The Failure Point - Where Does a Strongman’s Performance Stop Improving?

Episode VIII: Body Weight Management in Strongman

Body weight is one of the most complicated variables in Strongman. In many sports, lower body mass can be associated with efficiency and easier movement. In Strongman, the equation is different. Body mass can contribute to stability, force transfer, center-of-mass positioning and the ability to tolerate very large external loads. Studies of Strongman athletes show how extreme this can become: in a sample of 18 elite competitors, mean body mass was 152.9 ± 19.3 kg and lean mass was 118.0 ± 11.7 kg. [1] A study of less experienced Strongman athletes also found important relationships between system force, anthropometry and performance. [2] But this does not mean that heavier is always better. Body-weight management in Strongman means finding the body mass that maximizes overall performance, not the highest number on the scale.

1. Body weight is not a single variable

The scale tells you total mass, not what that mass is made of. Two people at the same body weight can have very different proportions of muscle, fat, water and bone. For Strongman, that distinction matters. Lean mass is relevant to the ability to produce and transmit force, while adipose mass contributes to total mass and may provide certain mechanical effects but carries different physiological costs. Therefore, “I want to gain 10 kg” is an incomplete target. The correct question is: what kind of mass needs to be added, and what will it cost?

2. Why body mass can help a Strongman

Body mass can change an athlete’s mechanics. A heavier body can provide a larger base for stabilization and increase the ability to resist external forces. In some events, body positioning and inertia may favor the heavier athlete. Data from novice Strongman athletes showed that system force, defined as body mass plus squat 1RM, had a very large relationship with overall performance, r = 0.87, while flexed arm girth and calf girth were among the strongest anthropometric correlates. [2] Importantly, correlation is not causation. An athlete does not automatically become better simply by adding kilograms.

3. Body mass and moving events

This is where the equation becomes more interesting. In Farmer’s Walk, Yoke, loading and other moving events, the athlete must move both their own mass and an external load. Increasing body mass may help stability and absolute force, but it also means the athlete must accelerate and decelerate more mass with every step. In fast events, this cost can become important. Therefore, optimal body mass depends on the event. One extra kilogram may be useful in a deadlift and less useful in an event where movement speed is decisive.

4. Absolute versus relative

Strongman often favors absolute strength. But that does not make relative strength irrelevant. Absolute strength tells you how much force you can produce. Relative strength tells you how much you can produce relative to your own mass. In a static event, body mass may be less costly. In a locomotor event, the relationship between force-producing capacity and the mass that must be moved can become more important. Programming should track both perspectives rather than turning one into a gym-floor religion.

5. More muscle mass is not the same as more body weight

One of the most important mistakes is treating every increase in body weight as progress. Muscle gain can support strength, but hypertrophy also has costs: nutritional, digestive, metabolic, recovery and, in some events, locomotor. In a recent study of a world Strongman and deadlift champion, the athlete weighed 172 kg during laboratory testing, and the analysis showed extreme muscle and tendon dimensions, illustrating the structural adaptations found at the highest level of the sport. [3] This is not an argument that every athlete should pursue the same mass.

6. Caloric surplus: when gaining becomes too expensive

An energy surplus can support body-mass gain, but a very large surplus does not guarantee that most of the added tissue will be muscle. For a Strongman, the question is not only how much weight is gained, but how much of that gain contributes to performance. If body weight rises rapidly while speed falls, conditioning deteriorates, sleep worsens, digestion becomes difficult or moving events feel heavier, the strategy may be counterproductive.

7. Aggressive caloric restriction: what it can destroy

At the other end is aggressive dieting. Weight loss is not automatically a performance improvement. A 2025 international consensus on optimizing elite-athlete performance emphasizes that weight loss induced by low energy availability does not always improve performance and may negatively affect energy and protein metabolism, training adaptations and performance. [4] The IOC REDs consensus also emphasizes that low energy availability can occur when energy intake does not adequately cover the body’s needs after exercise expenditure and may have consequences for health and performance. [5] For Strongman, where training costs can be enormous, this risk should not be ignored.

8. Body weight should not be managed by scale emotion

The scale is a tool, not a judge. Water, glycogen, intestinal contents, sodium and inflammation can change body mass without equivalent changes in fat or muscle tissue. An athlete who reacts to every fluctuation may unnecessarily change diet and training. More useful is to track trends, performance, recovery, relevant circumferences and, when justified, standardized body-composition assessments.

9. Body composition matters more than body-fat percentage in isolation

There is no universal body-fat percentage that defines a successful Strongman. An IOC analysis of body composition in sport emphasizes that body composition is only one variable influencing performance and that there is no single threshold that automatically provides a performance advantage. [6] In Strongman, the goal should be a body composition compatible with the athlete’s event demands and health, not an aesthetic number imported from another sport.

10. Health should not be sacrificed for a few extra kilograms

There is a difference between carrying a large body mass for performance and pursuing unlimited weight gain. A longitudinal case series of six Strongmen reported elevated blood-pressure values in some participants and a metabolic profile raising health concerns, with the authors emphasizing the need for larger cohorts. [7] The data are small and cannot describe the entire sport, but the message is important: performance and health should not be treated as completely independent variables.

11. When body mass starts costing performance

Practical signals can include reduced carry speed, deteriorating conditioning, disproportionate difficulty with stairs, impaired sleep or breathing, reduced mobility, and weaker moving events without enough improvement in absolute strength to compensate. Not every kilogram is the problem. The issue is the relationship between mechanical benefit and physiological and locomotor cost.

12. When weight loss can help

If an athlete carries more mass than is contributing proportionally to performance, gradual weight reduction may improve mobility, conditioning and locomotor efficiency while preserving much of absolute strength. In broader literature, resistance exercise during weight loss has been associated with better preservation of fat-free mass and better fat-mass outcomes than diet without resistance exercise. [8] These data largely come from overweight or obese populations rather than Strongman, so the transfer must be made cautiously.

13. You do not lose weight for the scale, you lose weight for the performance-cost ratio

A Strongman does not necessarily need to pursue the lowest possible body weight. The target is the body weight at which total performance is best. If losing 5 kg increases speed, conditioning and recovery without significantly reducing absolute strength, it may be a gain. If losing 5 kg dramatically reduces Log, deadlift and implement stability, the loss may be a poor trade. Optimal body weight is a performance problem, not an ego problem.

14. Body weight should be periodized

There is no requirement for an athlete to maintain the same body mass year-round. During a development phase, a controlled surplus may be useful. Near competition, the focus may shift toward stabilization and performance expression. In some situations, a weight-reduction phase can be planned outside periods of peak performance demand. The central idea is that body weight should follow the goal of the phase rather than dictate the goal.

15. How fast should body weight change?

There is no universal rate appropriate for every Strongman. The rate should be individualized according to starting body mass, composition, competition calendar, dieting history, training volume and performance response. The more aggressive the goal and the lower energy availability becomes, the greater the risk that the diet begins competing with training. For elite athletes, current recommendations favor individualized and sport-specific approaches supported by a multidisciplinary team. [4]

16. Protein and lean mass

During energy restriction, preserving lean mass becomes a priority. Resistance training is an important tool for that goal, and protein intake should be adapted to the individual context. It is not enough to reduce calories and hope performance remains intact. Strength training, protein, carbohydrate availability for important sessions and recovery should be treated as one system.

17. Carbohydrates and the heavy Strongman

Strongman combines maximal or near-maximal strength with repeated work, carries, loading and events that can have substantial metabolic demands. Therefore, reducing carbohydrate intake simply to make the scale move down can have a cost to training quality. Recent elite-athlete recommendations support scaling energy, carbohydrate and fluid intake to the demands and purpose of each training phase. [4]

18. Body weight and psychology

In strength sports, the scale can become an identity marker. “Heavier” can be interpreted as “stronger,” while “lighter” can feel like regression. This association can make a rational decision to reduce body mass difficult even when performance would benefit. Weight management should be data-driven rather than identity-driven. If an athlete can no longer separate a scale number from their value as a Strongman, programming becomes vulnerable to emotional decisions.

19. What should be tracked together

A practical system can track multi-day average body mass, circumferences, performance in key lifts, event speed, work capacity, sleep, perceived recovery, hunger and digestive tolerance. There is no need to become obsessed with dozens of biomarkers. The important question is whether the body-weight change produces the intended effect on performance and health.

20. The Failure Point of body weight

The breaking point appears in two opposite directions. First, the athlete keeps adding mass because every kilogram is assumed to mean more strength, even as locomotor, metabolic and recovery costs rise. Second, the athlete reduces mass too aggressively to become “more efficient,” but loses the capacity to support and produce force. In both cases, the scale has become the objective and performance the consequence. Good programming reverses the relationship: performance sets the direction, and body weight is one of the variables you adjust.

Conclusion

In Strongman, body mass can be an extraordinary tool. It can increase the ability to stabilize, produce force and interact with very large external loads. But body mass is not synonymous with performance. Existing data show that elite athletes can have extreme body dimensions, and the relationships between mass, strength and performance are real but complex. [1][2][3] At the same time, modern literature on body-composition management warns that weight loss through excessively low energy availability can compromise adaptation and performance. [4][5] Therefore, the goal is neither “be as heavy as possible” nor “be as lean as possible.” The goal is to be heavy enough to benefit from the mass you carry and healthy and efficient enough to use that mass when competition begins. In Strongman, optimal body weight is the weight that produces the best balance between capacity, cost and performance.

Scientific References

1. Kraemer WJ, Caldwell LK, Post EM, et al. Body Composition in Elite Strongman Competitors. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2020;34(12):3326-3330. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000003763. PMID:33235016.

2. Winwood PW, Keogh JWL, Harris NK. Interrelationships between strength, anthropometrics, and strongman performance in novice strongman athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2012;26(2):513-522. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e318220db1a. PMID:22233785.

3. Muscle and tendon morphology of a world strongman and deadlift champion. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2024. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00342.2024.

4. Bangsbo J, et al. Consensus Statements—Optimizing Performance of the Elite Athlete. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. 2025. doi:10.1111/sms.70112.

5. Mountjoy M, Ackerman KE, Bailey DM, et al. 2023 International Olympic Committee's consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023;57(17):1073-1097. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2023-106994. PMID:37752011.

6. Best practice recommendations for body composition considerations in sport to reduce health and performance risks: a critical review, original survey and expert opinion by a subgroup of the IOC consensus on REDs. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2023. PMID:37752006.

7. Chappell A, Simper T. A Case Study Series of the Health Status and Key Anthropometry in Very Large Strength Athletes: Health Metrics of Strongmen. International Journal of Strength and Conditioning. 2020;1(1). doi:10.47206/iuscaj.v1i1.2.

8. Effect of resistance exercise on body composition, muscle strength and cardiometabolic health during dietary weight loss in people living with overweight or obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. 2025. PMID:40909191.