As you walk into Dedman Recreational Center’s weight room, you could feel the adrenaline pumping and the energy flowing. A crowd formed around the weights as many people were encouraging the contestants of this year’s Strongman Competition to push themselves to the next level.

SMU’s Mustang Fitness Club hosted their 4th annual Strongman Competition Feb. 27.

Eleven of SMU’s students, faculty, and staff participated in what seemed to be the Mustang Fitness Club’s most successful Strongman Competition.

This year’s competition featured three different events: pull-ups, dead lifts and bench presses. The contestants went head-to-head to see the highest number of pull-ups they could conquer and the maximum amount of weight they could dead lift and bench press.

This year’s Strongman event was SMU sophomore Caitlin Umphreyville’s first weight lifting competition.

“I like to weight lift and am the only girl in my weight training class,” said Umphreyville. “The Strongman Competition was a great way to challenge myself and see how far I could push my body.”

The sports-orientated nutritional product company, Muscle Milk, sponsored this year’s Strongman Competition. Representatives from this company were handing out products to the contestants and their fans during the event.

After watching 11 contestants battle it out for the title of “Strongman,” Rachael Hubers, a member of the SMU Fitness Club was impressed with the contestant’s efforts.

“I’m tired for them,” Rachael laughed. “The adrenaline from the event gets me going and I love watching people push themselves to the next level.”

After the judges averaged each contestant’s score, SMU graduate student, Andrew Elrod and his wife Ami, both went home with the “Strongman” title.

Aubrey Richardson, a member of the Mustang Fitness Club believes the event had a great turnout this year.

“We only had one person register for last year’s event, so having 11 contestants this year was a huge change for us,” Richardson said. “It is a good warm up for our Mr. and Mrs. SMU competition held in April and is a great way to get people interested in what we do.”