Man Mountain

Chris Feather, Gym Jones disciple and founder of notorious Sydney gym 98 Riley St, is living proof that true fitness starts in the mind.

- Aaron Scott 

For Chris Feather, revelation came in the form of humiliation. It was 2011.The Yorkshireman had called time on his professional rugby league career a year earlier and moved to Sydney where he’d founded his gym, 98 Riley Street. A towering figure at 196cm and 119kg, Feather thought he was in supreme shape. At 98 Riley, he was pounding out brutal hour-long sessions that involved intervals on the rowing machine interspersed with crushing sets of deadlifts and bench press. His numbers were staggering: he was snapping out 2km time trials on the rower in a tick over six minutes; he was benching 160kg, deadlifting 225kg.Then he met Mark Twight.

The founder of the notorious Gym Jones training facility in Utah was at 98 Riley knocking Russell Crowe into shape for the movie Man of Steel. Twight watched one of Feather’s sprawling sessions without expression. When it had finished, he wandered over.

“Have you got 16 minutes?”

Feather shrugged: “Sure.”

Twight instructed him to grab a pair of light dumbbells. Feather hoisted a pair of 12.5kg ’bells. Twight outlined the protocol: 30 seconds of overhead press, aiming for a minimum of 15 reps; 30 seconds of holding the weights above the head, arms at full extension; repeat the sequence four times. Keen to impress, Feather went hard. “The first round I hit 25 reps, the second round 12, the third round eight. By the final round of holds I couldn’t even keep my hands up. I thought: I’m bench-pressing 160 kilos but I can’t do this? This is ridiculous.”