The Furious Method - Transform Your Mind, Body and Goals by Tyson Fury review: entertaining and convincing

Tyson Fury’s memoir/manifesto The Furious Method is spread across 12 punchy chapters, just like the rounds in the boxing bouts that have made him one of the UK’s greatest sporting champions. If you try to do the accompanying workouts as you read, you’ll probably feel like you’ve gone the distance with him too.

I attempted the first “gentle” one and it was 11 minutes and 30 seconds of excruciating, humiliating agony. I was already done in by the command for 10 jump squats, and there were 10 more routines to go after that. Half-way through, the demanded stomach crunches were really more like belly squelches. Our cat’s ears actually pricked up when the bones in my back cracked as I did them in the kitchen.

Clearly the year of the lockdown has taken its toll on the already ruined temple of my 44-year-old body. It’s only much later on in the book that Fury admits his own physical comeback, after reaching 28 stone while battling depression, actually started with a walk. Read the whole book before you try the exercises.

There is a remarkable story being told in those pages. In February this year, Fury astonished the boxing world with a seven-round destruction of the undefeated American Deontay Wilder at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Just a few months before, Britain’s “Gypsy King” was being written off as a fat boozer, unworthy of being in the ring at all. Photos of his obese frame were being flung around social media for people to laugh at.

Unseen were the panic attacks, the tears, the suicidal thoughts that nearly caused him to drive his Ferrari into a wall. Many asked how he got from that to heavyweight champion of the world? The Furious Method is both an explanation, and a rallying call for those suffering with mental health difficulties: they can be overcome.

Repeated references to Rocky (number four is his favourite) and other movies perhaps betray Fury’s opinion that his life deserves the Hollywood treatment. The book even begins with a cinematic re-telling of that epic night in Nevada, dramatically cutting away as Wilder suddenly springs back up off the canvas he’d been knocked down on in the third round. The crowd erupts as they realise the fight is on. Anyone who’s seen Sylvester Stallone with boxing gloves on though knows the real battle is always outside the ring.

What follows is Fury’s guide to winning against the odds, especially if your fiercest enemy is yourself. Boxing fans will enjoy the strategies he considers to get ahead of an opponent in better shape, but the book could be for anyone who has struggled with depression. It turns out there’s a lot to learn from the heroes of the ring. Fighters like Muhammed Ali were performing psychological tricks to hack their own brains long before “visualise your ambition” became an inspirational meme on Instagram.

“I said (I am the greatest) even before I knew I was,” Ali is quoted in the book. “I figured if I said it enough, that I would convince the world I really was.”