This past weekend we had a few of our Strongman pros from OPTC compete at the national and world level! Big Gerard Benderoth trucked up to Mohegan Sun to take the stage against the top 12 world’s strongest men in a “World’s Strongest Man” qualifier.

Gerard was selected for this event with only 3 weeks’ notice so we didn’t have much time to prepare, but that didn’t matter for the big guy. He went balls to the wall for the past couple of weeks with his training and got ready in a hurry.

Although he didn’t place in the event, he went out there it gave it his best shot – AND did a GREAT JOB!!

Congrats to BIG G!!!

I gotta admit this experience was pretty cool. The sport of strongman isn’t the most popular, but as soon as Gerard was asked to compete in this thing, his celebrity status shot up a bit. The week before the event he was supposed to be on channel five news (his spot got cut due to more important news worthy issue)

what could be more important than Big G.

He was also featured in what I call my 2 seconds of fame. CBS came out to OPTC and did a cool spot about Gerard. Check it out here - (Note that little guy hanging around in the back is yours truly).

In addition to Gerard’s competition, 2 other OPTC members Ben Lambousis and SKEET Dunn went out to Michigan and competed in a National Qualifier, and I’m happy to say they both Qualified and are now getting ready for their National Event in about 8 weeks.

JZ

PS – Icheck out the Rockland County’s first Strongman Show – “Battle at the Rock”, hosted by Optimal Performance

click here –