That strongmen have to be fat? Brian Shaw will convince you otherwise!

When you think of a strongman, you probably think of a massive guy with broad shoulders, huge traps and a relatively high percentage of subcutaneous fat. But part of that is just the impression their physique gives, and as American professional strongman Brian Shaw shows, his body fat percentage is relatively low despite his gigantic appearance.

For the purpose of passing the body composition test, Brian underwent a so-called hydrostatic measurement, which involved weighing before and after immersion in water. As fat, muscle and bone have different properties, the representation of each component is then back-calculated. And the result?

At the initial weigh-in, Brian's scale showed a weight of 174.5 kilograms, which is slightly less than during the greatest peak of his strongman career, but of course still relatively high by the standards of mere mortals. At the same time, the American strongman admits in a video of the measurements he posted on his YouTube channel that he and his wife both diet and use this method of measurement to check how effective their set eating plans are.

He then completed several rounds of measurements, with the results gradually calibrated as Bryan was able to get more accustomed to the cold water and how well he was able to exhale the remaining air from his lungs, for example. Thus, while the first result showed that Bryan had 19.6% body fat, the last (most accurate) measurement no longer showed only 17.6%. And it should be noted that given how massive his physique looks, this is nowhere near as much as many people would expect.

The result is all the more surprising because the strongman recently revealed that he currently takes in a whopping 4620 kilocalories - similar is the case with the popular Sam Sulek, whose diet we informed you about in a separate news item. However, Brian burns a lot of calories through training and especially preparing for his upcoming MMA fight.

More details from the mentioned measurement can be found in the mentioned video from the YouTube channel of the American professional: