Strongman — My First Workout With Giants

My legs are wobbly, walking is an interesting concept. My lower back feels as if someone hit it with a baseball bat. My vision is blurry. I need to sit down. This is as best as I can recollect what I felt before I got up one last time to flip a tyre weighing 350kg. Up until that point, I had never even attempted such a feat that sounds completely idiotic.

Rewind.

Five Months Ago

I start hitting the gym every day from Monday to Friday. I split my workout into three arm days and two leg days a week. The reason for this is that not only do I have quite good legs — they might not be pretty, but they’re strong — and leg day sucks.

It’s certainly ambitious, but I’m making progress. Kilogram by kilogram, I manage to lift heavier weights with more repetition. My trainer is impressed. She suggests dropsets — do six repetitions with heavy weights, don’t take a break and do six repetitions with less weight — and that’s when it really takes off. I make a lot of progress. Soon, the days where I squat 70kg are in the past and I’m doing six repetitions with 100kg. As soon as I manage a seventh repetition, I up the weights.

The powerlifter trainer at my gym shows me this video of him where he does 130kg squats. At that point, I did six repetitions with 110kg. I tell him that in a few weeks, I’ll do 130kg, too. So I get to work and I do it. Only that I don’t have any wraps around my knees and elbows and no belt.

As the fat kid who lost 51kg, I have never had any athletic ambition. Then I suddenly was an athlete.

The trainer and I have a laugh about it. He asks me where I want to go from here. Not that he’s topped out or anything, but because I am apparently an athlete now. Weird. I was always the fat kid who lost 51kg of fat and got buff. I never had any athletic ambition. So this is new.

This is when the word Strongman first was mentioned with the prefix of “You could be a…” Huh. The only problem was that I didn’t know how much Strongmen lifted. Neither did my coach. So I decided to write to the Swiss Federation of Strongman Athletes. The numbers are staggering. I do a bit of math. In average, I’m at about 70% of what I’d need to lift in order to more or less hold my own in a competition, says Stefan Ramseier, president of the Federation. Well, not in those words, because he came across as way more encouraging by means of not telling me that I would basically fail at the first event. Still, I had data. And with that data, I could work. I suddenly had a goal.

Being a journalist, I made a living of observing people, what they do and what they say and how they say it. I watch the natural vegan bodybuilder at our gym intently, trying to copy his form at deadlifts. Because deadlifts are by far my weakest point — or so I thought — and he’s in kind of the general area of where I need to be.

I eventually ask him about how he does things, he answers and my deadlift weight sky-rockets from 90kg to 140kg within a week. “Well, as soon as you do something right…”, he says with a laugh when I tell him how much better I’ve gotten. Or maybe I said that, but we both had a laugh at it even though we were exhausted.

I get a mail in my inbox two weeks ago. Stefan Ramseier invites me to an open training. My first thought is “I’m not ready. I’m still weak”, but I take it as a great opportunity to actually work out with legitimate Strongman equipment and get to know some people in the field. I had one hope: Please, please don’t embarrass yourself.

I dial back my workouts, focussing on form and regeneration. I eat more carbs again. I try to sleep as much as I can, because I know that my body will take a lot of punishment on the day of the training. More than it ever has.

It Begins With the Yoke

When I arrive behind the post office of a rural almost-but-not-quite-city in Switzerland, I see the yoke standing there. Imagine two pillars of metal, carrying a platform where there are more weights. The strut between the pillar is thick. It’s unwieldy, I can tell that much right away. There are four 25kg plates on it, making this 100kg plus whatever the yoke contraption itself weighs. We get changed and we warm up.

I am the only complete beginner in this round. Everyone else seems to be training for a competition.

Turns out that everyone has done this before and I am the smallest guy there. I also don’t have any knee compressions or a weight lifting belt. I’m just a guy with an idea in his head.

I lift the yoke without much of an issue. I walk around with it fairly comfortably. So do the others. We up the weights. Again, this goes fairly well. The yoke will be the best results I get all day. I have nothing on Dawid Ksobiak, who basically is the guy we call over to put the weights away when we’re all exhausted. Because not only does Dawid lift a lot more than we do, but he also does it with enviable nonchalance. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. It seems so unreal.

Clean and Press — Just Shoot Me

Next, Stefan Ramseier announces a little competition. We’re doing a last man standing game of clean and press.

So this is where my weakest point is reached. I am horrible at these. Last Man Standing? More like First Man Falling. I have never lifted anything with an axle before. It’s thick and unwieldy. I manage to do a good deadlift with it, but then it dawns on one of the people training that I am approaching this all wrong, even though I’m wearing a weight lifting belt by now. I am to do this with more momentum and less raw strength. So basically, I am to jump up with the weight. I manage to get 70kg onto my shoulders. But I can’t lift it above my head. First Man Falling indeed.

This is when I first notice that the guys are not giggling or laughing. In fact they’re observing me, watching where I make mistakes and I do hear a “Well done!” after I did my one pathetic attempt at lifting. Dawid wins in the end, but I did see some amazing lifting.

Power Stairs — I Start Aching. A lot.

The third of the four disciplines that we’re training that day are the power stairs. I have never heard of them. From the first explanations, I gather that this weight, 120kg, needs to be lifted onto a step. The catch. The entire weight is the size of a large shopping bag. So it’s a bit like a deadlift, but with incredible narrow grips.

I get a detailed run-through of how to do it, including a remark that I should think in my head to put the weight on my left leg as I strongly favour my right leg.

Think to put the weight on your left leg. You stand crooked.

With what seems to be my last bit of strength, I manage to lift the weight off the ground. And immediately, I notice that my vision goes blurry, then dark. I put the weight down and I’m panting as if I’d just run a hundred kilometers at a full sprint. Stefan Ramseier comes up to me and laughs: “Yeah, it pretty much makes your lungs useless during lifting”. I pant in response. Maybe I grunt in acknowledgement. I don’t remember, my brain was having a break. I sit down and eat one of my emergency oatmeal bars with chocolate and caramel frosting. It’s the best tasting thing ever. My body screams for it after the first bite. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry. It’s not a “I could eat” or “What’s for lunch” kind of hungry. It’s a more primal feeling. I crave, I must absolutely have, the fuel that is in this bar of oatmeal. Next to me, Dawid is munching away on salami and what looks to be horse radish.

Farmer’s Walk — Wait… this is how heavy?

One of the events I could prepare for somewhat at the gym was the Farmer’s Walk. I would grab the heaviest dumbbells that the gym manager got and walk around with those. 40kg in each hand, I am able to walk two rounds around the gym.

Stefan Ramseier brings out two pieces of train tracks that have a handle welded to them. It’s said that each weighs 54kg.

By raw strength and determination I didn’t know I had, I manage to lift the two pieces of rail road tracks.

I see my moment come. I can totally do this. My first attempt is pathetic, though. While I guess that I can hold it while walking, I neglected the part where I have to pick the weights up. “Come on, Dom, you can absolutely do this”. The number 51 flashes before my mind, because that’s the amount of weight I’ve lost in the past few years. In kilogram. So surely, I can do this.

My muscles scream once more in agony. I do not relent. I do not give in to the pain. I don’t remember how I did it, but suddenly, there I was, standing, with the weights in hand. I start to walk. Easy. We up the weights, but 64kg in each hand might as well be 500, it won’t budge. The guys pat me on the back and told me that I need to improve on squats to lift the weight. Once I have that down, the rest is easy. Dawid ends up breaking the pieces where we add weights to the pieces of metal. So that event ends.

By now, I’m done. I’m more spent than I’ve ever been. The fact that I’m still standing upright for significant amounts of time surprises me. A line from the Russell Crowe/Ryan Gosling comedy The Nice Guys flashes through my mind.

I am invincible. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

However, I sit down. My lower back hurts so much and I flash back to a back injury I’ve had. “Not again”, I hope.

Tire Flip — Last But Not Least

While the other guys clean up the weights, I sit there feeling useless. Because even if I would want to, I don’t think I could lift even an empty bottle, formerly filled with mineral water. We go downstairs into one of Switzerland’s infamous air raid shelters that are in the basement of every building for our last event. It’s the one I’ve been looking forward to the most: The Tire Flip.

The only problem: Walking has become quite the challenge. Lifting seems unthinkable at this point in time. It’s not that my legs hurt or anything, but there’s just nothing there anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever had less strength in my legs. And in my arms. And shoulders. I am spent.

The tire weighs 350kg, says Stefan Ramseier whose basement this is. The guys have at it, I sit on a power stone, breathing.

Somewhere, I find it. A last bit of strength. Not a lot. But a bit. enough for me to get up, put on a brave face and walk over to the tire. I squat down and I’m immediately met with someone saying “Legs further back. Wider apart.”

The guys actually believe in me, I think. I throw my weight against the tire and angle it slightly upwards.

The tire moves! The bloody tire moves!

I feel the tire budge. I’m winning this! Time to change my stance from pushing to different pushing. I just can’t. I’ve come so far. So I make some kind of grunt, I think, my vision goes blurry and I see stars. But I hear “Come on!” and “You can do it!” and I do. My back hurts, my legs are almost giving out, but the stupid tire is moving again.

I don’t really remember if it stood. The next thing I know is the boom the tire makes when it hits the floor. I made it boom. I am filthy. I am sweaty. I am spent. The tire must have stood. Or it must have been really close to standing.

Food!

This is the end of the workout. It lasted just a bit over an hour. I have never been this exhausted in my life. I take off the belt and I want to hand it back to Stefan Ramseier. He tells me to keep it under the promise that I will put it to good use.

We say our goodbyes and I stagger outside. I must eat. Drink. I understand now why the greats of this sport eat every few hours. Because it is a tough sport that needs every bit of energy you have and then some. I buy a banana, a donut and a sandwich, two cans of soda to go with it and a roll or double stuffed Oreos. I don’t care what I buy. I need the food. I basically eat the entire banana in less than ten seconds. The donut is gone after half a minute. the first can of soda is empty in a few seconds. The sandwich lasts a bit longer.

I am done. For now. I will be back. I will now take care of my aching back and then I’ll be back at the gym. I need new shoes. Flatter ones. I need to get better at deadlifts. I will return for another Strongman training. Because the men I trained with seem superhuman, but were just guys like you and me. Just a lot stronger.

I have a goal.