As with most of my contest write-ups (write-ups in general) I put a lot of words on the page. This one I feel needs the backstory of things going on to get the mindset of things for this show. Maybe I write these to get the thoughts out of my head so I can move on to the next thing. Try to see the thoughts physically manifest and try and figure out what can be learned from it. Perhaps this is just an elaborate and several year case study that someone can use for an abnormal psyche thesis paper. Not done yet, keep it together. That has been the feeling since the start of this prep after the last competition. End of last competition, I felt beat but good. Like I could do it all. I took a vacation for like the first time in nearly a decade and swam in the ocean to just relax. I had two contest close together planned to get to 40 total competitions in my career. But plans rarely go as planned in my opinion. Two weeks into the new training cycle, I had an accident. Box jumps claim another. Took a tumble and landed hard. I knew I had sprained my left wrist and continued the rest of the workout. It was only later when I realized I couldn’t fully bend or extend my elbow that there was a bigger problem. I had fractured my elbow and I had to wear a sling and wrist brace for a week at all times and then I could take it out after that with a follow up 4 weeks later. Which would be the day before the planned August show. I ended up withdrawing from that competition which I hated doing. I did find out at my follow up that the fracture was an “avulsion” fracture which is what I had done to my pinkie fingers in 2019 and that that restriction I had been feeling was scar tissue. Honestly, if I had known that was the case, I probably would’ve still attempted that August show with that knowledge. Strongman, not smartman. Attempting to work around things also added stress and pressure. Compensate. More lower body work and focusing on what I could focus lead to some overuse injuries for my tendons in my elbows and knees. Also did something to my left side of my neck and I’m not sure if that was fall related or if it was from doing other stuff to work around the injury that caused that as well. Tendon pain that made me think it was something worse. Knowing what the issue is and giving it a name can help but hard to take “you’re doing too much” as treatment when you feel like you are doing the bare minimum in the first place to do the thing that you love (and will probably kill you). Spoilers, I survived.
For this particular show, it was announced almost a year in advance. I tend to not sign up for those kinds of shows as that is a long way away and life happens more often than not. And things can get really fucky with COVID-19 stuff. But I signed up for it as I loved the events. Late October 2020 I was on the rebound from a past few shitty months. Then I had problems with things near the end of that year and beginning of 2021 that I requested to withdraw from the competition as I was feeling like crap and worried I had a severe knee injury and that perhaps I was just done with all this nonsense. I’ve detailed that a good bit in my training logs and touched on that briefly in the previous contest write-up in July to give some depth to that competition’s meaning and prep. Entries had fluctuated as initially only 50 and then it went up to 100 and then topped out at 130 or so. Then USS added a pro class division and that enticed be back to doing the show as I had a bit of a pep in my step and felt I could get on that level. I had tried to get back in earlier than that but there was a waitlist and I didn’t like to have that uncertainty of if I was or wasn’t so I had not gotten back in at that time. I’m thankful the promoter was so understanding with my in and out status with the competition. So I was initially going at this for the pro level but I realized that it wasn’t going to happen. Recovering from broken bones and injuries and then asking that much on my body. Essentially WSM level weights on some of the events. It hurt to admit to myself that I wasn’t there yet, even after all this time and effort. Trying to not think that dropping back down to open class from the pro class was cowardice. I know it isn’t but hard to not focus on that. I tend to think I’ve done very little in the sport and I again, hear what people say but I still got that voice that says that. The thing the both drives me forward and drives me insane.
It wasn’t all bad. This was going to be a trip when it came to a show. This contest required travel and it would the first one since March 2019 that required an overnight stay. My father would be able to go this time which hadn’t been the case at the last show. I slept well enough and took the day off from work so I could get sleep and be rested for driving out and kind of get used to the area. Good thing having my dad is that I can sleep if I need to pre and post contest. I don’t have many people to talk to when it comes to my stresses and thoughts with strongman and competing so it is nice to deload with my dad on this stuff. Drive was fairly uneventful and I ended up taking like a 10 minutes nap just as we got there. Atlantic City, New Jersey on the boardwalk. It has been to my knowledge, the first time in a decade that they’ve had a contest here. I think that last one had been on the beach. The one before that had been in a hotel in 2009 and I was a lightweight (middleweight now, but then there wasn’t anything other than over and under 105kgs). That show had been challenging but I didn’t perform well (and it was my last under 231lbs show I did). Hotel owner was furious seeing what strongman actually was and seeing logs dropped from overhead and completely missing the tires didn’t help haha. So this show is to return next year but I do wonder if it will now that they’ve seen what it is we do. It was kind of strange being there. To be fair, I’ve not really been a social person and have a ton of anxiety but it seemed like there wasn’t many people there when it came down to it. A lot of things seemed to be closed and there weren’t really any signs indicating such. This was to be the Mr. America Sports Expo and I don’t know how they got any money to cover this. Weighed in at 278.2lbs without my shoes on and there were going to be six in my group (five as the one person never showed up) and just kind of had the rest of the evening to do whatever. Got lost in the hotel by accidentally getting into the in-between level that was where the hotel maintenance staff was and that seemed like an abandoned high school. Lot of the amenities weren’t available (like the pool) so after eating an expensive dinner, ended up just trying to relax in the hotel room. I know this seems to be like Poochie keeping Itchy and Scratchy from getting to the fireworks factory but I promise you Milhouse, we will get there.
Woke up at 7AM to get ready for the day. I wasn’t feeling it. I swept well and ate well and did what I could to get shoulder and neck to behave but I wasn’t feeling like I was here to lift heavy things. I had been feeling a little under the weather the day before and just can’t tell if it is bad allergies or just a the weakest cold I’ve ever had. Got down to the competition area to get set for the day. Saw security escorting a woman with a bruised face. No clue what that was about. My friend, Brian, was here to judge one of the events so that was nice to catch up with him. I had no idea what to expect of the day as it could be super long or short. I could tell some people were already pissed off with the event orders. Due to the number of people allegedly signed up (I think eventually was 79 people) it was going to be five groups going at the same time on different implements. Being the SHW/Pro group, got to go in the order of events as listed on the entry, which was going to be the probably the best setup to insure best effort in each event. I did go to the different areas to see how things felt as this was inside a hotel with carpet. Started warming up for the day when they announced they would be starting 30 minutes later than expected. So I figured I’d use that time to try and get my neck and shoulder to be ok for at least a little bit. One of the sponsors for the show was a massage/physical therapist and I had really hoped he would show up timely. He wasn’t there Friday and didn’t show up until later on Saturday during the competition. Brian told me that there was a two guys as part of the expo that were doing services (but not for tips) so I went over there to see if I could get my neck and shoulder sorted out. The one guy had a livestream going so I guess I ended up on that. I immediately got big “vaccines cause 5g” energy from him. He did cupping, scraping and percussive stuff. Talked a lot of broscience, gave me a caffeine infused alkaline water and told me not to sleep on my left side for the next six weeks. I’ll try but I’m apparently like a rotisserie chicken in my sleep. Had to rush outside after that to get there for the rules meeting on the boardwalk. Had group of tourist take pictures next to me (thinking I didn’t notice) to show how tall I was to their friends or something. I am the attraction.
The first event was circus dumbbell clean and press for reps. Heavy weight of 205lbs for reps. This was nationals weight less than 6 years ago. Now when this show was announced, I was thinking this was going to be tough but doable. My best ever in training had been 202lbs and done 200lbs for three reps (two were counted) at Nationals in 2015. But that was then. Since the 2016 injury, my best I’ve managed has been 187lbs with a close miss at 197lbs. But I was doing 180lbs for reps decent enough. That was 2017 and haven’t really gone above 180lbs since 2018 really. But I was feeling good off of last training cycle and my coach, Andrew Clayton, is one of the best in the world at this event. I thought I was off to a good start with the training as first week with it I was doing 10 singles EMOM with 160lbs no problem. Then I was stupid and fractured my elbow and sprained my wrist. So now my good arm was fucked and I couldn’t do stuff with it outside of 10lbs and a mini band for almost 6 weeks. I couldn’t really use that arm to help with the clean for the other side either so training was really modified to put in effort and try and keep from losing anything on the left side. I do feel I maintained with my efforts but didn’t improve and coming back to it I was good bit behind and it took me like a month to get back to close to where I had started things before the break. I should be ecstatic that I could even get back to that after what I did to my arm and the issues going on but I’m not. I’m frustrated and this event was probably the one that stressed me out the most. Best I got in training was a smooth 170lbs but that is 35lbs off the pace. So chances were super slim this would happen. I did my best as far as warm-ups. Circus dumbbell tends to be one of those where warm-ups are usually shit with how technique dependent it can be and it isn’t as easy to change weights like a log or axle. Compared to what I had at home, the handle was a lot thinner but it was slicker material. I did bands using my fat gripz extreme before doing some singles with the different class dumbbells. I had to jump from 85lbs to 130lbs. I did a rep with and without my elbow sleeve on to see how things felt. Sleeve for sure. It was at this point I went to get my neck and shoulder worked on and then rules. Came back and the dumbbell was loaded to 180lbs so I did two cleans with it as I wasn’t going to go for 50lbs increase cold. By virtue of signing up earliest, I went last. Tim, got two reps and no one else was close. He was who I saw was going to be the guy to beat today. If I didn’t get a rep, it would be 5pt hole I’d be in. I chalked up the dumbbell as they were setting it up but had to back off before I could wipe it down a bit. That was fine, I was only going to try for one rep and give it at most two shots so 60 seconds was plenty. Got set and got the dumbbell to the shoulders. It was heavy. I braced and went for it and it got maybe 2” off my shoulders. I took my time and asked for time at 15 seconds left to give it another shot. Couldn’t get it up high enough for a good shouldering of the dumbbell and I knew that it wasn’t going to happen so bailed on it. So zero on this event. Not what I wanted but expected based off of everything.
The next event for the day was deadlift. Max lift with three attempts. Suits and straps allowed and using a deadlift bar. 50lbs jumps unless going for state record. Different deadlift bar from last show and I knew that they’d be using 100lbs plates instead of 45’s like last show. Compared to last show, with who was competing, I felt it was possible to win or at least not lose too many points. Two people would be aiming for like 600lbs and myself and two other for 700lbs. Training for this had not been the best. Again, not being allowed to use my one arm meant modifications that lead to more squat frequency and using machines and other exercises. I also ended up getting a deadlift strap harness that worked well enough. But it does seem that getting all the muscles stronger for deadlift just doesn’t seem to be enough for me to actually improve the deadlift. I hit some big numbers for myself on high box squats and really added reps and decreased assistance with tough hamstring exercises. In late 2019, I struggled to do an inverse leg curl with 225lbs of assistance for a set of 6 reps. I’m doing 115lbs of assistance for sets of 12 reps. But my deadlift hasn’t improved by 110lbs and it isn’t always a 1:1 situation. Missing 6 weeks of deadlift specific work isn’t great and then dealing with the knee issues from tendonitis and possibly stuff leftover from earlier injuries (yoke from beginning of the year and the box jump issue). The seemed to be a change with deadlift work being more suit work rather than every other week with the previous cycle. I had attempted 650lbs in training and missed it, which is my first miss I’ve had with a suited pull from the ground. I’ve never missed a lift in training before or in contest. So that had been eating at me but I knew I’d had it in me to pull this weight and more at the show. Well I didn’t feel so great at the show. I figured this would be a harder pull than it had been at my last show from the bar (it seemed to be not rolling well) and how the plates would be. I thought pacing here would be a little different as I had taken the time to get my first protein shake down and now I was going to have to get into my suit. Ugh. I did get to do the warm-ups I wanted to get a feel for how I was doing today. The answer wasn’t great. I decided that I’d do 600lbs as my opener and only do a second attempt to save my energy and hopefully match points with people and see if they missed heavier attempts. A gamble for sure. 600lbs I had my straps at training tightness. Christ did that pull suck. So I knew 700lbs wasn’t in me today and 650lbs could be in question. I had my straps put at maximum tightness for the 650lbs attempt. With how the bar was and mats, it wasn’t really rolling so I had to keep creeping closer and closer to the bar rather than great a big breath and pull it into me. This felt heavy and slow and I had a little bit of hitching to lock it out. Done. Other guys still in this for our class went for 700lbs and 705lbs and both missed these super close lifts. With that result, I ended up in three way tie for first. So tied for 2nd at this point and still 5pts out from first.
Up next was fingal fingers. Listed as 350lbs. I’d like to think I’d be good at this event. Unlike most of the competitors, I have access to and implement. But due to issues (elbow, wrist, knees), I didn’t get to really do any direct training at all with it. With my luck, it wasn’t worth the risk for this contest. Only direct work I did was some clean and presses with the 400lbs one at the gym in June to just test things out. And that was just to do some practice without stressing the knees so much with the recent knee scare I had back then. I’ve only touched it twice before that in 2019. Did an EMOM where I fractured my pinkie fingers and hit an irony PR and then one set two weeks before a contest that year where I had a disc bulge and had to withdraw the day before as I was in so much pain just standing. I had hit 7 reps in a minute with that in those conditions. So I figured I could still do ok even with all this. This had been the decision. But it is hard to figure out listed weights being certain things. This implement was loaded with custom metal discs and I’m not sure if this was weight in hand or something else. So what we started warming up with was 300lbs, which was what the HWM were using. That had 6 discs in it. 3 more discs were added to get ours to 350lbs. That 300lbs felt like the 400lbs at the gym and I didn’t think the extra discs would effect things that much. Warmed up with bands and did some rows with the finger and did two clean and presses with it at the 300lbs weight. We were rushed over and then had a very long down time as we needed the crash pads from the dumbbell area as the weight of the finger was too much for the tires when they came down that they were hitting the floor. Got to get that deposit back haha. I was slightly worried about my left shoulder not holding up to this but that had been when I thought it was more a shoulder rotary issue and not a pinched nerve in neck issue. This was back to the order of entry for this event. Watched as the first two guys struggled. The leader overall went next and he got a tough two reps 30 seconds in before the discs just shot out of the thing like a cannon as the finger fell. Luckily no one was in the path of that improvised claymore. This had happened to the first guy that went too but with 10 seconds left and he couldn’t get it back up to the shoulders again. It was also only 1 disc that came out whereas all of them this time. So it was at least 5, maybe 10 minutes before things were ready to go again. Now I’m not sure what the right call was for this but what was decided by the judge was that he’d continue with 30 seconds left. Other options for this I think. From how he was fatiguing, I’m not certain he’d have gotten four total reps in 60 seconds and three could’ve been close. So four was the number to beat. I went for my usual clean style but it just felt so damn heavy and I had to just kind of continental it up to the chest to press. Walking the finger was easy. Just the way the weight was distributed made it really damn heavy in hand. More so than what I had to train on. I may need to practice on the 500lbs finger in the future. I was a little slower walking the finger down the second rep as I felt my right shoulder shift on me but kept going. Went for a fourth rep but I couldn’t get it high enough. My grippy gloves worked against me as I couldn’t get my fingers from my left hand under the finger to press it and had them put the tires and mats back so I could set it down. Not enough time and settled for three fingers and second place. Annoyed with this one. Have to be stronger. In second outright at this point but now 6pts off the mark.
The fourth event was a medley. Sandbag carry into yoke. But you load the sandbags onto the yoke as the weight for the yoke. Little baskets on the side of the yoke. Sandbags not difficult weights but the yoke was going to be. 25’ for the sandbags and then 50’ for the yoke. Not sure how this would go. Back and hips were tight as hell at this point. I had been training the sandbags heavier than contest mainly because they were so light and I only had access to one 200lbs sandbag and had two 250lbs sandbags. Yoke was 850lbs. Heavy but not ridiculously so. It wouldn’t have been if I was on form for it. 2018 I’d say my yoke was at its best I was regularly doing contests with above 800lbs so it was a frequent training weight. But after that not so much and I was regressing on it as I was focusing so much on my speed of movement and it got in my head. Lower weights and getting knee pain. Getting in my head about it and the fact my knees were killing me and I had to psyche up to move 500lbs just really messed with things earlier this year. So I was kind of starting from about 50% of my best coming back to yoke training. So with that in mind, the yoke training was some of the best I’ve done and with more time, I know that this would’ve been a good one. I feel like I hit the bare minimum to make this work honestly. Not through any fault of anyone other than time. The most weight I did on yoke was a pick and hold with 800lbs for like 15 seconds and did three runs of 50’ with 700lbs. A good bit of the training before that had been belt squat marches. So for this event, the order went by yoke height, shortest to tallest. This worked to my advantage for a few reasons. One was that I could see what I needed to do and the second was I could get in a warm-up that others may not have been able to do. As I mentioned, the implement was loaded with the sandbags for weight. So yoke was 400lbs empty and loading the sandbags and taking them out was a team effort so only warm-ups were with the empty yoke and other mobility stuff that I did to loosen up my back and hips and get my core firing. So my plan was that after the last person went, I’d do a pick with the loaded yoke so that I’d get an idea of what to expect and hopefully take that initial shock of holy shit this is crushing me over with as it was going to take several minutes to reset the course. I’m so glad I did as this thing felt insanely heavy. We were allowed to set our sandbags how we like before going and set grip. This is where I can excel. My goal here was to be as fast as possible on the sandbags so I had as much time left as possible to attempt moving the yoke. Picks would take a lot out of me so I was hoping to keep it to three at most depending on time. It didn’t feel bad now that I had felt it and I moved gingerly. Trying to not have any drops. My error for me was the shirt I wore. I had assumed the grip shirt would stick and it did but more to yoke than me. I should’ve remembered this from when I did yoke in 2018 where I had this same issue. So I was dealing with the yoke sliding down my back as well. Got a good bit of the way still and then had a set down at 20 seconds left. Unlikely I’d finish but I needed more distance to know I didn’t drop points here since no one else had finished so far. Got a bit further but didn’t waste effort going for a third pick with 5 seconds left. I had done enough with get 39’3” with the yoke, just under 5’ ahead of second. Knees were going to hate me after this. I was annoyed despite getting first as I feel even in my condition that I could’ve finished this with being smarter on the shirt situation.
The final event was the long awaited boat and truck pull. Not a truck or boat but both. Truck with a boat attached to it. As listed, it was to be a harnessed pull for 60’ with a 2” diameter rope with a 90 seconds time limit. So as with most pulls, it could be literally anything between a sprint and an unmovable object. Something I should add here is that we were told at the start of the yoke that there was a boardwalk curfew for 2PM or something and that we had to rush outside to do the truck pull right after the yoke. Seeing as how it was 1:50PM by this point, not sure how that would work. So I’m moving as fast as I can with being out of breath from being crushed by a yoke and wearing thick knee sleeves. Come to find out that the boardwalk patrol didn’t care a lick and there was no rush. So just trying to get things settled and ready. I had heard earlier that this was super light and that it was the same setup and weight for all the weight classes. Escalade with a small boat attached. It would at least look cool. It was on the boardwalk with the hotels, casinos and beach in the background. It at least had the spectacle aspect. Slowest time for the day was 26.75 seconds and the fastest time ended up being 13.5 seconds. Not sure if 50 or 60’ to be honest. Rope wasn’t 2” thick but that hardly mattered. Training had been mostly working the different approaches here with sled work and exer-genie. I felt ready but I’m not really built for drag races. Whatever, time to go. This again was based off entry form so I again went last. Not really much to observe here other than it was light and seemed to be listing to the left side from how people started. Light that people would be abandoning the rope. I took off my shirt as screw it, I’m at the shore and I might as well get some sun. Finally having some fun since the nightmare was going to be over shortly. I got set so that I’d have a good start to break the inertia and just kept going. Head down and working fast on the hands. Eventually I was moving too fast to keep my hands up with rope to have tension with like five seconds. I probably could’ve had time taken off if I had my hands outstretched as that was how they were calling time rather than it being from where the truck was. Ended up in first with 16.2 seconds but literally less than a second separated 1st through 4th here. Additionally as I mentioned, this was the same weight for all the classes so this time wouldn’t have one in other groups.
So there was a good bit of downtime waiting for the other groups to finish up even though I knew I had gotten second and was out first by three points. I think for me it was just relief I made it through the contest without needing to go to the ER or something. Body was aching and the stress and aches for this cycle didn’t make this a fun one. It felt like an obligation to compete and not pull out of the competition because I don’t like to quit. I like to go all in. If I was a normal person, I’d probably have taken a break after the break so to speak and not try and rush through things as if my best years are going to be gone by the stroke of midnight. I have to learn to adapt with what I got. I’m getting older, not recovering from things as fast as I used to and I have to adapt the athlete to what I can do. People were complimenting me all day and I’m not sure why but I guess people like me and what they see. Anytime someone asked me how I felt about an event or how I was feeling I told them I feel like crap. That’s not to say the venue or the event or anything was not ok. Though the fingal fingers thing coming apart and the clamps situation on that and dumbbells weren’t great. I still enjoyed things but I was down on myself for not being at 110%. I know that isn’t realistic. In either case, it is just good to be home and work on the next thing. At this point, next competition isn’t until March 2022 and it is local. Need to see what the damage is from this show and assess things but I’m thinking that an off season of 4-8 weeks may be needed.
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