Through sheer force, two local strongmen will be competing in the Arnold Amateur World Championship at the Arnold Sports Festival.
Chris Insko and Corbin Masure both began their strongman journey at the Kentucky Strength Farm in 2017.
The Arnold Sports Festival is an annual multi-sport festival named after Arnold Schwarzenegger that takes place in Columbus, Ohio. This year’s festival is March 3 to 6.
Masure and Insko don’t compete against each other since they’re in different weight classes, but Masure said they have encouraged each other throughout the years since they began at around the same time.
Insko, a Vine Grove resident since 2015, said he remembers watching strongman on television as a child, and decided a few years ago that this was something he wanted to pursue.
Since then, he said he has competed in at least four or five strongman competitions each year. He was able to qualify for the sports festival in 2020 after placing well enough in the national competition. Last year, the Arnold Sports Festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Insko said that he is currently recovering from a injury he suffered last June at a competition when he dropped a 320-pound stone on his right foot. Still, he’ll be competing at the festival.
“I’m excited about it. That was one of my goals when I started doing strongman was to compete in the Arnold,” Insko said.
Insko said the hardest part of training for him is making the time to do it. He currently has a full-time job as an aircraft mechanic for Republic Airways.
Masure, a Hodgenville resident, began going to the gym to get more in shape. He began going to KSF and in a few months, he went to his first competition. Since 2020, Masure has been working out at home and then began going to a gym in Hodgenville called Creekside Barbell.
Masure said he competes in the lightweight division, and in 2018, Masure said he placed third in the nation.
He said he has two children who are competitive, and hopes to teach the mindset to them of pushing to reach goals that you set.
“It’s just to show them that if you set a goal you can achieve a goal,” he said.
Masure said the hardest part of training is the mental aspect of it, just keeping yourself going back again and again to train, even if you don’t feel like it. He said he works Metalsa.
“You don’t feel like doing much or you have a bad day and you got to recover from your bad day or a bad week and keep going, keep pushing,” Masure said.
Insko and Masure said anyone interested in the sport should find someone involved or go to gym and jump right into it, and to keep pushing to reach your goal.
Andrew Harp can be reached at 270-505-1414 or aharp@thenewsenterprise.com.
