This past weekend I competed in United States Strongman's "Ohio's Strongest Man" put on by Team BSS in Boardman, OH as a fundraiser for Relentless Detroit. This was my first time back to competing in strongman in almost 2 years, and my first time competing as at a body weight of 220lbs.
I have to admit, I was pretty nervous. Competing as a 300+ pounder for the majority of my strongman career, I knew the weights were going to be relatively easy, but the whole "foot race" aspect of it was going to be a whole new wheel house for me.
Sure, we have to do medleys and events as heavyweights, but these lightweight and middleweight guys are fast! Luckily, I didn't have too many issues.
In this particular contest, the events were as follows:
1. Frame/Sandbag medley- 500lb frame down 50ft, run back and grab a 200lb sand bag and run it for 50ft for time. Grip has always been my issue, but I am confident with something as light as 500lbs. I was pretty close to taking the win in this event, but I sand bagged the sprints and came in 2nd place by a few tenths of a second.
2. 225lb Log- clean and press each rep- I was hoping to take a first place in the previous event so I knew how many reps I had to do and I could just call it there. The highest number before I went was 5 reps, so I decided to take my time and do 7, call it, and just hope that was the best number of the day. Luckily, it panned out, because I got my ass kicked in the next event.
3. Max Car Deadlift- This was by far the heaviest, and longest event of the day. One car for all the men, one car for all the women. The men's class was pretty big, so it took quite a while. I'm not sure the exact weight in hand of the implement, but we'll just go with what they were calling it. (Side note, a lot of math in strongman is just random guesstimation. We've learned to live with it) Most people got out around 815lbs. I was hoping once the weight got up to 860lbs, most of the guys in my weight class would miss, but I was very wrong. 3 guys in my class went up to, or over 1000lbs, and long time friend, Bruce Mason was the only heavyweight to go well over 1000lbs, which was a nice takeaway from his first strongman competition. I ended up taking 4th in that event.
4. 650lb Yoke for 50ft- I was pretty confident about this event. I've always been a decent yoker, so I knew I'd get a solid time. It's just hard to know because some of these dudes are monster athletes and can move extremely well. The 2 guys that were tied for 2nd behind me, Utah Perham, who get's to live Point Break everyday, and Dan Jan, who was hiding in the cut for the car deadlift until pulling his first pull at 900+lbs could have easily came in and smashed me. I pulled it off though and took another 1st place.
5. Max Stone to 52" platform, last man standing- probably my favorite event, and I was extremely confident going into this one. Stones have been going very well, and now that I'm skinny, I can get more surface area on the stone, actually making it somewhat easier. The hard part about this is I knew that Utah and Dan could easily pull out a huge stone as well, so the tactic was to try to get the heaviest stone with the least attempts, since it was last man standing and you could take and skip stones until you missed. So, if we all hit a 405lb stone, but one of us did it in 3 attempts and the other did it in 4, the person with 3 would win. Fortunately, it didn't get that far. I hit the 380lb stone pretty easy and was gearing up for the 405 but luckily, I was the only one in my weight class to get 380, securing the win. I did however attempt the 405, but it was to no avail. That's been a number that's been haunting me for a while, but I believe that it will drop soon.
All in all, I had a great time. BSS owner, Shawn Schumaker threw a great competition, and had some awesome help from other strongman pros and gym owners, like Shane Rickman from the Strength Depot near Detroit and pro 105kg competitor, Aaron West.
This contest made me remember why I fell in love with the sport in the first place and has me psyched to be back. Nationals are here in Columbus and 34 weeks away. Time to get to work!
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