This is a short interview excerpt where Chris McCormack describes "Sportoga," a strength-oriented hybrid of yoga and Pilates developed by his longtime trainer Mick (MG) Gilliam. McCormack credits Sportoga with improving his body awareness, core control, and longevity as an athlete — attributes he links to his 2010 Ironman World Championship win.
But I want to ask you about strength training, Chris. I know that you've got one unique form of strength training I saw on your website called Sportoga, which I'm guessing is a mix of like strength training and yoga, but can you kind of explain what that is?
Well, you've got to know a guy I've been working with probably my entire career, MG Mick Gilliam, we all call him MG in Australia. He looks amazing if you see him. He's the quintessential good looking 52 year old bloke who is very, very vain. He's a lovely guy, one of my best friends and he's been working with me on strength and conditioning and preaching this into me since I was a 22 year old junior athlete. And he was forever trying to get me in the weight room and saying, especially as you age as an athlete, I need to get you in the weight room. And I was always very reluctant to get in the weight room because I always felt lethargic and flat after, especially in season after doing weights. So he was a big time yoga guy and he was always preaching yoga to men, but I didn't want to get in the room and try and hold these poses because I just couldn't do it. And over the years he sort of morphed all his yoga school and he created this form of, his form of sports yoga and it was very, very strength orientated, had mixes of Pilates, all these yoga schools. I don't know the name of the yogas he studied but. And he created these yoga moves that aren't like yoga but they are, but they're very strength orientated, they're very good for flexibility and range and especially as I've aged as an athlete, you know, I used to laugh at him when I was in my mid-20s going, oh, you'll never get me doing that stuff. But it was definitely something I gravitated towards when I hit my mid-30s. And I've, you know, I thank him all the time now because to some degree I think it's kept me in the game at my age. Now at 39 years of age, I'm very, very strong, I'm very body aware and it's much more, you have to see it on video to understand it, but it's much more using your own body weight, using your own range and really working on understanding how to fire those muscles and use those muscles because we really lose that ability over time, we just lose that body awareness. And he targets getting that body awareness back first and then building Strength in those areas and for me in particular, and I've said it to his face. So this is in 2010 at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, the year I won. When Andreas Raelert caught me, Mick called it before anyone that I would win the race. And he said if you look at my hips and he can slow it down, I was body aware, I was able to keep stay over my hips. Raylet was all over the place, even though he was the young guy closing in on me. And Mick is convinced, and I am to some degree now too, that it was all that work we did with control. You know, core is the big key word nowadays, but core control and understanding how to fire everything and use everything to get the most out of myself. And I ultimately kicked away from a guy who's six or seven years younger than me, the world record holder, and win a race that everyone had sort of ripped me off at that point in the event. And I attribute a lot of that to Sportoga and Mick's range of exercises. I keep telling him he needs to come up to the United States and show people he's a genius and it's a very, very nice form of exercise.
Yeah, I'd love to try one of those sessions out. And for those of us endurance sports geeks who are watching your buildup in ITU and training for the Olympic team, I think there are a lot of people kind of waiting for you to pop injury wise, and it didn't seem to happen. And it's sounds like the Sportoga kind of paid off for you.
Yeah, I've never had a real injury in my career that's left me out of a season. Pretty much every pro has missed a big chunk of the season because of an injury. In 20 years, I've never had an injury that's left me out of a season at all or left me out of racing. So I think I've been very, very lucky. You feel blessed sometimes you meet certain people in your life. And Mick has become sort of like a big brother to me in some degrees. 14 or 15 years older than me. And he was one of those first fitness geeks in the 80s when personal training and fitness wasn't as popular as it is today. And he's been so obsessed with understanding things to do with his body that he really drilled that into me at a very, very young age. And a lot of us used to laugh, but I was always listening and listening and he'd get me in the rooms and he'd make me do these things. When I just want to go out and ride my bike, he'd be like, trust me. And a lot of those athletes we were training with back in the day, and actually, you know, Crowie spent a lot of time with Mick as well. Crowie knows him very, very well. And a lot of those athletes that were laughing aren't around anymore. They're injured. And it's quite ironic that both Craig and myself, you know, approaching 40, and we're still at the top of the game.
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