It seems that in Basque country, lifting and dragging aren’t the only ’stone-related’ sports enjoyed by the locals. When all else fails, they pick up iron rods and beat the c**p out of it too! To be exact, teams of three take turns to drill as many holes as possible in a stone block in 30 minutes - by hand. Have these guys never heard of RSI?!

Eagle-eyed strongman fans amongst you will no doubt have noticed Britain’s Strongest Man 2008 being televised on Channel Five (and, if you missed it, available on-line via Five On Demand). Heat 2 was broadcast on Wednesday 13th August and featured our very own Jay Hughes. Here’s a quick taster of Jay’s battle with Mark Felix in the wrestling.

Don’t miss heat 4 on Five this coming Wednesday 27th August at 8pm, featuring Oli Thompson.

That’s stone lifting to you and I - the Basque way. As part of the week long carnival that is “Aste Nagusia” in Bilbao, Northern Spain, a demonstration of Basque rural sports (or Herri Kirolak) takes place each day and includes such novelties as stone lifting, stone dragging (by men and oxen!) and hand stone drilling (a particularly grueling activity, more on that later). This guy is Inaxio Perurena seen here performing single-handed floor-to-shoulder reps of a 200kg stone cylinder. I’m told he’s 24 years-old and has a personal record of 285kg (though not sure if that’s single handed!). The man next to him is his father, Iñaki Perurena, a legend in Basque stone lifting with a personal record of 315kg

Read on to see the lift from start-to-finish..

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