Raising the Bar with the ‘World’s Strongest Gay’

Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media

Rob Kearney has just lifted a 220kg log off the floor and put it on his enormous chest. The long wooden cylinder has handles recessed into it, and weight plates bolted to each end. Standing in a gym in Massachusetts, wearing brightly-coloured tights, his mohawk dyed in the colours of the Pride rainbow, Rob is halfway towards beating his own American record in the log lift. All he has to do now is press it into the air and hold it there for a brief moment. A nearby camera is rolling, broadcasting his attempt to the world. Onlookers cheer. Everyone is watching. He adjusts his stance, widening his base. His weight belt squeezes his mid-section, holding firm. The weight is staggering.

Sharply focused, he makes his move, and pushes upward. And that’s when something goes very, very wrong.

“So I went along and decided to tear my tricep off my elbow. I don’t recommend it,” he laughs over Zoom.

If something weighs 220kgs, I offer, maybe don’t pick it up and hold it over your head?

Rob smiles, and doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, I didn’t.”

****

Talking to me from his home, Rob lifts his enormous left arm and shows me the line of stitches running lengthways down his elbow, plastered over with lengths of surgical tape. “The rupture was a little bit worse than they expected [from] what they saw on the MRI … The tendon was actually frayed a little bit when it tore, so they had to sew it back together, then anchor it down at the elbow. It’s actually not feeling too bad. The range of motion is pretty limited, but that’s to be expected. Luckily, not much pain, which is nice.”

How weak is the arm right now? “Pulling stuff is fine. I have full grip strength … It’s strange right now, because I can’t push anything, because the tendon is still healing. So I can’t brace my body on anything. I can’t lean on the arm. Even something as simple as pushing open a car door is pretty painful.”

Shortly after his injury, Rob shared a photo of himself leaving hospital, arm in a cast, anchoring some “GET WELL” balloons. Needless to say, his strongman competition plans for 2021 have changed drastically. “[Joey Kearney – Rob’s husband] has been amazing … He’s been taking care of me. Even on the day of surgery, he was absolutely fantastic. He showed up at the hospital with balloons when I was getting wheeled out, so he’s definitely pretty fantastic.”

Most musicians can tell you the album or gig that made them want to pick up an instrument – the kind of vivid experience that lights a fire in you and propels your life down a path. Rob is the kind of person who will make you want to find the heaviest weight you can and try and lift it. But pushing yourself to the brink of human ability comes at a cost. When you’re attempting lifts that are literally superhuman, something is bound to give, and that has just happened for Rob. What steps is he taking to safeguard his mental health through his recovery?

“In the sport of strongman, injuries like this … it’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”. This, unfortunately, was my time. I’ve been fortunate enough to do this sport for over eleven years without a serious setback like this, where I’ve needed to have pretty major surgery. For me, I knew pretty much right away what had happened when the injury occurred.” Kearney is a certified Athletic Trainer. “I didn’t see any reason to be negative about it, to be upset about it, because it is what it is. It’s the risk we take when we put our bodies on the line, and we’re literally doing superhuman feats of strength. I just got the short end of the stick this time. There are athletes who have had it much worse than me, who have been laid up for much [longer]. Before the injury, my job was strongman, and training and competing. Now, my job is rehab. It is my job over the next six to eight months to do nothing but get some conditioning in, keep my legs strong, and get this arm back to 100%, so I can be back on the competition field as soon as possible.”

It's going to be a lot to deal with, but he’s got the work ethic to back it up. On a typical day before his injury, he worked full-time as a physio, then gets in his car and drives over an hour to the gym to haul around eye-watering stacks of weights. Disarmingly humble for a man who looks like he could carry a Volkswagen, at 5’10” and around 130kg, he is the small guy in a field featuring two-metre-plus goliaths like Hafþór “Thor” Björnsson and Brian Shaw.

Forget B.M.I., and trying to measure body fat – you won’t find many shredded strongmen. The men at Rob’s level are enormous. Eating as much as they do might put you in hospital, not to mention put a serious dent in your wallet. Fortunately, food is normally covered by sponsors, so his fridge is kept heaving with the necessary supplies for a guy who starts his day at 5AM with fillet mignon, rice and eggs. The recommended daily caloric intake for adult men is between 2000 and 3000. On a day when he isn’t training, Rob is consuming about 5000 calories. On a training day? About 6000-7000. To make up the numbers if he is behind, he’ll finish a day with a pint of ice cream. This is the kind of diet I can get behind.

Despite a steadily rising profile in recent years, in no small part due to Hafþór Björnsson’s role as The Mountain in Game of Thrones, strongman is still on the fringes of the public eye. Ask the average person on the street about strength, and their first thought will probably be bodybuilders. The sport of strongman is perhaps looked at now in a similar way to how bodybuilding was when Arnold Schwarzenegger first started competing in the 60s, or the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the 90s – a niche subculture, but a growing one. “It’s kind of cool to be in this part of the sport, because we do see a shift in it getting more popular. We see a shift with athletes becoming more mainstream. It’s really cool to be on this side of it, and still reaching my peak, and really getting into the thick of my competitive career.” Kearney is turning 29 in November. “It’s exciting to see where the sport is going to go, and how it’s going to grow, and what opportunities come up next.”

From the outside looking in, there seems to be a bit of bitchiness in the strongman scene, from the fans and some of the athletes. The bad blood between Eddie Hall and Hafþór Björnsson, from accusations of cheating to questioning the validity of each other’s achievements, has escalated to the point where the two men have signed on to face each other in a boxing match in September next year. When I asked Rob about the support he’s received from his peers since his injury, he paints a different picture of the scene. “The strongman community, it’s the most beautiful community in the world. I mean, I was on a live Zoom call when it happened with one of my closest friends, Luke Stoltman, so he and I were talking about it almost immediately. I talked to Brian Shaw that night. Eddie Williams, from over in Australia, he contacted me almost immediately. Martins Licis, the reigning World’s Strongest Man, Facetimed me to make sure I was doing OK … The guys at this level, we’ve become so close, because there aren’t many of us. At this level of the sport, doing these competitions, you’re looking at maybe forty and fifty guys, worldwide. So we really do become such a close-knit group of people that, when something like this happens, it’s pretty devastating, because none of us want to see each other get hurt. We want to see each other competing and doing our best and breaking records and doing well. That’s the fun of the sport – when you see your friends succeed, you can’t help but have fun.”

As the world’s only openly gay professional strongman, visibility is important to Rob. Earlier this year he wrote an amazing op-ed for Barbend talking about the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility, and why he goes out of his way to smash stereotypes of what gay men are capable of. Rob came out as gay in the hyper-masculine strongman scene in 2014, and, dishearteningly, still cops daily abuse from people whenever he mentions his husband. “It’s something I still battle with on a daily basis on social media. I get negative comments and messages literally every single day.” By his estimate, he loses over a thousand Instagram followers whenever he posts a photo with Joey. Why so many homophobes follow an account called @worlds_strongest_gay in the first place is anyone’s guess.

Kearney described his relationship with his husband as “the best thing that has ever happened because of Grindr.” He met Joey in 2014, the same year he came out, on the infamous LGBTQ+ hookup app. “He’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. We met on Grindr. I actually wasn’t out yet, as a gay man, so I was one of the shirtless torso pics. [Laughs] We met through that, and really developed this great connection. We talked for two or three weeks before we even met for our first date, and it was fantastic … Neither one of us thought that we’d end up marrying the other … It’s kind of how the luck of the draw happens!”

I mention that I’m a fan of people like Rob making it cool to be a muscle-bound guy who’s still got a gut. At 6’7” and over 120kgs, I’m probably never going to get abs without being hungry and miserable. These days, looking up to people like Rob, Eddie Hall and Brian Shaw, I feel like I can shatter PB’s without living off brown rice and hunger pangs. “You know, I think it’s part of the aesthetic of strongman, obviously. We all like to be big and strong, but, for me, personally, I don’t have the structure or the discipline to do what bodybuilders do. I have so much respect for them. I think it’s absolutely amazing, what they do, but personally, that’s not my jam. I really don’t have that discipline to really crack down on the nutrition that way, and train in that kind of manner. For me, I like lifting awkward, heavy shit, and carrying it. That’s just more fun to me! [Laughs]”

What kind of soundtrack is best? What’s on Rob’s lifting playlist?

“It depends on the type of workout. If I’m going heavy, and going pretty hard, I’m a hard rock kind of guy.” When he slaps on the weightlifting chalk and starts moving mountains, he turns to Danish rock quartet VOLBEAT. “A Warrior’s Call is kind of my P.R. song. Otherwise, if it’s a lighter upper-body day, or a deload, I just like to have a lot of fun when I’m at the gym. I’m a big sucker for 90s dance tunes. So, LA BOUCHE, stuff like that, always gets me going. That just makes it fun for me.”

I first became aware of Rob Kearney when Arnold Schwarzenegger shared a photo of the strongman and his husband taken in Melbourne last year. Arnie is my childhood hero – what is he like?

“Surprisingly, so chill. Joey and I have a huge affinity for Australia, because we got married in Melbourne, and for him to go out of his way to celebrate our marriage the way that he did was completely unexpected. I can’t even put it into words. He’s an idol in the strength community. For one, I won the competition with his name on it [the Arnold Pro Strongman contest at the Arnold Classic], so getting to stand up on stage and be interviewed by him was unbelievable enough. Then, when I bring up that we’re getting married, he calls Joey onstage. He actually tried to crash the wedding, but he couldn’t get there in time because of his requirements at the expo, so instead of crashing the wedding he invited us on a chartered yacht ride around the city of Melbourne for the evening, and then took us out to dinner. He’s still somebody that I stay in touch with fairly regularly, between him and his girlfriend on social media … it’s such a surreal connection to have. It doesn’t feel like real life.”

I mention the numerous times Schwarzenegger has gone into bat for LGBTQ+ athletes, as well as those with disabilities. If you’re a troll, and Arnie has time, you’re going to end up looking very silly. “He doesn’t really back off when it comes to controversy, especially with more liberal things,” Rob says. “He’s come to back me up. He’s backed up Special Olympics athletes on multiple occasions. He’s right on top of it every single time, which is absolutely beautiful to see.”

How did he first get started? What first drew him to strongman? “I sucked at other sports. [Laughs] I was really, really bad at the traditional sports. I played American football, I played baseball, and I was a cheerleader as well, and I was mediocre at best in all of those sports. But what I really liked was working out in the weight room and getting stronger. When I was a senior in high school (so I was seventeen years old), there was a teacher who walked by the weight room at the high school and noticed that I was enjoying myself, and that I was decently strong. He actually invited me to train with him at a Crossfit gym before school, so I was going to the gym at five o’clock in the morning before school started, to get a little bit more one-on-one coaching when it came to the barbell lifts. Being at a Crossfit gym, I found out really quickly that I sucked at Crossfit, but I was pretty strong. I was at the gym for about five or six weeks, and I walked in, and they said, “Hey, there’s a strongman competition coming up, and we’re signing you up for it.” I had never done it … My experience with the sport was seeing it on TV, but I decided to go for it, had an absolute blast, got my ass kicked, and fell in love with the sport, and it kind of snowballed into a full-blown career here today.”

What are some of his tricks for dealing with pressure?

“You know, it’s funny. I’ve been doing this sport for eleven years, and people always ask, “Oh, how do you get rid of the nerves before a contest?” You don’t. I’ve been doing this for eleven years and I still feel like I’m going to shit myself before every single event. Before that whistle blows, I’m nervous as all hell. The nerves never go away … When I’m working out in the gym, I have an expectation that I’ve set for myself that I complete what is in the program, so if that means, in my program, Derek [Poundstone, strongman and Rob’s coach] says, “OK, you’re deadlifting 950 pounds [430kg] today,” and I’ve never done that in my life before, in my mind … he knows that I can do it, and it’s on the paper, so I have the expectation of doing that. I don’t let myself fail. It does happen every once in a while, but I don’t let it happen often.

****

As you read this, Rob and Joey will be making their way across America, moving east coast to west coast, almost 5000km from Massachusetts to Seattle, with all of their worldly possessions, and Glitter, the single most adorable English Bulldog you’ll ever see. “She is gorgeous and ugly and beautiful,” Rob laughs, “and completely useless when it comes to moving stuff.”

I mention that a move of this magnitude would probably would have been easier to do with two fully-functioning arms.

The pound-for-pound World’s Strongest Man smiles. “That’s why I have a husband.”

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