Arnold Classic Sports Festival

Welcome back to Fitness Fanatic, I hope you all had a great spring break! This week we are going to talk about a fitness festival I attended over my break referred to as the Arnold Classic.  The Arnold Classic Sports Festival is held every year in Columbus, Ohio on the first weekend of March. The event is named after body builder, governor, and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger started weight training at the age of 15 and later won Mr. Universe at the age of 20 after that he won the Mr. Olympia contest 7 times. He is considered one of the best body building competitors of all time. At the festival, there are a variety of sports events from body building competitions to weight lifting contests. There is also a wide variety of venders set up showing off their products and giving away free samples. If you are into fitness I definitely recommend checking it out.

Here is an image of Arnold when he was younger and into body building.

There are tons of events that take place at the Arnold classic including professional body building, strongman contest, and fitness contest. Professional body building is body building for an income and having a IFBB pro card qualification. Professional body builders do this as their job and work out every day to sculpt their bodies for competition. The goal of professional body builders is to maximize size but in balance and harmony. They don’t want to have any weak points or underdeveloped muscles. Before competition they try to lose as much fat as possible to show off the definition and detail in their muscles. The athletes show off their muscles in front of judges on a stage where they flex each individual muscle with different poses. The festival also consists of strongman contest in which different athletes lift massive amounts of weight. Strongman competitors show off their great strength and break weight lifting records every year. Some of the strongman competition exercises include deadlifting, overhead press, and lifting up massive amounts of weights. The Arnold classic fitness contest is the woman version of the bodybuilding contest. These are a few of the main events that take place at the festival. There are tons more events and lifting competitions. One of the coolest events I saw was a 190-pound man bench 520 pounds! I also saw this really interesting form of yoga called Acroyoga. Acroyoga is a physical practice that combines yoga, acrobatics and Thai massage. Acroyoga is performed with a partner in which you work together to perform different poses. I recommend checking it out, it’s very impressive what people can do!

Here is an image of a couple doing Acroyoga.

Here is an image of a man doing the deadlift strongman competition at the event.

If you like receiving free stuff and entering giveaways then the Arnold classic is the place for you! There are hundreds of vendors set up in the expo giving away t-shirts, protein supplements, protein bars, pre-workout, blender bottles, vacations and tons of sample supplements. I stopped at a few vendors including body building.com, Blender Bottle, and Rogue Fitness. Rogue Fitness was probably my favorite vendor. Rogue Fitness is an American made strength and conditioning equipment company. They had an entire set up of their newest racks, weights, and bars.

Here is an image of what it looks like inside of the expo with vendors and people everywhere.

If you are lucky you can meet some of the special guests and speakers. Some of the guest appearances included Joey Bosa who is an NFL defensive end for the Chargers, Jay Cutler who is a 3 time Arnold Classic champ, Randy Couture who is in the UFC hall of Fame, and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger plus many more.

Here is an image of the bodybuilding event.

If you are interested in fitness and like getting free stuff I highly recommend checking out the Arnold Classic Sports Festival next year. There is such a large variety of vendors and special guests I’m sure you will find something that interest you.