The World's Strongest Man in More Ways Than One
by Peter Vuono

     I've been lifting weights since 1967 and I competed in powerlifting from 1973-2017   I've seen a lot of impressive sights and have met some amazing, godlike people. I spotted for Ted Arcidi in Nashua when he bench pressed a raw world record of 630. I spotted for Steve Sanderson when he, in Boston, squatted a rock bottom 920 squat. I saw many men and women who could have easily inhabited Olympus but what I really wanted to see was one athlete who possessed character in proportion to great strength. For 25 years, I had displayed in my classroom a poster which read."Strength on the outside comes only after strength on the inside". I wanted to meet the person who exemplified this combination and I did so when I met Frank Ciavattone Jr.
    When he was in his teens he worked on  a construction sight where he on a whim pushed a fully loaded dump truck! He then took this prodigious strength to the Olympic lifting platform where he won both the state championship and New England Championships at least 10 times each! When I witnessed him winning the New England Strongest Man contest, he did so while suffering torn psoas muscles and a strep throat!
     From here, Ciavattone entered  the Scotland based world's strongest man contest winning a plethora of times and setting up record after record. His 500lb plus ONE  HANDED deadlifts were legendary not to mention his lifting, without straps of the famed Donald Dinnie Stones. Dave Prowse, eat your heart out!
    The Ciavattone basement is a Smithsonian Institute of trophies and memorabilia commemorating an amazing career. Everywhere are hundreds of sparkling trophies, magnificent medals and stunning excalibers
all won for exhibiting his great strength. The irony of the whole thing, however is the fact that there IS NO trophy or medal for Frankie's greatest victory other than his essence.
   On two occasions in his life, he faced, took on and defeated cancer giving him the distinction of being THAT athlete who had an equal proportion of strength and character.  Frank serves as a beacon whose shining star can be looked up at by the rest of us mere mortals  to tell us that we too can face, take on and defeat both physical and emotional oppression to a point where we  have become just like the world's strongest man.


"A hero is judged not by the size of his strength but by the strength of his heart"- Zeus