How Strong Does a Rodeo Athlete Actually Need to Be?
How Strong Does a Rodeo Athlete Actually Need to Be?
How strong does a rodeo athlete actually need to be? It's a question I've gotten some version of for years. Do I need to squat twice my bodyweight? Should a bull rider deadlift 500 pounds? Does a barrel racer need to lift heavy? At what point am I strong enough?
The answer isn't as exciting as giving you a magic number.
> It depends.
Your event matters. Your bodyweight matters. Your training age matters. Your current strength matters. Your injury history matters. And most importantly, we have to look at strength in the context of everything else you need to do as an athlete.
Because the goal isn't to build the strongest rodeo athlete in the weight room. The goal is to build enough strength that it helps you become a better, more capable athlete in the arena.
Strength Matters
Let's get this out of the way first. I absolutely believe rodeo athletes should be strong. Strength gives us the ability to produce force and control force. You need it to maintain positions. You need it to absorb force. You need it to accelerate, decelerate, stabilize and react. You need it to handle the physical demands of competition.
And building strength can give us a larger foundation to develop other qualities like power. That's why strength training has always been a major part of what we do at Champion Living.
But there's a point people miss.
> More strength isn't automatically more performance.
The Strongest Athlete Doesn't Automatically Win
If strength were the only thing that mattered, we'd find the biggest squat at the rodeo and hand that guy the check. Obviously, that's not how it works. Rodeo is a skill sport. Timing matters. Position matters. Reaction matters. Balance matters. Decision-making matters. Confidence matters. Experience matters.
And depending on your event, you may need speed, power, mobility, coordination and conditioning alongside strength. That's why I don't like chasing weight-room numbers just for the sake of chasing numbers. A bigger squat can absolutely represent useful progress.
But if increasing your squat from 400 to 450 pounds requires so much training volume that you're constantly tired, losing speed, practicing poorly and showing up beat up, we need to ask whether those extra 50 pounds are worth the cost. Context matters.
Think About Strength as a Foundation
Here's a better way to look at it. Imagine two athletes who weigh the same and have similar skill levels. One struggles with basic strength. The other has spent several years progressively strength training and has built strong legs, hips, trunk, back and upper body. All else being equal, the stronger athlete has more physical capacity to work with.
Now let's say that athlete keeps getting stronger. At first, those improvements may have a pretty big impact. Going from weak to reasonably strong is valuable. Going from reasonably strong to strong can still be valuable. But eventually, continuing to chase maximum strength can start giving us smaller returns compared with developing something else.
Maybe now we need to express that force faster. That's power. Maybe we need better reactive ability. Maybe conditioning is limiting you. Maybe you need more mobility. Maybe the best thing we can do is maintain the strength you've built while putting more training resources somewhere else. That's where programming becomes important.
Different Events Have Different Demands
There isn't one rodeo strength standard because rodeo isn't one event. Think about a steer wrestler. That athlete needs to sprint, get off a moving horse, handle large forces, change levels, control another animal and do it all extremely fast.
Compare that with a bareback rider. The positions, muscular demands and forces are completely different. Then look at barrel racing. The rider needs enough strength and control to maintain position, manage forces from the horse, and repeatedly perform throughout a competition schedule, but making that athlete as strong as humanly possible isn't necessarily the goal.
Bull riding, saddle bronc, roping, bullfighting: they all create different problems for us to solve. The basic principles of training stay pretty consistent. The application changes.
Relative Strength Matters
Bodyweight matters too. If two athletes can both squat 350 pounds but one weighs 150 and the other weighs 230, those numbers don't mean exactly the same thing. That's where relative strength becomes useful. We're looking at how much force an athlete can produce relative to their bodyweight.
For athletes who have to control and move their own bodies quickly, that's important. Again, though, I don't want athletes obsessing over a single ratio. Strength numbers give us information. They're not your identity as an athlete.
The question is always:
> Is your current level of strength helping or limiting what you're trying to do?
You Need Strength in More Than One Position
This is another reason I don't love reducing strength to one lift. Your squat isn't your entire strength profile. Neither is your deadlift. For rodeo athletes, I'm interested in strength across multiple patterns:
Can you produce force through your legs?
Can you hinge?
What does your single-leg strength look like?
Can you push and pull?
Can your trunk resist unwanted movement?
Can you rotate and control rotation?
Can you maintain positions under load?
Can you produce force through useful ranges of motion?
That's a much more complete picture than asking how much you bench.
Strength Needs to Become Usable
Eventually, we have to do something with the strength we've built. Rodeo happens fast. You don't get five seconds to slowly develop maximum force before something moves underneath you. That's where rate of force development and power become important. Power is about producing force quickly.
This is why you'll see us progress athletes into jumps, throws, sprints, explosive movements and other forms of power development once they have an appropriate foundation. We aren't replacing strength training. We're teaching the athlete to use that strength faster.
> Build force. Then learn to express it.
So, When Are You Strong Enough?
I don't think there's one number where I can say: “Congratulations. You're officially strong enough for rodeo.” I wish it worked that way. Instead, I'm looking at the entire athlete.
Is lack of strength limiting performance? Can you handle the positions and forces required by your event? Are you still making meaningful progress from strength-focused training? Are you strong relative to your bodyweight? Do you have obvious weaknesses between movement patterns or sides? And what would we have to sacrifice to keep pushing strength higher?
If strength is clearly a limitation, let's build it. If you're already strong and powerful but you can't make it through a long stretch of competition without falling apart, maybe we need to look somewhere else. If you're strong but slow, we probably need to develop your ability to express that force faster. If you're strong but can't access the positions your event requires, that's another problem.
Training is about identifying the biggest return on our time.
Don't Chase Numbers. Build Capacity.
I love seeing rodeo athletes get strong. I want them confident underneath a barbell. I want them physically capable. I want a young athlete who starts training with us to look back several years later and see a massive difference in what their body can handle.
But the weight room is still a tool. We're not training for a powerlifting meet. We're preparing for rodeo. Get strong enough that strength becomes an advantage instead of a limitation.
Then keep asking what else the athlete needs. Maybe that's more strength. Maybe it's power. Maybe it's speed. Maybe it's conditioning. Maybe it's mobility. Maybe it's recovery. The answer changes as the athlete changes.
And that's the entire point of training.
> We're not chasing the strongest athlete in the gym. We're building the most physically prepared athlete we can for the demands of their event.
Match Your Training to Your Event
If you want to know where you actually stand, get assessed properly so your training matches what your event demands. You can start here.
The Optimal Performance Academy pathway is the next step for athletes who want the full development picture instead of chasing one number in the weight room.
Continue Training With Champion Living
Educational disclaimer: This material is an educational resource and is not a substitute for professional medical, physiotherapy, nutrition or mental-health advice. Persistent, worsening or injury-associated pain should be evaluated by an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.
Australian athlete notice: If you compete in Australia, you are responsible for understanding the applicable anti-doping rules, checking medications and supplements through Sport Integrity Australia, and using independently tested products.
