Hot in South Carolina

Irmo, South Carolina and the Sorinex Showroom was the location for the third installment of Summer Strong. A birthday celebration for founder, Richard Sorin. This is not your normal birthday party and the attendees are anything but normal. The day started at 8am as the crowd gathered, people came from everywhere; Indianapolis, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and locally from South Carolina.

To get everyone warmed up, we started with battling ropes. 2″ thick and 100′ in length ropes were used. We went through many movements; single, double and alternating arms, single and double leg bounds, figure 8s, crisscrosses and some jumping jacks, all with ropes in hand.

The Sorin’s are all about keeping the energy going and that is just what happened next. Richard had asked me if I thought Rich Williams could press a pair of Thomas Inch DBs overhead and what would be the safest way to do this. The Thomas Inch dumbbell is one of the most famous dumbbells in strength history. It was cast by a British strongman, Thomas Inch, it has a 2.4″ diameter handle and weighs 172 lbs. For decades, no human other than Thomas Inch could even lift it off the floor with one hand. Finally a few have been able to achieve this most famous lift. One and only one person, Mark Henry, has been able to lift it to his shoulder and press the bell overhead. Here is a picture of me lifting the Inch DB at the Arnold Classic 2007.



Rich was going to do the un-thinkable and press one in each hand overhead. To get the bells in his hands we suspended them from a steel beam between two power racks. We had them 29″ apart because this is the distance between Rich’s shoulders, this man is HUGE.

Rich got psyched up and set himself up under the bells and took the slack out of the slings holding the bells. He began to press. The dumbbells were going up……… but fell out of the groove he needed to lock them out. He took a few minutes to regroup and attacked again. This time the groove was right and the Thomas Inch dumbbells were pressed to full lockout. The video is below. Words cannot describe it.

With jaws still on the floor we progressed into the olympic lifts with Stephen Powell. Stephen did a great job demonstrating the need to teach athletes how to generate power from the hips into the ground. This is a simple point, but key to the development of athletes. Trainers are often successful in making an athlete stronger but it is the ability for the athlete to transfer this power into the ground (field, court, ice) that determines whether the training can be deemed successful or not. Great stuff.

With our power transfer abilities enhanced we went outside for some strongman implement training. Jason Lawson started us off with a backwards chain drag and some tire flips. From here, a few of us went to the 250# stone for a quick circuit. The objective was to lift the stone to chest height or above, drop it and sprint out and back 15 yds., repeated 5 times. On one of the stone lifts I reopened a small wound on my right forearm. Some soap, water and a quick tape job later I was ready for the grip competition to start.

While the grip competition was in preparation by Zach Coulture, Rory Singer of Hardcore Gym in Athens, GA was giving a MMA (mixed martial arts) demonstration and lecture. Rory was on season 3 of the Ultimate Fighter and was an excellent professional fighter. He now focuses on training the top fighters in US. Watching him move on the ground with his training partner was very impressive. He is very knowledgeable and I look forward to working with Rory on implementing some kettlebell training into his program.

We began the grip competition with the Double Overhand Axle lift, a lift which I have at one time held the American and World Records (462 lbs.). Janne Virtanen, World’s Strongest Man 2000, overcame my number in the fall with a lift of 472 lbs at the Finnish Championships. All bets were that this number was to fall this weekend with Rich Williams, Tex Henderson and myself in attendance. Many others started off and few remained as the weight went above 400 lbs. Steve Schmidt of Lima, Ohio held strong with an impressive go at 451 lbs. I’m sure we’ll see more of Steve in the coming years. Rich, Tex and myself all opened at 451 with smooth lifts. We then called for 481 and a new record. Rich pulled it easily, I pulled it to just above my knees, but not good enough for a full lift. Tex broke the floor but the new bar was just too much to hold onto.

Having the record securely in hand, Rich took aim at the 500 mark as 500.97 lbs was placed on the bar. Just like with the Inch DBs, Rich rose to the occasion and lockout over 500 lbs and a new World Record. Congratulations Rich.

We took a break from the grip deadlifts as we honored the man who brought this all to life, Richard Sorin. His goal was to deadlift 500+ lbs. on his 60th birthday. After warming up, 511 lbs. was placed on the bar but that wasn’t good enough for him. He called for 521. It is hard to explain what happened next. He approached the bar and took his grip. Up it came as the crowd roared. One solid rep…… But this wasn’t good enough for him. Reps two and then three quickly followed. At the top of the third rep he began to turn. With 521 lbs. firmly in hand, Big Richard Sorin began to turn around to face the crowd. Those three reps were the most powerful display of lifting I witnessed all day. The best part was talking with Mr. Sorin moments later as he grinned ear-to-ear like a little kid. All he could say as his heart raced was, ‘that was fun.’

After everyone calmed down from watching Richard Sorin pull a triple, we went onto the next grip event which was the 2″ Vbar (vertical bar). Once again, my record of 301 lbs. was the goal to beat. Rich Williams, Tex and myself started in at 280 lbs. and then jumped up to 305 lbs. The humidity in the room jumped during this time making the lift even more difficult, both myself and Rich couldn’t get a good grip. Tex on the other hand did, as he hoisted up record lift of 305 lbs. on the 2″ vertical bar.

The last grip event was the medley, a group of 13 items were placed on the ground and the athlete who lifted the most items in the quickest time would win. The items in the medley were; 3 anvils (126#, 142#, 173#), 3 Inch DBs ( 132#, 152#, 172#), 3 grippers (#2.5, #3, #3.5) and 4 blobs (40#, 45#, 50#, 52.8#). Again it came down to Big Rich, Tex and myself. Tex managed to lift everything and close all the grippers in just over a minute. Rich and I lifted everything and closed all but the #3.5 in this same time. Tex again had the win. It was a great time and a great show of hand strength as records were broken.

After a short break it was time for me to give a brief kettlebell demonstration and answer questions about training. I went over the kettlebell sport lifts and did a 1 minute speed jerk set with 32kg bells, I managed 20+ reps in the minute. I demonstrated different ways to perform the swing for different applications and the usage of different drills for different sports. At the end I went over some stretches and the turkish get-up. A few guys had specific questions and we drilled technique afterwords til all had the movements squared away.

Food was starting to be served and I was hungry. Unfortunately, I had not yet completed the WOD (workout of the day) which had been famously known for wasting all who dared. Last year the event was a 5 minute deadlift race to lift the most tonnage, I managed 74 reps at 275 lbs. for second place last year. This year was different, here is what the WOD entailed; 10 reps of bodyweight (225#) deadlift double overhand with Grip 4orce Grips, then 20 box jumps at 18″, then load 2 – 75# rubber blocks onto a sled, come back for 20 pushups, then push the loaded sled 75 feet, to then pull the sled back 75 feet, before attaching a strap to the sled and pulling it again 75 feet, for you guessed it, another 75 foot push of the sled back. We then loaded the 2 – 75# rubber blocks back to there original position for the finish. I was thankful to be done and managed the fastest time with just under 3 minutes for the full course. Food and beer was now earned.

Lifting and some Scottish highland games throwing continued on into the evening. At 11pm we had exhausted all energy and turned in for the night. Here is a brief highlight film from some of the events that went on that day.