Four times a week, you’ll find Camas resident Martins Licis working out in his home garage. Like many people, he will lift repetitions of weights to build strength. But most people don’t do 600 to 900-pound deadlifts or 500 to 700-pound squats.
Licis is a professional strongman who is currently training to compete in the Giants Live Strongman Classic in London on July 4 and another international competition three weeks later. The Columbian recently profiled Licis before his return to the World’s Strongest Man, which he won in 2019 and finished in sixth place this year. The four-day competition features grueling feats of strength like pulling a truck along a 100-foot course or throwing 30-pound sandbags over a 16-foot-high bar.
But it’s more traditional feats of strength that Licis is particularly interested in these days. In 2022, he launched with his friend and manager the YouTube series “Strength Unknown.” As host and co-producer, Licis has traveled to more than 15 countries to document and participate in ancient strength traditions, from sumo wrestling in Japan to stone lifting in Pakistan, and to meet the people who are keeping them alive.
Licis joins us to discuss the series, which is currently on hiatus, and how it’s expanded his understanding of strength.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Four times a week or so, you’ll find Camas resident Martins Licis working out in his home garage, like a lot of people. Then again, most people don’t get anywhere close to the weights Martins is lifting, like 700-pound squats and 900-pound deadlifts. But Licis is a professional strongman. In 2019, he won the World’s Strongest Man competition, and he’s just 10 days out from his next contest. But he’s not solely focused on competing. Since 2022, Licis has traveled to more than 15 countries to highlight and to participate in ancient strength traditions. His YouTube series is called “Strength Unknown.”
Martin Licis joins me now. It’s great to have you on the show.
Martins Licis: It is so great to be here, and what a great setup you guys have.
Miller: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Licis: I love all these offices with floating monitors. Seems like a mad scientist laboratory of some sort.
Miller: Or a good place to talk to somebody. You took a couple years off from competition recently, and then just a month ago or so, you were back competing again. Why did you want to go back to competition?
Licis: So I took a couple of years off because my body was starting to get burnt out. Injuries were starting to accumulate. I was just hurting for a bit. Then I did “Strength Unknown” and that was a good break. I did jiu-jitsu just to stay in shape. After two years, I started feeling good again. I realized I never really had an official retirement. I don’t wanna just out of nowhere say, OK, I’m not coming back without a proper good last hurrah.
So I started getting the itch again. I started to train heavy. My body’s continued getting stronger, I felt better and better, and I thought, OK, it’s time. Let’s give it a final year or two more years of competing, and I think 2027 will be my final year. I’m saying that officially now, so my fans can know.
I just competed in the Arnold’s [Strongman] Classic in March, got third place, and back to World’s Strongest Man, made it to the finals, took sixth. I was, by one month, the second oldest at World’s and the oldest at Arnold’s. So now I’m one of the old guys.
Miller: In your mid … how old are you?
Licis: I’m 35, going to be 36 in September.
Miller: So that’s old for strongmen competitions?
Licis: There are a few legends in the sport that have peaked or like still been highly ranked in their late 30s, early 40s. Then there’s even some competitors have stayed in the World’s Strongest Man competitive shape into their 50s, but it’s rare. Most of these athletes ended in their mid-30s.
Miller: For people who haven’t seen any of these events, what are some of the events that make up these competitions?
Licis: So the beauty of Strongman is it’s all about being able to adapt to whatever crazy heavy objects are in front of you. But the staples of the sport are log pressing, pressing circus-style dumbbells overhead, lifting stones. We have an event called the Atlas Stones, which are just these cement spheres that we lift up to platforms for the fastest time or heaviest weight. They can range from 300 to over 500 pounds sometimes. We pull trucks, we pull airplanes, we deadlift, we lift cars … Whatever is imaginable within the realm of capability of a human being lifting it, we do it.
Miller: It’s part of the idea that these are meant to be sort of extreme versions of useful body movements? I mean, like if you’re in a field 5,000 years ago, and there’s a huge boulder and you actually wanna grow your crop there or something, can you move that boulder? As opposed to how much can you lift in a pure bicep curl?
Licis: Absolutely. And I think that’s the beauty of Strongman. I find it to be the only true strength sport. Because there’s nothing ergonomic about lifting stones or objects in nature. They’re not meant to be lifted, but we have to figure it out. Versus doing powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting or bodybuilding, you’re lifting implements that are designed for the human hands.
Miller: What is an average day of training look like right now for you as you’re in the middle of competition phase?
Licis: Yeah, now on Tuesdays, I’ll start off with a heavy deadlift. Transition to lifting stones or doing some kind of farmer’s carries – farmer’s carries is you carry a big, let’s say, log on each hand with a handle attached to it, and then you try to go as fast as you can or as far as you can. Then I’ll end the day with accessories, and then on Thursday I’ll hit pressing, which will be like log presses or circus dumbbell presses. Then I’ll do like some bodybuilding for accessories. Legs on Thursday, I’ll hit squats, followed by yoke carries, then other leg accessories which are very familiar to most people. Then on Sunday I just do pure events. So whatever it might be like pulling a truck, flipping a giant tractor tire, or more stones.
Miller: Where might you pull a truck?
Licis: So I actually have something like a truck pulling simulator called the Exer-Genie. It’ll fit in your pocket.
Miller: [Laughs] A genie that helps you exercise.
Licis: It’s like this rope that feeds through a cylinder, and the more you tighten the cylinder, the more the friction there is on the rope, making it harder to pull. You could essentially simulate pulling an airplane with this thing as long as you could attach to a wall or a tree or something.
Miller: Do you feel like you have a weak point?
Licis: Oh, my weak point, it’s typically been my static strength. I’m actually 340 pounds right now. I’m one of the smaller athletes out there.
Miller: At 340 pounds, you’re one of the smaller athletes? What’s the average size?
Licis: There are guys that push it well into their 400s that are 6’ 8” and above. I’ve competed against a lot of giants in this sport. My strength has typically been my mobility, my explosiveness, and athleticism. But I would say if I had to choose one event, it’d be throwing. I struggle with throwing. If I get a lot of practice on it, I do OK, but I’ve messed it up many times.
Miller: How did you get into Strongman?
Licis: So, when I was 9 years old, I was a total couch potato, loved playing video games, and still do to this day. It’s the best form of recovery. But my dad had enough. He was a gym buff. He loved going to the gym and he just saw me being lazy, pulled me into the gym. So I started lifting with him. I hated it. I didn’t want to do it. But he said, “look, son, you gotta stick with it for a year, and if you hate it after a year, then maybe you could not do it anymore.” OK, fine. So I stuck with it for a year, and lo and behold I got addicted, but I didn’t know where it was taking me.
I loved bodybuilding. My dad trained me in everything, bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and I loved all of it. I wanted to combine it all. Then I saw on TV these guys doing Strongman competitions, and at this time I was also going to my farm in Latvia. I was lifting stones and getting curious like, what is the biggest rock a human being can lift?
Strongman, to me, was the answer to that. It combined all strength disciplines and answered what the biggest rock a human being can lift is.
Miller: I want to turn to your YouTube series, “Strength Unknown,” where, as I mentioned, you’re not just documenting various strength traditions around the world, you’re actively participating in them. Let’s have a listen to a clip from one of the episodes. This is after you tried sumo wrestling in Japan.
Licis [video clip from “Strength Unknown”]: So that was an incredible experience. I don’t know what happened because my head got knocked up. I got a major whiplash, and my nerve tingling went right down my arm immediately like lightning. Those warm-ups are no joke. At first when I’m watching it, it’s going slow, but you’re doing that for over an hour, just squat after squat after squat, and eventually my legs started cramping. You know what, that thing where you bring up your leg before you stomp? In the beginning, I don’t feel anything, but after half an hour or so, my abductors were just lighting up. I think that is legitimately a fantastic warm-up for leg day.
Miller: I love how you went from, I’m in pain, that was really hard to, you know what, this could actually be useful in the future. What were some of the hardest feats of strength or traditions that you learned that you did as part of “Strength Unknown?”
Licis: The hardest? OK … the first memory that comes to mind was when we went to Tibet and we lifted stones with the nomads. This was 5,000 meters above sea level.
Miller: 15,000 feet or so.
Licis: I think 16,000 feet. We’re talking right close to base of Mount Everest elevation. I underestimated it. I underestimated the altitude. I thought, OK, I’ll feel a little dizzy, whatever.
Miller: I’m a strongman, I can handle not having any oxygen is what you thought?
Licis: Exactly. Yes [laughs]. When we got there, everything was so tightly packed because we had many, many shoots to do, didn’t have much time. So we got to Tibet and we had one day to acclimate. You’re supposed to have multiple days. I thought, OK, whatever. It’s not that big of a deal. We’re just gonna lift some stones and we’re not like climbing a mountain or anything. That was a mistake. I was huffing and puffing those little oxygen canisters like my life depended on it just to get the shoot. And I did lift a stone, but even after just 10 steps, I felt like I was going to pass out.
Miller: What motivated you to start this series? To go around the world, and sort of embed yourself in different local communities and learn about and take part in their various strength traditions?
Licis: I think that goes back to … By the way, am I getting picked up OK on this mic? I just wanted to make sure.
Miller: We hear you great.
Licis: This is good? Alright. Alright, let’s keep it going.
Miller: No one has ever asked that, I think, in the history of the show. I appreciate it [laughs].
Licis: OK, so sound is good. We’re continuing. It all started off with curiosity. I got into Strongman because, well, one, I wanted to combine all these strength disciplines. But I was also just curious what the human body was capable of.
Then at some point, my business partner, one of my best friends, Romark Weiss and I started a YouTube series and we did a lot of collaborations with other YouTubers. It kind of got obnoxious because when you’re collaborating with other YouTubers, you’re trying to figure out what content that we’re shooting will belong to your channel, what content will belong to our channel? It just became a logistics nightmare and it wasn’t fun.
Then one day, we decided to visit one of my good friends, JF Caron in Canada, who’s a legend and strongman but had zero social media presence. As we went there, we were pleasantly surprised, this man has such a rich life that is not seen by the public. For example, he lifted in a barn. He had a cow stationed next to the weights that we were lifting. We’re doing yoke carries and farmers’ carries next to this pet cow. Then we went snowmobiling and he was a maniac out there going way too fast than what should be safe. Then we showed this to the world and all these people were like, “wow, there’s this whole side of this athlete that we didn’t know about.” It was such a wholesome, good episode of connecting to my good friend, seeing this side of him that is just unknown.
I loved “Parts Unknown,” Anthony Bourdain, and Romark and I had this idea. What if we do something similar called “Strength Unknown,” and we go and investigate cultures and characters and stories relating strength around the world that just don’t see the limelight?
Miller: I want to play another clip from the series. Let’s have a listen.
Licis [video clip from “Strength Unknown”]: This is the second part of our “Strength Unknown” Pakistan journey. Previously we explored the Punjab region where we became engulfed by the strategy of Kabaddi and the unique training styles of Desi Kushti. Our eyes were opened to the beauty of the region’s rich cultural and sports history, but saddened to hear that other interests have begun to take over. As is with most of the world, traditional sports are slowly fading from memory. There’s a general loss of governmental support, and as international sports take over media, interest from the youth too is waning. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight to keep the flame of history alive.
Miller: What kinds of efforts are there to preserve these various traditions?
Licis: So of course, it’s still ingrained in their culture. They are pushing to continue it. It’s just difficult. There is an effort to create more festivals to increase interest in the youth. But still, it is hard. It’s hard to capture the interest of youth who have so many more options these days. As a society, we tend to not stay in one place anymore and be ingrained in our culture that has developed over centuries in a specific location.
So because of that, I suppose I don’t have an answer for you other than they do continue to put on festivals for these events, and that does draw attention. But there needs to be more of an effort to preserve these old traditional lifting styles and sports.
Miller: Is the fact that these traditions are under threat from globalization, technology, distraction and travel, is that one of the reasons that when you were coming, as a Westerner going to places all over the world, that you were welcomed with open arms; that they were excited that an outsider was interested in their traditions?
Licis: Absolutely. That was very eloquently put. Exactly. They really took me in with open arms, bewildered that word got out about the unique traditions of their wrestling and stone lifting styles.
Miller: Can you tell us about one of the people that you profiled from Burkina Faso? His nickname is Iron Biby.
Licis: Oh, Iron Biby, what a legend. First of all, I wanna say that this man has a heart of gold. I’ve never met someone so kind and welcoming in my sport.
Miller: His heart of gold is buried inside 1,000 pounds of muscle.
Licis: Yes, and he has some of the strongest shoulder pressing power in the world. So I visited him. First of all, he’s a prince there, literally a prince of a well-renowned tribe in Burkina Faso. This entire country just upholds him on such a high status for what he’s been able to do. Because of that, he’s also been able to expand sports in Burkina Faso. He’s been putting on festivals for boxing, for lifting, and growing interest in Strongman.
So, the thing with Srongman is it’s been so centralized between Europe and the States. People like Iron Biby show up, expanding the sport in Africa, and now we have also people expanding the sport in Asia. It’s just becoming much more global and spread sport. So I think he’s just allowed it to be so much more accessible for the people of Burkina Faso.
Miller: Why do you think these strength competitions can unite and excite people? What do you think is at the heart of this?
Licis: One thing I’ve noticed in Strongman is there’s oddly enough more camaraderie and kindness amongst the athletes than I’ve seen in other sports. So it’s a bit wholesome to watch because we’ll cheer for each other. When we get a lift, we start clapping for the other athlete.
Miller: Why do you think that is?
Licis: I think because what we do is so brutal and so niche, and you need to have a lot of screws loose. So when you’re lifting rocks with other people of strength, you’re like, these are my brothers and sisters. What weirdos and wackos decide, “hey, I wanna lift rocks?”
Miller: I’m glad you mentioned sisters too, because I mentioned you were the World’s Strongest Man, but this is not just for men?
Licis: So for a while, this sport has kind of drawn in freaks of nature, right? The big 6’ 8”, 400-pound athletes. World’s Strongest Man has been just exclusively for heavyweight men. But lately there has been a push to include other weight classes and women as well. Especially in this new federation called the Official Strongman Games, which is the equivalent of World’s Strongest Man but for weight classes and women as well. So the sport is growing not just in terms of pulling more big guys in, but also people of all shapes and sizes and weight. And that’s needed.
Miller: We heard earlier that you have already announced officially that next year will be your last as a competitor. I’ve read that you are considering becoming a fireman next. From a professional strongman to fireman. Why?
Licis: Well, I want to do “Strength Unknown” so that my heart and love is still in that. But I really don’t like the direction that social media is heading in. There’s a lot more short form content. It’s much more fast paced, less informative, a lot more clickbaity. It’s like you go onto YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. It’s like entering an arcade or a casino of flashing lights, and I just cannot abide by the direction that social media is going in. There’s this part of me that just, I want to do well by people, do well for this world.
I like what firemen do. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with them. I did an episode on them. I just fell in love with who they are, what they do, what they stand for. I feel like that is a lot more authentic to who I want to be than doing short form content. I will always want to do “Strength Unknown.” I believe in that. But the work around it to promote it, the shorts, I gotta find it somewhere deep in my heart to want to continue with that.
Miller: Martins, thanks so much for joining us and good luck in your next competitions.
Licis: Thank you so much for having me.
Miller: Martins Licis. He’s a professional strongman, the host of the “Strength Unknown” YouTube series.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
