2016 has been a productive strongman season returning back to the sport. In June I took third place in the Open SHWW with United States Strongman. In September I won the HWW America's Strongest Master with Strongman Corporation. I would like to continue to make improvements and push my performance considerably for next year.

As of right now, I have no competition plans until next year. I am not sure what they will be but am using this down time to address some weaknesses, particularly 12" log and circus DB. Grip training will return as well.

We finished our first month of training in the strongman club. Something fascinating happened that I was not anticipating.  When I created the video for school announcements, I did so with purpose to make strongman less frightening and more inclusive with the images and vids in it.

What I WAS anticipating was athletes, male and female. The female athletes have shown up and are blowing away my expectations. Like 130 farmer's walks for 100+ feet, 135+ OHP and crazy conditioned ladies.  One of the ladies has a 340 DL and the fact that these ladies have a baseline of strength and understand the fundamentals is a dream come true and a testament to the changing culture of females in the weight room and their coaches. The male athletes, have not come at all. Not right now.

Winter training for track has begun, winter football work outs and baseball are all happening. We are all sharing the weight room at the same time and the different coaches have been amazingly supportive and inclusive with what we are trying to accomplish.

From the start The Big Guy felt like the boys wouldn't come because of the adolescent ego. Exactly what we've dealt with Magnus on. Ladies stronger than them is intimidating and challenging to their developing self image and a female in charge reinforces that issue. I hate when he's right and do not have a plan to address this issue. Letting the process take us where it leads is the current plan.

On the other hand, the ladies playing basketball show up to train before their practices and I've had to shoo them away on game day. In the process I've had two Limited English Proficiency ladies and an extended resource student show interest and want to join us.  The point being is what strength athletes know. The iron is empowering and calls those to play who most need it. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share this journey with some pretty amazing kids.

The events we are training right now are focused on simplicity and allowing those to train when they are able. We are building proficiency with basic events and rules, including the culture and expectations.

I've tested them with push press, still trying to hammer the idea of the dip. Our events are farmers, circus DB and keg/sandbag. Once I am comfortable with abilities and have a consistently core group of participants, I will bring the 10" log and move on to some other events. The weather has not been cooperative AT ALL, so we're just doing the basics inside while building the basics within the 1 hour 15 minutes weekly we have.

Each week I've increased the intensity to the point of feeling almost bad about it, thinking I may have pushed them too hard. It's hard when they are looking at you like, "That's it? Gimme more sister!" So I have pushed them a few times so I could see that impending death expression we all know when a medley is killing us and we want it to end. On those occasions, I've hunted a few down in class to check in how they were feeling.  All is great and they come back for more!