UR Podcast #010: Nicky Whelan, Strongman Competitor

Nicky Whelan has overcome adversity and life threatening injury, driven by obsession from a young age, to compete in and win strongman events.

He's also the guest for this edition of UR Podcast as we reach double figures with another super story.

Having discovered gym life in his late teens, Nicky Whelan stumbled into the world of strongman competition by watching Trish Porter lift a car in New Ross in 2001 and thought to himself "I could do that". Of course, you don't prepare to lift a car by going out and lifting cars, and it's that preparation, mindset and resilience that we touch on over the course of an hour in this episode.

A Wexford native, Nicky's been training 'properly' since he was 18 or 19. He was nearly killed in an accident at the age of 21. He came second in his first competition in 2010, and quickly went on to Ireland's strongest man, before finding himself as a reserve for the UK's strongest man.

In an open and honest chat, we talk about Nicky's early training regime, coping with injury and the toll strongman training takes on the body. Mental health and school age bullying come into play and we look at how strongman events are broken down, how you train and prepare and what the strongman diet looks like - then and now.

And of course, you couldn't leave a strongman conversation without getting Nicky's thoughts on what's going to happen between rival competitors Eddie Hall and Hafthor Bjornsson (Thor, aka The Mountain from Game Of Thrones) when they face each other in the boxing ring.

As we're finding out the more we talk to people about their stories, this one could have gone on for the night, but you've got 76 minutes to enjoy.

To all who've been listening since the first episode, we hope you've enjoyed the ride thus far. If it's your first listen, you've got nine other cracking conversations to catch up on covering rugby, business, Olympic swimming, MMA, gut health, sleep hygiene and so much more.

This is UR Podcast, so what's UR story?

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