Hades Strength

A few pictures from with the judges and competitors. Plus bonus pics of the implements and trophy.

Is the view from your squat rack this good?

Is that my wife signed up for her first strongman competition?!?!?!

I had the pleasure of competing at the River City Barbell Classic 5 this weekend. Lee Woody ran a fantastic show with the help of a ln incredible staff.

Event 1 - Max Log
When I started training log for this I thought a PR might be in the making but the last few weeks made clear it just wasn't there. Starting competition day warm ups felt great. Attempt 1 at 220 moved like air. Maybe, just maybe, I had a PR in me after all. 240 was next. Just barely locked it out. As the weight got heavier I just couldn't drop under it fast enough. It looked like I was stuck right where I expected. 260 was the option for my final attempt. 10 pounds over my best. There was no reason not to try, but I really didn't expect much. I pull the log to my lap, big drive with the hips. Easily to shoulder. Here's where it gets hard. Leaping through the log thing to send it as high as possible then shoving my self down and under the log. I feel my arms lock out for one of the cleanest reps of the day, the event win, and to my surprise a nice 10 pound pr.

Event 2 - 18 Inch Deadlift

This was relatively light at 455 and I knew going in I could beat the mark set by my competitors at 22 reps. So a smooth and steady set of 24 reps to be safe. Biggest challenge here was how to count after I ran out of fingers 😅.

Event 3 - Arm Over Arm Sled

These are always a blast. 500 pounds was a little light on a polished concrete floor and after a great start there were a few mistakes after the sled built a bit more momentum than I could keep up with and the rope lost slack. 35 feet in 13 seconds. This could have been a bit faster but it was enough for a 3rd event win.

Event 4 - Dead Hang

This was the first time I've seen this contested. It's not the most exciting event but it was fun to do something different. We were only supposed to hang with body weight but I talked the rest of my competitors in to hanging a 25 pound plate off ourselves to make it a bit more interesting. I was in the lead at this point and knew I needed to beat 1:33. Made it to a solid 1:41 and then took a controlled drop instead of eking out the last few seconds to save my hands for the stones.

Event 5 - The Mega Balls

A 10 stone run from 180 all the way to 290. The first 5 stones were to 55 inches (about my collar bone) followed by 5 more stones to 46 inches. At this point I knew I had the competition won but 10 stones in 90 seconds is a lot and I wanted to see if I could do it. No one else in my class had finished the run so if I finished it would be a clean sweep for the day. The first 8 stones were pretty smooth in 45 seconds but by then my tacky and my lungs were starting to give up. Under more pressure I may have been able to clear the last 2 quicker but as it was I took a bit of time and just tried to make them all look good.

This really was a fun show and I got to meet some awesome athletes. This was my first time ever sweeping every event at a show which was pretty cool. Plus the trophy is awesome!

A few clips from training recently. Years ago I saw Dan Green do an ab roll out from his toes and nearly touch his nose to the floor. I've still got a bit to be on his level but I can finally do a respectable roll out from my toes.

Repped 3 plates on bench for the first time. I don't do much bench any more so it's nice to know it's no weaker than it once was, and even getting a bit better. Got a bit greedy hoping for that 3rd rep though.

5x565 from 18 inches. Trying to get an idea of share I'm at for nationals in The summer. Hopefully the deadlift suit will ad at least 100 pounds.😅

Last weekend I had the privilege of handling for one of my clients at his second powerlifting meet. I was super proud of the fact he even made it to the platform after overcoming some big obstacles along the way. On meet day he showed great maturity making some smart weight decisions when things didn't go exactly as planned leading to a 22 pound squat pr, a 39 pound deadlift pr, and a 55 pound total pr. He also took gold in the junior division, 3rd in the open, and qualified for USPA Nationals. Congrats on a great meet .rm! Can't wait to see what you do next.

I also got to meet the one and only .rubish . I'm always so impressed by just how down to earth the world class lifters I've been luck enough to meet are. Pete Rubish was no exception. Very humble and kind.

Another Tampa Bay Strongman Classic in the books. Donnie Kiernan is always there to dream up new and more sadistic ways to challenge us, and this year he did not disappoint. This really is a fantastically run show with great attention to detail making it an awesome experience for competitor and spectator alike.

Event one was alternating between a 180 pound axle bar and a 200 pound log bar for reps. I needed 7 reps to tie for first here but due to slow transitions only made 6 putting me in 3rd going in to the Squat.

Up next was a hummer tire squat. Being the first to go on this one was a big disadvantage as you have no benchmark. I thought for sure being over 40 reps would be impossible to beat, but I was wrong coming in second in this event. Over all this left me in 3rd 1/2 a point behind second.

Bad toss has been a pretty good event for me in the past, but it's an event that can go very wrong very easily. Fortunately, today things went my way with a first place finish in this event and the leader taking 3rd. This was huge because it left me the ability to possibly win the stones and take the whole show. Points also far are 1st with 6.5, 2nd (me) with 6, 3rd with 5.5

Last up was the stone over bar. A light stone at 225 to a lowbar at 48 inches with an evil twist. Once the stone was returned to you, you had 15 seconds to start your next rep and there was no time cap. 3rd place set the mark to beat at 19 reps before I went. I was pretty sure I could beat that, but I knew it would suck.
The first few reps move fine, by rep 8 the fatigue starts to catch up and the stone starts to feel heavier. From there the focus become pacing myself and using as much rest time as I safely could. 17, 18, 19, just one more for the lead...20! Now the problem is my target is gone and every muscle in my body wanted to quit 10 reps ago. I have one more competitor after me and I have to beat him to win the show. I choose 25. I needed a goal. By rep 23 I'm fighting the urge to vomit with every rep, but last year I lost by inches. I wasn't going to let it happen again. 25. More. I had more. By rep 27 I'm starting to get black out with each rep but if I'm careful I can load it fast enough to keep from going out. 28. It's too close to 30. I can do 30. 29. Even as I load the 30th rep the will power finally dies. If he can beat 30 he can have it.

Agter over 8 minutes of continual stone loading I was breathing to hard to even walk off the platform and had to just collapse there until I recovered a little.

I manage to make my way to the side and collapse in to a chair. A huge thanks to , fischer, Eric and everyone else who helped cool me down and rehydrate after that.

I still don't know if I did enough though. First place is up and I missed the start while trying not to die. As I watch each rep I have no idea how many he's already done. Rep rep rep...miss. He's done... 19 reps.

And I got to walk away with the top spot.

A huge thanks to all of the spotters, loaders, and volunteers who make this possible. Thank you Valor Fitness for providing an amazing venue and great equipment. , Mace Fit , thank you for sponsoring. Will Development thank you for sponsoring and for making the beautiful stone that nearly killed me. Heidi Walnum thank you for putting up with my crazy obsession!