World's Strongest Man Sees His Autism as a Superpower

You might think that walking around with the official title of ‘World’s Strongest Man’ would push their ego through the roof and leave any humbleness for dust. But talking to Tom Stoltman we get quite the opposite impression.

If you’re not familiar with Tom, he’s the reigning World’s Strongest Man, and Britain’s Strongest Man, after triumphing earlier this year. Tom is also autistic, a disorder that makes communication and social situations difficult to navigate, and makes things like routine vital to mental wellbeing.

Born in a tiny town called Invergordon in Scotland, Tom worked his way up to the very top of the Strongman ladder, whilst having to learn how to manage his autism along the way. We spoke to Tom to find out how he manages to do all of that, how gruelling his training plan is, what nutrition makes a Strongman, and what his next ambitions are – spoiler: they’re BIG.

“Luke knows me inside out”

If you’re familiar with Tom, you’ll no doubt know his brother Luke too. The Stoltman brothers have certainly made their mark in the Strongman world, and with Luke being a few years older than Tom, he was able to guide him from the start.

“From day one he was the first person I was in the gym with and he’s been by my side ever since, so he’s been a massive influence and a massive reason why I'm probably who I am today. He was there to just help me get past hurdles in the gym, past the people, past the cameras. He’s helped me get my head down in the gym and helped me be able to talk to people and enter competitions. It's been really good to have Luke there by my side because when I get stressed or overwhelmed, he understands me and helps me calm down and helps me get my head back on.”

“I can always make sure everything is 100%”

One of the hurdles that Luke has helped Tom get over is managing his autism. Tom has been a massive inspiration for others with hidden disabilities like autism, often describing it as a “superpower”. But he also talks candidly about the difficulties of living with a disorder like this, particularly when plans change.

“With strongman you wake up, you eat at the same time, train at the same time, recover, it's all the same thing so I can always make sure everything is 100% because it was so easy for me to follow.

But the negative side of things is if something changes without me having a few days' notice or if I missed a meal of if I was on a long journey and didn’t have as much food or didn’t prep myself well enough or interviews and stuff like that, that’d when the autism is at its worst because I’d get stressed out and over think things and it can be really bad at some points.

The negative outweighs the pros because when its bad it can really affect me big time.”

As well as Luke, Tom’s sister who trained to work with autistic people has also been a massive support.

“My sister learnt to work with people with autism when I was a kid and she still helps me to this day with it because obviously it doesn’t just disappear, I’ve just learnt how to manage it. But there’s still days where it can get on top of me and get me really stressed and worried when I shouldn’t really have to.”