Strongman, Community, and Belonging
By Rich Mulder, MS, CSCS
Owner, Liberty Performance Training
Phoenix, AZ
Fall 2012. The Horn of Panjwai. Kandahar, Afghanistan.
I am the Platoon Leader of Hostile Platoon, 1-38 Infantry. I am the vehicle commander of the second Stryker in our convoy. Because I am the Platoon Leader (trust me, it’s not actually that cool), I’ve hand selected my favorite soldiers from the platoon to be in my truck; not because they’re more talented than everyone else, but because they were ridiculously funny, awesome to talk to, and undyingly loyal.
SPC Tanner as machine gunner, SPC Davis as driver, PFC McKeever on the .50 cal, and SPC Saye as my RTO. We called our truck Team Bloodfart. And we were the stars of our own movie.
Radio checks complete. Permission to leave the wire granted.
It’s a routine mounted patrol where we expect nothing to happen (SPOILER ALERT: nothing happened). And as is tradition when the majority of the talking is done, the music starts; piped into our headsets through a jimmy-rigged iPod McKeever kept with him beneath the hatches. Rolling out of the wire is a special thing for Team Bloodfart and there are only two song options for us, both dripping with sarcasm and painting young, stupid smiles across our young, stupid faces.
It’s either Toby Keith, where we all sing along in our best dumbass Toby Keith voices, or Kesha: Gonna Die Young. We usually went with the latter. Very ironic and very hilarious after not dying young an important handful of times.
There is no community quite like a combat zone.
Period. Hard stop.
While deployed, the American Infantryman and the American Marine experience something completely unreplicable in any setting or any environment. Black, white, latino, asian; it doesn’t matter. We bleed together, cry together, experience great loss together, and achieve seemingly impossible things together. And though I would never trade the wonderful civilian life I have now to go back to my days in Afghanistan, I would never trade those days in combat or those experiences for anything. They made me who I am today and they informed every decision I ever made when trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do when I got out of the Army.
As it turns out, what I wanted was the same thing I once had: to belong to a group of hard-working people. Maybe even with the hope of earning their trust enough for them to allow me the privilege of leading them. A group with a singular mission, who cared about one another and wanted to see the men and women next to them succeed. This was surprisingly hard to find (as it is for most veterans) throughout a difficult transition from military to civilian life.
There is a tendency for veterans to get soft after service, to use our time served as an excuse to put our feet up. To eat and drink and gamble and make bad decisions while we lean on the crutch of all the hard shit we used to do. And we can’t blame the ones that fall prey to the ease of these bad habits. It’s not even that difficult to see why it happens. We jumped out of airplanes, lived on adrenaline, witnessed terrible things, enjoyed the darkest kind of humor there is, and helped each other process the deaths of young friends.
It was us against the world. And we knew we would come out on top. So when that fight ends, we subconsciously look for it elsewhere.
Simply put, there is a void of meaning that consumes the vast majority of us when we leave the service. We don’t belong to anything anymore. And when we flip off the war switch, we flip off the brotherhood switch with it, and the lights in the room get a little dimmer.
But that dimness doesn’t have to last forever.
In 2015, I discovered amateur strongman. At the time, it was still very fledgling in its development, limited mainly to your ‘typical’ strongman stereotype. Big, huge guys moving big, huge weights. But over the past seven years, I’ve watched the sport become more inclusive, more adaptive, more accepting, and radically more popular. So much has changed, but one thing continues to unite strongmen and women from across the world: community.
The sport of strongman requires discipline, work ethic, toughness (both physical and mental), and teamwork. Whether it is persevering through grueling training sessions, staying accountable to your workouts and your diet, or even just appreciating the growth you’ve made within your own unique strongman journey, the sport is so damn rugged that it may even be impossible without a community surrounding you. It’s the closest thing to the camaraderie of the Infantry that I’ve ever come across in the civilian world. And I believe veterans have an important role to play in the future of the sport.
Right now, amateur strongman is being threatened by ego. Numerous organizations and some of the people within them have lost focus on the things that make strongman so special. It isn’t money that will help grow this incredible sport; it’s participation and encouragement. It’s giving back.
Our community and the athletes within it have taken us this far, and they will take us even further. Together, we can fight to preserve the ancient history of strongman and improve upon the inclusiveness of the sport.
Whether you are a veteran or not, strongman has a built in support structure, events and modalities that naturally force you out of your comfort zone, and an unadjustable difficulty level that virtually ensures personal growth so long as you remain accountable. It is functional, it is growing in popularity, and it has attracted some of the biggest hearts in the fitness industry. Not only will you learn how to take care of your body, but you’ll learn to treasure it, and be amazed by what it is capable of. All while laughing, cheering, and competing with some of the greatest people you’ll ever meet.
There is no community like a combat zone.
But when strongman is done right, we sure as hell can come close. Join us. And help us make it happen.
Cheers,
Rich Mulder, MS, CSCS
Owner, Liberty Performance Training
Effort. Consistency. Intelligence.
Bio: A former Army officer, Rich graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2009. He served five years in the Infantry, completing Air Assault, Airborne, and Ranger Schools as well as a combat tour to Afghanistan, where he led over 120 dismounted patrols and earned the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman Badge. After his service, he opened Liberty Performance Training in Phoenix, Arizona. He remains committed to growing the strongman and fitness communities the right way.
Join us at 12:00PM on February 26th at Liberty Performance Training for the first Clash for Veterans Phoenix Seminar! FREE to Veterans, their dependents and family members, & active service members.