Have you ever looked at strongmen and wondered how much food it takes to build that kind of unbelievable strength? The sort of strength where someone can deadlift 1000 pounds lift giant atlas stones or press massive logs overhead like it’s nothing. These athletes aren’t eating normal meals — their diets are on a completely different level.
Strongman 101: Eating for Serious Strength
Strongman is one of the most extreme strength sports in the world. The whole goal is simple — find out who’s physically the strongest person on the planet.
Competitors do things most people can barely imagine. They pull trucks carry huge yokes flip giant tyres lift stones and sometimes even pull planes. Training and competing at that level demands an insane amount of energy which means their food intake has to match it.
While the average person may eat around 2000 calories a day some elite strongmen eat five or six times that amount.
Four-time World’s Strongest Man winner Brian Shaw has openly talked about eating around 12000 calories a day during heavy training periods. For him food isn’t about dieting or staying lean — it’s about fueling performance and recovering from brutal workouts.
Another famous strongman Robert Oberst has claimed his calorie intake can reach close to 20000 calories a day. That’s an amount most people can’t even imagine eating consistently. He’s joked before that anyone could try eating like a strongman but they definitely wouldn’t stay average-sized for long.
To fit all that food in strongmen usually eat multiple meals throughout the day. Oberst has mentioned eating six large meals daily and apparently still squeezing in extra snacks at night. Grocery bills for athletes this size can easily run into hundreds of dollars every week.
What makes a strongman diet plan?
A lot of people assume strongmen simply eat massive amounts of junk food all day but there’s actually more strategy behind it than most people realise.
Strongmen are athletes first. Yes size matters in the sport but performance matters just as much.
Chad Wesley Smith creator of the Juggernaut Strength System explained that strongman requires strength power conditioning endurance and movement ability all at the same time. These athletes aren’t just lifting heavy things once — they often need to move quickly carry awkward objects and perform under exhaustion.
That’s why strongmen need balanced nutrition with enough:
- Carbohydrates for energy and endurance
- Protein for muscle repair and growth
- Fats for recovery hormones and overall calorie intake
Carbs are especially important because strongman events burn through huge amounts of energy. Glycogen stores need to stay full so athletes can continue performing at a high level during training and competition.
Creatine rich foods and supplements are also commonly used because explosive strength matters so much in events involving maximal lifts.
Robert Oberst once described the body like a machine saying if you want your car to run properly you need to fuel it correctly. That mindset is common in strongman culture — food becomes part of the training process itself.
Size matters — but so does movement
Strongmen are obviously huge human beings but the sport isn’t simply about being as heavy as possible.
The best athletes try to find the balance between:
- Being big enough to generate maximum strength
- Staying athletic enough to move efficiently
For example Hafthor Bjornsson winner of the 2018 World’s Strongest Man competition stands around six foot nine and weighs roughly 180 kilograms. Brian Shaw is similarly massive standing six foot eight and weighing over 200 kilograms during competition seasons.
These athletes use their size to their advantage because longer limbs and bigger frames can help create better leverage during certain lifts and carries.
But too much unnecessary body fat can become a problem too. Strongman isn’t only about static strength. Many events involve movement speed endurance and carrying heavy objects over distance. If an athlete becomes too heavy or out of shape it can hurt overall performance.
That’s why strongmen often spend years adjusting their body weight calorie intake and conditioning work to find the point where they feel strongest while still being able to move effectively.
At the end of the day strongman diets aren’t just about eating huge amounts of food for fun. Every meal is designed around recovery energy strength and performance. These athletes push their bodies to extremes and fueling that kind of training requires a completely different level of eating than most people will ever experience.
Essential Foods Every Strongman Should Eat
A lot of people look at strongmen and assume they just eat whatever they want all day long. Big burgers piles of pizza endless junk food. From the outside it probably looks fun honestly.
But the reality is very different.
Many professional strongmen have talked about how they used to think the same way when they first started. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson once explained that early on he would eat anything he could get his hands on just to gain size like pizza pasta and loads of calories.
Over time though his mindset changed. Instead of eating just to become bigger he started eating to become a better athlete. That’s a huge difference.
Strongman diets are built around performance recovery strength and staying healthy enough to handle brutal training sessions. Let’s break down the foods that show up most often in the diets of top level strongmen.
Protein
Protein is one of the biggest parts of a strongman’s diet. Like all strength athletes they need huge amounts of amino acids to repair muscle tissue recover properly and maintain muscle mass.
Most strongmen get the majority of their protein from meat along with foods like eggs milk yogurt and protein shakes.
Robert Oberst has talked about eating eight eggs for breakfast while Thor often eats six. Brian Shaw once shared that he consumed over 700 grams of protein in a single day during heavy training phases.
Meat and eggs also naturally contain creatine which helps muscles produce quick explosive power during heavy lifts and events.
Digestibility matters a lot too. Brian Shaw has mentioned that he prefers grass fed beef because it feels easier on his stomach during high calorie eating phases.
Good sources of protein for strongmen include:
- Grass fed steak
- Ground beef
- Lean ground turkey
- Chicken
- Sausage
- Bacon
- Eggs
- Salmon
- Tuna
- Whole milk
- Whey protein shakes
- Casein protein
- Greek yogurt
Carbohydrates
Carbs are another massive part of strongman nutrition. These athletes burn through insane amounts of energy during training so carbohydrates help fuel their workouts and refill glycogen stores in the muscles.
Strongmen usually mix fast digesting and slower digesting carbs depending on training needs. Digestibility comes up again here too. Thor for example has said he prefers white rice because it’s easier on the stomach when eating huge quantities.
Carbs may also help recovery sleep and immune function during intense training periods. And unlike people chasing six pack abs strongmen are usually focused more on strength performance and recovery than staying shredded year round.
Brian Shaw once joked that his diet definitely isn’t “low carb.” These athletes regularly eat foods like cereal pasta potatoes rice and oats because they help support heavy training and recovery.
Former World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall even said that if the average person eats a bowl of porridge he would eat a bucket.
Still it’s not always enjoyable. Eating that much food every day can become exhausting and many strongmen admit the eating is harder than the actual training.
Popular carbohydrate sources in strongman diets:
- Oatmeal
- Cereal
- Pasta
- White potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- White rice
- Jasmine rice
- Basmati rice
- Blueberries
- Bananas
- Frozen berries
- Granola bars
Fats
For years people were told to avoid fats but healthy fats are extremely important especially for strength athletes.
Fats help support hormones recovery joint health and energy levels. Strongmen put huge stress on their bodies during training so getting enough healthy fats becomes important for both performance and recovery.
Many strongmen also take fish oil or omega supplements because healthy fats may help support joints that constantly deal with heavy lifting and impact.
Testosterone is another reason fats matter so much. Hormone production relies on dietary fats and cholesterol and low fat diets can negatively affect that process. Since muscle growth and recovery depend heavily on healthy hormone levels fats become a key part of strongman nutrition.
Another advantage is calorie density. Fat contains more calories per gram than protein or carbs which helps athletes hit massive calorie goals more easily.
Popular fat sources in strongman diets:
- Peanut butter
- Avocados
- Almonds
- Brazil nuts
- Fish oil supplements
- Full fat Greek yogurt
- Egg yolks
- Salmon
- Omega 3 and 6 supplements
The best of the rest
A proper strongman diet isn’t only about protein carbs and fats. Micronutrients matter too.
One thing that stands out when looking at elite strength athletes is how many vegetables and fruits they actually eat. These athletes need vitamins minerals antioxidants and fiber to keep their bodies functioning properly under heavy physical stress.
Vitamins and minerals support everything from energy production to recovery immune health hormone balance and muscle function.
Vitamin D for example supports testosterone production while magnesium plays a huge role in muscle function and recovery. Zinc is another important mineral connected to hormone health.
Common foods and supplements strongmen use for overall health:
- Berries
- Apples pears and dates
- Spinach kale and cabbage
- Broccoli asparagus green beans and carrots
- Zinc supplements
- Magnesium supplements
- Vitamin D supplements
- Essential amino acids
- Multivitamins
- D-aspartic acid
- Sea salt
Do you think you could eat like a strongman?
At first the idea of eating thousands of calories a day sounds amazing. Huge meals all day long probably sounds like a dream to most gym lovers.
Until you actually see how much these athletes eat.
During one of his World’s Strongest Man prep phases Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson followed a diet that included meal after meal from early morning all the way through the middle of the night.
Sample day from Thor’s strongman diet
- 6:50 am – BCAA glutamine and almonds
- 7:30 am – Oats berries and avocado
- 9:30 am – Beef sweet potatoes spinach and greens
- 11:50 am – BCAA and glutamine
- 12:00 pm – Chicken potatoes greens and fruit
- 2:00 pm – Blended shake with oats bananas rice krispies berries almonds peanut butter and glutamine
- 2:30 pm – BCAA glutamine and Vitargo
- 5:30 pm – Whey protein and bananas
- 6:00 pm – Beef potatoes and greens
- 8:30 pm – Salmon and sweet potatoes
- 10:30 pm – Casein protein or eggs with avocado almonds and peanut butter
- Midnight / 2:00 am – More casein protein or eggs
Looking at that amount of food it’s easy to understand why many strongmen say the hardest part isn’t lifting weights. It’s eating enough every single day.
Brian Shaw has even said that the food side can feel harder than the actual workouts.
Can you stomach it?
Honestly most people would probably struggle to follow a true strongman diet for long. The food bill alone would be wild and eating that much every day basically becomes a full time job.
But then again these athletes aren’t training for normal fitness goals. They’re training to pull trucks lift atlas stones and break world records.
If strength is your goal there’s definitely a lot to learn from how strongmen eat. Focus on quality food enough protein good recovery and eating to perform not just eating to look big.
Keep training hard brother and keep pushing forward.