He loved the barbell lifts and strength challenges the most, and that snowballed into Kearney competing in his first Strongman competition his senior year. That teacher also happened to be a CrossFit coach.Įncouraged by his teacher, Kearney began going to CrossFit classes at 5 a.m. Football is what led him to the weight room, which is where a teacher noticed he was pretty strong. He says he started as “mediocre,” playing football and cheerleading in high school in Connecticut. And living an honest, true life freed up a ton of energy to enhance that internal strength that helped him level up as an athlete, he says. Having inner strength is just as important as being physically strong,” Kearney says. “I’m hoping people understand strength is more than physical. Finally, the main character in the book decides to wear all the vibrant colors that feel true to him – just like Kearney did in real life. “I like to wear bright, colorful clothes, but when I started competing, I wore what everyone else wore,” he says. Strong is a children’s book inspired by Kearney’s life, using color as a metaphor for how much you can achieve when you accept yourself for who you are. This message informed Strong, a book he just released in May. “I have to be an advocate, as well - sharing my point of view and experience with the world to help people understand what it’s like to be a gay man in strength sports.”
“I did what I felt was necessary for my overall happiness in my life, not just in my Strongman career.”īut it did affect his career in strength sports, too. Coming out was part of his journey of self-acceptance and self-realization, he says. “I was at a point in my life realizing I was just tired of waking up every single day putting on a façade to be somebody I wasn’t,” Kearney says. He’s a force to reckon with, especially under a yoke, with his bright rainbow mohawk and equally colorful clothes. Kearney publicly came out as gay in 2014, a year after he became a pro Strongman by winning the Amateur National Championships and shortly after taking second at America’s Strongest Man.
If you know Strongman, you know Rob Kearney, aka the “World’s Strongest Gay” on Instagram – and also the pound for pound strongest man, period. In fact, it can be the fuel for greatness. And he wants to show the world that your sexual orientation won’t stop you from achieving greatness. Kearney is the first and only openly gay professional Strongman. But something else motivates him even more than even the boldest of athletic accomplishments. It’s within reach, too he was 11th the last time he competed. Like earning a spot in the top 10 at this month’s World’s Strongest Man competition in California.
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