Disabled Strongman at Arnold Classic

Bionic Man

Bionic Man

This year will the first time the Strongman Corporation will have approved / sponsored a disabled strongman at the Arnold Classic on March 9th and its looking interesting. After the global success of the London 2012 Para-Olympics and the recent explosion of strongman its about time disabled strongman became a thing.

I met the “bionic man” at an event last year, a body builder with missing lower limbs, and he were looking good. Well developed legs, and generally looking damn good, he didn’t mention any major issues with the prosthetics.

I remember having a conversation with someone in the gym about the actual mechanics of weight lifting with missing limbs. Lots of the events require both hands, but many able-bodied people use hooks. Another question were how much weight can you apply to a prosthetic leg, and how much force can you apply to a prosthetic arm. 

However I thought about the ParaOlympics, and the crazy force applied to the sprinting blades, a 80kg athlete running is applying 300kg+ of force to a blade. On bench pressing, many athletes without lower limbs used strapping to the benches, those without hands used hooks and so on.

The event will contain both seated and standing events, including Arm over Arm Sled Pull, Dumbbell Press Medley, Crucifix Hold, and the Atlas Stones. A good mixture there, but kind of excluding those with upper limb issues, but I can’t be sure since Chris Ruden is competing and he’s he’s minus an arm.

I don’t know how to word lots of these things, so apologies if I’ve used the wrong terms or anything else. 

I’m looking forward this.

 

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