Being named ‘Little Hercules’ when you’re just a young lad might sound like some endearing term from your family because you’re just ‘so cute’ and ‘so big and strong’.
But for this guy, it was very much a valid nickname for being, well, actually big and strong.
Richard Sandrak earned the title when he was just eight years old, known for being the ‘world’s strongest boy’.
And you might imagine the Ukrainian-American would go on to be a man-sized version of the mythological hero but that’s not quite the case as he explained why he stopped lifting weights as an adult.
It’s quite the U-turn as the son of martial arts world champ Pavel Sandrak and aerobics star Lena Sandrak grew up wanting ‘to join in’ with his father’s workouts.
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This would include the kid doing up to 600 push-ups and sit-ups a day, 300 squats and following a strict regime.
Boasting impressive muscles and eight-pack abs, the lad could bench-press a whopping 95kg. By the time he was a teen, he could lift up to three times his own body weight.
But in an interview in 2015, Richard confirmed: “I don’t lift weights anymore.”
And he gave a pretty simple explanation as to why: “If anything, it just got boring to me.”
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Instead, at the time, he was working as a stunt man at Universal Studio’s Hollywood Waterworld Show.
Performing there, he would be lit on fire, get ‘shot at’ and plunged from a platform 50 feet into water.
Richard grew up being in the spotlight and has since shunned this, with his parents having been criticised for his lifestyle as a kid.
But he said: “People tried to make seem to be some of freak of nature - there are many kids that have a similar physique."
And it doesn’t seem he has any regrets himself as he added: “I’m very proud of my past. It’s not something I don’t want people to know, it’s just that I’m not going to be stuck living in it."
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Reports claimed that at one point Richard was at just one percent body fat which could be dangerously low.
The lad assured he was never ‘forced to train or do anything against my will’, and simply wanted to join in with his parents’ workouts.
Topics: Health, Weightlifting, Viral
Jess Battison