I’ve competed in another strongman competition, this time my first time as a Lightweight Male in the 181lb class. I’ll cut to the chase and say I came in dead last and zero’d more events than I’d ever done before. I’ve dropped 35lbs since March, and I’m still adjusting to my new body in that regard, which helped make this one of the most challenging competitions of my life. I’m pretty excited in that regard, and thought I’d share the experience.
And here is the video of the full comp
**PRE-COMP**
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| These guys still have it figured out |
I ate the same breakfast I’ve been having every training day: 150g of egg whites mixed with 150g of beef bone broth with 1.5 scoops of Metabolic Drive and some powdered electrolytes. A wild departure from my days of eating…nothing, so I could make weight, followed by some sort of sugary/fast food blitz. I drove an uneventful 2.25 hours to the site and weighed in at 173.0 while wearing full sweats, shoes, and my strongman compression gear underneath.
I set-up camp and actually dug into one of my meals before the first event: 4 hardboiled whole pasture raised organic eggs mashed into a paste with a serving of grassfed sour cream and 4oz (cooked) of ground venison, personally hunted and butchered by my wife’s Uncle. Another departure from my glory days, which I’ll address next, but it was also weird being so hungry when I hadn’t done anything yet.
**GOALS**
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| He's not wrong |
Since I knew I was super behind the 8-ball on this due to my bodyweight, this was going to be a different kind of comp for me: this was about personal growth. My goals were to not eat any junk OR carbs and keep it as carnivore as possible. Not because I felt like this was more noble, but more to simply see if I could, and how it would go. The Metabolic Drive was the closest “exception” and I packed an emergency Finibar in case I found myself crashing, but otherwise it was just going to be that mashed egg/venison mixture, green tea and water.
I also was going to go limited caffeine: only the stuff in the green tea. I have a 3 week streak without energy drinks of coffee going, and I wanna see how long I can keep it going. Again: no particular reason, just to see if I could. In the past, I’d be about 2-3 energy drinks deep by the end of the day. Did I “need” that?
The third goal was to not re-tear whatever it was I tore in my right knee on week 2 of “Juggeryoke”. The first event was where I was most worried about that, since I did it on the log, but I was going to keep my eye on it all competition.
And final goal was to leave it all out there and have fun. It’s the whole reason I signed up.
**EVENT 1: 200lb Log Clean and Press Each Rep**
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| That's about as far as I got with it too |
I was excited about this event, since cleaning each rep is awesome and gasses competitors. Then I got to actually handle the log we were going to use and realized this was going to be a “ WHO can get a rep” contest for the lightweights. The log handles were STUPID far apart, like the Rogue 10”.
First guy got the clean but no rep. Second guy got in 2 of the grandest reps of all time with a jerk and a JPS-esque “press the log off the head” technique.
I got set, got my head right, grabbed the log, went to clean it, felt it feel like a jillion pounds, got stuck midway, somehow through sheer force of will get it all the way to my chest…and knew that there was absolutely no way I was going to press it. I let it crash, thinking that, if I could do better on another clean and not be so exhausted, I might be able to set up for a stronger press. Well, that didn’t happen, and I didn’t want to re-tear my left bicep on an errant log clean, so after a few more attempts, I hung it up. The guy after me got a jillion reps and was the clear candidate for first that day.
**EVENT 2: Max Trap Bar in 3 attempts**
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| Good thing this wasn't strengthliftng... |
I had been doing a ROM progression cycle on trap bar with 405lbs, so I knew I was good for that. We were allowed to pick the starting weight in the rules meeting, so I asked for 400, knowing we’d go 20lb jumps from there.
The guy who also zero’d the log ended up asking for us to start with 380, and he missed that, so I knew if I got 400 I at least had a win there. 400 was grindy, but made it. We were apparently pulling on the Eleiko Oppen bar, which was cool since it had knurl marks on the center of the handle, which made strapping in easy. I had an issue with strapping in too far forward or backward in training and having the bar tilt.
No other MLWs went for 400, the next time one jumped in was at 460, so I went for that to match too. 460 felt WAY too damn heavy, but I pulled it. Since we were doing “Rising Bar”, I decided to pass on 480 to allow me some recovery time, and asked for 500. I really liked Rising bar for the strategic element of it, and it made a last man standing event tolerable. I actually felt 500 ever so slightly start to break off the floor, but not enough to be worth chasing after. My knee was holding up strong so far, and this was keeping it in place.
**EVENT 3: Sandbag and sled drag**
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| Yeah, that about summed it up |
This and the 4th event are why I signed up: medleys in a competition. I missed these so much. Unlike previous comps, I did ZERO sandbag training to prep for this, which was for the best, because I usually end up tearing the hell out of my arms when I do that.
I used some strongman cheating and put the sandbag on top of my feet as part of my set-up. This gives a little bit of daylight between the floor and the bag, which allows for handholds. I also ditched my competition shirt at this point and decided I was going to go for the Mariusz Pudzianowski/Jon Andersen Award for “Most Jacked Person at the Competition”, because if can’t be the strongest at least I can look pretty while I lose. You can actually hear some folks making commentary about it during this event.
The sandbag pick actually went pretty well, and the carry moved about as fast as I would expect with so minimal training. The sled drag caught me off guard: about the only clue it was going to be so awful was watching the other competitors attempting the sled and being caught off guard. So I went for the initial pull, realized it was going to be heavy as hell, and just leaned into it and pulled like hell, knowing that, if I ever stopped, I’d be dead. Just like a shark.
I was surprised when I ran out of time. I felt like I was moving at a good pace. I had a slight technical error getting set up on the straps, and I lost a little bit of time on the bag, but ultimately I imagine I needed to move faster on the sled.
But I think this was the first time I had a sled in a comp where I didn’t fall backwards on my butt, so that’s a win. This got me a last place finish.
**EVENT 4: Duckwalk and powerstairs**
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| It was absolutely my goal to be one jacked duck |
Event was supposed to be duck walk 25’, do 3 reps of power stairs, then duckwalk it back.
Lotta dudes were struggling with those stairs, and I figured out where: those WIDE 100lb plates pretty much give you no opportunity to hinge. I’m only 5’9, so I’m already sawed off as it is, but now that I have to take a sumo stance I was totally hosed.
But also, you might be able to tell in the video: I about blacked out on the initial pick, and was basically jump zombie-ing forward until I went night-night. I managed to fall forward, have the stars clear, do a quick pick and repeat. I fell into the platform, corrected myself, and struggled futilely to get it to the platform. But I gave it some solid effort, and loading my frame down with 100lbs over bodyweight was awesome for making every muscle in my body pop, so I got a cool facebook photo. This, once again, got me last place.
**EVENT 5: Stone Medley**
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| Same technology as what was behind "Stay Put Socks" |
I won’t bother listing weights and heights here, because as you saw on the video, it was a big goose egg. This is the only event I have a bitter taste in my mouth about. You might be able to see it in the video, but I was literally GLUED to the stone. I applied a moderate amount of tack to myself, but the stone ITSELF was COATED in tacky from previous competitors, to the point that it was stuck to the platform. So it didn’t matter about being strong enough to pick up the stone: I had to be strong enough to BREAK the tacky off the stone first and THEN pick it up, and then, once I got it lapped, it wasn’t going anywhere else. With how high the platform was, my plan was to try to shoulder it, but I could never even get the momentum necessary, because it was like trying to walk through mud: each movement was about getting unstuck and then stuck again.
I realized at that point I’m a dinosaur in the sport: everyone else is using tacky shirts and stone sleeves and, in turn, has material that can help by pass the tacky issue, while I’m just applying sticky stuff to my body. I the future, I think I’m just going to avoid tackying myself and just rely on what’s on the stone. Zero’d here.
I will say that I got another great strongman win here: as I was standing there, bare chested and covered in tacky, another dude who was going that route was standing next to me. He was definitely more “strongman built”. He looked at me, there was a pause, and then he “Dude..are you, like, bodybuilding?”
I replied with “Nope: just not eating enough”.
He appreciated that. Told me I was definitely the leanest dude there, and I said “Well at least I won that”.
**LESSONS LEARNED**
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| I had a lot of the latter here |
I knew coming in this light was going to be a challenge, and it delivered. Doing no specific training for the comp also added to that. But, that’s really the big thing: I grew up. Strongman isn’t my life anymore: it’s a thing I do for fun. And that’s absolutely what happened: I had a blast and I DIDN’T have to change my life for it. I kept training the week of the comp, went for a 3 mile walk with my family after it was done (and after having an AMAZING dinner at our favorite BBQ place where I got the biggest, fattest pork ribs I’d ever seen in my life alongside some amazing sliced brisket) and just treated this like it was an events day. I intend to keep it this way: if a comp looks fun, I’ll sign up and have a blast. And I got to help out some folks along the way: the guy who took second in my weight class cramped up BAD, so I gave him some of the electrolytes I brought and it totally transformed him. I also let him use some of the goo gone and paper towels I brought for tacky removal and got him sold of WD-40. And I got to meet a few awesome folks off reddit as well. A dude named John introduced himself to me: “Dude, are you MythicalStrength? I’ve been reading your articles for 6 years!” That was really cool, and honestly was one of the highlights of the competition.
**WHAT’S NEXT**
Well, about that: I originally had a competition signed up for 14 Oct…but I just went looking for it and it’s gone: instead, having been moved to 4 Nov. That’s a less viable date for me, and currently I’m the only person in the 181 weight class, so there’s very little incentive to go do it compared to just a hard events day at home. I have a 5k signed up for 15 Oct, and then I go for a Disney Cruise on 16 Oct. So now that I don’t have a competition looming, I’m probably going to do 2 more weeks of Juggeryoke with a few movement alterations leading up to the cruise and most likely do a mini-famine there so that I can absolutely eat my face off the whole time I’m cruising. After that? Chaos is the Plan. But I’ll be at this weight class for the next competition, whenever that happens.
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