Doug's Sounding Board

Yesterday Nicole and I went to the NorCal Strongman competition. This year it was held at the main beach in Santa Cruz. We arrived at around noon with the contest starting around 10AM so we missed the tire flipping and the log lifting but we still got to see the sand-bag carry, the dead lift, and the boat pull. After watching the sand-bag carry we were hungry and decided to pay the $5 to get into the VIP area where we could get whatever food and drink they had available (food and grilled food from Costco). It was a fun way to spend the afternoon and I hope to go again next year.

The sand-bags were 200lbs for the light-weight men (actually middle weight but no light weights showed up so there were referred to as light-weights), 250 for the heavy-weights, and 125 for the women. There were three women competing openly since there weren’t enough for any one weight division. Apparently the main problem in carrying the sand-bag is breathing since you have to carry it in front of you. The force you exert holding on to it also keeps you from breathing effectively. You got a real feel for that when they stopped as some were light-headed and needed to be guided off the course. Walking in sand didn’t help I’m sure. The best heavy distance was about 160 feet. The best light distance was about 300 feet. The best woman distance was a tie at 180 feet.

For the dead lift the heavy-weights had to lift 500lbs as many time as they could in a minute. The lights had to lift 400, and the women had to lift 235. The best for the heavy was 11 reps, for the light I think it was 28, and for the women I think it was 9. It was a little chaotic around the platforms and hard to hear.

The boat pull was towing a row boat over a max of 60 feet in 75 seconds. The heavy contenders had to have two girls (the same each time) sitting in the boat, the lights had 1 girl, and the women towed a small weight sled with 135 lbs on it. Why they didn’t just tow the empty boat I don’t know. With the actual boat towing no one got all the way to the end. The closest someone made it was within about 4 feet. The women all made it well under 75 seconds but they didn’t tell us what the times were.

After that the top four men in each division had to do a tug of war do get more points. First got 4 and last got 1.

The big news there was that a local guy won the heavy-weight competition and thus gets an invitation to the nationals where if he does well he can turn pro and be on tv.