PLYMOUTH, Mich. – Emily Schnabel is lifting stones of concrete weighing anywhere from 110 to 162 pounds as part of her training for her next Strong Woman competition.
"Typically in a contest you would either load it (stones) over a bar for reps or you would load it onto a platform. Sometimes you'll start with a lighter one and work up to a heavier one or sometimes it'll be just one stone and you'll do as many reps as you can in a minute, Schnabel said.
Schnabel became a competitor after working out at Hale Strength and Shape in Plymouth.
"I originally was a dancer and I finally moved to a city that had a professional dance team, so I told Kurt that I wanted to try out for one. I knew that I would be competed against girls who were 18 to 22 so I had a good 10 years on them so I told him that I needed to get into really good shape for that so he helped me," Schnabel said. "That came and went and afterwards I told him that I didn’t want to digress, I worked so hard to get in good shape and so I needed some sort of goal to keep working towards and that’s when he got a group of us to start some strong man training."
Kurt Hessenbruch owns Hale with his wife Courtney. The business began out of their own garage but is now located on north Main Street in Plymouth.
"We started out when we were running strength classes, it was a general strength class and we still, that's primarily what we do," Hessenbruch said. "But as people are getting more and more into it we started to push a little bit and we found some people who are interested in competing and sort of taking it to the next level."
Hessenbruch said they found some competitions and started training for them. Schnabel said about three of them started off with the Strong Woman competing, then about half the gym showed up to cheer them on at a competition which motivated more to get involved and show interest in the training.
Casey Welmers is training for her first Strong Woman competition.
"I went to one of the first competitions and watched that and it was just really impressive and something I thought at the time, 'Wow I could never do this' And then the stronger I got, I was like, 'Oh maybe I can do this' and 'OK I want to try to do this,'" Welmers said.
For these women being fit is more about being strong than slim.
"It's a lot more empowering. I mean, choosing to be skinny is fitting into a societal standard, whereas choosing to be strong is personal strength. It's something you do for yourself. It's not something you do for everybody else," Welmers said.
"It carries over into our everyday lives. I mean a lot of the women at this gym are moms so we're just trying to keep up with our kids and I have a 7-year-old son who weighs over 50 pounds and he is constantly running and jumping on me so I think it's important for me to be able to keep up with him," Schnabel said.
Welmers agrees, she is a surgical nurse and does a lot of lifting with her job, so having the strength helps her.
"I think that's a huge part of why we started doing it this way in the first place, because I have daughters, I want them to see that this is the norm not something different," Hessenbruch said. "We run a kid's strength class, they come in here, you know, Emily she teaches the kid's strength class, shows them the dead lift, they climb ropes, do chin ups, so they're doing a lot of the same things that they see our people doing and you know they see their moms doing it and they come in and they get to do it, so it's just kind of a neat thing to watch happen."
Schnabel is an instructor now, she encourages everyone to give strength classes a try.
"You kind of have to step out of your box and out of your comfort zone and just give it a shot. We're not going to put the heaviest weight on the bar if it’s just your first class. We're going to challenge you at your level and then go from there," Schnabel said.
Hessenbruch is a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He said he competed as a body builder in high school, lifted weights in college and after college began getting involved in Strongman contests and power lifting. With the opening of his gym, he is also competing in Strong Man events.
Hale Strength and Shape is located at 406 N. Main St. in Plymouth. It offers a wide variety of classes including strength training, cardio hip hop, yoga and much more. For more information on the gym, click here.
The gym held its first Strong Woman competition last year in downtown Plymouth. Events included an arm over arm truck pull, dumb-bell press and wagon-wheel deadlift. The event raised money for Relentless Detroit Foundation which helps families who have children with life-threatening illnesses.