Fall is here, and the first ever Tortuga Swole Summer challenge is officially over. We had quite decent participation, if I do say so myself, especially considering that we threw the thing together at the last minute with a minimum of advance warning.
Before we announce the Big Winner, I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge some of the Tortugans who, despite having fitness goals that were slightly different than the 1 Rep Max Challenge, participated in spirit. In particular, a shout out to our boy ButteryFish, who started the summer with an unimpressive dadbod physique, and ended up absolutely shredded a mere 2.5 months later. I would post homoerotic before and after shots, but ButteryFish is one of our anon poasters and I don’t want to blow his spot. You will just have to take my word for it. Go ’Fish!
Now, on to those who participated in the actual challenge, which if you remember was to see who could get the most improved Wilks score over the course of the summer. The good news is, everyone who participated improved their maxes. So, in a sense, you’re all winners because you all got stronger. But in another, less gay sense, the rest of you all lost because only one person can win.
I would like to give another honorable mention to our runner-up, ὁ γαλατάς. Galatas is a 6’6” Viking warrior of a man, who was coming off an unfortunate meniscus tear at the beginning of the summer. He had been reduced to doing mere wall sits and other “physical therapy” exercises, so as you can imagine his squats and deadlifts were less than ideal. Despite proceeding with caution (a silly contest is not worth fucking your knee up over), he managed to add 100 lbs to his deadlift and 45 lbs to his squat, which added significantly to his overall Wilks score improvement of 36.34 points, the second highest of the competition. Congratulations, Galatas!
Ok, enough foreplay. The moment you’ve all been waiting for. Our Swole Summer Jacked Chad Winner extraordinaire: none other than our own Centaur Write Satyr, PhD!
Centaur had a series of beastly improvements. I will just list them out:
Bench: 255 → 275
Squat: 355 → 375
Deadlift: 365 → 405
OHP: 165 → 175
Overall, Centaur improved his Wilks score by a whopping 49.81 points, making him this year’s clear winner! By the way, I have it on good authority that a man’s ability to bench press is directly correlated to his ability to write stunning prose, and so you may want to consider picking up his book, Pandemonia (the Kindle-version is currently available through the Tortuga Society).
So what’s next for the fitness division of Tortuga Media? Well, I’m glad you asked. We are already well underway in preparation for a more robust fitness challenge in the coming year. The next challenge will be more well-rounded than simple simply strongman lifts, and will be based on the Tortuga Fitness Standards published last month. It will also take place over a longer timeframe to allow for more improvement.
We are tentatively looking at beginning the challenge on January 1st, 2027, so as to leverage all the New Year’s resolution hype, and have it run until the end of the year. But, unlike most people, whose resolutions fizzle out, the Tortuga boys will be keeping each other motivated through our private chat group and weekly standup calls, ensuring great success!
As to exactly what the criteria will be for victory, this is still being worked out. So watch this space, and if you haven’t already joined our illustrious peerage, now might be a good time to do so!
