He Carried a Calf Every Day…Until It Became a Bull

0:00Welcome back to the smartest year ever. According to ancient sources, there was a man who carried a newborn calf on his shoulders every single day, did that day after day after day, and as the calf grew so did its weight until one day he was carrying a full grown bull on his shoulders. That man was Milo of Croton, a Greek wrestler from the 6th century BC in one of the greatest athletes of the ancient world. Not only was he reportedly one of the strongest people to ever live, he also performed mind-blowing feats of strength, had a ridiculous diet, and was a dominant wrestler and warrior. Milo was traditionally credited with winning six Olympic wrestling titles, starting as a boy, continuing into adulthood until the old age of 40, because I was pretty old at the time, he was beating people half his age. Some accounts even say he won seven Olympic titles, and beyond the Olympics, he also won repeatedly at the Pythian Games, the Ismian Games, and the Nomean Games, which were basically like the grand slam of ancient athletic competitions. The stories about him go far beyond that he was a very good wrestler, he actually kind

1:02of seems more like an ancient comic book hero. Milo was described as an absolute physical powerhouse, like a man of powering height, broad shoulders, and muscles so well developed, they apparently look sculpted, fixed strong arms, massive sturdy legs, he not only exuded raw strength, but he also moved with confidence and control. And let me share with you Milo's diet, 20 pounds of meat, 20 pounds of red, and 10 liters of wine, daily, you know, not really worried about those carbs, I guess, refreshing to see. Now Milo wasn't just a wrestler, he was also a warrior in 5-11 BC when Croton went to warp the neighboring city of Siberia, Milo led the Krytonian army, and because he never did anything halfway, no half measures with this guy, he showed up to battle dressed like Heracles, which was the Greek version of Hercules. And Milo fought with lion skin draped over his shoulders, wielding a giant club, all while wearing his Olympic wreaths.

2:03That's like if Simone Biles was leading the Navy seals into battle. And just to add to the myth, Milo's army defeated Siberia's 300,000 soldiers with only 100,000 Krytonians, it said that Milo sent an entire wing of the enemy army flying with his physical strength alone. But for me, the coolest thing is his feats of strength. That really cemented him as the OG strong man to me. Posonius, the ancient travel writer, he was a big fan of Milo, he tells us about these feats. Here's one. Milo would extend his arm, fingers outstretched, and challenge people to bend his little finger, and no one ever could. You know, just kind of showing off how ridiculously strong even his smallest weakest muscles were. Another favorite of Milo's, he would stand on a greased iron disc, and he would dare anyone to push him off, no one was ever able to. Milo's most famous feat is straight out of an agrarian Jim Bro fantasy. Every day Milo would carry a newborn calf on his shoulders.

3:04And as the calf grew, Milo continued to carry it, and by the time of the next Olympics, he was walking around with a full-grown bull on his back. He said that at one point, Milo carried the bull, the length of the Olympic stadium, slaughtered it, roasted it, and ate the entire thing, like quite the power removed there. So I can imagine his competitors like, what, I had to wrestle that guy. Another feat was how Milo would hold a pomegranate in one hand and challenge others to take it from him, and despite gripping it with incredible force, he never damaged the fruit. Milo even liked to show off by breaking cords with his veins. He'd tie a rope around his forehead, and then he'd hold his breath, and make his veins on his head, bulge out so much that the cords snapped, and some real, extreme, vascular strength there. But like all good legends, Milo's story ends in tragedy, according to Pozzani, this and other ancient sources, Milo's final feat of strength became his undoing. And you're probably thinking that Milo ends up having a stroke trying to destroy something

4:05with his veins, but no. One day, while walking through the countryside, he came across a villager trying to split a tree trunk with wedges. Milo, unable to mind his own business, decided to have a go at it with his bare hands, and he thrust his fingers into the crack where the wedges had been, and he pulled. And as he pulled, the wedges fell out, trapping his hands inside the tree. Stuck in a lone Milo couldn't free himself. Legend says wolves are maybe a lion showed up, and Milo met his end in the jaws of the wild. The tough look. You know, hands stuck in one crack, lions stuck in another crack. In case it needs to be said, much of what we know about Milo comes from writers like Strabo, and as we mentioned, Pozzanius, who were writing centuries after Milo actually lived. They weren't eyewitnesses. They were just collecting stories that had already been passed down, retold, and likely embellished. But even if the details are exaggerated, the underlying idea of his most famous feat, the bull story, is surprisingly modern. Today, we just call it progressive overload. The principle that strength is built gradually by increasing resistance over time.

5:09Not in huge leaps, but in small, consistent increments. It's the foundation of nearly every strength training program we use today. But did he actually carry a bull? A full grown bull can weigh well over 1,000 pounds, over even 2,000 pounds. Even accounting for a gradual adaptation, the logistics alone make the story hard to take literally. There's no reliable contemporary record confirming it happened, and no evidence that athletes at the time were training in such a structured way. Though probably not, at least not in the way that the story suggests, our bodies adaptations typically don't happen at the rate necessary to do something like this, but obviously Milo was not your typical guy. So there you have it, the strongest man in ancient Greece may not have actually carried a bull on his shoulders, but the idea of progressive overload in the legend itself has been carrying weight ever since. Sources are in the description, follow at smartest year ever, everywhere for more content. In the meantime, stay curious and stay clever, I will see you next time in the smartest year ever.