I was amazed at how supportive and connected this group appeared to be.
Arnold Sports Festival
Sidebar: I love viewing live art! The process speaks for itself.
Before and after each competitor, it appeared that group members cheered for them and genuinely wanted them to succeed.
I have been doing the Highland Games for 3 years. I got started because of whisky and questionable life choices.
In our melee (group fights) are last man standing. If you have three points of contact on the ground, and our feet always count. If you can touch someone’s head to the ground and fold them in half, they are down and they have to sit. You can kick their legs out and make them sit down.
I think I ranked number one in the world. I was 40 at the time. I started practicing from there. This is my third year. I just love the community. I love challenging myself.
My grandpa and my dad did Highland games. They were like, “you are the third kid and a daughter, so you are going to do this.” I have been doing it since I was about 15. This is my twentieth-year throwing.
Body paint is so wonderful. If I have an image, I can do everything.
My favorite event is the light weight for distance. I like it because I have a world record.
I was a Highland dancer for 8 years. The Highland Games encompasses bagpipe, drum, and dance competitions. What we do is part of the heavy athletic, but people commonly call it the Highland Games.
When you see a bagpiper play, he blows in the bagpipe, expands the bag, the air creates movements and vibration in the bass drone and two tenor drones which is the organ sound. The additional amount of breath controls the chanter
I love coming to the venue because you see a lot of awesome people, with all these different sports, no matter how obscure. It is pretty awesome to see all that.
I love viewing live art! The process speaks for itself.
I started training 4 years ago. I came 10 kg more than I started. It is going up very slowly. My personal record is 62 kg (136.687 pounds).
This is going on 25 years of being in charge. This is my twentieth year at the Arnold. I first started with 146 athletes worldwide. I now have over 20,000 athletes, in 26 different countries.
It is a lot of fun. It is a great way to stay active. There are really fun people to compete with. We are having more and more opportunities like this to compete at a high level.
Mateusz Kieliszkowski won three of the first five events (Trial by Stone, Wheel of Pain, and Timber Carry). He finished 8th in this event and second in the Arnold Strongman Classic.
Two stones were to be pressed over head weighing 275 and 300 pounds. Two stones that weighed 365 and 400 pounds were to be lifted and placed on a barrel. Next, a stone needed to be lifted and carried 50 feet.
My favorite event at the Arnold was the elephant bar deadlift. I’m a very statically gifted athlete when it comes to strength and even though I was tired, I was able to show case that in that event.
My love has always been body painting. I have traveled the world to celebrate this love. The people I meet during the body painting events become my instant family.
He competed in the World’s Strongest Man competitions while he was in his mid-fifties. He broke a record on his 66th birthday. He lifted a Thomas Inch Dumbbell (it weighs 172 pounds and has a handle as thick as a Coke can), 63 times in 10 minutes.
I competed in body building and powerlifting before I found my first Strongman contest in 2013. I signed up without knowing what I was doing and fell in love with it.
In the interest of showcasing the talents of artist from around the world, we created other opportunities to feature their work.
Typically, I am a middle weight competitor. For the Strongwoman pro series, it is an open weight class. I was able to put on a few extra pounds, which in turn helped me to hang out with the big girls a little better.
Classic physique goes by height and weight. That is what makes it challenging. Regardless of how big you are, you still must make the weight limit. If you don’t make the weight limit, you can’t compete.
I just set the world record for the sandbag throw (40 pounds) over a 15 feet bar.
I don’t train too much at deadlift. I think if you train too much, it messes with your head. I do a lot of base fitness and strength.
I am one of the world’s strongest men. I have been to the world’s strongest men 15 times. I have been to the Arnold Sports Festival 6 times. This will make my 7th time. I am here to defend my title in the Dinne Stone Hold.
The yoke is my favorite, then farmers carry. I don’t like the dumbbell. Maybe, the best of the best is the stone.
Instead of just working out to get me to shoot for a goal, I went to a Highland Games novice class. That taught me how to throw. About five or six years later, here we are. I just won the Arnold Masters class.
I train four days a week, sometimes five days a week depending on what I have coming up for about two hours a day. The last day of the week I usually train three to four hours. This training cycle was about eight weeks long. I think that if I go too long, I burn out too quickly.
As far as deadlift goes, I do a lot of five by fives. Five sets of 5 reps at 80 percent of my one rep max. My accessory work is body building movements and muscle isolation. I focus mainly on overhead press, squats, power cleans and deadlift.
It is an amazing sport. You do not have to be a big strong guy to do it. Anyone can do it. It is simple. It is explosive. It is so much fun. I recommend anyone to give it a try.
After losing 115 pounds, I felt like I had to run to fit America’s viewpoint of what women should do at that level of fitness. I ran one of every race. I finished with a marathon in 2013. After that, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a coach introduce me to Strongman.
Everyone can do it. We allow novices, walk ons, different age groups, even children. It is for the whole family. You do not have to be Scottish.
It combines two different lifts. It is the snatch which you take from the floor. You bounce it off your hips and take it to above your head. It has a wide grip. Where the clean and jerk is taken from the floor. It has a closer grip. You stop on top of your shoulder. Then you do another movement called a jerk to take it above your head.
There is a lot to do at the Arnold Sports Festival that is free (on the cheap). I didn’t scratch the surface of what was offered. I felt like there was so much to do with so little time. It is easy to get overwhelmed with all that is offered.
Grip strength is exactly what it sounds like. They make us pick up odd objects with our hands.
I think it is important to do what you love to do for a living. There are not enough people in the art field that show other young artist that they can do this.
I LOVE watching artists create.
It was clear all are dedicated and committed or else they would not have been invited to perform/compete at the Arnold Sports Festival.
I like to lift heavy. People think you are going to get big and bulky when you lift heavy. That is not the case. Lifting also changes you on the inside. If you know you can lift 405 you can do anything.
Today I did my best squat lift thus far, 358 pounds, a 182-pound bench press, and a 420-pound dead lift. That is almost my best. My best dead lift is 425 pounds.
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