As most of you know, the Arnold Sport Festival occurred this past weekend. This post will be a quick synopsis of the weekend and focus on the event instead of our experiences. Chris, Mike, and Alex (the three friends who I coached in the raw powerlifting meet) got there Wednesday, Brent, his lady friend, and I got there Wednesday. Ellee Carlson (who is head of the 70’s Big Chicago Chapter) also got in on Thursday. Jeremy Wolfe and friends (Mel and Bijan) got in late Thursday night. This was our hang-out nucleus throughout the weekend but it would split apart depending on the schedule.
Overall, it was a fantastic weekend, albeit busy. Any time spent with my friends was a good one, but there were many events and spectacles that were very fun. I would highly recommend that everyone actually make plans to attend next year (many of you were unable to attend because of work or cost). If you read this website, then you have an invested interest in all things strength, power, fitness, training, and having a good time. “The Arnold” portrays all of that and more. There simply isn’t an event that has what The Arnold has: powerlifting, professional deadlift, professional strongman, Olympic weightlifting, various products to purchase, and every big name associated with every sport and activity.
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There is, of course, all of the fitness and bodybuilding people to meet and events to attend. Overall, I found this crowd to be very interesting. It further distanced myself from the culture, but some of them are very similar to “us” in that they are nice people who are involved in an alternate training methodology.
If you intend on attending next year, I would recommend staying as late as you can. I regrettably left Sunday morning (my apologies Lindsay Taylor! It would have cost a lot more money to change my flight!), and I missed all of the weightlifting on Sunday. I also wasn’t able to peruse the expo in full to generate humorous content for the site. Next year I’ll be staying until Monday to ensure I get to see everything I want to.
I assumed I would have more time to chat with readers, hang out with people, spend time with coaches and lifters, and meet some “celebrities” (the strongman pros, Ronnie Coleman, Erin Stern, etc.), but I just didn’t have the time. This was a bummer, but there is one thing that really made my experience problematic: USAW.
USAW altered their schedule during the rules briefing, and it resulted in a lot of crappy improvements for both the lifters and fans. I heard of several lifters completely missing their session because they weren’t aware of the changes; regardless of whose fault it is, that shouldn’t happen. The biggest problem was that the 94kg session ended well after midnight and the 105kg session started at 8:00AM. This resulted in me and other weightlifting fans getting only 3 hours of sleep. I had to go back to the hotel and nap after the 105kg session so I could be coherent the rest of the day — this essentially effected my weekend and prevented me from attending specific events and hanging out with my friends. I will be doing a separate post that includes more details on this topic.
For all of the readers that said hello at various points throughout the weekend, thank you. It was nice to chat with you for a few seconds and I apologize that I didn’t have more time. I was constantly involved in doing something or en route to do something and barely had any time to “dick around”. There wasn’t even time for my friends and I to hang out, eat, and drink beer, much less shoot the shit with some really cool readers.
The easiest way to cover the content that I do have from this past weekend is to break it into multiple posts. There will be more than one post each day throughout this week. Also be on the lookout for videos; they’ll be linked in posts but you can watch as their uploaded if you subscribe to the 70’s Big YouTube Channel. I’ll also have guest posts from various people that attended.
10 thoughts on “The Arnold – Quick Recap”
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I kept an eye out for you and the other 70s biggies, but did not see you. I volunteered at the weightlifting meet, and was in that area most of the weekend. I got to watch Donny Shankle C&J which was awesome. The trials on Sunday were very impressive to watch, and I had the privilege of sitting next to a WL coach and some athletes who explained some of the fine points of the competition to me.
I was in the front row during the 105 session.
–Justin
any folks who where there want to comment on the high number of bomb outs and misses in the mens sessions? What about Farris, did anyone else think his lifts looked to be about 90-95%? That son of a gun is strong as all hell. Anyone watch mendes lift? Wtf is up with his jerk, seriously he is a super heavy and on the first one he tries to squat jerk it. The man is a yam house, but with that first one I could only think here we go again. Also, Ian Wilson looks legit and super strong, seems that his time with abadjiev is paying off. Its really a bummer that north couldnt clean and jerk what he did at the meet a couple of weeks ago, would have loved to see him hit 190, pretty solid indeed. Also, did anyone else think that nerves played a huge factor in the lifting? A couple of lifters who normally put up big numbers defintiely looked like they rushed it and ended up loosing weights that initially looked good. Mick Nackoul for instance, that kid is strong but rushed one that probably cost him 2nd place. I got a lot more to say, jealous that you folks were there.
No need to apologize about not having time, it was obviously a hectic weekend. It was good to just say hello and thank you for all the hard work with this site. Hopefully next year there will be a little more free time and all the 70s Big readers can get together.
@strongerthanyesterday
I noticed this, too. It wasn’t reserved to the male lifters, either. Quite a few female lifters missed weights I thought they would make. I am sure nerves contributed to the missed attempts. The crowd was large and the expectations were high.
But I was quite impressed with a number of lifters, most notably Amanda Sandoval, Wilson, and Farris.
@misimmons- definitely makes you wonder about adell, I mean he was supposed to be there and all with his sweet youtube lifts, but chances are that his nerves would have affected him as well
Did you get any videos of Yasha Kahn (105)?
dude, we played ring around the rousy the whole weekend. and it was my fault. i miss you already. cant wait to meet my internet friends next year at the arnold.
I can’t wait to read all the postssssss this week. Thanks for the coverage. Hopefully I’ll be there next year.
It was good meeting you too in person bro. Indeed, USAW did a bang up job of fucking this meet over big time. Seriously, 94kg until 12:21pm then 105kg at 8am? What the fuck man! I got like 3 hours of sleep. Not cool. The whole weekend was like a fucking endurance contest, and I really ONLY watched weightlifting (except for the bit of powerlifting that my coach and I had to see for the girl who raw benched 300lbs). I have no intentions of going again unless weightlifting Nationals are held there again.
There were some awesome lifters there though, and it was an honor to be in the same room with all of these amazing people.
I see that Shankle, Farris, and Vaughn each won their weight class. Do you know yet if Shankle qualified for the London games?
I do know, and no he didn’t. Check out the Twitter feed or the Facebook Fan Page for information.
–Justin