Hitting the Weights with Jason Elhert
Adam Hits the Weight with Jason Elhert Fresh Off his 4th Place Finish at the WPO Semifinals
FARGO, N.D. — “I’ve been lifting since I was 15. I just want to get stronger. I found a real passion for the weights. I started training because I was playing football, getting stronger to do the sports and more and more as I did lifting weights I found more enjoyment out of lifting the weights than actually playing the sports and I never was able to put a finger on it as to why I do it. People ask me; why?
Why do you put 1100 pounds on your back? I got family members who just shake their heads at me. Why would you want to pick that heavy of a weight off the floor or why would you put that in your hands over your chest?
And for all of us that do this sport whether it be power lifting, strong man, body building, It’s just something that is apart of our being, part of what we want to do. Part of the competition.”
Jason Elhert competed in Lombard Illinois last weekend in the World Power-lifting Organization Semifinals…
“This past weekend, I was successful at a 1058 squat, a 551 bench which was a PR, about a 28 pound PR and then an 837 deadlift which was a 27 pound PR which I am very proud of and then a 2464 total.”
Elhert’s total was good enough to earn him 4th place in 275 pound weight class and earned invitation to the WPO Finals in Florida this November. The competition measures pound for found strength.
“Pound for pound, age, the whole idea, the concept is instead of OK they got the biggest numbers, but they also way 500 pounds someone who’s like my size around 290 or someone your size, if you’re putting up those numbers and you get that coefficient, it just makes it all equal…. I forget everything that goes into it but it was trying to get away from kind of like a head to head matchup.. like you and I.. if you were saying .. obviously maybe my squat versus your squat isn’t the same weight but because I weigh 275 pounds 181, 215, you get some form of head to head matchup.. ”
“175 but thank you..”
Like any sport, it’s best to go in with a gameplan. Elhert shared his with us…
“The rule of thumb that I’ve always had is your first attempt should be anything that you can do comfortably on your worst day… you go out there you know you can hit that attempt no matter what, eyes closed.. second attempt is always a PR or a PR attempt and then that third attempt gives you another opportunity to take a crack at that PR or if you’ve broken your PR maybe you can go wild and go for that next level.”
With a rare opportunity to hangout in the gym with one of the strongest men in the world I thought perhaps he could give me a few pointers…
After fine tuning my fundamentals we began to add a little more weight…
With a few pointers and some quality spotting, Jason helped me tie a PR I hadn’t attempted in over ten years..
And looks to help other’s in the community who want to get stronger as well at his gym, Edgar’s House of Pain..
“You look around, Dakota Bar bell, Edgar’s House of Pain, it’s something we worked really hard to build up. It’s a strong man, powerlifting gym, we cater to people that are looking to get stronger, get better, in the strength sports. As you can see, we got strongmen elements here, we put on strong man shows, we put on power lifting meets, we want to grow the strength community in this area, there’s some phenomenally strong athletes.”
