Edit: Continue voting on beard pics if you haven’t already. Results will be posted tomorrow.

Paul is a reader on the site who is 31 years old and has been strength training for about a year. We’ve had a few posts that urge readers to commit to competing, and it motivated Paul to enter in his first strongman competition.

I had a great time, met some cool people, and had fun trying something unlike anything I had done before. If anyone is on the fence about competing in one of these, I say go for it. I went in with my only goal being to not fail an event, and I was successful in that.

Paul was in a class with lots of very strong guys even though it was the “lightweight novice” class. All the competitors weren’t rare physical specimens; one competitor who was at least 10 years older than Paul busted his ass just like everyone else in spite of pre-existing injuries.

I think a lot of people feel intimidated by strongman, powerlifting, etc. because they think they’ll be ridiculed by huge, strong guys. My experience was exactly the opposite and it was one of the only competitive environments I’ve been in where competitors were cheering and pushing each other to all do their best.

We may see videos or here stories of top competitors vying for victory in ultra-competitive environments, but local powerlifting, strongman, and Olympic weightlifting meets are always full of good natured people willing to give some advice to a beginner. Paul realized he no longer had an excuse for not competing. If fearing failure is the only thing you’re worried about, then you don’t have an excuse.



Thanks for sharing, Paul.
Edit: How awesome is Paul’s wife?