- Clay Cooper combines hiking and weightlifting for mental health benefits.
- He began this practice in May 2020 amid personal challenges and the pandemic.
- Cooper's wife films his workouts, sharing them on social media as Discovery Deadlift.
SALT LAKE CITY — Like many people with anxiety, Clay Cooper sometimes seeks relief by lifting weights, in his case, deadlifting. And like many, he finds hiking helps him, too. But, like probably no one else, for the sake of his mental health, he does both at the same time.
In May of 2020, the Saratoga Springs man was feeling especially anxious due to the ongoing pandemic, the recent death of his father and the fact that he had just become a father himself.
"It was a little bit of a crisis, or it felt like an impending crisis," Cooper said.
Instead of lifting weights in the garage, he thought, "You know, I'm going to go out and maybe find some open air."
He loaded his weights into the back of his wife's Outback and drove to a picturesque spot by Utah Lake and went through his workout, recording it to check his form.
"I called my wife, and I was like, 'Hey, this is going to sound really weird, but this might be who I am now.' I showed her the videos, and that just snowball from there," he said. "After that first day, I kind of just kept chasing that feeling."
Since then, he's traveled throughout Utah, to 12 states and the Scottish Highlands, lugging his weights on trails through the backcountry to deadlift 450 to 550 pounds in spots with picture-postcard views. He's lifted under waterfalls, on the beach and on a frozen Utah Lake.
He takes four or five trips to haul his heavy load to and from (from, he said, is the most challenging) each location.
His wife, Amanda, films each trip, and they post videos on Instagram and TikTok, both with the moniker Discovery Deadlift. It's become part side hustle, part therapy.
"On its face, it just looks like a random dude with weights on a hiking trail, but it's really helped me contextualize my place in the world," he said. "It's made me feel small in a helpful way. Like my problems feel small because I'm in these big and beautiful spaces. It really does help my mental health. It's part of that tool kit, but I need to pair it with other things. "
"(It's) kind of transformative for him," Amanda Cooper said. "It's hard to be out there in this vast beautiful place and not feel present."
One of the last words from his father that he took to heart and to his arm as a tattoo was "forward," as a reminder that his dad wanted him to move forward with his life and not dwell on his dad's death.
He said carrying 500 pounds through the backcountry has helped him take an even greater weight off his shoulders.
"(I'm) not trying to make this more poetic or metaphorical than it needs to be, but … you're carrying something heavy and moving throughout the world with it," Cooper said. "I think that is a reminder for me to not allow like maybe some of the struggles or the things that I've had happen to me in my life or things that I've worried about to slow me down or to stop me from moving forward. I think that's the challenge of being human sometimes, is knowing what you want to carry with you and what you should set aside that's not going to serve you or serve those you love."
