Just thought i would share this with you all, i know you are all really into this and nutrition and things to help you perform better so here is one i picked up at one point.
After you workout have a really hot shower as hot as you can bare and after about five mins turn it right down to the frezing cold setting and stand in that for about 5 mins this really helps with muscle soreness but i don’t recommend it for ppl with heart trouble.
Some nice functional grip stuff-Put an olympic bar in the top of the rack so it can roll…now just hang for time…add weight when your grip gets stronger…these are particularly fun with a two inch bar.
The wheel barrow is great and so are sand bags…and both are easy to make/get.
Make a sled and to pulls and drags with it…your legs will burn unlike any conventional weights.
Field stone…round stones…or beer kegs filled with sand and water…any of these and do loading to various heights and distance to carry…tremnendous functional back strength and glute ham tie in gets crushed when you walk with the implements.
Take a sqaut bar outside and have your partners hand it up to you…load it with 80% of your top end squat…now walk til you drop…In strongman you could use a super yoke, but if you can not build one the squat bar works!
As far as functional stength not making you grow…IT WILL MAKE YOU GROW!
Since I have gone to strongman exclusively(from powerlifing and football)in August of 98 I have put on 15 pounds of muscle…the pictures on the LAND OF GIANTS ARTICLES make me look skinny…one key to making functional strength exercise work is to do them against the clock so that you have improvement…that and continue to add weight…in 98 we did farmers walks with 220…now we do them with 330 or more.
Coach Davies...great article
I like the idea of a wheelbarrel walk, I am thinking about buying one and walking around my cul-de-sac, its about 1/10th of a mile. I am thinking of doing it as Coach Davies suggested, after a workout for the posterior chain, but what about first thing in the morning? I can’t get to the gym then and a few laps, slowly adding resistance with sandbags, then finishing by getting on my knees and pressing the damn thing for a few reps, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Then bang out a sub maximal set of chins… Hows that as a worning wakeup in lieu of flavored coffee and an apple fritter
Monkeyboy Eric, re: Sandbags. Go to an Army/Navy surplus store and buy a couple of army duffel bags and fill them with sand. Work great.
thanc coy and the others much appreciated.
Coy-I should thank you for mentioning one of my favorite old exercises. A simple walk with an Olympic bar. A great coach, Peanuts West, used to perform this by having Squat racks on either side of a gym. As you noted, load up the weight and walk from one side to another. Obviously only suited for the most hardcore of gyms but if you have the chance try this - it will blow you up. I used this on a undersized Linebacker a number of years ago. It had a dramatic impact on him and he’s entering his 9th year in the league now. Tony-I use a hybrid of gripping & striking exercises, such as tug of war pulls (I think I explained that earlier), non-conforming object lifts combined with bag work and non-weighted GPP in a complex fashion. Does that help?
In faith,
Coach Davies
Coach Davies:
Overthinking…me? Yeah I’ve been known to do that. Thanks for all the help. 
Keago
Great post guys! I just wanted to add a few points about the debate surrounding Mike the Libertarian’s comments. First, gymnastics does involve large eccentric forces: landing on the various dismounts being perhaps the greatest with forces equalling as much as 13x BW upon landing. Additionally, any deceleration of a body segment you see requires an eccentric contraction, this is often seen in tumbling ring work and the horse events. As for throwing an object, eccentric contractions are needed to slow the arm down after the object is released (although with heavy things like rocks, kegs and people this does not apply as much). But what about catching objects such as med balls? Doesn’t this fall into the domain of FXNL training? As for the wheelbarrel example, that probably has more muscles working eccentrically than any of the above examples. As soon as your foot hits the ground the triple extention mechanism (ankle ,knee and hip extensors are eccentrically firing in conjuction with your paraspinals and shoulder girdle and biceps. The excursion on these motions are small but very intense - that is the nature of functional activities. It is also why functional training isn’t geared for hypertrophy. There is very little TUT and only a small amount dynamic motion but to say that there are no eccentric requirements in functional training is incorrect. MC
FFS, you have GOT to purchse “Mastery of Hand Strength” from ironmind. You WILL get more grip and hand exercises than you know what to do with. One of them that I like is this: buy 2 softballs and baseballs. Screw the biggest eyehook you can find into them. Then, use a carabiner and webbing (or whatever you want to use) to attach HEAVY objects. Then, you do the farmer’s walk while “palming” the balls. Or, you can do deadlifts, rows, etc. You can even attach them to a chinning bar and do pullups with a VERY open grip!
FFS, by the way, I just wanted to throw out the public disclaimer that the eyehooks CAN come out in the middle of a set! =( ouch!
Board pushes…take a 2x4 and put it on the ground and them just push it for say 100-200 yards…
More grip…take a soft ball and drill a hole in the center(take two)-put a rail road spike or like appuratus through the hole…no hang weight off the spke and just squeeze and walk…your grip will cry!
Thanx guys all this is great. so what do you routines and diet all look like. I’d be happy to post mine as well if you all or at least some chip in.
Right guys heres a website for all your strong man/ functional strength training stuff.
happy training and productive workouts to yah
I had a great functional strength workout today. Log deadlifts, log OHPs, log benches, log rows, log shrugs, saxon side bends, and side presses. I think next workout I’ll do saxon bends, stick curls, stick delt cap work, log squats, and chins.
Patty - so please tell more to everyone - thats a tremendous workout. What type of rep range did you use and general tempo. I would like to hear more.
In faith,
Coach Davies
I’d like to know which exercises to do with a chest workout, a back workout, and a quad-dominant(squats) workout?
Jeremy: I would have never ever thought of that, damn that must kill. I gotta get my mitts on that book. There’s a wrestler who squashes apples into applesauce with his hands, he gets a newspaper &, 1 sheet at a time, uses his thumb & a finger to roll it up into a little pea-sized ball.
I only did 1-5 reps depending on the movement. Tempo was about 31X1. Next workout I’m going for higher reps and slower tempo except for chins. I’m not into GPP stuff, so I don’t go over 12 reps, usually not over 8. Intense running and functional strength work is about all I do for GPP.
Future Marine
I left boot camp at Parris Island 10 March 2000 so here are my recommendations:
Bridges - you’ll get put into pushup position and told to hold it for indefinite periods of time, so you need to build your core strength in that position. Just hold pushup position and suck your stomach in as long as you can.
Definitely get accustomed to doing mountain climbers and squat thrusts, those are part of your pt regime
Get to where you can run three miles, all of the walking you’ll do will take care of your aerobic fitness. I’d also get accustomed to racewalking, you’d be amazed at how much faster you’ll walk when you get out. I can walk as fast as the average person jogs.(This will also help you at MCT or SOI depending on what your MOS is)
Overhead squats and front squats - punishment exercises. You’ll do them with footlockers.
Pullups train with your hands pronated and when you get to doing them with your hands supinated you’ll knock out 20 no problem.
Lots of crunches.
Basically your physical fitness test score will affect your promotion after you get out of basic training. Trust me it sucks to be a private so you want to bust your behind and try to be the honor grad. Then you’ll come out either lance corporal or pfc. Either way it’s more money and more responsiblity but you’re that much closer to corporal(which is the first non commissioned officer rank).
Oh yeah, just in case they do this one to you, practice hanging upside down with your feet hooked on a bar, this builds up your tibialis anterior and prevents shin splints but they do it as punishment. Boot camp pt isn’t hard. It’s the incentive pt which has no definite stopping point that gets you. Get used to bear crawling for time that’s another “game” DIs like to play.
Oh and practice getting undressed and dressed in 60 seconds trust me you’ll need this info.
Hope this helps
Thanks Ballast and Phenomenon. I actually got two books on Marine Boot camp. One is called making the Corp. It’s about a reporter who followed around a bunch of recruits and tells of their experiences, what they have to go through, their backgrounds, stuff like that. The other is a book on the exercises of Marine boot camp, the O’Course, and some other information. That one’s by I think Five-star fitness. Again, thanks for your help.