At 46, the personal trainer qualified for the national title in both the masters division and open division, conquering the latter to be crowned Australian title holder.

Fatale juggled an intense training regime with running a personal training business, Like A Boss PT, and study.

In his downtime, he has a mountain of books to get through to complete further qualifications in training and massage therapy.

In the six months leading into the tournament, he would wake up at 3.45am to train, eat and study.

His 18 hour days were filled with training and work.

"Basically, I don't have a social life,” Fatale said.

During the competition, Fatale had to abide by a strict diet with minimal fluid intake.

And as though being entered in two categories wasn’t hard enough, once his competition had knocked off for the day and enjoyed a hard-earned meal, Fatale had to hold off.

Backstage the rest were tucking into Dutch pancakes and nutella, a cruel sight for the Queanbeyan personal trainer.

But the wait and hunger was worth it when he was named first place in the tall division.

Having competed extensively in his younger years, Fatale took a break before returning in 2015.

At that time, he had began personal training and used his strongman competing as a way to communicate his own discipline to his clients.

Fatale's commitment to his own fitness influenced his dedication to studying personal training and massage therapy.

"When I started studying it all had a real snowball effect,” he said.

"I have a love of the body and how it works, and with massage it is about repairing.”

He has his own modern gym in his garage at home where he runs both the training and massage business.

Since the Australian titles, Fatale enjoyed a short holiday in Fiji but now was back to his grueling regime.

His next goal is to step away from the show side and focus on performance, aiming to enter a power lifting competition next year.

"That style of training is different, it's more intense but needs more recovery,” he said.

"I was training six days a week getting ready for competitions, whereas for power lifting is probably going to be five days a week with more recovery and a different training style”

Fatale also focuses on pregnancy and post natal fitness in his private studio, as well as pregnant and sports massage, rehabilitation and cupping therapy. He also does remedial massage.