Super mortals

CEBU, Philippines — Some of us ordinary beings at some point in our lives had done extraordinary feats of strength that defied explanation.  But there are the ridiculously peculiar heavy lifts best described in the categories of believe-it-or-not.  Then it makes us wonder if these beings are actually human.

We’re talking of massively built men and women with body fats of less than 10 percent who routinely heave 100 kilos like a gallon of milk.  They pull, carry and press loads only a forklift can do and there’s actually a competition for it called the World’s Strongest Man.

Established in 1977, the WSM was held in different locations in the USA and participated in mostly by American football players, body builders and weightlifters until 1983 when it moved to New Zealand and had held competitions around the world since then.

Events are mostly created based on mythological feats of strength, powerlifting and the Highland Games where carrying and flipping logs, keg toss and lifting huge rocks take center stage.  Participants are required to complete the tasks at a specified time.  Among the popular events are:

Vehicle pull – it could be a fire truck, a bus or a plane to be pulled across a 30-meter distance at the least possible time.  There are three variations to this – one is with the participant pulling the vehicle towards him with a rope attached to it.  Another is them with a rope around their waist which is attached to the vehicle and them pulling on another rope.  The last one involves no rope, with the participant pulling the vehicle attached to a harness.

Atlas stones – five heavy round stones increasing in weight from 250 to 400 are lifted and are placed on a platform spread across 10 meters.

Log throw – a five-meter long log is either thrown for distance or for height over a bar.

Keg toss – kegs of increasing weight must be thrown over a 15-foot high bar.

Tug of war  –  a single elimination, one-on-one duel.  Winner moves on, loser goes home.

Loading race – several heavy objects weighing between 200 to 400 pounds are loaded on a platform from a distance of 15 meters.

Aside from American athletes, supermen from Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries dominate the competition that from the late 90s to up to 2002, Iceland and Finland won multiple WSM titles.

Poland’s Mariusz Pudzianowski ruled the sport between from 2002 to 2008, winning five titles, the most in WSM history.  The 6-1, 310 pound specimen in his prime had 22-inch biceps connected to 17-inch forearms.   Just imagine meeting someone on the road built like an upright freezer with arms as big as a lamp post.

The WSM created their Hall of Fame in 2008 and had inducted only four strongmen so far to the hall, Pudzianowski among them.  The others are Bill Kazmaier (USA), Svend Karlsen (Norway) and Jon Pall Sigmarsson (Iceland).

Botswana, South Africa hosted the WSM the past two years and for the first time ever, Manila will host this year’s edition.  Qualifiers will be on April 28 to May 1 and the finals on May 5 and six.  The last time the WSM was held in Asia was in 2015 when Malaysia hosted the event at Putrajaya.

With these hugely built athletes, it would take an equally large kitchen to prepare their food and perhaps a moderately sized farm stocked with livestock and poultry to sustain them.  What they eat for breakfast could probably be the entire day’s meal allocation for 5 regularly built people.

The Malay race which we belong, is naturally built for speed and agility.  Rare if none at all can we see heavily built and muscled Filipinos standing above six feet and breaking the scales at 280 pounds and above.  Since we normally only see these mighty mortals on TV, we are given the opportunity to get up close and personal with these giants and witness their other-worldly displays of strength.