{"id":654179,"date":"2026-06-23T15:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654179\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:13:18","slug":"how-spencer-matthews-transformed-his-fitness-and-his-physique-and-found-new-purpose-through-endurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654179\/","title":{"rendered":"How Spencer Matthews Transformed His Fitness and His Physique \u2013 and Found New Purpose Through Endurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer Matthews<\/a> wants to dispel the myth that he trains like a professional athlete. He is not a \u2018rubbish pro\u2019, as Sam Browne, founder and CEO of the endurance-event booking website, Let\u2019s Do This, playfully christened him on his podcast, Untapped<\/a>. He wouldn\u2019t even describe himself as a particularly gifted runner. \u2018I\u2019m an enthusiastic amateur,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the timing of this interview is slightly unfortunate then. Four days prior to our conversation, Matthews didn\u2019t have a running coach. But just before we spoke, the 37-year old began working with another guest on Untapped, former Olympic marathoner Stephen Scullion, on achieving a new goal: a 2:45 finish at the Valencia Marathon this coming December \u2013 a 12-minute improvement on his previous best. For their first session, Scullion put him through a lactate threshold test where he ran 800m reps at varying paces and had a pinprick of his blood taken at the end of each. He\u2019s self-aware enough to know that\u2019s beyond the reach of most amateurs.<\/p>\n

As well as a running coach, Matthews also has a strength coach. But that\u2019s a very formal way to describe the relationship he has with former world champion bodybuilder Shaun Stafford<\/a>, who he trains with three times a week. The two of them actually met through this magazine, when Matthews was paired with the WBFF British, European and Pro World Champion for a transformation that ran under the headline \u2018Remade in Chelsea\u2019, a reference to the reality TV show Made In Chelsea, which Matthews starred in during its first 10 seasons, rising to public prominence. It\u2019s with Stafford that we\u2019re working out today in the bodybuilder\u2019s gym, City Athletic<\/a> in Victoria, London. The pair have trained together here for the past 12 years. Outside of his wife, the presenter and podcaster Vogue Williams, and their three children, Stafford is the person he spends the most time with weekly. \u2018I see a lot of Shaun, and I love Shaun,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

\"spencer<\/p>\n

Matthews bounds into the basement gym and immediately steps behind the counter to say hello to Stafford and some of the gym\u2019s other trainers. I first met him a few hours ago for breakfast and a chat at The Ivy, where he prepared for today\u2019s upper-body session with four poached eggs on sourdough toast and a bowl of yoghurt and mixed seeds. He\u2019ll need the energy. Later today he has a track workout devised by Scullion to complete, so squats<\/a> are removed from today\u2019s gym programming, which is jokingly, but not at all inaccurately, called the Big Boys Upper on Whoop.<\/p>\n

The workout<\/a> starts with a warm-up consisting of four sets of assisted pull-ups<\/a>, which Matthews flies through before moving on to barbell bench press<\/a>. Tomorrow, during a recording of Untapped with the strongmen brothers Luke and Tom Stoltman, he\u2019ll explain that bench is one of his favourite exercises, with his max peaking at around 140kg, maybe even 150kg at a push. Today, he\u2019s slumming it with a descending superset of 110kg and 90kg. He attacks each rep with gusto. In the gym, he is exactly like any other bro, chatting easily about family, commitments and projects. Occasionally, between sets, he\u2019ll jokingly reveal the six-pack abs<\/a> lying in wait for the Men\u2019s Health cover shoot or tense his guns to show off his pump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the gym provides comfort, Matthews\u2019 marathon training is providing anything but. The plan for later is for him to hit the track and complete six 1k efforts with 60 seconds\u2019 rest in between. Scullion has told him to get faster with each set, going from 4:05 per km to 3:55. The session will finish with an all-out assault on his legs: eight sets of 300m at 3:45min\/km pace.<\/p>\n

\"mens<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to train like Spencer? His coach, Shaun Stafford, has created a four-week plan exclusively for members of the MH SQUAD. Join the MH SQUAD to access the plan, or existing members can head straight into their app.<\/p>\n

Get the plan<\/a><\/p>\n

Before his track session, he sent an invite to join him at the track through to a running WhatsApp group he\u2019s part of called \u2018Marathon Men\u2019. Included in the group are Michael Murray<\/a>, CEO of the Frasers Group, and boxing trainer Shane McGuigan. No one messaged back. But Matthews isn\u2019t putting himself through this just for a faster marathon time. With three kids and a fourth on the way, not to mention two businesses to take care of, he believes having the 2:45 marathon attempt on the horizon will make a big difference to his whole life. \u2018It\u2019ll help me stay on track with good sleep. It\u2019ll help me be healthier and more conscious around what I\u2019m eating. It\u2019ll help me drink less alcohol this summer,\u2019 he says. It\u2019ll also help him unlock the last remnants of his untapped potential. That has been a years-long process.
<\/p>\n

Gritting It Out<\/p>\n

Prior to becoming an enthusiastic amateur athlete and around the same time he was starting to film scenes for a new and innovative reality TV series (a strange way to describe the medium that has become hackneyed in recent years) called Made In Chelsea, Matthews worked as a foreign-exchange broker for ICAP. This was London in the early 2010s, post-financial crisis and around the same time austerity was becoming the order of the day in Britain. Part of his job at the time was to entertain bankers. A lunchtime tipple wasn\u2019t unusual and neither was a couple of after-work drinks, either. \u2018You\u2019d feel pretty dusty arriving at your desk the following morning because you\u2019d had several pints and probably a few cocktails, too.\u2019 he says. Drinking would spill into the following day, as Matthews often took a hair of the dog approach to his health. <\/p>\n

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Matthews\u2019 drinking continued throughout his time on Made In Chelsea and beyond. The general advice he was given was that for his own good, he should consider being teetotal for the rest of his life. But he kept drinking. How could he not? At this point in his life, he prioritised socialising, and socialising meant getting drunk.<\/p>\n

The decision to sober up was influenced by his now wife, Williams, whom he married in 2018 after meeting the previous year on reality TV show The Jump, and his desire to become a better person for her. \u2018I didn\u2019t want to lose her,\u2019 he says. It was, he now recognises, an important inflection point, where he went from being \u2018self-destructive\u2019 to someone capable of realising his potential. His alcohol-free spirits brand, CleanCo<\/a>, began in 2019, after, and because of, that decision.<\/p>\n

But his journey with alcohol has been neither linear nor black and white. In 2021, Matthews signed up for the brutal 250km Marathon des Sables to punish himself \u2018for the state that I got myself into with my drinking problem that I have, and to some degree will always be in me\u2019. This was the 35th edition of the race that was organised for October, rather than the traditional April, and the first edition of the race to be held after the Covid pandemic forced a two-and-a-half year hiatus. \u2018Freakishly\u2019 high temperatures beat down on competitors, while a stomach bug also swept through participants. One person died that year; almost half of the field failed to complete the race. He says the event brought him closer to his brother Michael, who tragically passed away while becoming the youngest Briton to summit Everest at the age of 22 in 1999. Matthews was 10 at the time. Almost three decades later, he remains a huge part of his life. \u2018In the back of my mind, I\u2019m always trying to make Mike proud,\u2019 he says. In the heat of the Sahara, Matthews finished in 69th place out of the 354 runners who completed the ordeal. It took him 39 hours and 49 minutes. The experience taught him something about himself: that he had a talent for gritting out difficult experiences.<\/p>\n

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Buoyed by the Marathon des Sables, Matthews entered the Ice Ultra but tested positive for Covid after completing two stages; DNF, and the Jungle Ultra \u2013 a 230km, self-sufficient race through the Amazon rainforest; finished in third place. These led to bigger and bolder challenges, the first being his \u2018Great Desert Challenge<\/a>\u2019, where he undertook 30 marathons in 30 days on sand in 2024. He still holds the Guinness World Record for that adventure, which saw him trekking through the middle of the Jordanian desert. Then, in late 2025, Matthews took on his biggest challenge yet: Project Se7en, aka the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to complete seven 140.6mile triathlons on seven different continents. He achieved the feat in 21 days, making his way through London, Arizona, Cape Town, Perth, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro and Antarctica in the process.<\/p>\n

Today, he jokes, his back goes out more than he does. Drinking remains a slippery slope, but time that was once devoted to alcohol and socialising has been diverted to other pursuits: fitness and entrepreneurship. \u2018If I were to suddenly decide to prioritise socialising again, that would probably end up in a rough place for me,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

Data from CleanCo claims that 80% of its customers still drink alcohol. He is no different. But now, if he drinks, he does it in a setting he can control \u2013 at a lunch or with family \u2013 not often in a setting he can\u2019t, with friends who he would previously have been pulling all-nighters with. Today, he\u2019s the master of his drinking, rather than his drinking mastering him. \u2018I don\u2019t walk past a packed pub on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and look at people and go, \u201cGod, I wish I was in there having a few cold pints,\u201d\u2019 he says. \u2018It doesn\u2019t feel like a big, ugly creature on my back that has the potential to control me. But I am careful of it and I am conscious of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Untapped Potential<\/p>\n

Matthews\u2019 business interests are built around his passions. CleanCo is a product of him exploring his relationship with alcohol, while Untappedbegan as he was looking for ways to unlock hidden fitness potential. Recently, as Matthews\u2019 attentions have turned to running, and the 2:45 marathon attempt, the podcast\u2019s focus has zeroed in on that, too, with recent episodes investigating whether super shoes make runners faster and including conversations with athletes such as runner and content creator Hugo Fry.<\/p>\n

\"spencer<\/p>\n

I\u2019m joining Matthews for a recording of the podcast in early May. Untapped is part of the High Performance network of podcasts and is recorded in the same Soho studio as the original High Performance podcast, fronted by Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes. Written on a whiteboard in the production office is a message left from one team to another: \u2018Have a great day, Untapped, Team HP.\u2019<\/p>\n

Before the show begins recording, Matthews is guided through lines of questioning for today\u2019s guests, the brothers Stoltman<\/a>. The pair represent a slightly left-field choice for a podcast that is now \u2018a hub for runners\u2019, not to mention possessing a different size and stature to the podcast\u2019s regular guests. \u2018We\u2019ve had to change the chairs,\u2019 says senior producer Simon Longden on efforts to accommodate the two hulking strongmen.<\/p>\n

Nestled inside the production office, Matthews and the team hear the brothers before they see them \u2013 big, booming voices coming from down the hall, jovially introducing themselves to everyone in their path on their way to the podcast. Soon they enter the production office \u2013 Tom walking and Luke wheeling one leg in on a knee walker due to a snapped fibula, a consequence, he reveals, of a jump into the sea that went wrong. Matthews first compares his size to the two brothers by placing himself in between them. His height falling between them like the bottom of the Sycamore Gap. As they chat, he is genuinely awed by the brothers\u2019 accomplishments, particularly Tom\u2019s 200kg bench press for reps.<\/p>\n

Conversations about size continue into the podcast recording, and are only punctuated by an obligatory running question. The brothers see the funny side. Although they would never describe themselves as runners, they do run: shuttle runs carrying an extremely heavy, 180kg sandbag. Once their size has been put to bed, the hour-long conversation touches on everything from Tom\u2019s dislike of tomato sauce (because it\u2019s too spicy) to his experience of living with autism. They also discuss brotherhood and its significance, which is a topic Matthews relates to.<\/p>\n

If Made In Chelsea traded in drama, Untapped trades in data and information, Matthews says. Over the course of the podcast\u2019s 82 episodes, the first released in January of last year, he\u2019s honed a talent for putting guests at ease and gets as much out of the conversations as the podcast\u2019s growing audience. \u2018I love having conversations with these people. They come in and they broaden my understanding of physiology and what\u2019s humanly possible, and I leave the conversations feeling invigorated and wanting to do more in sport,\u2019 he says. Anecdotally, Matthews says the popularity of the show reminds him of Made In Chelsea at its peak, with runners interrupting his sessions around Battersea Park, near his west-London home, to voice their approval. It\u2019s stacking up accolades, too, including being named one of Apple\u2019s best podcasts in the UK for 2025 and regularly featuring at the top of the podcast platform\u2019s health and fitness charts.<\/p>\n

\"spencerHome Straight<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019ve broken a record for the most marathons completed on sand or if your first full-distance triathlons are completed in seven different continents over the course of three weeks, the question that you inevitably get asked by pesky journalists and the general public is always going to be, what\u2019s next? Not wanting to disappoint, I also ask the question, but Matthews says that while he hasn\u2019t got a challenge in his mind at the minute, one day he\u2019ll wake up with the nugget of an idea for another epic adventure and say to himself, \u2018Let\u2019s do that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, it\u2019ll have to be big. He cites Russ Cook<\/a>, whose run across Africa inspired his own epic adventures. \u2018If Russ Cook were to announce he was going to run across Australia, [people would say] he has that in the bag, right? He\u2019s run across Africa. He\u2019s run across New Zealand. So keeping it interesting is front of mind.\u2019 He recognises that part of the appeal of these challenges is that he might fail. If he keeps succeeding, who cares?<\/p>\n

Not that success was always guaranteed with Project Se7en, which he completed at the back end of 2025. Matthews had never done a full-distance Ironman triathlon before he set off for the first leg in London. The night before that event, he put his hands together and prayed to his brother Michael. \u2018I said, \u201cPlease give us the strength to push through this in a healthy and strong way.\u201d\u2019 Matthews prayed to his brother again just before 5am on the beach in Cape Town. He begins painting the picture: \u2018Couldn\u2019t see anything, freezing cold, the wrong kind of kit, no boots, no gloves, thin swim cap, wetsuit that was tailored towards 12\u00b0C or 13\u00b0C when the water was 8\u00b0C. Everything about that morning felt off.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"spencer<\/p>\n

Sitting in The Ivy, relaying what happened in Cape Town, Matthews breaks off to take a call from his friend, former Made In Chelsea co-star Jamie Laing. Matthews\u2019 wife Williams is appearing on Laing\u2019s podcast Great Company later in the day, and he\u2019d like him to record a short voice note to play to her. He skips out of the restaurant to do the favour. Back from his call, and after a brief detour to explain that it was \u2018a bit of a fuck-up\u2019 on Laing\u2019s behalf to have not invited him to his 2023 registry office wedding in London to Sophie Habboo, which swiftly became tabloid fodder (he did attend their main nuptials in southern Spain weeks later), but the pair remain good friends, he goes straight back to explaining his Cape Town ordeal. His apprehension, he says likely had something to do with the fact that his fixer for the trip had warned him that it wasn\u2019t the great white sharks he should be concerned by, it was the seals, who had attacked one of the fixer\u2019s friends a few days prior to Matthews\u2019 swim. Within 10 seconds of getting into the water, he sat bolt upright, perceiving that his life was at risk. He tried to control his breathing and keep moving, attempting not to let the cold add to his list of problems. By now it was getting lighter. In the distance he saw rocks. But like something straight out of a Hitchcock movie, they were covered in seals. He started screaming at his support crew on the boat. \u2018I\u2019m screaming, asking if they have rabies and the guy is just like, \u201cYou\u2019ll be fine. Most of them are just playful.\u201d\u2019 The word \u2018most\u2019 wasn\u2019t exactly encouraging.<\/p>\n

He tried to fix his mindset. \u2018If this dude had said to me that, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna get to swim with seals and they\u2019re lovely,\u201d then I would be having a nice time, right? So I started to think, \u201cThese are nice animals, try to enjoy the swim.\u201d\u2019 But his ordeal wasn\u2019t over. With about 800m to go, he started to hyperventilate, and the idea that he wouldn\u2019t be able to finish started to creep back into his mind. Again, he tried to rationalise what was happening. The chances of a seal or shark attack were slim. Even if he had to bob his way to the end of the swim, he could. So he continued swimming. Upon finishing, he had to be dragged from the water by his team. \u2018It took me a good hour and 10 minutes to warm up in a hot shower. Then I got on the bike and that was also, coincidentally, the worst cycle that we had of the whole thing. So Cape Town wasn\u2019t great.\u2019<\/p>\n

While he knows he\u2019ll have to go some to top Project Se7en, exactly what happens next, he isn\u2019t so sure about. That\u2019s not to say he doesn\u2019t have plans for the future. A little while ago, a famous CEO asked him, \u2018What\u2019s your personal five-year plan?\u2019 Matthews went away and thought about it. Aside from all the crass stuff \u2013 the amount of money to be made and assets to acquire \u2013 he\u2019s keen for any endeavours he pursues during the next five years to keep his life moving forwards. Whether he achieves it or not, the 2:45 marathon attempt will do just that. It\u2019ll be difficult and it certainly isn\u2019t guaranteed. But the plan is to give it everything he\u2019s got.<\/p>\n

Photography: David Venni
Styling: Abena Ofei at Wizzo & Co
Grooming: Nat Schmitt using Drunk Elephant <\/p>\n

This interview features in the July 2026 issue of Men’s Health \u2013 out now. Subscribe to MH by hitting this link<\/a>.\"spencer<\/a>\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer Matthews wants to dispel the myth that he trains like a professional athlete. He is not a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[9262,219890,12497,6647,102,190731,1156,219889,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-14029779-583b-4fdb-827a-03f63e9e0879","tag-displaytype-long-form-article","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-inside-spencer-matthews-fitness-transformation","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}