Don’t Get Me Strong

You’ve probably seen a strongman competition on TV: Scandinavian guys with names like Thor Thorrgusson towing buses around and jumping hurdles with dinette sets tied to their backs. I’d love to be a strongman, but unfortunately I am neither Scandinavian nor strong, although I do sometimes grunt and scream while opening tough jars of spaghetti sauce. However, when C.J. Murphy, owner of Total Performance Sports in Everett, invites me to a training session for competitors preparing for the July 10 Mass. State Strongman Championship, I decide to get in touch with my stronger side.

“I’ll show you how to put a full keg on your shoulder and drink out of it. It’s a neat party trick,” says Murphy, who goes by “Murph.” I have a feeling that after trying to put a 175-pound keg on my shoulder, my neat party trick would be showing people my hernia, but I’m game for anything. The events to be practiced are the log press and the medley, where a competitor flips a gigantic tire several times, carries a keg about 100 feet, drags an anchor chain, and then turns back into Bruce Banner.

Murph’s facility is not your froufrou fitness center. You can’t get a guava-mango smoothie or postworkout spa session here. What you can get is seriously strong. Murph possesses just about every strength-training certification yet devised. TPS’s custom double-stack pulldown machine holds 600 pounds. The squat rack looks like it could do double duty as an engine hoist. A sign on the wall reads, “Leaving dumbbells on the bench = SEVERE beating by Murph.” To say that Murph is physically imposing is like saying that J. Lo’s a little fickle when it comes to love. Murph is 6 feet tall, weighs 290 pounds, and has a shaved head, a goatee, and a tattoo of a weightlifter on his forearm. The weightlifter has a bulldog head on a human body. If Murph ever has a daughter, I’d pay to watch a boyfriend come over to pick her up for a date.

When I arrive, I find an eclectic group getting warmed up: There are a few of the expected enormous dudes, a guy named John who competes in international fencing tournaments and Shang Chou, a mesomorph from MIT who picks up the heaviest logs without apparent stress. He looks to be about 6'2", 210. “Want to know his training diet?” asks Murph. “Skoal and Budweiser. I’m not joking. He’s a mutant.” So he’s the male equivalent of the model-skinny girl who eats cake all day. I hate him.

Speaking of women, there are about five of them getting ready for the log lift. They all look like they’re in good shape, and not in a Vera de Milo/Romanian Olympic Team way. The smallest woman there, Shawna, struggles with the 100-pound log but gets it with a spot. I later learn that she is the 2001 Mass. State Strongwoman champion. Another TPS member, Grace, is 53 years old, weighs 112 pounds and squats 225.

Then it’s my turn. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to lift the 100-pounder, which could easily fall and crush my ego. I do manage to get it, though not without a struggle—my elbows shake wussily and I strain my left wrist.

When we go outside to practice the medley, we discover that one of the women lost control of the 350-pound women’s tire and rolled it into “Medium” Murph’s parked car, breaking the headlight. Medium Murph, who’s interning to be a trainer, is smaller than Murph, but that’s all relative—he still looks as if he could be installed as a support pillar in the Zakim Bridge. Fortunately, he’s not upset—he won the car in a card game anyway. I try to think of the most badass thing I’ve done lately. “Yeah, took a shower the other day. Didn’t use the loofah. I don’t give a crap.”

I decide to try flipping the women’s tire, which looks like it belongs on a large piece of earth-moving equipment. I get low, put my chin against the tire and push with all my might. Nothing happens. Perhaps they have a space-saver spare kicking around they could let me play with. “Get under it! Drive it up at a 45-degree angle!” Murph yells. I get my fingers under the edge and lift it up and over, grunting in glory—I’m as strong as a girl! I flip it a few more times just to show it who its daddy is, then, drunk with testosterone, I try to flip the men’s tire. I push until I raise red welts on my shoulders, but I’m unable to budge it. I also fail to get the keg on my shoulder. I don’t even mess with the anchor chain—I’m having pasta tonight and I’ve got to save a little strength for the Ragu. ∂