The Red Bulletin November 2019 (UK)

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Gentle giant: McCastle brings a philosophical approach to his strongman tasks
Mike McCastle If there’s one thing that winds up Mike McCastle, it’s when people say stuff like, “You’re insane, dude,” or, “That shit’s crazy!” don’t see it that way,” the 32-year-old strongman says calmly. He’s responding to the question of whether it was crazy to try to “Ijust break the record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours, even though it put him in hospital. Or whether it was crazy that he set out to pull a two-tonne truck for 35km through Death Valley, or to repeatedly climb a 7m rope until he’d ascended the height of Mount Everest. He definitely didn’t think it was crazy when a skinny-ass stranger named Colin O’Brady asked for training to trek solo across Antarctica, dragging a sled stocked with more than twice his weight in food and gear. Never mind that this task took the life of British explorer Henry Worsley in 2016 and was long thought impossible. From the get-go, McCastle knew each of these endeavours would bring extreme suffering. They’re part of a mission the 1.9m tall, 102kg Las Vegas resident calls the Twelve Labors Project – a homage to the 12 Labours of Hercules, the ultimate hero of Greco-Roman mythology. The question is: why in the world would anyone put themselves through all this? “I’d heard stories about people doing great things when another person’s life is on the line,” McCastle says. “I wanted to test how much I’d be willing to suffer doing things for others.” Sacrifice is ingrained in US military service, and McCastle went into the Navy after high school, spending the next 11 years as an air traffic controller. He also served as a mental and physical conditioning trainer in a programme created by the Navy SEALs after 9/11 to help address a vexing problem: as many as 80 per cent of trainees drop out before earning their SEAL Trident. The physical training is notoriously tough, but these recruits are the fittest of the fit and they really want to become SEALs, so why were so many dropping out? The reason is biological. In moments of fear and stress, the area of the brain called the amygdala takes over. Part of the function of the amygdala – dubbed the ‘lizard brain’ due to its primitive nature – is to identify threatening situations and get you out. Physiologically, your body reacts similarly whether you’re facing down a tiger or engaging in high-intensity training: your heart rate spikes, you get tunnel vision and hearing loss; your conscious brain, laser-focused on becoming a Navy SEAL, shuts down. The lizard brain doesn’t care about goals, it’s a survival response. “It happens in a fraction of a second and gives you no room for conscious thought,” McCastle says. 43
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Page 10 and 11: SINGAPORE Curves and shadows Shot f
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The Red Bulletin November 2019 (UK)

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