Technique trumps 'brute strength' in battle of heavyweights - Kiwi champion

He can lift a small car with his bare hands, eats up to eight eggs for breakfast and is the "strongest old fella in the country".

For the record, Rich Farrell is 46 and use his skills as a strongman to "do everything except scratch the middle of my back".

He is also the inaugural winner of the New Zealand's strongest man masters division competition.

Farrell is currently in Atlanta, Georgia, training for the Official Strongman Games to be held in Wisconsin that will also feature four other Kiwis.

He told Checkpoint that while he has often been asked to help people move house, he turned them down because he lifted enough heavy items in training.

"I don't lift pianos and couches anymore."

As well as his large breakfasts, he ate rice, steak and vegetables "multiple times" a day washed down with lots of water.

"It costs a fortune especially when you're trying to get big ...when you're training you put a little bit extra away a day."

He estimated he ate 75-80 percent of the household budget, leaving the rest of the food for his partner.

Depending on the competition, he might be lifting weights up to six times a day.

At present he is training for the worlds, which consists of two days of competition and one for the finals.

"Sometimes [in a strongman competition] you pull 10-tonne trucks, sometimes you lift big boulders ranging from 100kg to 200kg and tip them over the bar.

"Sometimes you're throwing sandbags around, sometimes you're carrying them."

Farrell has been competing for so long, nerves were a thing of the past, he said.

He believed he was "quite small" but backed his superior technique rather than the "brute strength" of his rivals.

"That seems to get me places. I'm a big advocate for working on that technique and then you can play with the big boys no problem."

He did the sport for "love" because it was not professional and he had to combine training with being a production engineer.