Craig is a current international competitor in Highland Games and Strongman.

He has been competing professionally since 1998.

Craig is currently the leading Australian Strongman along with Derek Boyer the Island Warrior.

In 2004 Craig became the leading Australian in Highland games with the retirement of five times world champion Matt Sandford, although certainly not in Matt’s league.

Craig is associated with the Tartan Warriors who control professional strongman and Highland Games in Australia. Craig is coached by David Huxley, the coordinator of Tartan Warriors and still the world record holder listed in Guinness Book for pulling a Boeing airbus.

In February 2005 Craig severely injured his biceps doing a car roll event at a charity day. Initial scans appeared to be okay, so one week later In New Zealand for a Highland Games Craig Suffered a severe complete distal biceps rupture on the light hammer. He was operated on 3 days later and is now back in training.

History

Craig started training at the age of 16 mainly to assist with strength and speed for football. The addiction to the gym and training soon became obvious and at 19 gave away football to continue training.

At this time Craig trained very basic being coached by a couple of local power lifters. Then the bodybuilding influences started and body building became the priority.

Craig’s training remained based on the core strength lifts and slowly progressed.

During this time Craig met and married Lisa who was also into training and she went on to become the IFBB East Coast Champion and was the first Australian Female to get the cover of IRONMAN Magazine.

Over the years Craig has won a number of state titles with both IFBB and NABBA. Craig also gained certification with the IFBB and the ANBB as a judge.

At this time Strongman had made a resurgence in Australia and Craig was drawn back to the strength arena. He won a number of local strongman shows.

He then met Grant Edwards the leading Australian Strongman at the time. As a result of this meeting Craig obtained a trial with Tartan Warriors and the rest as they say is history.

Craig has been studying the use of and the development of supplements for almost as long as he has been training. Along with his wife they have run their own supplement business, prior to joining with TOP NUTRITION.

Training

My training has evolved over the years to more directly reflect the goals I am trying to achieve.

When I first started into the strongman arena I still trained more like a body builder and had limited strongman equipment. I have since obtained a large amount of equipment and this is now reflected in my training.

The hardest thing I have to accomplish with my training now is complementing the strongman training with the throw training required for the Highland Games.

Prior to my injury in February of this year I had been follow the training program of Sven Karlsen, one of the worlds best ever strongmen. (This program can be found at Sven’s website – Power Viking). This program was very good and gave me the recovery needed with a good spread of gym and event work. My problem was trying to commit to this and doing shift work at the same time. I was always missing training days and then playing catch up and training up to five days straight. This diminished the results obtained from this program as the recovery was not there.

During my lay off with my injury I have reassessed my training and modified it to be more flexible in approach to assist with work.

THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF MY CURRENT TRAINING PROGRAM. IT IS NOT SHOWN AS A RECOMMENDATION FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW. REMEMBER TO ALWAYS SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE IF STARTING A TRAINING PROGRAM AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE HEALTHY. IF NECESSARY CHECK WITH A DOCTOR.

Craig's Training Programme

This program is working well for me. I try to have a rest day after every two training days, but this is dependant on work commitments and shifts. If necessary I will train four days then have two off. It varies with my shifts. Remember recovery is the biggest factor and if I have not recovered I will take a day off.

The cycle may also vary dependant on the type of contest approaching. For example leading into a full Highland Games I will do more throw training days throughout the cycle.

Nutrition

For me it is fairly basic. As a strongman how I look is not important, but carrying too much fat can also be detrimental to producing power in the competitions, so I try to maintain a healthy level.

The main part of my diet is naturally protein. I try to take in 400 plus grams of first class protein a day. From there as my start point I eat carbs and good fats with most meals just enough to fuel my energy requirements for training and work.

I try to limit fat intake and avoid junk the majority of the time but will relax a bit on weekends.

Working shift work can cause a problem but I try to start my day with breakfast when I get out of bed regardless of the time, then proceed through my meals as a normal day.

I gain a lot of assistance from supplementation and rely heavily on protein powders. Naturally I use all TOP NUTRITION products. Currently I use:

• Performance Whey Oligopeptide protein
• Performance Whey HWPI
• Performance l-Glutamine
• Max Tribulus
• Advanced Acceleration Plus Creatine
• Nitro Boost
• Amino Fuel
• Max CLA

I do not use all these supplements at one time, they are used at differing times to meet my nutritional needs and training and competition purposes. See the product guide for further information or send me a question.