Charles “Trey” Mitchell III of the USA made his World’s Strongest Man (WSM) finals debut in 2019 to an eighth place finish. He gathered a lot of attention in a the Last Man Standing event during day 3 of WSM qualifying events. For those who do not know, The Last Man Standing event involves two strongman athletes standing face-to-face and lifting the same 200kg/441lb atlas stone back and forth until one of them is unable and concedes.
Trey Mitchell displayed his prowess and endurance on the atlas stones when he lifted it fourteen times to best Oleksii Novikov of Ukraine. For context, aside from Novikov, the most reps performed by any other strongman in the event was nine.
Mitchell is back in the gym preparing for 2020 and is showing off his endurance once again, but this time with something a bit more in the style of old-timey strongman. Check out the post below from his Instagram page where Mitchell pulls an insane 376.5kg/830lb triple using an axle bar.
The heft of these deadlifts is displayed by Mitchell’s camera falling off its mount when he drops the weight after completing his third rep. The difference between an axel bar compared to a standard Olympic barbell is it is much larger in diameter, and therefore more difficult to grip.
In 2019, Mitchell was billed at a bodyweight of 340lb, making this lift nearly two and a half times his bodyweight. Axle bar training has been part of Mitchell’s routine for some time now. Here he is pulling 322kg/710lb for a full five reps on that same axle bar.
Working with an axle bar has been paying off in competition for Mitchell as well. He dominated the Florida’s Strongest Man competition’s axle wagon wheel event where he pulled 367.4kg/810lb for three reps.
The 2020 WSM competition is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20th through Sunday, May 24th in Bradenton, Florida. If Mitchell is able to maintain his current training and qualify, then it is likely we will see his return to the WSM finals.
Feature image from Charles Mitchell III’s Instagram page: @berserkerlifter
