Missing Biceps

  Lifting the Husafell Stone; A Five Year Journey For those unaware, the husafell stone is a 186 kilo (410 pound) basalt stone found in Husafell, Iceland. The stone was used as a door for a sheep pen by Snorri Bjornsson. Legend has it, the husafell stone was used as a testing stone for passing travelers. Regardless of what you read in this article, I suggest picking up a copy of Stonelifting off amazon, written by Martin Jancsics and Dr. Bill Crawford. This is the book that got me interested in stonelifting, and led to trips to both Scotland and Iceland.  https://www.amazon.com/STONELIFTING-Ancient-Test-Strength-Revived/dp/1719808015 In order for a lifter to reach ‘Fullsterkur’ (Full-Strength), the lifter must pick up and carry the husafell around the perimeter of the pen.  My five year journey began as an ambitious novice strongman. I was 23 years old, fresh on the scene, and had fallen in love with the idea of lifting the husafell as soon as I was made aware of the chal...

  Mental Games: Dealing with Pressure and Contextualizing Competing  We are all competitors. We want so badly to win, that sometimes we forget why we started competing. For most of us, it was because we started as typical meatheads who wanted to try and lift awkward things from the floor to platforms and above our heads.  As we continue to grow, our expectations for ourselves increase significantly. You win your first competition? Now you have to win the next five. If you don’t, it’s perceived as a step backwards. You hit a national record? Now you better go and hit a world record. And if you don’t you perceive yourself as a failure and putting yourself out there to compete gets more and more difficult.  I’ll give you an example. Two years ago, I won my first National Championship as a u90. Then, I went and hit the United States axle record. I spontaneously signed up for a local show a few weeks later. In that local show, I went in with the expectation that I c...

Improving the Press: A Five Year Journey beginning with Absolute Mediocrity Note: This is written as a article to describe an individual who already has technical efficiency, but lacks the power to do much with it. If your not technically sound, this article probably isn’t for you. Every strongman has that one event when they first start… The one event that no matter what they do, seems to stagnate behind the rest. In my case, this was the overhead press. I was shocked with this, given that I had shifted from an olympic lifting background to strongman. Here are the results from overhead events from my first three shows… SHOW 1: Keg, Circus Dumbell, Log Clean and Press (Three Reps) for time 6th SHOW 2: Circus Dumbell, Max Reps in a minute Dead last, zero SHOW 3: Log Medley, three logs for time Dead last: 30 seconds to get through a 190, 200, and 215 log. Here are the results from my most recent three shows… Arizona’s Strongest Man (Open): 180 Circus Dumbell, 300 Axle, 300 log x 4 reps F...