The Man Who Ran On Broken Legs

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]The man, the myth, the hardness, the shiny head, the quotes. You've all probably heard of, or at least heard quotes from the legendary David Gogggins before. Most of you probably know him from the sheer amount of memey available on the great internet. And perhaps most of all, his very iconic quotes where he tells you to stay hard.

[00:00:21]>> Stay [ __ ] hard.

[00:00:26]But Gogggins wasn't always just a motivational speaker. Long before he ever became an online sensation, he was actually a genuine toplevel athlete and arguably one of the toughest men on the planet. Let us start with his birth.

[00:00:40]Little David Dorian Gogggins was born in Buffalo, New York in 1975 during a time where the big state wasn't doing so well. So, safe to say Gogggins was born into a pretty hard environment. But little Gogggins wanted to make something big for himself and he already had his first job ever by the age of six where he worked some night shifts sorting rollerblades for his dad's business.

[00:01:02]This guy was doing night shifts at age six while most people today can't even get an entry-level job with a PhD. But I digress. However, it wasn't all fun and games for little Gogggins as he would be diagnosed with a learning disability in third grade and bullied through most of his childhood. And due to growing up in a very toxic environment, he also developed a stutter alongside a ton of social anxiety. And with facing a lot of discrimination in his life, it wasn't until David Gogggins was 17 years old when things would start changing. He applied for the US Air Force Parescue, but was quickly removed because he was diagnosed with something called sickle cell trait where you can develop some pretty harsh symptoms during things like hard physical activity and dehydration.

[00:01:45]Remember this. So instead, Gogggins was sent to a different branch where he served for 5 years before working as an exterminator for about a year. However, because of his station and work being less physically demanding, Gogggins had been gaining weight, eventually swelling up to 297 lbs or 135 kilos, which put a big stick in his wheels for his next career choice, which was joining the United States Navy. Being too big and frankly out of shape, he wasn't allowed to be anything more than a reserve. And Gogggins was told that in order to properly join the US Navy, he would need to weigh 191 pounds, which apparently made this man enter a state of mind which he would never snap out of.

[00:02:26]Gogggins then went on a crazy diet and exercise regime, supposedly eating only 800 calories per day and exercising for hours every single day at most.

[00:02:37]Supposedly burning upwards of 5,000 calories, which shredded his weight like crazy. But because Gogggins couldn't just rely on fat loss to lose that much weight, he also went on to burn muscle.

[00:02:48]So what he did was incorporate incredibly high rep sets between 100 and 500 reps on certain body weight exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, and lunges, which burnt a lot of calories and also kept him constantly fatigued.

[00:03:02]Alongside drinking a ton of water because of how much he was sweating, Gogggins would start his first day off by running a quarter mile, then walk back because of how difficult it was.

[00:03:12]So, he quickly realized that he had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and slowly picked up the pace. And after about 3 months of insane dedication, increasing his tolerance to pain and discomfort every single day, Gogggins lost 106 lb and got accepted into the Navy in record time. And honestly, you could probably make an entire video about how well Gogggins ended up doing in the Navy and what type of physical unit he was during that time. But let's just say he put in a lot of work. He graduated the Army Ranger School at the very top of his class and he raised over $2 million for charity for his friends who died in a helicopter accident. But it was the way he raised this money which made him catch a lot of attention. Gogggins was running ultramarathons, meaning insanely long, grueling races under crazy circumstances. For reference, he ran something called the Bad Water Ultra three separate times, which is a 217 km foot race with a total elevation of near 6,000 m, which is around 2/3 of the way up to Mount Everest if you start at ocean level. This race is often insanely difficult because of how crazy the temperatures get in that area, and they often pass 50°. Mind you, Gogggins did this one time and decided yeah, he wasn't so bad and ended up doing it two more times on separate occasions. But the most grueling race that he ever did supposedly was in 2005, that being his first ever ultramarathon, the San Diego One Day, which he only did in order to actually qualify for his first Badwater Marathon. But at 240 lb, Gogggins had never ran an ultramarathon before and he signed up just 18 hours before race start because he had to run 100 km to qualify. But if you know anything about running, if you go outside right now and try to run a full marathon without practice, you are going to have a very difficult time. Gogggin said that this was the worst pain that he had ever been in because by the end of this race, he had ran 101 miles, which is 162.5 km or as long as four marathons in a row in 19 hours. And when the medical team examined him at the end, this is what they found. David Gogggins had broken almost every metatarsil in his feet. He had stress fractures in both of his legs. He had some nasty shin splits. He was in kidney failure for the last 31 miles as he had began urinating blood and he was on the brink of collapsing.

[00:05:43]Quoted by Gogggins himself, it was the hardest thing I ever did in my entire life.

[00:05:49]>> I'm in the worst shape in my entire life ever. I've never even been close to this again.

[00:05:54]>> But what if I told you that's not anywhere near the craziest thing this man has done throughout his career as a strength and endurance athlete? For one, he did a 515 km triathlon in 2006 for the Ultra Man World Championships where he actually placed second after three full days of swimming, cycling, and running, only being beaten by 10 minutes in total, which who the hell would actually beat that? And he competed in a race called the Moab 240 where he ran 240 mi, which is 386 km, not once, not twice, but three separate times. And the last one he actually did just a few months ago at 50 years old.

[00:06:33]>> You know, he broke all the bones in his feet.

[00:06:35]>> He broke Yeah, he he he was running a 100 I was running this race. It was a 24-hour race as a relay team. I was with four friends. And the format of the race is, you know, you run a mile, I run a mile, my other whatever team runs the most amount of miles, >> right, >> wins the race. He had no teammates.

[00:06:52]>> But if you think Gogggins is just some insane ultramarathon runner, then think again. Because in 2013, he also set and held the world record for the highest number of pull-ups done within a 24-hour time frame being 4,030, which he did in around 18 hours, but subsequently had to stop early because he had completely torn open his hands.

[00:07:14]Now, that record has since been broken.

[00:07:17]But supposedly, David Gogggins has also done 7,81 pull-ups within 24 hours back in 2023 at 48 years old. Oh, and the wildest part, for the first 34 years of this man's life, including all the seal stuff and the early ultramarathons, Gogggins was doing all of this with a literal hole in his heart. Doctors eventually found a congenital defect and had to go up and patch that. So when he tells you that most people live life at 40% or whatever, understand that this guy literally spent decades breaking his body apart, failing, coming back and setting records while his heart wasn't even operating at full capacity. On top of the fact that he wasn't even allowed to join a certain branch in the Air Force because of his cickle cell trait, which would render him at high risk during hard physical activity and dehydration. Some people are born gifted. You have the great bodybuilders with the greatest genetics for building muscle and in the best possible shape.

[00:08:14]You have athletes who are incredibly strong and explosive. And you have guys with a brilliant mind who can use that to either help the world or create whatever they desire. But David Gogggins just decided that he was going to outsuffer all of them. His genetics weren't insane in any regard other than that he built insane resilience and enough of it to outperform people who were probably in much better shape than he was or at least had better genetics.

[00:08:39]but they just didn't have the mental fortitude. And you will never catch me for saying that hard work can always beat out everything else. But in David Gogggins case, it's seemingly dead. Now, even after working primarily as a motivational speaker for the last decade or so, telling people his story and screaming at guys to stay hard, Gogggins is still doing crazy stuff. Like I mentioned, he just came out of retirement again and recently joined the foot race called the Bigfoot 200, which is 200 m with a 1,400 meter elevation.

[00:09:08]and he of course did the Moab 240 coming in 22nd place despite being 50. This man is just an absolute legend and behind all the memes and trust me there is a lot. There is a lot of actual motivation and things that can be learned from this man. Like no, you don't have to push everything you do to the brink of collapsing. But doing stuff you do not like if they benefit you will build more mental resilience which can be very useful in daily life. Take something simple. Say that you don't want to throw away your garbage because the trash can is a 200 m walk. With some resilience, you will do that regardless. Or think even bigger tasks like going to the gym even if you don't want to or eating bland food for your weight loss journey even if you don't want to do it sometimes. Mental resilience is a trainable feature and one I think many would benefit from regardless of how or what you are doing in your life. But yeah, that is the story of the legendary David Gogggins. And if you want more videos like this one, make sure you leave a comment down below and let me know who I should cover next. Thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you all next time.