The last time I saw current Olympic record holder and gold medalist Ryan Crouser, he was barely old enough to watch R-rated movies. We were leaving the popular Brazilian churrascaria Fogo De Chao out in Austin, Texas, in 2010.
I was Crouser’s host at the University of Texas as he made his way across the country to decide which college he would grace with his presence as the leading high school shot put and discus thrower in the world. At that time, there were as many athletic scholarship offers on the table for Ryan as there were meats buzzing in the air at the Brazilian steakhouse.
He chose the filet mignon that night, and later the filet mignon of collegiate athletic institutions by deciding to attend the University of Texas. It was there he built the base that would propel him to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, where he recently broke the 28-year standing Olympic shot put record and won the gold medal with a throw of 22.52 meters (73.8 feet).
Continuing his hot streak, Ryan, now 23, went immediately from Rio to Paris, then from Paris to Zurich in competition, before I was finally able to catch up with him to find out exactly how an Olympic gold medalist and record-holding shot put thrower eats and trains in order to be No. 1 in the world.
Even though his massive, 6-foot-7, nearly 300-pound frame was reduced to a 6-by-6-inch block on my computer’s FaceTime app, he still looked massively bigger than the little 220-pound puppy I remember him as at the steakhouse that night in Austin. He said that since Rio, he’s been “lazy,” by his own measure, dropping from 295 to about 285 pounds. Lazy?
“Not lazy, but busy,” Crouser clarified. “I haven’t been able to keep my calories up to the usual 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day.”“I haven’t been able to keep my calories up to the usual 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day.”
That kind of intake requires dedication, Crouser said. He eats five or six times a day, at about a thousand calories per meal — as much as someone on a low-calorie diet might eat in an entire day. “I kind of have to make myself stick to a plan because if I don’t stay on top of it, I won’t eat as much as I should,” he said. “I don’t have the urge to eat like some people might imagine.”
There’s a strategy to getting that much food into your face every day: Two shakes in the morning, so that his body doesn’t take his chewing as a cue to realize that, oh, I’m being fed right now. Plus, those liquefied meals — usually a blend of oatmeal with whole milk, peanut butter, protein powder, berries and granola — take up less space in his stomach, leaving room for later lunch, dinner, second dinner and dessert when the mood strikes.
“Lunch is usually my first solid meal, so by then I’m pretty hungry,” he said. “I’ll normally load up on some carbs like pasta or mac and cheese, a couple of pieces of bread, a bowl of rice. For protein I try to eat about a pound of meat per meal, so that’s usually like three to four chicken breasts. Occasionally I will eat some red meat, but mostly chicken or fish. And dinner I’ll eat pretty much the same thing, maybe throw in some fruit and vegetables. But I’m not as hungry then, so I’m normally forcing myself at that point to eat more than I want to.”
And that’s a normal day.
Ask him the most he’s eaten in one sitting and Crouser has a quick answer: about 5 pounds, the size of a small infant. He can’t even guess at the calories of his binge.
“I was super-hungry after a crazy weight session, so I decided to weigh myself before and after dinner. I knew I was going to eat a lot,” he laughed. “I had a bowl of white rice, a bowl of brown rice, a plate stacked with chicken, a giant bowl of mac and cheese. I love mac and cheese. It’s a great weight gainer because of all the carbs and fat … So after I ate all that plus dessert, I got on the scale and I was 5 pounds heavier than before.”
Nobody would dare call him a lightweight, and his impressive offseason capacity for a night out proves the point.
“How many beers can you drink and still function the next morning?” I asked. Dangerous question.
“It depends on the type of beer. If it’s something easy like a Bud Light, I can take down a 12-pack and still have an effective workout the next morning.”
I imagine him in college, toting a personal keg around to parties. He’s definitely strong enough to get it around.
And about those muscles. Though Crouser insists that his shot put ability is as much about technique and timing as it is strength, he’s gotta have He Man power to get that shot put more than 70 feet away from him.
And he does: The most he said he’s lifted in a single box squat is 700 pounds, his bench press is about 500 pounds for a single rep, and he has done 440 pounds for five reps. He lifts six days a week in the offseason in order to maintain his superhuman strength.
“I don’t deadlift much, but occasionally I’ll throw 500 pounds on the bar for deads and do a few reps just for fun,” he said. Right. Fun. “To mix things up and make some noise. And my power clean is just over 400 pounds.”
If you’re counting, that’s six days a week of lifting, hitting the weight room twice on three of those days. Oh, plus practice.
“Training is a full-time job,” he said. “I put in a lot of hours.”
It’s a lot of hours spent in pursuit of one very specific thing: throwing a small, heavy ball as far away as humanly possible. When your life’s pursuit can be summed up in a few seconds of video, whirling around before flinging the shot put away, how does Crouser not get bored? The key, as in most things, is in variety.
For him, that means mixing up weight training equipment and techniques in the gym, adding resistance or swapping from weights to bands. If you change it up, you don’t get a chance to get bored or restless.
“The biggest thing for me when I find myself at a sticking point is to find a way to mix it up. It makes it more fun and you see more progress,” he said.
And I’d definitely say that going from that burly 17-year-old to the massive Olympic record-holder before me is pretty satisfying progress.
Brandon Drenon is an elite Tier 3+ fitness and nutrition coach in New York City based out of Equinox. Prior to becoming a personal trainer, Brandon was a varsity athlete at the University of Texas and a fashion model in New York City. He received his personal training certification through NCSF and has received his nutrition certification through Precision Nutrition.