Strength athletics, also known as Strongman competitions, is a sport which tests
competitors' strength in a variety of non-traditional ways. Some of the disciplines are similar to those in
powerlifting
Powerlifting is a strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athlete attempting a maximal weight single-lift effo ...
and some powerlifters have also successfully competed in strongman competitions. However, strongman events also test physical endurance to a degree not found in powerlifting or other strength-based sports, such as carrying refrigerators, flipping truck tires, and pulling vehicles with a rope.
Competitions designed to test the strength of participants pre-date recorded history. The
Highland games in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
are an early example of modern strongman competitions. Circus strongmen also performed feats of strength that were non-traditional or sensationalistic. Strongman competitions like
World's Strongest Man
The World's Strongest Man is an international Strongman competition held every year. Organized by American event management company IMG, a subsidiary of Endeavor, it is broadcast in the US during summers and in the UK around the end of Decem ...
began their television popularity in the 1970s.
History
Origins
Strength competitions pre-date written history. The first
Olympics (running, throwing, jumping) were believed to be held in 776 BCE. There are records in many civilizations of feats of strength performed by great heroes, perhaps mythological, such as
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...
,
Goliath,
Orm Storolfsson and
Milo of Croton
Milo or Milon of Croton (late 6th century BC) was a famous ancient Greek athlete.
He was most likely a historical person, as he is mentioned by many classical authors, among them Aristotle, Pausanias, Cicero, Herodotus, Vitruvius, Epictetus, an ...
.
Competitions that modern strongman events are modeled on,
Scottish Highland Gatherings, were formalized around 1820 by
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...
. In 1848,
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
attended the
Braemar Highland Games.
In the 18th and 19th centuries,
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...
strongmen lent sensationalism to their acts such as bending iron bars, breaking iron chains worn around their chests, and lifting heavy objects. Famous strongmen from this era included
Thomas Topham,
Eugen Sandow
Eugen Sandow (born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, ; 2 April 1867 – 14 October 1925) was a German bodybuilder and showman from Prussia. Born in Königsberg, Sandow became interested in bodybuilding at the age of ten during a visit to Italy. After a ...
,
Louis Cyr
Louis Cyr (; born Cyprien-Noé Cyr, October 10, 1863 - November 10, 1912) was a Canadian, Canadian strongman (strength athlete), strongman with a career spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His recorded feats, including lifting (1/4 ...
,
Thomas Inch
Thomas Inch (27 December 1881 – 12 December 1963) was a British strongman, who held the titles of Britain's Strongest Youth and Britain's Strong Man.
Early life
Thomas Inch was born on 27 December 1881 in Scarborough, a seaside town o ...
,
Arthur Saxon
Arthur Saxon (April 28, 1878 – August 6, 1921), born Arthur Hennig and nicknamed "The Iron-Master", was a German strongman and circus performer from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. Saxon is best known for the bent press, a lif ...
,
Angus MacAskill
Angus MacAskill (1825 – 8 August 1863) was a Scottish-born Canadian giant. In its 1981 edition the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' stated he was the strongest man who ever lived, the tallest non- pathological giant in recorded history, the ...
, and
Alexander Zass.
In the 20th century, strength sports such as
weightlifting
Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various types of competition; promo ...
and
powerlifting
Powerlifting is a strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athlete attempting a maximal weight single-lift effo ...
were popularized through the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
. However, feats of strength akin to the circus performances also gained in popularity.
David Prowse
David Charles Prowse (1 July 1935 – 28 November 2020) was an English actor, bodybuilder and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader (voiced by American actor James Earl Jones) in the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy and a manservant in Stanle ...
(who played
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. The character is the central antagonist of the original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the main protagonists in the prequel trilogy. ''Star Wars'' creator George ...
in ''
Star Wars'') was initially famous in 1964 for his lifting the famed
Dinnie Stones
The Dinnie Stones (also called Stanes or Steens) are a pair of Scottish lifting stones located in Potarch, Aberdeenshire. They were made famous by strongman Donald Dinnie, who reportedly carried the stones barehanded across the width of the Pot ...
, the first man to do so since
Donald Dinnie himself a century earlier.
Television
Perhaps the most famous event is the
World's Strongest Man
The World's Strongest Man is an international Strongman competition held every year. Organized by American event management company IMG, a subsidiary of Endeavor, it is broadcast in the US during summers and in the UK around the end of Decem ...
competition, still described by a number of highly respected authorities in the sport as the premier event in strength athletics.
The concept behind "The World's Strongest Men", as it was originally named, was developed in 1977 for
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
by Langstar Inc.
David Webster, a Scot who later received an
OBE for his services to sport, was the head coordinator of the competition from its inception.
Dr Douglas Edmunds, seven-times Scottish shot and discus champion and twice world caber champion, worked with Webster. When Webster retired from his position, Edmunds took over. These two men were responsible for inviting the competitors and choosing the events. They selected men who had shown prowess in the mainstream fields of strength sports and field athletics events, such as
shot put,
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
,
powerlifters,
bodybuilders and
wrestlers
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat spo ...
. The idea was to create a spectacle that would test competitors against one another.
The show was enough of a success that it began to be replicated in other countries, such as
Britain's Strongest Man (1979). Competitors began shifting from unpaid amateurs to professional strongmen. By the end of the 20th century, and in to the 21st, other strongman programs and events were created such as Strongman Championship hosted by comedian Errol Silverman. Other competitions have been televised, such as the
World Muscle Power Championships,
World Strongman Challenge,
Arnold Strongman Classic
The Arnold Strongman Classic is an annual competition featuring strength athletes from all over the world, determining who is the Strongest Man in the World. Created by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Lorimer and Terry Todd, it is an offshoot of the A ...
,
Giants Live
Giants Live was created in 2009 as the official Tour that qualifies strongmen to compete in the annual World's Strongest Man contest. At each Grand Prix, up to twelve international strongmen come together and compete over six events. The top three ...
,
Highlander World Championships,
World Strongman Federation, and
Europe's Strongest Man
Europe's Strongest Man is an annual strength athletics competition which began in 1980. The event is held in various locations throughout Europe, and features exclusively European strongman competitors. Mariusz Pudzianowski holds the record for m ...
.
Common disciplines
![Strongman - Ystad-2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Strongman_-_Ystad-2018.jpg)
There is no set rule about what specific events will occur in a contest, except that to prevent single-event specialists from gaining an advantage, each event will be different (a single contest will not include two squat events, or two overhead lifting events, for example). Normally, a strongman contest comprises five or six events, though at the top level of competition, seven or eight events may be held. Among the most common events are:
* ''Farmer's Walk'' – competitors race along a course while carrying a heavy weight in each hand. A variation is the Giant Farmer's Walk, with a much heavier weight carried over a shorter distance.
* ''
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the ...
Hold'' or ''Pillars of Hercules'' – contestants stand between two pillars, pivoted to fall outwards. The competitor must simply hold them up for as long as possible.
* ''
Vehicle pull
Vehicle pull is a signature Strongman event featured in World’s Strongest Man and other similar competitions which requires competitors to pull extremely heavy trucks, buses, trains or planes while being attached to a harness that is connected t ...
'' – competitors pull a vehicle from a stationary start for a prescribed distance – fastest over the course wins. Trucks are commonly used, but larger spectacles employ trains, boats, and airplanes.
* ''
Atlas Stones'' – a
lifting stone
Lifting stones are heavy natural stones which people are challenged to lift, proving their strength. They are common throughout northern Europe, particularly Scotland, Wales, Iceland (where they are referred to as ''steintökin''), Scandinavia an ...
event whereby five spherical concrete stones of increasing weight are placed on top of podia of varying height, beginning with the lightest stone lifted to approximately a normal person's head height. Alternatively, the stone is lifted over a bar for reps.
* ''
Stone Carry'' – in Iceland, the original stone carry was performed with the
Húsafell Stone, that was to be carried for a stretch to achieve the title fullsterkur (full-strong). This stone was not round but irregular, increasing the difficulty.
* ''Refrigerator Carry'' – a staple of earlier WSM events that has made a comeback in recent years. The competitors carry two refrigerators, attached to an iron bar they hold on their shoulders, and walk it across the finish line as fast as they can.
* ''Carry and Drag'' – an object (usually a heavy anchor) is run across half of the course. The competitors then must attach it to a chain of almost equal weight and pull it across the rest of the course.
* ''Fingal's Fingers'' – under a timer, lift and flip a series of progressively heavier, hinged poles from a horizontal starting position.
Major titles and title holders
See also
*
Strongwoman
A strongwoman is a woman who performs feats of strength in a show or circus, or a woman who competes in strength athletics. Traditionally, strongwomen have had a special appeal, as women involved in demonstrated feats of strength were exceptions ...
*
High striker
*
Strength athletics in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Strength athletics in the United Kingdom and Ireland has a long history going back many centuries before the televisation of strongman competitions in the 1970s. The ancient heritage of the sport in the United Kingdom and Ireland lies in a numbe ...
*
Strongman (strength athlete)
*
World's Strongest Man
The World's Strongest Man is an international Strongman competition held every year. Organized by American event management company IMG, a subsidiary of Endeavor, it is broadcast in the US during summers and in the UK around the end of Decem ...
*
World Strongman Federation
*
Beauty and the Beast
''Beauty and the Beast'' (french: La Belle et la Bête) is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in ''La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins'' (''The Young American and Marine ...
was billed as the World Strongman Challenge.
*
List of strongmen
*
International Federation of Strength Athletes
The International Federation of Strength Athletes (IFSA or IFSA Strongman) was an international governing body for strongman competition. IFSA operated from 1995-2007 and was based in Glasgow, Scotland.
History
Origins
In 1995, David Webster, ...
("IFSA")
*
History of physical training and fitness
Physical training has been present in human societies throughout history. Usually, it was performed for the purposes of preparing for physical competition or display, improving physical, emotional and mental health, and looking attractive. It ...
References
External links
World's Strongest ManOld Time Strongman TrainingUnited States All Round Weightlifting Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strength Athletics
Individual sports