Last week I spoke with Clint Darden fresh off of his win at the Cyprus Strongest Man competition. I felt it most appropriate to break my takeaways down into two separate articles, the first of which was posted last week. If you missed the first one, you can take a look at it here. This week, I will preview Clint's upcoming meet.
Clint will compete in the Strongman Games Master's event in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 16th and 17th of this year. Event details and ticketing information can be found on the organizing body's website here.
Coming out of the Cyprus competition, the first order of business was recovery. Clint explained that there were no major recovery concerns on his end. This was surprising to me as I assumed a Strongman competition would tax the body heavily. He attributed his strong recovery to his diet and the fact that he is always primed to compete. Clint also pointed out the fact that the events in this particular competition could be considered safer and less taxing on the body as compared to the events he would be participating in at the master's event in December. From there, our conversation turned from recovery to preparation.
Without any post-competition downtime, Clint continues training as he evaluates his performance at the Cyprus and looks ahead to December. As far as events for the Master's competition, Clint is preparing for a 1000-pound Super Yoke, Max Log Press, and a medley that will involve an 800-pound frame. Clint gives some of his initial thoughts on the event in his training log post here. If you are unfamiliar with his journey, I would encourage you to take a look at some of his training log posts from the past.
In addition to running multiple businesses, being heavily vested in Autism research and advocacy, and training his ass off, Clint has overcome many health obstacles in the recent past. Hearing him describe some of his post-chemotherapy gym sessions over the phone hit home for me and I feel that we can all take some inspiration from his situation as he competes in December.
My biggest takeaway from our conversation stemmed from a comment Clint made about taking some of his own advice as he heads into the competition. He explained that he often has conversations with clients that revolve around all of the reasons why they aren't ready for competition or the next step. The advice he gives his clients is that their situation may never be 100% ideal, but that they should make the most of the opportunity by utilizing the tools that are available to achieve the best result they can at that time. It would have been easy to have brushed off both the Cyprus Strongest Man competition and the Master's event in December in favor of this situation not being ideal, but I feel that his decision to compete is a true testament to his ability as a coach, a father, a business owner, and friend. Good Luck Clint!