Research Roadmap

Risk that strongman training and competition cause injuries at rates, body sites, or severities that have not been measured well enough to prevent them.

What the evidence says

The only strongman-specific injury rates come from one retrospective survey of 213 athletes. In it, 82% reported an injury in the previous year, at 5.5 training injuries per 1,000 hours. The lower back (24%), shoulder (21%), biceps (11%), and knee (11%) were injured most often, and athletes were 1.9 times more likely to be hurt during implement training than during traditional lifting once exposure was accounted for ². A systematic review of the weight-training sports placed strongman (4.5 to 6.1 injuries per 1,000 hours) at the top of the range with Highland Games, and noted that only 4 of 20 studies used a prospective design ³. Spine modeling found that the yoke carry produced the highest spinal loads of seven events tested, and that the atlas stone makes a neutral spine impossible ⁴. Beyond that, the evidence is case reports of biceps, rotator cuff, and triceps injuries ^5,6,7.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that extreme body mass, maximal straining efforts, and drug use produce cardiovascular disease or early death in strongman athletes.

What the evidence says

We found no study of heart structure, blood pressure, or cardiovascular outcomes in strongman athletes. The closest evidence comes from neighboring sports. Elite competitors in a five-year screening program averaged 152.9 kg and a BMI of 43.5, which puts them at the far edge of human body size ⁸. Powerlifters have thicker heart walls and higher blood pressure than distance runners, although the difference disappeared once heart mass was scaled to body size ⁹. Among 62 top Finnish powerlifters suspected of steroid use, the risk of death over 12 years was 4.6 times that of the general population, and heart attack was one of the leading causes ¹⁰. Long-term steroid users show weaker heart function and more coronary plaque than non-users ¹¹.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that drug use in a largely untested sport harms athlete health and distorts the record book.

What the evidence says

No study has measured drug use among strongman competitors, and most strongman competition is not drug tested. A meta-analysis of 187 studies estimated lifetime anabolic steroid use at 3.3% worldwide and 6.4% in men, and being an athlete was one of the factors linked to higher rates ¹². In a 1999 survey, 10 of 15 responding US Powerlifting Team members admitted to steroid use ¹³. The health consequences summarized under Cardiovascular health apply here as well ^10,11.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that the eating, weight-making, and body mass demands of the sport harm health or performance in ways nobody has measured.

What the evidence says

Body composition has been described in 18 elite competitors, who averaged 118 kg of lean mass and 18.7% body fat ⁸. Surveys show that athletes change their nutrition during a taper and use electrolyte drinks, caffeine, and pre-workout supplements on competition day ^14,15. We found no study of energy or protein intake, weight cutting, or the metabolic health of carrying very high body mass for years.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that coaches and athletes rely on guesswork because the mechanics and physiology of strongman events are only partly described.

What the evidence says

Biomechanics is the best-studied area of the sport. A 2019 systematic review found 11 studies and called out missing data for the yoke walk, atlas stone, tire flip, vehicle pull, and log lift ¹⁶. Since then, the stone lift and yoke walk have been described in both men and women ^17,18, log diameter has been shown to change force output in the push press ¹⁹, and shoulder muscle activity has been recorded before and after a real competition ²⁰. MRI of one World's Strongest Man and deadlift champion found leg muscle volume roughly double that of untrained men, with tendon size not keeping pace ²¹. Most studies still use small groups of resistance-trained men rather than competitive strongman athletes, and 2D video rather than 3D motion capture ²².

Knowledge gaps

Risk that training, tapering, and preparation practices are passed on by tradition rather than tested.

What the evidence says

Surveys describe how strongman athletes train ²⁵, taper ¹⁴, and warm up on competition day ¹⁵. In the taper survey, 87% of 454 athletes used a taper, which lasted 8.6 days on average and cut training volume by about 45%. A 2026 systematic review found similar patterns across the weight-lifting sports ²⁶. Psyching-up strategies have been mapped and tested in strength athletes, including strongwomen ^27,28, and one study compared conditioning methods in powerlifting and strongman athletes ²⁹. What is missing are controlled training trials in strongman athletes themselves. The strongman training studies that exist mostly recruited rugby players ^30,31.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that the sport cannot answer basic questions about who competes, how careers unfold, and how performance is changing, because no structured dataset has existed.

What the evidence says

No peer-reviewed study describes strongman participation, career length, or age of peak performance. Open competition data changed this for powerlifting. OpenPowerlifting has supported studies of career trajectories in 6,524 lifters, who peaked around age 27 after 4 to 6 years of competing ³², trends in normative strength across 850,972 entries from 2000 to 2024 ³³, medal standards in para powerlifting ³⁴, and body-mass normalization of scores ³⁵. OpenStrongman exists to make the same kind of work possible for strongman.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that guidance built on research in heavyweight men is applied to athletes it was never tested on.

What the evidence says

Most strongman research studies men. The atlas stone and yoke studies found technique differences between male and female athletes ^17,18, the taper survey analyzed results by sex ¹⁴, and a 2019 methods review called for more female and experienced athletes in future studies ²². We found no strongman research on masters, adaptive, or lightweight athletes.

Knowledge gaps

Risk that differences in implements, timing, scoring, and officiating make results impossible to compare or records impossible to verify.

What the evidence says

We found no published research on measurement reliability in strongman competition, such as hand timing compared with electronic timing, checking implement weights, or consistency between judges. OpenStrongman applies a written world record standard (a sanctioned competition or officially organized record event with at least three judges), but the sport has no shared standard across federations.

Knowledge gaps