Posts Tagged ‘strongman’
Wednesday, May 29th, 2024
A few years ago, Josh Hanagarne, aka The World’s Strongest Librarian, sent me this great piece of work on grip training. Enjoy. (BTW, the quote in the title is from Abraham Lincoln).
I got into grip training for two reasons:
Number one, it looked fun and people I liked were doing it. Monkey see monkey do.
Second, I was getting strong enough that my hands were starting to become my limiting factor. This was a sobering realization which took place at the intersection of Lame and Weak.
Like most things I like right off, once I jumped in, I jumped in all the way. Grip training was addictive for me. Better yet, it gave me one more way to make progress, which is usually the major ingredient in how happy I am. I could either set aside dedicated days for grip work or, the more I learned, I could squeeze it into my normal workouts without much of a headache.
Before I tell you how I add grip training to your workout, I just want to give you a quick look at four different types of hand strength so that you don’t overemphasize anything or neglect anything that could be useful to you.
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Tags: arms, exercise, fingers, fitness, grip, grip strength, grip training, hands, powerlifting, strength, strongman, workout
Posted in Exercise, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips | No Comments »
Monday, May 14th, 2012
I’m sorry to post so many videos, but this World’s Strongest Man 30 Years of Pain is a must-watch for any fan of strongman or powerlifting. I did not know Jón Páll Sigmarsson died at age 33. What a bum deal.
In the meantime you’ve got Magnus Ver Magnusson, Magnus Samuels-son, Svend Carlson, Phil Phister, Marisuz Pudianowski, and many others. Granted, maybe 1 in 100 of these guys were not on the juice, but every single competition is inspirational.
Anyway, Kaz is nuts and so are the rest of the old school strongmen. If you only care about losing fat, don’t bother with this video, but if you’ve ever watched the WSM finals during Christmas vacation, and you actually knew the finalists and had a favorite, you have to watch this.
‘Nuff said.
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Tags: powerlifting, strongman, words strongest man, wsm
Posted in Contests, Motivation, Videos | No Comments »
Friday, July 29th, 2011
It’s not this easy, but these 10 basic tips will get you started in your quest to accomplish your strength and bodybuilding goals.
- The basics have always and will always work best. You can build a core workout routine with just squats, deads, bench, overhead press, pull ups / chin ups, dips, and situps. Rows and curls can be added as needed.
- Find what works best for you and keep doing it until it no longer works. Start with the basics, optimize for your personal needs, repeat until you plateau.
- As long as you are making progress, stick with your routine. No need to change workout routines every month just because you don’t want to plateau. If your routine is working, stick with it UNTIL you plateau.
- Strength is greater than bulk. If you are strong you have nothing to prove and it is easy to get bigger. If you are big it’s tough to get stronger and strong guys will tell you “well, at least you LOOK strong.”
- Three months is the minimum trial length before you can pass judgement. Six months is even better. What I’m saying is, you need to stick with a plan for 3-6 months before you can say it does or doesn’t work.
- Free weights rule.
- Excuses will hold you back for your entire life if you let them. Stop making excuses, stop reading and researching, stop thinking. Just do it!
- You will become your environment. If you want to be weak and small, surround yourself with weak and small. If you want to be big and strong, hang with those guys, ask questions, and take advice from those who have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
- You have to really want what you think you want. If you REALLY wanted to be strong, you’d be strong by now. So change your mindset today. If you really want to be something, you have to want it more than anything else.
- Eat to grow. You have to eat if you want to get stronger. You have to eat if you want to get bigger. If you’re not getting bigger or stronger, eat more food. Especially protein.
Tags: basics, bodybuilding, Fitness Tips, Motivation, muscle, strength, strong, strongman, tips
Posted in Fitness Tips, Motivation | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Do Bodybuilders Have to “Max Out” to Gain Muscle?
You may have seen or heard cliche slogans like “Go heavy or go home.” You may have been asked “How much do you bench?” You may even be impressed by Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and professional strongmen, all of whom regularly use maximum effort triples and singles to prepare for competition, to try to set a personal record, or just as a component of their regular training routines.
Well guess what? None of those sports are like bodybuilding. Sure, Olympic lifters are typically pretty jacked, powerlifters and strongmen are just plain “big”, but very few of them could compete in a bodybuilding competition and hope to win, without first dieting and training like a bodybuilder for several months.
This brings us to the question – do bodybuilders ever actually have to test their 1 or 3 rep max on any exercise? Do they have to lift super-heavy?
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Tags: bodybuilding, building muscle, fitness, gain muscle, heavy, max, max effort, maximum effort, muscle growth, myth, myths, powerlifting, strength, strongman, training, weight lifting, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Should Bodybuilders Train When They Are Sore?
This is one of the top offending bodybuilding myths. Have you ever canceled a workout or skipped training a body part because it felt sore, even though at least 48 hours had passed since you trained it? If you said “Yes”, then after reading this post you will never make that mistake again.
Your muscles will get sore when you use:
- heavy weights
- slow negatives
- forced negatives
- assisted negatives
- drop sets
- high volume
Do you need to avoid these training methods completely in order to prevent soreness, so that you can train again in two days? Not necessarily.
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Tags: bodybuilding, building muscle, doms, fitness, gain muscle, heavy, max, max effort, maximum effort, muscle growth, myth, powerlifting, sore, sore muscles, soreness, strength, strongman, training, weight lifting, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | No Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Extra Workouts Part 1 – Neural Activation Training
Today I am going to unleash your next greatest training tool.
First we are going to talk about training frequency and extra workouts, then I will get into something I call Neural Activation Training, which you can use upwards of 2-3 times a day in addition to your regular workout routine. This type of training won’t induce overtraining and can help you develop speed and power like you’ve never had before, which leads to increased strength and size. Neural Activation Training also just happens to increase fat loss.
*** Do I have your attention? ***
Good! Read on.
Extra Workouts
If you want to know about adding extra workouts to your routine, you are on the right track. If you don’t know what an extra workout is, which many of you don’t judging by my recent poll, then this is the place to learn.
For some time now I have written about using extra workouts to increase training frequency, and the benefits of increased training frequency over time. When I say increased training frequency, I don’t mean increased volume in a single 60 minute workout. I mean putting varying types of stress on every muscle group as frequently as possible, such that the target muscle group can still optimally recover. Volume is increased over time, but frequency is maximized.
I referenced increased training frequency in my Werewolf Training routines and in my Fat Loss for Men & Fat Loss for Women routines. In fact, I base most of my workout routines around increased training frequency at this point because I know how effective it is.
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Tags: bodybuilding, extra workouts, neural adaptation, power, powerlifting, speed, strength, strongman
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 22 Comments »
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
When lifting weights, there are many questions asked by both noobies and experienced lifters alike.
Some great weightlifting questions include:
- what are the best exercises?
Answer: view my series of best exercises posts.
- how long should I workout?
Answer: HIIT: 20 mins, Weightlifting & Endurance Cardio: 45 mins
- how many sets should I do?
Answer: That answer is going to require a dedicated post, so I’ll get to that shortly.
- how many reps should I do?
Answer: read on and find out…
There are 3 main kinds of repetitions (reps) when it comes to weightlifting; certain rep and set schemes are used depending on your goals. Let’s examine scheme #1:
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Tags: Conditioning, reps, strongman, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Conditioning, Weight Training | 7 Comments »
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
I think this all went down back in September, but I just found out about it. Usually I watch this whole event on ESPN around New Years, but this year I was too busy with the fam to watch much TV.
In any case, as if you didn’t already know, Mariusz Pudzianowski won his record 5th Worlds Strongest Man title at WSM 2008. This is the video of the final event pitting Mariusz against Derek Poundstone in the Atlas Stones.
Seems to me that Derek had it won until he missed his placement on the last stone. For what it’s worth Derek, I’m sorry that you have to live with that. Good times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMhsKkpvVLI
Tags: mariusz, strongman, wsm
Posted in Sports | No Comments »
