Hello and welcome to this Men's Health Squad conversation with adventurer, former UK Special Forces soldier and star of the TV show SAS Who Dares Wins, Jason Fox. We sat down with Foxy fresh off of the back of his Men's Health cover shoot to talk about his training history, what he learned and what he experienced during his time in the UK Special Forces, his thoughts on the idea of cultivating a military mindset and his struggles with poor mental health. and the subsequent lessons he learned that he tries to implement in his daily life.
This was genuinely one of the most interesting, insightful and entertaining conversations I think I've ever had. Jason dishes up plenty of actionable takeaways as well as lots to think about, all from the point of view of a man who has definitely walked through the fire throughout his life. And I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did.
We are freshly back from your first men's health cover shoot how you feeling yeah good the nerves have gone now it's over i think people would be surprised to hear how nervous you were this morning was it obvious oh a little bit yeah yeah i was nervous yeah i was yeah i'm not i'm not that sort of person i don't think i'm uh like i'm very i don't know i won't i'm i'm Reluctant to take my top off if I'm around a pool or on holiday. Does my missus his head in. Where do you think that comes from?
Don't know. Interesting. I don't know, actually.
At this point, bear in mind, when this goes live, everyone's seen your rig. So every man is looking and going, what are you worried about? I don't know. I don't know what it is.
I don't know whether it's a... I don't know. Let's not go too deep. Yeah, we've just started. We've just started, yeah.
Talk us through your training history. What did fitness mean to you before you joined the forces? So I, my dad, I've got a lot to, I owe my old man a lot, to be fair. He brought me and my brothers up pretty well.
He taught us an awful lot. And he was big into fitness himself when we were kids and he was still reasonably young. And he also coached sport.
So he played a lot of rugby when he was younger. He then got into coaching hockey. Me and my brothers played a bit of rugby, played a bit of hockey. And we would also jump in on his fitness sessions for the teams that he was training. So as kids, we would go along and like muck around and do a bit of movement, jump around, run through the fields.
But then when I was... 15 pretty much, late 15 year old. And I decided I was joining the Marines.
My dad was like, well, if you're joining the Marines, I want you to be ready. And he set me a program and said, you need to do this. You need to do some of this. You need to learn how to climb rope. So I used to, at 15 years old, I bought myself a rucksack, a bit of pocket money.
And then loaded it up and I used to run up and down. I used to yomp or walk with purpose from Luton up the A5 to Milton Keynes. And there was my dad had a friend who was a PE teacher.
at a school in a place called Bletchley and uh they had some ropes I used to do this walk all the way up the A5 get people hurling abuse at me go up there and then climb ropes do some burpees and then get on a train back at 15 yeah yeah so you've been at it a while that's when I started and I sort of I don't know whether I was so determined to join the forces join the marines that I just, yeah, I threw myself into it. I used to get up early, run down to the rugby club that was near to us, do a circuit on the rugby pitches, you know, in the winter when it was freezing. I suppose I caught myself the bug. Once you were in the forces, outside of the training you had to do, did you do any training, you know, real fizz, of your own initiative?
Was there enough for you there at that point? Not at first. So you join...
When you go through recruit training, you're getting hammered. And when you finish, you're put off it. You're put off doing anything outside that you need to do. So I didn't do it for a while, and you used to just do the allocated, what they call troop phys, troop physical activity.
So your troop, 30-odd guys, would go out every morning. run around do press-ups whatever whatever it looked like but then it was a little bit later on when i started to you know there'd been some time between me finishing training and then i was in a raw marines unit like you you do start to get back into it again and then you start to do things outside of the norm you might get into weights it was a bit of old school weights back in the day and then it's just developed from there we spoke about crossfoot earlier didn't we so yeah you know the old school cross training that you used to do as unit physical activity was pretty much like crossfit there'd be different workstations there'd be runs there'd be a bit on the bike you know it would just be a mixture of everything because ultimately you've got to be able to you've got to be functional you know an assault course is like it's like a an different activities on a run. Did you keep up with this sort of like extracurricular training as you went through your military career?
Yeah, I think I did eventually. And once I got past that stage of... not liking you know any extra training because you know i'd had enough of it you get into it and then you're with different people as well and different people like different things you'd get amongst you know you do you'd be with someone who loves weight training so you do a load of that then you're with somebody who likes running so you end up going and do a load of that and then you just find what your niche is and i still don't know what mine is to be honest that's right that's the next question so we'll leave that no i think do you know i think i get um i get bored really easily so i have to i have to mix it up i mean i i like to have blocks of different training within a workout just because I'll just get bored. What does a normal training day look like for you?
I don't know but I suppose recently like I said the blocks so I'll go in I'll do like what I do nowadays I've I have sort of got the luxury of time to a certain degree so I'll try and make sure that most mornings are free and I'll I'll allocate that to training go in and I'll do a good 20 minutes of movement just moving my body getting it warmed up. you know i'm older now i'm susceptible to injury because i didn't warm up when i was younger that's a lesson for anyone listening if you're young still warm up because you'll end up like me but yeah i do a lot of movement a lot of stretching rolling out stuff um then i'll get into like a proper warm-up you know do a bit of something on a machine but alternate it go through some movements mainly the movements that i might be doing in the blocked exercises then i'll go into the You know, like anything from 8 to 12 minute blocks of doing something. It could be like supersetting something, triset, whatever. And then throw in other bits in between. I might get bored of that and then throw in like a blast on the skierg in between sets.
Basically, I try to absolutely goose myself every day. How many days a week are you in the gym or are you training? I'll aim to do every day, knowing that there'll be a day that drops off because commitments are... saying otherwise but a lot of it's to do with the consistency I won't always like absolutely smash myself because that's ridiculous but consistency for me is about every day doing something so if I'm you know on a long travel day where I'm probably staying away for you know a period of time I'll make sure at least I do something like a press-up circuit or a squat circuit or burpees in a hotel room.
So then I've got my movement in for the day. I've raised my heart rate. I've worked my muscles.
How do you handle it? Obviously, your job takes you all over the world, and there's going to be times when it's not as easy as popping to the local Globo gym. How do you handle training when you're on the road?
I'm confident in the fact that I know I can do something without anything. I'll improvise. I won't need equipment but the old resistance bands are a lifesaver. You can stuff them in somewhere.
I've always made sure, I always made sure that I've got enough room in my bag for some resistance bands and I've got a little suspension trainer. It's not like one of the big brands, it's just this little lightweight one that I can rig up anywhere. Handles are a bit... They're not that great.
Did you just chuck that up in a hotel room? Yeah, it's got a door jam as well, so it's cool. Unless you're in a cheap hotel room and then the door's an issue. We are living in a day and age, I think, where there's a lot of emphasis, especially on social media, this idea of a military mindset and cultivating discipline.
There's a lot of people that lean into this. You obviously have a rich background in the forces. And you're someone who speaks openly often about mental health.
Do you ever see a downside to this leaning into this idea of let's take all of our kind of cues on discipline and stuff from the military and from people in and out of the forces? Um, I don't, I'm a little bit torn on it because I think... The military, what is the military mindset?
It's just like I wasn't in the military before I joined and I had a half decent mindset. Maybe that did come from my dad, maybe there was an influence from the military, but I think when people say a military mindset, they just mean... to have a disciplined sort of approach to things now i was in the military i left the military and i went through a really bad spell with mental health i didn't remember anything i didn't apply the military mindset and i'd been in it for 20 years i had to remind myself and it was It was actually other people from different backgrounds, other than the military, that reminded me you need to find another.
Obviously, once I got pointed in the right direction, I did fall back onto my military mindset. I don't know whether it's a good or bad thing. I think it's a good thing if you can adopt it.
I don't know where I'm going with this, really. I don't like standing there and going, oh yeah, I was in the military. It's the best thing since sliced bread. Because then, what about other people?
I've learned loads from other people that weren't in the military. I've actually got inspiration from other people that aren't in the military. watching people that haven't been in the military watching their discipline and how they apply it like unbelievable at times. So I think, yeah, it's something that can be applied, but I don't think it needs to be, you know, milked to death.
Do you know what I mean? what i mean yeah it's just like something that appeals to to certain guys and i think you know what if that's the thing that gets you motivated then then so be it but um i think the one the one thing that i took away from the military wasn't necessarily a mindset thing i mean i've only recently become really disciplined and that's not because of what i learned in the military it's because of what i learned since you know i've become disciplined because in my routines in the day Because I know that it makes me feel good. Back in the military, I didn't really have discipline. I just had to do something because I was getting paid to do it. And if I didn't turn up and do it, I'd get kicked out and I wouldn't have a job.
Now, I don't need to do certain things, but I do it because I feel better about myself. That's just being a disciplined human being, not an ex-forces guy. But the one thing, I was going off on a tangent then, the one thing that I do think the military did teach me to do well was to have a flexible mindset. when things go wrong, not get freaked out by it. And that's helped me deal with trauma.
I have learned to deal with trauma in the military and I've remembered that and reapplied it going forward. If you're enjoying this content, you can watch or listen ad-free on the Men's Health app by joining the Men's Health squad today. Once you're in the squad, you will have access to tons of exclusive content, including regular member Q&As, interviews, and access to our world-class training platform featuring plans for every level and for any goal.
Simply head over to hearstmagazines.co.uk forward slash mh-mag or hit the link below. What are the main tools that you've taken away from the ministry? For trauma, I think a lot of it, the bit that I remember was, me and you were talking earlier, weren't we, today, and it was the emotional thing, how to gauge emotion, how to control it and understand what an emotion is.
Like, for me, an emotion is... is an indicator and the one thing the military taught you very well to do was not to allow emotion to be the decision your next decision or the reason why you make the next decision because ultimately if you leave it up to emotion it will be wrong and it's that tempering your emotion That has helped me deal with trauma like I'm okay. I feel sad that means I should be sad, but I'm not gonna let it I'm like aware of it and I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, and I'll embrace it cry get upset whatever But I won't allow it to make my name decision like they the military you get you get yourself into some really bizarre situations you know it's situations that require aggression and also they can be impacted by anger but anger like i've never been in a in a fight in a gunfight whatever and ever been angry i don't never remember being angry because you're taught that that is not a very helpful emotion when you are there making decisions so i've remembered that going forward i think that's something that i did that's what i learned there and that's what i have taken forward and it's helped me a fair bit i think you said some really interesting things that i want to drill down on and kind of going back to my last question i think that is a misconception people have as it pertains to the emotions that what you're saying there is you acknowledge and you accept that, yeah, this emotion's here. And obviously I'm feeling it because X, Y, Z has happened.
It's a completely natural response. And I think people often take that or take this idea of being disciplined or being stoic or whatever you want to call it manly as suppressing it. And what you're talking about is acknowledging it, actually knowing it, feeling all the way through and, but not making your decisions.
based on it right yeah yeah yeah 100 i don't think there's i mean you look at anyone that has been angry and responded to being angry and they've either normally got themselves in trouble or at the very minimum you don't look cool anyone that's angry doesn't look cool and that's what i remind myself you know just as someone's cut me up in the car and i'm about to lose my obvious yeah i'm like hang on a minute you're not going to look cool and you want to look cool. That's a great, that's a great way to sort of circuit break it there. It's like, how cool do I know?
Yeah. We all want to look cool, just don't get angry. That's great.
Yeah. Yeah. Me and my partner had this thing where if someone, there's a road rage situation, instead of getting angry, we thumbs down them.
Cause it's just like, I'm not even mad at you. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's such an interesting way to sort of circuit break it. I think we were talking about it earlier, weren't we?
And as you say, we, It's so easy to react and reactions are often where we we get it wrong right and action comes from a place of consideration and not I'm angry so this is happening. Yeah exactly where there was a saying in My old job and it was like don't rush into your own death and that means Before you make a decision think long and hard about what you're gonna do next because ultimately you could be running into your last move And I do try and remember that There'll be times my my missus will definitely be like he's talking Yeah, yeah, I do I try they say that that's the litmus test for an enlightened person is asked their wife. Yeah Yeah You obviously, as we said, and as you have done here, you talk openly about mental health issues. And I think it's fantastic. You know, the context of this whole conversation is it's not about suppressing your emotions.
And it's not just about pretending that everything's all right when it's not always all right. What advice do you have for men, young men, older men who... are struggling with that they're struggling to reach out they're struggling to process and talk about what they're what they're dealing with inside internally it's i mean it is a difficult conversation to have it's difficult to lend advice because ultimately we are all individuals we respond differently to anything that happens yeah but What I will say is your emotions, when they wash over you, whether they're positive or negative, you don't choose them.
They just happen. So firstly, it's a natural reaction. So if it's a negative one, you shouldn't be ashamed of it.
It's just your natural response to something that has happened either to you, around you, or to someone that you know, or you've witnessed something. So the first thing is to remember it's completely natural. You shouldn't be ashamed of it. The second one is you cannot suppress emotion.
It will do you in at some point. It might not do you in then, and it might not ever catch up with you, but nine times out of ten, if you don't acknowledge it and allow it to have its moment, give it the respect it deserves, it's going to bite you in the backside. And I went through a phase not long ago, so I feel that I've been really good with this sort of thing personally. And I went through something not long ago and my missus, you know, went through a period of being upset.
And in the beginning I used to keep saying, oh, come on, I'm not very good with people that get upset. I'm like, oh my God. And I'm like, oh, come on, you know, don't be sad. And she would get a bit... angry and I'd be like I didn't mean it to you know yeah and I'd like be quiet and then I sort of did a bit of self-reflecting and I've watched a few tv shows not about this sort of thing but it was about stuff going on around the world and I was watching people that were dealing with grief And they were like letting it all go and I was like Hang on a minute that you know, who am I to tell someone?
that they shouldn't be sad I'm like that's out of order and That that's how people should think of it with themselves. It's like don't tell you don't suppress the emotion And you know if you feel sad or angry, you know embrace it like give it and acknowledge it and allow it to be there for as long as it needs to be there as long as it's not having a negative impact on you you know through actions or whatever because ultimately it's there for a reason and if you try and suppress it you're suppressing your own your own way of being um and so what i mean by that is when you feel a certain way you should embrace it don't put a lid on it And then when you are ready, you should probably talk about it. As difficult as that sounds, to talk about it is the best way.
That's the pressure release. You've acknowledged it, you've embraced it, you feel the emotion. Don't act on it. And then there needs to come a time where it's probably a good idea to go and talk to someone.
People will find it, might be surprised, but I've still got mates who are either still in the special forces or they've left. And they would be seen, I suppose, stereotypically as these alpha males that go around. We're not. Like, if I've had a bad day, I'll phone one of them up and tell them I've had a bad day.
And I'll tell them how I feel, tell them that things have not gone right. And they'll do the same to me. And we'll, you know, we'll be there for each other.
And that's something that I've learned. And it's helpful. me no end the one thing that helped me with my mental wealth was actually just talking about it yeah I mean that was a very long answer sorry no no no it was brilliant I couldn't agree more and it's obviously something people struggle with like the the and I'm loathe to say this but it You know when things are in your head they're nebulous aren't they? It's like having a bin bag full of stuff.
You've not really got any idea what's in there, but it's not till you start pulling out and unpacking. And sometimes, three or four sentences and you're like, oh that's actually not what I thought it was. Now I've articulated it.
It sometimes feels as though there's, you know, 90% of men are going around not saying how they're feeling for fear of being judged. And you're like 90% of people thinking that the other 89% are going to judge them but seldom does that happen right yeah and i think so we're we're in a we're in a point now in our society and our culture whatever where we've we've done quite a good job of talking about mental health and bringing it to the forefront of everyone's minds and you know in in a room we've probably or in a in a corporation in a business in an industry we probably reduce the stigma the issue is is How you get rid of the stigma in someone's own head. Because even though the stigma is reduced in an arena like this, the minute someone starts feeling negative, they create their own stigma. And it's how do you break that down?
And that's the difficult bit. because then it's all about you've got to tailor an approach or a response or whatever to that individual. So that's where the tricky bit is. If you're enjoying this content, you can watch or listen ad-free on the Men's Health app by joining the Men's Health Squad today.
Once you're in the squad, you will have access to tons of exclusive content, including regular member Q&As, interviews and access to our world-class training platform featuring plans for every level and for any goal. Simply. head over to hearstmagazines.co.uk forward slash mh dash mag or hit the link below You mentioned to me earlier that you're involved in an app towards this end, so kind of creating resources for people.
Yeah. Talk to us about that a little bit. So the app that I'm involved in, there's like, I'm more of mouthpiece.
I'd helped with the initial bits, and I am still there. There are other people that are the real brains. I've got a mate called Richard, he's a...
absolute force to be reckoned with but created an app there's a lot of very intelligent content creators on there clinical psychologists nutritionists so on and so forth so they deliver content now the app as it stands on the app store or whatever you use is called mentor 360 and it's its old form it's like a two-dimensional app you can interact with it to a certain degree and it will give you advice on lots of different things from finance to diet to you know you to relationship issues. But it's going through a refurb at the moment, and we've got people in there that are now integrating AI. So it's going to be an API machine learned, and it is going to be on another level.
It's called Mentor360 for a reason. It's there to mentor you through life. It will help you with all sorts of issues that you might be facing. But ultimately, it's there to try and foster positive habits. Yeah, yeah.
It's such a great touching point for people who maybe don't know where else to start. to look for. You know, because there's one, we have broken down a lot of stigma and we have broken down a lot of barriers but some, particularly guys, don't even know where to start. What do you, do you Google I feel shit today? Like what do you do?
So having these things and having people like yourself out there in the world talking about these things serves like a massive purpose and we were chatting earlier about this idea of having an AI chatbot that you could chat to and I know so many people we were saying their knee-jerk reaction is going to be it's not a person but imagine what I mean imagine just how accessible that then makes I think a lot of people don't really know what it's like to feel as though you can't open up and talk the funny thing is is like people will say that but then so many people say i don't know who i can trust you can trust you can trust i ain't gonna talk to anyone it's just gonna talk to you and it's gonna give you a very very learned answer or at least give you advice that is well thought out and it's not got any other agenda other than helping you yeah something to think about yeah and i i talk often about sometimes people in their immediate circle do struggle to talk to people because it's destabilizing potentially you know you've got money worries whatever it is you maybe don't want to tell your wife or whatever it may be so to have a not only an impartial third person but one that's kind of programmed with the you know the best clinical like i think it's incredible it can't gossip yeah it's not it's not going to try and sort of gaslight you and say actually i'm gonna sort of manipulate this in my in my favor yeah you're a right idiot yeah yeah yeah yeah you You know what would make you feel better? Buy me some flowers. Jason, I've got a round of quick-fire questions for you. These are the ones that are going to embarrass you, and we're going to get some good social flips.
I reckon I'll embarrass myself today anyway. Again, this has come out. This will be coming out after the cover is out, so everyone will be looking at a picture of you going, oh, yeah, embarrassed, yeah.
Because I've seen the rig. If you could get in a gym session, With anybody living or dead, who would it be? I'd love to have a gym sesh with Arnie.
Yeah. I don't know why. It's old school, isn't it?
I've read his books and stuff. I've always watched him. I kind of find him a charismatic guy. I know he's had his good and bad points, but I still like him. It's where your mind goes straight away, isn't it?
Like, work out, Arnie. Yeah, exactly. Old school. And he's still in the gym, like, pumping away with other guys.
I find that incredible. Everything he's done, and he still, like, puts out a newsletter talking about training. Yeah, it's awesome. I know that's probably a very obvious answer, but yeah.
Yeah, well, cliches are cliches for a reason. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. What's the funniest thing that's happened whilst filming Who Does Wins for you?
Mate, there's loads. The best one really was on the first one when there was a distinct, there was so many things that happened on the first one, but there was one where there was a distinct lack of health and safety back then. It wasn't even that long ago, but it's like the world's changed considerably.
But we set the teams off towards the end of the season, the series on their own escape and evasion. We, mate, we lost them. We lost one of the teams for 24 hours. We were like literally out in the woods. You can come out now.
Yeah, we don't believe that. And the production were like, this will be it. This will be the end. It will be the first and last of this show.
One of them nearly walked off the edge of a cliff. Yeah, there were some learning points on the first season, which we obviously learned from and we moved on. But that was, yeah, for me it was funny, but for a lot of people it was very stressful.
Funny after the fact. Yeah, exactly. But that was...
One of the funny things that I can say very quickly, there's like so many others. Yeah, I think I must have watched the reel of you pushing Matt Hancock in the drink, just on repeat again and again and again. That's probably up there.
I didn't know whether I was allowed to go there. But we found out only 24 hours before we started shooting. So we were already in country for like two, three weeks that he was coming on.
And we were like, oh, you don't know? You didn't know beforehand? No, they keep it a secret from us. It's not our... it's not our business so obviously we were like they told us and we were like wow this is awesome we get to you know we can have a pop at him but then we were like hang on is this right you know we're giving him you know there was and we knew that that would that we would get you know we would get stick for it and we did you know even though it's not our decision we knew that we were going to get the flag but yeah when when the opportunity arose we we embraced it what's the toughest physical challenge you've ever faced All up it'll be rowing the Atlantic, I think.
Just because it was relentless for a long time. It's a long way. It is a long way. It was a long way and Mother Nature wasn't on our side for a lot of it. What's the toughest mental challenge?
Overcoming mental health. That's the biggest thing I've had to deal with. It's the proudest thing I've had to deal with, that I've dealt with, to be honest. What advice would you give to a 16 year old foxy but you not not your not your brother your dad um yeah yeah so if i could at least see myself for 30 seconds before i embarked on my life at 16 i'd be like mate you're gonna have a great time it's gonna be some tough times gonna be some great times the only thing i'd say is like if you feel You know, if you feel low, down, negative about things, just go and talk to someone. I didn't have that advice and I didn't do it.
If I'd have done it, I'd have probably nipped my bout of bad mental health in the bud really early. I'd have definitely nipped it in the bud early and I might have ended up having my career last a little bit longer, which has always been a bit of a pill for me to swallow. If you could only perform one movie...
for the rest of your life what would it be burpee yes yeah i'm strictly team burpee people like to rag on it but i'm like man it's horrible but that's that's why that's the point yeah exactly it's getting up off the floor it's totally functional i want to keep doing that forever yeah exactly i don't know about you what have you got going on next what's next for you i've got a book coming out My third book called Embrace the Chaos. It's all about life and my little hacks on how to deal with certain things. So I basically broke down life into like a deck of cards.
So there's four suits. There's chaos, recovery, mission and calm. And it's basically, so you, like mission is like when you go and do things that are planned, move house, go on an expedition, that sort of thing.
Chaos is the unexpected, trauma, car crash, that sort of thing. recovery is planned bouts of you know recuperating you know when you're like oh we're gonna have that time off we're gonna go you know holiday or what do you do in those periods and calm is this sort of dealing with boredom when you've got nothing on on not planned having nothing on how do you deal with that nice what's book called again embrace the chaos that sounds like a great we had a real bun fight over the title but anyway what was in the running wow i for a period of time wanted to call it remember you will die a bit of memento but it's a little bit too yeah exactly yeah yeah but it's Apparently it's a little bit too... A bit on the nose.
Yeah, it's a bit too... If you don't get the reference. It's a bit like, well, are you sure? The glib. Yeah, yeah.
Not exactly a Christmas best-selling title. Yeah, and so ultimately we came up with something that was way more, probably better, to be fair. That being said, Remember You Will Die is pretty good advice.
It is great, isn't it? Very good advice. Nothing's here forever. Not you, not anyone. It's all impermanent.
The old... Sounds of time don't stop. They do not. Dude, this has been absolutely incredible. Thank you so much.
Cheers, mate. Thanks for today.