The World's Strongest Man Crushed Arnold's Iconic Workout

Following his win at the 2023 World's Strongest Man championship earlier this year, Mitchell Hooper is now sharing a look at his offseason training over on YouTube. In his latest video, the Canadian strongman and powerlifter takes on a new back and biceps routine, adopting the preferred exercises of bodybuilding legend: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was one of his earliest inspirations.

"The bodybuilding encyclopaedia was one of the first books I read when I started to get into training when I was 16," says Hooper. "I remember back in the day looking through finding a workout, hammering away, trying to build structures off what was in there and create my own workouts off the back of that."

Hooper starts off by torching his lats with wide grip pullups (5 sets of 8 to 12), T-bar rows (5 sets of 8 to 12), single arm dumbbell rows (4 sets of 8 to 12), and close grip lat pulldowns (4 sets of 8 to 12).

"Upper body strength is disproportionately good in bodybuilders, because their muscle mass is so high up there," he says. "I don't know what that is. Maybe strongmen should do a lot more upper body accessory work than we do, because bodybuilders are so strong comparatively."

Hooper ends on a "brutal" arm finisher: 4 giant sets consisting of barbell curls, alternating dumbbell curls, barbell preacher curls, and concentration curls which leave him "feeling pumped, feeling sore."

"It's much more volume than I would ever traditionally do," he says, "so I'll be sore as hell tomorrow, but building up the exercise capacity, it's a good feeling."

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