Article Discussion: "Are You Really Strong"

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Once again, in the absence of livespills and article forums, I’ll post this here. For those that have not read this.

And yes, once again, I’m using this to point out something silly.

Having an article about being “really strong” and then talking about 30% bodyweight farmer’s for time is just silly. Adding a towel does not decease silliness.

Let’s quit making farmer’s walks so goofy folks. No more dumbbells, ketllebells, milkjugs, etc. Go get some actual farmer’s handles, or at the VERY least a trap/deadsquat bar, put twice your bodyweight on it and try to walk 50’ in 8-10 seconds. Don’t make it a grip exercise; make it a full body exercise.

Am I wrong?

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The article’s title is EXTREMELY misleading. I’ve spent 30 years training at powerlifting gyms, Olympic & strongman facilities, met a LOT of really strong people and this article no way reflects their training.

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I’ve never done heavy farmers walks like you describe, but I’ve done enough dumbbell carries to know that 30% BW is absurdly light for anyone who might want to explore their ideas of “real strength”.

I agree that heavy carries are one of the great measures of “real” strength. One of my most difficult “sets” was done while working as a bouncer. I had to move a totally limp, passed out girl who probably weighed close to 240. Shouldering that gal was hard enough but carrying her up some stairs, through a crowd of people, down some stairs and through a series of narrow passageways to get her outside and safely into a chair was REALLY HARD.

I also had to do this without first driving to the gym to get my lifting belt, lifting shoes and nose tork. Oh and no warm up either (shout out to @exercisemachina).

Strongman has it right. Odd object lifting warms my heart almost as much as using brute force to power out of a technically sound armbar.

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This sounds precisely like sandbag training, which is what I hoped the article would touch on at least once. I read the title and description, got all excited about it being about more than just barbells…only to find it was about kettlebells. Oh boy; what a VERY different way to lift weights; now the handle is on TOP.

Let’s talk kegs, sandbags, logs, stones, REAL difficult to grab objects if we want to go this route. It’s a great area to discuss, and this was a let down.

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Reading this makes me wish I had a strongman gym.

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Nerts to that; just DIY everything. Sandbags and kegs are easy, and so worth it.

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You all are just ignorant. Barbell deadlifts aren’t real strength. You aren’t really strong until you do rack pulls.

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Think your deadlifts are a test of strength? Bet you haven’t tried a one handed kettlebell incline bench press with only one foot on the floor and one bum cheek on the bench.

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Throw an axle on it and we can talk. When the weights can’t flex, pulling from that height can suck. But yeah, “are you just barbell strong? Well try THIS…barbell exercise”

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My favourite line is

“Focusing on these three lifts means you’ll get good at these three lifts… but not much more”

Pretty sure someone with a 2,000lb total will be strong at a lot of things they try, they could probably even do a pretty heavy double front kettlebell front squat.

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For sure. There’s something to be said about specificity, and of course over specializing, but you look at the first World’s Strongest Man and saw a bunch of dudes who, when taken out of their element, were still pretty damn strong.

Brian Siders was a regular feature at the Arnold, and did pretty well for himself.

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Not wrong necesarily, just misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is about.

The introduction spends several paragraphs explaining that the title “Are you REALLY strong?” means “Are you ACTUALLY strong”, not “are you VERY strong”. You’re taking the article out of context.

Very-heavy farmer’s walks for 8-10 seconds deliver a different training stimulus than going 30-60 seconds without dropping the weight (like the article recommends). It’s not that one method is better than the other. They’re different tools for different jobs. The article was talking about “A” but you’re judging it for not talking about “B”.

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I apologize if I wrote my post to reflect that, because it wasn’t my intent. I understood the article meant “actually strong” rather than “very strong”; I felt that a 30% bodyweight farmer’s walk was not a solid metric to determine if someone is actually strong.

For certain; I find that this training stimulus makes one actually strong. The one that they are advocating makes one have some grip strength, but does not make someone actually strong.

EDIT: And I should clarify; a double bodyweight farmer’s for 50’ in 8-10 seconds are not very heavy farmers, at least for a 160-220lb athlete. A very heavy farmer’s walk isn’t going to get done in 8-10 seconds for 50’. That’s getting into moderate loads. If that 50’ takes about 20 seconds, NOW we’re getting into some heavy territory. That, or the athlete is just really slow, and in such cases not “really strong”.

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A good weight for a challenging 30-60 second farmer’s walk is around bodyweight per hand. 30% of bodyweight per hand is so light that it’s not a farmer’s walk. Maybe a farmgirl walk.

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And on this I should clarify that when I say double bodyweight, I mean total weight. I realize the convention is to list weight per hand, but with people liking trap bar carries I wanted to make it easier to understand.

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You can feel that way. I do also think 30% is on the low side in general, but considering most people don’t actually use farmer’s walks at all, it’s a start. In the context of the article, “[…] exposing and fixing weaknesses and asymmetries”, the author seems to feel it’s appropriate.

Again, looking at everything he’s talking about, not just the farmer’s. It seems to be about addressing comprehensive, “functional” strength without significant gaps or imbalances. It’s also probably why many unilateral exercises were suggested for other movement patterns.

Or, just to point out the flip side, it’s possible that the lighter load could simply be a deliberate assessment tool. If grip fails first, it’s the obvious (however unacceptable) weakness. If/when grip doesn’t fail, the issue could be the upper back or hips or glutes, etc. By using a heavier farmer’s weight, you’re increasing the odds of grip going first and swaying the results.

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I’m trying to figure out how ring dips apparently take the pressure off the shoulders.

Ah well, sticking with the pursuit of fake strong.

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This is why I only spoke to the silly part here: the farmers. I find authors are really trying hard to turn them into something they aren’t. Especially so in this case.

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The last paragraph of the first section of the article even says:
“Most people who focus solely on the big three aren’t really even using the strength they’re building in everyday settings.”

I think this same line of thinking applies to people that DON’T focus solely on the big three (of which group, I am one). So…let’s define ‘functional strength’. This is what comes up from a Google search

“Functional strength training involves performing work against resistance in such a manner that the improvements in strength directly enhance the performance of movements so that an individual’s activities of daily living are easier to perform.”

I think it’s safe to say that nothing I do in the gym will ever impact my life outside the gym, with the exception of loaded carries/farmer’s carries. And I don’t think that I am alone in this regard. I sit at a desk 8-10 hours a day staring at a computer and then I go home (after hitting the ‘pointless’ gym, of course). Physical activity at home? Loading/unloading the dishwasher, mowing the yard, carrying bags of groceries from the car to the kitchen, planting flowers, walking up and down stairs.

Farmer’s carries will help my grip strength so that I can carry more groceries at once to the kitchen. Multiple trips? Nah, I do farmer’s carries!

I’ve always been curious, however, how a one-legged squat with a kettle bell will improve my life at home or at the office more than a two-legged squat with a barbell. Or how doing a one-armed push up will better me outside of the gym as compared to doing a standard two-armed bench press with a barbell.

(I know that sounds a bit cheeky, but I’d love to hear a real answer. If I can’t actually get a real answer, then I suppose the answer might be that only those who have manual labor jobs should train at the gym. Nobody else can reap any ‘functional’ benefit from the gym.)

I suppose my point is this: If the author’s thesis is that people should try different exercises outside of the big three in order to alleviate joint pressure, or to equalize strength imbalances, or to further improve core strength, then he shouldn’t have couched his argument in terms of ‘functional strength’.

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I’d argue the one legged squat is the expression of strength with mobility. One of my training partners is a 400+ overhead presser and 800+ puller… he would fail at this test, or at least with one leg. His hip is jacked up, and certain unilateral movements he’s useless at, yet he has elite numbers in a wide array of movements that extremely few could match. We often joke that the stronger we get, the weaker we get, due to stiffness, injury, and sometimes the bigger guys sheer body mass simply gets in the way, making certain movements virtually impossible to get into position. In a lot of ways, these type of “strength expressions”, i.e. one-legged squat, seem more appropriate for general population of lifters. But the guys who do truly heavy lifts… I just rarely EVER see them doing stuff like this.