Ballina personal trainer Michael Bosman has claimed three bodybuilding titles at the age of 50  and now has his sights set on the national championships.

But bodybuilding is only part of a remarkable year –  and an equally colourful career –  for the Anytime Fitness Ballina trainer.

While clocking up his half century, Michael has also competed at world championship level in obstacle course racing, a vastly different physical challenge, while maintaining a busy schedule helping clients achieve their own fitness goals.

It is the latest chapter in a remarkable journey that began as a primary school teacher, included several years as a celebrity wedding celebrant in Japan and eventually led him to turn a lifelong passion for fitness into a profession.

In 2023, just a few years after making that career switch, he was named Anytime Fitness Trainer of the Year nationally.

Now, at 50, he is simultaneously testing himself in two very different and physically demanding sports at the highest levels he has reached.

On August 1, Michael won the Over 30, Over 40 and Over 50 Classic Physique divisions at the NBA Australia Winter Classic on the Gold Coast.

The triple victory came in only his third bodybuilding competition since stepping onto a competitive stage for the first time at 48.

After winning all three divisions, Michael advanced to the overall contest against the other divisional winners, where he found himself surrounded by competitors mostly in their 20s.

“I was the only one over 30,” he said.

“But I didn’t feel that way. I felt like I was in my 20s again.”

Michael didn’t win the overall title. A younger, leaner competitor took that honour — and Michael readily concedes he deserved it.

Rather than being disappointed, the result has given the Ballina trainer his next target.

Michael estimates he arrived on stage at about nine per cent body fat and believes he knows exactly what needs to change before he contests the NBA Nationals at Dandenong on October 11.

In a recent Instagram post (below), he showed photographs of his physique last year and now, saying the comparison only meant something if he was honest about where he had started.

“I’ve spent my career as a PT and nutritionist building other people’s bodies,” he wrote.

“At 48 I put myself on the other side of that line — got on a stage, in front of judges, in a pair of trunks.”

Over the past six months, Michael estimates he has added almost three kilograms of muscle — a difficult achievement at any age and even harder at 50.

“But I just make do with what I’ve got,” he said.

Now comes the challenge of retaining that muscle while getting even leaner for the Nationals.

Protein is high, calories are down and there won’t be much room for indulgence between now and October 11.

Two very different sporting challenges

What makes Michael’s year particularly unusual is that while building a competition-ready bodybuilding physique, he has also been training for a sport requiring a very different kind of fitness.

He competed in Spartan obstacle races at Wollongong and Glenworth Valley, with his performances earning him qualification for the OCR World Championships near Ipswich in June.

Spartan obstacle racing demands endurance, speed and functional strength. Bodybuilding requires Michael to build and preserve muscle before reducing his body fat to achieve the definition and proportions judges are looking for.

Training seriously for either would be a substantial commitment.

Michael has been doing both while working as a personal trainer.

His world championship campaign didn’t go entirely to plan.

Michael injured his hand and was bleeding badly enough that medics prevented him from attempting some obstacles. He continued through the course, but because he was forced to bypass obstacles he couldn’t record an official time or placing.

It hasn’t diminished his appetite for competition.

“I think some people tend to use their age as a crutch and say, ‘Well, I can’t because I’m X years old’,” he said.

“I just think, ‘Why not? Let’s do it.’”

From the classroom to Trainer of the Year

There was a time when Michael’s working life had nothing to do with gyms, barbells or body fat percentages.

He started out as a primary school teacher before eventually turning a lifelong passion for health and fitness into a new career.

About six years ago he made the switch to personal training and today works at Anytime Fitness Ballina.

“I’ve done fitness pretty much my whole life, so it makes sense for me,” he said.

“It’s something where I’ve got a passion for it, but I’ve got a skill set for it.”

Within just a few years of changing careers, Michael had risen to the top of his profession.

In 2023, he was named Anytime Fitness Trainer of the Year nationally.

Michael admits the recognition came much earlier than he expected.

“I still think it’s hard to imagine that I was named best in the country,” he said.

“I would think that was something I’d be getting maybe now, or maybe another three or four years. But to get it then, I was stoked, blown away.”

His clients range from young adults through to people in their 70s and 80s. Over his career he has trained people as young as 15 and as old as 85.

And at 50, Michael is increasingly becoming his own advertisement for the message he gives his older clients.

“Don’t let your physicality or your limitations stop you from moving, getting fit or improving yourself,” he said.

“You’ve still got more left in you than you think.”

The Hugh Jackman of Japanese weddings

Then there is perhaps the most unlikely chapter in Michael Bosman’s CV.

Long before the bodybuilding stage, Michael spent six years performing Western-style wedding ceremonies in Japan.

And he did a lot of them.

Michael estimates he performed between 500 and 600 ceremonies, sometimes appearing at eight, nine or even 10 weddings in a single day.

The ceremonies were essentially theatrical Western-style additions to the couples’ formal marriage arrangements.

Michael’s role was part celebrant, part performer.

Ballina News Daily suggested he was effectively “the Hugh Jackman of weddings”.

“100 per cent,” Michael laughed. “That was me. I played that role.”

It was a very different stage, but the experience has proved unexpectedly useful decades later.

After spending weekend after weekend performing in front of audiences in Japan, standing under lights in posing trunks while bodybuilding judges scrutinise his physique isn’t particularly intimidating.

“You’re so zoned into what you do that really the crowd, everything else doesn’t register,” he said.

“It’s more doing a good job, doing the best job I can. That worries me more than anything else.”

In Classic Physique, competitors are judged on an aesthetic body shape reminiscent of bodybuilding’s golden era — broad shoulders, a narrow waist and developed legs creating the characteristic “X-frame”.

Michael points to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous physique as an example of the classic look.

Three competitions into his bodybuilding career, he now has three new divisional titles and the Nationals waiting in October.

And there is unfinished business in Spartan racing too.

Michael has never achieved a Spartan podium finish and next year wants to compete at elite level in his age category and finally claim a top-three place.

“Why can’t I,” he says.

“There’s nothing to stop me.”