Mitchell Hooper is the first Canadian to win World’s Strongest Man.Illustration by Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail
Off Duty is a series of lively conversations with influential people, from CEOs to celebrities, on life, work and the art of taking time off.
Every professional athlete has their own way of preparing for a big competition. Some lie in bed and visualize victory or meditate. Others tuck into a meal with a precise ratio of carbs to protein. Mitchell Hooper, the first Canadian to win World’s Strongest Man, likes to sip on an ice cold beer. Stella Artois, ideally.
Hooper’s penchant for a pre-event ale isn’t the only thing that sets the 27-year-old athlete apart from his peers. When he’s not training or competing, he’s running a kinesiology clinic in his hometown of Barrie, Ont., with the goal of helping people manage injuries and chronic conditions. And he’s got a sweet spot for reality TV.
He’s also focused on using his new platform to bring an air of normalcy to a sport that’s long been known for its vaudeville roots and late-night ESPN reruns. Hooper, and a growing body of Canadian pro and amateur athletes, want to show that strongman is more accessible than you might think. “Everyone is already training strongman because you have to squat, hinge, carry, push, pull and overhead press in your daily life,” Hooper says.
Strongman is also a test of mental fortitude, Hooper explains, offering lessons that can be taken from the gym into daily life, like accepting failure. “You learn a lot about yourself when things go wrong,” he says. “You learn very little when things go right.”
Hooper spoke with The Globe and Mail about goal-setting, marathon running and – wait for it – darts.
This year, you became the first Canadian to win World’s Strongest Man. Where do you go from here?
I really don’t know. I’ve hit the pinnacle, and it’s no longer about winning. I’m back to why I started training in the first place: it’s just something I love to do. I actually find myself training harder right now, because now I can go into it without the pressure, without the demands on me. If I never win anything again, I’m completely satisfied with that. But I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t put in the effort to physically improve myself. Now I can continue to chase larger, less concrete, but much more meaningful goals in terms of impacting people and hopefully making them a little bit healthier.
People will often say that when it comes to fitness, they struggle to stay motivated. Is that ever an issue for you?
How do you motivate yourself to have breakfast? Even if you’re not hungry, you probably eat breakfast because it’s just what you do. I see training the same way. I can have the busiest day of my life, but I’ll sacrifice sleep to get something done. Even though I’m the strongest man in the world and I make a living off of it, training is still my mental reprieve. It’s my favourite part of the day. Eliminate motivation as a consideration, and just have that blocked out in your day.
What does goal setting look like for you?
Goals are not a problem for me. I think it’s a fallacy that successful people wake up every morning wanting to be successful. I want to lay in bed, and I want to have breakfast brought to me, and I want to reach all of my goals as well. I have more goals than I know what to do with and I’ll fail at 90 per cent of them, but statistically, if you set enough goals and fail 90 per cent of them you’re still pretty damn successful.
People might be surprised to learn that before you became a strongman, you were a marathon runner. Do you still run at all?
I do, but I don’t run long distance anymore. What I liked about marathon running was it’s just like a meditation. It’s taking your mind off everything for as long as possible. It’s the complete inability to speak to anyone else or to check your phone to see what work is to be done. That’s a really freeing feeling.
I’ve heard you drink a beer or two the night before a competition. Why is that part of your precompetition meal?
Because beer helps me sleep. And if I sleep better, I perform better. Drinking, in itself, before any athletic event would be a bad decision because it impacts the quality of your sleep, but slightly worse quality sleep is much better than not sleeping at all. If you sleep, you will perform better. If it helps calm your nerves, you will perform better. Keeping that emotional state and check is paramount for me and my performance.
What are you reading and watching in the bits of downtime you have?
I read books on business and on life and biographies. I watch sports, I watch the Leafs, the Raptors, I’m a big NFL fan. Also I’m a sucker for reality TV. Below Deck is a favourite. We watch an episode of that every single night. Real Housewives is a fantastic show. The one that [Lisa] Vanderpump was on was phenomenal. I think Beverly Hills would have to be the best.
If you could try any other sport, even just for a day what would it be?
Maybe darts. Have you seen live darts? You should see it. There’ll be 5,000 people in the crowd dressed as bananas and it’s like a big frat party. And then when a guy gets 180, the perfect score in a round of darts, the whole crowd goes ballistic.
People expect that big guys like you aren’t scared of anything. Is there anything that intimidates you?
Public speaking would be my No. 1. Being on TV is very challenging for me, and saying things on the record for a long time was very challenging. But just like if I was not good at a certain strongman event, I would approach that and attack it, I do the same thing with personal development. So now if I have the opportunity to speak anywhere, it’s always a yes.