#73 - The New Titans of Strength: A Salute to Women's Strongman Contests

Ever wondered how the age-old spectacle of human strength has evolved into today's strongwoman competitions? That's what we're unpacking on today's show, with a special nod to the mighty athletes of The Riveter, an all-women's novice competition. I, Gus Holland, will be your guide through the grueling, yet awe-inspiring events that these amazing competitors face, from sandbag lifts to the adrenaline-filled truck pull. Plus, learn about the meticulous training and endurance these events demand, and if you're feeling inspired, discover how you could start your own journey into this world of strength sports.

This episode isn't just a tribute to the strongwomen out there but also a resource for anyone curious about the sport. No guests today, just me sharing the history, the challenges, and the triumphs of strongman competitions, and why they're an incredible display of not just muscle, but also heart and determination. Tune in, and you might even snag yourself a free training schedule program that could be your first step towards the thrill of the lift, the heave, and the press. Whether you're a fan, a potential sponsor, or a future competitor, this episode has something to pump you up and cheer on the women who are lifting not just weights, but also the spirit of competition to new heights.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Way of Life. I'm your host, gus Holland Today. I want to start off the episode by giving a big shout out to the competitors of the Riveter, which is in Pflugerville, texas, march 30th. The podcast is sponsoring that competition. It is an all-women's novice competition. Strongwoman competition it's going to be epic. Novice competition. Strong woman competition it's going to be epic and I'm super excited to see the results from it. I know there's going to be a truck pull and several other events and, with that being said, I'd like to dedicate this episode specifically to the strong women, not only in an attempt to wish them good luck, but really to help promote the sport of strong woman competitions and hopefully help anybody that might be looking to get into them or even to sponsor them or create an event yourself. Before I begin, I do want to touch base in regards to the episode from Monday. So if you stick around to the end of this episode, you will find out how to receive a completely free training schedule program. So from here on out, within this episode, I'm just going to be referring to both strong man and strong women competitions as strong man competitions that's what they are usually referred to, the Riveter, is specifically women only, which is awesome. But basically, just to make things simpler, I'm going to refer to it as strong man. So the sport of strong man, I mean it can be dated back to hundreds of years if you get technical with it, as far as just performing feats of strength within a competition setting. The first official World's Strongest man competition was in 1977. So it's been around in the modern sense for almost 50 years. Also, many of the lifts within a strongman competition are specifically to demonstrate strength and more recently several of them have been implemented to show more of a muscular endurance side of things.

Speaker 1: 2:31

So instead of there are sandbag lifts and Atlas stone lifts, there's also medleys, which are lifting those same objects back to back and either placing them on your shoulder, placing them on a platform, throwing them over something, or just dropping them once the lift has been successful, but doing it back to back several times, normally with an increase in weight. So you might start at I'm just going to throw something out there, you might start at like 80 pounds sandbag and you lift that and chunk it over some form of barrier. That's normally like chest height, and then maybe the next one will be a hundred, and then the third one will be 120, fourth one 140, so on. You know they can jump up in 20s, 50 pound increments, whatever the event coordinator has scheduled. So those are Atlas stones and sandbags. There's also other forms of medleys, but that's a good representation for that.

Speaker 1: 3:45

A common one that a lot of people really like to see is a log press. So these are I mean, just to simplify it, it's almost like the size of a telephone pole that's been chopped to slightly longer than a standard like Olympic weight bar. They oftentimes will add weight to these, especially for the bigger guys. The closest thing I can really explain it to is like part deadlift, part sandbag lift, part shoulder press. So you're going to squat down, uh, with your hand on on the handlebars, uh, or the grip, whatever you want to call it, and you're going to kind of like partially deadlift it to get it up into your lap area and you're going to pull it snug to your belly and then, as you're kind of standing up, you're going to roll it up your body and then you're standing straight with it, um, with your fist pointing upward, I guess at this point, uh, and it's about shoulder height, and so from there. Normally you're going to press it straight up above your head for norm, normally for repetitions, um, sometimes they'll do it for like a max, max weight, just to see who can do the most. I'd say the the other most common thing is is some form of deadlift. It can be just strict deadlifts, conventional deadlifts with standard 45 plates, or you vehicles there's wagon wheel deadlifts, there's a whole bunch of different stuff, but those are some of the most common lifts.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Checking out at least one or two competitions in person and maybe even talking to some of the athletes and hopefully finding a local gym that has at least one person that is familiar with the sport and hopefully they have some implements there that can be used to train specifically for strongman. So, other than that training regimen, some people I mean, especially if you don't have access to the specific implements that you'll be using a lot of people just go with a standard workout routine within a commercial gym, um, within a commercial gym, um, if you're, if you're fortunate enough, um and can afford it, you can go to normally like a, a smaller, like family owned gym or something like that, where there are, you know, sometimes we'll have a strong man group that meets up, like on Saturdays, and they'll lift group that meets up like on Saturdays and they'll lift these different implements and talk about technique and form and training and, you know, overcoming certain weaknesses and you know all kinds of stuff like that. I would say, in my personal opinion, as far as the training goes, it's imperative to really focus on injury prevention and management of previous injuries or keeping track of your strengths and weaknesses within the sport, because you are lifting a considerable amount of weight in comparison to somebody that's just trying to stay fit and healthy. That is, that's one thing that needs to always be, I guess, harped on, at least from my point of view, a big thing for most people, especially me, because I tend to hype myself up like not even not out of fear, but just like excitedness or whatever fear, but just like excited, excitedness or whatever, like adrenaline dump but mental preparation. So obviously, the more familiar you are with the sport, the more comfortable you are. Maybe you have friends within the sport, um, buddies you train with that are strong men or strong women, um, normally, the more comfortable you are with this, the more comfortable you're going to be at your first competition. I've I've been to a few as a non-competitor. I've been to a few as a competitor. I've never really had a bad experience. As far as social interaction goes, within the sport, everybody's typically pretty friendly, pretty helpful, willing to help you, even though you're technically competition against them. So yeah, but as far as mental preparation goes, the the more comfortable you are with with the sport in general, more comfortable you're going to be at your first competition. So that was a big thing for me because I was not super familiar with the. I was super familiar as a fan of the sport. I watched it a lot on TV as a child and teenager. Um, I had never even worked with any of the implements, uh, but I had a lot of gym, gym time, gym experience and so, uh, I was psyching myself out, mainly just because of the unknown, basically, and not knowing anybody. And you know, it was the newest of the new for me. So yeah, obviously, if you are more mentally prepared, normally that's the better that you're going to perform, the less likely you are to get injured, etc.

Speaker 1: 9:51

Another positive about the sport is that it is actively growing. The community is, year after year, is getting larger and larger. There is more backing than ever. There's more companies that are strongman, specific or at least participate within the sport and recognize it. It is definitely growing and, especially in the mainstream, there's been a lot more effort into providing live stream, live streaming capabilities for these events and all types of stuff, even for smaller events, so it's really an exciting time to get in the sport or at least even just to be a fan of it. On top of that, if you are a person that is into social media, then there are a lot of for lack of a better term influencers. They're really just competitors that post their training and post helpful videos, but there are a lot of both men and women that that are, uh, doing this for the strong man community, and so that's that's super helpful and gonna just help you get even more involved within the community. So, yeah, that that about wraps it up. I mean, that's super basic stuff, but it is encouraged.

Speaker 1: 11:13

If y'all ever have any questions about the sport for male or female, or you need help getting in contact with a gym in your area, finding people to train with or whatever, you can always hit up the podcast. Normally, the best way is Instagram. It's at way of life podcast, but I personally will always try and help y'all the main, okay. So I often say we, um, in regards to the podcast, we are sponsoring the event and everything. It's normally just me referencing myself and my producer, christian McLean. So he's awesome. His wife is competing at the Riveter. Her name's Crisanta Big shout out to her. She's going to do great and I'm very excited about that. But that's what I mean when I'm referring to we. He helps a lot with the podcast.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Now, that is the end of the episode, and if you've stuck around long enough and you are interested in receiving a custom program from me specifically, basically all I want you to do actually you don't have to do anything Uh, all you have to do is message me on Instagram, uh, through the podcast is at way of life podcast and say hey, gus, um, I'd like to receive some free, a free program, or free, uh, training split or whatever. And if you have something specific you're trying to work on, whether it's like focusing on your first strongman competition, or if it's you're trying to go for hypertrophy and just more of an aesthetic type thing, or maybe it's just overall fitness and health, or you're you're trying to overcome a disease, or you know who knows what I'm? I'm not a doctor. I'm not anything except a dude with a lot of experience in the gym. I am a certified personal trainer and a performance enhancement specialist through NASM, which is a national account National Association of Sports Medicine. So, yeah, so take that, take that into consideration. I'm not allowed to give you medical advice or anything like that, but really all you have to do is message the Instagram account, however you want to word it. Really, I'm going to do my best to help you, and it's free.

Speaker 1: 13:43

So the number one way you can help the podcast is to share this with a friend. The other way is to rate and review it. You can check out wayoflifepodcastcom. That has excuse me again. That has all of the links of how to listen to the podcast. It's got a merch link. If you want to get a shirt or something like that, we do have merch and, yeah, I'm just here to help. So share this with a friend, I mean, especially if they want a program too, just send them my way. I hope this helps everybody and I'll be talking to you all next week. All right, bye.