Just finished watching worlds strongest man here in the UK - legendary viewing. I get magazines like MILO and Pure Power as the strongman events fascinate me. Looking at the competitors this year they were huge and alot leaner than I have seen before - ripped to shreds some of them. How do these guys get up to such amazing strength/size - obviously they have specialized training - but how much a role is genetics/diet/drugs play on this? If anyone has a routine or site where this can be found would be grateful.
T-mag has all the answers! Check out this article/interview they did a while back: Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION 163giant.html
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It was a good event this year wasn’t it. That Mariusz bloke is massive and lean to boot, shame about that American Perry bloke dying. I still think the best WSM was Jouko Ahola though.
Jouko Ahola?!? How about Magnus Ver Magnusun (sp?)? That guy won it 3 straight years.
There was a movie made recently about strongmen staring Jouko Ahola. It was called Invincible, it only played in a few theaters when it was out though. I haven’t heard about it since or seen a copy.
i watched the worlds strongest womens competition the other night and was amazed.i guess this is teh second year for teh womens event and a power lifter from the usa won it both years.what was more impressive to me was the woman named “heini” from finland who came in second last year and tied for second this year i think.she doesnt look strong at all but she is an absolute wonder when it comes to most events.i am just amazed that someone of her size is such a brute force.the only major failure she had in this years events was the squatting of the car.she was only able to get one rep compared to the winners 13 reps.i have to wonder how someone of this her size can do what she does when women twice her size are struggling with it.anyway,great stuff to watch if you get a chnace.
LOL, I watched the women’s one once. They interviewed some women (I forget where she was from) and she sounded like a man. I thought to myself, hmmm, I wonder how many steroids she has taken :).
The winner of the women’s contest is Jill Mills, she is pretty strong. Check out her website if you are interested, Jill Mills.com I believe.
I agree, the winner of the men’s contest (Mariusz something, a Polish fellow) is an incredible physical specimen, like a cross between a powerlifter and a bodybuilder. ESPN had a marathon screening of past events and I think I watched the whole thing, LOL
I also just watched it. Mariusz Pudzianowski was awesome, some of the events it looked like he was running. I remember seeing him in the 2000 event and I he came fourth then.
www.worldsstrongestman.com is quite a good site although they don’t have a lot of information on Mariusz.
Both Mariuz and Jarek Dimek from Poland had amazing physiques very low bodyfat for a strongman.
Heini Koivuniemi’s partner is Gregor Edmunds who represented Scotland and Great Britain and is the son of the referee Dougie Edmunds.
Does anyone know what happened to Johnny Perry…?
Cheers…Stubob…
i have read interviews with magnus samuelsson(www.magnus-samuelsson.net/), he was really huge to begin with. says he benched 100kg almost at once. also says he doesn’t do any steroids or anything “speciall”. think he’s sponsored by star nutrition, could ask them… has worked out once a day in the evening/night before going to sleep, he says, just started really serious training 2-4 years ago(not sure wich year the interview is from).
id say its genetics, cause it is.
that article… saying 70% of the europeans take steroids and stuff. bs. ofcourse you haveto have some extreme test pump to train as much as the top guys do, that really tall finnish guy trains 6 hours a day. not sure how much ppl can do even with the right genetics but still. Magnus and Torbj?rn don’t do stuff anyways. but it comes to watch legal and not also and socially acceptable too. Swedish hockey players coming to USA says that its more drugs in those ranks. here in Sweden even yohimbe is illegall. what makes me confused is that there are no african whatever people in the contests since they are generally bigger then euro whatever. anyways, bad of the US guy to say Euro ppl do drugs. im sure noone will say something like that when a US guy takes the gold.
i went to jill mill’s website, they got some pics. these girls are definitely juiced, their hormones could not naturally support that much lean muscle. There is a picture with the competitors and monica brant, guess who’s the best looking with the best phisique? 
no brainer. anyways these women train hard for what they do, but they are still freaks in a good way. laters pk
Hey, Don’t forget Bill Kazmier!! 3 time winner, still massize.
It was a goodun this year with the Europeins dominating as always. It was a shame about the American and if the contest went on size he would have won it. However the Americans have a poor track record in this even and this says a lot about the different lifesyles and training ideas. The eventual winner Mariuz Pudzianowski said since getting out of a Polish prison to prepare for the contest he did nothing but train and eat. I can just imagine the type of gym he trained in, some damp cellar with no windows, with no manchines in sight. Now if you then look at some of the American gyms that are so-called 'hardcore’those massive halls with shitloads of machines and Britney Spears wannbe’s on the tradmills to distract everyone you kind of see a problem. And as for our lads from the UK who are even worse I bet thier out on the raz every weekend pissing thier larger/protein concotions up the wall of the local kebab house. We can all learn somthing as to why these guys are champions as I beleive genetics goes out the window in these contests, they train to win and they adapt in any training envornment.
I went to this website and did some poking around. Thoughts:
1.) How could they NOT be on steroids? I never see 350 pound men walking around who can deadlift 1000 pounds just because of lucky genetics, or even just lots of hard work. Along with this, two recent competitors died at the ages of 30 and 41 (I think). That sure isn’t normal.
2.) The 41 year old I mentioned, his nickname was ‘Grizzly’ (sorry, his full name escapes me). In an interview posted on the site, some of the pearls of wisdom he mentioned were, ‘Don’t use creatine. It’s bad for you.’ and, ‘If you want to be big, eat big. Lots of potatoes, meat, rice. Dump those protein powders.’ When referring to intensity training, he mentioned that a brisk 200 yard walk is intense enough. Huh?
These are big, strong guys, obviously, but I won’t be following ANY of their advice. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if most of the competitors are steroid users, and simply strength train like maniacs, achieving their lifting goals (on a good-sized frame to start with) thanks to the chemical cocktails they injest. Not to discredit what they do, some of their strength feats are simply amazing…but just not for me.
the strongest men in the world have facinated me for years !! i would give my left nut to be their size and strength. genetics do play a large part in it. you can’t take drugs to get to the heights of some of these competitors. 6’4" +… and, another reaason why i think genetics plays a part, is, look where most of the typical top competitors come from: Sweden, Finland, and Norway. They grow em’ big there, that’s for sure. Bloodlines, therefore family trees, of specific breeds of humans. (i could easily roll right into the fat people/income thread, but i’d piss a lot of people off, because i do tend to stereotype a bit when it comes to that.)… i’m not saying their not taking gear, because i’m sure they probably are… not too many natural people can flip a damn car, or pull a plane, but by hell you have to have the killer parents and ansestors to start off with !!!
to Podge: Hey, don’t forget the Icelanders either. Both Magnus Ver Magnusson and Jon Pall Sigmarsson is/was Icelandic. Between them they’ve got… what? 5 or 7 WSM titles.
All I know is that I’m hugely impressed by the strongman/strongwoman contests. After being a skinny runt most of my childhood and teenage years, I’ve always dreamed of being just strong. The type of mental freedom it must be to be able to just look at a car and think, “hmmmm, yeah, I wonder how many reps I can perform with that…?” - cuz, you know you can pick the damn thing up. Be just so freakin’ cool.
I've been checking out Jill Mill's site. I've been studying the way she trains. And pk: I have to disagree. I've never been a fan of Monica Brant's "physique". I've always felt she needed to change her training - stop with the "fluffy light bb'ing" style of training and just train hard and strong. I betcha after a few months of that style of training, her bod would then definitely be "droolicious" worthy.
If steroids were the simple answer to become "Worlds Strongest" than I'm sure ANYONE could do it. It's the training - both physically and mentally - that puts that one person on that top tier. Another thing to think about: when these men and women lift a weight, it's only ONE PART of that exercise. They're gonna have to carry it for a distance or hold it for several seconds to minutes. THAT'S also how they train. Try it. And see where it takes YOUR training levels.
forgot to include the Icelanders, yer right. And Patricia is right, you basically got to be one bad S.O.B. all around. it’s one thing to be coordinated and great cardiovascular health, but try doing that with two engine blocks stratled across your back. nothing short of amazing. The epitome of functional strength.
Well, I didn’t mean to imply that steroids are the free ticket, and anybody who juices could go ahead and lift a car. Of course the training matters. I wonder which benefits are more significantly changed by using steroids - functional strength and attendant training, or just fluffing up to look big.
I meant more that, as a regular guy, I know that no amount of strongman-type training will enable me to carry and engine block, etc., unless I get that extra boost. I might get stronger, but I feel the top guys just must be using to get the edge.