JAVIER SANCHEZ

Updated Saturday, January 20, 2024-16:54

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Juan Ferrer

sells his rice harvest to the Nomen company.

In the Ebro Delta, normal;

a family business with decades of history.

A company truck arrives at his plot and that's where the strange thing begins.

Ferrer puts a harness over his shoulders, ties it to the front of the vehicle and begins to pull, pull, pull its 20 tons of steel, tires and fuel until it moves about 20 meters.

How is it possible?

Ferrer is training: he is the strongest man in Spain, the three-time champion of the National Strength League.

"Rice is the engine of my economy, rice is the engine of my diet and rice is the engine of my sports career, because Nomen is my sponsor and they give me the trucks to train," comments who is astonished when he talks about the tests that each competition includes.

Because his sport, strength athletics or strongman, is not weightlifting, powerlifting, or crossfit;

It's something else.

For example, a League test consists of lifting a 135 kilo stone over a 1.45 meter bar.

The task is already complicated, but the fun is seeing how many times each participant can do it.

Then there is moving, another example.

You have to move an 80 kilo tire for 15 meters, then an 85 kilo irregular stone, then a 95 kilo dumbbell and finally a 215 kilo yoke, all in less than 90 seconds.

Among the specialties there are some that excite the public, such as when they overturn one-ton cars, and others that are more technical, such as Russian cylinder roulette.

«The hardest ones for me are those that involve running, like moving.

My favorites are the ones that are based on the lifts,” explains Ferrer, who started in a different way than expected.

For decades, Catalan public television, TV3, has broadcast the World's Strongest Man season, a kind of World Cup of the discipline, and it has its faithful, weekly, almost eternal audience.

But Ferrer has never been one of those fans.

How did you get started in this? I had seen the World's Strongest Man, but that's not where I started.

For many years I played basketball for Cantaires de Tortosa and when I was 27 I quit.

I started to gain weight, gain weight and when I was at 140 kilos I decided to join a gym.

By chance I ended up at Strongman Tarrako, which is a strength club and I started trying out.

Two months later he was already competing.

It is a sport that gives me a lot of personal improvement.

Ferrer admits that the goal that led him to strength athletics, to lose weight, has disappeared and that now the goal is almost the opposite.

With the supervision of a nutritionist, he eats between 5,000 and 8,000 calories a day, depending on training, and weighs about 170 kilos, what is necessary to continue standing out in his field.

Rare is the day that goes hungry always in the quest to lift more and more and more.

Gym Comparisons

At 35 years old, he still has a lot to do, he still has to make a name for himself.

«With the CrossFit boom there are many people who come to my strength seminars because they are very social sports.

I find CrossFit very interesting because people learn and, at the same time, it generates a brotherhood, meeting to eat or go out.

I'm glad he succeeded," Ferrer analyzes that when he started he looked at the strong guys in his gym and was amazed.

Now the example is him.

Although, yes, it's better not to challenge him to see who can lift the most weight.

«There is always someone who is clueless, but now almost no one challenges me, honestly.

As always I'm competing, you know what I can lift.

These comparisons seem silly, but in the end they are a way to improve yourself.

When I started I was not the strongest in my gym, far from it, and I started to work,” recalls Ferrer, before returning to training.

This year he wants to make the international leap, achieving a place in the World's Strongest Man tests that are organized around the world.

So he puts a harness over his shoulders, ties it to the truck loaded with his own rice and starts pulling, pulling, pulling his 20 tons of steel, tires and fuel.