My definitive guide to running a Strongman competition part 2

In part 1, I covered event selection, equipment, classes and promoting the event, in this blog, I’ll go over everything else, starting with,

TAKING PAYMENT

Before you read on, it is important to know what your legal rights are as a service provider in regards to refunds.

Statutory law only requires that you give a refund if you either cancel the event, or change the date. The athlete’s aren’t entitled to a refund because they have decided to pull out of the competition. 

You cannot circumvent this law just by writing, ‘No Refunds’ on the event page.

There are several ways to take payments from the athletes who are signing up,

• PAYPAL, One of the easiest ways to collect payment, you can create a Paypal.me link and paste it into your description on your event page and also set it up in Linktree or similar for use on Instagram.

I personally have a strong dislike for people who ask you to send via friends and family on Paypal, it is, in my opinion, unprofessional and as they are offering a service, they should be willing to pay the tiny amount in handling charges, it also takes the protection away from the competitor in that they cannot claim their enrty fee back should the event be cancelled or the date changed and the promoter claims that they have a no refund policy (see above), However, it also affords protection to the promoter if a claim is made because someone has dropped out, you can dispute the claim, citing that their statutory rights do not entitle them to a refund.

My preferred method for collecting payments and personal information is to set up a product on my website’s store page that allows people to click on it, select their class, fill out the form and make their payment. As an automated system, they will imediately be notified that their transaction has been completed.

So, if you have a business website with a store, this is a great way to ensure that all required information is gathered and payments are then handled by a 3rd party with minimal charges. For example, for Static Monsters, entries through my website at £35 cost me 73p in handling fees.

If you don’t have a website and want a more streamlined process tthat includes data collection, Eventbrite is a great portal that you can sign up to, they will handle collection of payments, any forms you want filled out custom made to your data requirements and will then pay the money into your designated account.

SOURCING T-SHIRTS

You have your athlete’s signed up, you know how many T-shirts you need and what sizes, sourcing them is your next step.

To increase the experience for the athlete, it’s important to provide the highest quality shirts you can with the budget you have.

Keep things simple, stick to 2 or 3 colours at most in your design (more colours means a higher printing cost when screen printing, if you use a company that uses direct to film (DTF) transfers, the cost might be lower for full colour prints) this will give you a little bit more to spend on a higher quality base shirt.

Make sure you give yourself at least 4-6 weeks lead time when ordering to ensure they get delivered in time. You can order a few extra sizes in case you have late sign ups.

One thing you can do to reduce costs is to approach a company to sponsor your competition shirts, I did this for the Static Monsters World Championships and I am using the same company for my World Wide qualifier, in exchange for the shirts, they received a large amount of social media advertising, prime placement on the competition banners, advertising on the live stream and a stall at the venue to sell shirts to friends, familly and anyone who wanted them.

The company I use is Baphomet Forging Strength, run by a great guy called Connor, they produced amazing quality shirts for me so I can highly recommend them and you can contact them through their website by clicking the picture below.

TROPIES/ MEDALS

Providing a high quality trophy or medal is the icing on the cake for a well run, fun competition.

If you have great looking shirts and quality trophies, people will rave about the event for a long time after and will, in most cases, keep signing up for future competitions.

If however, you cheap out and give them a £3 piece of generic plastic, don’t expect to get a lot of positive feedback. People train hard for these competitions and take pride in the trophies they win, so the least you can do is give them something worthy of their commitment.

A good budget for trophies is between £9 and £30, in this range you can get bespoke awards made that will be completely unique to your event.

There are literally hundreds of companies online that you can use, so it’s best to look around, contact a few and see what they can do for you.

The medals that were bespoke made for Static Monsters 2022, with presentation boxes

COMPETITION RULES

There are no unified rules in Strongman, so it is at your discretion as to how you want each event done, but there are some standard things that everyone adheres to,

• Straps are allowed for deadlift

• No sumo deadlifts

• No straps for Farmers walk.

• Tacky cannot be used for any event other than Atlas stones.

• Knee sleeves, elbow sleeves and wrist wraps are allowed for overhead lifts.

• A soft neoprene belt can be worn under your main lifting belt.

• Elbows must be locked out and the body has to be upright, head through and feet together for log, dumbbell or axle press.

• Knees, hips and shoulders must be locked out for the deadlift.

• You must wait for the judges down signal otherwise you will not be given the rep.

• Kegs must be upright and implements fully loaded on to platforms in a loading race.

• Any reps that are completed after the timer has ended will not count.

Obviously there are many more rules that different promoters use, so it’s best to decide for yourself and make sure you provide a rule document in plenty of time before the competition and then go over each one on the day of the event so that everyone knows what is expected of them, including the referees. 

Be very clear so nothing can be left up to interprutation.

Always apply the rules to every lifter, fairly and evenly.

NEVER CHANGE THE RULES MID COMPETITION

COMPETITION ORDER

Picking the running order to start the competition can be done in a few different ways,

1. Order in which people signed up, the first person to sign up is the last person to lift, last person to sign up is first to lift.

2. Competitors draw a number from a bag/ box/ hat to determine when they lift.

3. Use a random draw generator online, enter all the names, press order and it will do it all for you.

4. If starting with a max effort event where athletes pick their weights, the running order goes from lightest to heaviest, then repeats for the next round and so on.

Once the first event is done, the easiest way to determine the order for the next one is to reverse the finishing positions.

Last place goes first, first place goes last. This continues for the rest of the events except the last one.

For the last event, run it in reverse order of points, the lowest placed lifter goes first, the leader goes last.

SCORING YOUR COMPETITION

This is where you need to keep things as simple as possible.

I’ve seen promoters create their own scoring system which has absolutely ruined a competition for those taking part, with the worst example being a promoter who only awarded points to the top 6 people, which meant that if you were consistently 7th place across all 5 events, you scored zero points, but if someone was 6th in one event, but last in the rest, they would score 1 point and place higher than the person who beat them in 4 out of the 5 events.

To ensure fair scoring, here are the basics,

The number of people taking part is the same as the number of points awarded for winning an event.

20 athletes equals 20 points to the winner,

19 for 2nd, 18 for 3rd and so on down to 20th place.

Athletes who fail to make a rep or load an implement get zero points.

It can get a little complicated when there is a tie on score between 2 or more athletes, here is how you allocate points.

winner 20

2nd, 3rd and 4th all tie, so you work it out like this,

(19+18+17)/3 which gives each person 18 points

5th place gets 16 points, as they would had there not been a tie for the 3 athletes above them.

If an athlete withdraws due to injury, the points do not change, for cosistency, you would still give 20 points to the winner, even if there are now only 19 people.

Scoring max weight events

This is simple, the person who lifts the heaviest weight wins.

Points filter down from heaviest to lightest weight lifted.

It is possible to end up with a few people lifting the same weight for a draw.

Scoring rep events

The most amount of completed reps in the designated time wins, then 2nd highest, 3rd highest etc.

Zero points are awarded to someone who fails to complete a lift.

It is entirely possible to have multiple athletes draw on reps, so they will share points as written above.

Scoring moving events

Such as Yoke or Farmers is simply fastest to cross the line wins, then, if people can’t finish the disatnce, you measure how far they got (whether you measure from the front or back of the implement doesn’t really matter, so long as it’s the same for every one), this way, the person who gets 16 metres, beats the person who gets 13m.

Zero points are awarded to anyone who can’t move the implement.

Scoring a loading race

You’ll need to take split times for each item loaded as well as a total time for finishing. Fastest to load all items wins, second fastest is 2nd place and so on until you get to those who couldn’t finish, but still loaded some of the implements.

So, for a 5 implement race,

Fastest time to load all 5 wins, then 2nd fastest, 3rd, 4th etc.

Then it’s fastest to load 4, load 3, load 2, load 1

If someone fails to load an implement, it’s zero points, regardless of how far they move it.

Scoring throwing events

The fastest to clear all the bags wins, then so on until you get to those who can’t finish, then it’s what time it took to do 4 or 3 or 2, etc. This way you avoid a draw if you have multiple people completing 3 bags out of the 5.

KEEPING TRACK OF SCORE

The simplest way is to use an Excel work sheet, where you have columns for athletes name, event results, position and score.

You would use the data function to reverse the order for the next event

Example of a competition spreadsheet.

The next option is to use an online scoring program or app, one of the best is from Strength Results, it is a one stop shop that will take care of event set up, data collection, event selection and scoring, you can find them here Strength Results

The final option is to use a scorer for the competition, there are plenty of people with experience, but the absolute best in the business is Ben Joyce,

I’ve known Ben for a number of years and he has scored several of my competitions, he is also the guy who Giants Live and the Official Strongman Games use to ensure they have accuracy for their score keeping.

COMPETITION LOGISTICS

The most important people at your competition are your crew, you will need at least 6 people for loading, setting and resetting events as well as measuring distances on moving events if needed. A score keeper to track everything, 2 time keepers and 2 referees, possibly even a 3rd and someone to run the athlete area. It is also essential to have a first aider on hand, with a first aid kit, preferably St Johns if you have the budget to get them there.

For athletes, if you can, make sure there is a seating area to relax between events and a warm up area to get ready for what is next.

Having your equipment, event order and loading all planned out will help with running a smooth competition,

Get a plan in place ahaead of time and make sure you have a decent crew of volunteers to take care of the loading, moving and setting up of equipment.

Here is how you make life easy for yourself

• Have pump trucks, trolleys or barrows for moving heavy equipment, especially when resetting loading or carrying events.

• Events that require a lifting platform should be done first, it’s easier to have them ready before you start and faster to remove them at the end of an event than to set them up, then take them down during the competition. If space allows, you can leave them set up.

• Mark out start and finish lines with tape or paint before the event starts.

• Get everyone’s yoke height at registration, and if you are running a single distance carry with no turn, split the athletes into odds and evens, send the odds down one end and evens down the other, give the loaders a list of their names for that end, with their yoke height so it can be changed quickly.

• If running novice and then inters, or any class where the next one uses heavier weights, have the lighter weights go first and keep the loading to even numbers for each side.

For example, Novice Yoke, 240kg, Inters yoke, 280kg. All you need to do to change weight is add a 10 to each corner, simple plate maths.

• Before the competition starts, designate someone to be in charge of the loading crew, tell them where you want everything to go as each event finishes, so the crew chief can direct the loaders to move things without needing to have a big discussion. Having a crew that can crack on with setting everything up quickly and efficiently will make a huge difference to how long the day goes on for.

OFFICIATING THE COMPETITION

To ensure rules are being adhered to, having a couple of referees is a must, they will need to be briefed on the rules that you have for your particular competition and must officiate in accordance with them.

They must be experienced as either competitors or referees in previous competitions and be consistent across the board with their decisions, treating every lifter with impartiality to ensure a fair and even competition.

Nothing annoys people more than being called on something that others are allowed to get away with.

The referees will work in conjuction with the time keepers and report reps scored back to the scorer, so it is important that they have good communication skills.

RUNNING THE COMPETITION

Now you have everything in place, crew is sorted, equipment is set up and athletes are registered, you just have to let things run.

From my experience, competitors can often be off in their own world, headphones on and not listening to what is going on around them, have a list of the running order in the warm up area and a handler with the same list to marshall the competitors and get them ready to come out when called.

If athletes aren’t ready within a certain amount of time, don’t be afraid to zero them for the event for not coming out when called.

Make sure that any equipmaent failures are dealt with quickly and that where disruption occurs to a competitor through no fault of their own, they are given the chance to go again, this doesn’t count for athlete error, I’ve seen people mess up royally and demand to do it again, remember, their mistake is not your problem.

Because you will have limited warm up equipment, I recommend that you only allow the class that is due to compete to warm up, the class that is next can warm up as the first group are competiting.

Once an event is done and everyone has had their go, your crew will need to change things around for the next one, this is when you start warm ups, don’t wait until the next event is set up, that’s 20 to 30 minutes of time that adds to the length of the day, your scorer will have entered the data from the previous event and provided a running order for the next one.

At the end of the final event, give the competitors time to clean off, cool down and relax whilst equipment is being put away and final scores are being compiled.

For the awards, you have the choice to bring out all of the athletes in reverse order or just the top 3 if you want, make sure the presentation has a sense of importance, announce each person, allow them to get onto the podium, be presented with their trophy and have their time in the spotlight before bringing the next competitor out. Don’t rush this part and don’t just hand over trophies like it’s an afterthought. 

This is the time where pictures can be taken, pictures that will be shared to social media which puts your competition into the public eye and gets you talked about.

WRAPPING UP

Now the competition is finished, you’ll need to publish the results, post competition photos to social media and make sure to thank all involved.

Listen to feedback from athletes, don’t be too proud to act on constructive criticism and learn what you could do to improve the next competition.

Finally, welcome to Strongman promoting, it is a rewarding, but hard job, made worth while when you have 20+ happy people telling everyone how great your competition was and a demand for you to run more competitions.