Strongman Car Lift Frame

Strong man ready to put on a show | PressDemocrat.com

A massage therapist with a lifelong taste for feats of strength, the former Marine is as accustomed to soothing the ailments of others as he is to piling pain on himself.

There's little pleasant about, say, straining to lift a 360-pound stone onto a four-foot platform, he said, but he feels called to test himself in such contests.

“When you like to lift heavy, you can't really explain why. It's just something you like to do,” he said.” “The heavier and more awkward the better.”

There will be plenty of awkward and heavy on display Saturday as Carroll celebrates his 50th birthday with what he calls Santa Rosa's first strong man competition at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Hall on Maple Avenue.

Starting at 10 a.m., more than 25 amateur competitors from as far away as Tucson and Las Vegas will begin a six-round ordeal to emerge as strongest man, lifting steel logs, racing with 800-pound yokes, and grunting under boulders among other vertebrae-compacting events.

The event, which has only male competitors, is spilt between heavyweights and lightweights, weighing in on either side of 230 pounds. The winner of each category will take home a $250 prize, with $150 for second place, $100 for third place, and $50 for the winner of each event.

Depending on how it goes, Carroll, whose 5-foot-8, 230-pound build has earned him the nickname “Barrel,” said he may make it an annual event.

Abel Fuaau, who owns a bicycle messenger service in San Francisco, is one of the slated competitors. A bowling ball of a man, the 25-year-old has been fascinated with lifting heavy things since he was a little boy struggling to carry his mom's grocery bags. He now trains four to five times a week.

He said he hopes to win the dead lift Saturday where competitors snatch a weight off the ground as they rise to a standing position. The winning attempt will likely top well over 700 pounds.

But Fuaau's favorite event is the yoke, where competitors race 100 feet burdened with an 800-pound steel frame bearing down on their shoulders. Fuaau's fondness for the contests comes despite the fact he describes it in terms akin to torture.

“The arches of your feet are getting slammed to the ground,” he said. “Your spine is getting crushed, your knees start wobbling, but you keep moving. It's just rad.”

“You're pushing your body to places it's not supposed to be,” he added. “It's the closest you can be to superpowers.

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