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He’s the Visegrip Viking (w/Odd Haugen)

Written by David Tao
Last updated on August 15th, 2023

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Today I’m talking to strength icon Odd Haugen, who’s decades-long career in strength is the stuff of legend. Originally from Norway, he’s an accomplished champion powerlifter and fitness entrepreneur who’s owned and operated some of the most storied gyms in America. He also has a long history in strongman, winning the 1999 Strongest Man in America contest and competing at several World’s Strongest Man contests well into his 50s. Haugen has also been instrumental in bringing Mas Wrestling to western audiences, and he’s now on a mission to popularize the sport of arm lifting — a sport where his world-class grip strength makes him one of the world’s most dominant athletes, even into his 70s. Haugen also coached 2019 World’s Strongest Man Martins Licis from a relative strength beginner to one of the best strength athletes on the planet.

Odd Haugen BarBend Podcast

On this episode of The BarBend Podcast, host David Thomas Tao talks to Odd Haugen about:

  • How bodybuilding inspired Odd growing up in rural Norway (02:30)
  • The start of Odd’s involvement with strongman (06:16)
  • Odd’s world-class grip strength (11:10)
  • Growing the sport of arm lifting (13:00)
  • How Odd became Martins Licis’ coach, back when Martins was about 20 years old (19:20)
  • Popularizing the sport of Mas Wrestling (23:00)

Relevant links and further reading:

Transcription

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

First of all, I think that in all the strongman competitions, there’s got to be some man-on-man type of competition. It’s crazy. All through the ages, the strongest man was the guy that could lift the heaviest and beat up the other guys.

 

Not necessarily beating, but wrestle them to the ground or whatever. It has to be a little more man-to-man not just doing it against inanimate objects.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend” podcast, where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

 

Today I’m talking to strength icon Odd Haugen, whose decades-long career in strength is the stuff of legend. Originally from Norway, he’s an accomplished champion powerlifter and fitness entrepreneur, who’s owned and operated some of the most storied gyms in America.

 

He also has a long history in strongman winning the 1999 Strongest Man in America contest, and competing at several World’s Strongest Man contests well into his 50s. Haugen has been instrumental in bringing mas-wrestling to western audiences.

 

He’s now on a mission to popularize the sport of arm lifting of sport, where his world-class grip strength makes him one of the most dominant athletes out there, even into his 70s.

 

He also coached 2019 World’s Strongest Man, Martins Licis, from a relative strength beginner to one of the best athletes on the planet. It’s a career that’s impossible to sum up in an intro. Let’s get right to the conversation.

 

Thanks so much for joining us today. I’m glad to be chatting with you. We’ve chatted on this podcast with a few folks that you’ve trained including Martins. It’s good to go to the source, the godfather of strength as many people have called you. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Thanks for having me.

David TaoDavid Tao

For those who might not know your distinguished career in strength sports, some folks might know you primarily as a coach. Some folks might know you primarily for popularizing mas-wrestling, but take us back to where your strength career began, if you don’t mind.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Well, I go all the way back to primarily bodybuilding. As I was growing up and I was doing, mostly there was no formal thing of any kind but bodybuilding was what inspired me. I was living in rural Norway at the time even weight sets, I made my own.

 

I started reading magazine from UK, from USA, and other countries, learning about strength sports. I tried everything as I was growing up. Only when I was 16, 17 when I moved to the city to go to school, did I get to start working out in the gym.

 

At that point, I started immediately competing in bodybuilding. I also competed in Olympic weightlifting, in powerlifting. Powerlifting was — I didn’t know it at the time — but it was brand-new at the time. Powerlifting didn’t start until ’64, ’65. The first national championship in the US was in ’65.

 

I actually won the 1968 Junior National Championship in Norway. I was pretty early…

 

…as a powerlifter, to many people as a powerlifter.

David TaoDavid Tao

I’m curious. People have different stories about this. When they’re training growing up, they might not have access to strength equipment. What did you build your earliest weight sets out of?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

 Initially, I built them out of birch wood. I used to keep one of those old-fashion sink bathtubs. I added water, and I left them in water to keep them heavy. Otherwise, they would dry out and get light. I basically had the original dumbbell logs.

David TaoDavid Tao

We see that. You see people on Instagram, they’re working out at an outdoor gym with the dumbbells made out of wood, out of logs, but you’re like, “I’ve been doing that for years!”

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Yeah. That was mid ’60. Early ’60s, actually.

David TaoDavid Tao

Do you remember the first time you ever trained with a real metal weight set with barbells and plates?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Not too long afterward, because I started saving up my money. I started buying weights. I had a bar made. I remember I had a bar made that the normal plates are like this one here. One-inch thick, not like right now, the standard plates, the Olympic plates. I had those small plates.

 

I had a bar that was thicker, and I had it machined down at the end so that you could fit the plates onto it. I didn’t need to put…The collars just go on the outside. I didn’t need an inside collar. I don’t know how tall the bar would have been. It probably was maybe close to 1.5-inch thick, I think.

David TaoDavid Tao

A truly custom setup. You started competing in powerlifting. You won the Norway Junior Nationals in 1968, moving into the ’70s. Did you continue competing in powerlifting? You’ve done pretty much every strength sport under the sun at this point, so how did your career evolve the next decade or so?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Until 1970, I competed primarily in bodybuilding but I did also powerlifting. My last year that I was living in Norway as I grew on before coming to the college in the US, I wonder…

 

Actually, in 1970, I got third place in the Powerlifting Nationals, but won the Olympic Weightlifting Nationals, and won the Senior Nationals in bodybuilding, Mr. Norway, as a junior.

David TaoDavid Tao

When did coaching start coming into the mix? When did you start coaching others?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

When we got involved in Strongman, which was long time afterwards, 20 years later or 25 years later, then when you’re trying with people, you’re helping people out.

 

How I got into Strongman was coaching. I was a gym entrepreneur in ’80s and I had a number of Gold’s Gyms. I’d open up Gold’s Gyms in Hawaii. In Hawaii, they had Hawaii Strongest Man. This is early ’90s. I said, “That’s very interesting now everyone sees that.”

 

The first time I went to see it, one of the guys that I knew from our gym — We had a very large school gym at the time, the world’s largest school’s gym, in Honolulu — he was competing in it and he’s really strong. He was a bodybuilder. He is really strong guy, but he had no clue what he was doing.

 

I know that I hide but I was just looking at the equipment. I said, “OK, that’s how you’re going to do it?” I could tell he was struggling, and he was just using all this power for nothing. I started helping him out during that competition, and I coached him through winning it. [laughs]

 

He won it, and it was first or three times he won it. Next year, I helped him out preparing for it a little bit. Though he primarily was lifting for bodybuilding, but he was lifting very heavy.

 

I was coming and it was my thing too. I only trained for bodybuilding all the way through the years I competed and everything else. I’ve trained for bodybuilding, but I’m trying to make it more functional.

 

He was a little bit less functional than me, but he was very strong. Next year, I coached him. The next year I coached him, I also jumped in and competed and I got fourth place.

 

That was the first Strongman competition I did. I was probably 46 maybe.

David TaoDavid Tao

We’re talking like early to mid-nineties, around that time.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

The mid-nineties, yeah.

David TaoDavid Tao

What are some of your fondest memories of competing in Strongman after that?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

There’s so many of them. I always enjoy competing. Sometimes if you had a bad start it’s, “Oh shit, why am I doing this still?” and then, usually we stick with it. You get better and usually there’s a good outcome at the end.

 

I was never satisfied with my performance, but usually satisfied enough that I wanted to go and do it again and get better next time. The greatest thing was in 1999 at the American Full Strength Challenge, where the strongest men in America competition you’d get 20 athletes a night.

 

I was going to late-entry come in and I am competing. It was 20 guys, and we had two days of competition. The first day we had to eliminate down two. They were going to have to fill it after the first day. You fill in the first day and you fight the next day.

 

I won the first day, and then the second day, won that as well. That was probably my best performance ever. I performed well in every event and I’m pretty satisfied with everything I did because I woke up the morning of the competition with a kink in my neck that I couldn’t move my head.

 

I competed the entire time with that. At the end of the competition, I couldn’t even take my arm down from all the…I had to walk around it on the left arm like this. I’d walk around like this. I could not take it down. It was so painful.

David TaoDavid Tao

Everyone just thought you’re waving hello the whole time.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Yeah. I do suck it up and do each event, and I was very happy to win it because I was 49. I was going against 23- and 25-year-olds that were the best competitors in there. It was a great victory.

David TaoDavid Tao

One thing you’re known for is your prodigious grip strength. When did you start realizing that your grip strength was truly that great compared to others who were in the field?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

I don’t know. When we started competing in the arm lifting with the Rolling Thunder back around 2000. I think it was in 1999 or 2000, we had the first ones, and then I realized I was stronger than all the other pros or as strong as anybody that’s got the best grip in the world.

 

Also I always knew I had a good grip because as soon as I started doing farmers world and stuff like that, my competitors in Hawaii started calling me the Viking because I always beat them easily in carrying events with my grip.

 

I never really trained my grip specifically, but I always did not train it a bit. In other words, I never use…I rarely would use straps or any group aids and so I tried to challenge it.

 

This went down through my entire Strongman career pretty much. I didn’t really train specifically for it. I may do like Rolling Thunder once in a while because of the arm lifting competitions we had and then we started doing the double over an axle lifts and stuff like that, which also I really enjoy doing.

 

Yes, I don’t know. I started competing against the best in the world. I’m still competing against the best in the world, and I am certainly competitive in my weight class. 145, I’m very competitive. There are some big monsters out there that are ‘6’10. [laughs]

 

Carl Myerscough, for example, from UK.

David TaoDavid Tao

I’m glad they have weight classes for that because once you get to a certain size of human their hands are just…They’re like bowling balls. You can’t compare them to the rest of us.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

It is not as sensitive to the weight itself. It’s just a body size, but I mean there’s some incredibly strong guys around like that 90, 100 kilos, 200-pound, 220. On the Texas, there’s a couple of guys that are out of this world strong.

 

That’s a really do it…We are doing for the first time to get Jujimufu because he’s very interested in grip and he has a company called Grip Genie. Together with them, we’re doing the Arm Lifting USA World Super Series of grip basically.

 

We have come to be events held in multiple locations in the first two weeks of August and the first two weeks of December, and a combined score will create the champions in four division for men and two division for women.

 

Right now we have a bill commit $6,000 for that prize money and we got some sponsor coming in so overall probably seven or $8,000 in total prize money when you’re all set and done.

David TaoDavid Tao

For people who aren’t familiar with arm lifting, what are some of the events that we might see at these competitions that you are hosting?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

For example, the traditional arm lifting, in the way we started arm lifting was with the Rolling Thunder and the Rolling Handle Gripper from iron mine and then developed into using the axle and then a Saxon bar.

 

There’s a lot of individual elements like that. For the world’s Super Series, we are using the exigency equipment. The first event is going to be like on the regular bar except for you, venues putting on like a genie grips which are basically the same as like the blue fat grips. You’re lifting right, double over me for blue fat grips for max weight. All this max.

 

Second event would be a rolling handle like the Rolling Thunder but is called a rolling thing from Grip Genie. The third event is a vertical type of lift where you have an Excalibur who you think…you’re to pull something out, and round piece, which is about two inches thick. It’s called the hilt.

 

The combine of these occur, and the three other events that will be held in December will provide the champion. This will be interesting we are also…Of course, the first year we were doing it.

 

Right now we have approximately 20 venues. We are looking for a few more venues. We are getting a lot of venues in the US. It’s a little more difficult for Europe because of the coronavirus. It has created shipping problems to getting the equipment because everybody’s going to have the same equipment, so they had to get the equipment on time.

 

That’s been a little bit of a problem. Otherwise, we will have a number of countries in Europe that wants to do it.

David TaoDavid Tao

The equipment has to be very consistent, because it’s something is…Even a millimeter thicker in one implement versus something someone else’s using, it’s not a fair contest.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

There has to be identical and particularly, we’re paying money. It’s going to be the same equipment. We’re still looking for a few more venues, the first competitions will go off on August 1st. Any day, between August 1st and August 15, they can hold the competition.

 

The results will not be announced. They’ll be submitted to the Arm Lifting in USA, they will be validated, and then be announced after the closing date, and then of course, we had the same thing going on in December.

 

There’s going to be a lot of very exciting and with Jujimufu involved in it, it’s going to be a lot of fun. He’s doing a venue at his place and I think it’s a limited a bit to how many people he can take, but people are welcome to check it out.

 

We do one at a Training Hall on August 6th or 7th, that’s Saturday. We’re also doing on August 1st at Rocket Gym with Martines. Both Martines and I will lift on there. If somebody is interested to come in and challenge us, or just even have a good time in one of those, come in and lift with us on August 1st of Rocket.

David TaoDavid Tao

Tell us a little bit about…Go ahead. I was going to say tell us a little bit about the Training Hall. Because it’s somewhat famous in certain strength communities, people might not know what I’m referring to there. Tell us a little bit about it, your involvement and how folks can learn more about that?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

It’s basically where we started here, but when I moved to California from Norway…I went back to Norway. I worked in Norway for a few years. I came back to US, and I came back to Southern California.

 

I looked for a house where I had enough room to train at home because I had a baby, and eventually another one baby. We had kids, so I didn’t want to go in. I was going to work. I was an executive. Because I was an exertive, I had to go to work.

 

When I come home, I don’t want to go to the gym somewhere. I want to work out at home. I created a whole training hall at the home. It was our garage, but it’s a very, very large garage and a large driveway. I had pretty much everything there.

 

People started coming in, wanting to train there. That’s how Martins came and started training with me, also. When the kids moved away, I looked and said, “Wait a minute, how the hell did all these people come into my house? [laughs] I’d like to get my driveway back.”

 

I looked for some commercial space. I found a good location where we have about 3,000 square feet inside, another almost the same amount outside.

 

That’s where Martins used to train for years after he trained at my house first, and then there. Now he also has records so he goes both places. He has his little room than he ever directly to do with strongman.

David TaoDavid Tao

Well, I was just curious. It’s famous Martins tells the story of he walked into your gym and said, “Can you train me?” I’m not sure if this is correct, but I’ve heard from a few folks that you looked at him and you’re like, “You got to get stronger first. You’re not quite a serious strength athlete.”

 

Tell us about what really happened when he approached you about working with him and his early days of training with you.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

He was probably about 20 years old when he called me. Actually, he called me about competing at the All-American Strength Challenge at the LA Fit Expo. That’s a Pro-Am contest. It’s a pretty high-level and very heavyweight. He called me and I asked him, “Have you competed before?”

 

“I did an amateur competition in Massachusetts.” I said, “Why don’t you come out and check out the equipment? All the equipment is right here, so you can try it out.” He came out, and the equipment was way too heavy for him. He was 260 pounds or something like that for a gym weight, but great athlete.

 

I told him he could come and start training there. That’s what he did, he started training. For the next two, three years, he wanted to go compete. He’s so competitive and wanted to compete. I kept telling him, “You can’t do it. You’re just going to be a crew. You’re not good enough to compete.”

 

That first year I allowed him to compete, he blew everybody away. That’s when he became a pro, and then he went and got third place at the Giants Live and then went to [inaudible 20:51] event. It’s not that long ago. It was 2015. Was it 2015 or ’16? I’m not 100 percent sure. I think it’s 2015 that he got to go and win it.

David TaoDavid Tao

I remember early on in those days because BarBend was pretty new, but he burst onto the scene and a lot of folks were like, “Where’s this kid from?” because he just seemed like a kid. He was so young and just had this massive potential.

 

Wasn’t the biggest guy, wasn’t going to deadlift necessarily the most, but it was just so athletic. What do you think makes him different? What do you think helps make him successful as a competitor, besides his incredible work ethic?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

He has a good foundation. His dad was very instrumental in helping him learning how to do Olympic lifting. His dad had done some Olympic lifting back in Latvia. Martins had learned how to lift properly. When he came in and we were lifting these weights I could tell, I mean this guy really knows what he’s doing.

 

The other part was that right from the beginning, he was very conscious about preparing before he did any kind of lifting or any kind of event. I knew he had the right attitude about it, not just jumping in and doing the weights.

 

The other thing is he has a great deal of athletic ability, but he also has as a great switch-off. He can be casual, Martins. He won’t lift that much, but just turn on the switch, and all of a sudden you have this incredible competitor.

David TaoDavid Tao

I want to transition a little bit to talk about something else you’re known for. We’ve touched on the so many strength sports and your impact there and your career in those.

 

Mas-wrestling is something that I know you’re very passionate about, you’ve done quite a bit to promote. How did you first come across that sport? What initially grabbed you there?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

First of all, I think that in all Strongman Competition, it got to be some man-on-man type of competition. It is crazy, through the ages, strongest man was the guy that could lift the heaviest and beat up the other guys. Not necessarily beating, but wrestle them to the ground or whatever.

 

It has to be a little more man-to-man, not just doing it in an animate objects. I was looking for things…With traditional kind you can’t have people go in there and do fist fighting because that’s a different sport, or street fighting.

David TaoDavid Tao

They have that, but that’s a different thing.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Yeah, that’s a different sport, and they are a great sport, but we needed something where people don’t get, that they didn’t hit each other, and yet they still has some traditions in strength and proving strength.

 

You have Sumo. You have Cumberlands, the wrath of wrestling, which is also a type of Viking-oriented sport where they lock up and wrestle. I wish I grew up, and we did that all the time.

 

That, again, is very difficult when you have people that are as big as, for example, Brian Shaw. Even if I had to wrestle Brian Shaw, I couldn’t even reach around them either. I don’t know if there’s anybody else that can reach around them. Maybe Hafter, he’s the only one who could do it, so that wouldn’t be a good one.

 

Anyway, I come across the stick wrestling on mass-wrestling, and I introduced it in 2013 LA Fit Expo, The All-American. I allowed the top eight competitors in The All-American to compete for more money in what I call Strongman Combat.

 

I had pull-push, which is a traditional Highland Game type of event, had been used in Strongman in the past. I used mass-wrestling, which has also been used in past in Strongman and it was old. It isn’t just from Russia and also the Highland Games, that had it in it back through the 1930s at least.

 

Then traditional one-on-one rope pull. They are tug of war with rope. Those three events, and certainly their circle, and all that stuff that got through it, and the most pressing platform, they all did it and the first champion was the OB or Robert Oberst. He won the whole thing. I was the biggest guy there, but he’s very athletic.

 

When you’re doing pull-pushing, and already doing rope-pulling almost [inaudible 26:08] and a lot of athletic archdruid, what I discovered when we had it there was that everybody wanted to try it. We had lines standing around the corner for people to come up and sit on the platform and pool.

 

When they did it, everybody was going crazy because we had two girls come up with the guys, and they usually had friends and they brought their friends to see who was the strongest. It’s just about that. It was just fantastic.

 

I said, “This isn’t…” I’d been asked by the Russian International Federation of Russia to take it up at night, and I realized that, “Yeah, this could be really popular, because people really like to do it and like to try it.”

 

This is something that anybody can do. Not necessary anybody can be good at because you’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be agile. You can’t be a klutz, but most people can get some enjoyment out of it. That’s how we started back in 2013.

David TaoDavid Tao

What an amazing sport. I think something that every time we write about a BarBend, oftentimes people are hearing about it for the first time. It’s still not something that everyone knows about, but they love competing in it.

 

There’s a whole international competition circuit. You can represent Team USA if you’re good enough. It is a real legitimate sport where you can compete at a very high level and I a lot of people don’t know that yet.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Yeah, when you compete internationally, you’re not competing in a parking outdoor or anything like that. When we were doing for the first World Championship in 2014, Martins got a silver medal. We were competing on the finals. Probably at least 10,000 people in intimate stadium.

 

We all felt like we were in the UFC fights. It was that kind of atmosphere, but it was not only that. That for all the preliminary phase, it was full of people for two days. During the day, bloom. Completely full at night, but even during the day it was almost full of people. It was unbelievable. Go ahead.

David TaoDavid Tao

I was just going to say, of all the strength disciplines you’ve explored, which do you think has the most potential for further growth?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

I think it has been a lot of growth in all the strength sports right now. I’m happy to see that powerlifting is getting research because they’re getting rid of some of the equipment. The equipment is getting less and less, and more and natural. It’s a fun sport. It’s an easy sport to do. I’m happy to see that.

 

I think that if Strongman is getting your biggest, then more people can participate in because of weight classes [inaudible 28:45] . Strongman Corporation has done a fantastic job with Dion, on spreading it in the US. It’s a really popular.

 

In many ways, with mass-wrestling, we have a good opportunity. We have a two-hour feature movie coming out towards the end of the year. It’s made in [inaudible 29:06] the birthplace of the sport.

 

It’s one of these rocky stories, except for it’s in Yakutia. It’s nothing even in Russian. It’s subtitled in Russian and in English. It has Americans in it, but it’s really like a rocky story. It looks like the quality is good. I’ve seen stuff from it.

 

They are award-winning filmmakers, both directors and cinematographer. It’s going to be very good. It’s going to be good for mass-wrestling because then it will expose it.

 

Hopefully, they’ll get it on Netflix, on Amazon, or one of those major ones in the US that a ton of people will see it. They’ll see something that’s exciting because competition is intense, fears, and fast. It doesn’t last and it’s easy to see wins, too. It’s not like, you had to guess as to, who won that?

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah, you don’t have to count the plates on the barbell if you’re in the audience. You can just see it.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Yeah, you’ll see it. That would be great. I think we’re doing good at it. We started the arm lifting in USA, let’s say 2018, I think, after we came back from 2017 World Championship in Russia APL world in the arm lifting path professional league road championship, we said, “We should start and get more formal about it here in the US.”

 

We started, and we have 30, 40, 50 contests now a year, in arm lifting in August this year. It’s been less because of the COVID over the last 14 months, but still some competitions, and of course, now we have the World Super Series.

 

That is a potential because that’s something that anybody can do. I find that the Training Hall, like on arm lifting day on Sunday, we have anywhere from 10 to 20 people coming out and trying out different implements about that, and everybody at their own level.

 

In all our competition, we get people competing in. You can compete against yourself. We have multiple weight classes, and we give out medals, like in our powerlifting to every weight class. It’s like, if you’re only one of that size, you’re still going to win. If there’s two of you, you fight over it.

 

There’s a lot of fun, and it’s a lot of different things. It will be funny to see that you have this fantastic replica. In my case, I have a good grip on certain things, and I’m very good at certain things but other things I’m not so good. They can beat me. They love when they can beat me.

 

Because grip is a funny thing, it’s very specific. Some people are good in certain things, but there are a lot of very strong smaller people because of the climbers and stuff like that.

 

One of the guys that come and compete here with us a lot is from the “American Ninja Warriors.” He participates and has done it for six, seven years, I think. Now he’s retired from that, but he’s doing arm lifting and he’s quite good.

 

Powerlifters, anybody that wants to continue training, competing, and being strong can do it, but you’re not running yourself down.

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah, fair enough.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

I’m just coming off of bronchitis. There’s no way I can work out, but I was able to put in the time and do my arm lifting workouts. I couldn’t do mass-wrestling because I didn’t want to take a chance of making it worse than it was. Being on antibiotics is not going to be good on anybody, but I was able to do my own lifting.

 

I’m very happy to say that, even though a couple of weeks here off the track, when it came to training, I was able to do arm lifting. It’s a good for full body because I’m doing deadlifts. I go up to maybe 400 pounds deadlift and then double overhand.

 

There’s still a good training in deadlift. Even when I’m doing that [inaudible 33:30] bar or something like that, which is only going to maybe 200 kilos for training, during reps with that and deadlift, it’s still a greater body work.

David TaoDavid Tao

It might sound like light numbers comparatively for you. For other people listening to this, they’re like, “Wow, that seems really heavy,” but I get the point. It’s not as taxing as doing, say training for a full powerlifting competition.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

[inaudible 33:57] powerlifting, that would be the lightweight, and then you go up from there that hard on your body. Doing that for too long, it’s very hard on your body, but arm lifting is one of those things that you can do.

 

We used to even change the weight on age categories. We started having the added normal 40+ as a master’s. That’s not it. Everybody in 40s [inaudible

 

[34:17] . By large, the best guys in the world is going to be 40+.

David TaoDavid Tao

They’ve had years to hold up.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

They’ve been lifting for so many years. 50+ is not enough. It’s even very good. If you start the master’s 50+, 60 and 70 [inaudible 34:37] . Anyway, once in a while you have this freak guys. Like Martins, he’s very strong. He’s only 30 and he’s very competitive.

David TaoDavid Tao

Odd, I really appreciate you taking the time. Where’s the best place for people to keep up to date with the work you’re doing?

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

First, I have my own website, odehaugen.com. As all the events I put on. More specifics are masswrestlingusa.com.

 

All the things about the World Super Series you can find on armlifitingusa.com.

David TaoDavid Tao

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Odd HaugenOdd Haugen

Thanks a lot.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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