ROSS EDGLEY HAS always been a bit of an anomaly. He’s completed entire triathlons carrying tree trunks on his back, run 1,000 miles barefoot (carrying a 50kg pack) and swum non-stop for 510km down the Yukon River, as well as swimming around the entirety of Great Britain without making landfall. Last year, he ate 40,000 calories in a National Geographic-fronted eating competition… against a tiger shark. ‘Anomalous’ is probably an understatement.
What’s perhaps most intriguing about Edgley, however, is his career path. To many, he is an OG fitness influencer. My own first memories of him are from 2000s protein powder ads – that, and a university-calendar model search that went viral before ‘going viral’ was even a thing. He looked the part, and had a ready audience. The well-trodden path of pumping, posing and posting sports nutrition affiliate codes was wide open.
But instead, Edgley has elected to pursue a slew of challenges that aren’t just arduous, but also decidedly ‘unsexy’. While a large proportion of the industry relies on baring as much flesh as is legal, Edgley has chosen to wrap his body in neoprene and submerge himself in icy waters for months at a time, resurfacing only to share gruesome pictures of his tongue breaking down from saltwater exposure, or nausea-inducing welts in his neck from being suffocated by his wetsuit.
All of this intrigues me. So, when BMW – the main sponsor of Edgley’s latest expedition, in which he’ll swim around the treacherous coast of Iceland – asked me to check in on how his training is unfolding, I grabbed the steering wheel of its latest iX model with both hands, and set a course for the northernmost edge of the British Isles.
The call of adventure
On cold, craggy rocks, at what looks like the edge of the world, I find Edgley barefoot, swinging a mace bell. This is about as close to Iceland as you can get in the UK, and it’s where the athlete has established his training base.
‘I’ve always been a swimmer,’ he tells me. Edgley represented England in water polo at a junior level, as well as training at the British Swimming National Centre. ‘But never a great one,’ he laughs, pointing to contemporaries such as Adam Peaty, who have gone on to achieve Olympic stardom. Decidedly humble for a man who holds multiple world records in the water – many of which he’s accrued by accident.
Between sets of kettlebell swings, bear crawls and pull-ups on the side of a lighthouse – pull-up strength is directly correlated with swim speed, he tells me – I quiz Edgley on his choice of pursuits. He speaks enthusiastically, covering so much ground that I’d feel comfortable writing his biography.
Edgley is also a prolific name-dropper. By which, I don’t mean celebrity pals or famous athletes, but the names of historical figures who have inspired him, and from whom he’s derived a lot of his philosophies on effort and endurance.
One name that comes up again and again is Ernest Shackleton, the legendary Antarctic explorer. It’s clear that Edgley sees himself as far more of an adventurer than an influencer. This is evidenced by the fact he previously had a lucrative contract with one of the world’s largest fitness apparel brands. When they told him that they ‘don’t do explorers’, he says, and encouraged Edgley to fit the social media mould a little more, he opted out.
When I ask him later how he’d define himself professionally, he says he doesn’t really know. When I get more pointed and ask him how he defines himself to the taxman, he laughs and says, ‘author’. Doing hard things, coming back and writing about them is a pretty ancient livelihood. Now, we can do it in real time, solely through YouTube – something that Edgley embraces, and that’s handy for rallying sponsorship. But he’s still keen to honour the old ways and has penned several books focused on building the physical and mental prowess necessary for extreme adventure, leaning on both his real-world experience and background in exercise science. He tells me that he tries to embody what Socrates called the scholar-athlete: ‘The man of thought and the man of action’.
Thor made me do it
As we make our way further up the coast for our first swimming session of the day – a dip in the 6°C Atlantic – I ask Edgley what inspired his impending expedition around the coast of Iceland. Here, he does drop a celebrity name. He tells me that the initial spark came during a conversation with Chris Hemsworth (or ‘Hemsy’, to Edgley). He spoke to Hemsworth shortly after Edgley was pulled from the water with heatstroke and dehydration during an ill-fated record-breaking attempt in Lake Trasimeno, Italy. Hemsworth – whom Edgley trained and befriended while shooting a National Geographic docuseries – apparently said only one word in consolation: ‘Good,’ telling him that this is all part of the ‘hero’s journey’.
While discussing heroes, the pair came to the conclusion that swimming around Iceland would be as close as one could get to swimming around Asgard, the mythical home of Thor – the character Hemsworth portrays in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Initially, Edgley says, it was just an interesting idea, but not one that he was set on pursuing. However, a few enquiries raised the possibility that Edgley’s undertaking could also help fund and facilitate the collection of environmental DNA samples from around the Icelandic coast, aiding ocean conservation research. This caught his attention – and is ultimately what led us to this moment, on a cold, rainy Scottish beach, preparing ourselves for a swim.
I like cold water. Probably more than most. But the idea of getting into water that would be on the cold side for an ice bath – not just to grit it out for a few minutes, but for a training session that could last an hour – is daunting. Not to mention that, in this rough weather, the sea is looking incredibly punchy. Tall waves are breaking ferociously, and the threat of being driven into the jagged rocks that flank the small cove we’re in looms large.
Edgley assures me that our wetsuits will take the edge off, before telling me about an encounter with the Stoltman brothers – two of the world’s strongest men – that changed how he thought about body fat. Tom Stoltman stands at 6ft 8in and weighs 185kg. ‘We’d been for a sea swim – it was freezing,’ Edgley recalls. ‘When we got out, I rushed for my towel and some layers, and they just chilled on the beach chatting in their Speedos. With the level of body fat they were carrying, they were just so well insulated that their core temperature didn’t drop as dramatically as mine.’ Between this encounter and a bout of hypothermia, he concluded that a six-pack wasn’t a luxury a sea-swimmer could afford, and started really slamming down the calories, gaining an extra 15kg of weight.
Edgley’s nutritional adventures are nearly as impressive as his physical ones. As mentioned, he once endeavoured to out-eat a tiger shark as part of a Nat Geo series aptly titled Shark vs. Ross Edgley, downing a record-breaking 40,000 calories. ‘They eat so, so much because they don’t know when they’re going to eat again. When they find a whale carcass, they just chow down. I was trying to replicate that.’ That might be ill-advised and potentially deadly for the rest of us, but Edgley does have a knack for being able to consume massive amounts of calories and put them to good use – a skill that was indispensable during his record-breaking 2,884km swim around the coast of Great Britain.
During this time, Edgley assumed a biphasic sleep pattern: he’d spend six hours swimming, come back aboard the boat for six hours of eating and sleeping, and then repeat. He stuck to this routine for more than five months. ‘If I wasn’t swimming or sleeping, I was eating. If I woke up from a sleep needing the toilet, I’d eat a chocolate bar on my way to the loo.’ One of his go-to meals on that swim? A pizza wrapped around a baguette that he’d scoff immediately before hitting the water. ‘It was like having a doughy baby in your stomach that was warming you from the inside out.’
Most of us don’t possess Edgley’s ability to chow down on so many calories and function afterwards – let alone on such an elite level. ‘When superpowers were handed out, I got a pretty weird one,’ he says when asked about his digestive prowess. ‘Growing up, it was always just sport and food. That’s all I’ve ever been good at, and somehow I have managed to make a career out of it.’
Man versus waves
Wading into the Atlantic Ocean, I’m pleasantly surprised by just how well insulated the wetsuit is. This relief doesn’t last for long, though, as a large wave takes me off my feet. With a neoprene hood on, my face is the only part of my body that’s exposed; it feels the full grip of the cold water as I’m pulled beneath the surface. I tread water and try to get my bearings – no easy feat as the waves continue to pummel me. I catch a glimpse of Edgley’s grinning face. He’s laughing. ‘Brother, I can’t believe you’re in here – fair play!’
Over the sound of the waves, Edgley shouts that we’re to swim out past the breaks, then try to make it to an egress point at the next cove. After several energetic bouts, I’ve barely made any headway. The buoyancy of the wetsuit is a great energy conserver, but my shoulders are feeling the burn of working against the thick neoprene hugging tight around me. Worse still, the further we get from the beach, the closer I’m being pushed towards the rocks.
After another effort, we regroup. I tell Edgley that I’m fine, suggesting that we push on. Edgley is known for his trademarked enthusiasm, but I can hear genuine worry in his voice as he advises we head back into the open and instead work on technique. I’m about to protest when a large set moves in – a group of powerful waves that hit in succession. Over the roaring battering we’re taking, Edgley shouts something quite poetic, ‘Sometimes sea swimming is like dancing, sometimes it’s like boxing. But you can never tell which it’s going to be.’
At this point, I’m finding it hard to fathom how Edgley is going to tackle Iceland. He’ll be facing down 130ft waves, winds of up to 260km/h and storms of snow, sand and volcanic ash. To keep pace, he’ll have to swim the equivalent of the English Channel every day for over three months. He’ll be sharing the icy 1°C waters with killer whales, and a few species of sharks hardy enough to handle the cold. We’re becoming increasingly accustomed to seeing ex-reality TV stars and the like tackle huge multi-day endurance feats, but Edgley really is in a tier of his own.
Built different
Despite his often self-deprecating humour, Edgley is quietly aware that he may be a physical rarity. His interest in science and work on documentaries has seen him studied by various universities.
He tells me that a radiologist was perplexed by his bone marrow. ‘He told me not to be worried, but that they usually only see these results in babies and cancer patients.’ Edgley shares the data with me later: ‘Scans show you have a unique form of red marrow reconversion going on.’ I joke that the regenerative abilities this could confer mean he’s effectively Wolverine – but this definitely goes some way to explaining Edgley’s prodigious adaptability.
His muscles, too, are anomalous. Strength athletes predominantly have fast-twitch fibres, while endurance athletes are mainly slow-twitch – but Edgley’s scans reveal that he has a unique and abundant collection of both.
I ask if he thinks his genetics help him to maintain such a high level of muscle mass, considering his focus on endurance endeavours. He rebuffs the idea that this is achieved without effort. ‘I’m working. I’m using the muscles of my upper body all day and I’m eating a lot,’ he protests, adding that he did, in fact, lose muscle. ‘You should have seen my legs after the GB swim – they were gone!’
We circle back into the bay, away from the rocks, where Edgley gives me some tutelage on how to properly work with the tide, and eventually we begin ‘body surfing’ our way back in. I feel like I’m neither dancing nor boxing – but a third, worse option.
As we peel out of our wetsuits and hurry on to the heated seats of the iX (which the BMW app has enabled me to pre-warm before we even reach the car – thank you very much), Edgley tells me about a mishap with the ‘poo flap’ on his suit during his 56-hour Yukon swim, during which he wasn’t allowed to stop, sleep or touch the boat. The flap didn’t quite align with Edgley’s anatomy, meaning that at the end of the swim he had to be cut out of the suit, which he was now sharing with three days’ worth of his own faeces. Once again, Edgley really has pursued an unglamorous path.
With backers like BMW on board, it might be tempting to assume that Edgley’s expeditions at least bag him a comfy lifestyle when he isn’t swimming in his own excrement. But he tells me that on more than one occasion he’s risked his entire life savings self-funding expeditions before sponsors have stepped in. He put it all on the line to get the Yukon attempt off the ground, and at one point he asked his wife if he was doing the right thing. ‘She asked me, “If it’s all over, and you’ve broken the record, but it’s got no press attention or backing, will you be happy?” I said, “As long as I get a burger with the people who made it happen at the end.” And I really meant that.’
He openly admits that his efforts to become the first man to swim around Great Britain were partially ego-driven. We discuss how attaching to a charity allows many would-be record-breakers to downplay this aspect of their motivations – with the caveat that raising money for charity is still a good thing, whatever your motives. ‘I never tried to pretend that I was doing it all for charity,’ Edgley says, candidly. ‘Raising that money was incredible, and I’m glad – but I was going to do it regardless, for me.’ Still, he says his motivations are different now: ‘After I had my Shackleton moment on that beach in Margate – making history – everything changed. Everything now is a bonus. It’s about what I can do to help, whether that’s charity, conservation, awareness or just helping to understand the limits of human endurance.’
Beyond the grisly, uncurated nature of Edgley’s work, another thing that sets him apart from fitness social media royalty is that he’s pretty universally liked. He’s an unpolarising figure in a world where controversy often feels like the name of the game.
Over dinner that night, I tell Edgley that I believe people gravitate towards him not for his undeniable durability, grit or endurance, but for his ever-present smile. Social media is awash with men telling us that we can achieve all of our goals if we just lock in, get disciplined, take life tediously seriously.
I think people look at Edgley – whether he’s being hauled out of Loch Ness and hospitalised, cut out of a wetsuit full of shit or nearly boiled to death in an Italian lake – and see that grin on his face. And it stirs something inside of them. Something that wants to believe that it doesn’t all have to be so bloody serious.
In an effort to minimise the carbon footprint of Ross’s latest adventure, BMW – headline sponsor of the Iceland swim – has pledged electric vehicle support from its new iX range.
This article originally appeared on Men’s Health UK.
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