Patrik Baboumian, 42, has an impressive physique. And rightly so: this Iranian-German sportsman collects the titles of strength sports championships. Notably, in 2011, he won the title of Germany’s strongest man. It was after this event that Patrick Baboumian has gone vegan. Since then, the athlete has multiplied his speeches to show that a plant-based diet does not rhyme with “muscle weakness”. His body is the best proof of that.
You may know him from the Netflix documentary The Game Changers, produced by James Cameron, among others, who sold the benefits of a vegan diet to elite athletes. Patrik Baboumian is 42 years old and as we can see in this movie, he has enough strength to lift a car. This Iranian-German sportsman recently became a brand ambassador for GreenForce, a vegan alternative to meat just launched in England, Franceinfo reports. in full promotion, Patrik Baboumian wants to show his peers that you can be vegan and muscular, even very muscular, he explains in an interview with the British daily the independent.
Recordings and interrogation
Patrik Baboumian started weightlifting at age 14, determined to become “as strong as possible”. Ten years earlier, his father and sister lost their lives in a car accident that marked his childhood: “I had this obsession (…) I wanted to be able to lift a car with my bare hands to get out the injured people trapped underneath”, he says. In his first year of weightlifting, he won a regional cadet title in bodybuilding. A year later he became German heavyweight champion cadet. The beginning of a long collection of titles and records.
In 2006 he moved next to a forest and fell in love with the deer, wild boars and other animals that surround his home. The athlete is then confronted with his contradictions. ” I ate animals and at the same time I wanted to save the ones I saw. This thought turned me completely upside down and I became a vegetarian.“he confides” the independent.
Vegan and always stronger
Five years later, he won the title of strongest man in Germany and decided to move on by becoming a vegan. A supposed and unprecedented choice for a champion of strength sports. The athlete is not only praised for his animal welfare action, but also improves his performance. He manages to cover ten meters with a load of 550 kg and goes record after record. His childhood dream also comes true, as he manages to lift a car. “I wasn’t convinced it would work”he confesses again. “I didn’t think it was possible. I was really shocked at how easy it was”.
Now the vegan athlete is multiplying public appearances and interviews to get his message across. ” It’s not about being the strongest, it’s about the question: what do I do with my strength, and what do I want to do with the strength I have?he concludes with the independent.