Meet The World Strongest Footballer “Adebayo Akinfenwa”

Adebayo Akinfenwa
weighs 16 stone
Akinfenwa is 5ft 11in but he weighs
in at a mighty 16 stone, or 102kg.
That’s a BMI of 31.3 or around the
same body weight as England rugby
hooker Tom Youngs.
He says he has always been a
“naturally big guy”, and has even
struggled to get football teams to
take him seriously.
“People said I’m too big to play
football,” he said. “One hundred
goals later, I’m not. There are no
limitations to what you want to do.”
He can bench-press 180kg Or 396
pounds, if you prefer.
That’s three times the body-weight
of his team-mate, midfielder Sammy
Moore.
Such is his passion for lifting heavy
weights, he admits that previous
managers have had to “rein him in”
to stop him spending too long in the
gym.
Akinfenwa’s strength has been
recognised by the Fifa series of
video games, which have deemed
him the strongest footballer in the
world, with a strength rating of 97
out of 100.
He created ‘Beast Mode’
Akinfenwa’s brawny physique has
earned him the nickname ‘The
Beast’, but to the hulking frontman,
it’s more than just an epithet.
“Beast Mode On is a state of mind,”
he explained. “Beast Mode is about
applying yourself and defying the
limitations people put on you.”
When he’s not terrorising League
Two centre-backs, Akinfenwa also
finds time to run a clothing line
bearing the ‘Beast Mode’ name.
He gets mistaken for NFL players
Akinfenwa is often recognised as a
footballer. Just not always as the
right sort of footballer.
The striker admits he was once
pulled over by a policeman who
mistook him for a player in
America’s NFL.
Akinfenwa was happy to set the
errant copper straight, telling him:
“I play proper football.”
He’s been likened to a fat Eddie
Murphy Rival fans, perhaps
emboldened by the presence of
security personnel between the
crowd and the pitch, are fond of
jocularly abusing Akinfenwa from
the terraces.
The big man just laughs it off,
though.
“My favourite chant is ‘you’re just a
fat Eddie Murphy’. When I heard
that I could not stop laughing. I
would prefer a ‘muscular Eddie
Murphy’.” Sorry Adebayo, I don’t
think it’s going to catch on.
He inspired 39,000 tweets
During Monday night’s FA Cup
match, there were a whopping
39,000 tweets related to Akinfenwa.
#BeastMode was the third-most
popular hashtag as Twitter went
mad for Wimbledon’s cult hero.
He’s a committed Christian
Akinfenwa was born to a Muslim
father and a Christian mother.
“When Ramadan was on dad made
us fast and then I had to read the
Bible every day and go to church,”
he said.
It was his mother’s faith that he was
drawn to and he now reads the
Bible daily and attends church every
Sunday.