Former Olympic athlete turned YouTuber Nile Wilson regularly invites bodybuilders and strongmen into his gym to see how their muscles and strength translate in the mobility and agility-focused discipline of artistic gymnastics—often to comic effect. In his latest video, Nile is joined by 6’8 bodybuilder, MMA fighter and actor Martyn Ford, who towers over him but is nowhere near as ungainly as his massive frame initially suggests.
Nile starts by demoing a series of springboard jumps, including the tuck jump and half twist, and Martyn is rapidly able to master each of them. “He’s a pro!” Nile exclaims. They follow this with forward and backward rolls, and static jumps where they assume different positions mid-air, something which requires a tight, strong core.
Martyn’s performance shouldn’t come as a surprise, however. “I don’t like not winning,” he remarks, explaining that he has an extensive background in sports, having competed in athletics, shotput, javelin, and cricket at a national level as a teenager, before an injury waylaid his career aspirations as a professional athlete. A period of depression followed, before he rallied and opened his own gym, continuing to set and pursue his own goals. Most recently, he has found a new career as an actor, having joined the cast of the action movie sequel Fast & Furious 9 alongside John Cena.
Martyn, who weighs 320 pounds, and currently eats five meals and trains twice a day (weights in the morning and conditioning or sparring in the afternoon), went on to describe how he is in a transitional period with relation to his fitness as he gears up to fight. “I want to be as lean as possible, as fast as possible, and as fit as possible,” he says. “I’ve gone from doing very compound A to B movements, to asking my body to be functional again.”
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