Pulling big objects

First off I’m not talking about nights out if you’re a chubby chaser, I’m talking about trucks, buses and sometimes even planes. This I guess is the most obvious blog for me to write as it has always been a signature event for me. It’s an event I’ve always had great success in at the very highest level.

First thing I’ll say yes body weight helps but it’s not the most important factor. There are obvious things to do which many strongman know like wearing rock climbing shoes and chalk on the hands but hopefully come the end of this you’ll have a few extra things that may help.

My process of truck pulling has always been pretty similar, I always start by warming up calves, quads, biceps and lats very hard, trust me you need to get these areas warm or you’re gonna tear a muscle, especially the calves due to the amount of pressure going through them. So warm ups for me consist of pushing against a wall making sure I’m putting some pressure through my calves and alternating them, The biceps and lats I warm up using a resistance band and quads through doing some short sprints and light squats.

Now to the actual event, firstly I have a pretty good idea how tough the pull is gonna be before I go and there is a slight variation on how I approach it depending on if it’s a very heavy start or not, for both kinds I always start with hips slightly up, feet in line and get the rope as tight as my arms and hands will allow. The strongest position for me is with legs only slightly bent, don’t go for a deep squat on the first pull as that’s a weaker position as the whistle goes I drive forwards and push my hips down slightly along with pulling the rope as hard as possible, again with the arms, don’t have them at full stretch as it’s a weak position, slightly bent is perfect. Your upper body should be around arms length from the floor for optimum body angle. Where my heavy pulls differ is I do the first initial pull then take a couple of quick fast steps then do a double footed pull again then I start to take small fast steps, with the lighter pulls I don’t do the second pull, I’m a great believer in truck pulls most of the time being won or lost in the first 5m. Most importantly when you start getting the thing moving take short fast steps and don’t try take big steps as this again is a weaker position. Try to keep the arms and legs moving in unison, if it’s a light finish and the rope is slowing you down don’t be afraid to throw it to the side.

As far as the training goes, I’ve never personally trained truck pull as such but some things I have always been a great believer in helping are, hack squat machine facing away and toward the machine, heavy calf work and also oddly narrow grip hammer grip pull ups, the calves, hacks squats are perhaps more obvious but the pull ups not so much, I feel this is a very similar position to which you pull the rope with a truck pull. Definitely more important than body weight is getting your whole body working as one!

A few little cheats I have done over the years is adding tacky to my hands and soles of my shoes, I’m not telling anyone to cheat but my opinion is if it’s not written in the rules you can’t do it, use every advantage you can 🙂

Anyway I hope that is a little insight and may help a few people.

Here’s an example of my heavy pull technique http://youtu.be/5gc7xgBdj-I
Feel free to ask any questions

THERE IS NO MAGIC PROGRAMME

I decided to write this as I read numerous posts on facebook, twitter etc. and get lots of questions asking me “how can I improve my deadlift?” or “what programme do you follow to improve your squat?” Well I’m sorry to break it to you all, there’s no magic programme that will add 20kg to your lifts in a matter of a couple of weeks. Obviously for all lifts there are some technical things which can be changed to improve lifts and also will help you get to the bigger numbers in the future but once your technique is pretty decent the improvements are gonna come from one place and one place only, FUCKING HARD WORK!!

There are a number of great programmes out there but my personal favourites are

Cube method by Brandon Lily

Cube method for strongman by Josh Thigpen

Wendlers 5/3/1

And the programme I believe pulled my deadlift up from mediocre to very good, the coan/phillipi deadlift routine

All these programmes are a great guide to slightly varying styles of training but all have one common aspect, they’re all well structured programmes designed to work every bit of your body. My personal opinion is that if you follow a well structured programme for a reasonable amount of time you will see results, changing programme every 2-3 weeks cause you don’t feel like you’re improving you probably wont see much gain. What I always say to the people I’m coaching is its all about consistency, I can honestly say I never missed a training session in my whole career just because “I wasn’t feeling it today” or “I didn’t get enough sleep last night”. IMO you can have the odd light session if needed but when you start skipping sessions or not finishing them off your gains will stall drastically.

Writing a solid programme can be quite an art especially if you have limited equipment or work shifts but it can be done if you want it enough, I always base my gym sessions on a push/pull/legs split, its a simple way to break it down and enables you to hit all your body within 3 gym sessions. I understand a bodybuilder would wanna isolate much more but for a strength programme this is enough, on the push day obviously a powerlifter would have the emphasis on bench and a strongman on overhead press, Also a powerlifter is more concentrating on single lifts and a strongman would need to add in some high rep stuff to increase strength endurance but the basic principles are the same.

I guess in short, get a good programme (any I listed above), stick with it for 3-4 months minimum, diary your training (so you can look back after a good period of time) and enjoy the process. If you’re not getting strong on any of those programmes after a few months then you don’t need to readdress the training method start looking at your diet and your lifestyle for improvements.

Sportsperson who struggle to fit in weights sessions.

Many sports people struggle to get as many gym sessions in as many would see as optimum. I myself was a rugby player and fitting in weights sessions along with 3 training sessions and all the cardio training needed was extremely difficult. Because many good athletes train with very high volume anyway you need a plan that can give you a few exercises that really tax many muscle groups and give most amount of benefit. I’m a great believer in performance coming first with regards to a training programme and aesthetics coming second (if you’re a sports person it should just be viewed as an added bonus). Because the volume is very high I personally feel sets and reps should be kept moderately low , strength training should be never pushed to failure but enough to challenge the neuromuscular system, in my opinion approx 80% is perfect for this purpose.

Day 1

Back squats 3 sets 5 reps

Power cleans 5 sets 3 reps

Clean pulls 5 sets 5 reps

Pull ups 3 sets 5 (weighted)

Day 2

Tyre flips 3 sets 10 reps

Power snatch 5 sets 2 reps

Bent over rows 5 sets 6 reps

Bench Press 5 sets 5 reps

Day 3

Hang cleans 5 sets 5 reps

push press 5 sets of 3 reps

box jumps 5 sets 5 reps

pull ups 3 sets 5 reps (weighted)

Day 3

front squats 5 sets 5 reps

Squat jumps 5 sets 5 reps

military press 5 sets 5 reps

med ball throws 5 sets 5

You may look at the workout and think, Where’s the arm work or tricep isolation etc. but remember this is a workout for people who already have a high workload of training sessions so its to incorporate as many muscle groups as possible in two one hour sessions per week. A good athlete would have good muscle recruitment so when needing power in a movement within their chosen sport it wouldn’t be isolated to just a few muscles, for an example when a boxer throws a punch he’s obviously not just using his arm, shoulder and chest, much of the power would come from calves, quads, glutes etc. this is why the inclusion of some very explosive movements.

In addition to the above workout Plyometrics are also good to be added in. Because rest times between sets should be aimed between 2-3 mins low level plyometrics can be performed in this time. Box jumps or Hurdle jumps are very good for this purpose.

Well theres my second blog post, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask

My take on Strongman contest warmups

I spent many years competing in strongman and always questioned the lack of warm up equipment and thought it was a huge risk to the competitors, luckily this is something that has improved a bit over the years but is still far from perfect. Some contests their idea of warm up for the guys is stripping 20kg of the contest weight and letting you pick it up once or twice. I like so many people need plenty of warm up and if you asked me to deadlift 250kg when cold id struggle even when I was comfortably lifting over 400kg. I addressed this by doing band warm ups before they gave us the token lift to feel the equipment with maybe 75% of our maxes. I would do a full body warm up before contest then maybe before an event hitting a specific area (i.e. shoulders before the over head event if its not first event). I found doing this to be very beneficial and has definitely aided my performances in wsm.

I would always work my body from bottom to top but would first start with some light foam roller on legs and back. This would consist of rolling calves, hamstrings, it bands, quads, glutes, lower to mid back and lats, I personally found this very beneficial especially when doing a multi day contest like wsm. This I feel is not something that should be worked on very hard its more just to give your muscles a flush through.

After performing the foam rollering Id then work on some dynamic stretching of the lower body. This consists of :-

• Knee to chest, this involves lifting your bent leg up and pulling you knee to your chest making sure you keep yourself upright, you then return your leg to the floor taking a step forward and repeating with the other leg. I do this approximately 10 times each leg
• Walking lunge, this is pretty common as a gym exercise but when doing this its important to keep good posture and push the hips forward to get a good hip flexor stretch.
• Side lunge, same principle as the walking lunge but trying to keep heals on the floor during the process.
• Toe touch, this involves swinging the straight right leg forward up to touching your left hand at arms length then alternate legs. Again I would perform this 10 times each leg

Next comes the band warm ups

• Calf raises, I perform these putting the band under the balls of both feet and the other end round the back of my neck, I then stand up straight and do 20 calf raises, these can be done with the band but with just adds a bit of tension
• squats, from the same band position I do 20 squats
• good mornings, same band position again and perform a good morning.
• Thrusters, hold the band in a front rack position (like about to perform an o/h press) squat down and then back up continuing the movement into a press. If this is not clear search thrusters on youtube and you’ll get the idea
• 1 arm rows, this I do by attaching the band to a fence post or similar, walk back with the arm fully extended and till you have some band tension, bend forward slightly then row with that arm. I perform this 20 times on each arm
• bicep curls, I do these 1 arm at a time, hold the loop stand on the band and curl, you can add tension by standing further up the band so you’re pulling a shorter bit of band. Before stones I do these with arms in a hammer position rather than with hand suppinated.
• last but not least individual 1 arm presses, stand on the band with right foot and press with right hand over head, do this 20 times on right then swap to left foot and left hand and repeat. I perform these always before overheads as a separate thing, so not just part of the all-over warm up.

Well that’s my warm-up covered, I hope this can be of help to some aspiring strongmen or lifters. You may need to purchase different levels of bands for different exercises but they’re a very worthwhile investment if they stop you getting injured, also they can be used for speed training in the gym so you get plenty of use from them.