New England Strongman RD

By Mark Raymond

2018 NEW ENGLAND STRONGMAN RECORD DAY

Group Picture from the meet.

Group Picture from the meet.

The meet turned out to be a great success. We had 8 lifters from three states. It was held at Frank’s Barbell Club in East Walpole, Massachusetts.

One of the highlights of the meet was newcomer Christopher Lestan. He put some impressive numbers on the board!

Michael Rabich, who drove up from Queens, New York, did a Pull over and Press with a Wrestler’s Bridge that made my neck hurt watching him do it!

Jeff Ciavattone was there to set some records too, even after driving all the way up from South Carolina. Then he was off to Fenway Park in Boston for a concert.

Newcomer Dan Rowe and Mike Vuono didn’t disappoint with their lifts either.

Afterwards Frank treated us all to Pizza for lunch. Thanks to Frank, Rocky, and Jeff who officiated the meet. And a special thank you to Peter Vuono for keeping things upbeat and making us all smile!

Results are as follows:

New England Strongman Record Day
Frank’s Barbell Club, East Walpole, Massachusetts
July 21st2018

Meet Director: Mark Raymond

Host: Frank Ciavattone

Meet Announcer/Scorekeeper: Frank Ciavattone

Officials (3 official system used): Frank Ciavattone, Rocky Morrisson, Jeff Ciavattone

Christopher Lestan  Age: 22   Weight: 275 Lbs   125K   Class – Open

Deadlift, Ciavattone Grip    508 Lbs
Bench Press, Feet on Floor   385 Lbs
Clean and Seated Press      221 Lbs
Clean and Seated Press, Behind Neck  198 Lbs
Bent Over Row   326 Lbs

Michael Rabich         Age:38        Weight: 190 Lbs     90K Class – Open

Hack Lift, Fulton Bar   427 Lbs
Press, Dumbbell, One Arm, Left  77 Lbs
Pullover and Press, With Wrestler’s Bridge 177 Lbs
Deadlift , No Thumbs, Overhand Grip  336 Lbs
Scott Lift   237 Lbs

Michael Vuono     Age: 29       Weight: 208 Lbs        95K Class – Open

Lateral Raise, Standing                                                                35 Lbs
Abdominal Raise                                                                           57 Lbs
Curl, Dumbbell, Cheat, One Arm, Left                                      91 Lbs
Curl, Dumbbell, Cheat, One Arm, Right                                   70 Lbs
Bench Press, One Arm, Right                                                     96 Lbs

Mark Raymond     Age: 55  Weight: 247 Lbs   115K Class  55+ Masters

Deadlift , No Thumbs, Overhand Grip   286 Lbs
Rectangular Fix  95 Lbs
Vertical Bar Deadlift, 1 Bar, 2”, One Hand, Left   175 Lbs
Deadlift, Dumbbell, One Arm, Left   200 Lbs
Deadlift, Dumbbell, One Arm, Right 200 Lbs

Dan Rowe       Age: 27       Weight: 202 Lbs            95K Class – Open

Press, Dumbbell, One Arm, Right   91 Lbs
Good Morning   140 Lbs
Curl, Wrist, One Hand, Left  75 Lbs
Curl, Wrist, One Hand, Right   86 Lbs

Jeff Ciavattone    Age: 38      Weight: 238 Lbs     110K Class – Open

Bench Press, One Arm, Left  90 Lbs
Bench Press, One Arm, Right  105 Lbs
Deadlift, Ciavattone Grip, One Arm, Left  240 Lbs
Deadlift, Ciavattone Grip, One Arm, Right  245 Lbs
Deadlift, No Thumb, One Arm, Left 205 Lbs

Frank Ciavattone Jr.  Age: 63 Weight: 293 Lbs 125K+ Class 60+ Masters

Curl, Wrist, One Hand, Left  100 Lbs
Curl, Wrist, One Hand, Right  100 Lbs
Finger Lift, Right Index  65 Lbs
Finger Lift, Right Ring  65 Lbs
Finger Lift, Right Little  65 Lbs

Peter Vuono    Age: 65  Weight: 196 Lbs     90K Class   65+ Masters

Press, Dumbbell, One Arm, Right   71 Lbs

2018 Yearly Awards

By Al Myers

Members of the Dino Gym who attended the 2018 USAWA Nationals enroute to a club victory and the winner of the 2018 Club of the Year. (left to right: Cale Dunlap, Al Myers, Brandon Rein, Dean Ross, Cody Lokken, and LaVerne Myers)

Members of the Dino Gym who attended the 2018 USAWA Nationals enroute to a club victory and the winner of the 2017 Club of the Year. (left to right: Cale Dunlap, Al Myers, Brandon Rein, Dean Ross, Cody Lokken, and LaVerne Myers)

Every year since I’ve been the USAWA Awards Director (2009) the USAWA has given out special awards recognizing individuals who the membership feels should receive “extra attention” for their contributions and efforts.   These awards are entirely selected by the membership, with the nominations and voting done by the USAWA members.  All I do is tally the votes and organize the ordering of the plaques.  However, I also get to have the honor of presenting the awards, which is something that I really enjoy doing and makes the work I do all worthwhile.

Every year the Awards Presentation coincides with our banquet at the National Championships.  This year we had our banquet at a fantastic seafood restaurant in Cocoa Beach.  However, we thought we were going to have a private room but this was not the case!  We were all seated at a couple tables side by side in the large dining area – and a live band was performing!  Needless to say, a traditional awards presentation was not going to take place so I improvised and handed the awards out individually after the meal.

Listed below is this year’s winners.  This information is stored on the website in the history archives. Again, congrats to all of the winners!!

 

2017 Award Winners

WINNER RUNNERUP
Athlete of the Year Al Myers Eric Todd
Leadership Award Denny Habecker Al Myers
Sportsmanship Award Dean Ross LaVerne Myers
Courage Award Frank Ciavattone Dennis Mitchell
Newcomer Award John Douglas Greg Cook
Club of the Year Dino Gym Schmidt Barbell Club

 

2018 2nd Quarter Postal

By Denny Habecker

The 2nd Quarter Postal results have been received, and as usual Eric Todd is the man to beat, while R.J. Jackson rules the women’s division.

RESULTS:

2nd Quarter Postal
April 1 through June 30, 2018

Meet Director- Denny Habecker

Lifters with Certified Officials
Brandon Rein    – Al Myers, LaVerne Myers, Chad Ullom
LaVerne Myers  – Al Myers, Chad Ullom
Al Myers          – LaVerne Myers, Chad Ullom
Chad Ullom      – Al Myers, LaVerne Myers
Dean Ross        – Denny Habecker
Aidan Habecker – Denny Habecker
Lance Foster     – Eric Todd
Chris Todd        – Eric Todd
Eric Todd          – Lance Foster
Crystal Diggs     – R. J. Jackson
Barry Bryan – Denny Habecker

Lifters with non-Certified Officials
John Douglas
Denny Habecker
R.J.Jackson
Stephen R. Santangelo

LIFTS- Bench Dip, One Arm Deadlift, Bent Arm Pullover

MEN’S DIVISION

Eric Todd                      – 43 – 258    – 235   – 401-R – 165  – 811 – 658.89

Chad Ullom                  – 46  – 246   – 200   – 418-R – 130  – 748  – 643.73

Al Myers                      – 51  – 231   – 200   – 353-R – 120  – 673  – 623.20

Stephen R. Santangelo – 66 – 159.4 – 175   – 180-R  – 80   – 435 –  565.43

John Douglas               – 54 – 310    – 225   – 235-R – 135  – 595 – 489.17

Barry Bryan                 – 60 – 191    – 88    – 209-R  – 143  – 440 – 488.47

Brandon Rein               – 22 – 147    – 150  – 176-R  – 85    – 411 – 444.86

LaVerne Myers             – 74 – 242    – 70    – 225-R  – 100 – 395  – 430.38

Chris Todd                  – 38  – 272   – 175   – 248-R  – 135 – 558  – 424.74

Aidan Habecker           – 14 – 174   – 110   – 198-R   – 55   – 363  – 422.22

Denny Habecker         – 75  – 185   – 0      – 198-R   – 86    – 284 – 362.83

Dean Ross                 – 75  – 242   – 45     – 165-L   – 75    – 285 – 312.83

Lance Foster              – 52 – 328    – 0       – 205-R  – 95    – 300  – 236.15

WOMEN’S DIVISION

R.J. Jackson             – 56 –  105    – 0       – 175-R  – 48    – 223  – 365.35

Crystal Diggs           – 31  – 165    – 0        – 80-R    – 37   – 117   -117.19

National’s History

By Al Myers

I just updated our History Archives on the “Past USAWA Nationals”.  The one thing about history is that it is ever changing, with new things that become history once they are finished. This is an ongoing project for me, and sometimes I find that I’ve been slow to add the updates as time seems to fly by at a faster pace the older I get!

If you get some extra time and are interested in the history of the USAWA, take a look at these pages in the “History” section. (It is located on the header line of the USAWA website).  I always reread the past history as I add updates.  Today I want to share some highlights as it applies to the history of our USAWA National Championships.

  • This year (2018) marks the 31st year of the USAWA National Championships, with NO YEARS being missed since the first Nationals in 1988.
  • This year (2018) marks the first and ONLY time Nationals has been held in Florida.  8 states have been hosts for Nationals with Pennsylvania in the number one spot (12), followed by Ohio (6), Massachusetts (4), Missouri (4), Kansas (2), Illinois (1), and Nevada (1).
  • 15 meet directors (or combinations of meet directors) have promoted the Nationals. Denny Habecker has promoted the most (5), followed by Al Myers (4), and 4 promoters with (3): Frank Ciavattone, John Vernacchio, Art Montini/John McKean, and Bill Clark/Joe Garcia.
  • The top 5 lifts that have been contested at Nationals are: Zercher Lift (17), One Arm Deadlift (16), Pullover and Push (13), One Arm Snatch (12), and the Clean and Press heels together (12).  Three of these top 5 National lifts were contested at this years Nationals!
  • 55 Official lifts of the USAWA have been contested at past National Championships. 22 lifts have only been contested once in Nationals.
  • This year was a one day meet, but only 10 times in our history has Nationals been a one day meet.  The other 21 times it was a two day meet.  However, all 10 of these one day meets have occurrd in the past 13 years.

KCSTRONGMAN-The background

Pulling a dumptruck back in my strongman days

Pulling a dumptruck back in my strongman days

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.

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