Ep. #419: Hafthor “The Mountain” Bjornsson on Life as the World’s Strongest Man

Mike: Hello. Hello, Mike Matthews here and welcome to the muscle for life podcast. This episode is an interview with the one and only half Thor Bjornsson, who is at least as of let’s see, June 11th, the strongest man in the world. And I say that because the world’s strongest man competition is coming up in the next couple of days.

And we’ll see half Thor is going to be defending his. And in this interview, Hafthor gives us a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to be him a 6’9 420 pound man who can squat, deadlift, and bench press over 2, 500 pounds. Yes, that means that he pulls over a thousand pounds, he squats nearly a thousand pounds, and benches in the mid fives.

And as I just mentioned, Hafthor is also the 2018 champion of the World’s Strongest Man Competition, and I hope he’s the 2019 champion by the time this podcast goes live. And that means that he does really, Rather incredible feats like lifting five large stones ranging from 220 to 350 pounds onto columns that are the height of an average man, pulling gargantuan objects arm over arm using a rope, like planes, boats, cars, and giant tires, and carrying a 900 pound Yolk made of two refrigerators across a 30 meter course in under 60 seconds.

Now, you probably already know this, but Hathor also played Gregor the Mountain Clegane in Game of Thrones. May he rest in peace. And in this interview, we talk about things like how he is training right now to defend his world’s strongest man title. How he manages his recovery, what his diet looks like, what supplements he takes spoiler alert, they’re all legion.

His favorite game of thrones experiences, how he has dealt with injuries in the past, what his long term aspirations are, and more. As a genuine Hathor fan. Fan, I had a hell of a good time talking with him. Really enjoyed the discussion and where it went, and the information that he shared, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Hafthor: Thank you so much, man. It’s great to be finally speaking. I’m a fan as well. I’ve read your books. They’re quite interesting. It’s awesome to be finally speaking. 

Mike: Yeah, thank you for taking the time and figuring it out with your schedule. You’ve been traveling a lot, right? 

Hafthor: Yeah, I’ve been busy with traveling and all kinds of work.

But right now I’m staying home and mainly just 100 percent focusing on World Series Man, where I’ll be competing. To try to defend my title in June. Yeah, a couple weeks away, right? Yeah, 13th of June it starts. So yeah, very close. Two and a half weeks away. 

Mike: That’s my birthday. 

Hafthor: Oh, that’s awesome.

That’s cool. So you’re going to do great. Yeah, definitely. 100%. Yeah, that’s awesome. Wow. 

Mike: Yeah. So I’m curious, what does your training look like in preparation for one of these events? How do you work it in terms of, you can go into as many details as you want. Really. The people listening are pretty familiar with periodization and how you regulate volume and intensity.

I’m just curious myself. And how do you prepare yourself for what is, I’m assuming that you’re working up to essentially this is your maximum capacity in one of these events, right? 

Hafthor: Let’s do stuff. Tell me, like I train five times a week and I do pressing actually twice a week. Yeah. I do overhead and back exercises together.

I’m squatting once a week and deadlifting once a week with a lot of obviously accessory workouts in it as well. But with Strongman, what takes the most time, and I’m usually in the gym roughly about, two or three hours. The reason why I’m so long is because, the set of the equipment, put it back and everything.

It takes longer than just water building, where you can just walk up to a machine and do your 12 reps, four sets, and then you go up to the next exercise. Struggling is a lot like the equipment that we use, the log, the big tires, the little flip, the farmer’s walk, it takes time. And that’s why my exercise can sometimes take up to three hours.

Sometimes I might even split my sessions up to two parts because I don’t like to train that long. So let’s say if I feel like it’s going to take even more than three hours, then I will definitely take a break. I will train for maybe a one and a half hour. Take a break, eat and come back and finish my session.

And when I’m training heavy, let’s say if I’m doing a heavy sets of deadlifts, I can rest up to 10 minutes between sets. There’s a lot of rest, but when you’re trying to maximize your strength and when you’re going up to 400 kilograms, I find that eight to 10 minutes is the best way for me to get maximum strength.

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. My version of that is maybe lifting 400 pounds and resting maybe three or four minutes in between sets. When you’re working up in terms of intensity, in terms of load, the amount of weight on the bar, are you setting PRs normally in the gym or is it usually at events where that’s where you’re going for your best?

Hafthor: It usually happens. In events, I want to peak when I compete, but if it happens during my preparation, then that’s just a good thing. And it might happen let’s mention that again, like I might do a PR once or twice a maximum a year. It doesn’t happen more often than that. Then I just do my PRs in a competition.

This year, I did a PR before Arnold Classic in Columns, Ohio. In my training session, I went up to 470, I believe, 2 kilograms or 3. Something like that, 473 kilograms. 

Mike: And just for people listening, that’s a thousand and 40 pounds, give or take depending on if it’s three or two, but that’s a small car. Yes.

Hafthor: Yes. So I went for PR there and the only reason I decided to go for PR, because I knew I had more than 10, I would never go for PR if I thought that was going to fail. Failing is not an option for me. I want to build so much confidence in myself that I honestly believe that I can lift anything. I train that way that I never really fail in my sessions.

I always get stronger and stronger each session. But I’ve trained like this for years now. I work with Sebastian Oreb, who’s a great coach from Australia. And yeah, I’m getting stronger, each year I’m currently the world’s strongest man. And I can’t compare. 

Mike: You’re always most always doing sub maximal training.

So you’re not pushing yourself to even the point of technical failure where your form starts to break down. That happens, 

Hafthor: of course, like for example, today I was training, I was doing two sets with 177 kilo log for three repetitions to work on my shoulder power. On the second set, on the second rep as well, I lost the balance and I fell back.

That’s okay. That happens, I’m not perfect and I make mistakes in training. I just decided after that set to say, that’s it, I’m not going to be annoyed that I didn’t finish my set completely. I make mistakes like everyone else. I lost my balance. That’s fine. I’m going to step around and now finish my set.

Other accesses, I’m always trying to improve every way I can basically, you know, and I make failures like other people, even though people might not see it because Instagram these days, 

Mike: it doesn’t make the highlight real. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, that makes sense. But in terms of your programming, you’re generally not trying to take your heavy sets to either technical failure or muscle failure.

You always have at least a rep or two in the tank. 

Hafthor: Definitely 100%. I’m obviously like pushing myself very hard, but I’m always improving, but I’m making sure that I have at least something more in the tank. 

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. And that’s generally a good practice, even for people who are just bodybuilding, especially with the compound exercises, because it can even just be dangerous for an everyday gym goer to put a bunch of weight on the bar and squat.

Until they can’t squat properly anymore, it’s generally smart for everybody to end most of their sets. Sure, if you’re doing some bicep curls I guess it doesn’t really matter. But on the big exercises, at least that’s what I’ve always recommended. And I’ve always done myself, at least over the last several years, is always leave a couple reps in the tank, one or two, usually.

Yeah, I agree. Causing the 

Hafthor: bicep curls or bodybuilding and strong menopause, there’s three different things. You can’t compare it to three different sports. People train differently. No, all bodybuilders don’t rest for 10 minutes between sets. I don’t rest 10 minutes between sets. It’s just when I’m doing really heavy squats.

And I’m doing maybe a very heavy deadlift. That’s like my maximum rest between sets. 10 minutes when you load this much, when you start to lose. Go out of that more than 400 kilograms. You have to give the body more rest time. We doing a program for, let’s say you, I would never put that in your program, resting 10 minutes or eight minutes.

That’s too much for you. Your load is less. And then therefore your training is different. Yeah, 

Mike: totally. For me and for most everyone listening. In between set rest on the big heavy like squats and deadlifts, mostly probably three to five minutes is reasonable. I think for most people, depending on, how you feel.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. What have you been working on in your last training block or two to improve on?

Are there any weak points that you feel like you’ve been trying to address or? Yeah, 

Hafthor: so I’m always trying to get better. I’m always trying to find weaknesses where I can improve something. Now, lately is stretching where I go and I meet a person three times a week and I’m stretching. I’m just doing a stretch session because I feel like I’m a big guy.

I weigh 200 kilograms and I’m two or five centimeters tall and my flexibility isn’t the best. And I believe with a better flexibility, I can perform better. I can recover, perform exercises better if I’m more flexible. So I did that this year and I definitely have. Better progress with that. Add it in my routine.

But I do a lot of other stuff, I do all the cold therapy a lot. Do kraston is? 

Mike: No. 

Hafthor: It’s like scraping. 

Mike: Ah, okay. Yeah I’ve done that before. Like a metalalmost like a shoe horn. 

Hafthor: Yeah, I do that approximately twice a week as well. There’s a lot of things that I do outside the gym that Makes me this level I am today, 

Mike: yeah, I mean it helps, I’m sure, with recovery, right? It just helps you be able to keep on pushing harder and harder in the gym. 

Hafthor: Yeah, that’s the main point, I want to recover as fast as possible so I’m able to go to my next session and push myself to the absolute limit, at least as far as I can, without going to failure.

What do you do for hot and cold therapy? I do it for recovery and to strengthen my immune system. I’ve been doing it for years now, and I do it at least three times a week, up to five times a week. Sometimes every day, and I do three to five sets as long as I want to in the hot tub, and I just take two minutes, three minutes in the cold.

So is the cold, is it ice water cold, 50 degrees water? Yeah, it’s pretty cold. I feel like if I don’t do it, I’ve done experience with it on myself. I’ve tried to not do it for a week or two weeks. In those two weeks when I didn’t do it, my body was aching everywhere. The soreness was just unbearable. So I just had to start doing it again.

And when I’m doing it, I’m barely sore. I just feel great. 

Mike: Interesting. I know there’s a bit of research on cold baths in particular and there’s no question that if the water is cold enough and you’re willing to submerge yourself in the studies that I’m thinking of, there are a few where it was submersion up to the neck basically.

So it’s more or less the whole body submerged for, I want to say around five or six minutes that it does markedly reduce inflammation. But most people like cold showers are a trendy thing. I don’t know. It was maybe trendier a year or two ago when Wim Hof was making the mountains in the media.

And we know that cold showers, although they’re cold, I’ve been doing it for a while just because it wakes me up in the morning and I don’t know, it became a habit, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same like what you’re doing. If you’re sitting. in a freezing cold bathtub, most of your body submerged for several minutes.

That’s likely to make a difference with inflammation. But if you just took a cold shower for a couple minutes, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. I don’t know if you’ve tried both, but the ice bath is just that what most people are not willing to do, like they might be willing to get into the shower for 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds, the end of their 10 minute hot shower, but to go into the bathtub with a bunch of ice in there and just sitting in there for five minutes, not so much.

Hafthor: Yeah, I agree. And we mentioned this information. That’s another part that I forgot to mention. It helps a lot with that as well. With heavy training, you tend to get sore elbows, sore biceps, sore knees, a lot of information go there. So doing the hot and cold, I feel it tells that a lot as well.

But I think it’s also a mental thing and you get used to it. It definitely makes you tougher on the longterm. So I do it also for that, I don’t want to do it always. I might be feeling tired or just Oh, I’m up to this fucking cold. I don’t want to feel miserable, but I do it because I know I’m going to feel better afterwards.

Mike: Yeah. That’s also one of the, I’m just doing showers in the morning, but there are some mornings or if I didn’t sleep well, it seems like some of those days, my body temperature is naturally just lower. And I’m like, God, I don’t want to get in there. And I live in Virginia. In the winter, it gets cold.

It’s probably the exact same what you’d have over in Iceland in terms of the water temp, it’s like in the fifties, but I think there is something to be said for just doing it anyway and doing it for that purpose where it’s yeah, I’m going to feel better after you have plenty of those situations in life, right?

Where I don’t care how much you like your job, whatever you’re doing with your time, there are always going to be things that you need to do that you don’t really want to do. Think there is a mental, it maybe helps you with that mental edge, at least a little bit where you get used to just forcing yourself to do something that’s going to be good for you that you should do, or you need to do, but you don’t really want to, and just being able to override your feelings basically.

Yeah. 100%. I’m sure like, when you’re stepping up at the Arnold, you pulled, it was a thousand 46 pounds for the record, right? Yeah. I use kilograms, but yes. Do you even get a little bit of that? I don’t want to step up to a thousand pound bar and deadlift it. Or like my body doesn’t want to, but I’m doing it.

I’m super pumped. 

Hafthor: I’m super excited for like lifts like that. And I honestly believe in myself 100%. I’ve told myself like probably a billion times before I’m doing that lift that I’m gonna lift that lift. I’ve decided to lift that lift a year in advance. I decided to do a record a year in advance.

Like when I did the record year before, I decided that I was gonna break that record again next year. So like I’ve had a lot of preparation and with preparation, when everything goes 100%, when your diet is on point, when your sleep is on point, when your training is on point, when you just don’t cheat, you’re just like, you’re working hard, very consistent with everything in life.

Like I never had doubts. I just know that I did put in the work. When I’m approaching the bar, I know I’m going to lift it. 

Mike: I could see that. It makes sense. Like that point that you just said of where, you’ve put in the work and you’ve done everything right. And so you have no reason to doubt yourself.

And you just know that I’ve been in this sport now for 10 years. I’ve learned a lot. What are 

Hafthor: some of the big lessons that you’ve learned? The biggest lessons, stay humble, stay hungry. I don’t know, it’s hard to say. It’s just you never know enough. You always can become better. The moment you think that you’re the best, or think that you can’t improve, or think you have that attitude, that’s the moment when you stop improving.

And, I had those attitudes along the way, and I’ve learned a lot throughout my years. I have a different mindset these days. I just know that they can always improve if I’m willing to put in the work. And I know I have to put a lot of work in it, but that’s just everything. If you want to become best at something, you have to sacrifice things and you have to put in the work.

If you’re cheating, you’re just cheating on yourself. 

Mike: Eventually, either it’s a major fall from grace, or maybe it just slip in your performance, or maybe it leads to injury or whatever. I’m sure with what you’re doing, you have to have all of your recovery protocols and you have to make sure that you’re managing your time.

Diet correctly, your sleep hygiene. It’s not just Oh, you’ve put in so much work that you can just coast. You have people that are always trying to knock you off the throne. 

Hafthor: No, of course there’s all the people that want to be the best and all the guests are turning their asses off and doing everything I think is more difficult to stay the best.

When you’re at the top, you have to be very hungry and so obsessed to stay at the top. And I’m that right now. So obsessed when it comes to being the best I possibly can. Like I’m willing to do anything to win the title this year as well. And I’m doing anything in my power to win it. For example, I haven’t mentioned that this yet.

I’m taking three to five minutes walks throughout the day. For my digestion, so I can eat more throughout the day, so I can finish my six meals a day. I never skip my meals. People fail a lot, I think. It’s with the diet, they tend to get tired or just 

Mike: lazy. Or just burned out on eating, right? What does your diet look like right now in terms of calories and macronutrients?

Hafthor: I don’t count the macros, I know roughly, I’m eating 200 grams of salt. rib eye steak. I usually eat rib eye steak. It’s higher in fat. I actually grind it, and then I make burger patties, and then I grill it. The reason why I grind it is because it’s easier to digest and easier to eat. When you’re eating six times a day, you have to think about those things as well.

What food can I eat that’s easy to digest and easy to eat? If I would be eating a rib eye steak, Every two hours, it would take a lot of chewing 

Mike: the world’s strongest jaw. 

Hafthor: I would be very proud of my job of doing that. Like basically if I’m going to run through my diet, when I wake up, I have six sacks.

Six pieces of bacon, bowl of rice, the spinach in it, then the next five meals are usually rib eye steak or any other meat, but usually rib eye steak grinded into patties with rice or potatoes. If it’s rice, it’s usually with spinach. If it’s potatoes, I eat the skin and everything. And then I have carrots, peppers in my meals as well.

And I snack on like tomatoes throughout the day. I drink like a glass of orange juice with each meal almost. I’m a huge believer in potassium, that potassium can improve your performance, improve your strength, 

Mike: and many people don’t get enough. That’s a common micronutrient deficiency. The standard recommendation from the Institute of Medicine is between four and five grams a day.

That’s just like a normal everyday person. And most people get maybe half that, 

Hafthor: maybe? Yeah, maybe that, not even. I think for females, it’s three or four grams. And for males, it’s I try to never get less than five 

Mike: grams a day. Do you supplement or are you getting that amount from food? Because it’s actually hard to get from food if you don’t pay attention.

Hafthor: I do get a lot from potatoes and spinach and tomatoes. And there’s obviously the potassium also in orange juice, in steaks. What I’ve been doing as well, I drink coconut water. That’s very high in potassium. 

Mike: I’d have to Google it. 

Hafthor: Yeah. Actually, like I drink maybe one liter of coconut water a day. 

Mike: Oh, coconut water.

Sorry. I misheard 

Hafthor: you. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: Absolutely. That’s 

Hafthor: two grams of potassium just in that almost two grams. So that’s a lot of potassium. 

Mike: Do you like bananas? Cause bananas are like my, I’ll eat one or two bananas a day. 

Hafthor: Yeah. I actually do eat one or two as well. and it’s high in potassium as well.

It’s funny how we can maybe like sometimes forget. Yeah, I eat this as well. Oh, I eat, have a banana, like these small things that you call snack. Yeah. But yeah, I do. I do try to have a count of my potassium intake and roughly five grams a day. 

Mike: Yeah. That makes sense. What’s your sleep hygiene like?

How much sleep do you get? Do you have a very specific routine? Do you go to bed at the same time every day? 

Hafthor: Yeah. So I go to bed usually almost Every night, I don’t want to go later than 11 p. m. and try to get at least eight hours every night. If I wake up earlier, try to fall asleep again and try to sleep like at least eight hours for maximum recovery.

But if I wake up, I just can’t 

Mike: sleep more hours. I just wake up and I have breakfast. Yep. And have you tried sleeping more than that? Because, there’s some research out there. I think of one study with some of the basketball players and increasing their sleep from Eight hours to 10 hours a night markedly improved.

I think it was their accuracy either on free throws or three pointers. I don’t remember. It was a couple of years since that study came out, but there were a couple of their similar studies, the takeaway from the few studies out there on the benefits of getting a bit more sleep than even would be normally recommended was just that it improves performance basically.

Hafthor: Yeah, I would, if I could, I just can’t sleep more. 

Mike: Yeah. I’m the same way. Yeah. I’ve always 

Hafthor: been that way. I do try to take naps at least one a day. I’m never able to take two naps, but I try to get at least one time, like a nap for 20, 30 minutes. 

Mike: My sleep has been on and off since my kids. I know that’s pretty normal, because I was a deeper sleeper.

Before I had kids and now I tend to wake up easier and I think that’s normal. 

Hafthor: Do you get eight hours every night? 

Mike: I try i’m in bed for eight hours. So like you, I usually go to bed around 10, never any later than 11, but I would say between 10 and 10, 15, my alarms at six. And these days i’ll usually wake up probably at least once and some nights it’s just bad and there’s no real explanation for it.

I’ll wake up a number of times last night was just not good. I don’t know why You But I’m not too concerned about it because I’m doing everything right. There’s nothing else that I can do physically to try to sleep better. 

Hafthor: Quick question. Have you tried the supplement Lunar from Legion? I find that’s been helping me a lot.

Mike: I have actually. And whatever is is going on is too strong for any supplements because there’s just no real correlation, between, the taking supplements and sleeping better or taking supplements and not sleeping better. So melatonin does seem to help a little bit. So I know that, but I’m not too concerned about it again because I’m doing everything right that you’re supposed to be doing.

And it is pretty normal, when you have young kids to just naturally be a worse sleeper. There’s also, I don’t know, over the last couple of years, as the businesses have grown and the problems have grown, I guess maybe there’s, I’ve been impacted probably by life stress to some degree as well.

Have you run into that? Just with the amount of training that you’re doing and the amount of travel that you do, and just the bigger everything gets, the more, Of course, exciting. It is. But at the same time, I feel like I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but it takes more, not necessarily effort, but it can be easier, for me, at least to get a bit more quote unquote serious.

It becomes a bit harder to maintain a kind of carefree, not careless, not like I don’t care, but more just carefree and not particularly, worried about things. And it just felt like it was easier. To just focus on the work and just keep on going when things were smaller. That’s how it is for me at least.

Yeah, 

Hafthor: of course. 

Mike: When I 

Hafthor: think 

Mike: if I think 

Hafthor: about like 15 years back, like I never had a problem with sleeping and I just slept like a rock. Nowadays. With everything going on like you said, with your company growing and with more things going on in your life, it, it gets harder and I ran into that as well.

But overall, I’m quite happy with my sleep at the moment. It could be better. It could be worse. I do wake up At least once, sometimes like even more up to three, four times. That’s very annoying if that happens, but it does happen, but that’s just life with everyone, people have their own problems.

Everyone has something on their mind that is maybe affecting their sleep. 

Mike: Do you have a, any sort of maybe routine or specific things that you like to do at night to help you relax? 

Hafthor: I try to stay off my phone. When it comes close to bedtime, I put it away. I don’t sleep with it in my bedroom.

I try to have my room as black as possible, and I do I actually sleep with a CPAP machine, and that helps me a lot. After I got used to using that, my sleep become a lot better. My sleep has actually improved a lot. It started to improve late 

Mike: 2017 since you started sleeping with the machine. 

Hafthor: Yeah.

Actually I’ve had it for years. I just never got used to it, but I knew if I would get used to it, it would improve my sleep a lot. I forced myself. Actually, my wife, she helped me a lot. One day I just told the babe, can you just please tell me like, if I don’t sleep with it, I snore. That bothers her sleep as well.

So I just told her like, if I take it off and your image snores, can you just please tell me to put it back on? Because like when you’re half asleep, you can’t really think, you’re just like trying to sleep. So she started to do that. And then that’s the time when I got used to it. And then my sleep got improved and everything improved and I started to win everything.

I won everything since. I won everything back in 2018. I won everything this year. And it’s With my sleep improving, like everything got better. Like my mood is better. Everything is just better. My strength is improving. This is awesome. Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. Sleep is the ultimate biohack. I’m not a fan of that term and I’m not a fan of that whole trend, but if you want one weird trick to improve literally every aspect of your life, anybody listening is probably going to love this.

Try to sleep as well as possible. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to sleep 10 hours a day, but if you can just be in bed for, let’s say anywhere between seven and eight hours and have good quality sleep. Yeah, I know exactly how that is on the days, especially since over the last couple of years where my sleep has been hit and miss, it’s now especially clear to me because previously I would just sleep good, basically always.

And so I just took it for granted. I didn’t really realize how big of a difference it makes in everything inside and outside of the gym. 

Hafthor: Yeah, and one tip for people out there listening, easy tip that people might not really, I can probably guarantee that a lot of people do this all the time. They take their phone to the bedroom and they lay in bed and all of a sudden, an hour has passed and they’re in their phone texting someone or sending an email or doing something, 

Instagram, for example, 

Mike: watching videos of you training, 

Hafthor: for example, if you want to improve your sleep.

Put your phone away elsewhere, not in your bedroom. Don’t take it with you in the bedroom. When you go to sleep, just go in the bed, lay on it, and go to sleep. Close your eyes. And I promise you, you will fall asleep faster. You will sleep better, 100%. That’s the one tip I can give you guys. And 

Mike: it’s going to work.

My wife likes to be on her phone before she goes to sleep. But funny enough, I would tell her this, right? But she didn’t actually have trouble sleeping. And she would tell me like, it actually, it makes me really sleepy. And then I fall asleep quickly. And I was like, okay, this is one of those tips that even if you use the, I don’t know what they call it an iOS, but where it changes the temperature of the light.

So it’s not blue light. It’s like this warmer light. And yes, we, okay. We know that’s a little bit better than just blasting yourself right in your face with blue light, right before you want to go to sleep, but still just having light in your face before you want to go to bed is not good for melatonin production.

It. But to her credit, I guess it works because she’ll be on her phone for maybe five minutes and then she’s very tired and then she just falls asleep and she sleeps fine. So I guess you can’t argue with 

Hafthor: If it works for her, it might work for some people. Exactly. 

Mike: No. And that’s the point is that, yes, for most people that probably would not help them for whatever reason.

For her, it’s just like after taking care of the kids all day and doing everything she has to do, it’s her way to just turn her mind off and Have her time. Yeah. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, no one’s asking anything of her and she doesn’t have to talk and she doesn’t have to think about anything and she can just look at pretty pictures on Instagram or something, 

Hafthor: yeah, that definitely might work for some people. So I’m not saying necessarily, okay, I think it backed me. It might not work for everyone, but if you’re having trouble with sleeping, try it at least and see if it works for you. 

Mike: Something also that has helped. I guess for me, my issue hasn’t been falling asleep.

It’s just staying asleep. I’ll tend to wake up anyway. Yeah, one to a few times a night, but for falling asleep, something that has worked nicely for me is focusing on relaxing all the muscles in my body, like starting with my face and my jaw and then letting my shoulders drop and just moving down my body, consciously relaxing everything and then just not thinking about anything.

Just taking kind of slower rhythmic kind of breaths. And usually I’ll be able to fall asleep fairly quickly if I do that. So for anyone listening who has trouble falling asleep, you can try that. It might help. There have been articles on the internet that have gone around, which I think it was like from some of them say Oh, this is how military people fall asleep in two minutes flat or like how airline pilots or whatever.

But. The method is always some version of that. And then there’s also like some visualization, which I find I don’t really need to do. But I think the two things were one, picture yourself like lying in a canoe in the middle of a serene Lake and looking up at the stars. And then the other one is picture yourself cocooned in a black velvet hammock, almost those two, or just repeat to yourself over and over. Don’t think. And those I haven’t needed to do because I haven’t had a problem like trying to shut my mind off. Usually it’s okay. I can just lay there and not think about anything until I fall asleep.

But anyway, for anyone. Listening who has had trouble falling asleep. Those tips have worked for me and apparently are used by many other people who can fall asleep in a few minutes. I’m not that fast, but 

Hafthor: I’ve actually never tried it. I haven’t given it a go. 

Mike: Yeah. The relaxation definitely will help. It just feels good.

You just relax. And like for me, I never noticed when I first started doing that, that my jaw would always be clenched a little bit and my shoulders would be shrugged up a little bit. And simply releasing my jaw and my face muscles and letting my shoulders drop down and just feel relaxed, felt more relaxed than clenched jaw and shrugged shoulders.

Hafthor: Yeah, definitely. 100%. Yeah, that was a cure all go. I honestly think after I got used to the CPAP, That’s like just hearing that noise when it’s on, that’s like a sleep medicine for me. I just get so relaxed. The moment I put the CPAP on, I think I fall asleep 

Mike: very fast, like in probably five minutes.

Nice. I don’t know what the machines sound but I’m sure it’s just a white noise. Something is very soft, just like relaxing to me at least. And your wife doesn’t bother her. No, she’s just happy because I don’t snore anymore. Yeah. Yeah. No, I guess if it’s like, you got to take your pick, we can have the, yeah, the soothing soft white noise or the snoring.

I snore sometimes. And I thought about doing a sleep study just for fun, just to see if it’s something like that. Cause that could also be part of the issue as I’ve gotten older, could just be breathing obstruction. Yeah. Might be. What is your supplementation routine look like right now?

Currently, while I’m using Lytion, It’s a shameless plug of mine, of course, but I had to add it. 

Hafthor: I do take mostly of what I use like on a daily basis. It’s the Atlas Gainer. I use it always after my sessions. I use the Pulse pre workout before my sessions. And I use the Recharge as well post workout after my sessions.

I do take the Lunar Sleep. I do take that before bed. And I do take also the casein before by the small. 

Mike: Okay. 

Hafthor: So those are my main, what I use on a daily basis. 

Mike: Interesting. So are you taking any sort of a mega three supplement? 

Hafthor: I do. Yeah, I do. You guys have, Oh my God, you have the Triton. Yeah. I do take that on daily basis as well.

I do take vitamin D and like magnesium and all of those. I just forgot it because I put it all this, like I have a box of vitamins where I put throughout two weeks straight, I have it all in there and I just take it with my breakfast all mornings. 

Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. I do a little satchel every day.

Just put my daily in a little paper towel and bring it with me. 

Hafthor: It works great for me. I have a lot of proper outserts, I don’t take lunar. Every single evening, just because on days where I feel like I need it, I won’t take it. So I can feel that fact. 

Mike: Yep. Yep. 

Hafthor: And when I need it, when I take it, it definitely helps me.

Mike: Yep. That was the intention with that formulation was something that you don’t necessarily take every day, but you save it for like exactly like that. Maybe you take it every other day or just a few days a week. So it stays maximally effective. And I think also. It is generally a good idea to not supplement with melatonin every day.

If you don’t need to. 

Hafthor: My sleep is quite good on a normal base, but of course you have days where you just don’t, because I want to have a routine 100%. So let’s say if I’m just not tired and it’s 11 PM, I’m going to take lunar and I’m going to force myself to bed. That makes sense. I don’t want to stay up late.

I don’t want to change the routine. I want to, I like to stay in a good routine. 

Mike: Yeah, same. And you have to with what you’re doing. Cause you know that, like you’ve mentioned earlier, that it’s the accumulative effects of all the little things that you’re doing add up. It’s not just getting in the gym and moving a lot of weight.

It’s all the little things that support that. And so that comes down to the routine. There’s no other way to do it. You hear about those stories here and there of, I think of. I don’t watch American football. I don’t really pay attention to American football very much, but a couple of the guys in the office do.

And they’ve mentioned there have been some, I want to say, was it Terrell Owens? Yeah, maybe I’m remembering wrong, but there have been some specific, I think, mostly wide receivers. These guys who were just super freak athletes and all they would eat just like McDonald’s every day. And they wouldn’t pay attention to anything.

And they would. Show up late to practice and not really try. And they’re just for a period. They’re just incredibly good. And those stories, people hear those things and they’re interesting. That’s more interesting if that’s sexier or more glamorous than what you’re talking about. But the majority of the people who are at the top of their.

Professions are exactly like that. They have very specific routines and they could tell you on any given day at any given time exactly what they’re going to be doing. And most of their life revolves around what’s essentially their work and their routine that allows them to perform at such a high level, right?

Hafthor: I’ve been around athletes like that, that are just like, The right word is just laziness, they’re just lazy and they just like they eat hamburgers, pizzas and stay up late, they even might drink. In different sports, guys like that, and I’ve been around guys like that and they still perform like you’re just looking at them, you’re just like, whoa, this guy is a superhuman, it’s just incredible how good he is or how strong he is or how fast he is, yeah, I’ve seen many guys like that in my career. 

Mike: In many cases, though they don’t last is the thing. Usually you don’t see them performing at that level for sure, they have their 15 minutes of fame, which may extend out depending on what it is for a little bit longer, but eventually all the bad habits catch up with them, right?

Hafthor: Yeah, usually it’s like younger athletes around 20s who can’t get away with these things, and somehow they’re just able to eat shit and might train okay, but they might get away with it. But when you’re getting older, it will get worse. tougher. It will get harder. And then it might be too late to try to work your ass off and try to be on point with everything.

Mike: Yeah, there’s the physical side of it. Then there’s also the psychological side of it, right? So if you’ve been very loosey goosey with diet and maybe less so a training, but just in general, and then all of a sudden, maybe there are some injuries now and things are not What they were, there’s the physical side of it.

Yeah, it may be too late in that regard, but then there’s also, I think it would probably be very hard psychologically to go from being so lackadaisical and so freewheeling with your routine to then have to go to what you’re doing. Everything needs to be very precise and very strict and you have, you’re spending most of your time.

In a purposeful manner, like you are doing the hot and cold therapy because of this reason, and you are eating these times, these foods for this reason, and everything is very regimented. For many people, that sounds like torture, like for me, it’s just like 

Hafthor: part of my life doing it now for 10 years straight.

I honestly love it. Generally love what I do, and that’s a great thing. Even though it’s a lot of work and I put a lot of time and effort into the things I do, I still love it. I love every time of it and that’s a great thing and that’s why I’m probably so successful in it, because I do enjoy working my ass off in the gym and outside the gym as well.

What drives you? What drives me? It’s a lot of different things, probably proving people wrong in some part, the naysayers, the people that say that I can’t, or those people, they might try me, but also my family. I have a huge support system, and having their support means a lot to me, and I want to make them proud.

I just, in general, I want to work hard. I want to achieve my goals. Those two things probably drive me the most, and I don’t need anything else. I remember back in the days when I started competing, people said, Thor is gonna, Thor has a potential in winning the World Series, man. But he’ll never win the Arnolds.

Those things when people say that you can’t, that puts a fire inside of me. That’s you just make me hungry to work harder to make sure I win it. To prove you guys wrong. And yeah, I remember those days when people said that they never win the Ardnalds because it was too heavy, I was too tall, my squat wasn’t strong enough, my overhead pressing wasn’t strong enough, and that was enough.

I worked my ass off every single day to make sure that I would improve and get stronger so one day I would win the Ardnalds. And I won it first time in a year. 2018 and this year as well. I actually dominated this year. I won three out of five events. It was quite dominant performance. It’s a great feeling when you do something that people said that you would never do.

That’s the best feeling. And it’s just this feeling of being the best at something is the best feeling in the world. I can’t explain, it’s just, I thought when I would win the world’s six men, I thought, Oh fuck. When I wouldn’t have the world’s six men. My hunger might go away or, but no, it didn’t.

It’s just the feeling of being the best. It drives me more. It’s just because I know the other guys, they want to take the title away. Just thinking about it. It’s so driven and so obsessed with everything. When I’m sitting on the sofa at home, I’m like, Just finish my meal or sitting at the kitchen table.

Just finish my meal. I’m just like, what else can I do? Yeah, let’s go hot and cold. It was, I’m just thinking about one thing and I’m thinking about winning that contest. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. And it’s just I don’t know. I’m just, in general, I’m just a very driven person. In general, I just really want to win.

I want to be the best. 

Mike: That makes me think of an interview with Tiger Woods when he was in his prime, when he was winning everything and he was to the point where other professionals were complaining basically that this is bullshit. This guy, half the time, if he’s in the tournament, we’re just playing for second place.

Hafthor: Yeah, that’s crazy. I’ve heard that myself as well. When I’m competing, the guys are just like just have to compete for second. At that moment when they say that, I know I won the contest because I know that they’re not strong enough in their mind to believe it. 

Mike: It’s almost like Sun Tzu the battle’s over before it even started.

Hafthor: Yeah, if they’re gonna tell me that I’ve heard guys that say that, Thor, you’re too good, we can’t beat you. That’s the moment I’m just like, wow, you just don’t wanna win.

Mike: That’s exactly basically what Tiger. So his answer, the question was like, what drives you? You’re so dominant yet. You keep practicing, you keep working harder and you keep just winning. More and more. And so they asked him like, what drives you? And his answer was one word. It was just winning.

That was it. Yeah. That’s a good answer. And exactly what you’re saying makes me think of that. And I can understand that. I’ve not been in that position myself, but I can imagine being in that position and that just being like the thing you just love to win. And it sounds similar that you just love to win.

Yeah. Winning is great. Losing is 

Hafthor: awful. Being second is the worst thing ever, and I’ve been second many times before. I placed second three times and third three times before I ever won the World Series, man. And that was, each year was just so hard. All the hard work, all the effort, that went into training was just like, fuck.

Each year I just thought to myself, what can I do? What what am I doing wrong? What can I improve? I guess maybe the sleeping was the thing, I put my sleep in late 2017. And also just like with AIDS, with the years, every year that passes, you become better and stronger and you have more knowledge.

And, it’s just yeah, like with everything in life, you become better at everything. 

Mike: Do you think that part of it was your body? And I’m thinking of even your bones having to adapt to, cause that’s a slow process of adapting to the types of loads that have been getting heavier and heavier over the years.

A professor named Stuart McGill on the podcast. It was, I don’t know, months ago. And he was just talking about that. He’s worked with a lot of high level power lifters and just mentioned that it can take many years for power lifters. Like they usually don’t start putting up their big numbers until later.

I want to say even in their thirties. It takes that long for their skeleton and their joints and their tendons and ligaments, all the stuff that just the muscles can adapt quickly, but everything else, it just takes so much time to build up a support structure in the body that can handle those kinds of weights.

Have you found that to be true? 

Hafthor: Yeah, I think that’s true. I feel like most of the world’s man winners, they usually win in the late twenties or early thirties. That’s usually the case, 

Mike: and there’s obviously going to be a skill component as well. It just takes a lot of reps, right? To get good enough to, 

Hafthor: yeah, it takes time.

I’ve been working my ass off for the last 10 years. It took me a long time to become the best. I feel like a lot of young guys, some people out there, they get frustrated with not seeing progress straight away. You just have to stay patient with your journey. And some people, it might take a lot longer than you just have to work harder and you have to stay patient and On the long run, it will pay off if you want it bad enough, you just have to want it bad enough.

Mike: Yeah, that’s true. And even I’d say that applies to whether you’re going to become the best in the world at whatever it is we’re talking about is okay. Obviously, there only can be one person who’s the best in the world at any given time. But if you are willing to work hard enough, I think that it’s fair to say that anyone can get a job.

Really good at anything. If they’re willing to work hard enough, can they be the best in the world? Maybe not. Depends on what it is and depends what we’re talking about and the person and whatever. But can they get really good? Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I think everybody can 

Hafthor: become very good at something if they’re just willing to put a lot of time and effort.

Be basically obsessed with it. You have to become very good at something, anything in life, basically. Some people might be gifted with some certain things, and find some things easier than others. But most of the times, if you want to be very great at something, you have to do time and effort and you have to be obsessed.

Mike: Yeah. There’s a bit of research out there on that from Dr. Anders Ericsson that basically just shows that when you look at really high level. Performing people, not just athletes, but also, he’s looked at people in the realm of business scientists, mathematicians, whatever that also Jeff Colvin spoke about this in his book.

Talent is overrated. Talent actually just doesn’t exist. Really factor in all that much where sure, you can have some people who are a bit better at things to begin with, but if you take that person versus someone who has a little bit less talent or maybe even quite a bit less talent in the beginning, and they both work hard and they both are given the same amount of attention from.

teachers or mentors. So you don’t have, because what can happen in sports, for example, is you have the kid who’s just naturally a little bit better than all the other kids. And then he gets more attention from the coach and then he gets to play in the better teams. And yeah, then he outpaces the other kids who weren’t as good.

But if you eliminate that factor from it, and then you look at people who have reached the top tiers. Talent. It’s a negligible factor. It’s just not true that the people who are at the top of any field were just naturally the best and it always just came easy to them and they didn’t have to work as hard as other people who didn’t make it.

It’s almost. The majority of their success comes down to a lot of the stuff you’ve been talking about here is they’re just doing all the little things right for a very long time, putting in the time, putting in the work, not trying to find shortcuts, not trying to cheat the process, staying patient and so forth.

Yeah, definitely. All right. So now I have to ask a game of thrones question. All right. So I’m just curious, what was your favorite aspect of the whole experience of playing the mountain and being involved in that show, which has been at this point, probably the most successful TV series of all time.

Hafthor: Favorite part, like acting part for me. In Game of Thrones Wars Season 4, when I fought Pedro Pascal, Red Wyver, and I squeezed his eyes 

Mike: out. That was the moment where your character was like, Oh shit, this guy is a savage. 

Hafthor: Yeah, that was definitely a highlight. I really enjoyed shooting that scene, even practicing it, with Pedro for a couple of weeks before was just great and came out great.

I was very happy with it. Then obviously, going at the premiere, that was a huge memory and great to be a part of that. I was very honored to, that I got that invite, that they invited me to go to the premiere with all the biggest actors of the show. I felt privileged and I felt honored.

They wanted me there as well. The monk and the character, even though he’s not always on the screen, he’s Still important character in the show. 

Mike: You were always waiting for the final showdown. You knew it was coming. So 

Hafthor: yeah, the people that were waiting, they wanted to see, I’m just going to say this now I’ll put in the intro spoiler alert.

Yeah. Yeah. If you haven’t watched it already, then stop listening. The people were waiting for the fight between me and my brother. And yeah, finally it happened. Epic fight scene that plays in Belfast and the most difficult part Shooting that fight scene was probably the makeup. Oh, that was horrible I had to because the armor goes off part of the scene every morning.

I had to wake up, you know me I’m a routine guy and I had to wake up One o’clock in the fucking morning, every single morning for a week to do a makeup for eight hours and then I shoot all the day and fuck it was a torture. I hate it. I love to be a part of it, but I didn’t like the progress.

I didn’t like makeup. I had four guys every morning. I had to sit still for six or eight hours. And they were like four guys, like doing the makeup, like with the small pencils, and it was so much detail and Oh, and then after all that progress, I had to start putting the armor on in the beginning, I had the armor on, they wanted me to do the makeup because the way they was shooting it.

The helmet and stuff went off. 

Mike: Yeah. And you also, you needed to see though through the helmet. 

Hafthor: Yeah. On top of that, we were fighting in the stairs. So like we were fighting up and back, like thousands of takes again and again. It wasn’t easy to be honest, but it was worth it. 

Mike: Yeah. It’s amazing how much work goes into producing a show like that.

I think. People that haven’t seen the behind the scenes don’t realize that what you just said, eight hours of makeup every day. And then I’m sure that your days were long in those days. Like what time did you get to bed on average on 

Hafthor: those days? I tried to go to bed like as soon as I came to the hotel.

Let’s say if I got to the hotel at 8pm or 9pm, can’t remember exactly, depending on the days. And I got maybe like 4 maximum hours of sleep, and then just worked the next day. It was torture. I lost 10kg in that week. Even though I tried my best to eat. I remember that there were times where my wife, she was feeding me.

Because I was maybe wearing the armor and the armor is like, it’s hard to eat with the armor and everything, so she was feeding me basically between takes because they’re like, I didn’t have a lot of time maybe between takes sometimes and I had to eat. So she was just trying to feed me between the takes and shit.

It was like, it’s a lot of work, but definitely worth it. Yeah. 

Mike: How long did that take? Go for it. You lost, whatever, 23 pounds or so. 

Hafthor: Yeah. 23 pounds over a week. Wow. Approximately a week. Wow. 

Mike: When you’re traveling, whether it’s for that, or you had mentioned you were in the middle East or how do you plan around that to try to mitigate the downside of weight loss or not being able to train your entire routine has to change, right?

Hafthor: Yeah, it does. Like I meal prep all the time and I take meals with me on the road and then I make sure that I have a chef or a meal company send or make meals for me. I always have my six meals every day. And that’s just part of my job. I make sure it doesn’t matter where I am in the world. I make sure that I take meals with me on the plane.

So I have enough for me to eat for my journey all the way to the hotel. And then I make sure that I have a fridge, microwave, and everything there. And I make sure that I can either cook or eat. Or I have a chef or a milk company ship me some food to me so I can stay on point with my diet. And then I always, before I travel anywhere, I make sure I find the best gym zones, the places, if I have a trouble, for example, I was staying, I went to Cairo.

In Egypt not so long ago, I was shooting a film and I had some difficulties finding a good gym there. So I had to like search online and I asked people on Instagram if they had any suggestions of where I could train at. I needed this and this. And I got some suggestions, but to be honest, not the best gyms, but I was able to do the work.

And 

Mike: sometimes you just have to make it happen. Yeah. No, I understand. I don’t travel much for work, and my requirements for training are not nearly as intense as yours or as specialized as yours. But my version of that is for anybody listening is yeah, when you’re traveling fits a hotel gym and you.

You can make do with that. Or sometimes I’ll look also around. Is there a local gym that I can maybe just get some day passes to or something and make that work and same deal, is there a grocery store nearby or with Amazon prime, like prime now, can I order groceries and have them be there so I can have food to eat because I often get asked, especially people who need to travel a lot for their work, they would like to be on some sort of.

Program, but they’re just curious as what’s the trick. And the trick is there is no trick. It’s just paying attention to all the little details. It just doesn’t make it happen. 

Hafthor: If you really want it, then you just, and of course it’s just going to mill. I use these thermal boxes. So I warm up my food, put it in that, and it keeps it warm.

It can keep it warm for up to six hours. So I have meals with me for up to six hours of traveling on the road. That’s pretty handy because, I prefer to eat my food warm if I can. But if I have to if there’s no other 

Mike: option, I’ll eat it. Yeah, it’d be epic for you in terms of your acting career.

Amazon, they’re doing the Lord of the Rings series. If there’s some way, I don’t know Lord of the Rings well enough. There’s probably a character in there that needs to be massive and intimidating. 

Hafthor: Yeah, it would be cool. Like I would definitely look into it. I’m always trying to, I’m going to go more into acting as well.

I still want to compete. I’m competing now on World Series Men and I want to take a small break, do some more acting. But like next year as well, I’ll still compete just because I have a passion still for the sport. I really love training. I love competing. So I still want to do it. Even though I can make a better living on acting and the sport, it’s just because of the love that I have for it.

It doesn’t feel like a job to me. As long as I stay healthy and I have 

Mike: no injuries, I want to keep on competing for sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Have you had to deal with any serious injuries along 

Hafthor: I had injuries. I had a nerve problem. In my right arm, in the beginning of my career, I had to have a surgery for that and that actually affected my grip strength a lot because one of my nerves were not working properly in my right arm.

So the grip in my arm wasn’t working 100 percent and I lost a lot of grip and that affected obviously when I was competing and my grip wasn’t maybe as good as it would had been. I was losing points in grip events and so on, but now it’s back to where it was like before and now my grip is one of the best in the world, so I can’t complain.

I tore my quad muscle back in 2017. I did PRP injection. Do you know what that is? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I did PRP injection and that helped me a lot with the recovery and I was able to, I actually tore my quad muscle. I have a picture. quote was completely black. And they told me that I can’t remember like six or eight weeks rest time.

And I was like four weeks out from World Series Men 2017. I was like, there’s no way I have to compete. And you know me, I’m obsessed. I was looking at my options, what can I do for recovery? And then I saw this PRP injection. In Iceland, it’s very hard to get that. So I had to I knew a guy in Boston, a doctor that I spoke to, and he was able to get me in a day or two.

After I tore it, I booked a flight to Boston and the day after that, I did the PRP injection. Literally like a week after, I was back squatting. Wow. It was like the recovery program was insane. Wow. It worked very well for me. At least like with my experience, I’ve done POP once and it worked very well for me.

Mike: For people listening, it’s platelet rich plasma therapy. And if I haven’t looked too much into it, but I’m getting this right, so they take blood out and they put it in like a centrifuge and they spin it and then they get, it’s like a, yeah. And I’ve actually, I had gotten a treatment on my face where they like put a bunch of needles in your face.

Cause I had acne when I was younger. And there’s still a little bit of scarring and I heard it can help. And I don’t really care that much, but I was like, sure, whatever. I’ll try it. And so they needle the shit out of your face. And then they do that. They take blood out, they get spun and they pull out the platelet rich plasma.

And then they, in this case, they just put it on your face and you’re supposed to put it on every day, but in PRP, they’re injecting it back into the area that needs recovery, right? Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. I think people also do it for joint issues too, right? It can help, I think tendon issues, even ligament issues or just joint issues in general.

Hafthor: I, I believe so as well. But yeah, I tried it once and it worked amazingly for me. Obviously I was able to get back into training like week after, always. Like I went slowly. I didn’t squat heavy four weeks after I tore it. I squatted 320 kilograms for 12 repetitions. with the actual bar in the finals of the world series man and I was super happy with that because I wasn’t sure how my squat was like when you’re four weeks out that’s the time when you have to really push yourself and squat heavy and train heavy but I couldn’t do that because of my injury so I was really frustrated part of the game but I don’t want to use the word lucky because I don’t think that’s the right word for it, but I haven’t had any other injuries.

I want to say that’s because I just work hard. I take care of my body. 

Mike: Yeah, and it’s probably all the other stuff that you’re doing to help with recovery and it sounds like you had mentioned earlier something about alcohol. It sounds like you don’t drink alcohol. 

Hafthor: Yep, I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t know anything that Can affect my performance.

If anything will make me weaker or like I said before, I’m just very obsessed with getting better. 

Mike: Even the nutritional side of things that’s going to with how you eat is going to impact that over time. And you mentioned some of the guys, yeah, when you’re 20 and you’re an invincible, basically you can get away with just eating a bunch of junk food.

But eventually the micronutrient deficiencies, they will catch up with you. And especially as you get older. And so having eating well for a long time, I’m sure it just makes everything in your body work better. And it’s something that is, I’d say it’s gaining popularity in the bodybuilding and kind of general fitness space.

But for years now, it’s been the thing has been, Oh, it’s so amazing that if you just control your calories and your macronutrients, you can have a six pack and eat like shit. Yeah, sure. You can. But you only can do that for so long until it starts to drag you down. Yeah, I agree. What are your long term goals?

That’s my last question for you. Where do you see yourself in the next three years, five years or 10 years or however far forward you’re looking? 

Hafthor: My long term goal, I’m married like you guys know, and obviously Have more kids. I have one daughter from my past relationship. She’s 10 years old. I want to have more kids with my wife and just stay driven and go more into acting.

Put more effort in my businesses that I have currently. Yeah, that’s about it. I stay in the now. I don’t look too far ahead. I try to work on what’s going on in my life right now, and I try to make those things better. I don’t worry about the future. I know that I will always work hard, at least I hope so.

If you’re willing to work hard, things will go your way. 

Mike: I can relate to that. It’s a point of where, that when you’re doing all the things right in the day to day, and you’re putting in the hard work and you’re paying attention to the details and you’re continuing to improve, we can be talking about training or talking about business or acting or whatever.

And I’ve felt this way myself that. It’s cool to have a vision for your future, I think. And it’s cool to have some kind of big, as they say, what is the beehive, the big, hairy, audacious goal. But it’s comforting to know that if you just keep doing everything that you need to do in the day to day, that the future kind of takes care of itself.

And you don’t have to, at least for me, I’ve never been like some kind of self help. Motivational people say, Oh, they write down their goals every single day. And there’s a lot of emphasis on, have your dream board of all of your, put up pictures of all the things, all the trinkets that you want to have and all the vacations you want to take and constantly looking at it in terms of stay motivated, look at the big picture, look at the big picture.

But I have found that by just focusing on the work and just the daily routine and making sure that is calibrated to an overall strategy that can produce the goal, then you don’t have to worry so much then about, maybe you think about it here and there, but it’s more about just continuing to do everything that you’re doing because it’s going to get you the least.

I agree with everything you’re saying, 

Hafthor: Of course, it’s good to have some goals. For the future, but live in the present and do whatever you can to make the best of it. 

Mike: If you were to keep doing what you’re doing, or if you take the equivalent of that in any other area of life, where it’s like every day, the person’s putting in hard work, they’re doing everything that they should be doing, they’re improving.

And if even if they never thought about where this might land them in the future. They never even really conceived of a clear goal of standing on that stage or getting that business award or buying the house or whatever. They would still get there. You know what I mean? It just comes down to do all the right things.

At least I think, maybe that’s not a hundred percent correct, but I think that’s more. Accurate than inaccurate by just doing the right things. That is the future kind of takes care of itself. Whereas if you flip that around and somebody is very much into Oh, they have to try to manifest.

They have to really focus every day on their goals and write them down and look at their dream board and the universe will just reward them. It just doesn’t work like that. 

Hafthor: Like you have to focus on the present as well. You can’t just dream about the future and, just get stuck there.

Yeah. And forget about what’s happening now, like you have to make sure you’re doing everything right now. So your future will be bright as well. I think a lot of people might get stuck in the future, maybe instead of the present. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. 

Hafthor: And it’s still, it’s obviously like you mentioned, it’s great to have goals and passion.

And there’s a reason if you have a strong goal, Something that you really want in five years and you have a plan, a good plan to reach there, then that’s obviously good, 

Mike: yeah. Yeah, I agree. I really appreciate you taking the time, Thor. This has been a fun interview. Honestly, I’ve really enjoyed it.

Is there anything as we wrap up here that you want to let everybody know about? Any new and exciting things or really anything that you want to let everybody know about? 

Hafthor: Maybe two things. I want people to know that Legion supplements are the best supplements. And then second, I want to let people know that I’m competing at the world’s greatest competition, the 13th of June to 16 in Florida.

Brought them home. If you guys are there come support, I would love it to see you all. I’m starting to go with my YouTube channel soon. I’ve been not great with it because even though people might not think English is my second language, sometimes I get side behind the camera or interviews and everything like that, because my English is not 100%.

First read it when you’re talking to a camera or saying something, you can’t find the right words when you’re trying to explain something or saying something and that can frustrate. But my English is always getting better each year, like with everything. I’m always trying to improve myself in every way I can.

Yeah, I’m starting with my YouTube channel again. So check that out guys. And thanks so much for the surprise. Thanks for listening. He’s a lot. 

Mike: Awesome. Thanks Thor. I really appreciate it. 

Hafthor: Thank you, man. It was great talking to you, man. 

Mike: Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

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