Strongman

Strongman is a competitive strength sport which tests athletes' physical strength and endurance through a variety of heavy lifts and events. Strongman competitions are known for their intensity, pushing athletes to their physical and mental limits.^[1] In modern strongman, athletes compete to score points based on their relative position in an event.^[2] An athlete who engages in the sport of strongman is also called a 'strongman'.^[3] They are often regarded as some of the strongest men of the world.

Many sources state that strongman is a man who performs remarkable feats possessing enormous amounts of strength.^[4][5] In the 19th century, the term 'strongman' was referred to an exhibitor of strength during circus performances.^[6]

Modern strongman generally credits its origins to circus strongmen who became popular in the 19th and 20th centuries. 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.^[7] Athletes including Louis Cyr, Apollon, Donald Dinnie, and Arthur Saxon are credited as major innovators in the sport. Many events today, including the Cyr dumbbell, Apollon's axle clean-and-press, Dinnie stones, and Saxon bar deadlift bear their names.

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 deadlifts, squats, overhead log lifts, lifting stones, toting refrigerators, pulling heavy vehicles and tossing or loading weights. With the advent of the World's Strongest Man competition, strongman began to be formalized as a competitive sport rather than a non-competitive spectacle. Since the advent of the modern sport, competitions including Arnold Strongman Classic, Europe's Strongest Man, Strongman Champions League, World's Ultimate Strongman, World's Strongest Viking, World Muscle Power Classic, Fortissimus, Pure Strength, Rogue Invitational, Shaw Classic, Giants Live, IFSA World Championships, Strongman Super Series and World Strongman Challenge have adopted a standardized format based on the original World's Strongest Man.^[3]

More than 30 countries also hold national-level strongman competitions.^[8] Local competitions featuring amateur athletes are also common.

In its modern format, a strongman competition will typically consist of several events (ranging from as few as five to as many as eight at the international level) testing different aspects of strength. These may include static lifts such as a deadlift, overhead press, or squat or a dynamic event involving moving with weight. Athletes may, for example, pick up a heavy apparatus and carry it for a certain distance or drag a vehicle attached by a harness.

Strongman competitions score competitors by comparing their relative place in an event and awarding more points to competitors with better finishes. Typically, first place in an event will receive a number of points equal to the number of competitors. For example, if an athlete finishes first in the deadlift in a competition with 10 competitors, they will receive 10 points, with second receiving nine, and so on, until last place receives only one point.

Most competitions award zero points if an athlete could not complete a lift or start the event--if, for example, an athlete could not pick up a stone in a stone-carrying event, they would be awarded zero points. Competitions will also normally split points based on ties, adding up the combined points for their places and averaging them out. For example, if two athletes finish tied for first in a 10-athlete competition, the scores for first and second (10 and 9 points) will be added up and divided by two, resulting in each athlete being awarded 9.5 points.

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. Additionally, grip strength must be developed and it is also imperative to improve mental toughness and pain tolerance.^[9]

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.

Though competitive strongman events are ever-changing, there are a number of staples that frequently appear on the international stage,^[10] including:

The strongmen are listed according to the chronological order of their birth.

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).

Additionally, the following 50 strongmen have reached either 4th or 5th places of World's Strongest Man and/or World Muscle Power Classic and/or Arnold Strongman Classic:

• 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).^[11]

  Active   Retired

#	Name	Country	Active	Competitions	Wins	Win %
1	Žydrūnas Savickas	Lithuania	1996–2022	147	79	53.74%
2	Mariusz Pudzianowski	Poland	2000–2009	61	43	70.49%
3	Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson	Iceland	2010–	70	31	44.29%
4	Brian Shaw	USA	2007–2023	65	27	41.54%
5	Aivars Šmaukstelis	Latvia	2014–	76	26	34.21%
6	Krzysztof Radzikowski	Poland	2005–2019	112	24	21.43%
7	Ervin Katona	Serbia	2003–2015	99	17	17.17%
8	Hugo Girard	Canada	1998–2008	37	15	40.54%
9	Dainis Zageris	Latvia	2009–2022	87	15	17.24%
10	Mitchell Hooper	Canada	2022–	23	14	60.87%
11	Jón Páll Sigmarsson	Iceland	1982–1992	29	13	44.82%
12	Magnús Ver Magnússon	Iceland	1987–2005	48	12	25.00%
13	Magnus Samuelsson	Sweden	1995–2008	63	12	19.05%
14	Jouko Ahola	Finland	1994–2002	22	11	50.00%
15	Riku Kiri	Finland	1987–1999	25	11	44.00%
16	Mateusz Kieliszkowski	Poland	2014–	44	11	25.00%
17	Oleksii Novikov	Ukraine	2016–	45	11	24.44%
18	Mikhail Koklyaev	Russia	2005–2014	50	11	22.00%
19	Matjaz Belsak	Slovenia	2014–2020	64	11	17.19%
20	JF Caron	Canada	2007–2023	73	10	13.70%
21	Geoff Capes	UK / England	1979–1988	20	9	45.00%
22	Svend Karlsen	Norway	1996–2006	67	9	13.43%
23	Bill Kazmaier	USA	1979–1990	18	8	44.44%
24	Derek Poundstone	USA	2006–2017	22	8	36.36%
25	Martins Licis	USA	2015–	24	8	33.33%
26	Vytautas Lalas	Lithuania	2007–2018	30	8	26.67%
27	Kelvin de Ruiter	Netherlands	2011–	40	8	20.00%
28	Janne Virtanen	Finland	1998–2009	50	8	16.00%
29	Laurence Shahlaei	UK / England	2007–2021	55	8	14.55%
30	Travis Ortmayer	USA	2005–2023	51	7	13.72%
31	Manfred Hoeberl	Austria	1990–1996	18	6	33.33%
32	Vasyl Virastyuk	Ukraine	2002–2008	28	6	21.43%
33	Andrus Murumets	Estonia	2003–2009	40	6	15.00%
34	Rayno Nel	South Africa	2023–	6	5	83.33%
35	Adam Roszkowski	Poland	2021–	19	5	26.32%
35	Flemming Rasmussen	Denmark	1995–2001	19	5	26.32%
37	Mykhailo Starov	Ukraine	2004–2006	24	5	20.83%
38	Pavlo Kordiyaka	Ukraine	2017–	25	5	20.00%
39	Evan Singleton	USA	2018–	29	5	17.24%
40	Johannes Årsjö	Sweden	2007–2017	39	5	12.82%
41	Mikhail Shivlyakov	Russia	2011–2021	44	5	11.36%
41	Stojan Todorchev	Bulgaria	2005–2017	44	5	11.36%
43	Raivis Vidzis	Latvia	2002–2009	46	5	10.87%
43	Jarek Dymek	Poland	2000–2010	46	5	10.87%
45	Oskar Ziółkowski	Poland	2020–	13	4	30.77%
46	Mike Burke	USA	2011–2015	19	4	21.05%
47	Didzis Zariņš	Latvia	2011–	23	4	17.39%
48	Trey Mitchell	USA	2016–	26	4	15.38%
49	Tom Stoltman	UK / Scotland	2016–	32	4	12.50%
50	Glenn Ross	UK / Northern Ireland	1997–2011	33	4	12.12%

- As of 24 November 2024

Strongman is often incorrectly used to describe a person who does powerlifting, 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.

The sport also extends to female competitors. From 2000s onwards, women's competitions were held internationally and from late 2010s, they received mainstream attention thanks to competitions such as World's Strongest Woman, Arnold Strongwoman Classic and Rogue Invitational.

• Strength athletics
• History of physical training and fitness
• List of strongmen
• List of strongman competitions
• Lifting stone
• Grip strength
• Power training
• Strength training
• Highland games

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Strongmen.

• United States All Round Weightlifting Association
• Oldtime Strongman
• Old-School Strongmen Archived 2010-09-27 at the Wayback Machine – slideshow by Life magazine
• Oldtime Strongmen List
• World Strongman Federation