A huge congratulations to Ollie Ward, my trainee in the Protein Project for winning a deserved 1st place on Wednesday night.

A huge thanks must go to his/our support team, the beautiful Bess Neathway and Kate Braithwaite, both were there whenever they could be to train alongside, raise spirits and make both Ollie’s and my long journeys to train with each other a little more bearable.

Ollie will be the first to admit he had some real battles to overcome to win this project, many of which the public and judges will not be aware of. However, his before and after photos shown here speak for themselves and illustrated the hard work and dedication he showed over the last 12 weeks. For me, it was akin to a Recruit going through Royal Marine Training: he was diligent, prepared, keen and honest.

Heartfelt commiserations to my good friend Toby Rowland and his candidate David. They really did have the biggest job to do as it is so, so hard to make a big change when muscle is needed to be added, as this takes a lot longer than 12 weeks, whether taking Maximuscle products or not, the real timeline for someone like Dave would be nearer 12 months. However, they did a stern job and Dave looked fantastic in his after photos, a real testament to Toby’s abilities, especially considering Dave was a COMPLETE novice to the gym environment.

A mention also to James and Rich Tidmarsh the other competitor and trainer duo. Strangely, Ollie and I both admitted that we initially wanted to work with the two respectively: with his link to rugby, Ollie assumed Rich would be his best suited trainer, and with his obviously visible gym body hiding under a little bodyfat, I thought I could get a real cover model transformation out of James. Again, commiseration to both James and Rich, it didn’t quite go to plan for them. However, as with Toby and Dave, no-one can take away the efforts James has put in and the experience he has had in, what has been a great competition.

Finally, a thank you to Maximuscle for asking me to be involved and to the judges, Andi Peters, Jon Lipsey, Charlotte Ord and Chris Robshaw for (between them) choosing Ollie to take the number 1 spot.