Encouraging and inspiring veterans is one of the goals a local organization and two San Antonio residents have for their new seminars.
SS American Memorial Foundation, World Champion Powerlifter and World Champion Strong Woman Jill Mills and U.S. Marine Veteran Jose Luis Sanchez teamed up to host free health and wellness courses for veterans, first responders, and their families.
The first class — the Adaptive Strongman Seminar — kicked off on Sunday at the Lazy U Ranch, 450 Naumann Road.
“The first one was for those interested in strongman lifting,” SS American Memorial Foundation President Craig Russell said. “We had a great turn out. We probably had at least 20 to 30 disabled veterans.”
Strongman lifting is a national and worldwide weightlifting sport that focuses on physical strength, speed, and endurance, he said.
“This seminar showed attendees how to get into this sport, how to train for it and how to properly lift for the different events that are held during the competition,” Russell said.
For local veteran Dina Dillon, attending the event came from a fascination she’s always had for strongman competitions.
“I was interested because Jill is a winner of the strongman competition for the female division and I thought it would be an interesting introduction to how to lift properly and see the events that strongmen do,” Dillon said. “I’ve seen some of the shows on TV, and I just wondered if they were the same for women because I’ve only seen the men do it. So that kind of interested me.”
During the seminar, Mills and Sanchez took attendees through the different activities they could encounter in a strongman competition such as a tire pull, clean and jerk, over head squat and a concrete ball lift.
Mills currently trains the San Antonio Fire Department for strength and conditioning, and Jose Luis Sanchez is a retired marine who competed in the 2017 Boston Marathon with a prosthetic leg after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan six years ago.
However, it wasn’t just Mills and Sanchez who were demonstrating, Russell said… >> read full article and see more pictures here >>
Originally posted on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 12:00 am
By:Valerie Bustamante valerie.bustamante@seguingazette.com