{"id":169413,"date":"2025-10-25T22:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T22:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/worlds-strongest-boy-little-hercules-lives-a-very-different-lifestyle-25-years-on-ladbible\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T22:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T22:25:13","slug":"worlds-strongest-boy-little-hercules-lives-a-very-different-lifestyle-25-years-on-ladbible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/worlds-strongest-boy-little-hercules-lives-a-very-different-lifestyle-25-years-on-ladbible\/","title":{"rendered":"World's strongest boy 'Little Hercules' lives a very different lifestyle 25 years on – LADbible"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAD Entertainment
LAD Stories
Home<\/a>> <\/span>News<\/a><\/span>
Joshua Nair
Topics:\u00a0Health<\/a>, News<\/a>, Community<\/a>
Joshua Nair is a journalist at LADbible. Born in Malaysia and raised in Dubai, he has always been interested in writing about a range of subjects, from sports to trending pop culture news. After graduating from Oxford Brookes University with a BA in Media, Journalism and Publishing, he got a job freelance writing for SPORTbible while working in marketing before landing a full-time role at LADbible. Unfortunately, he's unhealthily obsessed with Manchester United, which takes its toll on his mental and physical health. Daily.
@joshnair10
Advert
Advert
Advert
The boy who was once known as 'Little Hercules' is now a grown adult and leads a very different life.
Real name Richard Sandrak, he made headlines for the first time in 2000 when his mum<\/a>, aerobics star Lena Sandrak, and dad, martial arts world champion Pavel Sandrak, revealed his impressive physique.
The Ukrainian-American's<\/a> parents said that he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps, but a quarter of a century on, he has gone a different way.
His lifestyle<\/a> is completely different, having turned his back on the sport of weightlifting and surprising all of those who caught wind of his story all those years ago.
Advert
Richard followed a strict exercise regimen as a child, involving 600 push-ups and sit-ups, along with 300 squats, to be done every day.
His tank-like build makes a lot of sense now.
He quickly became known as 'Little Hercules', being able to bench press 95kg at the age of eight, before being crowned as the 'World<\/a>'s Strongest Boy' three years later, becoming more muscular as he went deeper into his teens, even taking up karate while sporting his eight-pack abs.
Richard even had one percent of body fat, which is considered to be dangerously low by health<\/a> experts.
Advert
The former child superstar even opened up about abuse<\/a> he endured from his father, with it reaching a boiling point when he hit his mum, prompting Richard to call authorities, who deported him back to Ukraine<\/a>.
'Little Hercules' also opened up in the years since, saying that weightlifting was 'almost like PTSD in a sense', saying that it was connected to his past.
He would venture into gymnastics, swimming and basketball as a teenager, revealing that he would also struggle with alcoholism as he 'would party a lot and anything I did, I made sure I always had alcohol around'.
Though at the time of his interview with<\/a> Metro earlier this year, he was sober for a year.
Advert
Back in 2015, Richard sat down for an interview with Inside Edition to give fans an update on his life, revealing at the time: "I don't lift weights anymore. People tried to make seem to be some of freak of nature – there are many kids that have a similar physique."
He spoke about being 'proud' of his past, though he doesn't want to be 'stuck living in it'.
While he was believed to be working as a stuntman at Universal Studios Hollywood Waterworld show, it turned out that his life took a more 'normal' turn.
Richard said he wanted to become an engineer for NASA<\/a> 10 years ago, but instead lives in Los Angeles with his lawyer girlfriend and two cats, working as a retail manager.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAD EntertainmentLAD StoriesHome> NewsJoshua NairTopics:\u00a0Health, News, CommunityJoshua Nair is a journalist at LADbible. Born in Malaysia and raised in Dubai, he has always been interested in writing about a range of subjects, from sports to trending pop culture news. After graduating from Oxford Brookes University with a BA in Media, Journalism and Publishing, he got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}