

It was particularly necessary for the Atlas Stone event. Spider Tack's original use was as a grip aid in strongman competitions. Spider Tack was more of a hobby than a business for both Deffinbaugh, who owns a gym in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Caruso, who owns a pharmaceutical lab outside Denver. “But again, these are super niche sports,” Deffinbaugh says. Participants of the Scottish Highland Games bought some, too. They sold it to fellow strongman competitors, and then wheelchair sports found them - wheelchair racing and wheelchair rugby. “We just felt like we could do better.”Ĭaruso was pursuing a Ph.D in cell and molecular biology at the time, which helped, and after “tons of trials,” Spider Tack was born. “We kinda went through a lot of it,” Deffinbaugh says. A little over a decade ago, he and fellow Hulk-like human Mike Caruso realized there was an opportunity to innovate their tack. Tack, to help grip massive concrete globes called Atlas Stones, is legal - and very necessary - in strongman competitions.
#Spider tack pro#
He’s been pro since 2014, but lifting big heavy rocks for a lot longer. A strong substance for strongmenĭeffinbaugh is a professional middleweight strongman. “On that particular day, it would have been about 100 times what I would have done on a typical day a year ago,” Deffinbaugh told Yahoo Sports. It was an even bigger day for James Deffinbaugh, one of the co-inventors and co-owners of Spider Tack: Cole’s viral tacit admission to having used the product sent sales through the roof.
