Bench. Squat. Deadlift.

Clean and Jerk. Snatch.

Some lifters love the consistency that always comes from competing in powerlifting or Olympic lifting.

You always know what you’re going to get each and every time you go out and compete.

With strongman, "shit happens” could be the motto of the sport.

You don’t always know what’s going on for the day of the competition.

Sometimes you just got to wing it and the athletes that compete in strongman embrace that. It makes the sport different every time you go out to compete; you don’t always know what you’re going to get on game day and that’s part of the fun of the sport.

Especially when it’s -40 degrees Celsius with the windchill and the diesel truck that’s filled up with all of the equipment that we’re supposed to compete with is frozen and won’t start and all the equipment is stuck in the back of said truck.

Such circumstances are what led us to the Sons of Samson 2018.

The Sons of Samson 2018 was set to be a really meaty competition. We’re talking full rack of ribs meaty. And even with the change of plans, the competition still delivered the full buffet of strongman events.

The plan was to do 12 events in just the span of a few hours, like a mini-Fortissimus crammed into one day.

The events had to be modified due to the "equipment malfunction” but there were still 8 events lined up for us athletes.

Last year's 12 events were easier compared to the beastly events planned out for this year. With fewer competitors confirmed it was set to be fast and furious this year, even with four fewer events.

Sons of Samson is a charity competition held by Clydsdale Power and in concert with Lift For Kids.

Did I also mention it was held at the centre of the mall in Brockville?

So it was important to put on an entertaining show for the kids as well as the shoppers in the mall.

A car deadlift was originally planned to make use of one of the cars that were positioned promotionally as part of Lift For Kids, but it had to be scrapped when the deadlift apparatus was stuck on the truck.

This is instead what we had to work with for the day:

Event 1 - Keg Press for Reps

Clean and press away 220lb. keg until keg drops below chest or one minute max. time.

The keg we used for this competition was very challenging. It was a very tall keg and filled with lead shot and sand, so it sits very bottom heavy.

I was going into the competition pushing the practice on keg pressing very hard to not zero this keg and was feeling pretty good about it, as I was feeling pretty good about it a month out from the competition.

The keg was harder to work with on competition day than in training because all the weight was frozen in the bottom of the keg making it harder to balance the weight than the way it had felt in training.

For me, the clean went up powerfully, maybe a little too powerfully, as the keg threw me off balance backwards and set me out of position. I almost had first rep locked out but it didn’t count as I had lost my balance some more. The second rep was good and that’s all I managed to do to kick the day off. One rep.

Andrew Roach won the event with 8 reps, which was great. Pressing events are his wheelhouse so his performance in this event was not unexpected.

Zach Kennedy-Brinklow got a very impressive 5 reps. He fought hard to get the keg cleaned. And I mean hard. It was an awfully long struggle because he wasn’t picking it up with the correct technique which made it all the more harder on himself but once he had it up he had no problem with the pressing of the keg.

Our newest member of the Clydsdale Power Team Dan Bradley gave a mighty effort to the keg but it was the transition point from the lap to the rack on the chest that had him stymied. Being that this was his first competition ever, there was no shame in that however as I was struggling to get this keg through the transition a month and a half ago.

Event 2 - 300 lb. Sandbag for Max. Distance.

I was feeling pretty good about this event going into it. Maintaining cardio while gaining weight has been one of the main focuses of this offseason and picking up a 300 lb. sandbag is no problem with competition adrenaline.