Life
In the last year, Austin has quickly established himself as one of the world’s best and reached the World’s Strongest Man finals on his debut. Though he lives in San Antonio, Texas, he competes under the Mexican flag and is proud of his Latino heritage – in August 2023 he won the title of World’s Strongest Latino! He is renowned for his huge static strength and combines superb overhead power with a 1,036lb deadlift.
Andrade works as a residential real estate appraiser and trains in the afternoons at his local gym: Heavy Metal Fitness. His athletic background includes wrestling and like many strongmen from North America, he played football in college. His goals in the sport are to compete at the highest level and show the world how strong Latino people can be.
Career
Needing a competitive outlet after his collegiate sporting endeavours ended, Austin Joined Heavy Metal Fitness gym in San Antonio, and was talked into doing an amateur strongman show. From there he fell in love with the sport, and he has continued to make considerable forward progress.
In 2022 he placed 2nd at the Beerstone competition in Mission, Texas, where he lost out to Bobby Thompson. Winning the Truck Pull, he finished on equal points with America’s Josh Hatfield but was given 2nd on countback. Later that year he competed at his first Shaw Classic, contesting the Open category, rather than the pro class. He placed 6th in a highly competitive field that was eventually headed by Thomas Evans of the USA.
Just before Christmas, Austin finished the season with a 5th place finish at America’s Strongest Man. Bobby Thompson took the title and Andrade’s best event result came in the Max Sandbag Load, where he completed a 209kg lift for joint 1st place.
Austin’s first contest in the 2023 season didn’t come until mid-July when he won the SCL Word’s Strongest Latino contest – his first professional victory. He backed this up a month later with a highly impressive win at the Shaw Classic Open in Loveland, Colorado. Off the back of those two victories Andrade was invited to compete at the Strongman Open and World Deadlift Championships where he placed 9th overall, completing a 430kg personal best in the deadlift.
2024 proved to be a highly successful one and having received his invite to compete at World’s Strongest Man, he seized the opportunity by reaching the Grand Final. Coming through his heat in second place, following a gruelling stone off with Ondřej Fojtú, he would eventually finish 7th overall. Later that year he contested the Shaw Classic pro class, finishing 5th, and rounded off the season with a 1,000lb pull at the World Deadlift Championships held in Las Vegas.
In 2025, he raised his game in the deadlift by pulling 470kg/1,036lbs at The Strongman Open & World Deadlift Championships in Birmingham, establishing himself in an elite group.
Best Title
In August 2023 Andrade produced a stunning 6-point victory at the Shaw Classic Open. Defeating Canadians Wesley Derwinsky and Joey Lavallėe, Austin secured event wins in the Medley and the Atlas Stones. His victory came just over a month after he claimed the first professional triumph of his career when he topped the podium at the Strongman Champions League’s World’s Strongest Latino contest in Matosinhos, Portugal.
Competition Results
2025 Strongman Open & Mutant World Deadlift Championships: 9th place
2024 World’s Strongest Man: 7th place
2024 Giants Live USA Strongman Championships: 4th place
2023 Giants Live Strongman Open: 9th place
2024 Shaw Classic: 5th place
Shaw Classic Open: 2023 – winner, 2022 – 6th place
2023 SCL World’s Strongest Latino: Winner
2022 America’s Strongest Man: 5th place
2022 Beerstone: 2nd place
Best Lifts
Log Lift: 191kg/421lb
Axle Press: 191kg/421lb
Log Press for Reps: 140kg/308lb for 9 reps in 1 minute.
Deadlift: 470kg/1,036lb
Max Sandbag Load: 209kg
Media
Austin is active on social media and his content can be found on Instagram: smash_andrade and Facebook: Austin Andrade. His pages include footage from some of his training sessions as well as some competition clips. Andrade’s performance at the Giants Live USA Strongman Championships and World’s Strongest Man was aired on British terrestrial television over the Christmas period as part of Channel 5’s World’s Strongest Man broadcast and is still available to watch on My5.
