Ryan Terry gives sage advice.

Winner of this year’s Arnold Classic, Winner of the Asia Grand Prix, and highest placed Brit at Mr Olympia, is Ryan Terry -the ex-plumber who made it big.

The Nottinghamshire native told Men’sHealth about his training and panic when he met The Terminator.

When asked how he got into weight training, Terry replied,

“I had a problem with my Achilles tendons. My doctor put me in pots [supportive braces] so I couldn’t do any of the sports. I was still eating the way I did and I gained a lot of weight. The pots came off when I was 14 and I joined the gym to lose all the puppy fat that I had put on. It was at that point I got addicted and that was it. I’ve never looked back.”

“My first comp was when I was 20. I wanted to see if I could diet and have the discipline of a bodybuilder without the size. So when I was 20, a modelling thing came up which was Mr Great Britain and Mr International – it was more of a beauty pageant. I wanted to enter to see if I could diet down for it. I did it and I was fortunate enough to win Mr Great Britain in 2010.”

Terry has also recently begun working with trainer and nutritionist Ken Roscoe:

“When I won Mr. Great Britain that’s when I took him on because for Mr. International I wanted to be at my best. When I won Mr. International, all my work was in Asia – I was doing a lot of TV commercials and modelling – and they don’t want you to be big, they wanted me to be very lean, which meant I was always trying to lose muscle.
In 2013, Men’s Physique came out and I decided I wanted to go down the sports route rather than commercial modelling. I wanted to gain muscle and that’s when we started to get to work on building my physique and becoming bigger.”

After winning the Arnold Classic Terry chatted onstage with Arnold Schwarzenegger and says it was a special moment for him.

“That was surreal, that was amazing. It was a dream come true for me because, obviously, having The Terminator grill you is awesome. You could see I was star struck.”

He also mentioned that his biggest improvements have been made through dieting, not training.

“I was obsessed with training because I loved it so much. I was at work for 10 hours a day but I’d get up first thing to do my cardio and then I’d train at night, whatever time it was, never miss a session, seven days a week, and nothing really changed in my physique. Then the nutrition changed and everything changed – it seemed like overnight, everything fell into place. So, yeah, it’s a huge factor.”

Terry also had advice for novice bodybuilders

“Don’t rush the process, don’t look for easy short cuts. Bodybuilding is a long process, it’s not overnight and it takes time. Get yourself knowledgeable in how your body works. I feel I wasted a lot of time because I didn’t eat enough to fuel the workouts, and didn’t eat enough to grow. Nutrition will get you to your goals quicker. Lastly, I’d say consistency. The industry is so hard to break, so popular, that you just have to keep at it. There will be setbacks, I’ve had quite a few, but if you believe in yourself, just keep going. If you want it bad enough you’ll keep going.”

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