The Education of a Strongman

Well I went and did it again. I set my deep-set eyes on a lofty goal and this time nothing will stand in my way. I am going to make a run at Strongman competition. You may not be intimately familiar with the sport but you have almost certainly seen it on television. The big scary guys who flip over giant tires, press logs overhead, and deadlift cars. What many people do not know is that strongman competition is a world wide sport that has hundreds if not thousands of competitions a year from local amateurs all the way up to the professionals. While you only see the hulking behemoths on television, there are actually weight divisions for smaller competitors as well as women, teens, and masters (people over the age of 50 I believe).

This will not be my first foray into strength athletics. I began training (seriously) in 2008. My main focus was on powerlifting at the time. I will be the first to tell anyone that despite being a big man I was not a natural at the sport. I struggled for quite a bit of time to work up to respectable weights. Finally in 2010 I competed in two powerlifting competitions. Aside from the people there and Missy, I have not told anyone about that before. I kept it a secret because I was honestly not sure how well I would do and didn't want the added pressure of my friends and family knowing. I didn't do great but I didn't do horrible either. My first competition my nerves got to me and I bombed out on the squats by cutting them too high. My second competition I hit depth but lacked the confidence to use bigger weights to really make a good showing. I had really just winged things going into the competition. I was training on my own and no longer with the powerlifting team I had been training with.

I vowed to reorganize my training and take things seriously and hit a meet in 2011 and really make a top showing. An injury and two surgeries forced me to sideline those plans, among other things. While I returned to training full time in late 2011 I never really looked to compete again. I briefly tossed around the notion that I could try for Olympic Lifting but it quickly fizzled out. While I have all the respect in the world for Olympic lifters I just couldn't continue training with the light loads required to master the lifts. I love being strong. I love lifting heavy ass things. I love the strain. I like looking strong.

Starting in the summer of 2012 I wanted to do something in the field of strength athletics. My first idea was to organize a strength competition among my circle of friends. Many of them are hardcore lifters and I thought it would be a fantastic thing. Unfortunately getting a level of commitment from people proved impossible. Everyone talks a good game but when it comes down to it most people fizzle out really fast.

My 34th birthday is in exactly five days. I know that I don't have an eternity to try and make a mark. I really feel though that I am entering into my prime. I am stronger now than ever before. In the past week I have hit personal records (PR) in the big three lifts, bench press, squat, and deadlift. Hopefully today I will hit a pr in the overhead press. My endurance is getting better and better and I am sticking with and following through with all my plans regarding cardio/conditioning.

The iron is hot and I plan to strike. The strongman season unofficially goes from May to October. There are still some competitions in between but the main ones are during those months. That gives me an off-season of 5 months to prepare for my first competition (possible longer depending on the schedule of events). In January there is an event an hour or so away that I plan on attending. It will give me a good idea of the competition I can expect to face locally and it will let me see what events I might do well in and what I might struggle in. Then I can work on fixing my weaknesses and perfecting my strengths.

I will make another entry to detail my actual training program I plan on using and how I plan to address my obvious weaknesses.