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Doktor Bollix
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Kid is a monster. Have you met this guy B Fold?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/othersports/79388_strong20.shtml
SEQUIM -- Washington's version of Charles Atlas is at the end of a gravel driveway behind blackberry vines and brush in a neighborhood just off Highway 101, which winds through the outskirts of this Olympic Peninsula community.
Jesse Marunde of Sequim hoists 300 pounds of axle, wheels and tires at the World's Strongest Man national competition in St. Louis. He pressed the weight 14 times.
Best known for sunshine and the retirees it draws as a result, Sequim is growing. New strip malls and a Costco have become part of the Dungeness Valley landscape.
Amid this setting, away from more prominent strength-building locales across the globe, Jesse Marunde is getting bigger, too. In more ways than one.
At 6-foot-4 and 295 pounds, the 22-year-old is a sculpted mass of muscles, with a steely mind to match.
Until recently, Marunde's most prominent public appearances came as an all-conference tight end at Sequim High School and as a valet at 7 Cedars Casino.
Now he's the youngest star on the World's Strongest Man circuit, ranked fourth in the United States.
For the past three days, Marunde has been competing in the World's Strongest Man national championships in St. Louis, hoping to finish in the top five so he can qualify for the World's Strongest Man contest in Malaysia.
Among the events, Marunde has been required to hold two Ford Explorers on ramps and hoist Budweiser girls with a squat lift.
Marunde has already displayed the sizeable possibilities, tying Phil Pfister for third in the Northeast Strongman Showdown in Boston earlier this year. Pfister, far more experienced, is ranked first in the U.S., fifth in the world.
This from an athlete whose hometown is the only thing about him that's small.
"Where'd you come from?" Marunde was asked.
"Sequim," he replied.
"Where's that?"
"West of Seattle."
"Isn't there just water west of Seattle?"
The sport is similarly obscure, but rising in popularity. It's a SuperStars-type competition, with very large men lifting heavy stones, flipping heavier tires and basically engaging in activities that are fun to watch and painful to consider.
"It's not weird or twisted, it's just what I do," Marunde said. "I realize having 900 pounds on your back is unreasonable to most people, but I don't think anything of it."
ESPN and Fox Sports broadcast some of the events, increasing Strongman's exposure.
For what he lacks in finances and name recognition, Marunde has enormous faith in himself.
"Everybody says it's all about diet and training," he said. "The state of mind is what powers the body. I rely on the power of me. Nobody will ever want it more than I do."
Marunde grew up next door to the Olympic Game Farm, where visitors can drive through the park and feed yaks, bison and elk through their car windows.
"I would wake up and hear the lions roar," Marunde said. "I trained in a barn."
After earning a scholarship to play football at Montana State, Marunde returned home, 12 credits short of his degree in health enhancement. A failed marriage brought him back to be close to his son, Dawson.
The 3-year-old is the source of his motivation. "I really want to make him proud," Marunde said.
Earlier this week, Marunde was showing pictures of his son in his workout room at the end of the driveway, with the towering Olympic mountains in the backdrop. His dog, an American bulldog named Jack the Ripper, was in the bed of his red-and-white Chevy pickup out front.
Marunde also has two Neopolitan mastiffs. He likes them because they are "humongous and scary."
Although his immediate goal is to become the world's strongest man, Marunde would be perfectly suited for professional wrestling. He has that kind of charisma and appetite for the outrageous.
His diet consists of conventional foods in monumental portions: he drinks a gallon of milk and eats a dozen eggs a day.
He also has been known to eat some rather strange stuff, like moose steak, cow-tongue sandwiches and chicken-heart soup. He mixes 10 bowls of oatmeal with a half-gallon of ice cream in a giant cookie-mixer bowl, and consumes it all in one sitting. This is a daily routine.
His strength has produced stories about legendary lifts. In the most memorable, Marunde flipped a car at a college party in Bozeman. He intended to flip it over once, but the car gained momentum and kept flipping over an embankment, ending up in the bottom of a ditch.
The owner's reaction? "He wasn't around," Marunde said. "I got in trouble."
Now his strength is channeled toward more worthwhile pursuits. Just one year after entering his first professional strongman event, Marunde has parlayed his perseverance and effort into a belief.
"Head-to-head with the strongest man on the planet, I'm going to beat him," Marunde said. "I fully intend to accomplish my goal. They're going to have a sign out there that says: 'Welcome to Sequim. Home of the world's strongest man.'"
JESSE MARUNDE FILE
VITALS: Age: 22. Height: 6-4. Weight: 295. Hometown: Sequim
BEST LIFTS: Dead lift: 730 pounds. Squat (Olympic style): 420x20. Front squat: 510x1. Clean and jerk: 440 pounds. Incline press: 405. Bench press: 500 pounds-plus.
WORKOUTS: Four days a week, for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. "I go with quality over quantity."
STRONGMAN FACTS: Fifty events are held in the U.S. each year, 100 worldwide. The prize money has doubled, but still is low compared to other sports. The winner at this week's national event in St. Louis will earn $7,500.
THE WORD FROM JESSE
STEROIDS? "They're not an option for me."
MOTTO: "When all else fails, brute strength prevails."
STRONG ASSET: "I don't have any problems opening pickle jars."
INJURIES SUFFERED: Torn quadriceps, torn rotator cuffs, knee tendinitis, pulled hamstring.
NEXT-TO-LAST WORD: "Since I'm so large, people assume the only emotion I'm capable of expressing is outrage. That certainly isn't true. I don't have to yell and be violent. People are scared of me anyway."
LAST WORD: "When I'm done with an event, I'm absolutely drained. I'm usually throwing up and passing out."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/othersports/79388_strong20.shtml
SEQUIM -- Washington's version of Charles Atlas is at the end of a gravel driveway behind blackberry vines and brush in a neighborhood just off Highway 101, which winds through the outskirts of this Olympic Peninsula community.
Jesse Marunde of Sequim hoists 300 pounds of axle, wheels and tires at the World's Strongest Man national competition in St. Louis. He pressed the weight 14 times.
Best known for sunshine and the retirees it draws as a result, Sequim is growing. New strip malls and a Costco have become part of the Dungeness Valley landscape.
Amid this setting, away from more prominent strength-building locales across the globe, Jesse Marunde is getting bigger, too. In more ways than one.
At 6-foot-4 and 295 pounds, the 22-year-old is a sculpted mass of muscles, with a steely mind to match.
Until recently, Marunde's most prominent public appearances came as an all-conference tight end at Sequim High School and as a valet at 7 Cedars Casino.
Now he's the youngest star on the World's Strongest Man circuit, ranked fourth in the United States.
For the past three days, Marunde has been competing in the World's Strongest Man national championships in St. Louis, hoping to finish in the top five so he can qualify for the World's Strongest Man contest in Malaysia.
Among the events, Marunde has been required to hold two Ford Explorers on ramps and hoist Budweiser girls with a squat lift.
Marunde has already displayed the sizeable possibilities, tying Phil Pfister for third in the Northeast Strongman Showdown in Boston earlier this year. Pfister, far more experienced, is ranked first in the U.S., fifth in the world.
This from an athlete whose hometown is the only thing about him that's small.
"Where'd you come from?" Marunde was asked.
"Sequim," he replied.
"Where's that?"
"West of Seattle."
"Isn't there just water west of Seattle?"
The sport is similarly obscure, but rising in popularity. It's a SuperStars-type competition, with very large men lifting heavy stones, flipping heavier tires and basically engaging in activities that are fun to watch and painful to consider.
"It's not weird or twisted, it's just what I do," Marunde said. "I realize having 900 pounds on your back is unreasonable to most people, but I don't think anything of it."
ESPN and Fox Sports broadcast some of the events, increasing Strongman's exposure.
For what he lacks in finances and name recognition, Marunde has enormous faith in himself.
"Everybody says it's all about diet and training," he said. "The state of mind is what powers the body. I rely on the power of me. Nobody will ever want it more than I do."
Marunde grew up next door to the Olympic Game Farm, where visitors can drive through the park and feed yaks, bison and elk through their car windows.
"I would wake up and hear the lions roar," Marunde said. "I trained in a barn."
After earning a scholarship to play football at Montana State, Marunde returned home, 12 credits short of his degree in health enhancement. A failed marriage brought him back to be close to his son, Dawson.
The 3-year-old is the source of his motivation. "I really want to make him proud," Marunde said.
Earlier this week, Marunde was showing pictures of his son in his workout room at the end of the driveway, with the towering Olympic mountains in the backdrop. His dog, an American bulldog named Jack the Ripper, was in the bed of his red-and-white Chevy pickup out front.
Marunde also has two Neopolitan mastiffs. He likes them because they are "humongous and scary."
Although his immediate goal is to become the world's strongest man, Marunde would be perfectly suited for professional wrestling. He has that kind of charisma and appetite for the outrageous.
His diet consists of conventional foods in monumental portions: he drinks a gallon of milk and eats a dozen eggs a day.
He also has been known to eat some rather strange stuff, like moose steak, cow-tongue sandwiches and chicken-heart soup. He mixes 10 bowls of oatmeal with a half-gallon of ice cream in a giant cookie-mixer bowl, and consumes it all in one sitting. This is a daily routine.
His strength has produced stories about legendary lifts. In the most memorable, Marunde flipped a car at a college party in Bozeman. He intended to flip it over once, but the car gained momentum and kept flipping over an embankment, ending up in the bottom of a ditch.
The owner's reaction? "He wasn't around," Marunde said. "I got in trouble."
Now his strength is channeled toward more worthwhile pursuits. Just one year after entering his first professional strongman event, Marunde has parlayed his perseverance and effort into a belief.
"Head-to-head with the strongest man on the planet, I'm going to beat him," Marunde said. "I fully intend to accomplish my goal. They're going to have a sign out there that says: 'Welcome to Sequim. Home of the world's strongest man.'"
JESSE MARUNDE FILE
VITALS: Age: 22. Height: 6-4. Weight: 295. Hometown: Sequim
BEST LIFTS: Dead lift: 730 pounds. Squat (Olympic style): 420x20. Front squat: 510x1. Clean and jerk: 440 pounds. Incline press: 405. Bench press: 500 pounds-plus.
WORKOUTS: Four days a week, for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. "I go with quality over quantity."
STRONGMAN FACTS: Fifty events are held in the U.S. each year, 100 worldwide. The prize money has doubled, but still is low compared to other sports. The winner at this week's national event in St. Louis will earn $7,500.
THE WORD FROM JESSE
STEROIDS? "They're not an option for me."
MOTTO: "When all else fails, brute strength prevails."
STRONG ASSET: "I don't have any problems opening pickle jars."
INJURIES SUFFERED: Torn quadriceps, torn rotator cuffs, knee tendinitis, pulled hamstring.
NEXT-TO-LAST WORD: "Since I'm so large, people assume the only emotion I'm capable of expressing is outrage. That certainly isn't true. I don't have to yell and be violent. People are scared of me anyway."
LAST WORD: "When I'm done with an event, I'm absolutely drained. I'm usually throwing up and passing out."
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