USAWA

By Eric Todd

I began my strongman career in 2001.  After wrestling competitively most of my life, my college career was riddled with injury and disappointment.  When it ended, I thought my days of competing were over; however, I found that I had not lost that competitive fire. So, I started training for strongman with rather meager equipment and knowledge.  Despite all that, I had rather decent success quickly.  I was fourth at my first meet, first at my next (which was hosted by fellow all-rounder Thom VanVleck, but that is another story), and won my division at nationals within a year.

With this quickly discovered success, I figured the sky was the limit; I had my sights set on winning my pro card.  I was within shooting distance at that first nationals, finishing third overall, and figured that it was a logical goal.  I had found a couple guys in the area who did strongman and we would train together at times, but it was inconsistant.  I was often left training alone.  I came close to my goal of a heavyweight card, getting second and third at a few qualifiers, but fell short in the end.  And despite placing quite well in some tough meets against the best of the best at the time, I felt like I had failed.

I knew that I needed to regroup and refocus to make my goal happen.  I thought that gathering like minded people together would help us all. We would coach each other, train together, compete together, and push each other to maximize each lifters potetial to rise to heights higher than what we could achieve alone.  So, I started the website and forum known as “KCSTRONGMAN.” Though my motivation for doing this was completely and utterly selfish, in the end it was a great deal for many folks.  We had people who identified as part of the KCSTRONGMAN community from Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.  We had honorary members from other states as well.  We trained together, traveled to meets together, ate together, and discussed training, philosophy and life via road trips and the message board.  I met some of the best friends of my life through KCSTRONGMAN.  And though I never did win that heavyweight pro card, I did alter course a little and win a pro card in the 105K division.

As life has a way of doing, all good things must eventually pass.  The old forums gave way to Facebook and the like.  Though I tried to keep the message board going, it began to start to feel like a waste of time, and I began to feel a bit schizophrenic talking to myself on there.  The forum is still up, but there is virtually no activity, and I have stopped wasting my time with it.  At one time, though, it was a hopping place!  After about 10 or 12 years of competing frequently, my body let me down.  I tried to make a run of one more nationals, and reinjured myself.  I knew that it was the end of the line for being able to train like I would need to to compete at a high level in strongman.  I walked away.

As luck would have it, I had found all-round just a short time after I started strongman.  I had competed in it some, but stayed rather busy with my strongman schedule, so not as regularly as some.  The genius about all-round is that everybody can do some of the lifts.  So, even though my body had failed me in strongman, I still had some strengths that all-round would accentuate. A couple of my strongman confederates came with me to the USAWA and we first registered as a club in 2011.  KCSTRONGMAN has had members compete in the grip championship, the heavy lift championship, and the Old Time strongman championship.  We have had members compete in nationals, Worlds, and the Gold Cup.  We have been active in the postal series as well.  We have promoted regular meets, record days, and some championship events.  Though KCSTRONGMAN has evolved a bit since we first started, the general philosophy is the same:  Lifting each other to greater heights through camraderie and support.

At any rate, that is the general background of KCSTRONGMAN, where we came from and how we got here.  It is my intention to do a biography of each current member of the KCSTRONGMAN USAWA club over the next month or so.  Hope you enjoy.