At a commercial gym in Barrie, Ont., as everyday people work their lats and quads, a wide-shouldered man some call The Moose is often hoisting hefty atlas stones or loading the deadlift bar with an astonishing number of plates.
That’s Mitchell Hooper, the brawny, bald, bearded 29-year-old gathering his breath between strenuous reps that turn his face deep red. Few Canadians know his name, but at international strongman competitions, the Barrie native has become the man to beat.
Strongman is a niche sport where athletes vie in various competitive shows each year, featuring feats of strength involving various extremely heavy objects like stones, circus dumbbells, vehicles, logs, and timber frames. Live audiences cheer wildly.
Hooper has made the podium at his last 23 straight contests, winning 15 of them, including eight of nine in 2024. Last year he broke a world record in the max axle press, by lifting 480 pounds. He has already won his first show of 2025 – the Arnold Strongman Classic, in March in Columbus, Ohio, his third straight title at that event. Its famous namesake, Arnold Schwarzenegger, handed him the trophy.
Now Hooper is off to the next big event, World’s Strongest Man, contested over four days (May 15-18) in Sacramento, Calif. He was the first Canadian to win it in 2023, then he came second in 2024. Starting with 25 men and narrowing to 10 finalists, it includes events like loading massive sandbags into a Tesla Cybertruck, moving gigantic stones and pressing a Flintstone barbell.
“When I turn up to an event now, I either win or have to explain what went wrong,” Hooper told The Globe and Mail during a visit to his gym earlier this spring. “At this stage, I’m manufacturing goals for myself just to stay motivated and interested, because I’ve won every single strongman title there is to win.”
He has a robust social media following, and that bravado runs through Hooper’s frequent posts – from training videos, to what he eats, and testimonials for his many sponsors, like protein powders, energy drinks, back support belts and a special mouthpiece he uses while lifting. He’s been outspoken and criticized strongman organizers for the way they run things.
Hooper vowed to chase a new deadlift world record in September, attempting to pull 505 kilograms from the floor, at the Giants Live World Deadlift World Championships in Birmingham, England. Hooper’s shins are scarred and scabbed from dragging a bar up the front of his legs while training the movement.
“Being the man in history to lift the most weight from the floor to your waist, in probably the most common movement in gyms, that would be iconic,” he said in a YouTube video.
Seeing Hooper mix with regular gym goers, he looks huge. He stands 6 foot 3 and weighs some 330 pounds, yet he’s smaller than many strongmen. Some of his competitors measure 6 foot 8 and over 400 pounds, like Hafthor Bjornsson – or Thor – the Icelandic strongman who also played the Mountain on Game of Thrones.
The 29-year-old Barrie native competed in World’s Strongest Man for the first time in 2022, coming in eighth overall. The following year he became the first Canadian to win the title in 2023.
“For me, I’ve found a perfect balance of around 330 pounds,” said Hooper. “Small enough that I can recover, run around, move weight really easily, but also strong enough to overhead press 500 pounds and deadlift 1,000 pounds.”
Hooper only began competing in the big international competitions in 2022, after an eclectic list of other sports.
Growing up, he dabbled in hockey, basketball, swimming, rugby and golf – he even did a junior training stint in Florida with pro golf coach Sean Foley. Hooper briefly played football at the University of Guelph while studying human kinetics, then lost lots of weight, tried bodybuilding shows and ran marathons.
He did his masters in exercise physiology in Australia, where he tried competitions for powerlifting, then strongman.
Invited to World’s Strongest Man for the first time in 2022, Hooper finished better than expected – eighth overall, plus he won his six-man heat, which included four-time champion Brian Shaw. It was the only major competition where Hooper didn’t make the podium.
Hooper has one of the top coaches, Laurence Shahlaei, a former strongman from Britain. Shahlaei says that Shaw and other legendary strongmen took many years to achieve their long list of victories, while Hooper is racking up wins quickly.
“What he’s done in the short time he’s been in the sport, and with how competitive the sport is right now, is truly remarkable,” Shahlaei said.
“I coach a lot of top-level athletes, and there’s very few that you can push as hard as Mitch and who recover as quickly as he can. A lot of people get upset if they fail at a lift or they haven’t performed well in an event. He has a unique ability to just move on.”
Hooper lifts five days a week and eats some 6,000 calories daily. Outside of training in Barrie for strongman shows, he runs a few businesses, including online coaching, a kinesiology clinic, and a clothing brand based on the slogan Lift Heavy Be Kind. He’s working on a book and a documentary, in which he says he’ll detail the struggles he’s had with mental health.
On the topic of steroids in strongman, Hooper said it’s taboo to discuss.
Asked how long he’ll continue competing, he said “If I’m doing this at 35, I’ll be disappointed in myself.”
Pressed about whether he’s concerned about his health, Hooper said, “Yeah, every day.”
Beyond weightlifting, Hooper also runs an online coaching business, a kinesiology clinic, and a clothing brand based on the slogan "Lift Heavy Be Kind."
“You would be an idiot to not be concerned – 330 pounds, pushing your body to absolute maximal exertion over and over,” Hooper continued. “When you deadlift 1,000 pounds, you could imagine the amounts of pressure you have to create in your body.”
He’s the father of a young daughter and has another one on the way. Hooper travels a lot, between his businesses and competitions.
At those contests, it’s clear by the hollers, crowds are entertained, as the athletes push limits to press a massive axle into the air, complete a deadlift, or race through a row of heavy atlas stones trying to muscle each up onto tall pedestals. In Sacramento next week, among the bellows, there will surely be some calling out ‘Moooose.’