no hikes or Bobcats just a giant

[grizzbass]

I attended the Los Angeles fit expo last week end as my baby boy was competing at the strongman event. Here was Francis Brebner who held the worlds record for the caber at his iron mind booth.
He was the only other kilt that I saw. One of the workers there told me she helps makes pies for the Daughters of scotia at I believe the vista games and loved I was wearing my kilt (both days)
I lift weights and have been thinking of getting a slingshot as it will hopefully help keep my shoulders healthier as I age. I don't know if it will but it felt much better as for as technique and I was throwing 185 around like it was light. He stopped me at the 15th rep saying he had got enough pictures (or maybe the kilt was sliding up)


This is Brian Shaw 4 times world strongest man. I'm amazed (and disappointed )his helper didn't get the kilt in it.

I'm 5'8" and 220 if that gives you an idea of how big this man is. He has always seemed genuinely friendly and nice.
This is my son in a couple of strong man events (the competition Brian Shaw competes in professionally). He is still young I was proud of him. The tire weighs 1100 pounds and although he only flipped it once only two other competitors flipped it at all and the guy who won only did it 3 times.


The yoke was 800 pounds and had to be carried 40 yards without dropping then he ran back picked up a 300 pound sandbag lying on the ground and carried it back to the yoke and had to throw in over the bar. He did it in 54 seconds.

[Tarheel]

I just read this to my wife. I can't repeat all the words she used, but wan't to know if you could help us move things around the house for Spring cleaning. I told her I would ask but not to get her hopes up.

Fantastic job you and your son did at the event.

[tripleblessed]

Kudos to both of you! Where you are on the calendar to doing that.....wow. Where he is, to be that far along ....
wow. For frame of reference, at the opening of the Carter Presidential Library in '84, twenty minutes 'til live we
didn't yet have power to lights because of the Secret Service delays. They were freaking. I was at that time a
half inch under six feet, about 185 pounds. Our 4aught cable weighed a pound a foot. I threw a 100' coil around
my neck and one over each shoulder and carried them about a quarter of a mile to the building, 300 lbs at the truck,
but somebody must have been piling on, because by the time I got to the dimmer racks it weighed about 8 tons.
On my 69th birthday, I was setting roof beams for a post and beam house. 800 pounds already off the ground,
but not high enough to set. I got my shoulders under and set, but only had to do the last three feet. I know those
weights.

What that young'un did is inhuman to well nigh impossible. YAY HIM!!! At this rate, folk will be wanting their picture
taken with him before he's done. Keep feeding him whatever it is he's eating.


Note: I wasn't in the habit or showing off, it was an exigent situation, they wouldn't allow motorized that close to the
presidents, and nobody else could carry one that far, so it ran on prayer.

[grizzbass]

I just read this to my wife. I can't repeat all the words she used, but wan't to know if you could help us move things around the house for Spring cleaning. I told her I would ask but not to get her hopes up.

Fantastic job you and your son did at the event.

he is handy around the house. The scary thing is people in the sport say it will be 5 years or so before he'll be strong.

[tripleblessed]

he is handy around the house. The scary thing is people in the sport say it will be
5 years or so before he'll be strong.

That was my exact point. To do that at his age....... It's like a tenor not knowing what his voice can be until
he's hit 27 or 28. He's gonna be an astonishing watch for us on the sidelines.

[grizzbass]

That was my exact point. To do that at his age....... It's like a tenor not knowing what his voice can be until
he's hit 27 or 28. He's gonna be an astonishing watch for us on the sidelines.

It's funny you should say that. That was the age I stopped being a tenor and started singing bass roles. Many of my teachers and the people of the business thought I was the next great helden Tenor but it got to the point I was singing pretty well technique wise and just knew I wasn't a tenor. I had all the notes but singing a whole evening was exhausting and beat my voice to pieces. I was studying then with Giorgio Tozzi a great opera bass/baritone (if you've seen the old movie South Pacific they dubbed his voice in for the French Planter) He could sing a high c with ease. He'd say yes I can visit I just don't to live here. The longer I worked the more I realized that was me. I could barely make it through an opera as a tenor but by the end of an evening as a bass or baritone I felt fresh as a daisy.

[tripleblessed]

Similar thing happened to a friend's brother. He left Rossville/Chattanooga as a promising student of
music, then a promising tenor, then at 27, a bass. Made a career mostly in Europe, often in modern
opera. I love singing tenor arias, but as I told a successful soprano once, the fact that can hit those
notes doesn't mean I should, or that I think I sound good doing it. Probably a not very good lyric
baritone. Better accepted in bluegrass and old country. And love singing high harmony. Odd, the
progressions.

But we digress; the parallel with voice and strength in my own life and that of others led to my observation
about your young giant. I look forward to seeing your pictures of him down the road as he grows into
and beyond what he's doing now.

[Nomad]

Well done to your son, that's seriously impressive and so is your bench pressing.

[grizzbass]

Similar thing happened to a friend's brother. He left Rossville/Chattanooga as a promising student of
music, then a promising tenor, then at 27, a bass. Made a career mostly in Europe, often in modern
opera. I love singing tenor arias, but as I told a successful soprano once, the fact that can hit those
notes doesn't mean I should, or that I think I sound good doing it. Probably a not very good lyric
baritone. Better accepted in bluegrass and old country. And love singing high harmony. Odd, the
progressions.

But we digress; the parallel with voice and strength in my own life and that of others led to my observation
about your young giant. I look forward to seeing your pictures of him down the road as he grows into
and beyond what he's doing now.

my little brother does storytelling and folk and blue grass. He plays banjo, mandolin and guitar. It's my old banjo but he plays it better than I ever did. Many people like to imitate opera singers (usually as a gag) but I still love to sing folk music (love to sing along to O Brother Where art Thou)although I assume to a real folk singer it sounds kind of like those people who imitate opera singers.

[grizzbass]

Well done to your son, that's seriously impressive and so is your bench pressing.

thanks. My lifting would be more of a ego boost if it wasn't for people like Od Haugen (actually a real nice man). He is the guy who runs the strongman competition and ex pro lineman. When he was in his 50s started competing in strongman making the finals several times, He competed in the grip contest (which he does every year to celebrate his birthday) He is 7 years older than I am so he's 69. He placed 3rd in the axle deadlift at this competition. The bar is the size of a coke can so it requires great hand strength. Here was his last lift of 390 pounds (again with an axle bar. I can't deadlift 390 with a regular bar. I do hope I can even at my level keep going like him. (hard work good genes and luck I guess)