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Strength is mental for local lifter
Photo by Joseph Garcia
Antoni Patalano of Oxnard gets a workout while flipping over a 700-pound tire. Patalano is training to compete in a strongman competition, which involves lifting enormous objects. "It's very mental," Patalono said of the lifts. "Your mind has to beat the weight before your body does."
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Antoni Patalano remembers watching "The Incredible Hulk" television show as a kid. Bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno played the title character and Patalano wanted to be just like him.
"Lou Ferrigno was my No. 1 idol because of his Hulk' television series," Patalano said.
Now 29, Patalano looks like a bodybuilder and is as strong as the TV character he once admired.
During Sunday morning workouts, Patalano can be found flipping 700-pound tires, raising 400-pound wooden poles and lifting concrete stones as heavy as 350 pounds. Then there is the yoke lift, where competitors start at 300 pounds and increase to more than 1,000 pounds.
The Oxnard resident is training to compete in his first amateur strongman competition.
What started as an interest in traditional powerlifting took a turn three years ago when, through friends at the gym, he met Odd Haugen. Haugen, whose first name is pronounced "Ode," is a regular competitor in World's Strongest Man events. He invited the 6-foot-3-inch, 350-pound Patalano to train at his home in Newbury Park.
"When I used to watch it on TV I thought no way those weights are real,' " Patalano said. "The first time I worked out with Odd, I had a different view."
With Haugen's aid, his workouts became more disciplined. While pumping iron is part of the session, most of the workout involves learning different ways to lift objects. Lifters have to become engineers with weights, figuring out balance points and how to use their bodies as leverage.
"That's the beauty of strongman competition; it's a particular lift with each three-dimensional object," he said.
"It's very mental in reaching that strength potential," Patalano added. "The weight is very intimidating. Your mind has to beat the weight before your body does. If you're already telling yourself it can't be done, nine times out of 10, you won't.
"I'm doing this not because everybody else does it or to follow a growing trend," he said. "I do this because I always wanted to."
And maybe next year, Patalano will be on TV tossing boulders like the Hulk — but without the green paint.
Posted by botnful on July 25, 2007 at 1:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Didn't he used to be a bouncer at the Rhino in Oxnard?
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