How to Follow Strength Sports — The Complete Guide for New Fans

December 30, 2024

You watched something at the North Texas Strength Expo — or saw a clip online, or heard someone at the gym talk about HYROX or strongman — and now you want more. You want to follow the athletes, track the competitions, understand the storylines, and feel like you're genuinely inside the community rather than observing from the outside.

This guide is your complete onramp. Every platform, every account type, every content format that builds genuine strength sports fan knowledge — organized by sport so you can start with what captured you first and expand from there.

How to Follow Strongman

Strongman is one of the most well-documented strength sports in terms of accessible online content. The sport went from television-only access to a thriving YouTube and social media ecosystem over the past decade, and the content available to new fans is better than at any point in the sport's history.

YouTube — Where the Full Competition Lives

The Strongman Corporation's official YouTube channel publishes competition coverage from major sanctioned events. World's Strongest Man has its official channel with full event coverage and historical archives going back decades. Giants Live, the international competition series, also publishes full-length competition videos.

What to search: "Strongman Corporation Nationals," "World's Strongest Man 2026," "Arnold Strongman Classic 2026," "America's Strongest Man." These searches produce both official coverage and fan-captured footage that gives you direct access to the sport at every level.

Instagram — Athletes and Events

Instagram is where strongman athletes live. The platform rewards the visual nature of the sport — a log press or Atlas Stone clip performs well, and athletes post training content, competition prep, and behind-the-scenes access that creates genuine fan connection.

Key account types to follow: Individual athletes (search for Strongman Corporation national champions and Pro Card holders in your weight class of interest), the official Strongman Corporation account, major competition accounts like World's Strongest Man and Arnold Sports Festival.

For Texas specifically: search for Texas-based strongman athletes and Texas Strongest Man content to follow the regional community that feeds into the North Texas Strength Expo Nationals.

TikTok — Discovery and Virality

Strongman content performs exceptionally well on TikTok because the visual impact of heavy implements is immediate and universal. The Atlas Stone, yoke carry, and log press all translate perfectly to short-form video. If you want algorithmic discovery of strongman content, engaging with the first few videos you encounter tells the algorithm to send you more.

Search terms: #strongman, #strongmantraining, #atlasstone, #strongmancorporation

How to Follow Powerlifting

Powerlifting content is the most data-heavy of the strength sports — the community has developed extensive analytical infrastructure around competition results, world records, and performance benchmarks that makes following the sport particularly rewarding for data-oriented fans.

The Official Results Ecosystems

Powerlifting America posts results from all sanctioned events at powerlifting-america.com. The results database allows you to look up any PA competitor's competition history, compare results across weight classes, and track the qualification pathway for athletes you're following.

OpenPowerlifting is the community-maintained comprehensive database of powerlifting results across all major organizations worldwide. It allows cross-federation comparison, historical result tracking, and is the most complete public record of competitive powerlifting results available.

YouTube — Technique and Competition

Powerlifting YouTube ranges from competition coverage to technique analysis to programming education. The sport's judging standards and technical requirements make it well-suited to video analysis — watching a squat depth comparison or a close-call judging decision is much more instructive in video form than in text.

Key content: competition coverage from major PA and USAPL events, technical breakdown channels that analyze elite lifters' technique, and the increasingly active female powerlifting content ecosystem that has helped drive the sport's recent growth.

Instagram and TikTok

Individual powerlifters are among the most active strength sports athletes on social media. The platform rewards both the visual of a maximum single-effort lift and the longer-form content of competition prep narratives that powerlifting's structured meet cycle creates naturally.

How to Follow HYROX

HYROX has the most developed digital follow infrastructure of any event at the North Texas Strength Expo — a product of the sport's explosive growth and its deliberately modern, media-forward approach to community building.

The HYROX App and Official Platform

HYROX maintains an official athlete platform at hyrox.com where registered athletes can track their times, compare against global benchmarks, and follow other athletes' race histories. If you're competing or plan to, creating an account gives you direct access to the global leaderboard that makes HYROX's universal format so compelling.

YouTube — Race Coverage and Athlete Content

The official HYROX YouTube channel publishes Elite 15 race coverage, World Championships content, and athlete features. The Elite 15 races specifically are broadcast-quality productions — the most professional presentation of any competition at the North Texas Strength Expo's five sports.

Instagram and TikTok

HYROX content on both platforms benefits from the sport's visual accessibility — the race format is easy to follow in short clips, the effort is viscerally compelling, and the global community is highly active. The #HYROX hashtag on both platforms produces significant daily content volume.

For DFW-specific HYROX content: search for Dallas HYROX athletes, HYROX Texas, and HYROX Dallas to find the local community that races the same courses and events you'll encounter at the North Texas Strength Expo.

How to Follow the United Grid League

The United Grid League has a dedicated and growing digital following that's disproportionately engaged relative to the sport's current size — a sign of strong community investment that suggests continued growth.

YouTube

The United Grid League YouTube channel publishes full-length match coverage, athlete features, and season recaps. Match viewership has grown dramatically over recent seasons — from 21,000 total views in 2021 to over 407,000 views across 14 matches by 2024. The content quality has improved alongside the growth.

Watching two or three full matches on YouTube is the fastest way to develop a genuine understanding of the sport before seeing it live at the North Texas Strength Expo.

Instagram

Follow the official United Grid League account for match highlights, team rosters, and season updates. Individual UGL athletes are active on the platform — finding the athletes competing at the expo and following them before the event dramatically improves the live spectator experience.

How to Follow Arm Lifting and Grip Sports

The arm lifting and grip sports community operates primarily through dedicated forums, social media groups, and the IronMind website — smaller in scale than the other sports but deeply engaged and welcoming to newcomers.

IronMind (ironmind.com) is the foundational institution of grip sports. Their social media presence and website cover grip competition results, certified record holders, and the Captains of Crush certification standards that provide universal benchmarks for grip strength development.

Search on YouTube and Instagram for "grip strength competition," "one hand deadlift," and "arm lifting" to find the community's content. The accounts that appear consistently are the practitioners who will be competing at the North Texas Strength Expo.

Building Your Full Strength Sports Media Diet

The most satisfying way to follow strength sports is to build a content ecosystem that spans multiple sports — because the athletes and communities overlap more than the sport-specific content suggests.

Many powerlifters follow strongman. Many HYROX athletes are interested in powerlifting strength development. The United Grid League draws from CrossFit and functional fitness communities that already follow HYROX. Building a diverse strength sports following gives you the full picture of what the North Texas Strength Expo represents — a multi-sport community that shares values and supports each other's disciplines.

The expo itself is the best single-location expression of that multi-sport community available in Texas. Follow the events online, then come to Mesquite to see them live.

Follow the sport online. Then see it live at the North Texas Strength Expo.Get your tickets at ntxstrengthexpo.com