This is the first in a series of interviews with industry experts, who have years of experiencing dealing with and successfully solving problems that many of us share. Through their success and experience you can learn a lot. This is a great interview with fitness expert and skilled entrepreneur, Perry Hicks. Perry’s primary areas of interest are Thai boxing and weight training — so I was really interested to learn how training has affected his hair, what he does to keep his hair and skin looking good and what key things he’s learned over the years to become a successful business man in the health and sports industries.
If you are interested in fitness, health and entrepreneurialism I highly recommend you have a read — there’s some great advice in this interview I’ve found it interesting seeing some similarities with my own experiences and work.
What is your single best piece of body-building advice?
Make a dramatic change in your routines at least every 8-12 weeks. This can be as simple as changing a barbell chest press to a dumbbell for example, your sets and reps range, or to change training styles completely. Remember that your eating habits must also change to accommodate the new demand on your body
Body-building is known to increase testosterone, which may have an impact on hair. What do you do to prevent hair loss caused by bodybuilding? And do you think bodybuilding has had an impact on your hair?
I have realised in body-building everyone digs into their pockets for protein, creatine and pre-workouts before anything else. Even though these are truly great products, they overlook a good source of vitamins, minerals and fats which should be right there at the beginning with protein. This could be classed as “the missing link” in the chain of events in successful results, as without these, the links after are not as effective and will cause ineffective and sometimes reverse results. I simply use a skin, hair and nails multivitamin containing DHT blockers, but as these only usually have above average “everyday” doses, I add a sports multivitamin to cover my training, and Omega 3-6-9 capsules. It really is that easy a solution!
I think Body-building was having an impact on my hair for two reasons
- I would wash my hair every time I trained, which can sometimes be twice a day and even 7 days a week, using low level shampoo and vigorously rubbing my hair dry with a towel, I found this was beating my hair up quite a bit
- Body-building, and all types of training is a demand on your body, I have seen a direct link between the condition of my skin and hair and my overall health. This is now the key indicator that there is something lacking in my eating habits, leaving my hair starving of nutrients that are getting used up in my training
Being a man, we are not really attuned to such beauty related indications and would go unnoticed as the warning light. It was simply a shock to me when looking into saving my own hair just how much of a difference my skin and hair had been in the success of my results.
Please be aware my one piece of solid advice in purchases …… know the difference between being “cheap” and being a “bargain”.
Editors note: Perry also users a high quality shampoo. You can see some good examples or high quality organic shampoos here.
What is ‘clean testosterone’ and what do you do to promote it?
Clean testosterone is just “plain testosterone” unaffected, unaltered testosterone in its purist form. Testosterone can be altered and changed by your body, which is bad, especially when introducing synthetic testosterone (steroids) as there will usually be too much of it for your body to deal with.
I don’t use steroids due to my fighters license, and I discovered what the use of steroids can do to your hormones when researching DHT conversion, and how the wrong kind of DHT blocker can effect good clean testosterone, since reading that, I did notice the traits of skin and hair issues with steroid users and identifying them became easier!
My favourite method of testosterone promotion is cold showers! This is by the far the healthiest, most effective and safe way to promote testosterone and general health, but it’s not just cold showers.
Have your normal warm/hot shower to wash yourself, then rinse under cold, back to hot and then cold again.
This sends your blood flow rushing around your body maximising your blood circulation, tightens your skin which will aid in weight control, boosts your immune system and generally makes you seem like the toughest guy at that moment as you feel more alive than you have ever been before.
I do this after every training session, if not at least once a day, and if you train hard enough, a cold shower becomes something to look forward to.
Trust me, this gets some getting used to, but is very VERY effective.
What is your single best piece of nutrition advice?
There is no such thing as an unhealthy meal, just an unhealthy diet.
What people need to know, and understand, that what you eat, and what time of the day you eat it will effect what happens, and everybody is different and everyone has a different idea of what a healthy attractive body looks like.
To put a formula in place as a general guideline.
Think of a round log with straight plank placed across the top and set so it’s balances evenly.
Think of a bowl of chicken curry with rice and place it at one end, the plank with the bowl of chicken curry will no-doubt go to the ground.
Now think of the same sized bowl with a salad and place at the other end, in the real world of mass of weight the chicken curry end will still be down because it weighs more.
At the salad end, add another same sized bowl of vegetables, there is a chance the chicken curry is still grounded if not may have lifted a little.
Keep adding bowls of healthy food at the salad end until the plank balances evenly again.
If you only placed a bowl of salad at one end, the plank will go to the ground.
If each bowl represented a meal, and you can eat only so many meals in a week, think about how much balancing you need to do with meal sizes etc …… and that you can still eat a chicken curry!
Stress has an impact on training, muscle gain and many other aspects of fitness and life in general. What do you do to keep your stress levels in check?
First thing I decided, is to accept that I will get stressed, it will happen, things will become difficult and I will have to deal with it. And that is how I keep my stress levels in check, I don’t run off on holiday, or get drunk, or treat myself to new clothes or do something to make myself feel better. I understand that to deal with stress, is to be exposed to it, stress is never a pleasant thing to go through, but going through it is almost like practice to deal with it, so over time you get better at dealing with stress.
Finally, you run a successful health related business. If you could give your best, most crucial piece of advice for budding entrepreneurs, in one sentence, what would it be?
My first rule of business ….. “Reliability” and “consistency”, you must be reliable, and you must be consistently reliable. Whether you are packing an order for an internet sale, answering phones or opening the doors of your shop at 6am in the morning, be consistently reliable about it.
About the interviewee
Perry Hicks, the creator and CEO of Sarafan Sports ltd has had careers across different markets, but has always been in the fitness industry which is now spanning over 14 years. Even at one time meaning he had 4 different employers!
Perry started out selling products from his sponsors before establishing Sarafan Sports during 2009, Perry wanted Sarafan Sports to be influenced by the choices made through their sponsored athletes individual experiences, and makes all his athletes purchase their products to ensure they are the ones they want to use. By focussing on these products they can offer them at more affordable prices keeping the honesty in their use. After all, if you want real advice on a product? Ask someone who chooses to use them.
Perry has had most of his recent attention focused on sport beneficial health products, most namely skin and hair, since he noticed in himself a suffering in these areas 3 years ago. He has since successfully brought these problems under control and even reversed the damage caused, he also noticed that our health has effects on our performances, lifestyles and overall productivity …… IN EVERYTHING
Perry is also the owner of Sweeney Tomm’s barber shop, a property manager and a motivational speaker for business and the fitness industry.
Becoming an icon, is an earned responsibility, not an earned privilege
