigh guys, which made some steering around the corners a little bit more difficult. The average guys were about 80 kilos, a lot shorter. Definitely not 100 kilos and 6 foot 3. It wasn’t my true calling.
When I was at uni, I did an unpaid year helping at the Harlequins strength and conditioning department. I was doing whatever I could to try and learn as much as possible after uni. I was working as a doorman to make some extra cash, so I was really working overtime the whole way through. I was doing shifts from 7PM to 5AM, and not being fully awake for my morning lectures, but it all worked out in the end.
I started at Quins as a rehab specialist in the 2011-2012 season. I was at the club for 10 years from then. I quickly moved on to coaching the first team performance guys. By the time I was finishing up, I was specialising in working with the forwards, getting the big boys strong, getting their scrummaging better, making sure they were fit and performing on the field.
Joe Marler still messages me on Instagram for a chat. He loves his weight training and gym work. I worked with him on a one-to-one basis more than anyone else. I think he can be a bit much for some of the younger S&C coaches, but I really enjoyed working with him. His sense of humour is fantastic. We got him up to benching 200 kilos, squatting 240kg to a box.
Chris Robshaw is probably the hardest working guy I’ve worked with. Physically, he wasn’t the most gifted, but he had this incredible work ethic. He would just go to that dark place in his conditioning sessions, always be the last one finishing up.
I knew I wasn’t going to play professional rugby, so I needed to find another sport. A friend of mine said, ‘do you want to come down and give strongman a go’. I took to it naturally. We would be in a dusty yard, in the middle of nowhere in Leicestershire, all the kit was homemade, but I just loved it from the beginning, it was awesome.
I watched World’s Strongest Man on TV as a kid, I was fascinated by it. I won the first competition I did, and then the year after that I won the UK Strongest Man in the under 105kg weight class. That tied in with me getting my full-time employment at Harlequins. That was the early beginnings for me, and it’s just built from there.
The strongman community is really supportive. We’re all fans of strength – we just want to see the biggest weights being lifted. We want 500kg deadlifts, and people pulling planes, stuff like that. It’s not like a fighting sport, where you’re trying to one-up your opponent. I can only lift what I can lift, whoever does it better on the day is going to win, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well enjoy it.
I competed at my first World’s Strongest Man in 2015 but ruptured my bicep tendon off the bone in 2017. Those kinds of injuries are very common. I recovered and made my first World’s Strongest Man top 10 in 2019. Martin Licis won it that year, but we were also competing against Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, The Mountain from Game of Thrones, and Eddie Hall, who I’ve competed against for several years.
Paddy McGuinness is a big strongman fan. He came to watch Britain’s Strongest Man the year that I won it. I also had Hunter from Gladiators come up to me and tell me he was a massive fan, and could he get a picture? It was surreal because I grew up watching him on TV, now he’s the one asking me for a photo!
My ultimate goal is to win World’s Strongest Man, which is coming up in the next five weeks. But with the injuries I’ve had, I’ve learned that it’s important to have things in life that aren’t just work.
I used to do a bit of carp fishing when I was younger, which I recently returned to. My biggest catch is a 27lb, which is not that big by UK standard anymore – the record is 68lb! The game has changed, though, it’s become so high tech, rigs have become way more sophisticates from the days of a simple hair rig. Casting and baiting accuracy has improved with the introduction of distance sticks. It is nice going back to be being a bit of a novice again and having to learn from the more experienced guys.
It helps to take my mind off things, I can switch off and not really think about much else. I like just sitting on the bank and fishing – you don’t have to catch anything, it’s just nice to be in an environment that makes me feel fully relaxed.
