MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- April 4, 2013, marked the first day of the Strongman pre-training. Three fitness instructors took time out of their daily schedules in order to help a grand total of zero people who showed up for the weekly exercise block.
“You know, I don’t really have the answer for that,” said Barbara Roman, Marine Corps Community Services SemperFit fitness coordinator, speaking on the lack of participation. “In the back of people’s heads, maybe they feel they don’t need to. Maybe they feel that since they go to the gym every day, they are strong. But, if they don’t know a lot about their body system and how it applies to this competition, just brute strength is not going to do it.”
While the first training session passed without attendance, Roman said she is staying hopeful for the following training days, all of which take place Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. behind the IronWorks Gym.
“I’ve worked several of the Strongman competitions and I can easily identify what people need to work on,” said Roman. “As a fitness coordinator, I thought it would be important to do a pre-training season. As a personal trainer, my job is to specifically train anyone for whatever their sport may be. Every sport requires pre-training. It’s difficult to go out to a competition and not know the events, not know how to perform the events or even use the equipment, which we have available.”
Roman said this is the first pretraining event for the strongman and the goal of the training is to condition a person’s body for the specific trials, as well as familiarizing their neuromuscular system so the exercises become more of natural actions than forced movements.
“Working on the actual equipment and then taking that into the gym on some of the weaknesses that were identified is essential,” said Roman. “We are identifying those weaknesses for them so they will hopefully work on it for the rest of the week, so during the competition, they’re ready.”
Roman also mentioned it is important to train right up to the competition, but leave a week before the competition to rest in
order to avoid fatigue.
The Strongman Competition, which is scheduled for mid-May, will consist of five events, including a log press, a farmer’s
walk, a Humvee pull. All the equipment and training necessary to perfect these exercises will be available during the Strongman pre-training.