World's strongest boy 'Little Hercules' living very different life 23 years after fame
Once the world's strongest boy Richard Sandrak has come a long way since parading his muscles and super strength on stage to stunned crowds and judges as an 11-year-old
A pint-sized bodybuilder who became renowned worldwide as 'Little Hercules' says pumping iron got boring.
Ripped Richard Sandrak, 30, shot to international fame in 2005 for his strength and ridiculous muscles but over the years, his devotion to the gym has dramatically fallen by the wayside.
The former 'world's strongest boy' was already carving himself an athlete's body by the age of eight, at which point he was well on the road to lifting three times his body weight while becoming a master of karate.
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Born in Ukraine but grew up in Pennsylvania, US, Richard's extreme childhood led to his parents coming under fire amid cruelty claims after reports said he had just 1% body fat, which could be fatally low.
According to LadBible, some medical professionals even said that a child of his age wouldn't be able produce enough testosterone to build that much muscle and suggested he was using steroids.
Richard was pulling in thousands of pounds a month, but he later confessed to having an isolated childhood in which he was controlled by his abusive father Pavel, ABC reports.
When he was 11, his dad was sent to prison for domestic abuse against Richard’s mum, leading him to cut all ties and stop bodybuilding.
Richard, now 31, has left his bodybuilding days behind him as he has adopted a less intense physique but still looks very much in tidy shape.
The Ukrainian-born American Richard said in 2015 that he doesn't regret any of his childhood bulking.
In an interview with Inside Edition, he said: "No, I don't lift weights. If anything it just got boring. I’m very proud of my past.
"It’s not something I don’t want people to know, it’s just that I’m not going to be stuck living in it."
The former bodybuilder was working as a stuntman at Universal Studios Hollywood Waterworld show as of 2015.
Richard reportedly still works out with cardio exercises, such as chin-ups, stair climbing and skateboarding but not to the same extent as he use to.
At the time of the chat seven years ago, Richard had his heart set on becoming a quantum scientist for NASA but nothing has been heard from him since.
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