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#8 Characteristics of Learning (How I finally learned to load Atlas stones)

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#8 Characteristics of Learning (How I finally learned to load Atlas stones)

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The four characteristics of learning are improvement, consistency, persistence, and adaptability.

For years, even before I started strongman, I have tried to lift Atlas stones. I always thought they looked really cool, and they are the most iconic event in the sport of strongman. However,  I didn't have any consistent means of practice, so I failed every Atlas stone lift I attempted for about 4 years.

When I was in undergrad, my roommate made a bunch of Atlas stones which we kept in our yard, but I was never able to lift even the smaller ones. At my first strongman competition years later, I was unable to lift a 200 lbs stone over a bar even one time. In June 2018, I was unable to lift a 205 lbs stone to my shoulder even once.

After that failed event, I finally started practicing Atlas stone lifts on a weekly basis. My technique has improved a lot and I have seen the characteristics of learning. I have improved in performance and am now able to load a 235 lbs Atlas stone to a platform twice. I am consistently able to load that stone every weekend. I don't have much evidence for persistence, as it has only been about 8 weeks, but I do believe the skill will persist. I have been able to adapt to lifting different shapes of stones, as well.

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#7 Proprioception (Sometimes I can tell how I'm moving)

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#7 Proprioception (Sometimes I can tell how I'm moving)

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"[Proprioceptors] provide us with uninterrupted knowledge about the position of body parts relative to each other and the general orientation of our body in space both prior to and during movement" (Lecture Notes, 2018).

The weird irregular shapes of many of the objects used in strongman lead to proprioception being of high importance. You have to know what your body is doing at different points in order to lift an implement correctly.

For example, on the log press, the weight of the log pulls your center of mass forward from where it normally is (if you think about the body+implement as a system). Pressing the log overhead requires balance and fine adjustments as the log in motion shifts that center of mass again.

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#6 Transfer (Half the things we do are sort of like a weird deadlift, anyway)

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#6 Transfer (Half the things we do are sort of like a weird deadlift, anyway)

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Transfer of learning is the gain or loss in proficiency of a skill as a result of practice of a different skill. Understanding transfer is very important in strongman. The actual contest events are very taxing on the body, so most competitive strongmen will only train a specific event once a week. However, we try to train barbell movements in the gym which will have positive transfer to the odd object events.

For example, training normal deadlifts in the gym can positively affect an axle deadlift, tire flip, or stone lift (at least, the initial pick off the ground). Front squats are thought to have positive transfer to stone loading, log cleans, and front-loaded carries (like the Husafell stone shown previously).

I believe I did experience positive transfer from all the deadlifts I was doing in training. A friend of mine convinced me to take a stab at a 750 lbs tire flip when I hadn't flipped a tire in over 3 years (and the last one I had flipped was only 500 lbs). I was able to successfully flip the tire, even though I had not been training that event.

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#5 Gentile's Two-Dimensional Classification System (What am I doing?

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#5 Gentile's Two-Dimensional Classification System (What am I doing?

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The great variety of strongman movements also means that they can fit into different cells within Gentile's classification matrix. Some events are stationary, while some require body transport. Most events require object manipulation. Some events have inter-trial variability, some do not. Most times, the events will have stationary regulatory conditions, but occasionally they will have in-motion regulatory conditions.

A classic example of a strongman event is the farmers' carry, which involves carrying a weighted implement in each hand and walking a set course as fast as possible or walking as far as possible within a given time period. The farmers' walk involves body transport, object manipulation, stationary regulatory conditions, and no inter-trial variability. It fits in cell 1D of Gentile's matrix.

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#4 Memory - Procedural Memory (It wasn't there)

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#4 Memory - Procedural Memory (It wasn't there)

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One of the most fun (and sometimes most frustrating) aspects of strongman is that there are so many different events. I've experienced competing on an event I'd never touched in training. Those experiences were fun for me, but did not do me any favors in my placings.

Procedural memory is the knowledge of how to perform skills. I did not have a lot of procedural memory related to anything in strongman when I started the sport. A good example of this was a sandbag toss event at a contest in June 2018. The objective was to single-arm throw 7 sandbags of increasing weight over a 12 ft. bar in under one minute. The problem was that I'd never done any events requiring a throw for height with any implement, let alone a single-arm sandbag throw.

I tried to make up for it and take advantage of transfer (but we'll get to that topic later!) by doing overhead medicine ball throws, but it was not very effective practice. I failed to finish the event on contest day. However, I did get a pretty nice photo.

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#3 Motor Abilities - Static Strength (It's called strongman for a reason) 

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#3 Motor Abilities - Static Strength (It's called strongman for a reason) 

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My competitive lifting background did provide me with some advantages coming into strongman, first and foremost that I already had a decent base of strength to work from.

Static strength is defined as "ability to exert force against a relatively heavy weight or some fairly immovable object" (Motor Abilities Activity, 2018). This ability is the cornerstone of the sport of strongman. Although there are events in which explosive strength or dynamic strength are tested, static strength is where the sport began.

The best example of static strength in the sport of strongman is the deadlift for maximum weight. Strongmen perform the deadlift from various heights, and with all sorts of implements (axles, tires, cars, barrels, etc.). There is nothing quite the same as feeling a bar in your hand, thinking it feels immovable, and then finding yourself standing upright while holding it. When the weight is very heavy, there is usually some kind of "sticking point" that (for a moment) feels impossible to overcome - like in the deadlift shown below.

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#2 Classification - Continuous vs. Discrete Tasks (Keep on moving)

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#2 Classification - Continuous vs. Discrete Tasks (Keep on moving)

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With a background in powerlifting and Olympic-style weightlifting, I was used to performing discrete tasks. The snatch, clean, jerk, squat, bench press, and deadlift all have well-defined beginning and end points.

Starting strongman provided a new challenge. Some of the movements in the sport of strongman are continuous. There is a lot of walking/sprinting with weight. I was not used to performing these longer-duration tasks that had arbitrary beginnings and ends.

A good example of this type of task is the Husafell stone carry. This event involves crushing a coffin-shaped stone to your chest, and walking either a set distance as fast as possible, or a maximum distance within one minute.

The video below shows the latter. In July 2018, I had to carry a Husafell stone as far as possible in one minute - definitely a continuous task which was much different than performing a snatch.

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#1 Ability - Body Configuration (You can't be a pro strongman!)

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#1 Ability - Body Configuration (You can't be a pro strongman!)

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Strongman is one of my favorite sports. It's so weird. Huge people lifting weird objects like stones, logs, tires, and such is not a very normal thing. Even so, I'd always wanted to give it a try since I was a kid. I wanted to be the strongest person in the world!

However, there was an issue. Strongmen are massive human beings. The average size of a professional competitor is now somewhere around 6 ft. 5 in. tall and 370-380 lbs. Just look at the 2018 World's Strongest Man, Hafthor Julius Bjornsson (also The Mountain from Game of Thrones - pictured below) who comes in at 6 ft. 9 in.,  400 lbs. Clearly, I picked the wrong parents! When I first tried the sport out, I was 20 years old, measuring a whopping 5 ft. 6 in. and weighing in at a measly 180 lbs. My body configuration, and thus, my ability was clearly limited, and there is very little chance I will ever compete to be World's Strongest Man.

However, there is hope for the "little" guys! The man with the most World's Strongest Man titles, Mariusz Pudzianowski, was relatively small for a strongman (6 ft. 1 in., 310 lbs). He proved that a smaller guy with good technique, speed, and willpower could beat men of much bigger size.

Inspired by that fact, I decided that the only way I would be good at strongman is if I became the most technically proficient athlete at any given contest I entered. So, I set about learning how to execute all the different events and use the implements.