10 Tips for New Strongmen and Strongwomen

Strongman is rapidly growing and whether or not you plan to compete or plan to spice up your current training program, every beginner seems to make the same mistakes.  Though there are more than what I have listed below, I think these 10 are good to start with.

1. Curling the stones. 

After you lap an atlas stone and prepare to load it, it is imperative that you adjust your hand position. You need to put them over the stone with your elbows pointing out and slightly upward. If they are pointing down, you are going to use too much biceps power and put yourself at high risk for a tear. Don't curl the stones!

For more info on stone training, check out this old post: 

http://powernyc.blogspot.com/2014/03/atlas-stone-training.html

2. Curling the log

This is similar to the above in that you don't want to put undue stress on your biceps. When the log is lapped, the handles are facing upward and are slightly turned out. Sit back so the top of your abdominals touches the log. Pull the log in while pushing your stomach out. Now extend your hips violently maintaining that upper body tightness and the log should roll right up onto the top of your chest. 

When you mess this up, you don't pull the log in with your lats and it separates from your core on the clean. This forces your biceps to make up the slack. This will hurt when done over and over again.

3. Yoke height

If you set the pin too high you will be risking dragging and dropping it. If you set it too low, you now have to do too much of a squat to pick it up. That can be taxing and it takes more time to get moving.

While there are many kinds of yokes you will use, I suggest you write down your heights on the Bigg Dogg and Rogue yokes since you will likely see these at some point during the contest year.

4. Learn to continental clean

Lots of guys and gals can Olympic clean and can do so very well. They can rip an axle up to their shoulders without issue and push press or jerk the weight with little effort. The catch is that this is not always possible. In a medley or a press for reps, the weight is often light enough to get away with this. I assume the weights for reps and medleys are supposed to be about 70-80% of most of your maxes. When the weight is above that range, the Olympic clean will only serve very few when using the axle.

My advice is to practice continental cleans from the get go. This is related to a later point: don't just train what you are good at. It takes time to improve on new movements and this clean will be a challenge. But if you're going to be the last man or woman left standing at the end of a max axle press, you're going to need the proper technique. Continental!

5. Squats

I know we all love to back squat but there is a new boss: front squats. As most of your events are front loaded and forcing you to use about a shoulder width stance, the front squat will serve you best in preparation. It will also put more stress on your quads and give your back a break since deadlifts, yoke, farmers, stones, Continental cleans, etc will already put a tremendous amount of stress on your back during the training week.

6. Paleo, intermittent fasting, carb back loading, etc

I will not rip each of these but let's think about their purpose: aesthetics. You should eat with purpose and mine is to be as strong as possible. I don't eat like shit but these are my staples: chicken, beef, turkey, eggs, rice, potatoes, yams, oatmeal, kale, spinach. Eat well, eat balanced, don't skip meals, don't pretend you live in an era of comestible paucity, and you will be better off for it.

Here is a brief write up on my nutrition: http://powernyc.blogspot.com/2014/04/cheap-meal-preparation-for-lifters.html

7. Cardio

I know the lighter guys and gals don't have as many problems as the bigger competitors do, but nobody should ignore this. I posted on how to get started with cardio for strongman before:   http://powernyc.blogspot.com/2014/05/cardio-for-strongman.html 

The basic idea is that we need to have all 3 energy systems working efficiently to ensure optimal performance. Don't skip it especially if you are gaining weight.

8. Not adjusting your overall training volume

When I started strongman I lifted six days a week. I love training. Naturally I just revised my program and did strongman on one day and kept training six days a week. That didn't feel good. That really did a lot for giving me chronic overuse injuries that have never seemed to go away.  Modulate your volume to ensure recovery now that your loads are heavier and that you are spending more time under tension.

9. Not prioritizing your weaknesses

Too many people dally about with the same exercises and same rep ranges and never think critically about what is keeping them from making to the next level. We all have weaknesses and those are a good start to build your training plan from. Press sucks? Try doing it first in the week with lighter weights to improve technique and higher reps to build more muscle. Deadlift sucks? Try different angles like block and deficit pulls. Do lots of rows to beef up your upper back and stiff leg deads for your shitty hamstrings. Slow? Try agility drills in your warmups and do light events for speed. Increase the weight while maintaining speed. And on and on.

10. Bodyweight

Last I checked there are no wilks scores for strongman. Worry about getting stronger, adding more muscle, getting faster, and let the weight take care of itself.

If You're Not Going to Reno...

Buzz about the 2014 Amateur Strongman Nationals in Reno has spread across the Internet and thus the country now that we know the events and weights for October 4. Many will qualify and attend this year, likely breaking whatever the previous attendance record has been in recent years.  Many qualified athletes, however, will not attend, unable to afford the trip. Many more will not qualify at all.

If you are not going, I think the best thing to do is to continue competing. And I don't mean hide out in the novice division. Do contests that challenge you, and that, even better, have your worst events.  When you cherry pick your contests based on your strengths you are just postponing the inevitable ass whipping that is coming your way.

By continuing to compete and perform your worst events, what you accomplish is twofold. Obviously, you will focus on the events that are your worst. Perhaps not so obvious, but more importantly, you will gain the extra contest experience that likely separates you from the top or even middle of your weight class. 

It takes many competitions for some to gain the maturity to deal with contest pressure, with the yelling, with being on the clock, with competing for points, with crowds, with adrenaline and anxiety. The goal is to come in composed and to treat the competition like any other day. Eat the same breakfast, wear the same gear, do the same thing you did in the gym to prepare.

After you compete at least one or two more times and hopefully a minimum of 4 times that year you can begin your offseason with the goal of qualifying. You should have a handful of contests under your belt, you should know your strengths and weaknesses, and you should take a moment to be honest with yourself about how you will get better. 

The scorecards don't lie when there are a number of them to read. You know the formula and you know where your points are coming from: pressing, deadlifting, moving speed, moving endurance, and loading.

It is possible to not be terrible at any of them but evenly mediocre across all five categories. In this case, your offseason plan can simply focus on rotating through events to get more practice while making sure to hit gym lifts hard and bring up overall strength. 

If you one of those categories is well behind the others, then you need to prioritize that in your training. For example, if pressing is a weak point you can move it to first in your training week when you're most fresh. You can add an extra day or extra volume to your one day. You might discover some mobility or core issues are keeping your shoulders from obtaining the optimum position and then you will attack those. There are of course myriad ways to go about it.

If you want to know how I know all this, it's because I have gone through it. After my first year of competing, I felt I was sufficiently mediocre across the board. I rotated all my events, got bigger and stronger, and even went up a weight class. My placings went down but my strength was up. I was performing better with heavier weights. However, new weaknesses that I didn't know I had couldn't be masked by the lighter weights I was moving in the lighter division. 

I spent the first half of that year focusing on one weakness, pressing, before turning to another, deadlifting. This competition season my placings have improved and I qualified for Nationals. But there is now another more glaring weakness that is coming to the forefront and is now the focus of my training...

After nationals, I, like everyone else, will sit down and look at the scores and look at the videos and be brutally honest with myself. I will probably confer with a few trusted others to verify my conclusion. Then I will start the process all over again.