When the 2021 Canada’s Strongest Woman, Samantha Belliveau, and the bronze medalist at the 2021 World’s Strongest Man (WSM) contest, Maxime Boudreault, release a video giving a tour of their home gym, strength athletes should pay attention. On July 25, the recently engaged duo gave an inside look at their Maximum Strength Performance (MSP) Private Studio in Thunder Bay, Ontario, which they built during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Check out Boudreault and Belliveau’s gym in the video below, courtesy of Boudreault’s YouTube channel:
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When first entering the MSP, you’re greeted by cardio equipment — even strongmen and strongwomen need to work in some conditioning. They have a max trainer, an Assault bike, and a stationary bike. Walking along the nearside wall, a large rack of throwing bags, wall balls, Bosu balls, and kegs stands in front of heavy sandbags that range from 50 pounds to 400 pounds. Next to the rack is a Husafell Stone replica. Safe to assume that if it is medley training day in the gym, that rack will get a lot of attention.
The next piece of equipment is a vertical leg press that Boudreault and Belliveau use for hamstring development. Crossing the middle of the room is a large set of dumbbells ranging from five to 100 pounds. There are an additional pair of custom-made 20-kilogram dumbbells on the floor, for which Boudreault was rewarded for winning the 2021 Magnus ver Magnusson Classic.
Facing the dumbbell rack is a weight bench, a heavy-duty weight bench with more padding, and an adjustable bench used for upright dumbbell movements like shoulder presses or seated dumbbell curls. Adjacent to the trio of benches is a plate tree holding bumper plates for Olympic weightlifting and a hip press machine.
An isometric row machine is in the same section, allowing users to perform chest-supported single-arm rows. A reverse pec deck for rear delt training is on the opposing wall to the medley rack. That wall is adorned with chalked numbers that keep track of their clients’ PRs.
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Moving toward the back half of the gym, a unique piece of equipment called the Power Center is noticed first. It is effectively a wheelbarrow frame that can support weight plates so strongman athletes can train wheelbarrow walks, which are sometimes seen in medley events.
A preacher curl bench and a large cable machine with multiple weight stacks, a pull-up bar, a seated row, and a lat pulldown extends to the end of the gym. Under its arch is a series of color-coded kettlebells (ranging from nine to 97 pounds) at the foot of a peg board holding various cable attachments.
On the back wall is a yoke with a frame that can convert to train the farmer’s carry or a prowler pushes outdoors. Continuing along the back wall are a reverse hyper, a leg extension machine, and a hack squat. Down the center of the gym is 100-foot wide turf that extends for 30 feet for athletes to traverse with the gym’s super yoke, which weighs 135 pounds when empty. The gym’s far corner has another smaller dumbbell rack, an air bike, a squat machine, and a cable crossover machine for chest and shoulder accessories.
A garage door opens to a backyard that extends the gym. A rowing machine, another exercise bike, and a ski erg are on mats. A lone Fingal’s Finger lays on the side of the building that can be pulled out for specific workouts. A deadlift platform and a farmer’s carry frame lay dormant on the ground waiting for a heavy training session. Bouldreault taps the top of his Viking Press machine that can be lowered to train the car deadlift.
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The other half of the gym’s bay features two squat racks and a barbell tree with every type of barbell that might appear in a strongman contest. Underneath that tree are a series of heavy dumbbells of both fixed and adjustable weight. In the nooks of a third dumbbell rack are axles to train the axle clean and press or axle deadlift.
The deep end of the bay is reminiscent of a rock quarry as Atlas Stones lay about with two blocks for block presses, a silver dollar deadlift apparatus, an Atlas runner, and a lower back extension machine. Boudreault and Belliveau have notoriously powerful overhead presses, so the duo finishes the tour by showing off their different logs for log press training.
Boudreault’s next elite strongman contest will be the 2022 Shaw Classic in Loveland, CO, on Aug 13-14, 2022.
Featured image: @sambelliveauu on Instagram
