Never Go Full Strongman (or Bikini)

Training Training Logs
381

Hey man, hope the back feels better!

I wanted to return the favor and give you a heads up on a strongman program that you maybe don’t know. As always I can not post a link to the site and I am not sure if I am allowed to say it’s name… so I took a screen shot. There was no particular author mentioned whom I could give credit.

Porgram, Strongman
Porgram, Strongman1921×1033 91.7 KB

@T3hPwnisher : Maybe that interests you too.

I saw it a long time ago and was always kind of curious to try it at some point. It seems however very brutal being basically full body for 4 days a week and I am not sure if I could hang.

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382

Ok, clever me. The site’s name is seen in the screenshot. If this is not allowed, please let me know admins.

383

Looks pretty basic. About the only thing that might be rough is trying to do 3x10 of front squats. High rep front squats without a harness tend to mean getting choked out, haha.

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I don’t know I have never really done high frequency training. Squatting twice, deadlifting twice and pressing 3 times per week plus event work, which would also include pressing most of the times, it seems a lot.

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The volume is pretty low on the training days, which makes the total weekly pan out well. I’ve been doing stuff in that frequency range for a while now.

I wouldn’t press during the event work for a program like this. I interpreted event work to mean skill/moving work. As you get in season, I imagine you’d swap the pressing exercises for implement specific stuff.

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386

Thanks man! Lol, I’ve never heard of that site, so I’ll have to check 'er out (sorry mods). But yeah I like that set-up; real to-the-point. I may have to give it a run when I get tired of percentages again.

I bet you could hang man. I think @T3hPwnisher & my set-ups are similar, in that with the additional assistance work (pushing work, pulling work, and single-leg or core work), we are doing full-body every time we workout. this set up looks like the volume is muted a bit for some added intensity.

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387

Learning to clean decently has helped me tremendously. It’s made it so that I have great explosive ouput on hip extension toward things like tire flips, any kind of object load, and axle/log cleans.

One thing I’ve learned to do is one motion heavy ass tires over without having to jut a knee into it. Also, the “hit” motion of a clean helps so much on a heavy axle. I don’t have to use as much muscle under TuT to hulk the weight to my belly for a continental, but instead kinda pop it up to position with a hit and “catch”.

At one point in my training I was doing tons of tire flips and power cleans and the time I put into those movements long ago still serves me today and it doesn’t take long to tap back into it after time off from triple extension requiring movements.

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388

You’re making me rethink my perspective on cleans. I actually love doing them, hell they’re probably my favorite movement to do in the gym. I’ve just always had them on the back burner since I wasn’t convinced of their carryover. But after this cycle, I think I’m going to run that new strongman template or something like it and give them some time in the sun.

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12-14-17, 1000% leader 2, 5s week, workout B

A1) Paused axle bench - 45x5, 95x5, 135x5, 195x5x5 (did pull-aparts w/ warm-up sets)
A2) Chins - about 5x10 (last couple sets were like 8,6)

B1) Sumo deads - 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x5
B2) push-ups

C1) walking lunges, really trying to stretch - 3x100’
C2) hammer tires, 3x10/side (hard conditioning 2/ explosive work)

Notes
Decided to try my hand pulling sumo since there is a little more room for error vs conventional when it comes to potential for low back strain imo. Back isn’t terrible right now, but sleeping isn’t super comfy. I had no phone or print out of my percentages, so I just worked up to what would have been my top set. (minus 5lbs, but I was training in the outdoor area and didn’t feel like walking inside to retrieve tiny plates).

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I think the issue that comes with discussing weightlifting movements and carryover into strongman is many people assume the question is “Should I LEARN how to clean” vs “Should I perform the cleans I already know how to do”

Getting proficient at weightlifting movements takes a bit of time, and for a strongman, there are other movements one can do that require less time to learn that can still get you pretty similar training effect. In that instance, spending time learning to clean, jerk, snatch, etc, just doesn’t have the benefit. But for an already proficient athlete? Might as well. Jesse Marunde came into strongman as a track athlete proficient in the Olympic lifts and used them well, as did Mariusz Pudzianowski.

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I did somewhat forget to mention, I trained cleans with tire flips and axle clean and press all the time. In fact, learning to tire flip really well might have taught me to clean better, and vice versa. I’m definitely not saying structure an entire training session around cleans only, but definitely work on weightlifting style cleans and how to integrate that into strongman events.

I personally liked power cleans over full cleans since they don’t ask much of the legs in comparison, but still teach the explosion and triple extension that is super important in strongman.

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Hm, you put it in a very interesting way. I’ve never really taken the proficiency thing into account when discussing it - i essentially just assumed that all audience members reading were proficient in cleans, especially since they are so integral to most high school training programs (in the US at least). & you know what they say about assuming.

I suppose “cleans” could simply represent “X”, in that any movement you are not already proficient in, you must really decide if the carryover is sufficient enough to practice the movement.

I’ve heard of some top strongmen doing snatches & the like, & I’m abysmal at snatching. So while it might do good things for them as they already good at them, for me the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

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393

Ah, i get ya. It was part of training that whole movement pattern. Ive been doing a fair bit of box jumps, but those really only hit a portion of the movement pattern. Iv been meaning to work in more tire flipping.

I like power cleans myself, im just a lazy typist lol. I actually find full cleans sort of awkward

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I am super inefficient at cleans. I don’t really have the technique down. Don’t even mention full cleans. I still kind of like them and think they are impressive.

I will give them a shot. Even though I am doing more of an explosive reverse curl. Targets my traps pretty good though.

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It’s pretty crazy to think about. My first clean with a barbell happened in a strongman competition, and it was UGLY. My high school sports programs were old school; wrestling coach didn’t like lifting, just did a lot of bodyweight work.

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Cool to see how different things can be for us growing up and how we got around to doing particular lifts in the first place.

In weight training in high school, one of the movements we trained hard was hang and power cleans. We never deadlifted! Squats, bench, and a fuck ton of power variation cleans.

Honestly, though, part of the reason I spent time on cleans after high school was to chase the record of some football players hang clean, which I think was 325? I ended up getting like 315 at one point 3-4 years ago and honestly that was hard enough. The high school football players technique was so crazy though. Instead of hinging just below the knee, they’d just rock the bar off their hips, under the belly button, with bent arms, then catch it somehow.

397

Hey fellas,

sorry it took me a bit to get back. My phone is in Spanish, so typing can be pain.

@Koestrizer I used to be pretty bad at them. I mean, I’m not great by oly lifter standards, but I imagine I’d hold my own in most crossfit gyms. I got decent at them in college, since that’s pretty much all one of my best buds did in the weight room so I would join in when I lifted with him. Try 'em out man. Get your hips a little lower than you would on a deadlift, and make sure to force throse elbows around!

@T3hPwnisher that is pretty crazy, was as it with an axle? I can’t imagaine having to clean an axle having never attempted the movement before. Well, gotta love the classics. Did you guys have a good team?

@strongmanvinny2 I agree man, & it’s something I don’t think about as much as I should. My area was pretty much the same - Squat, bench, clean, & incline. Actually, I wasn’t even in athletics or anything of the sort in High school. All of my buddies were though, so whenever we lifted together, we basically only did those four movements.

Dude 315 is a sick clean, much less 325 - nuts to think that some HS kids are that strong. Lol, sounds like a new contest clean variation.

12-16-17. 1000% leader 2, 5s week, workout C

2 mile dog walk, easy 1

Front Squat - 195x7x5

Axle Press - 90x5, 105x5, 120x5

biceps, triceps, & woodchops

20 minutes of incline treadmill walking (Easy 2)

12-17-17, 1000% leader 2, 531 week, workout A

Conditioning (easy 3, hard 3)

  • hill sprints, 12 EMOM
  • 2 mile fartlek run
    ^my wife ran 6 hills, E2MOM, and steady state 2 miles.

Weights (ME)

A) Front squat - 45x5, 135x5, 175x5, 200x5, 225x5

B1) Strict log press - 120x5x5
B2) Circus bell rows - 4x10 (don;t know the weight.

C1) Farmers walks - 185/hand x 2 x 100’
C2) 2x25 dips

HER/Bikini
She gave front squats a shot but her hips were super tight. She recently bought an assortment of bands, so she went off and did a bunch of banded lunges & xband walks.

Notes

  • I finally hit all of the conditioning sessions, so that’s cool. Just had to double down a couple of days.

  • I was pleased that i hit the 225x5 after all of the hills & running. given, 225x5 is nowhere near a Pr for me, but the fact that I hit cleanly it under fatigue points to having the correct training max.

  • the heavy farmers felt good. Slow as hell, but the ground was really sloppy as it’s been raining for th elast few days, and frankly the ground is always a bit iffy anyway.

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398

I had cleaned an axle before my first strongman competition with axle clean and press (well before I learned how to continental), but my first ever barbell clean happened in my second competition. It felt awful, haha.

Our team wasn’t bad, but hard to really say. It was a small private catholic school, and we played in a division with other small private schools. Sometimes, that meant a very exclusive talent pool, and other times it meant whoever showed up was on the team. I’ll say that, since I weight trained and did conditioning on me own, even though I was an absolutely awful wrestler due to being a total goon, on the occasions that I DID win, it was because I outmuscled the other guy after exhausting him into the third round, so I think regular weight training would have helped us more.

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Wrist massacre! Yeah they first time I ever did a barbell clean I hated everything about it. But since I knew they were good, I just kept forcing myself to do them until I liked them. Which is also how I fell in love with sushi.

Dude with those private school funding & the more one-on-one time with the coaches, I bet you ran into some tough competitors.

Not having weights does seem like a big hole in the total training program. I wanted to withhold any judgement as the record would dictate whether or not the training was successful. It’s odd when supposed experts in their field demonstrate that they have incomplete knowledge on their subject. Doctors & nutrition come to mind too.

Haha, man, strongman really is your niche.

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Yeah, private schools can really go in 2 different directions. Some can be super ritzy and have the latest and greatest stuff because they’re privately funded by wealthy investors, and others can be well below code because they’re just scrapping together whatever they can get from the tuitions of the students. We were definitely the latter, haha.

Our wrestling coaches definitely knew how to wrestle, and they could make good wrestlers, but I think they really were operating under the premise that the 1 hour spent in the weight room would be better spent on sprawl drills. I can’t say they were wrong, considering I was an awful wrestler and a good lifter when my sport was wrestling, haha. But yeah, took a while for me to settle into strongman. Really thought I wanted to be a fighter, but found out I just plain don’t like hurting people.