Mark Ormrod had his body destroyed but this is how he trained to regain his mobility, independence and strength.
TRAIN: Tell us about your injury?
On Christmas Eve 2007 I was serving in Afghanistan as a Royal Marines Commando and went on a routine patrol when I detonated and improvised explosive device, which made me become the UK’s first triple amputee from the conflict, I eventually lost both of my legs above the knee and my right arm above the elbow.
What style of training got you back to fitness?
Everything I did and do in the gym is modified in some way, to accommodate my prosthetics. Over the years I have come up with certain exercises mainly based around free weights as when I travel and use different gym’s inevitably they have different types of machines and I like to know that where ever I train I can at least get a half decent workout in.
What where your biggest mistakes or obstacles?
The biggest problems that I have faced I think have firstly been with my ego. I used to be able to lift (pre-injury) much heavier than I do now and so initially I wanted to go heavy with everything but I quickly realized that my prosthetic arm wouldn’t be able to handle large weight so I used a higher rep range. I also had to get over the fact that people would stare. Because I have to modify the way I use certain machines to get a good hit when people used to stare at me I assumed they thought I was from the ‘Gym Fails’ videos who didn’t know what I was doing. Once I gained more confidence I realized it was because they had never seen a triple amputee in the gym before.
How did you change your diet?
It takes a bi-lateral above the knee amputee between 300-500% more energy to do anything than an able bodied person so having a constant stream of energy is crucial just to get through a day without even thinking about training. Initially I kept my diet the same as before I was injured which was pretty simple, eat lots of good food as often as possible and lift lots of heavy weights, when I got injured however I realized it had to change. After putting on weight through my previous diet I started to reduce carbs and up my protein to lose the weight but build lean muscle. I went from eating 3 big meals a day to 5-6 smaller ones to give me that constant energy supply.
How did you stay motivated?
Motivation is easy, I have always been into health & fitness and I have a lot of pride in being a Royal Marine and I wanted to combine the two to inspire other people and show them what’s possible if you had the right plan and tools, I don’t just mean other amputees I mean able bodied people to.
What are your current goals and future plans?
My current goals are become a well known name within the fitness industry and do everything that I can to reach as many people as possible. I own a gym (Flex Fitness) in my home city of Plymouth & although it’s small and very old school I want to push it to its maximum potential
Vital Stats
Before: Age: 24, height: 6’2, weight: 224lb
After: Age: 33, height: 5’10 with prosthetics, weight: 154lb
