Sandbag Lifting

Training Powerlifting
21

So will it hurt the tire I use for flips to beat it with a sledgehammer, or should I get another tire? I have to say though, it would be hard to get a tire in worse shape then the one I use for flips…

22

CT, this type of training is definately the most fun. I spent most of college doing sandbag, kettlebell and odd oject lifting in circuits. It was definately the most fun I’ve ever had working out. I also use a half full keg I have at home. I got an empty shell, jammed a pair of needle-nosed pliers in the ball valve to create space. I put a hose over the valve and let the water bleed in for a few hours. When it sloshes around it makes it difficult to handle and throw. Brooks Kubik himself told me how and it works. Good times.

23

Sandbags… that’s creative :wink:

24

Damn I love you girl. I mean really i love you =)j/k I love anything that is new to add to lifting that doesnt use standard dumbells or barbells. Espicially for like circuit training activites. I can round up plenty of sandbags here =). Keep the GPP and misc lifts coming!!! By the way… you are looking great in the pics posted like a week ago. You will smoke em all!Keep rocking Vixen
Dastang

25

CT,

While I was certainly impressed with your bodybuilding venture it’s nice to have you back in the world of strength training.

Since I live in a townhouse, I don’t have a nice big backyard where I can flip tires and carry stuff. And sandbags can get messy inside, although there are ways to fix that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do fun stuff like this. Carrying kettlebells up the stairs, moving furniture for the heck of it, the Waterbury walk, and the shovel lift all make for good strongman type training in the confines of a limited space.

26

Google Mike Hartle pertaining to a great 9 part sledgehammer training series.

Dr. Hartle, if I remember, is Mike Robertson’s boss. Maybe he can get Mike to post the series. I found this series about 2-3 years ago.

27

I have had most of my athletes working with sledges, sandbags and logs for the past 8 months now. We went through an intensive four week cycle of sledge finishers after every workout. As far as the sandbag clean and press…i have two guys with freaky strength. No one would believe what they are tossing around at age 18 & 19. We also added shoulder tosses and hip tosses, their big three have just sky-rocketed, along with their speed and power.

I even have a couple of elite females working with the bags and sledges. They are both two All-American Softball players who dominate. They love just mashing the tires with the sledges. (And they are NOT men haters’…just two great athletes)

I wrote articles for my company regarding all three…pm me if would like a glimpse.

Keep mashing,
SP

28

[quote]flabtoslab wrote:
Google Mike Hartle pertaining to a great 9 part sledgehammer training series.

Dr. Hartle, if I remember, is Mike Robertson’s boss. Maybe he can get Mike to post the series. I found this series about 2-3 years ago.

[/quote]

yes Dr. Mike Harle has some great sledgehammer training series articles. I believe the were posted on Renegadetraining .com before you had to pay to view.
Mike Robertson if you view this tell Dr.Hartle to post them

29


Here’s a pic of Pat Lafrance, a young sprinter who recently decided to switch to powerlifting.

That’s the bag, loaded with 220lbs. This was taken at the end of a 200’ walk preceded by lifting the bag from the floor to the shoulder and concluded by walking up and down a flight of stairs… oh yeah, he weights all of 155lbs!!!

30

Here’s a pic from Frank, an old man who trains at the gym. The guy is surprising … he’s like 200 zillion years old and trains on most of the strongman/GPP exercise we use, and he doesn’t suck at it! He trains every morning. I put him right up there with Emery Chevrier, a master olympic lifter I trained with who power cleaned 122.5kg and power snatched 92.5kg at 77kg while 67 years of age.

31

Christian,

  1. What do you think of clubbells?

  2. Do you play any sports for fun besides: olifting, bbing, strongman?

  3. What do you think transfers more to strongman lifts better? powerlifts or olifts or combination?

  4. What’s the heaviest you ever overhead squatted? Do you recommend ass to grass rom if one has healthy knees? Do you feel like overhead squats are one of the best lifts for allaround strength like Dan John says?

  5. Do you a lot of assistance exercises (rev hypers, glute ham raises, etc) or just mostly stick to the big moves?

  6. What’s your vertical leap?

  7. What’s your best deadlift?

32

[quote]BPC wrote:
Christian,

  1. What do you think of clubbells?

  2. Do you play any sports for fun besides: olifting, bbing, strongman?

  3. What do you think transfers more to strongman lifts better? powerlifts or olifts or combination?

  4. What’s the heaviest you ever overhead squatted? Do you recommend ass to grass rom if one has healthy knees? Do you feel like overhead squats are one of the best lifts for allaround strength like Dan John says?

  5. Do you a lot of assistance exercises (rev hypers, glute ham raises, etc) or just mostly stick to the big moves?

  6. What’s your vertical leap?

  7. What’s your best deadlift?

[/quote]

  1. Never used them. I prefer not to comment on something I never used.

  2. Kayaking and golf.

  3. Combination. OLY definetly help with overhead lifting and cleaning. But the brute strength built with the powerlifts are the very foundation of strongman comps.

  4. a) I squatted 150kg overhead in 2002 while training at the Centre Claude-Robillard along some of Canada’s top lifters; I also drop snatched 130kg. b) I recommend full squats if one has healthy knees and sufficient flexibility to avoid a tail under position (loosing your lower back arch in the bottom position). c) To be honest I never was a huge fan of the overhead squat for athletes are most of them lack in the shoulder flexibility department to be able to properly perform the exercise. Since my pro athletes have 8 to 16 weeks to prepare for a season (I train mostly hockey players who play 80+ games per year) so I must focus on “rapid gains” exercises. Many also have recurrent shoulder injuries.

  5. I personally stick to big moves in the squat and bench because I have decent levers for these lifts. But I have to perform a lot of auxilary work to improve my deadlift. My athletes use auxilary exercises, but not so much to move their big exercises up as to make sure that they are properly balanced.

  6. Right now… probably 2" :slight_smile: At my best, when I was competing in olympic lifting and was around 207lbs I had a vertical of 36" (computer tested). My intern of last year and I used to have box jumping contests before the athletes can in to train. He now has a 40" vertical (he participates in dunking contests at a tad over 6’).

  7. Lets not go there. My deadlift always sucked big time :wink:

33

CT- A few Cluster Training Q’s

  1. Who would you say you use it for more, your athletes or your regular people seeking hypertrohpy(if you train any)

  2. Who do you think it’s more benefical for?

  3. Do you feel it has any worth in terms of using it during isolation movements?

34

[quote]bigpump23 wrote:
CT- A few Cluster Training Q’s

  1. Who would you say you use it for more, your athletes or your regular people seeking hypertrohpy(if you train any)

  2. Who do you think it’s more benefical for?

  3. Do you feel it has any worth in terms of using it during isolation movements?[/quote]

  4. With athletes, advanced athletes only.

  5. Guys with an already important muscle mass and who don’t have a lot of time to improve (most of my athletes have 12 weeks to train at the most).

  6. It will work with any movement. I’d consider using it with tweener lifts (isolation exercises that can still be trained heavy - e.g. barbell curl. But for most iso exercises I would prefer extended 5s to pure clusters.

35

I may be a dumby but can CT or anyone else explain the difference between extended 5’s and pure clusters? My thought of cluters were taking a weight 90% of 1RM and doing one rep, then resting for 15 seconds then doing another rep, and so on for a few reps (3-5)

36

[quote]BPC wrote:
get strong as hell in a “usable” strength kind of way. I hate the term funcional.[/quote]

Not only do you hate functional strength, but you cant spell it! hehehe

37

[quote]bigpump23 wrote:

I may be a dumby but can CT or anyone else explain the difference between extended 5’s and pure clusters? My thought of cluters were taking a weight 90% of 1RM and doing one rep, then resting for 15 seconds then doing another rep, and so on for a few reps (3-5)[/quote]

A pure cluster is as you mentioned (but I recommend 7-12 sec. of rest between reps) while extended 5s as follow:

  1. Use a weight that you can lift 5 times
  2. Perform your 5 reps
  3. Rest for 7-12 seconds
  4. Resume the set, trying to get 2-3 more reps
    Continue with the pause + more reps until you reach 10 reps for the set.
38

thanks CT I did 5 sets of 5 clusters and man, that kicked my ass on the incline chest press

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
bigpump23 wrote:

I may be a dumby but can CT or anyone else explain the difference between extended 5’s and pure clusters? My thought of cluters were taking a weight 90% of 1RM and doing one rep, then resting for 15 seconds then doing another rep, and so on for a few reps (3-5)

A pure cluster is as you mentioned (but I recommend 7-12 sec. of rest between reps) while extended 5s as follow:

  1. Use a weight that you can lift 5 times
  2. Perform your 5 reps
  3. Rest for 7-12 seconds
  4. Resume the set, trying to get 2-3 more reps
    Continue with the pause + more reps until you reach 10 reps for the set.[/quote]
39

[quote]BPC wrote:

Cool.

What do you think about hill sprints and farmer walks up a hill? Car pushing?

[/quote]

Because of my old soccer days I try not to think about hill sprints anymore.

Farmer walking and car pushing is tons of fun. I think car pushing can be pretty easy, so I usually pull a car. My buddy and I have the ironmind towing harness and he keeps it in his car at all times.

Speaking of keeping stuff in the car, anytime we have to stand around and wait for stuff we start pulling a vehicle around, doing blob lifting (I keep a 37.5 blob in my car), find random large stones to lift, or do 5,10, or 25 pound plate flips (I always have some plates in my car). These exercises are things we just do when we are bored waiting for people, so they don’t officially count for our fun day workouts.

Another fun training twist is the Apollon’s Axle. Get yourself one of those and train exclusively on it (deadlift, oly lifts, rows, etc.) for a couple months. When you go back to a regular bar everything is easy. My hands and forearms have never taken such a beating. Use the fat handled dumbells as well (2"-3" buggers) and after a bit you’ll realize why regular dumbells are near useless for farmer walks.

Regards,

Sensless

40

C.T.,

I am confused as to why I often see trainers/stregth coaches have their athletes perfoming static stretches prior to the start of a game. I see it all the time when I go to an NBA, NFL, or MLB game. Do these coaches not know that studies have shown static stetching reduces power output? OR, maybe I’m missing something here?

Thanks again,

Danny