{"id":10110,"date":"2026-01-15T14:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldbodybuildingnews.com\/?p=10110"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:20:22","slug":"the-titan-of-the-fitness-world-says-hes-all-natural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldbodybuildingnews.com\/?p=10110","title":{"rendered":"The Titan of the Fitness World Says He’s All Natural"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I<\/span>t\u00a0all seems like too\u00a0much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The perfectly coiffed hair. The millions of dollars\u2014stashed away from years of TV and hundreds of photo shoots. The veritable castle in sunny Southern California. The loyal huskies who come to the gym with him every day, walk on the treadmill beside him, and never seem to bark. The self-satisfied smirk in all those social media pics<\/a> (and God knows he posts enough of them). But if you looked like Mike O\u2019Hearn, you\u2019d probably be smirking all day, too. Because at 46 years old, the 6\u20193\u2033 O\u2019Hearn is a rock-solid 262 pounds of perfectly shaped muscle, shredded right down to a year-round body fat percentage of six.\u00a0<\/span>Yet for all the gifts that have been bestowed on Mike O\u2019Hearn, the rest of us mere mortals can always take solace in the fact that we know how he really got these muscles and what he does to maintain them, right? Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Except Mike O\u2019Hearn swears up and down, on the bible, and on the grave of your choosing, that he is and always has been natural.<\/span><\/p>\n

Could He Really Be Natural?<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"ohearn-leg-press\"<\/div>\n

When they hear it, would-be fans turn away in disbelief. They take to message boards and cry bullshit. Because most of us have our own ideas of what one man can have, and by any standard, O\u2019Hearn has too much. You can\u2019t be one of the most celebrated fitness models of all time, with strength to match your aesthetics and fashion-model face\u2014and longevity to top it all\u2014and still be natural.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 270 pounds as a 16-year-old,\u201d O\u2019Hearn says with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019ve been hearing \u2018you\u2019re on steroids\u2019 my whole life. I was always the same weight,\u00a0really. What I learned how to do over the years was take the fat off while keeping my muscle.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If classmates wondered about him at 16, the rest of the world\u2019s been wondering about him\u2014and eager to knock him down a peg\u2014ever since he appeared as Thor on the first run of\u00a0American Gladiators\u00a0in the early \u201990s. Many of O\u2019Hearn\u2019s cast mates later admitted to using steroids, thus implicating him by association. But O\u2019Hearn always maintained that he was natural, even though he was bigger and stronger than his juiced-up colleagues. When he went on to become the only member of the original cast to appear in the 2008 reboot\u2014this time as Titan, and in even better shape\u2014it made you scratch your head even more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dodging the Haters<\/span><\/h3>\n

The world can keep wondering. The only confirmed fact is this: O\u2019Hearn has never flunked a drug test, and he\u2019s taken nearly as many piss tests as he has selfies.\u00a0Drug tests for the\u00a0Gladiators\u00a0reboot (\u201cNBC tested for EVERYTHING,\u201d he says) as well as drug tests he took for natural bodybuilding shows, turned up nothing. Nor did polygraph tests, he says, an extra step in some natural bodybuilding and powerlifting federations. And with a trail of clean drug and lie detector tests in his wake and a trophy case full of hardware\u2014O\u2019Hearn is a four-time Natural Mr. Universe and in the Natural Bodybuilding Hall of Fame (lest you think those muscles are all for show, he\u2019s also proficient in jeet kune do, and was inducted into the Masters Hall of Fame for judo in 2014)\u2014he\u2019s still dogged by haters who jump in with sarcastic comments on nearly every social media post.\u00a0Nature produces freaks with regularity. Just look at muscle-bound Belgian Blue cattle and humans with myostatin deficiencies who grow muscle without lifting weights. But when we\u2019ve seen so many athletes turn out to be frauds and liars, we don\u2019t leave room for any genetic freaks in sports, and especially not in bodybuilding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the comments pour in:\u00a0\u201cYeah, right!\u201d \u201cNo way!\u201d \u201cHow could he possibly say he\u2019s natural?\u201d\u00a0And that\u2019s just what we can print.<\/p>\n

\"ohearn-leg-press2\"<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The funny part is that O\u2019Hearn doesn\u2019t even consider himself a freak of nature. He sees his body as a by-product of his life story\u2014one that\u2019s been played out almost entirely inside of a gym. For the most cynical, it might help to see pictures of him playing high school football (he was a three-year starter and All-American) in his hometown of Kirkland, WA. It\u2019s not hard to pick out O\u2019Hearn in team pictures. He\u2019s nearly a foot taller\u2014and a foot wider\u2014than most of his teammates. He\u2019s a solid 70 or 80 pounds heavier, too.\u00a0The mass started piling onto his frame as early as 11 years old. That\u2019s when his father, Patrick O\u2019Hearn, a natural bodybuilder himself, started bringing Mike to the gym. Giants lurked in every corner. Among them, powerlifting legends Doyle Kenady, Doug Furnas, and Jeff Magruder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re 11 years old and you see guys like that every single day, that warps your idea of what\u2019s normal, of what\u2019s possible,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you train at 24 Hour Fitness, a 315-pound squat is going to seem really heavy to you. That\u2019s just a fact. Being in an environment where 800-pound deadlifts were normal made my belief different from that of any other kid.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the age of 14, he was competing in natural bodybuilding shows. He won the Mr. Teenage Washington at a height of 5\u20199\u2033 and a stage weight of 172. During the next two years, puberty went full throttle as he grew to 6\u20192\u2033 and gained an unfathomable, if not entirely lean, 100 pounds.\u00a0All the while he was learning the basics of what he would later fine-tune and market as power bodybuilding\u2014a system that builds strength and size by satisfying the needs of the strength and physique athlete: Heavy weights done for only a few reps but for a lot more sets. Whereas a classic bodybuilding rep scheme is three sets of 10, a classic power bodybuilding scheme may be seven or eight sets of three\u2014not counting any warmup sets required to get to a heavy weight.\u00a0He credits this system, more than any of the myriad genetic factors that might be working in his favor, as being the key to his success in bodybuilding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody does the same thing when they get ready for a show,\u201d O\u2019Hearn says. \u201cThey go from heavy weight and lots of calories to cardio, light weight, lots of reps, and a calorie deficit. It\u2019s common. You get stringy and small. It happened to me, too. But I figured out early on that if I kept pounding the weight, I kept the muscle. When you are dieted down, you have less fluid in your joints and you\u2019re more prone to injury, so I slowed down the reps. It\u2019s harder to do\u2014a loaded bar feels a whole lot heavier when you\u2019re dried out\u2014but I accepted it, and you wind up with a fuller, denser muscle.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Titan Tour<\/h3>\n

For a man who came into the public eye on a TV show that\u2019s long been canceled, it\u2019s interesting to see that his biggest fans are young. For every 40- or 50-something who lined up to see him make a booth appearance at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, OH, in March, there were a half dozen teenagers and 20-year-olds. The contrast is just as stark at a group training session held a few blocks away from the expo at Metro Fitness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There, a group of seven young men and one man in his 40s are gathered around O\u2019Hearn, who is dressed in red denim jeans, black loafers, a snow cap, and a \u201cTitan Tour 2015\u201d baseball T-shirt bearing his power bodybuilding logo\u2014the letters \u201cPB\u201d stuffed inside a Superman crest.\u00a0
Finishing up a tutorial on squatting, O\u2019Hearn says, \u201cOK. One at a time on the platform.\u201d He observes each guy, pointing out flaws in technique and holding nothing back. The personalized attention comes at a price; as one guy gets his pointers, the rest wait a considerable amount of time. From the outside, it seems like a nuisance. The clients, though, each of whom plunked down $250 for the session, unanimously say it\u2019s money well spent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely worth it,\u201d says Jacob Pauley of Nicholasville, KY, who made the trip just to train with O\u2019Hearn. \u201cI trust what he says more than most other fitness icons. He\u2019s a four-time Natural Mr. Universe, and not many guys are natural. Something\u2019s obviously working for him if he\u2019s in his 40s and still squatting 700 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this Saturday afternoon, Metro Fitness is crammed with Arnold Sports Festival attendees getting in a workout before the bodybuilding finals that night. Moving around the gym is as tough as navigating the expo floor, which is to say nearly impossible.\u00a0When O\u2019Hearn\u2019s group commandeers a power rack for deadlifting, the two enormous meatheads who had been working in the area\u2014and momentarily stepped away\u2014return to find they\u2019ve lost their spot. Their looks are grave, and they seem eager to jump in and give Titan a piece of their minds. One grabs O\u2019Hearn by the arm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, man, do you mind?\u201d the guy asks\u2014then produces a cell phone, \u201cif I get a picture?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The session goes on for more than three hours. Some of the guys specifically want help with their form. Others pick his brain for diet advice as they prepare for bodybuilding shows. The nuts and bolts of training, though, aren\u2019t the main attraction. It\u2019s clear that the group\u2014and everyone else in the gym\u2014just wants to spend time with him. The ever-growing fan base, O\u2019Hearn says, is due in a big way to social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media\u2019s allowed people to come into my life a bit,\u201d O\u2019Hearn says. \u201cWith all the columns I\u2019ve done, it was all about this barbaric dude who has no limits and attacks everything. But when my dog Bunny died, and I was unafraid to share that\u2014and other un-alpha moments like that\u2014people really responded. I had guys coming up to me at the expo saying they were from India, or Dubai, or all these far corners of the world\u2014and telling me they were praying for me when that happened. They sat in line just so they could say, \u2018I was crying when you were crying.\u2019 That was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Never Tempted<\/h3>\n

Growing up in such a hardcore environment, exposure to steroids came quick enough. And not just in the gym. The youngest of nine kids, O\u2019Hearn says two of his brothers and one sister took steroids. Rather than tempt him, he says it had the opposite effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve got brothers, there\u2019s an\u00a0instant rivalry,\u201d he says. \u201cWhatever they did, whether it was drinking alcohol or staying up late, I wanted to do the opposite or do it better. With steroids, I was too young to understand that anything else was going on when it came to bodybuilding and powerlifting. Then people started telling me, \u2018That\u2019s what everyone in the magazines does. That\u2019s what all the bodybuilders do.\u2019 I said, \u2018If that\u2019s what everybody does, then let me beat them without it.\u2019
\u201cWith steroids, there is always an up and down,\u201d O\u2019Hearn continues. \u201cI would see my brothers enhance to a much better level than me. In a deadlift, say, they would jump up to 500 pounds, and I\u2019d be at 400. But when they came off the sauce they\u2019d drop to 450, and then I\u2019d catch that. Then they\u2019d jump up to 600. By then I\u2019d be at 500, and they\u2019d drop back down. I\u2019d say, \u2018What is this pattern? Why get better and then get worse? If I\u2019m going to spend this much time doing it, I want to be able to keep what I\u2019ve got.\u2019\u200a\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His eventual PRs would wind up being as staggering as his physique: An 815-pound squat, a 600 bench (along with 500\u00d72 on an incline), and a 775 sumo deadlift.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ohearn-squat\"<\/div>\n

\u201cCould I have set records with steroids? Yes. Would I be as good as I am now? No. Steroids age you. Your connective tissue breaks down. Over time, something will inevitably tear.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Temptation was easy to avoid, he says, thanks to quick success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get discovered by Joe Weider\u2014he walks up to you at the Mr. Olympia and says, \u2018I need you on the cover of my magazines,\u2019 and you\u2019re a 20-, 21-year-old kid\u2014I realized whatever I had been doing up to that point was good enough. Would I have been tempted if I didn\u2019t find success? I hope I wouldn\u2019t have, but then again, I never wanted to be a 300-pound Mr. Olympia. I wanted a pleasing physique. I think of my body as an art piece, and it\u2019s my art piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the gym, O\u2019Hearn is delivering his final tutorial of the day on benching. At that moment, he\u2019s interrupted again\u2014a hand on his shoulder, too desperate to wait. He turns to find a slight man, sheepishly apologizing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d the man says, \u201cbut I am from Jordan, and I am also very fond of you. May I have a photograph?\u201d<\/p>\n

The man is sweating, nervous with anticipation. O\u2019Hearn merely smiles, says, \u201cOf course,\u201d and puts an arm around him, posing for a series of rapid-fire cell-phone pics. The man had traveled from the other side of the earth, hailing from a culture that could be described as our polar opposite. But when he sees O\u2019Hearn, none of that matters. It fades away into something basic and pure\u2014an admiration that doesn\u2019t adhere to cultural boundaries.\u00a0A smile frozen on his face, O\u2019Hearn poses with the man, not surprised in the least to meet yet another fan, however unlikely this one might seem.\u00a0This kind of thing happens to Mike O\u2019Hearn every day, and at this point in his life, it\u2019s all perfectly natural.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n