Me with The Legend and the Grand Master
There are times when you get to be a part of something special and last weekend was one of those times for me.
Slim the Hammer Man and his mentor the Mighty Atom were inducted into the York Barbell museum as part of the Kettlebells for Wounded Warriors event. Truly an historical moment in strongman history.
I arrived and spent the night with fellow strongman and Dan Cenidoza at his home. It was great to meet his family and catch up over some dinner and a couple of frosty beverages.
The next day we drove up to York. Dan performed as a part of the induction and did an excellent job. I got to spend some time with Jedd Johnson and we talked about some possible collaborative projects in the future. There are a lot of guys in the strongman world that I only get to see rarely so it was great to see Sonny Barry, Greg Matonick, John Wood from Functional Hand Strength, Chris Rider and Pat Povalitis.
I also met Bill Hinbern from Super Strength Books for the first time. Bill has been selling me reprints of classic strength books for years and it was cool to finally meet him.
The guys from USAWA were having a heavy lifting meet and record day. I spent some time talking with them and found out that the Bent Press is one of their official lifts and that I could make a record attempt on it if I wanted. Looking at the books, the record was quite low, I supposed since so few people practice the lift with a barbell. So I signed up and did the lift, getting my name in the record books with both the right and left hand. I haven’t been practicing the bent press for several months, so I didn’t go heavy, just enough to set the record at 137lbs with each hand. perhaps in the future I’ll train it for a meet and give the record another shot with a heavy weight.
I got to talk to two of the Mighty Atom’s sons, Mike and Jerry, and his grandson, whose name I didn’t get.
The highlight for me was getting to spend time with both Dennis Rogers and Sim. I have learned so much from both these strongmen and it is an honor to call them both mentor and friend. I am truly thankful that I got to be there.
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