The Stoltman Brothers On Calories, Carbs & The Truth About Strength

0:00Let's go! You're all with us here.

0:08The Stoltman brothers, the world's strongest brothers. I have to say, this is quite the presence in the studio. This is unbelievable meeting you guys. I've been really looking forward to meeting you both, but the physicality here is something else. this is kind of I need to make sure that this goes smoothly I think because it feels it feels quite like I mean the size of you guys yeah I mean I mean I'm 6 foot 3 150 kilos 6 foot 8 180 kilograms it's mad tiny Tom they call me tiny Tom and your voices as well so I could I heard you guys in the lift right so when you were in the lift not even on the floor I went I like there was this kind of deep rumbling.

0:57You sound a bit like a Scottish Mufasa from The Lion King. Like, you know, remember who you are. You know, that's just you guys. I remember, I thought they're here. Firstly, I know they're here because I can hear them. But it's amazing. Everything about you guys is amazing. The strength is something else as well. I mean, we'd love... This has primarily become a bit of a running podcast, right? We talk a lot about running and we get a lot of runners on and we talk about, you know, heart rate zones and running economy and speed. You guys run at all? Yeah, yeah. 10 metres, 15 metres, yeah. With sandbags in our hands.

1:41Yes. That counts, doesn't it? It does. Listen. Any sort of running counts, doesn't it? We're just fans of movement. No, we do a lot of movement, yeah. All joking aside. like in my prep last year for Britain's Strongest Man I used to run a kilometre which isn't much but if you put it into like I'm 155 kilos when I compete so doing that as quick as I can I wasn't breaking any records I think 5 minute 40 was the fastest time I did it That's my wife's like Batsy Park Run pace Right There's nothing wrong with that Exactly yeah So granted I'm dying when I get back in cramping up and everything but as Tom says we run with huge amounts of weight you know over like 30 meters you're going as fast as you can with half a ton on your back so that you know equates to you know i don't know the the science behind it all you know the vo2 max output whatever um but we're not runners of course not but we're we're athletes you know that's what we are so we've got to look after ourselves and part of that is doing a bit of conditioning, a salt bike, a bit of running.

2:47And yeah, moving with sandbags is incredible. I would recommend it to anyone. Honestly, see for posture or for like hips, for runners as well, you know, if you're running, if you've got a sandbag in front of you, 180 kilos is the most we've run with, which is equivalent of Tom. So you're picking up Tom. Yeah, it's stupid. Why would you do that? Hang on, you're carrying 180 kilos? 180 kilos, yeah. I'm moving with it. 20 metres, 30 metres, yes. That's unbelievable, honestly. When did you guys realise that this was a career path for you? So you must have been... When did you first begin to break out as large?

3:30Because there must have been a time when you were all the same size, right? You had friends at school and you were all the same size. Just normal. Stuff just didn't stop for you guys. Yeah, I mean, obviously Tom was always... Simon was laughing. It's funny though. Do you remember a time when you were the same size as your mates? I personally, I do. I don't know if Tom does. Tom's six feet, he was born. Born. Two days old, ten days old maybe. But I've always been the one that stuck out in school photos and stuff. So I don't think I've ever been the same height as any one of my friends. I'm tall, got big feet as well.

4:05Size 17 feet. So even my feet have took over a lot of people's ages. So yeah. Size 17. Where do you get your clothes from? Listen, I do have lots of serious questions. And by the way, this isn't a joke. I'm just really interested. Losing weight can feel like a roller coaster, full of ups, downs, and being thrown for loops, like when someone brings donuts into the office or your kids' dino nuggets start giving you that look again. That's why there's Noom. They combine GLP-1s to quiet the food noise with healthy habits that help you keep it quiet, even if you get off the meds. Their program is designed to make weight loss a smooth ride, helping you understand what drives you, so you can build better habits to not just lose weight, but keep it off.

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6:47It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com. interested like well thankfully we have our own uh our own merchandise so yeah um the clothes are designed around my body shaped so they can fit me so a 4xl is about a 5xl so yeah so we've got uh our own merch which it is for i think it's for the bigger big bigger audience and we've got a lot of larger guys that struggle to get clothes and advice for myself as well so yeah stoking merchandise is the way forward for myself we got t-shirts and shorts that we wear religiously every single day so don't wash no but no I'm joking I don't know why I said that but when we go out to America you know you get your like outlet malls and stuff so for Tom to get shoes he normally buys an extra luggage goes to outlet mall buys like 8 pairs of trainers like we're in Vegas competing was it last year or the year before yeah last year Vegas was the best but America is you'll be shocked as well that there's not too many big sizes of shoes when you go into these outlet shows i think it was like 15 16 went to vegas they had up to size 18 and i think they had like seven size 17s went to walmart bought a suitcase took them home on me seven pairs of shoes 50 each cheap bargain bargain yeah you two are the most successful strongmen brothers in history with multiple world record titles tom you've been the world's strongest man many times Luke you've been Europe's strongest man correct yes yes what happened to the rest of the world I mean I don't I'm one of those brothers that's really nice I give Tom being the older brother Tom you can have this one you didn't want to compete in Europe so I had to take one for the team so I won that a couple of times last year I turned 40 and I was the oldest person to win Britain's strongest man so that was pretty cool ever and then Tom came back and won Britain's strongest man he won it because I wasn't there let's just put it out there Can I ask, what does it feel like to, you know, that moment of winning that particular series of events, I suppose, and you're crowned the strongest man in the world?

9:10It must have been a goal of yours and something you aspired to growing up when you began to take the sport seriously. You know, what's the feeling of achieving it? What is your goal? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a goal that as soon as I wanted to do strawman, World Strawers Man was in my head the whole time. I mean, I started at properly about 18 years old and, you know, because I had Luke, I was competing against the likes of Eddie Hall and Laurence Shelley's at 18, 19 years old. And I was like, oh boy, I've got him put into the deep end here, which I think really helped me mature in the sport very quickly.

9:41Like I said, instead of doing the junior ones, I was in the deep end. So, you know, it was in 2021 was the first time I won World Strawers Man. And for that whole year, I changed a lot of things in training before that. I'd been close to the title before it. And for me, the biggest thing was talking to a psychologist, having autism my whole life, going into straw man, stuff like that. A psychologist was saying that I was very, very talented physically. I could, you know, I was, but mentally I had like a breakable mindset. so like if someone said something or was like up against me and like you know trying to get in my head mind games I would crumble so I talked to the psychologist and she changed my mindset from breakable to a championship mindset like about the concrete thinking visualization and all this kind of stuff that tapped into bits of my brain that I didn't realize that that were there especially for the autism kind of side of things so then what I did as well before that was two or three weeks before World Show is man I wrote on Facebook, Tom Stoltman, World Strongest Man.

10:42Just, I mean, I think some people thought it was arrogant, but for myself, I just wanted to put it out there that, you know, no one's going to stop me from winning this. I'm 100 % glued in. I wrote World Strongest Man on my whiteboard every single day at home. I drew like a podium with me first and then who cares second, who cares third, because I didn't want to waste any energy on other people. Even Luke, you know, he was competing there, but I didn't care about him being there competing against him. Even the business as well, I put that to the side, family to side and my wife to side because the difference with 2021 as well when I won it is it was COVID so I had to really change everything I was doing at home like I couldn't really be have my team so much involved because they weren't able to fly out with me so it was all different so yeah the psychologist for me was a massive thing went out to world stroll as man but you know it's different than going to the gym performing every single day in your home comforts then flying out there and actually performing so 2020 obviously I was second place so 2021 was the year that I I thought, right, the person that's in my way is Brian Shaw.

11:38He was going for four titles. He had everybody there. They're all going, Brian, Brian, like four times, four times. I think he had t-shirts already made thinking he was going to win the fourth title. Was it fourth or fifth? Four. Five. Yeah, sorry, fifth title. Yeah, it was for his fifth title, which would have been a record. So, yeah, the first kind of day of the qualifiers at World Strawers Man, I think I'd smashed the first three or four events. And for there, with World Strawers Man, it's mentally draining because you're doing an event at 8am in the morning and you're not doing another one until 1 or 2 o 'clock and another one 7 or 8 o 'clock.

12:11Is that so your body can partially recover from the strain of lifting such heavy weights? It's more of a TV show than it is a strongman show. We do other competitions which only last four hours. But this one, yeah, so to obviously compete, then you have to do some TV stuff and then rest. But I love that format because I love to, like the first event was at 8am in the morning, I loved to go out, do the first event, and then really just reset myself. And I was very good at resetting, you know, listening to headphones, walking away, not mixing with anybody. Then the second event came again. And then the first, so by the end of the first day, I was like eight points clear, nine points clear.

12:48And I was like, oh boy, this could be my time. But then I knew in my head I've still got Brian Shaw. I've still got a lot of good athletes. So the second day came, and a deadlift I didn't do as well. and I think by the time the last event came I was like a point and a half in front of Brian Shaw and I was like, oh no, like he's come back from six points behind and I just remember I was in a wee room, Brian Shaw was there with his team, Luke had just gone out to the heart of stone, he didn't do as good as he wanted and he came through like a raging bull and went absolutely mental at me. I was like, oh boy, oh boy.

13:21So I put the tacky on, got my head like kind of screwed on and psyched up and he was just behind me shouting whatever he was shouting and on that line that's when I knew right if I do five if I do five stones and I know how I do it in training I know I can win this so then first stone I loaded Brian was first stone loaded we were neck and neck neck and neck third stone I loaded turned around Brian was on the second one then I got to the last stone fifth one loaded it up and he was still on his third one so that's then you know I fell to my knees and Luke got the moment I won tattooed on him as well so it was a very special moment and it was all that hard work that sacrifice you know because I really sacrifice a lot of time with my wife, my family, friends, everything.

14:01And also, it changed the aspect of me of autism. You know, autism for a lot of people back then as well, you know, it called me disabled. It would be labeled as a disability. But when I was standing on that podium, it was like autism turned for me into a superpower. And I used that phrase of autism as a superpower on myself than to other people. And that's when I realized, right, you know, I've just done something that most normal people find it hard to do, but someone with a disability or a label, whatever you want to call it, has just conquered the world. and I'm the strongest man in the world and it felt, yeah, it felt incredible.

14:30It was the best day of my life. I know I've won it two other times, but that first one lives in my memory forever. Luke, you're sat here in a compression boot. Why? I'd like to say it was competing in World's Strongest Man, lifting half a ton, but unfortunately we were filming a YouTube video and I went first and jumped about four metres into the sea. The sea was up to just above my belly button. and yeah snapped my fibula so that was about six weeks ago so um really tough you know it was i say it's really tough it hasn't been actually that tough in all honesty like i'm quite i i perform better when when i'm up against shit you know um sorry about the language if it's that's all right you're fine good well you won't look at a tin of worms now um but when i've got something against me and i've got something to prove like last year britain's strongest man there was stuff in my personal life that was going on I was like oh I'm just gonna all I could do was train, all I could do was control that training aspect, broke my leg, right what am I gonna do I'm gonna sit and cry in my bed and smoke a load of weed and go back to that old stuff I was like no no I'm not gonna do that, don't be stupid so got out of the hospital the next day I was in the gym testing out what I can do in the gym so I could do leg extensions, leg curls, back extensions, upper body's fine You could do leg curls with that thing on?

15:54Yeah yeah yeah because it's the fibula so i just tweak twisted the leg around and i can just do it i'm really low weight but i can still see the muscle because i was like i don't want my muscles just to just to go because i've worked quite a lot quite hard for them um and it's the thing that keeps me sane was it difficult not being included this year and kind of being on the sidelines or or is it giving you a chance to you know sit back and reflect on things or or you know are you seeing this as a setback or um i think it was there's there's two different aspects i think for me there was one um like it's the energy that when you compete there's this energy and it's so you can't describe it but it's like like maybe when you're running you get that energy like like up kind of dopamine and it's so, oh, like you can feel it when you're competing with someone and that's what, I was missing it so much because it's completely different energy when you're watching.

16:54Like Tom was, and I felt really guilty because I think one of the reasons that Tom didn't maybe feel as switched on was because I wasn't there because every, every world's, I'm there competing, Tom's there competing, we've got that energy, it was brothers, it's like, my duty as a as an older brother is to make sure Tom's up to his absolute best and so like I take some responsibility because I don't feel his training was impeccable honestly it was fucking amazing so strong I was like oh my god Tom you're so strong it's disgusting um and then I went and broke my leg and then but it's one of those things it's like I think now because I'm 42 in November so I'm coming to the latter half or the latter of my career I've maybe got two or three years left so now it's taught me it's like I'm not going to take anything for granted now because I could maybe what I was doing before was maybe been a bit blasé something's with training taking things for granted but now I've got a real opportunity to get my leg fixed got a scan next week you know pray to God that it's okay and I can get back training and we can be that immovable force that we are when we compete and Tom can live up to his dizzying it's crazy his potential like he will win the most ever titles I think that's just a mark of time but obviously there's a lot of pressure on him because everyone's saying he's so good but he handles it so well like it's When we're talking about moving crazy weights and being incredibly strong obviously you're both extraordinarily strong but given that the focus of what you were just saying was on Tom's form recently can we just get some stats for certain lifts you know like what what can you bench what can you deadlift you know just yeah i mean so like for example squatting out there was it was like a 330 330 kilogram 320 kilograms for reps and for reps yeah so in the past like like how many reps well i'm coming to that side you know so no so like but and that's when i knew my training was good because squat for me is I've you know six foot eight the levers it's a hard lift I don't get motivated for it so like in the past I've maybe hit 300 for eight or nine and that's been my best at world so into this prep I went up to 310 in training for 10 so I kind of knew right that's in a good good space good headspace for this event I went out to towards I got to do that event and I got 12 at 320 so that's when I knew I kind of was in you know really good shape so like 310 for 10 in the gym dead lifting I was 390 for threes again I've had really big problems in my deadlift the last year and it's only just been coming back up and that was another event and I was like right if I can put work into it I'm going to be competitive again because that's where I was losing a lot of points because I was injured and then my last training session was 390 for nine so I was like okay then I'm in the form of my life and then 390 for nine no 390 kilograms for free on deadlift yeah yeah but you've done isn't the world record for a single rep just over 500 I've done my best ever Deadly set 400 for 5 400 kilobytes for 5 it's not too bad it's really heavy so it's more than 2 of you for 5 reps it's insane a lot it's 2 of you and 40 kilos so 2 of you and a little girl right for 5 reps or a little boy I suppose why are you laughing for me well it is like I was going to say like I was going to say a light woman but like it's not that would be very like that would be you know that's that's very small so it's more like a kind of you know teenage girl but like a young teenage girl not like a kind of 18 year old it'd be like a kind of 12 year old girl so let's go with 12 year old girl yeah so like it's two of you and a 12 year old girl perfect for five Tom's picking up 400 12 year old girls yeah not in that way yeah yeah yeah no no and then like yeah even like bench press you know we don't do bench press very much but when we do we can we can go heavy quite quickly I think with bench press we only bench like I don't know once or twice a month if it comes to show but like we can get up quite quickly I've done 250 kilograms Luke's done 250 as well but yeah training like I said was up there with the strongest and fittest that I had been so that's where the frustrating part was it but yeah Atlas stones as well I really love Atlas stones so 210 kilogram 220 kilogram Atlas stones at the end of a run so quite a lot of big numbers there.

21:36210 kilo stones are you picking them up and putting them on that thing? Yeah, yeah, platforms, yeah. Honestly, obviously I'm not a strong man but I don't think I could roll the thing. Like genuinely, would I be able to roll it? Yes. Can I roll it? That's alright then. That's okay. You'd be surprised you could lift something big on an Atlas stone. I'd put my back out, mate. Honestly, my back, yeah, it goes out more often than I do, I think. Yeah, you don't want to be doing Atlas stones but when you put things into perspective the stone run in World's Strongest Man so it's the heaviest stone run in the world and Tom's the only one over the last four or five years that really does the stone run everyone else does three stones or four stones and Tom comes in and does five stone runs quicker than anyone's done three stone runs in he's just that good at Atlas stones so there's a difference with Worlds as well you have to run in with him so a 120kg stone starts four or five meters away from the platform, you pick up and run in with it, then it gets like five, four, three, two, one meters.

22:35Whereas generally on shows, they're right next to the platform. So that makes it extremely hard as well. Running in with a 120 kilogram at the stone at chest height for five meters is quite heavy. So given that you're right at the top end of Strongman, you know, I mean, by the very definition, there's nobody in the world really that is stronger than you. Being as strong as you are, there's probably very little to go after so are you in maintenance like mode most of the time trying to remain as strong as you are are you physically trying to get stronger i mean for me it's a lot different now because about a year ago the question we would be i want to get stronger all the time because i different coach but now i've got a new coach i've learned that it's a it's a lot of maintenance it's there's only like so much peak phases you can go through that your body can like you know peak for this high strength for maybe a few weeks before a calm and then come back down so for me it's maintenance level my coach always says we want to stay at a certain level certain level certain level then raise it for a week a few weeks back to a certain level but you never want to drop below that certain level so for example like you know with my my 390 for free on the deadlift that i did before world straws man he wouldn't want me to go below that when i do another free rep max he want me to be that start as my like kind of maintenance and then I go up higher and higher and higher.

23:53So yeah, for me now, it's when I'm training, I always make sure that whatever I did on the last kind of peak or the last training cycle, that that'll be my minimum to start with. And then it goes up and up. And that's really helped my body and really helped me mentally as well. Because like I said before, last year it was just been like, right, put 400 on, put 405, put 410. And that's how I was getting injury and killing my body. But now, yeah, a lot of the time, just like with the diet and everything, it's just maintenance until then I have to do that big push. And then save the kind of, I never go to my max in the gym ever.

24:24I always kind of leave 10 % back for the competition because that's when my body will be at its best. It pushes for that kind of two or three day show, then it'll go back down to maintenance. What do you focus on when it comes to having the most optimal diet that you guys can have? So I'm assuming you have to eat extraordinary levels of protein. So do you have maybe like two grams per kilo of body weight a day? or...

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26:56So we don't really look at macros, to be honest. With our content, we've got a nutritionist, he just programs us meals so it's for me I think I'm 300 grams of we eat a lot of red meat so a lot of red meat 300 grams of red meat, 300 grams of rice Tom's a little bit more, a lot of porridge 400 grams of red meat a day? No, no, no, per meal so 3 of them are 1 ,200 1.2 kilos of red meat a day? Healthy You're like a forest wolf or something it's raw as well really raw just throwing them raw steaks can you imagine you probably would to be honest so so you have 1.2 kilos of protein a day or just or red meat yeah that's just red meat but obviously like we add eggs in the morning so like calorie wise it's again maintenance level for me is probably about 8k and then up to a comp we raise it another thousand so so it's it's a lot of food it's like so hard to eat but you can when Tom's on his big prep he comes into the office with a bowl honestly it's about that big the bowl like I thought I had a big bowl like an eating trough basically Tom's just with a little tiny spoon it's always a tiny spoon he has for some reason makes it last longer you don't use a little spoon yeah but it makes it last longer doesn't it no but you don't use a little spoon you don't yeah I do makes me look bigger as well doesn't it oh my god but hang on but what Not the teaspoon.

28:31You just have a smaller spoon than a normal spoon. I can't bear it when people eat with little spoons. It does my head. Yeah, me too. That would really annoy me. And also, you'll say, why are you doing that? You're so big. Use the normal spoon. You could use a bigger spoon. I would envisage you eating with a big wooden spoon. I don't look at spoons. I just pick out the drawer and the first one that comes to my hand, I eat whatever's clean in the drawer and you just eat. We didn't finish on the meals, by the way. So 1.2 kilos of red meat a day. Yeah. So I've literally just come from lunch where I had like a 400-gram steak, which actually felt bigger.

29:08400 grams is all right, but that's no bone or anything. So quite a big steak. So you're having four of those, basically, every day. Yeah, every day. A bit less than that, but yeah. And then a few eggs, bits of both. Where do you get your carbs from? Ten eggs a day. Yeah, ten eggs a day. 70 eggs a week? Yeah, that's my favourite meal. Yeah, I love eggs as well. Boiled eggs. Delicious. You have in one sitting 10 boiled eggs? I mix it all in with mayonnaise. Yeah, actually. Oh, delicious. Sourdough. Egg mayonnaise is the drink. It's an old school favourite. If you had to pick ketchup or mayonnaise, which one would you have?

29:45Mayo. Yeah, me too. So mayo goes with more. You think ketchup's spicy though. I used to when my palate wasn't as mature. When my palate wasn't as mature. I'm sorry. I'm just going to eat. Yeah. you do have a mature palate I have to say I know you when you you don't find ketchup space what do you what do you think just that so I've got a little stat here from Claude we now use Claude instead we upgraded from ChatGPT okay because ChatGPT was getting things wrong so now we use Claude what do you think the average man can bench press for one rep max just because you guys chuck such monstrous weights around all the time yeah just your average bloke on the street like people don't necessarily lift just your average guy I'd say 70 kilograms that's exactly right Tom Tom that's very good you're so in tune with this stuff aren't you that's GPT or whatever it's called 70 kilograms 70 kilos is it actually 70 kilos I think that's reasonable it's not bad for an average man just to come in off the jump it's not bad because bench press you're not doing that movement are you no no it feels like if you I mean I love bench press I bench press at least twice a week, like two, three times a week.

30:58But if you don't do it for whatever reason, I haven't not done it for a long time, but I remember when I used to not do it and take breaks, you'd come back and it just feels odd, doesn't it? It feels strange. It's sort of alien, yeah. Alien, exactly, exactly. What advice can you give our listeners on how to build strength? And is it just a case of consuming the right food and consistently lifting weights and trying to build and stack weight on previous weeks or obviously as two of the world's strongest men, how can somebody genuinely build muscle? I think it's so basic. Genuinely, I think it's one of the most, maybe doing a disservice, but it's so easy, you just go to the gym.

31:48No, but realistically, you find something that you enjoy doing. So if you enjoy bench pressing, that's your main compound movement so use that as your heavy or your go-to and then you incorporate okay maybe i don't like deadlifting okay well you can still do other stuff like heavy leg press leg press gets a a bad rep but you can go really heavy on it and the heavier you can go for like say six reps you're going to build muscle it's just that's how your body works it's set up to break down and then grow break down and grow break but you have to feel it so you know i wouldn't say if strength is your main goal don't be super focused on really clean clean foods because that's not going to it'll be nice because you'll have a good physique you'll have a six pack muscles whatever but if your main focus is strength and muscle i think you can be a little bit dirtier with the food, which is nice.

32:46Like, what are we talking here? Just, like, if you want a bit of extra mayonnaise in your food, you can do that. You know, if you're counting your calories all the time, then you're not going to add that extra bit of mayonnaise. You're not going to have, like, you're not going to cook your steak with butter. So calories is key, then? Calories is key, it has to be. Calories is key. Because a lot of people, when they go to the gym, are probably in a calorie deficit. If you're training really hard, this is something I used to do, I was quite lean a lot of my strongman career when I first started.

33:16My old job, I could only eat three meals a day. I was working the oil rigs. So I was like, oh. And I was too caught up in trying to stay away from carbs. I was like scared of these carbs or carbs are going to make you fat. Carbs are going to be your enemy. But in reality, carbs is that energy that helps you grow, helps you put on size, fuels your workouts. Protein is the good stuff that rebuilds the muscles. So you have to have everything. and it's not, and it's just, find something. I really think that's the thing. If you're doing something in the gym that you're not enjoying, like if you're deadlifting, it's just, this is so crap.

33:50Why am I doing this? And you're not competing. You're not looking to compete. You're just wanting to put that extra muscle on. Because now, you know, the science is like the more muscle you have, the more longevity you have in life. So if that's what you're wanting to do, do that. But like by doing it, bench press, shoulder press, seated dumbbell press seated shoulder press leg press leg extensions leg curls all those things are going to help break down and build muscles but you have to fuel it like i'm not saying go out and have takeaways every night of course not but it's like everything is okay in moderation i believe um but it's it's not it's as boring as what it is i think because you've got to keep turning up you know you said with your bench press you know you've bench press you're almost at 140 kilos but you're not just going to do that without being consistent going in training training training oh man it's not happened the first time I'm in and that's what a lot of I think in today's society we're all right there's so much things going on what do you think the biggest kind of gym fads are like obviously because they come in and out don't they and you guys just are raw dudes who go to the gym and lift weights and you know now you're super strong obviously probably always have been you know what's the what do you see where you just go god I wish people would do less of that erm calf raises the gym fan that's known as calf raises that's what I'll be doing after this people calf raises calf raises wow you walk every single day don't you I think calf raises are to be fair the worst thing in the world you have got a point calf raises you'll get bigger calves by running and stuff than you do I used to love calf raises I did honestly calf raises so what are you getting on a kind of like slightly elevated thing with a bar and you're just doing calf raises there's actually a machine where you just sit like this and you put a thing there and there's a weight plate there and you just up and down like that I used to love them that's not going to help you put the big rock on the thing is it what's it called Alistone on the plinth on the on the plinth the big rock on the thing I think what I've noticed, I don't know about you, but it's like everything's getting quite fancy with training.

36:10Like it doesn't, again, I go back to my last point, it can be very simple. If you've got a barbell, some plates and a bench, it's pretty good. I was watching a video the other day and it sounds cool, but there was like an air, there was this weight machine gym in New York. It's air compression. it's all controlled through like compressed air and i'm like oh it's cool like it's really cool but like again we're trying to like reinvent the wheel like pick up a dumbbell pick up a like free weights is is gold you know if you want to get that strength it's it works at all your your stability issues so say if you're doing it on machines all the time and then you go into doing like a shoulder press barbell push press your core is all over the place you don't have a strong core because you're reliant on machines.

37:03If you go into dumbbells, one arm is going to be stronger than the other, which is like so annoying then when you first start. So you just keep it simple. It's too much fluff. It's too fancy, man. We're from not a very fancy place in the Highlands and we don't have a lot of fancy things. And I just think keep things simple. If you want to have that pure, like Ronnie Coleman, the great bodybuilder, Like when you go back to his training, he just trained heavy. And he was the biggest, baddest bodybuilder that there was. He was huge. And that thick, dense muscle that he had, you can't replicate that with this kind of new age fancy.

37:45Like there's a place for everything. But I just think if we're focusing too much on that aspect, we're kind of neglecting the core basics. You know, the core basics work because they are very basic. yeah was he a big inspiration for you I liked Ronnie yeah like growing up I was like a bodybuilding fanatic like I loved it I just wanted to get a six pack and big arms yeah Ronnie was his documentary as well was he had tomato sauce I think with every single meal as well and he was one of the most successful bodybuilders ever and it's this yeah buddy that kind of stuff that's what you always used to say in the gym you know when you go there and bench yeah buddy like me yeah that's yeah Ronnie Coleman was the blueprint He had fun though as well.

38:28You could tell he was having fun. He enjoyed it. And then no surprise becomes he's the greatest, probably greatest bodybuilder of all time. How much of strength is physical versus mental? And I don't mean like in the very obvious sense that you guys can both lift extraordinary weights. Have you ever found yourself in a position and in a competition maybe where you know that your mind has pulled you through a certain lift? You know, like where you perhaps haven't hit that number in training and all of a sudden with the environment that you're in the atmosphere and the support from your brother you know you've you've just found an extra extra bit of mojo yeah I think even like last year at world strollers man for me my prep was absolutely shit in the gym like yeah I just I had a bad prep and everything but then I was going to world strollers man with a mindset that I know I'm the strongest man in the world so I can do this and for me that was a prime example you know like I think we'll take behind the net press for example I think in training I was doing 220 and then it was down to the last three of us and I I was in unknown territory I was like I don't know what I'm going to lift I think it was 230 was on the bar and you know I was psyching myself visualising it mentally and went out there straight up behind my bet 230 then they put 240 on and I hit 240 and I think yeah I think mine for I think mind and especially what we do is mad because like I said in training I was failing 225, 230 because I think I was getting it in my mind too much and I was talking myself out of it but then you you know go to these competitions and when you kind of like excite yourself up the breathing you do all that kind of stuff mentally it's your mind's so powerful and I proved it there I was in unknown territory in a lot of things last year especially even deadlift my deadlift again was like a kid's deadlift in training I couldn't get past 350 360 went out there and i think i did like nine or ten reps at 350 360 because mentally i knew i was you know i when i'd say like when i say it in my head well straw is man well straw is man it just switches a switch and then my body just my mind just takes over my body though my body maybe crashes at five or six but then i have that switch of right well straw is man say it in your head and it gives me an extra three or four reps so i think in my case not for everyone but in my case i get it's 60 70 percent of my mindset for myself if my mindset's wrong i could be one of the weakest guys in the world i'll go in and fail a 200 kilogram deadlift 250 kilogram but when my mind is right i could lift anything so it's strange though isn't it when when you kind of prepare for something so well there's there's almost an expectation to succeed and that can be dangerous in itself right because when something starts going wrong then it's it's amplified you know it's made worse by the fact that you've done everything right.

41:15So maybe that you going in with bad prep gave you that sort of underdog mentality in that particular lift, knowing that you are the world's strongest man and you can do it. Just having the pressure to not necessarily succeed in that lift is maybe helpful. Yeah, I think everything. I mean, every world's strongest man prep that I've won or come setting it's not been perfect so that's why you know I go back to this year like I did the perfect prep and that's why I always say like your prep can look perfect in the gym but then you have to go and perform so maybe if I didn't have the perfect prep and missed a few lifts it might have been a bit different so like I was like I said the first time this year going to World Strawers man with that perfect prep whereas every other year I've kind of like missed a lift or like not missed a week or two of training but I'm kind of like in my head it's fine because I know at World Strawers man I can perform and that's where the mindset it comes but then this year obviously having that perfect prep I'm like well I've had this perfect prep so I automatically must be going out there and going to go perform and it didn't work so yeah I think it's maybe in the future is miss the two weeks of training and miss some lifts and not turn up perfect and then you can perform like I said my mind my body didn't feel 100 % but my mind tapped into that kind of like yeah beast mode when I was like wow this feels unbelievable but like I said when I did the perfect prep I felt like everything was when I went out there everything was kind of left back in the gym and I didn't have anything to give Luke so imagine that your leg was not broken what's your daily routine like?

42:52So yeah, in a fit healthy Luke wake up quite early in the morning I'm a big advocate of cold water swims which ironically enough is how I broke my leg

43:07but yeah I wake up I like to wake up with like a sunrise like go in the water with the sun that really sets my head like I'm a bit what are you laughing at yeah see him talking about cold water it's like so better as well make out to the cold water man it is mental he loves it oh that's how he broke his leg I just said that yeah but no I was saying before we do when we were going in that film shoot right we usually go down to the sea and I was like to the guys when I was driving right make sure Luke doesn't go to the pier I'll just not speak make sure Luke doesn't go to the pier because when he has something in his head about cold water he can't change as soon as we arrive at his house oh we're going to the pier he's like no we're not we're going to the water he's like no we're going to the pier you don't even get a second he's out in his car rips his trousers off budgie smuggles out and jumps in you're like there you go so him and cold water they could have babies they'd have babies what do you love about the cold water it's like whenever I go I feel really bad sometimes before I go in like just mentally like I've had a lot of ups and downs mental health and all this other stuff but like whenever I go into the cold water I just get buzzing I just get this hit of like dopamine endorphins and I just I said to you before I like it when I'm up up against something so say when you're out like 7 o 'clock in the morning in a highland winter like when it's like minus 10 outside and you have to go in the sea like if I don't go in the sea I'm going to be a miserable bastard not only for myself but for my partner for my brother for the people that we work with for my little boy so I've got to have that energy I've got to have that good energy about me if I don't then I'm just a selfish twat that like has chosen to stay in bed for nothing like I'm going to get an extra hour in my bed and feel like crap so like that's my go to that's my go to fix so wake up in the morning go for a swim or I say a swim it's just going into the water a plunge a plunge yeah for 10 minutes 20 minutes whatever I need 20 minutes sometimes yeah just depends sometimes yeah it's like sometimes there's a seal and I'm like oh anyway so you're just bobbing around with a seal in the water it's quite nice and it gives you I don't know it just gives you something for the day it's like that's a tick I'm pretty tough man I've got this day and then come back and when I get in from like a long immersion like a dip like I feel ravenous I'm like oh and now it's time to feast me now you've got it come on hit us so like eight eggs porridge fruit um bit of bacon um I'm buzzing I'm like how lucky I feel so fortunate to be able to eat I got food like it's because we're so I feel like literally I feel so happy i'm saying to my partner man like this is mental look at this food we're eating it's so nice i'm like it's so nice i sound like a maniac but no i love it like it's really it's really nice it's just like so thankful because like how lucky we are in the world that we can do this i can go into the sea make myself feel better have come home have breakfast with her go to the office see this big maniac with my baby brother 10 years younger than me it's the world's strongest man how cool is that we get to do cool shit together film some stuff do social media do stuff for the office works clothing all this stuff um you know do this cool stuff with you you know it's amazing like this is fucking awesome oh thanks man i really enjoy it as well but no it's like just we get such opportunities and i just feel that it starts off with that positive outlook for the day so i can appreciate all those things and then i get to go to the gym and i'm like oh this is awesome get to see this maniac lift heavy weights then i'm lifting heavy weights i'm 40 odd years old getting to try and keep up with him who's the best in the world so if i can do that i'm like oh i'm i'm onto something and then go home eat some more food i sit down have a steak like a rib eye i love rib eye steaks so tasty rib eye steak rice broccoli banging that's me watch a bit of youtube yeah mate this sounds like can I come stay with you guys for a little bit like honestly it sounds fantastic doesn't it I mean yeah cold dip grub bit of lifting more grub bit of YouTube bish bash bosh lovely that's grand isn't it but I tell you why I'm so so because my old job I used to work off in the oil rigs so I did that for 17 years so you're away for three weeks in the North Sea sharing a fucking bunk bed with some maniac from Newcastle that's snoring and farting all night.

47:51Do you know what? So it's like, that's the other side of life that I've got. So I'm like, no, there's anyone. I've got good mates from Newcastle. Why are you one? But you see the other outlook of life and yeah, I've got a wee boy now, a little boy, my little son, two years old. So I get, me and his mum aren't together, but we get him almost 50, 50, 60, 40. So I get him and I get to see him, spend time with him. You've got kids, so it's like you see life through their eyes. They look at a tree and like, I'm like, yeah, mate, it's wild. It's a massive tree. Oh, my God. Sheep. Do you know what I mean?

48:33It's like that. So I get to live my life through that and it's all because of having that different outlook in life, whereas a few years ago, not quite there yet, but now I've kind of found that and it's all good, man. I live a pretty content life. Yeah, I found a bit of faith over the last few years as well, so that's quite an important thing for me as well. You once said that bodybuilding saved your life. 100 % yeah. Were you just in a bad place? A couple of years ago I was in the gym, rope around my neck, just thought I just can't do this anymore. I was like cutting myself, getting a Stanley blade to my chest, doing all this stuff.

49:15I just, it was that pressure. It was like, I couldn't control that pressure on me. And the only way I could do it was by, and it was like, this like sense of like pressure going. And I just couldn't get, couldn't get it. I couldn't do it. And then, yeah, I had a ratchet strapped around my neck. And, yeah, I just took the weight. And like, it was like, but then like I did that. And I was like, what are you doing? I got a boy. I'm like, what are you doing, you selfish prick? You got a little boy. I got a little boy. You got a little boy. Like, what are you doing? And then that's when, like, our sister Jodie, she's a very big Christian, very heavily involved in Christianity, and she's come to church.

49:58Like, let's see. Like, I'm never going to sit here and be the best Christian ever, but there's a big man upstairs who's going to let me in because I've let him in here. And that's what I truly believe. So I think when I started or stopped thinking of myself as God, basically, egotistical maniac, which I still probably am, but I'm thankful for stuff. And that comes through looking after myself mentally, looking after myself physically, giving thanks to a greater thing. And for me, that's kind of where I'm at now. and I feel pretty cool, you know, it's like, I couldn't ever talk about religion or faith.

50:44I don't say religion, faith. Like, everyone's got faith in something, you know. When they get faith that coming down here on the plane is not going to, you know, which would be pretty wild. That'd be a good podcast, wouldn't it? But yeah, I'm just, what we get to do in life through strength, like, it was like a choice I made when I was 16 years old, go to the gym. I couldn't speak to anyone when I was younger. I was very shy from a small town but the gym, likewise for Tom it taught me to speak to people to communicate, to be confident to allow myself to be me and I think it's pretty cool to see that it's only taken 24 years, we're here now and we're okay Luke, Tom, it's been a great pleasure to have you in big fan of both of yours and genuinely delighted that you chose to spend time with us here this afternoon in person.

51:40Thanks so much for coming in. Thanks for having us, mate. Appreciate it. It's been really nice. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Can we do a picture where they hold me? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

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