Strongman

A strongman is someone who exhibits strength through strength athletics. Strength athletics, also known as strongman competitions, are composed of a variety of events in which competitors have to move the highest weights possible, the winner being the one having the highest tally across all events. In the 19th century, the term strongman referred to an exhibitor of strength or similar circus performers who performed feats of strength.

Description
In the first half of the 20th century, strongmen performed various feats of strength such as the bent press (not to be confused with the bench press, which did not exist at the time), supporting large amounts of weight held overhead at arm's length, steel bending, chain breaking, etc. They needed to have large amounts of wrist, hand, and tendon strength for these feats, as well as prodigious oblique strength.

In the late 20th century, the term strongman evolved to describe one who competes in strength athletics – a more modern eclectic strength competition in which competitors display their raw functional strength through exercises such as lifting rocks, toting refrigerators, pulling trains, towing an eighteen-wheel truck behind them, etc. The most famous competitions of this type are the World's Strongest Man, the Europe's Strongest Man, the Arnold Strongman Classic, the Strongman Champions League, the World's Ultimate Strongman, the Rogue Invitational and the Giants Live tour, and more than 20 countries also hold national-level competitions as well.

Many sports-specific training facilities have begun to incorporate movements associated with strongman competitions into their general training schemes, albeit with lighter weights used (e.g., tyre flips, sled drags, object loading or carrying, log pressing, farmer's walks and so on.)

Training
Training for strongman involves building overall strength in the gym and training with competition implements to gain familiarity. In the gym, it is necessary to train the entire body for strength, especially with variants of the squat, deadlift, and overhead press. Explosive power is also important, which is developed by weightlifting-style lifts and cardiovascular conditioning. Grip strength must also be developed.

Although you can do general strength training, at a typical gym, training with a strongman regimen requires equipment not typically found in a gym. Some equipment used in a strongman competition would have to be found custom-made or at a strongman gym. Some of these equipment includes natural stones, tree trunk logs, farmers walk frames, yokes, kegs and various sorts of vehicles.

Another part of a strongman's training is its intense diet regime. The biggest strongman competitors would need to ingest around 8,000 - 10,000 calories a day.

Events
Though competitive strongman events are ever-changing, there are a number of staples that frequently appear on the international stage, including:

• Deadlift (and its variants: Elephant bar/ Hummer Tyre/ Silver Dollar/ Deficit/ Car/ Barrel)

• Squat (and its variants: Giant Barbell/ Barrel/ Double-T Cambered bar)

• Lifting stone (Atlas stones/ Castle stones/ Manhood stone)

• Natural stones (Husafell Stone, Dinnie Stones, Inver Stones, Steinstossen, Odd Haugen Tombstone etc.)

• Log Press/ Axle Press/ Viking press

• Circus/ Cyr/ Inch dumbbell

• Vehicle pull

• Super Yoke/ Bale Tote/ Frame carry

• Farmers Walk/ Timber carry

• Keg Toss/ Weight over bar

• Loading Medley

• Power stairs/ Duck walk

• Fingal's Fingers/ Norse Hammers

• Hercules hold/ Front hold/ Deadlift hold

• Conan's Wheel/ Basque circle

• Car flip/Tyre flip

• Bar bending

• Grip strength events

Incorrect usage
Strongman is often incorrectly used to describe a person who does weightlifting or bodybuilding. Due to the circus and entertainment background, nineteenth-century bodybuilders were expected to mingle with the crowd during intermission and perform strength feats like card tearing, nail bending, etc. to demonstrate strength as well as symmetry and size. Also, many strongmen sold photos of themselves nude or near-nude, flexing and posing. Although, what they considered the epitome of male beauty was different from modern ideals – particularly the very low emphasis on chest size, and great emphasis on oblique size, and symmetry as evidenced by photos of Eugen Sandow.

Traditional strongmen
The strongmen are listed according to the chronological order of their birth. • Orm Storolfsson

• Grettir Ásmundarson

• Thomas Topham

• Angus Graham

• Snorri Björnsson

• Brynjólfur Eggertsson

• Otto Eberstadt

• Charles Vansittart

• Angus MacAskill

• Donald Dinnie

• Louis Attila

• John Holtum

• Edwin Checkley

• Signor Lawanda

• Koca Yusuf

• Louis 'Apollon' Uni

• Pierre Gasnier

• Louis Cyr

• George Levasseur

• Milo Brinn

• Gilman Low

• Eugen Sandow

• William Bankier

• Ivan Poddubny

• Warren Lincoln Travis

• Georg Lurich

• Georg Hackenschmidt

• Arthur Saxon

• The Great Gama

• Stanislaus Zbyszko

• Monte Saldo

• Gustav Frištenský

• Thomas Inch

• Max Sick

• Karl Swoboda

• Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

• Frank Saldo

• John B. Gagnon

• Paul Trappen

• William Pullum

• Alexander Zass

• Hermann Görner

• George F. Jowett

• Wladek Zbyszko

• Joe Greenstein

• Zishe Breitbart

• Ed Zercher

• Karl Norberg

• Karl Mörke

• Henry 'Milo' Steinborn

• Don Athaldo

• Joe Bonomo

• Siegmund Klein

• Joe Rollino

• Gunnar Salómonsson

• Ian Gordon Batchelor

• The Great Antonio

• Doug Hepburn

• Mat Tarzan

• Paul Anderson

• Otto Acron

• Jack Shanks

• Terry Todd

• John Massis

• Douglas Edmunds

• Jon Cole

• Greg Matonick

• Iñaki Perurena

Modern Strongmen
The following 75 strongmen have reached the podium (1st, 2nd or 3rd place) of World's Strongest Man since 1977 and/or World Muscle Power Classic from 1985 to 2004 and/or Arnold Strongman Classic since 2002. They are listed according to the chronological order of their podium appearance.

24 of them have won the World's Strongest Man (WSM), 11 have won the World Muscle Power Classic (WMPC) and 9 have won the Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC).

7 men have won both WSM & WMPC (Kazmaier, Capes, Sigmarsson, Reeves, Magnússon, Ahola, Karlsen). 5 men have won both WSM & ASC (Savickas, Shaw, Björnsson, Licis, Hooper).

• Bruce Wilhelm (WSM)

• Bob Young

• Ken Patera

• Don Reinhoudt (WSM)

• Lars Hedlund

• Bill Kazmaier (WSM & WMPC)

• Geoff Capes (WSM & WMPC)

• Dave Waddington

• Tom Magee

• John Gamble

• Jón Páll Sigmarsson (WSM & WMPC)

• Simon Wulfse

• Ab Wolders

• Cees de Vreugd

• Mark Higgins

• Jamie Reeves (WSM & WMPC)

• Hjalti Árnason

• O.D. Wilson

• Ilkka Nummisto

• Magnús Ver Magnússon (WSM & WMPC)

• Henning Thorsen

• Gary Taylor (WSM)

• Ted van der Parre (WSM)

• Riku Kiri

• Manfred Hoeberl (WMPC)

• Anton Boucher

• Gerrit Badenhorst

• Marko Varalahti

• Forbes Cowan (WMPC)

• Torfi Ólafsson

• Jouko Ahola (WSM & WMPC)

• Magnus Samuelsson (WSM)

• Raimonds Bergmanis (WMPC)

• Flemming Rasmussen

• Mark Philippi

• Regin Vágadal

• Wout Zijlstra

• Janne Virtanen (WSM)

• Svend Karlsen (WSM & WMPC)

• Hugo Girard (WMPC)

• Paul Smeets

• Mark Henry (ASC)

• Phil Pfister (WSM)

• Mariusz Pudzianowski (WSM)

• Žydrūnas Savickas (WSM & ASC)

• Vasyl Virastyuk (WSM)

• Glenn Ross

• Jesse Marunde

• Dominic Filiou

• Mikhail Koklyaev

• Don Pope

• Andrus Murumets

• Sebastian Wenta

• Terry Hollands

• Derek Poundstone (ASC)

• Dave Ostlund

• Travis Ortmayer

• Brian Shaw (WSM & ASC)

• Mike Jenkins (ASC)

• Vytautas Lalas (ASC)

• Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (WSM & ASC)

• Mike Burke

• Mateusz Kieliszkowski

• Eddie Hall (WSM)

• Jerry Pritchett

• Mikhail Shivlyakov

• Martins Licis (WSM & ASC)

• Oleksii Novikov (WSM)

• Tom Stoltman (WSM)

• JF Caron

• Maxime Boudreault

• Bobby Thompson

• Luke Stoltman

• Mitchell Hooper (WSM & ASC)

• Evan Singleton

Additionally, the following 49 strongmen have reached either 4th or 5th places of World's Strongest Man and/or World Muscle Power Classic and/or Arnold Strongman Classic:

Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu, Jon Kolb, Gus Rethwisch, Bishop Dolegiewicz, Jerry Hannan, Craig Wolfley, Ernie Hackett, Hamish Davidson, Rudolph Kuester, George Hechter, Dan Markovic, Jean-Pierre Brulois, Tom Hawk, László Fekete, Adrian Smith, Berend Veneberg, Heinz Ollesch, Pieter de Bruyn, Martin Muhr, Wayne Price, Nathan Jones, Bill Lyndon, Johnny Perry, Brian Bell, Arvydas Pintinas, Andy Bolton, Steve Kirit, Bill Pittuck, Sami Heinonen, Jarek Dymek, Brian Schoonveld, Odd Haugen, Brian Siders, Benedikt Magnússon, Mark Felix, Tarmo Mitt, Vidas Blekaitis, Stefán Sölvi Pétursson, Laurence Shahlaei, Krzysztof Radzikowski, Dimitar Savatinov, Konstantine Janashia, Matjaz Belsak, Rob Kearney, Trey Mitchell, Thomas Evans, Mathew Ragg and Tristain Hoath.

International Accolades

 * The table below summarizes the 50 most decorated strongmen in modern history with the most number of international wins in their careers (1st places only/ open weight and age categories only).

- As at 13 July 2024