Olivier ‘The Dutch Giant’ Richters (2.18m) Is the World's Tallest Bodybuilder
Olivier Richters does it all: he’s an entrepreneur, actor and bodybuilder. ‘The Dutch Giant’ stands 2.18m tall and weighs about 150kg, but still thinks there’s room for improvement.
Ever since Olivier was a ‘little’ boy, he’s known what it means to be big. He didn’t fit in the incubator when he was a baby and was already well over 2 meters tall when he was just fourteen years old. He tells us he has never been bullied, but it still wasn’t easy being his height. He might not have shown it, but it took him quite a long time to stop being insecure. “I felt like Goofy: tall, slender, lanky, a bit like a walking skeleton,” says Richters. “Feeling like that made me quiet and introvert.”
Times changed for him when he stopped growing at nineteen years old. He might’ve not grown any more, but he then still weighed only 80 kilos. “I stuffed my face with everything I could find. In the beginning I only gained fat. I didn’t know anything about nutrition or what my body needed to grow,” Richters says.
“I went to the gym for the first time in my life and gained 20 kilos in two years. The third year I reached some sort of a plateau where I didn’t gain anymore. Your body gets used to changes, so you have to shock it to be able to change something. I looked into the lifestyle of bodybuilders online and that helped me gain another 50 kilos in the five years that followed. I weigh 150 kilos right now. The weight is fine, but when I look in the mirror, I see a lot of things that still need improvement.”
To gain and hold on to this much muscle mass, discipline and a strict diet are required. The Dutch Giant eats seven meals a day, at predetermined times. Altogether those meals add-up to a whopping 6400 calories of which 450 grams are protein. He even sets his alarm at three ‘o clock at night, just to eat his seventh meal of the day. “I think this life isn’t possible for normal people,” Olivier admits.
