Paul Smith
Paul Smith
Paul Smith suffered the disappointment of losing the England’s
Strongest Man title this year but wasted no time picking himself as he
bounced back with a Ultimate Strongman Junior World Championship
title. Sport in Profile Magazine recently caught up with Paul to find out
how things are going.
SIP: How long have you been involved
and what first attracted you to
Strongman competition?
PS: I have been training for
strongman for just over six years now.
I was training in a local gym when I
was 16 with no real competitive goals
when I met a guy that had trained for
strongman previously who was coming
back from injury. I ended up training
with him regularly and after a few
weeks he asked if I’d ever considered
strongman.
I said I hadn’t but it sounded
intriguing so we carried on training and
after several months I entered a local
competition just after my 17th birthday
and although I had a terrible placing
I really enjoyed the competition. The
biggest thing was the individual nature
of the sport where all the success or
failure was down to me, as I got stronger
some of the more visually impressive
feats of strength became really enjoyable
to achieve such as deadlifting a car for
example.
SIP: What are the most challenging and
rewarding aspects of competing?
PS: The mentally most challenging
aspect of competing is on the actual
competition day when you have an
event you are looking forward to that
should be good for you on paper that
then goes badly and you have to pick
yourself up and come back with a better
performance in the next event.
Physically, it is pushing yourself at
the end of a training session when it
feels like you have nothing left but you
know you have to get through it. The
most rewarding aspect of competing is
simply the feeling of accomplishment
after winning a competition that has
taken months of hard work and knowing
that you really did give your all in the
preparation.
SIP: How would you say the year has
gone for you so far?
PS: This year has been up and
down for me with some big successes
and some big disappointments. My
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