Tom Daley | Train Like | Men's Health

Men'sHealth

2 days ago

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00:00I did my whole diving career training with like six to ten people at the same time, all

00:04in the same space, so it's weird now going from training with such a big team to now

00:09training on my own, but I still enjoy it.

00:12I still love how I feel after I work out, regardless of whether it's for training for

00:16the Olympics or not.

00:17Hey, it's Tom Daley here, Olympic gold medalist diver, and today I'm going to walk you through

00:22what a typical workout looks like for me.

00:30Now that I'm retired, my goal is slightly different because I don't have to worry about

00:48how muscular I get now because I am somebody that is quite fortunate to be able to put on

00:53muscle quite easily, but when I was diving that was a problem because if you hit the

00:57water with too much muscle mass and a different shape, then you don't go into the water as

01:02clean and get that rip entry where you disappear without a splash.

01:06I'm working with my strength coach, Brittany Ducro.

01:09She was able to really help guide me to get to the place where I was at my physical peak,

01:14right around Tokyo in the Olympics there, and then also through to Paris in 2024.

01:20So this workout might take me typically like 45 minutes to complete because I think anything

01:25longer than that, you start to lose focus and you start to get really tired, but it's

01:29all about consistency, making sure you get there every single day because my whole diving

01:33career has been about perfecting that 1.6 seconds of a dive, going from the 10-meter platform

01:39to hitting the water, and one of the big things that I've learned over my career is to make sure

01:45that you put 100% effort in when you're at the gym so that you can relax the rest of the time.

01:50All right, so let's get into the workout.

01:55I always like to start with some mobility and activation and that looks different depending

02:00on what I'm working out, but I always like to warm up my hips and these are some Chinese plank marches.

02:06So I always just try and keep my hips up and then activate my hip flexors

02:10because that was something that I always used to get injured when I was diving.

02:20Some more hip mobility that I do, I kind of open the gate and close the gate just to get my hips

02:27open and moving because you don't want your back going because you didn't warm up your hips.

02:38Legs is my favorite muscle group to train and I don't know why because most people absolutely hate

02:43training legs but there's something about it that makes a workout feel so torturous but good.

02:51So legs is always my go-to day.

02:56One of the first things that I like to do when I start lifting is do things that aren't necessarily

03:01too heavy but kind of challenge your balance. So I always do single arm and single leg things

03:06so being able to do a single arm single leg snatch. So when you go down just try and be as explosive as

03:12getting up onto the bench and really kind of extending through those hips to activate the glutes because

03:18everything I do is about jumping. That feeling of jumping and lifting off is what I always try to

03:24do and this has always really helped with my shoulders for stability when it comes to diving

03:29because doing it with a bar has a bit more stability whereas single arm always feels a bit wobbly but that's the point.

03:35Now that I'm retired finding motivation for instead of it being an Olympic Games to work towards

03:44for me the big motivation now is staying mobile, staying active, staying fit and healthy for my kids

03:49to make sure that I can run around because playing tag and playing football and running around after them

03:54can be tiring so I have to make sure I stay in some kind of shape.

03:57reverse lunge but instead of using the momentum with going down into a reverse lunge and popping

04:03back up again going down to a pin that's going to stop you and then you have to create all that

04:09momentum and force from nothing.

04:11So I work with a strength coach that has been working with me since 2014 because up until then

04:30I was doing things that were a little bit more generic whereas being able to do things that are

04:34really diving specific really enhance the workout because diving's a weird sport. I mean there's not

04:40many people that write workouts for diving because most pools don't even have a diving board so

04:45being able to find someone that understood what it meant to be able to get the best out of a diver

04:52was difficult but once we found Brit been with her ever since.

04:58I also super set a lot of things where I go from something that's weighted to then tricking my body to

05:04something that's unweighted whereas I know I'm holding weights right now but what I normally do is I go down

05:10to the bottom drop the weight and then try and explode up so your body thinks that you're carrying

05:15an extra 32 kilos and then it isn't and it feels like you're flying so go all the way down drop it

05:23and then up onto the box.

05:24So down slowly drop it and then on the way up

05:42Next we're going to do some rotational landmine presses and all of these exercises are quite diving specific

05:49for various reasons but I still do lots of those exercises because I really like the way that it

05:55challenges my balance and it really makes me think every time I do an exercise so it's not just using

06:01a machine without thinking about the coordination of it all so for these I kind of start facing one

06:06direction when I push and rotate towards the landmine I go back again and push

06:14super set with a landmine I like to do some side plank rotational rows so you go up into your side

06:22plank you kind of rotate towards the cable machine and then you come back to neutral and row

06:29control it out twist back and pull so it kind of hits your core as well as working your back and your shoulders

06:38My least favorite workout is doing long boring cardio if I'm going to do a cardio session I want

06:48like a spin class of loud music I want a boot camp class or if I'm going to do some kind of long walk

06:54it has to be like a hike and I always have to go with someone I find it much easier to work out with

06:59someone than on my own and then the last thing that I like to throw into the mix some hanging leg raises

07:05where you go from dead hang to slowly raising up touch the bar slowly down

07:21because it's always easy to do the ones where you kind of get the fast momentum

07:26like this but it doesn't really work as well as slow and controlled

07:32and then if I really want to challenge myself at the end I'll do an L hold for like 10-15 seconds

07:49so there we have it that was my workout I hope you enjoyed it and maybe you'll try a few of the

07:52things and challenge your cross-sectional stuff doing single arm single leg on your side upside down

07:58round and round and round because it's always fun to try something new

Tom Daley | Train Like | Men's Health

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