He is doing everything he can to become the strongest man on Earth.
Four-time World’s Strongest Man and three-time Arnold Strongman Classic winner Brian Shaw prepares to compete in his final competition at the 2023 Shaw Classic, scheduled for August 19-20 in Loveland, CO. As the Colorado native strongman has done throughout his career, he has offered sneak peeks of his training for the contest. His most recent idea was to make a set of flat dumbbell bench presses look relatively easy using a pair of 200-pound dumbbells.
Shaw didn’t share anything else about this particular workout, but that set just showed that he feels good about his contest preparation. Strongmen typically don’t incorporate bench press movements into their programming because most pressing events are overhead lifts. The Shaw Classic will feature a variation of the bench press, which is why Shaw is adding the movement to his workout.
This isn’t the first time a legendary strength athlete has tested his might against the towering 200. The feat was made famous by bodybuilder great Ronnie Coleman when he pushed them, both on a flat and incline bench, for reps during one of his 2000 Mr. Olympia workout videos.
Since then, the feat has also been accomplished by athletes such as strength athlete and fitness influencer Larry “Wheels” Williams, as well as 2021 Arnold Classic bodybuilding champion Nick Walker. However, there was one noticeable difference from Shaw’s set that he pointed out in the title of the post.
“How many lifters in history who were able to lift 200-pound weights were actually able to get them off the rack and into position without assistance?”
As the video showed, Shaw basically does a short farmer’s walk, removing the weights and walking several steps to the bench before beginning his set. Previous athletes who have completed the exercise with these massive weights have typically moved into position on the bench while various spotters hand the lifter each weight, assisting in set-up.
Shaw also finished the set after the fifth encore when he clearly had more in the tank and seemed to have no problem completing it. In the caption of the post, he shared that it was a strategic move.
“Just because everyone will comment that I didn’t do more reps… this was a working set and not a max rep set. It’s okay to train without having to push yourself to the max for every video.”
In addition to preparing for his final competition as an athlete, which requires a reported diet of around 10,000 calories per day, Shaw continues his work as a promoter for the show, with the goal of making the 2023 Shaw Classic the best version of the contest yet. It will be the fourth consecutive year that he has presented this show and he upped the ante by announcing that the winner will get a new official title: The Strongest Man on Earth.
Shaw made the announcement in a separate Instagram post, revealing that he purchased the rights from former Fortissimus contest promoter Paul Ohl to award the title to the Shaw Classic champion for 2023 and beyond. This new title is part of Shaw’s strategy to make the Shaw Classic an even more prestigious event in the years to come.
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