The scene
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A Power Move
Triangle Becoming Strongman Stronghold By David Droschak / Photography by David Droschak There’s a powerful movement taking place two nights a week at a Crossfit gym in Morrisville. It involves 100-pound kegs filled with sand, Hummer tires, makeshift car frames and concrete Atlas stones. “We always joke around and say ‘it doesn’t matter what it weighs, just pick it up,”’ said Lynn Morehouse. Morehouse, 35, is the head of the Triangle-based contingent of Train Strongman LCC athletes and a competitor himself. He has been a fan of the World’s Strongest Man competitions on TV for years and decided to get involved as a promoter/coach in 2013, staging local events that have turned into some of the most attended in the country. The upcoming NC Strength Challenge and NC Super Total is a twoday competition in mid-November at the NC State Fairgrounds that will be the first of its kind in the state. “I started trying to get back into shape when I turned 30 and I never enjoyed being in the gym,” he said. “I started by just picking up rocks in my yard.” 34 | midtownmag.com
Morehouse has since lifted a variety of heavy items, including lifting a rock that weighed 410 pounds onto a 48inch platform. The athletes who train under the direction of Morehouse, whose day job is director of design and development for iContact. in Morrisville, come in all shapes and sizes. Morehouse, for example, weighs around 235 pounds, but doesn’t really fit the part. He would walk by most on the street without a second glace. “I’m one of those guys who competitors don’t see coming,” he said. “They look at me and say, ‘Oh yeah, THAT guy is going to beat me?’ And I do.” The strongman competitions are half strength and half technique, which is why athletes such as Morehouse, national champion James Deffinbaugh or Laura Anderson, who finished in the top 10 in her weight class at the 2015 national competition, can win competitions against much more muscular athletes. “I started about nine years ago after one of my coworkers, who is a big guy, sent out pictures to a whole group of us
and said if we wanted to try it out, to stop by his place on a Saturday,” said Diffinbaugh of Raleigh, who won the 2014 middleweight class at nationals. “I had only been going to the gym for a couple of months and wasn’t strong by any means. I even showed up in jeans as an out in case I wanted to leave. I didn’t know what to expect because there are stereotypes about strength athletes. But they got me going right away on keg carries.” Diffinbaugh describes the atmosphere Morehouse has created as “a good sense of community.” “My goal when I first started was to look like I belonged,” said the 33-yearold Diffinbaugh. “I never expected to win anything at the national level, so every accomplishment is a big deal for me.” Morehouse is constantly pushing the envelope with his athletes. At North Carolina’s Strongest Male and Female event in May, part of the female competition was pulling a 17,000-pound moving truck. “They were all like ‘there is no way we’re going to be able to do it,’ but out of 35 women only two couldn’t do it,” Morehouse said. “They were all just near tears ecstatic because they had done something they didn’t think was possible.” “That is an event I’ve struggled with,” said 5-foot-7, 140-pound Laura Anderson. “I was having a tough time with the small trucks here in the parking lot. The night before when Lynn said we were moving up to the big truck, I thought I was done for. But I pulled it 60 feet. How do you pull a truck? There is a lot of technique to it. We like to say, ‘you don’t just beast mode things.’ It’s really about the angles and what you pull with first. You get things moving and then you keep it going.”
Lynn Morehouse began strongman training by picking up rocks in his yard.