AMERICUS —
Ryan Bushey amazed spectators last summer when he won four of five events at the first Strongman Competition put on at the Southwest Georgia Fitness Fair.
Bushey will have five other competitors trying to dethrone him as strongest man, including Montezuma’s Dacarris Hillmon, who was third in last year’s event.
SWGA Fitness co-owner Buck Kinney looks forward to new events and new faces as the second Strongman takes place Saturday from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. in the parking lot at SWGA Fitness in part with the Fitness Fair, which is 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
“You just don’t really get an opportunity to see these types of events very often,” said Kinney. “People are usually very interested in big, strong guys, and last year’s competition was very well received. This year’s group is really deep. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a different winner in each event and a different group in the top three in each event this year.”
The competition has six participants, ranging from age 20 to 36. Along with Bushey, 29, the others include: Hudson Hawkins, 20; Luke Bryan, 21; Vincent Dodson, 21; Hillmon, 27; and Keith Dutcher, 36.
Kinney said Hillmon is the lightest of the competitors coming in at around 200 pounds, while Dutcher is the biggest at 6-foot-2 and about 275 pounds. Bushey is 6-1, 255; Dodson is 6-1, 240; Bryan is 5-7, 230; and Hawkins is 5-7, 200.
“There’s really a wide range of size, fitness and pure strength this year,” said Kinney.
There’s also new events this year as the five events are a truck pull; tire flip; push, carry, pull medley; overhead press; and carry, load, pull medley.
Competitors will pull a 30,000-pound truck; flip a 550-pound tire; deal with other objects that weigh close to 500 pounds; and they will have to lift a weight of 120 pounds with one arm.
“All the events are designed to test the competitors in strength, fitness and athletic ability,” said Kinney. “One of the major differences between a strongman competitor and a traditional power lifter is that a strongman competitor has to have a greater level of fitness, strength, endurance and athletic ability over a broader range of movements and functionality. They have to be able to sustain their strength for the duration of the event and competition. A traditional power lifter only has to complete their best one rep and one plane of motion. The strongman truly has to be an athlete.”
Kinney said training for such a competition is really year round, with a bulk of the work coming in the two months prior to the event.
“The training, when done properly, is extremely intense,” he said. “It’s so intense that is has to be done in cycles of work — usually two to four weeks depending on the person — and rest weeks placed intermittently to allow the body to recover and not over train.
“The main difference between the event and the training is that the event has extra mental strain associated with competition and being in front of people, and the training is really more physically grueling. The two factors, in my experience, kind of cross each other out and the recovery time after the event is similar to an extremely hard training session and only usually takes a couple of days barring injury.”
And Kinney should know. He’s a former strongman competitor himself. It’s been close to six years, however, since he last competed in one. He was preparing for one when he injured his lower back in a freak lifting accident a couple of weeks before the competition.
Putting on and watching the competition brings back a lot of memories for him as he helped push Bushey for last year’s event.
“You can really learn a lot about yourself when you’ve got a 30,000-pound truck strapped to your back and everyone is watching you,” said Kinney. “It takes a lot of guts and character to enter a competition like this and to put yourself on display for everyone to judge. There are a lot of strong, fit guys in out there, but these guys are willing to, as Coach (Bear) Bryant used to say, ‘suck up their guts and lay it on the line.’ It’s quite an undertaking to make it through one of these competitions.
“Coming into the event last year, I was really pushing (Bushey) to train harder and to train faster and with more intensity. He really couldn’t understand what I was wanting from him because he was training very hard. But after the event was over last year and having competed, he understood, and you could tell in his training this year.”
And while there will be one Strongman when it’s over Saturday, each competitor is pulling for the next one to be successful.
“The level of training I’ve seen from all the competitors this year was really high,” said Kinney. “They’ve all been working really hard and people are going to enjoy the show they put on and the intensity they compete with. People might also be kind of surprised by the level of sportsmanship and encouragement for each other they see from the competitors. The Strongman is really a special sport.
“That’s the great thing about any sport. They teach us to push ourselves, to compete and to never be satisfied with what we’ve accomplished; to definitely be proud of ourselves for the work and effort we’ve put in and what we’ve accomplished. But never be satisfied.”
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Related Photos
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Ryan Bushey pulls a truck that approximately weighs 25-30,000 pounds for 45 feet during last year’s Strongman competition held at the Southwest Georgia Fitness Fair. Bushey won the event and will try to defend the title on Saturday. Chris Whitaker/ATR
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Montezuma’s Dacarris Hillmon was a late entry last year, but he should be better prepared this time. Chris Whitaker/ATR
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