Brian Shaw

I think the first contest I did, I was somewhere just over 300 pounds. With my frame, I needed to add more weight and put more muscle on to get better leverage and be more successful. Just to get stronger, really. I had to work really hard.

If you're the best at everything, you've got no one to challenge you and make you better.

One thing that I've learned over the years with eggs is that you don't want to cook them too long. You want to make sure they're still soft, because in a big quantity, they're easier to eat if they're a little bit softer.

I don't care how much weight's on there. If you're doing 40 reps, that's cardio!

I know I'm big. I've been big my whole life. I've never had to prove how tough I am.

I'm a fan of functional strength.

Those Olympic lifters - how can you call someone the strongest man if he can't walk over to a car and pick it up?

If you're the strongest man on the planet, you ought to be able to pick up a stone or flip a tire.

I'm just eating to be the strongest human being on the planet.

What I will say is that there is no governing body in strongman. There's no federation. There's no group of people or person that overlooks the sport, or says that this is a world record, or 'we'll count this as a world record.'

When you are in a competition, and there's however many men competing alongside you, you do not get to determine when you go to lift... you don't know how many guys will make it to the next round. You don't know how long they're going to take.

I know in my training, especially when I'm building up to a big 'max,' I can take as long as I want to be ready for that lift and mentally prepare for it. In the contest, some of that goes out the window. When your name is called and the bar is loaded, you've got to go whether you're ready or not.

I always loved lifting and training and competing.

I watched World's Strongest Man growing up on TV and I just loved all of that, so I decided to enter a Strongman contest - just for fun. Really. For no other reason than that I just wanted to compete in something and push myself. I ended up loving it from the get-go and also found that I was very gifted.

I've always been fascinated by different feats of strength throughout history.

I've got a clothing sponsor that helps me out with my clothes. It's called Bulky Boy Clothing, and they pretty much provide me with most of the shirts that I wear.

I've had to have some of my dress clothes tailored.

Wearing jeans or any kind of long pants, it just sucks for me, to be honest.

I really don't like getting dressed up. It's a lot more comfortable to be in some type of T-shirt or dry-fit shirt and shorts. That's pretty much my typical attire.

My motivation is being the best. Pretty simple and straightforward.