Arrowtown woman Anna Thompson is going from strength to strength, taking the women's middleweight title in the Strong Melbourne Strongman Challenge at the weekend.
Thompson (35) is believed to be the first New Zealand woman to compete in the three-day event, held as part of the Melbourne Fitness Expo.
Competitors lift and carry unconventional weights and objects, racing against the clock in a variety of disciplines.
The mother of three started strength training in 2012 to help with chronic back pain, before taking up CrossFit.
Last year she represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in Vancouver, Canada.
However, the strongman event was a completely different beast, she said.
"It's still lifting very heavy weights but it's nowhere near as precise a sport, so the objects are odd and awkward.
"It takes a fair bit of skill and gumption to get them up, I suppose, and it's left me way more bruised than powerlifting ever has.''
Women started with a 60kg axle-bar clean-and-jerk, doing as many reps as possible in 60 seconds, before the "shield carry''.
"[It's] a great, big, heavy T-shaped steel thing and we had to carry it as far as possible in two minutes.''
In the "monster dumbbell'' clean-and-jerk, competitors must do as many reps with the 30kg weight within a minute, before the 125kg axle deadlift with a "think bar''.
The two hardest events were the frame carry, which involved carrying a 150kg weight 18m, and the "stone to shoulder'', both held on Sunday, the final day of competition.
The latter was "the worst'' for bruising, she said.
She won the under-72kg class by half a point, taking home $A500 ($NZ543) and a trophy.
She now has a month to train for the South Island Powerlifting Championships, being held in Dunedin.
Ultimately, she hoped to set a New Zealand record for the deadlift, now 190kg, and officially represent New Zealand in a strongman competition, the artist and jeweller said.
