ABOUT TOM FARRENKOPF

Working Strength, Trained on Purpose.

Tom Farrenkopf is a developing strongman athlete and the person behind FERRAXIS WORKS.

Formal strength training began in September 2025. Nine months later, Tom finished second in Novice Men’s Heavyweight and won the truck pull outright at a first strongman competition.

The work now continues toward competition number two.

Before Strength Became Training

I spent years in jobs where strength was useful long before I thought of it as something worth formally training.

From 2006 through 2019, much of that time was spent on traveling retail-construction crews rebuilding store interiors. The work included demolition, fixture installation, and full store layouts, often before moving directly to the next job with the next crew.

It required physical effort, consistency, problem-solving, and the ability to finish what had been started.

That history gave FERRAXIS WORKS its name. Some of the habits carried forward too: show up, solve the problem, and complete the work before moving on.

Why Strongman

When I began this phase in September 2025, I did not want to repeat an approach centered only on cardio and weight loss.

That work had taught me how to be consistent, but this time I needed a larger objective. I wanted to build strength, and I needed a goal demanding enough to organize the work around it.

Strongman made sense.

It required pressing, pulling, carrying, conditioning, recovery, and the ability to keep performing after fatigue had already set in.

It also matched how I tend to approach anything that matters. I do not care to do it halfway. If I was going to train strength, I wanted to find out how far it could go.

WHERE THE WORK STANDS

From First Competition to the Next

In June 2026, I entered First Blood Strongman Showdown…Reloaded in the Novice Men’s Heavyweight division.

I finished second overall and won the truck pull outright in 10.36 seconds.

That result gave the work its first competitive baseline. I am now preparing for the Wisconsin State Strongman and Strongwoman Competition and documenting what changes between the first contest and the second.

At a Glance

BASED IN	Urbana, Illinois
STRENGTH TRAINING SINCE	September 2025
RETAIL CONSTRUCTION	2006–2019
SIGNATURE EVENT	Truck pull
CURRENT PROJECT	Road to Wisconsin
PRACTICE	Strongman, film, writing, and studio work

The story continues through training films, competition preparation, Dispatches, and the work between one event and the next.