Sorinex Summer Strong

This past weekend I traveled down to Columbia, South Carolina to take part in the Sorinex Summer Strong celebration. This was the second year for the event, a first for me, in celebration of Richard Sorin's birthday. I left Wooster, OH Thursday night at 9:30pm, drove through the night in order to arrive Friday morning at 7am to teach an American Kettlebell Club Kettlebell Fitness Trainers certification. I am proud to announce Bert Sorin, Jeff Georgon, Elise Matthews and Ray Anderson are all now AKC certified kettlebell trainers. After the course it was time to find a hotel and get some rest.

Saturday morning started off with a nice tour of the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football weightroom. A nice room with power racks and platforms. Everything you need and nothing you don't. We than made it back to the Sorinex Showroom for a weightlifting demonstration and for some to take part in a Crossfit WOD (workout of the day).

Lunch followed and then I was up to battle the Captains of Crush #3.5. And battle we did, numerous attempts and many down to under 1/8 inch, but those handles would not touch for me. Not to worry, we will meet again soon. I then went on to play with some other grip toys and became the 6th person in history to lift the 202# circus dumbbell (3" handle) and 2nd to lift it with both right and left hands.

From here numerous individual deadlift challenges were put forth and I stepped up and set a new PR with a lift of 605#. It wasn't 30 minutes later that the final WOD (a strategic WOD) was set; who could do the most work in 5 minutes via conventional deadlift no wraps. One Crossfit hero choose 135# and did 144 reps, very impressive. Myself and Jason Lawson choose 275#, we knew it would come down to the two of us and he is a deadlift machine, I've seen him do 10 reps at 700#. Anyway, 5 minutes up and I had completed 74 reps, over 20,000 lbs. of work done. Unfortunately for me Jason completed 94 reps.

With work done it was time to fill our stomachs and Cadillac grilled his but off to feed us all. I don't know him and his partner by any other name, but it was amazing. After feasting and a few beers I talked Bert into showing me what highland games are all about and I got to toss my first caber. It might have been a smaller one, but it got me hooked. Then came a little fun in weight over bar with an empty keg.

Here is a small highlight video.