Mama Lou: Strong Woman

A promotional photo of Mama Lou depicts her gazing over one flexed arm, an apple perched in the crook of her elbow. She's about to crush it with her bicep, just one of many feats of strength the 33-year-old Austin-based dynamo performs. Others include ripping telephone books in half, rolling up frying pans, and doing one-armed pull-ups. Nothing's too tough for Mama Lou, the only performing strongwoman in the northern hemisphere.
(more...) - Bust Magazine

Performer Mama Lou applies her "Russian Red" lipstick in her compact mirror and tightens her bejeweled black belt - before splitting an apple perched on her arm with a bruising flex of her bicep.

"Sweeter than apple pie; stronger than an armpit in August," she tells the gaping audience, delivering a graceful curtsy and a bright smile.

Meet Kansas City native Linsey Lindberg, 32, better known as Mama Lou: American Strong Woman when she travels the state fair circuit performing feats of strength. She can lift two 5-pound bags of potatoes with her tongue, pull apart metal chains and rip a phone ... - Louisville, KY The Courier-Journal

By Mary Meehan — mmeehan@herald-leader.com

Linsey Lindberg is a strong woman.

Not just the kind who stands on her own, is resilient, takes charge and is in command.

No, Lindberg is tear-a-phone-book-in-half-for-a-living strong, a kind of strong that brings her to the Lexington Lions Club Bluegrass Fair starting this week in the form of her alter ego, Mama Lou.

So how does someone become a professional strongwoman who dresses like Rosie the Riveter and keeps up a constant comedic patter between feats, including lifting weights with her tongue?

It's not exactly something she trained for, Lindberg said. She just was lucky to have some good, strong DNA.

"I was always very strong, stronger than most of the girls I knew," said Lindberg, who doesn't exactly cut the figure of an overly muscled bodybuilder. "I was always really good at arm wrestling; I could always open jars; I loved, loved, loved, loved the jungle gym and could easily go across the bars."

But opening jars and playground feats don't exactly a career make. She first studied to be a professional aerialist but "kind of fell out of love with it."

She turned to street performing, or being a "busker," as they say in Canada, where she had moved to study.

She like the idea of being an old-fashioned street performer and tried to come up with an act that was unusual but would convince any potential creepers — who might see her performing and think the cash she collected would make her an easy mark — that she could take care of herself.

"Nobody is going to try and come mess with me" after seeing her strongwoman act, she said. "They are going to be terrified."

Audiences as a whole, however, are less afraid than intrigued. Since she started seven years ago, being a strongwoman has become her full-time job and has taken her all over the world. Lexington is the first stop on her summer tour, which will take her across the country. This fall, she is booked in Singapore. She has flown to Fiji, where she performed for the president of the island nation.

"The people were so kind," she said. "I felt like I was more famous than Britney Spears. People were shoving their babies in my arms to take pictures."

She doesn't go the gym to get pumped up but instead builds on her natural strength. She says she can't tell you how much she can bench press because she doesn't know.

Lindberg will tell you, however, that she tears up as many as 21 phone books a week, can crush an apple in her biceps and can do an impressive number of one-armed pull-ups. She asks that people coming to the Bluegrass Fair bring their phone books from home so she can tear them up during her 30-minute shows. (If she brings her own, she said, people think she's cheating.)

At 32, she's trying to adapt some of her show moves to take some of the stress off her body, but she doesn't see giving up her wandering ways.

A dream job would be becoming part of some of the big variety acts that are popular in Europe or a stint with Circus Flora in St. Louis, she says.

One place you won't be seeing her? On the television show America's Got Talent. "They contact me every year, but I have to say no," she said. It all comes down to job security.

Lindberg says there are only three strongwomen in the world. Two of them live in Australia. Exposing her act on national television, she said, might give others an idea to try something similar. That, she said, "would create competition all over the world."

She'd rather stay just under the radar.

"Right now," she said, "I get to be the only one in the Northern Hemisphere.".

Mary Meehan: (859) 231-3261. Twitter: @bgmoms. Blog: Bluegrassmoms.com. - The Lexington Herald-Leader

Ever tried to rip a phone book in two?

That’s just one of the feats fairgoers see when entertainer Mama Lou takes the stage at the Ohio State Fair.

“I am ... the American strongwoman!” she declares as she begins her free, twice-daily show of what she likes to call “superhero strength.”

She’s no Incredible Hulk, but she can crush an apple with her bicep, lift two bags of potatoes with her tongue and bend a frying pan into a cylinder.

And she does it without a bulky, hulky body.

“I want people to know you don’t have to choose between being feminine and being strong,” said the performer, whose real name is Linsey Lindberg. “I’m careful not to lose too much of my feminine shape.”

Lindberg’s road to extreme strength began when she moved from her hometown of Kansas City, Mo., to New York City at age 19 to become a clown. That led her to a short career as an aerial artist and then, six years ago, the desire to become a street performer.

“I was strong — stronger than most men — and I thought, really because no one else was doing it, I’d become a strongwoman street performer.”

Mama Lou was her clown name as well.

Lindberg, 31, said men in particular find it difficult to believe that a woman can do three, one-handed pull-ups or five, one-handed push-ups.

“They sit in the audience with their arms folded,” she said.

But it is the females in the audience she most wants to reach.

“Little girls, and women too, need a role model to look up to,” she said. “I want to spread the message of empowerment.”

When she isn’t performing, Lindberg stays strong by running, jumping rope and doing push-ups, crunches and handstands.

At the fair, she performs at 3:30 and 8 p.m. today and Monday and at 2:45?p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Gazebo Stage.

kgray@dispatch.com - The Columbus Dispatch

Mama Lou is a mighty - and mighty foxy - strong woman. In her show, she bends metal and drives nails into wood with her fist. "The first time I ripped a whole telephone book in half," she's said, "I realized that I could honestly do anything!" - More Magazine

If you've never seen someone break a chopstick with their cheeks - and we're not talkin' about the face here - then Mama Lou, the American Strong Woman, has a trick up her thong just for you.
She calls it an "absolutely ridiculous" feat of strength. You can see her do it on YouTube, but even better, she'll be doing it live this weekend at the third annual Lawrence Buskers Festival.
(more...) - The Kansas City Star

Linsey "Mama Lou" Lindberg is as tough as they come.

Lindberg rips phonebooks in half, eats fire and hammers nails with her fists. She is known as Mama Lou: American Strong Woman for good reason and the Fayetteville resident is nothing short of fierce.

That's why More magazine placed Lindberg on its "Fierce List" alongside other powerful women such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, first lady Michelle Obama, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie and pop superstar Lady Gaga. The May issue is on newsstands now.
(more...) - Fayetteville Observer

Like Superman, Linsey Lindberg has an alter ego. But unlike superman's mild-mannered Clark Kent, Lindberg's is a fire-eating, melt-bar bending powerhouse.
Once she puts on her fake eyelashes, straps a weightlifting belt around her slender waist and paints on a coat of bright red lipstick, she transforms into Mama Lou - the "American Strong woman" capable of feats of strength that would render most men helpless.
As Mama Lou, Lindberg rips phone books in half, breaks flaming boards with her hands, pounds nails into wood with her fists and crushes apples in her biceps. (more...)
- The Fayetteville Observer