‘We’re all at the gym for the same reason’
Thomas McCague, 33, said: “Don’t be put off going to the gym because of the way you look. You are there for the same reason as everyone else.”
He lifted 136kg to secure gold in the games in Michigan earlier this month.
McCague revealed he only started going to the gym two years ago. “In the first 10 months I lost five stone and really I would say to people don’t let your self-consciousness or any disability stop you going.
“I went because I was out with friends one day and we decided to walk to the local garage and after just a few hundred metres I was out of breath.
“I am a big U2 fan and then I couldn’t fit into the first U2 T-shirt I had bought. I said I will go to the gym and do something about it. The best thing I did was to come to it on my own.”
McCague, who lives in Drogheda, went three times a week and also changed his diet. “I was losing two to three pounds a week. I would have one treat a week and now my U2 T-shirt is too big for me.”
In Nov 2011, he went to the Little People of Ireland seminar and was encouraged to take part in the Dwarf Sports Association Games in the UK the next year. He did and won his first gold.
It gave him the encouragement to go to the World Games in the US, which, like the Olympics, only take place every four years.
He now has his sights set on the next Games in Australia. “I am taking a break from the power-lifting for the time being to give my body a break. Instead I am taking up body-building for a while.”
McCague said going to the gym helped him feel more positive about himself and “now I just love it, I love the training. It is like a drug now and for me it was a dream come true to win gold at the World Games.
“Some people say ‘I don’t want to go to the gym’ because someone might be staring at them. The thing about the gym is everybody is there for the same reason. They are all there to get fit or lose weight.”
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