Latvian strongman Martins Licis only just missed out on the podium at last year’s World’s Strongest Man, and this year, he’s coming in hot. In 2017 he came in fourth place with 36.5 points and while that’s a relatively far cry from third place finisher Brian Shaw’s 48 points, Licis has thrown down the gauntlet in a recent training video.
Give it a watch below — it was filmed right before he headed to the Arnold Classic Australia last month. Licis ultimately came in third in the event, saying he caught a flu halfway through the two-day event. Nonetheless, this six-rep set of 705 pounds at the 2:30 mark shows some pretty serious potential.
[This video was produced by SBD — check out our review of their famous knee sleeves here.]
We really enjoyed the interviews here and the charismatic twenty-seven-year-old made some pretty serious plans:
My goal moving forward is to win World’s Strongest Man and be the greatest of all time.
And I’m gonna achieve it because I understand the human body and motion better than the other strongmen do. And I have a meticulous approach that they don’t have. And I’m gonna keep going until I get it.
Another great tidbit from the clip was his origin story: when he was a kid, he spent a lot of time at his grandfather’s farm where he worked as a stonemason. He would help to move the stones so he could sculpt his statues,
Then one day I saw on TV these guys basically lifting rocks and doing farm work for competition and I immediately knew I can do that and I’m gonna be great at it.
More recently, he’s been pulling off a lot of other awesome feats of strength in his training for WSM, including a set of 10 squats of 565 pounds without a belt or knee sleeves and this 7-rep set of 806-pound deadlifts.
Licis is also well known as the world record holder in the Steinborn squat, pulling off a 560-pound lift at this year’s Arnold Classic in Ohio.
But he’s also the reigning world champion of Mas Wrestling, the unusual strength sport from northeastern Russia that involves fighting your competitor over a wooden stick. Earlier this year he taught YouTube personality Jon “Jujimufu” Call the finer points of prevailing in the sport in this pretty great clip.
As the youngest athlete in the top 5 at last year’s World’s Strongest Man and a phenomenal athlete for any age, we think we can expect a lot from this man in the future.
Featured image via SBD USA on YouTube.