Strongman Training

[jwood]

Alright guys, it is the middle of winter, but I am thinking about my training once the weather gets nicer. I am going to try to do more serious strongman training this spring into summer. I think this will help everything and make training more fun. This training will start after my PL competition on March 24. I am going to use a Westside Template but add an events day. So, I thought I would start putting my thoughts here.

I have some limitations with work and stuff. Wednesdays and Fridays can not really be true training days, so here is kinda my plan.

Monday: DE Bench
Tuesday: ME Squat
Thursday: ME Bench
Saturday: DE Squat
Sunday Events Training

This is what I am thinking now. It is best for me to have events day on Sunday b/c my gym is closed and my stuff is at home. I seem to have the most time to train on Sundays.

I do not have a specific plan for each day yet but I will be rotating the ME lifts each week.

Events: Tire flipping, log clean and press, farmers walk, zercher walk, axle clean and press, hopefully some stuff with a keg.

I want some critiques on this and just see everyone's perspective. Maybe there is a better way to plan this out.

[gaspers04]

Looks good to me, will this be your log? Or is it just a feeler?

[jwood]

This is just a feeler and want to get some more ideas on training. I will probably put some more details in here on each training day too. I am also trying to convince a couple people to commit to training strongman every sunday, haha.

[BendtheBar]

I don't know if this will help much Jeremy, but I thought I would toss up the link. BBG wrote it and it might have something of interest for you:

Wendler/Westside Strongman Template The Rough Edition – Muscle and Brawn Bodybuilding, Powerlifting and Muscle Building.

Also found this quote by Louie:

We had a strongman visit us not too long ago. He trained the same as our powerlifters with respect to the core exercises. We had him do considerably more GPP work and varied his accessory training using some strongman specific movements (ex. Overhead presses after his main bench exercise).

With weights, the bulk of his training was with low box squats, good mornings, deficit deadlifts, and band pulls. We took him from barely pulling 500 lbs to 800 lbs! We did not train deadlifts for reps with our view being that absolute strength will provide the strength endurance needed for his meets. In other words, if you can pull 800 lbs for a single, you can pull 700 lbs for reps. Conditioning should come from GPP, not the weights. This is ALWAYS true and I cannot emphasize it enough. Weights are for absolute strength and GPP for more generalized endurance.

We skipped powerlifting gear with the exception of briefs. He would not be competing in a suit so we felt that training with one would serve no purpose.

[austin.j.taylor]

Originally Posted by jwood

Events: Tire flipping, log clean and press, farmers walk, zercher walk, axle clean and press, hopefully some stuff with a keg.

Question: What is you normal Monday training day? I mean what lifts, not ME or DE.


Just a few thoughts on this. I like to structure my training to mimic a contest. Every contest I have done has a pressing event first. I would do either log or axle first and rotate them each week. I am not a fan of training log and axle in the same day as they are similar yet very different and very hard on your joints. Next I would train a moving event such as tire flip or farmers walk or do a medley of both. I am not a fan of zercher walking as I feel the negative outweight the positives of that work, but if you want to train them, go for it. A keg is a very versatile piece of equipment. You can throw it, carry it, load it to height, press it(if you are a beast). I know you do conjugate method so if you want to deadlift more often and keep the weight lighter do some axle deadlifts with a double overhand grip.

I would take your event work very easy for the first few weeks. When I first started to mix events with powerlifting, I had a tough time with recovery and the load placed on my body.

[mab54]

I like the way its set up, I also plan on competing in strongman this year after my next powerlifting meet.

I wouldn't call myself a full strongman yet but I do use quite a few implements in training for powerlifting. I personally do something like this

Monday: assistance work with the main one being axle C&P
Tuesday: Deadlift
Wensday: Cardio
Thurday: Bench
Friday: Squats, Log C&P, Farmers Walk
Saturday: Cardio

Unless you have a contest coming up I don't feel an event day is necessary. Just treat them like assistance work, ex. instead of doing Ohping do it with a log or axle. Or even instead of RDL do farmers or tire flip.

Also squats are very important to strongman but I feel that deadlifting is more so, because there are a lot of dl event type things like farmers, max weight, and max rep. So I would try to do some variation every week.

[jwood]

Originally Posted by austin.j.taylor

Question: What is you normal Monday training day? I mean what lifts, not ME or DE.


Just a few thoughts on this. I like to structure my training to mimic a contest. Every contest I have done has a pressing event first. I would do either log or axle first and rotate them each week. I am not a fan of training log and axle in the same day as they are similar yet very different and very hard on your joints. Next I would train a moving event such as tire flip or farmers walk or do a medley of both. I am not a fan of zercher walking as I feel the negative outweight the positives of that work, but if you want to train them, go for it. A keg is a very versatile piece of equipment. You can throw it, carry it, load it to height, press it(if you are a beast). I know you do conjugate method so if you want to deadlift more often and keep the weight lighter do some axle deadlifts with a double overhand grip.

I would take your event work very easy for the first few weeks. When I first started to mix events with powerlifting, I had a tough time with recovery and the load placed on my body.

I guess I am not too concerned with my training being like a competition. I do not really plan to compete. I am going to use strongman just to build overall strength. I have been doing easy event work for a while now, I am just looking to push the intensity when the weather gets nice. It will serve to get me into better condition and hopefully boost my lifts.

This summer will be a feel out strongman training and then I will think about competing in the future.

My mondays now are very different than what they will be when I start this kind of training. Right now I do juggernaut bench, but I will be doing speed bench with bands or chains. Then assistance will be another press move, light overhead pressing depending on sunday's events or another light bench movement like DB press. Also will do a back movement and a tricep movement.

[jwood]

Originally Posted by mab54

I like the way its set up, I also plan on competing in strongman this year after my next powerlifting meet.

I wouldn't call myself a full strongman yet but I do use quite a few implements in training for powerlifting. I personally do something like this

Monday: assistance work with the main one being axle C&P
Tuesday: Deadlift
Wensday: Cardio
Thurday: Bench
Friday: Squats, Log C&P, Farmers Walk
Saturday: Cardio

Unless you have a contest coming up I don't feel an event day is necessary. Just treat them like assistance work, ex. instead of doing Ohping do it with a log or axle. Or even instead of RDL do farmers or tire flip.

Also squats are very important to strongman but I feel that deadlifting is more so, because there are a lot of dl event type things like farmers, max weight, and max rep. So I would try to do some variation every week.

I do not feel an events day is necessary, but I think that is the most fun part, so I will definitely be doing an events day.

[jwood]

I am going to start to put more of a plan together here for each day and get more detailed as we go along here:

Monday DE Bench
Speed bench w/ bands or chains 8-10 sets of 3 reps, different grips
Press Assistance: DB press, or some sort of overhead press for higher reps 8-12
Back: Some sort of pulldown movement or pull ups (no rows on this day, I think the lower back will be fatigued after events)
Triceps: Anything will work here
Light shoulder movement: face pulls, lateral raise, pull a parts

Tuesday ME Lower
Squat movement up to a max
Good morning variation- 6 rep range (every once a while making this a deadlift variation)
Back extension/GHR
Traps: shrug variation
Heavy Abs

Thursday ME Bench
Bench Variation
Push Press Variation will keep this in the three rep range
Row Movement
Tricep Movement: higher reps

Saturday DE Squats
Speed Squats 10 sets x 2 reps
Speed Deadlifts 6-8 singles
Single leg movement-lunges or something like that
Light Abs

Sunday Events day

[jwood]

I would also like to start a list of Events in this thread, feel free to add in:

Strongman Events
Tire-max reps, max weight, speed, distance, reps in a time frame
Log Clean And Press-max, speed work, timed, reps
Farmers Walk-distance, time, speed, weight, picks
Keg-throws,carries, clean and press for reps/time
Axle(fat grip)-cleans, presses for reps
Cleans with regular bar
Overhead Walks
Sled Drags

Please feel free to give suggestions of events I have not thought of or training implements that I could easily make. My hope is to do 3 events in a workout.