Rites of passage that involve impressive feats of strength have been around for thousands of years. They exist in many different forms and many of them originated in Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Tests like the Husafell stone carry, which originated in Iceland, have now become objects of desire for many would-be Strongmen throughout the world.
The original test of strength was taking the Kviahellan/Husafell for a walk around the goat track (approximately 50 meters). This feat is called fullsterker (full strength). Are you fullsterker?
These feats of strength have evolved over the years and are now called Strongman contests. Showcased in these contests are athletes who attempt to move cars, monster tires, massive stones, and other assorted enormous and seemingly unyielding objects. The most well-known of these contests is the World Strongman contest. Up until last year, no American had won in 25 years. It’s no surprise really that during those 25 years the sport was dominated by those crazy SOBs from Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
For me, performing feats of strength started when I was very young on a farm in Wyoming carrying five gallon pails of water, the original farmer’s walk. And it culminated when I competed in the local Arizona Strongman contest in February. I’ve trained on and messed around with the implements for a few years, but I never really trained for a contest. It was a completely new experience for me.
Caption: There was a great crowd for this strength contest.
The following are some of the nuggets that I mined from my training and contest participation as well as from the athlete whom I coached for the contest.
1. There’s no need to use max loads every training session. Many people have a tendency to get wrapped up in how heavy the implements are and try to prepare by keeping their “in-the-gym” loads/intensity too high. This is a sure recipe for physical breakdown. The bread and butter of my personal program were snatches, cleans, push presses, and back squats done with 65–85 percent 1RM loads for a rep range of 1–4 repetitions.
2. Think sustainable. This kind of relates to point number one. If you’re drug free, you have to have a systematic program and stick to it. Otherwise, you can get wrapped up in all of the gossip and internet forum chatter and pulverize yourself. Pick your program and stick to it. For example, I chose not to do any extra deadlifting. It may or may not have cost me in the end, but it definitely kept me healthy enough to train all of the other events at high levels.
3. Be quick but don’t hurry. This statement really had meaning when I dropped a sandbag because I was going “too fast.” That cost me points for sure. It’s a game of reps, inches, and seconds, and every one of them is critical. A slip, a drop, a stumble can all change the outcome. Even when you think things are going smoothly, a momentary lapse because you’re hurrying can lead to a problem.
4. Tactics, strategies, and a coach are extremely important in pure lifting events. Not only do you need to know what your own abilities are, you also need to know what your competitors are doing. That is where the true value of a coach becomes apparent. I was my own coach. While I made a good decision in one instance, I also made a critical mistake in another. Specifically, I came into the lifting too early during the max axle clean and press, which cost me points. However, at the end, I chose to move to 230 lbs and made the lift while others made a larger jump to 240 lbs and missed. Tactics and strategies are so critical. I wish I would have had an outside coach.
Caption: Taking my opening weight. I probably should have passed on this one.
5. Strongman contests are endurance events. I know some of you will think this is heresy because the actual 40–50 reps performed are of very high intensity, and we probably worked for less than six minutes of the nine and a half hours that we were there. However, that’s where endurance comes in. We drank plenty of water (it is hot here in Arizona in February) and a special recovery concoction of Biotest products (I will share that below). We also brought in our own soft tissue guy, fellow T magazine contributor Keats Snideman. In the end, we were able to stay as fresh as possible. I saw many ill prepared young competitors start to fade as the day wore on. Staying fresh and as comfortable as possible during an all day event like this makes a big difference.
Caption: As you can see, it was well after sundown before we finished.
6. Take care of the nervous system. During the train up, we would train implements on Sunday, which was usually a very high intensity, low volume day. Almost without fail, every Sunday afternoon I would need a 2–3 hour nap. My nervous system was getting wiped out during the morning training. Needless to say, this was gobbling up all of my time on Sundays. So one Sunday, I experimented by taking a double dose of Power Drive immediately after training. It worked like a charm. I was still a little sluggish, but I had no need for a two hour nap. Although during previous all day athletic events, I usually used just Surge, I decided to crank things up a bit for this contest. Throughout the contest, I constantly sipped on a mixture of the following:
1 serving of original Surge
2 servings of PowerDrive
1 serving of German creatine
1 1/2 liters of water
Altogether, I drank a total of two containers and that definitely did the trick.
Caption: Our supplies
7. Women can make impressive progress. The female whom I trained made very good progress and set personal records in nearly every event during the competition. It makes me sick that there is still a common notion that women can’t or shouldn’t train this hard. All of the women at the contest were true paragons of what a “strong woman” is.
I believe confidence is a very critical factor in the development of female athletes. When working with female athletes, I’ve noticed that they sometimes develop negative self talk that can be detrimental to a training session and definitely dangerous in a contest. As a coach, it is necessary to identify this early and do your best to eliminate it. The best tactic I’ve found for this is to let the trainee know that she is being negative. Then I try to be as positive as I possibly can. Also, identify drills that may be causing this problem and hold what I call a confidence-building training session. For example, the contestant with whom I worked was having trouble with the tire event. So a couple of weeks prior to the contest, we did an implement session using a significantly smaller tire, which she absolutely destroyed. I’m sure that the confidence gained from this training session helped on contest day. In the end, progress isn’t necessarily measured by strength and speed alone. Sometimes training to build confidence can be just as important.
Caption: Strongwomen enjoying the day’s events.
8. Some athletes perform better on “game day” and tend to hit bigger lifts than their best training lifts. Then there are those athletes who psych themselves out. These athletes may actually be stronger or have had better in-the-gym performances but just can’t put it all together during a competitive event. The only real distinguishing difference that I can tell between the two is that the athlete who kicks ass on “game day” is generally of a much calmer state of mind. So go ahead, put away the ammonia tabs. A clear, calm head is more likely to get you closer to the podium.
9. As a life long athlete, I’ve often wondered why more people don’t put it on the line at these types of contests. In retrospect, I see now that I spent a lot of extra training time, enough to notice that it was having an adverse effect on the amount of work I was getting done both at home and on the job. Still, I wonder why more athletes don’t do it. I guess it’s just much easier to sit back on an internet forum and claim a 500-lb deadlift than it is to actually send in your entry form, train, and then compete in one of these events. It takes a lot of time and guts to get out there, and I thoroughly respect all who do regardless of their ability level.
10. One of my favorite things about strength and bodybuilding contests is that they always bring out some crazy looking people. This one was no exception. There were plenty of pretty wannabes walking around all “puffed up” in tribal tattoos and tank tops. Occasionally, one of them stopped by to ask, “How much does that weigh?” The answer was generally followed by the classic chin and hand gesture as he/she strutted away. Funny.
Image caption: Everyone’s most entertaining competitor.
One competitor and his companion had to take the cake for being the wildest and craziest people there. He was definitely your prototypical bodybuilder, and she was likely some sort of fitness competitor. He sure had heart but not a whole lot of technique. They were entertaining to say the least. Of course, I have a lot more respect for him than many of those other peacocks. At least he actually tried. If you have never been to a contest like this or a bodybuilding show, I highly recommend it. I guarantee you will be thoroughly entertained just observing the variety of different people who come to these events.
Sorry, I lied. I actually learned eleven things.
11. As an athlete, you’ll always have regrets about competition. I definitely had mine. There were fifteen competitors in my lightweight group, and going into the contest, I figured I would be happy to finish in the top 50 percent. After three events, I had won one event and was sitting in second place. Under those circumstances, it’s hard not to get greedy and change your notion of what constitutes success. I know it was difficult for me. I ended up fourth—one and a half points out of third and four and a half points out of second. It was hard not to be a little disappointed.
The rest of our training group also finished very respectably. Josh finished ninth out of sixteen in a strong, middleweight group. Christi finished third, Riann finished fourth, Kari finished fourth as well, and Ray finished sixth. All and all it was a good day of competition. And it’s always fun to hang out, compete, and help others with whom you’ve spent so much time training.
I have to give a special thanks to Shelle, Martin, and Keats because they worked their respective asses off behind the scenes to make sure that we all had the things we needed when it came time to compete. Thanks.
One final observation…during training I had a conversation about the contest with an old cowboy, a guy who is definitely no stranger to hard work and heavy lifting. He was genuinely intrigued and impressed by the fact that I was going to lift a 300 lb Atlas stone. He was so impressed that every time I saw him thereafter he would mention it.
Those conversations made me realize that even nowadays in a society of softness and weaklings there are still a few men and women out there who choose to earn respect the hard way—by proving it on the battlefield, so to speak. I know that I earned the respect of that old cowboy and that means a lot to me. Whether or not I decide to go back next year is irrelevant. I’ve been there, done that, and got it on tape. It was a highly valuable personal experience. Maybe I will be back, but I might just walk away and choose to test myself with another strength sport. Right now I’m leaning toward the Highland games.
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