Mark Felix is a man who turned 60 this year. He’s also one of the world’s strongest men.
Those are two sentences that don’t sound like they belong together. But far from drifting gently towards his twilight years, Grenadian-born English strongman Felix is still breaking world records involving close to half a tonne of weights.
At the Giants Live World Tour Finals this weekend, the strongman reclaimed the Hercules Hold world record with a time of 103.81 seconds. Athlete Eddie Williams had only just broken Felix’s previous best earlier that evening, holding on for 94.50 seconds. Felix stepped up and added more than nine seconds to the new benchmark, snatching the record back from the Australian, almost 25 years his junior.
For the uninitiated, the Hercules Hold involves standing between two enormous leaning pillars, taking a handle in each hand and holding on for dear life to prevent the whole arrangement from collapsing outwards for as long as possible. Giants Live listed the load as 200kg. That’s 200kg, per hand.
It’s tempting to watch something like this, chalk it up to freakish strength and carry on scrolling. And, to be fair, Felix is a phenom. But look back through his approach to training and there’s plenty of good intel for the rest of us who would simply like to keep getting stronger, for longer.
Before he was a fixture on our screens at World’s Strongest Man, Felix was a bodybuilder. He didn’t enter strongman until his late thirties, after his local gym owner suggested he give a competition a go.
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‘He invited me to make up the numbers,’ Felix recalled in 2022. He finished third.
Speaking previously about his training, he outlined a week split between legs, shoulders and chest, cardio, back, overhead lifting and event practice. Alongside the specialist strongman lifts were plenty of movements you’ll recognise from your own programme: squats, presses, rows, pull-ups and deadlifts, all simply built around progressively heavier sets of five.
5×5 methods are one of the most time-tested ways to build both strength and size, treading the line between being an out-and-out strength-building method and a full-on bodybuilding approach. Felix’s raw strength and gargantuan physique are testament to this.
Adapting Training with Age
In recent years, Felix has described a broader approach to training as he ages.
He’s also prepared to give himself more recovery when the work demands it.
‘If I need a day off, I’ll take one,’ he has said. ‘If that’s what I need to recover, I do it.’
For those of us fitting training around work, family and everything else, that bit of tactical grace is worth taking on board. Your programme needs enough flexibility to accommodate the weeks when you’re sleeping badly, working late or simply struggling to recover between sessions. Sustainable beats optimal when optimal isn’t sustainable.
In a previous interview, Felix summed up his approach to staying in the game for as long as possible rather neatly: ‘Quick fixes don’t last, respect your body and take your time.’
His training now offers a few useful lessons for anyone hoping to keep lifting for decades.
First, give yourself time to get ready. Felix explained in a previous interview: ‘When you get older, you have to do a lot more warming-up than some of the young guys.’ He has also described adding more mobility and targeted warm-ups as he’s aged. The practical takeaway: preparation is as important as executing the heavy stuff. Don’t be tempted to skip straight to your working weights.
Second, leave room to adjust. In an MST Systems training video, Felix cuts a yoke run short when a recurring hip problem flares up. ‘It’s too sore,’ he says. The planned steeplechase gets shelved, too. Being capable of lifting something doesn’t mean today is the day to prove it.
Third, get another pair of eyes on your training. Felix credits MST coach Shane Jerman with keeping him competitive: ‘If it wasn’t for Shane, I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing at the moment.’
Finally, give progress time. On Eddie Hall’s The Good, The Bad and The Beast podcast, he cautions that aspiring strongmen ‘want too much too soon’. His advice: ‘Just take your time, train right. If you [can] get a coach, get a coach.’
It’s an approach that has Felix reconsidering his planned retirement at 60. Asked by Hall whether he’ll still stop, he replies: ‘Maybe not. See, like I say, I just listen to my body. I’m going to just see how my body feel.’
