The sport of strongman is notorious for utilizing spectacle in its elite competition events. From flipping or deadlifting giant tires, tilting over tall poles in the Fingal’s Fingers, loading monster truck parts in a medley, or yoke walking a car, strongman contests continue to innovate what feats of strength are possible.
Four-time World’s Strongest Man (WSM) Brian Shaw is adding to the legacy of strongman’s eye-catching events with the debut of the sport’s first ever Car Leg Press at the 2022 Shaw Classic on Aug. 13-14, 2022, in Loveland, CO. The event is exactly as it sounds: a Ford vehicle mounted atop a custom leg press, which athletes will attempt to lockout for as many reps as possible. Check out the video below published on Shaw’s YouTube channel on July 25, 2022, wherein Shaw gives a behind-the-scenes look at acquiring and stripping the car to the correct weight and customizing a leg press for safety:
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The use of cars and similar vehicles is far from obscure in strongman. The 2022 WSM contest featured a Car Deadlift and a Car Yoke Walk in the Final and Qualifying stages, respectively. The Final also included a Bus Pull. Previous WSM contests have featured races to flip a car down a course as quickly as possible. But never before has an elite strongman contest included a Car Leg Press.
The Ford vehicle that Shaw received via donation by Phil Long Ford in Denver, CO, was stripped of its engine and ancillary parts so that the frame, which is still estimated at 2,000 pounds, according to Shaw, can be mounted on the custom leg press.
Shaw commissioned a leg press to be at a steeper angle for the strongmen competing, all of whom are well over six feet tall, with a frame atop it where the car will be mounted. A winch at the frame’s base will allow the Shaw Classic crew to pull the leg press off of a strongman if they are pinned at the bottom of a rep. That scenario is one Shaw expects a lot of as the event will be for max reps, meaning each strongman will take the Car Leg Press to failure.
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The winch has the added benefit of letting Shaw know precisely how much the car weighs on the leg press because a scale can be attached. After the vehicle was mounted to the leg press, the winch could pull the car back to the starting position as it will in competition, and the scale shows how much weight it’s pulling (i.e., how much weight the athletes will leg press each rep).
2022 Shaw Classic Roster
- Brian Shaw
- Tom Stoltman
- Trey Mitchell — Reigning Champion
- Kevin Faires
- Aivars Šmaukstelis
- Bobby Thompson
- Jerry Pritchett
- Gabriel Peña
- Žydrūnas Savickas
- Oleksii Novikov
- Luke Stoltman
- Evan Singleton
- Maxime Boudreault
- Konstantine Janashia
- Mitchell Hooper
- Gabriel Rheaume
Shaw tested the Car Leg Press and performed four reps with great difficulty. A few more medications are in the works for safety purposes; otherwise, the 16 strongmen competing in Colorado should get ready to lift heavy.
Featured image via Brian Shaw’s YouTube channel.
