They see me flip the tire and make a big deal of it.
It’s a group of 3, I’d guess mother, 17 year old son, and I’m not sure who the other woman was as she was too old to be daughter/sister, and too young to be the mom (which would now leave the question who’s the older woman). This other one while exercising with them was leading them, maybe a hands on trainer?
Anyway the trainer one was first to make a big deal of it. Asking me what it weighs and similar.
“I don’t know, but my high school had a bigger one for the football team”.
I try to explain that flipping this one back and forth is nothing. Truly it’s not, in the strength world, nor to any healthy male.
I told them that when I practiced it I got be flipping them very explosively using the aforementioned school’s tire for as much as 15-20 in a row.
Then : bigger tire x 15-20 in a row.
Now : tire not as large x a few sets of 2-4 singles
I was looking at the group and thinking the 17 year old male could do this. It’d be hard, but well within the realm of possibility for him.
If you can lift the tire high enough to prop a knee under it, then you can grind that motherfucker over. Hell the tread wasn’t even worn thin on them, advantageous tires that they are.
My 5’9″ 165lb non lifting buddy got the high school’s bigger tire over after a few days (spread over a month) of using the smaller one, my having told him to wedge the knee, and his being willing to fight for it.
It was like watching the continental version of a tire flip. I’d guess he struggled for 15-45 seconds on his 2nd or 3rd attempt, that rep grinding it up high enough to barely prop it on the knee and then fighting from there.
The 17 year old could get the tire today if he only tried, and was willing to fight.
The story seems to be that it’s a bodybuilding gym. No one sans an occasional passing by strongman flips the thing. While I’m not a competitive strongman my sense of play brings me to try my hand at rocks, implements, logs, and similar whenever the opportunity presents itself.
(Like the time I stood a ~200lb waterlogged log on end, brought it out of the water, reshouldered it having tipped it on end now on land, and almost locked out the terribly unwieldy “staggered neutral open palm grip 2 hand push jerk from right shoulder”.)
I have the advantage of a few years ago going to the field and progressing from struggling to prop it on the knee to flipping it via grind to flipping explosively to flipping explosively for reps with a larger tire.
I’m out of practice, but I still know how to fight against something unwieldy and not ergonomically designed for human lifting.
(My strength is always more impressive outside of chrome ergonomic gym settings.)
I can go back in the memories to seeing my buddy fight and succeed with that larger tire and to my rep out set with a larger tire.
That tire today ain’t shit…to those with a different perception.
I’m likely going to be the oddball at this gym too as I’ll likely end up flipping the tire down and back, maybe (and it sounds crazy yet doable to me at this point) loading the tire from parking lot onto the loading dock…by hand. Maybe I’ll stack the tires atop each other first. Maybe I’ll do all of it combined. Flip the bigger tire down and back , then load both tires on the loading dock whilst stacking them one atop the other.
Perception. It makes a huge difference.
-J