Chapter 4:
Inspirational Women Stories From Around The World
Kara Mann
The what? The Strongwoman competition? Kara Mann wasn't what I expected. Nor did I expect to be so fascinated and so inspired by a 23-year- old. Her look, demeanor and voice were not unlike one of the cheerleaders she has had to dead-lift in competition. Another stereotype bites the dust.
In 2004, Kara Mann became the National Strongwoman Champion, less than two years after first starting to compete in the sport. After winning that competition again as recently as 2006, she is now a two times national champ. Where did she come from and how did she get there so fast?
A native of Boston, she first got into it through a boyfriend and his family who encouraged her to give it a try. Her ascent was rapid, beginning with third place in the Massachusetts state championships. Mann shook her head when asked if she would have done anything differently, having been a three-sport athlete in high school where she succeeded at cross-country, basketball and track and field, and dabbled in gymnastics, taekwondo and playing the flute.
Today she uses her degree from Vanderbilt in chemical engineering at her job at General Electric in Cleveland and is learning to juggle her vocation and her strongwoman hobby. “You can't do it as a career.” When asked about financial rewards, she laughed. “Sometimes they give us swords, Samurai swords. Once I did get three hundred dollars, though.”
So why would someone so physically strong, athletic and focused choose this? The well-known health benefits of this level of physical conditioning aside, “It's a passion. It's a release of energy and stress for me…and you can't imagine the highs, the empowering feeling you get after being successful in a competition.”
Asked to describe a typical competition, her eyes light up. “You never know what to expect.” The unpredictable nature of each competition holds particular appeal for Mann. What is consistent about the competitions is that three aspects of skill and strength are always tested: “overhead,"
"grip” (e.g., see how long you can keep two Mini Cooper cars from rolling) and “back and legs.” In addition, one can always expect the classic, signature event called Atlas Stones, where contestants carry large cement stones of varying weight and shape over to a platform. She once pulled an A-4 military airplane 47 feet in 60 seconds.
A typical week involves strength training each weekday, followed by “implement” training on the weekends. Implement training zeroes in on the specific mechanical skills involved in the upcoming events. In the week preceding an event, the amount of implement training increases. In all three geographic settings of her life, Boston, Nashville and now Cleveland, she has connected to a network of athletes with this pursuit, most of them males, who she refers to as if they were her brothers.
Just as important as physical preparation is mental preparation. She is convinced that the quality of her mental focus at the time of her event is crucial. “You can't be distracted in the least or paying attention to your opponents.” Mann uses what she calls “angry” music, like Disturbed, to get her psyched and ready. “I don't even know what they're saying.” She attributes her success in putting mind over matter to her upbringing and to her experience in other sports.
Behind this modest, casual, relaxed demeanor, there lies a woman with strong opinions about what is wrong with the sport. She laments that there are but a handful of females who compete consistently. The corollary to that problem is the lack of financial rewards. She would like to see the women break off from the male federation, recognizing a need for more woman- power in the decision-making. She would like more consistency, predictability and regularity in dates and locations of competitions.
And perhaps most importantly, she would like to see the sport regulated. Right now there is no drug-testing whatsoever in either the male or female milieus. “I really have issues with that, since it constitutes an uneven playing field.” Mann's goal is to attract other females to this sport that she loves, and along with that, to inspire entrants to compete without “supplements.” She even envisions two separate classes for those who “do” and those who “don't.”
All of these improvements would help to shift strongwoman away from its entertainment flavor toward its status as a serious “sport.”
You can bet that Kara Mann, at 5'6” and 165 pounds, will be a force in helping shape the evolution of her sport. She's just that strong.