Keep­ing Fit: 

For me exer­cise is a great way to get off the farm, cer­tain­ly dur­ing lock­down. I would go for a run for half an hour and for­get about every­thing, and then I could come back and do some more work. Liv­ing and work­ing in the same space has its chal­lenges as I’m sure most peo­ple have expe­ri­enced dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, how­ev­er, fit­ness is always some­thing that makes you feel much bet­ter after­wards. For me it gives a goal to keep improv­ing. I’m nat­u­ral­ly quite a wor­ri­er and I know that if stuff on the farm isn’t going well, I can go to the gym, have a think about things and refo­cus. Prob­lems don’t seem so bad if you take a step back. So, fit­ness has also been my go-to to clear my head. 

I’m cur­rent­ly train­ing about five or six times a week, focus­ing on func­tion­al fit­ness, weight and endurance train­ing, includ­ing run­ning and cycling. Dur­ing the coro­n­avirus lock­down, I set up a gym on the farm using tyres and heavy objects that were lying around. Since then, I have invest­ed in some more sub­stan­tial gym equip­ment which has made things a lit­tle eas­i­er to train and I have also built a squat rack in the garage which has been very useful. 

Why I took part in Britain’s fittest farmer:

Orig­i­nal­ly, I wasn’t going to enter Britain’s Fittest Farmer as I thought I would nev­er have a chance of win­ning. I left it very late to apply, I think I was one of the last to get my appli­ca­tion in after my fam­i­ly spurred me on after see­ing it adver­tised. In the end I was glad I applied as it gave me some­thing to look for­ward to in a year that had been very dif­fi­cult for many because of the pandemic. 

I didn’t real­ly know what to expect for the qual­i­fi­ca­tion round, how­ev­er when the events were named, I felt that I would do well as my train­ing has con­sist­ed of a lot of run­ning and aer­o­bic endurances exer­cis­es. The same applied for the final although we had a lit­tle longer to pre­pare as we were told by the Farm Fit­ness team what the events were going to be. 

Farm­ing life:

Farm­ers are renowned for work­ing hard and nev­er stop­ping, farm­ing is ²⁴⁄₇ and it is dif­fi­cult to stop work­ing when you’ve got 100 oth­er things you need to get done. It can con­trol your life, so I think hav­ing time away to refresh is very impor­tant for every­one. For me a typ­i­cal work-day would last over 10 hours and would con­sist of over 20k steps so being phys­i­cal­ly fit is vital. I try to walk to places around the farm as much as pos­si­ble espe­cial­ly when the weath­er is good it’s a great way to enjoy the out­doors and apri­cate my ​‘office’.

I think this is some­thing that has been evi­dent for every­one dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, walk­ing has been about the only thing that we could do so we have seen a large increase of peo­ple on the pub­lic foot­paths on the farm over the last year. This has defi­ant­ly had its pros and cons. Of course, we love to see peo­ple enjoy­ing the great out­doors as its one of the best ways to keep men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly fit. How­ev­er, we have also seen a large increase in dog attacks on live­stock and peo­ple think­ing that they can roam any­where as they please. 

So, one thing to remem­ber if you are going out to enjoy the coun­try, wear the cor­rect cloth­ing and please stick to the foot­paths — with dogs on a lead. We as farm­ers spend so much time car­ing for the live­stock it’s very frus­trat­ing when peo­ple are unable to abide by the coun­try­side code. 

For infor­ma­tion about the coun­try­side code, take a look at our Out and About leaflet here: https://s3-eu-west‑1.amazonaws.com/leaf-website/LOFS-Out-About-in-Springtime.pdf

Britain’s Fittest Farmer com­pe­ti­tion was launched by Farm­ers Week­ly as a fun way of spark­ing a vital dis­cus­sion about the phys­i­cal and men­tal health of the nation’s farm­ers. As farm­ing becomes less active and more mech­a­nised and office-based, it’s more impor­tant than ever before to make sure Britain’s farm­ers are get­ting the exer­cise that they need to stay fit and healthy. Farm­ing can also be an iso­lat­ing job, which is why it is also vital for farm­ers to focus on their own men­tal health and well­be­ing so that they can keep their busi­ness in tip-top con­di­tion too.