Kalispell’s Lauren ‘The Lumberjill’ Bergman Sets Standing Block Chop World Record
The timed event requires a competitor to chop a 28- to 30-inch tall, 10-inch diameter upright block of wood in half with an axe as fast as they can
By Mike Kordenbrock
About once a week leading up to a big event, timber sports athlete Lauren Bergman goes into her backyard in Kalispell to do what she considers a dress rehearsal for the various categories she’s set to compete in. Among them, there’s one that she’s especially good at. It’s called the standing block chop
The timed event requires a competitor to chop a 28- to 30-inch tall, 10-inch diameter upright block of wood in half with an axe as fast as they can. Success comes incrementally, with each axe stroke progressively splitting the face of the wood block.
Competitors alternate downward and upward axe strokes, and strike different sides of the block. All of this in combination has the effect of dislodging chunks of wood from the face of the secured block, and creating a narrow point of structural vulnerability.
And then at some point, the axe edge cuts clean through, and where there was one block of wood, there are now two jagged stumps.
“There’s nothing like it,” Lauren said of the feeling of that final axe stroke.
Over and over, she practices the angle of her swings, and the technique that goes into them. On a dress rehearsal day, the cross training, strength training and practice takes a break, and she listens to the starting cadence that’s used at competitions, and visualizes the exact order of events, and everything she will do. She forms a mental image of how she wants to feel on competition day, and thinks about her goals.
It’s a deliberate, reflective process that leaves little to chance. But despite all the planning and preparation that she puts in ahead of competitions, Lauren still didn’t expect what would take place July 26 at the U.S. women’s Stihl Timbersports Championships in Milwaukee when she took the stage for the standing block chop.
After 23 swings of her axe, the block was split. The top half tumbled to the floor as it always does. Lauren raised her axe up in celebration as her opponent continued to swing away. Just 26.36 seconds had elapsed.
Lauren hadn’t just won. She’d set a world record. And she left the last one in splinters, beating it by four seconds, and surpassing her own personal record by six seconds.
“No, I did not expect that” Lauren said of how she thought the competition would go.
“I just had some great favor that day,” she said. “Everything pretty much went as it was supposed to with that chop. And I didn’t have any major mistakes, and that was able to put me right where I needed to be.”
When the sawdust had settled, Lauren had finished No. 4 in the standings, out of the 12 women who competed. She scored a personal best time in the stock saw competition, and lost out on first by just .13 seconds. In the single buck competition, she placed 11th, but managed a personal best. And in the underhand chop, she took second place with a personal best, and was edged out by overall champ Erin Lavoie by 3.1 seconds.
It was a major moment for Lauren, whose journey to the upper echelons of logger sports has been a long one. Her husband Seth Bergman, who she met while on the logger sports team at Flathead Valley Community College more than a decade ago, said that about seven years ago when the Stihl women’s competitive series debuted, he remembers watching and thinking Lauren could beat the people he was seeing, and he told her as much.
It took them some time to get the financial stability for Lauren to go for it. As Lauren worked to get fast enough times to make it into a qualifier, a rule change that shifted priority to overall rankings essentially sent her back to square one.
Seth explained that in order for Lauren to hit the times she would need to climb the rankings by entering into the East Coast competitive circuit, which is more conducive to faster times because of the different types of wood that are used. People on the West Coast circuit knew who she was, but in this new grouping, she was somewhat of an unknown who quickly began to earn recognition. Last year she finally made her debut on the big stage after about three years of work. And then this summer she had a breakout moment in the standing chop at the championship.
Lauren said that she didn’t approach reaching the championship as if she had a chip on her shoulder. More accurately, she said, “It was like a ‘You don’t know me, but you’re about to,’” mindset.
Her husband pointed towards her calm in the midst of competition as one of her strengths. “She doesn’t really have to prove anything. She knows who she is. She put in the work,” he said.
“Something I’ve noticed about her all the way back in college, was she’s clutch under pressure. I think something about that big stage environment, she gets excited in a good way.”
Along similar lines, Seth said that Lauren hasn’t let the success get to her head. She’s still helping take care of their young kids, and doing what needs to be done for their family, while finding time to undertake the training necessary to find continued success in her sport. She also continues to grow her YouTube page, whose title references her nickname Lauren The Lumberjill, which is a play on Rosie the Riveter.
“I think if she sticks to the game plan, then there’s no reason she couldn’t win the whole thing someday,” Seth said.
All that being said, there was some celebrating done after Lauren set the standing block chop world record. In the immediate aftermath, her daughters and husband were ecstatic, and she’s heard stories of people she knows jumping up and down and screaming as they watched the competition on livestream. To cap it all off, a surprise party was waiting for her after she got back to the Flathead.
“That was really special, because I was thousands of miles away,” Lauren said. “To be able to come home and celebrate with the people that are in the sport and know it, and just realize how exciting that is for me and people that have helped me throughout the years. That was pretty special.”