Hippo Passamus grew up on his parents farm in Sweden, working on the farm is the foundation to his physique. He can't even remember when he started helping out on the farm, he always worked. If it was milking the cows, castrating the pigs or shuffling shit didn't matter, Hippo loved to help out. As he grew older he got more intensive tasks was upon him. Getting the bulls into the pens, wrestling with ostriches and boxing with the kangaroo's. He might not show it on the ice but he's got a vicious right hook.
The family also owned a fair bit of land with forest, maintaining and planting new trees. Eventually Hippo didn't need any advanced machines, punching the trees fell them, then he carried them back and threw them in the river where they would float down to the rest of his family which would scoop them up. When he traveled over to america it's said that Hippo lost over 95% of his muscle mass