Head down to Emus Rugby Club this Saturday, December 14, for a physical contest of a different kind, as the Orange Barbell Club hosts its first-ever local strongman competition.

The ‘Tandem Titans Trials’ will see 17 teams of two athletes competing in five events testing their strength and endurance: Tandem Truck Pull; Max overhead – Log/ Keg Press/ Axle Clean and Press/ Barbell Clean and Press; Loading and Yoke Run Medley; Tandem deadlift; and Team Stone Ping-Pong.

Local exercise physiologist and head director of the Orange Barbell Club (OBC) Dave Stelling said strongman events are a great spectacle to watch, and he hopes it might encourage a few more locals to get involved in the sport.

“The best thing about strongman is every competition is different, you never know what you’re going to get,” Dave said.

“You have a whole Highland Games influence, power-lifting influence... there’s a lot of things based around Scottish stones, Scottish stone-lifting, your Scandinavian stone, lifting and moving... it’s sort of a bit of a mix-match sport.”

Eight teams from OBC will be competing on Saturday, with five from Dubbo, two teams from Newcastle, and one each from Sydney and Parkes.

The Orange Barbell Club began in February and now has about 15 members. A ‘niche’ sport, Dave believes this competition is a perfect way to showcase strongman to potential newcomers.

“We’ve had quite a big rise in strength [sports] like powerlifting and CrossFit in the last probably five to 10 years, which is awesome. We’re just laying the groundwork for strongman,” he said.

“What we’re really trying to do is get the sport more involved within Orange community, trying to get more people get involved with our small group club here.”

Dave’s journey into strongman began when he was quite young, watching the events on television.

“One of my uncles used to watch all the time. So being an eight, nine,10-year-old, you sort of sit there and watch it and go, ‘Wow!’,” Dave recalled.

“These guys are lifting these massive stones that are 180 kilos and up and on top of a platform. And these guys are dead-lifting 450 to 500 kilos, I thought it was really cool.”

Dave was first introduced to weight training through playing rugby league and later union. But it was only after he broke his foot ahead of the 2020 football season that he really got into strength training.

But when COVID-19 shut the nation down and put a halt to the football season, Dave turned his attention to strongman competition.

“I was lucky enough to go to a workshop run down at One Strength at the start of 2021,” Dave recalls. “And... I loved it. I found my coach. His name’s Andy (Andrew Rajeevan). He runs a gym called Raw Barbell Club in Sydney and went from there.”

Dave entered his first competition in December, 2021, and hasn’t looked back.

For the OBC’s first-ever competition, the five events have been hand-picked because of their inclusivity for competitors and attractiveness for potential spectators.

The tandem truck pull sees athletes pull a 12-tonne truck for 15 metres, while the tandem deadlift involves both athletes lifting a weighted bar together.

Then there is the stone ping pong, where competitors lift an atlas stone (concrete ball) up and over a bar from one athlete to the other as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

“There’s always a lot of running, a lot of moving, that you don’t expect from big bodies,” Dave said.

“Because of the nature of the sport and because it’s so challenging on the body, the community is quite involved, but we are also quite inclusive and trying to build up our athletes.”

The OBC competition will kick-off at 9am this Saturday, December 14, at Emus Rugby Club.