Mitchell Hooper - Building Strength, Upcoming Arnolds, Fatherhood, and Authenticity - #218

In this special episode, we're en route to Supplement King's 100th store opening in Victoria with Perfect Sports, alongside the World's Strongest Man, Mitchell Hooper, and guest Kate, in the AP Ford Pickup Truck. Dive into an inspiring conversation with host David Stark as we explore Mitchell's journey to the pinnacle of strength sports, uncovering the resilience and dedication behind his title.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the makings of a champion, offering a mix of motivation, strength, and the unwavering spirit of athletic achievement. Don't miss out on this blend of celebration and inspiration—perfect for fitness enthusiasts and admirers of extraordinary journeys.

Subscribe, like, and share to spread the strength and inspiration found in every athlete's story.

Powered by Perfect Sports Supplements use the code "AP20" at checkout!
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Produced by Rise Virtually
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Other episodes you might enjoy:
World Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper,  Taylor Learmont (Little "T" Fitness), Bruce Boudreau (Vancouver Canucks), Rhonda Rajsich (Most Decorated US Racquetball player), Zach Bitter (Ultra Marathon Runner), Zion Clark (Netflix docuseries), Jana Webb (Founder of JOGA), Ben Johns (#1 Pickleball Player in the World)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I inspire people to be healthier and body and in mind. The Lift Heavy, Be Kind brand is an extension of what I want to communicate to people, where the gym is a really welcoming place and it's full of really really kind people just trying to improve themselves.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Hey, welcome aboard the AP truck. I'm your host, david Stark. We got a powerhouse guest riding with us today, mitchell Hooper, as you guys know, world's strongest man, second time on the show, powered by Perfect Sports. As you know, it's the best supplements on the market, so you should use him. He just won the Arnold's. He's heading over to the UK. Arnold's. The guy is the man. He uses Perfect Sports supplements and this past weekend we were in Victoria for a supplement King's 100th store opening, so we figured we'd drop by drive around.

Speaker 2: 0:42

And for those who are curious, during the episode there's also Kate in the background and Aaron from Perfect Sports. Now, I know that was probably crossing your mind, so now you know. The other thing you're probably wondering are Dave and Mitchell long lost twins? No, he's got less hair than me. He can also lift more weight than me. He proved that in Victoria putting up 800 pounds on the deadlift. I think I was 315 by three or five. It is what it is. He called me small during the episode. That's why I'm taking Perfect Sports. That's why you should too. I use the code AP 20, 20% off. It's the best protein on the market. I can't tell you anything better. Buckle up. We got 20 minutes on this ride. We talked about peaks and valleys, about becoming the world's strongest man. Maybe we'll get him to share a little secret on as to how he's been able to dominate the world of strength sports Folks, this is a special edition episode of the athletes podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Here, number 218 of the show Celebrate in a milestone. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Let's get into the episode. You're the most decorated racquetball player in US history World's strongest man, from childhood passion to professional athlete, eight time Ironman champion. So what was it like making your debut in the NHL? What is your biggest piece of advice for the next generation of athletes, from underdogs to national champions? This is the athletes podcast, where high performance individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons to educate, entertain and inspire the next generation of athletes. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 2:11

I'm so hungry.

Speaker 2: 2:14

So best part is we get to chop it up.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Okay, hi, my name is Mitchell, world's strongest man, and I am starving. Anything else Sure Starving, otherwise quite content.

Speaker 2: 2:24

Yeah, I think that's great.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Training sessions here was great. You know when you come back from injury and you're able to accomplish something that always feels good.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Dude, what did you have on the bar today? You were bending that pretty heavy.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Yeah, it was just shy of 900 today.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Is every workout that you do bombarded by people asking for pictures and wanting to create content with?

Speaker 1: 2:44

you. Usually at my gym. People know who I am, so they sort of get out of their system for the most part. But yeah, when I'm at a different gym it's always a little bit different, but you got out of your rest time, so it's not that bad. At times you just wish that you could train, but you also have to appreciate that that's why that's your job is because there's people like that, so you sort of got to be thankful for them.

Speaker 2: 3:10

How about that beef angus at Toro though?

Speaker 1: 3:12

The beef angus was lovely. I loved it. I think I'm going to name. If I have a son, I'm going to name him Beef Angus, and he'll be as big as me.

Speaker 2: 3:23

How about, like we can't not talk about the fact that in less than a month, you're going to be a girl dad?

Speaker 1: 3:29

Yeah, less than a month, baby girl is coming. Very exciting. We'll give a whole new purpose to life. You might accomplish things professionally, you might accomplish things in your sport, but it's all the same life stage to me until you have a child and then you're on to the next. So very much ready for that, very excited. My wife is very excited to not be pregnant anymore.

Speaker 2: 3:53

You have Arnold's two days after the baby's due. How do you wrap your head around the fact that you're only going to have 24 hours, 48 hours potentially, with your kid first?

Speaker 1: 4:04

Doing my best not to think about that at all. Sorry to bring you up. Well, that's okay.

Speaker 2: 4:10

I think these are the questions. I'm curious because you're able to manage not only your stress, not only the amount of pressure that you others put on. You seem to do it all in good spirit. You're always chipper. You've had a thousand plus pictures yesterday for Supplement King and Callwood's 100th store opening. How are you able to keep that perspective?

Speaker 1: 4:31

Well, you don't have a job. If those people don't exist, you don't have a job. So I'm just thankful for those people to be there and it's new to me and it's interesting how easily you can make someone's day. But with the baby it's difficult because on one hand, a good parent provides and on another hand, a good parent is present. Over time I'll have to find the balance correctly, but I think early in a baby's life they really need them up and dad is just there as support for the mom.

Speaker 1: 5:08

I think if we can make sure that we have good family and support systems around, ash because I have to go off and work then we should be fine and we're lucky enough that we've got plenty of people around who are willing and excited and more than happy to help out. But managing everything is, as you would expect, sort of. I think part of me thinks it's short term and part of me thinks that, like, the push is short term and part of me thinks that it's just how I'm wired and I just want to keep building things and keep growing and keep doing more and you've got your life and whatever you do with it is what you do with it and when you die, you're dirt in the ground and hopefully you're someone who's left a good impression on people.

Speaker 2: 5:50

Lots have been since we talked last year on the Athletes Podcast and you've seen some incredible people. You had tour. You were traveling all across North America. I would love to hear your thoughts on your team, because I think that's what allows you to be so effective is the people that you surround yourself with, for example, friday night when you asked a question around hey, what's one thing that you believe that your five closest friends wouldn't, and I think you're deliberate about that Can you share insights on your team and how you've constructed it?

Speaker 1: 6:25

Yeah for sure. So at the clinic that's more self-sufficient, that's more doesn't need me as much. I'm more I operate as the owner and the leader, not really the manager For the online business and the business of Mitchell Hooper, the personality I've got, kate, featured right above the splash container I have and she always with you.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She manages the operations for everything. So if people need things, if my team needs something, they'll go to her more often than they go to me, because it's really hard for me to remember everything that needs to be done and I can't do everything that needs to be done. So if things need to get done, kate does it and Kate's with me, because during prep I need food, like right now I'm absolutely starving and you know you just, there's a part of it where you're interacting with hundreds of people.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Having someone who knows you and is familiar with you and who Can help manage that for you is really, really useful, and I couldn't do this stuff without a person along to Help out with it all. Because when you talk to strangers, it's lonelier than if you were talking to nobody, because they think you're, they think you're more than human, which is nice sort of on the surface, but you just talk to people all day who don't see you as human, the same as you see yourself, and Having just a normal person around who you trust is this helpful center. That's Kate, more operations than the stuff that you see, but yeah, she comes everywhere with me. Then Fabian shoots all my Videos for YouTube, which is exploding at the moment and doing really, really well. Then I have Quinn and he manages my marketing, and marketing is for coaching, for YouTube, for merchandise, but also for sponsors and making sure that we're getting good content out there for our sponsors and doing our job.

Speaker 1: 8:40

I think of the online business partially, as in the business of me and as athlete. As an athlete, I think it's partially a marketing company, and that's the way we have to approach it to be able to be relevant long-term and useful long-term to to our partners. Then Cassie, my sister, we just hired her to handle the merchandise, everything to do with the lift heavy be kind merchandise. That's an area of the business that, if we give more attention to it, it could be, it could be really, really big. I think it can make a big difference in the world.

Speaker 2: 9:14

And then we have me, who I Try and make the best decisions that I can and try to treat people as well as I can and Lift heavy weights, try and win competitions, and that's the, that's the operation you mentioned the, the Mitchell Hooper personality and, obviously, your crushing perfect sports dry scooping, altered state diesel protein, whatever it is, maybe not consistently on the protein I thought we'd maybe start with this one, but I didn't want to throw that down your throat too quick collapse alum, like we talked earlier. But I am curious. Your mission to inspire, educated entertain is aligned with the athis podcast, same and your overarching mission, we mentioned in our last episode, is to inspire a nation to get moving healthy, living, active lifestyles. When you see Society trending in the other direction, how do you, how do you ensure that that's something that you can make that impact, like you said, impacting people positively? Is it by creating that content? Is it doing what you're doing?

Speaker 1: 10:21

I think we might look at society on average and say that on average, we're getting less fit and less healthy. But I actually think it's a dichotomy and there's people now who are taking their health and fitness More seriously than ever. If it was a bell curve, we're getting a pretty good chunk on the higher fitness end for people to be able to take care of their long-term health. But I think the biggest thing is that people need to understand how you improve, why you improve. If you get hurt, how do you get better and why did you get hurt in the first place, and then understand General training principles. When you go into the gym, you know what you're doing. If you've got that information, the balls in your court to do it from a mental health perspective, because for me it's inspiring people to be healthier and body and in mind.

Speaker 1: 11:07

The Lift Heavy, be Kind brand is an extension of what I want to communicate to people where the gym is a really welcoming place and it's full of really, really kind people just trying to improve themselves. From the outside, looking in, it probably doesn't appear that way. I think there's a lot of vanity that goes along with being at the gym. There's some intimidation that goes along with being at the gym. But it's mostly things that you're interpreting from other people that aren't necessarily true. A lot of big guys, for example, a lot of strong men, are shy by nature, but when you're a big, strong guy, who's shy? You seem intimidating in the corner. So the Lift Heavy, be Kind brand hopefully people could see me promoting that. Lots of people wearing that, lots of people who are confident in the gym wearing that, and they can look at them and think you know what? Maybe this is a place for me. Maybe this is a place that I could feel comfortable and better myself as well.

Speaker 2: 11:59

I can't help but get inspired when I hear your YouTube's podcast, the content you create, because five years ago you were running marathons, competing in bodybuilding competitions, and now you're the world's strongest man. I don't really want to cover athletic topics today because we already covered that in episode 165 that people can go listen to and I know you don't like talking about that because you're a pretty damn cool human being, outside of the fact that you lift heavy weights. I'm curious, though is there one thing that you want to do after you're done with this career, whether it's being the fastest man in the world, for instance, that you talked about earlier, or I know you've got a book on the way what else is kind of maybe next 12 months and then 12 years down the road. Is there any aspirational things that you want to put out there that we can check back in in a decade? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 12:48

all documents. I've sort of locked myself into documents, everything at this stage, but you'll see it all. But Strongman is what I do right now, but it's not. I don't even think it defines my athletic career. It might be the biggest accomplishment I ever have to other people, but it'll be hard for me to beat the bodybuilding show and the discipline that it took me to do that, because that's totally out of sight of my nature.

Speaker 1: 13:13

After Strongman, there's a lot of things I want to do. I want to try CrossFit competitively. I want to do Ironman Ironman's on my bucky list for sure. And yeah, in the next 12 months we got a book coming out. We've got a lot of different business stuff. We'll have an app next year to help people out. They can stay tuned for that. It's still in its infancy, but something different than a workout app, an app that will help people warm up, help people cool down, where they can input their workouts, they can advise them how to progress. They'll have a movement library, all that type of stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:49

But yeah, the goal is just continue to build the platforms and I really think when you build a platform, you sort of have to, you have to make people laugh. You have to do something to make them attach to you as a person, and I prefer to speak about myself as a person rather than myself as the world's strongest man, because that's something that's got legs, and being the world's strongest man just doesn't. It could be one year, it could be five years, but at a certain stage you're not the hot girl anymore, you're not the world's strongest man, and I think there's a lot more to gain from listening to how I go about things, I think, than just that I've got about them.

Speaker 2: 14:35

I would agree with that statement. What's some of the craziest DMs you've ever received?

Speaker 1: 14:40

I can go into my DM request folder at any time and just find some interesting stuff from overboard.

Speaker 2: 14:45

That's where you get your laughs right. Yeah, you talked about educating, entertaining, getting those laughs. I mean, that's one of the things that you're able to do through your content. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Sports, hydro Splash keeping you hydrated, energized.

Speaker 2: 15:01

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Speaker 2: 15:19

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Speaker 2: 15:51

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Speaker 1: 16:36

Well, I think top of the list has to be creatine. It's just not something you can get from food sources easily. Supplement should be a supplement to your diet. I have, on average, six scoops of diesel a day to take care of half of my protein requirements and then the rest will come through proper food sources. So diesel would be in there as well. Canadian maple absolutely phenomenal. If you haven't tried it yet, it's probably out of stock. So go check. But it's probably out of stock because it's so good. That is definitely top of the list. And then altered state pre-workout in Canada. It's really hard to get a good pre-workout like gets you feeling a little bit like a meth head and also takes the box. It's one of the only ones I've ever had from Canada that does useful there. And that's my stack in terms of, like, actual supplements. I'll take vitamins and minerals, I'll take magnesium, I'll take vitamin C, vitamin D, but in large part that's yeah, that's what I do.

Speaker 2: 17:40

You mentioned trust earlier and I know we're going to wrap up here because we're about to drop you guys off at the airport, wrapping up your West Coast Victoria trip but trust is a big factor. You've had a ton of change over the past 24 months in your life. How do you identify who you can trust, who you can't trust, how you work with them and then how you continue to expand into your next year, where you're bringing another human being into life. You're adding more people to your team.

Speaker 1: 18:09

Yeah, there's just different levels and it's different levels of trust.

Speaker 1: 18:16

I think it takes a pretty high level of trust to be an unfiltered version of yourself in front of people, especially when what you say is going to be analyzed and reflected on by whoever you're talking to.

Speaker 1: 18:28

And the people that I trust to actually be myself in private it's my team, the four people I just told you about, it's my wife and it's my mom and my dad and the girls at the clinic, but those are the only people in my life that I truly don't feel like I need to have a filter on. But then you've got sponsors of people that you work with who start to get themselves into that circle as well, and that's one of the beauties of being myself is I can just sort of choose who I want to work with based on not just the product but the people as well. You just want to be dealing with people who want to build that relationship as well, because once you do, then there's an innate understanding between you and you can build something special long term, which is why I really only work with the best brands in every category, because first is good product, second is good people, and if you're taking those boxes, then it's something that can work together for the long term, which is why I'm out here with Perfect Sports.

Speaker 2: 19:37

And the last question you brought up your mom and dad. After we recorded a year ago, we went and sat down and had breakfast chopped it up. You shared a ton of backstory about what else you've been going through. I couldn't even wrap my head around what you've been able to accomplish dealing with all that. Additionally, the two people that brought you into this world can you share a bit about each of them, what they mean to you, if they've inspired you, given you that direction, what you took from each of them?

Speaker 1: 20:07

Well, okay, my dad has been a blue collar worker his whole life. One of those works very, very hard, does not work very smart and I've never known him to not be putting in 12 hours a day doing something. When I was young we'd deliver newspapers together in the middle of the night I'd say together loosely I was three, four years old just riding in the van and sleeping between stops. When I was a bit older he started doing snow removal. We would do that and we would cut grass Whenever my parents split when I was very young. But whenever I got together with my dad it was sort of there was work and then there was fun, and our fun probably get me canceled, but it was entertaining times.

Speaker 1: 20:55

And then my mom she, like soft skills wise, is really quite admirable. She does a lot for other people. I wouldn't even say sacrifice is the right word, but she'll just cater to whatever someone else wants. And I don't say sacrifice because I genuinely think it makes her happier in most circumstances to give up what she wants for what someone else wants, which is something that I don't really share and something that I would love to grow into a little bit more. But yeah, I mean individually. They're very strong people Psychologically. I think everyone in life has been through a lot, and both of them have certainly been through a lot, and being able to pull through their perseverance through things is certainly useful, but it's also just a really nice normalcy to my life and something that hasn't changed much is my relationship with my parents, which is a blessing, because some people just don't have that same connection to their family.

Speaker 2: 22:02

I know we get a little emotional here today. We're drawing it, we're figuring out what makes Mitchell Hooper tick. I appreciate your time today doing this while you're hungry. I know it's not the one thing you wanted to be doing, but hey, it's important for people. I mentioned it a year ago. I want to reiterate young athletes think they see the world's strongest man. They think that that's what they want to be. They want to identify with their sport. You break apart from that and I think I'm honored to be able to share that your story. I hope people listening appreciate the fact that Perfect Sports brought you this today. The Mitchell Hooper was as honest and open as he was. Where should people be putting their attention focusing over the next 12 months, as you put out content? Where do you want them going book? You want the map. You want them lift heavy. Be kind, what do you want them to do?

Speaker 1: 22:51

Yeah, I mean LHPKshop. That's linked to my Instagram bio. You'll find out everything I'm doing through Instagram. I think my YouTube is going to supersede my Instagram very soon, so make sure you go check out my YouTube. And, yeah, if there's young athletes watching and people who are aspiring to do something special in their sport, I think the most important thing that I'd like to pass on is that you're the same person before and after you accomplish or don't accomplish something. So make sure you've got that side of yourself figured out before you try and think that winning a Stanley Cup or winning a World Cup of Soccer or something is going to cure your life, cure your problems, make you a different person, because in the end, you're not, and that's the only thing that you get to carry forward and that's the only thing that you have for your whole life. So focus on that first and enjoy the sport and let the sport come as it may.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Beautiful. Yo, I got to ask how did my dead lip formula?

Speaker 1: 23:49

It was OK, but there was a distinct lack of weights on either side of the bar, so maybe next time we'll get a bit more serious.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Hey, maybe next time right? Thank you, dude, I appreciate it. Our organOOT saysว