1 year ago
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PA O’DWYER has had quite the journey to the biggest stage in strength sports.
Five-time Ireland’s Strongest Man O’Dwyer, 38, has cemented himself as one of the world’s strongest men over the last decade.
Todd Burandt
Instagram/paodwyer__Having grown up on a farm in rural Ireland, O’Dwyer told The Irish Sun in 2021 how he believed this had attributed to his success in Strongman.
“I was lucky, I grew up on a farm so I was always throwing and hauling s**t around the place,” he explained.
Once he hit his 20s, O’Dwyer switched to working on the roads, a job that usually led him to an evening at the local pub.
In an interview with the Irish Times in 2018, he explained: “When you’re working on the roads, there’s a heap of drinking that goes along with it.
“You’d be forever going for pints and then back to work the next morning. It was just a constant merry-go-round.
“Then the girl I was with got pregnant and I said, ‘S**t, I have to straighten myself out here.’
“I was drinking a lot to be honest and I was going down a bad road.”
But as it turned out, a trip to the pub opened the door for a change in lifestyle and in his career.
“I was 21 years old and I was about eleven stone (154pounds),” he said.
“I met this fella out one Friday night and I knew that he was into weightlifting. I said, ‘Ah, I need to go to a gym or something some of these days.’
“So he said, ‘Look, if you’re interested, come in Monday evening.’ I went in and he gave me a bar to lift and I just loved it instantly.
“It was the first time in my life that I’d lifted anything like that. That was twelve years ago and I’ve never gone more than three days in the meantime without training. It’s your whole life, really.”
O’Dwyer’s first pro competition came in 2014 when he finished eleventh at Giant’s Live in Poland, and he hasn’t looked back since.
He went on to win UK’s Strongest Man in 2018, making his first Arnold Pro Strongman World Series appearance a year later.
In 2020 O’Dwyer made it to World’s Strongest Man where he placed fourth in his group.
Two years later he finished as runner-up at Britain’s Strongest Man, returning to World’s in 2023 where he placed fifth in his group.
But competing at such a high level required dedication, and a huge appetite.
He told The Irish Sun: “Coming up to competitions I eat close to 9,000 or 10,000 calories a day and each training session is four hours long so it’s a strenuous time to be continuously beating the body with that many calories and all the weight lifting.”
This diet includes twelve 12 eggs per day along with venison and protein shakes.
Meanwhile, O’Dwyer has also built a substantial social media following, regularly posting updates from the gym along with general lifestyle posts.
A popular figure in the Strongman community and known for his quick wit, the Limerick Lion as he is also known has over 80k Instagram followers and over 15k subscribers on YouTube.
Todd Burandt
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English (US) ·