We at KCSTRONGMAN and the House of Iron and Stone will be hosting the thirteenth installment of the Old Time Strongman Championship. The address is Turney, Missouri, but the exact location is God’s Country USA. As usual it will be in early September. We have no running water, but do have an outhouse. We will try to knock down all the spider webs for you. We have no air-conditioning, but it the weather has typically been tolerable for this meet.
The meet does have a strong history. It started back in 2011, when Thom VanVleck held it at his house near Kirksville, MO. The next year it was held in the gym of an old school, and has been at my location ever since. There has been a bit of parity in the men’s division. Chad Ullom has been the most prolific with three titles under his belt. Greg Cook and myself follow with two titles apiece, with five other lifters having won a championship apiece. The women’s division has had only four ladies claim the championship. Phoebe Todd has won the past four times. Prior to that Heather Tully/Gardner won three, with two other female lifters winning a title apiece.
We have typically had a decent turnout for this meet; hopefully this year does the same. The following are the details:
We had 34 lifters compete in this quarter’s postal: 22 men and 12 women. Barry Bryan was the top lifter this quarter. Thanks to all the lifters that took part.
Dates: April 1 thru June 30, 2024
Lifts: PUSH PRESS FROM RACK, HACK LIFT- ONE HAND, and PULLOVER- BENT ARM
The IAWA World Postal Championships has been announced! It will still be the “Andy Goddard Memorial”. Andy was a great friend and supporter of the IAWA and as long as I’m involved promoting the World Postal Championships it will be done in Andy’s memory. As it has been the past few years, the lifts for this World Postal will be the first day lifts of the upcoming Worlds. Read the the info sheet as it outlines the “rules of the competition”. Send your results to me at amyers@usawa.com. Also, please send in the official entry form with your club results. If you have more club entries than on the entry form just include extra entry forms.
The teeth lift is a USAWA Special Equipment Lift which originated from old-time performing strongmen. Per a USAWA website article, Warren Lincoln Travis performed a 350 pound teeth lift with his hands behind his neck.
The current record list shows 15 USAWA athletes with records on the books. Mary McConnaughey leads the women with a 130-pound lift in 2005, followed by RJ with a 54-pound lift in 2017. The somewhat more crowded men’s field has Steve Schmidt in the lead with a 390-pound lift in 2005, followed by Eric Todd with a 300-pound lift in 2023. The other 11 athletes in the books have records between 13 and 203 pounds dating back to 1999. Art Montini has the most records in the book with 8 records (all 100 pounds or more) set in the 70-90 year old age classes.
Art Montini with his Teeth Bit (from USAWA website)
The last time it was contested in a meet was the 2022 Dino Gym Challenge, where among the 4 athletes participating only one had a successful teeth lift, Dean Ross at 39 pounds.
The teeth lift is essentially a neck exercise, but you still have to be hold onto the weight with your teeth. Similar to a deadlift, your grip may fail before your posterior chain can no longer lift the weight.
The teeth bit is a very personal device. Not because of the design or the shape of athlete’s choppers, but more because it is difficult to sanitize and kind of familiar to share un-sanitized. Most of the designs I have seen are made from leather. Leather is pliable enough to bite your teeth into, but also sturdy enough to hold 300 pounds.
I fabricated one based on the classic dog-bone template, folding the leather back on itself, gluing the two halves together to secure a D-ring and adding some additional leather and rivets for more security. I did not use any specific medical grade of food safe glue. I just used whatever Tandy Leather had on hand that I could borrow. This seemed to be the traditional design. If I made another one, I would not include the riveted section. On one teeth lift, the bit slipped in my mouth and put a lot of pressure on my front tooth. It would have been better to have the bit just freely escape my mouth.
The author’s teeth bit
I have heard horror stories about people having so much pressure on their teeth that they felt the roots of their teeth shifting or worse. Alternatively, the USAWA website claims that Art Montini’s 107-pound lift in 2013 at 85 years of age was successful even though he has false teeth. Personally, I am not the picture of dental health. I have had wisdom teeth removed, teeth removed for braces and three teeth removed and replaced with two implants due to gum disease. That said my oral surgeon could not endorse teeth lifting but did claim my implants were stronger than my natural teeth.
Whether or not you want to set records in the teeth lift, this might be worth playing with just to appreciate the grit it would take to lift over 100 pounds. Here is a youtube video where I used a washcloth as a teeth bit and loaded it to 25 pounds. I feel like the washcloth I was using could hold over 100 pounds, but I have no intention of finding out.
