Back on the pitch at 38

Where he started

Dev had been a reasonably active person who got seriously ill and spent most of a year doing very little. By the time he was cleared to train he had lost a great deal of strength and, by his own account, most of his confidence.

He started in Foundations rather than jumping into Strength, which he resented for about three weeks. “I kept thinking, I used to be able to do this. That turned out to be irrelevant.”

What the training looked like

Eight weeks of Foundations, then a first Strength block at loads well below what his ego wanted. His coach held him back twice in the first month and he has since said that was the most useful thing anyone did.

Conditioning went in alongside it after the second block, almost all of it at an easy pace. The first time he was told his heart rate was too high on a supposedly easy session he assumed the monitor was broken.

Where he is now

Dev has been back playing five-a-side for a year. He trains three mornings a week and is deadlifting more than he did before he was ill, which he did not expect and does not entirely trust.

“The thing nobody tells you is how long the confidence takes compared to the body. The body came back first by miles.”