Picture the beautiful scene. It’s September 18th, 2003. 24 year old World Strongest Man competitor Jesse Marunde is at the bottom of the breathtaking Zambia Falls with his then girlfriend Callie. He is set to compete in heat one later that day against the one and only Marius Pudzianowski. The sun is just beginning to rise as the muscled up strongman gets down on one knee and asks the blonde beauty for her hand in marriage. Predictably she says yes. Marunde sets a camera up to document the occasion. ESPN gets wind of it and inserts the clip before Marunde gets set for the keg squat. Announcer Todd Harris gleefully introduced the clip. Then as Marunde began the event, former World’s Strongest Man and color commentator Bill Kazmier spoke with pure contempt in his voice. “Obviously this is gonna be a distraction. You got to be ferocious for this event. Can't be feeling that love thing. To be the World’s Strongest Man, you've gotta bring your rage.” Marunde ended up herniating a disc in his back and failing to reach the finals. 2 years later Jesse would come in 2nd at WSM with Kaz as one of his biggest supporters.
So what is the point? The point is when you travel to a competition you are not on vacation. You are on a business trip. You see it all over social media. Lifters arrive days before the big meet and ruin months of training by partaking in every tourist attraction in the land. Activities as benign as walking around in theme parks and tours to as crazy as skydiving. Yes skydiving. Why spend thousands of dollars to fly to Las Vegas, stay in a fancy hotel, and pay a huge entry fee to blow it all by treating your business trip as a Club Med getaway.
In 2014, veteran powerlifter, Tom Schmidt and I were talking about how I could get my wife Rae-Ann sponsorship with one of the top powerlifting gear companies. I had tried for years to get her noticed by several companies but nobody got back to us. Tom had said that she probably would have to win a big meet by lifting a big number. Then, as luck would have it, an invite came from The USPA to compete at The Olympia. Having a teenage daughter and a mortgage and various other bills, money for that plane ticket and hotel was just not readily available. So we made a calculated risk and borrowed from her 401k to pay for the trip. We were all in on this meet to say the least.
After the 13 hour flight where my poor wife was crammed next to my 450 lbs body on an airplane we checked into the hotel. So what did we do with the 2 days we had in Sin City before the meet? We stayed in our hotel room and ordered out every meal. We never left the room. When it was weigh in time we took a cab the one block over. We saved her legs. We took a cab back over the morning of the contest and didn’t even look around the expo. She had a job to do. She was on a mission. Bench 400 lbs and let the chips fall where they would. Don’t be distracted by everything going on around her. Forget the bells and whistles of The Olympia and focus on what we came here for. And by God that’s what happened. Under super strict judging and against the best lifters in the world she benched 402 lbs and won best female lifter. She secured sponsorship within a few days after that. So mission accomplished.
Since then that’s been the philosophy. We treat these meets as business trips as she chases down history. On June 17th 2017 she benched the most weight in a single ply shirt by a female ever with a lift of 520lbs. That meet we stayed 30 minutes away from the venue, ordered out and were in bed by 10 PM. The meet was in a rural part of Ohio. I chose it because there would be no distraction at all. Just her and a date with history. On 8 different occasions Rae-Ann has bench pressed more than any other female on Earth. Not once have we ever gone out to dinner or hung out with fellow lifters the night before.
To conclude, the next time you see a fellow lifter posting selfies out swimming and catching some rays at the pool/beach prior to their meet on social media. Think of this article. See how well they perform. I bet most won’t have the meet they envisioned. What will be their excuses?
Whatever they are you will know the truth. To quote the incomparable Kaz, “You’ve gotta bring you’re rage” when you compete. It’s hard to do that with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears attached to your head.
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