Opening Up The Strongman World

Hope this finds you all having a great day and doing well and being blessed. Things have been kind of crazy around here with the release of the new book and other projects. We had a five-day loss of internet connection last week due to Hurricane Dennis. No direct damage, just some minor power failures that caused an interruption in our cable service, but that is all sorted out as well as the printing issues.

So the eBook is up and the hardcopy format is shipping. Great reviews are beginning to come in and we’ll be posting them soon. So we have lots to talk about today… so let’s get started.

Most of us live a life beyond the reach of serious tragedy and even serious obstacles. Everybody surely has things in their life which are difficult to deal with and have been a hardship to them on some physical, spiritual or mental level and I don’t say that to discount the difficulties that anyone has dealt with. When you are in the midst of a difficulty even though it may seem small to other people it certainly seems like a giant man-eating monster to you. I’m writing about this because I saw something last night that may help us gain some perspective and inspiration.

I think most of the time we don’t realize the major safety and blessing that we live in. We all want more. And when we don’t have it, it seems like a huge difficulty to us. However, most of us don’t live in war-torn countries and on a daily basis live under the threat of being killed. Most of us don’t live under serious persecution for our beliefs. The vast majority of us don’t live with major disability. Because we don’t see it on a daily basis we don’t realize the extent of the blessing that we live under. Remember to be thankful even when the sun isn’t always shining in your life, have the ability to step back and see the greatness that is always there.

Last night I caught some of the ESPY Awards. They showed what might be one of the most inspirational stories I’ve seen in a long time. Jim MacLaren and Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah were both given the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage which is given annually to people whose contribution extends beyond sports. Jim MacLaren was an extremely promising athlete and actor who was hit by a bus losing the lower part of one leg. He refused to give in to that and literally rewrote the records for disabled athletes. He was then hit by another vehicle while in training and paralyzed, being told by doctors that he would never walk or feel again below the neck. While he is still in a wheel chair at the moment he has endured thousands of hours of therapy and has come back to partial use of his arms and legs.

One of the great things that came out of Jim MacLaren’s accidents is the creation of a support foundation for disabled athletes. This in a way that only God could engineer, has linked MacLaren to Yeboah and is helping to bring huge cultural change to an entire country. Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah was born with one disabled leg in the African country of Ghana. Common practice there has been to kill or abandon a disabled baby and if by some chance a baby did survive his life would be completely condemned to homelessness and begging with no social acceptance.

Yeboah’s mother refused to let her child die and brought him up with a powerful standard of love and courage. For years she carried him three miles to school every day. He endured ostracism from the other children, but was constantly re-enforced with a never-quit attitude. When he wanted to play soccer and he wasn’t allowed to play on the local team, he worked shining shoes to make the money to buy his own soccer ball and got the other kids to play with him. Later as an adult he contacted the foundation for disabled athletes in request for a mountain bike, which he took on tour through his country to help change the attitudes of the people toward the disabled.

He later met Jim MacLaren in person and says he is one of his greatest inspirations. He has almost single-handedly changed the face of acceptance of the disabled in his country. Raising money for approximately 8,000 wheelchairs for disabled people in Ghana. He refused to let anyone define who he could be and he refused to let a problem define his future. He is a powerful example to us all of the good we can do when we have the courage to make it happen.

In listening to the interviews with Jim MacLaren he made one of the most profound statements about life that I have ever heard. He said… and I’m paraphrasing, “Through all of this I refuse to let my body define me. I am a man not because of my body. I am a man because of my mind. I could have been destroyed by these tragedies, but I found that I still had life and life in any form is great when you choose for it to be.”

Now I told you the short versions of these amazing, heroic stories, but I want us to be able to look at these and draw inspiration and perspective. Perspective of the blessing that we have. Perspective of what can be accomplished though belief and courage. Perspective that whatever trouble is facing you, other men have gone through it and come out better on the other side. Perspective to help you find courage when things get hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Inspiration to live a better life. Inspiration to do all the good that you can. Inspiration by knowing that your actions, even though you many not see it, may bless the lives of other people. Inspiration to get excited and motivated to reach your goals. Inspiration in knowing that God loves you and will give you strength.


A POWERFUL SEMINAR YOU REALLY SHOULD GO TO

I got a chance to talk to my friend Pavel Tsatsouline about a week ago and I intended to tell you all about this seminar immediately, but as previously mentioned we were incommunicado for a few days. So here’s the deal…

On August 13-14 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Maxercise Fitness. You’ll have the opportunity to see Pavel Tsatsouline and Steve Maxwell work together on an in-depth physical training seminar geared toward teaching you the skill of strength. More than likely neither of these gentlemen need any introduction, but I will say a quick work about them.

Everybody should know Pavel by now. In fact he might be one of the only guys in the strength world who can actually go by just one name. An ex-Russian Special Forces Instructor who immigrated to America bringing with him the kettlebell movement and one of the most intelligent and well-rounded trainers I’ve ever met.

Steve Maxwell is a perennial world Jujitsu champion and trainer of world Jujitsu champions. He is also one of the most innovative and creative trainers around and he’s right up the alley of our Twisted Conditioning philosophy. Mixing many different implements for incredible workouts and superior physical results.

So you get to see them both, live, teach you their thing. Now I know both of these guys and they’re both very nice guys, but let me tell you… their “thing” is pretty brilliant. They’ll be dealing with program design, exercise selection, new exercises, mastering hard bodyweight exercises for high level strength, how to recruit more muscle mass into the exercises you use and even though I think the gist of this Naked Warrior Seminar is bodyweight work, I’m sure they’ll be talking about all the other cool toys they put in their workouts as well. This is the stuff that makes you better, makes you tougher and helps you achieve your goals. If you get a chance to work with either of these guys in person you should take advantage of it.

I am not an amateur when it comes to knowledge in the strength and conditioning world. In fact I’ve been extremely successful and I don’t really need anybody else’s knowledge, but you know what? I STILL seek knowledge from people whom are the best at what they do. If I can at all swing my schedule around, I’m going to go to this, because studying with people like Pavel and Steve is the key to the achievement of your physical goals in taking you to the next level. Don’t miss it if you can get there!

http://www.dragondoor.com/pavel_schedule.html


TRAINING TIP

Opening Up The Strongman World

In much of the training we’ve espoused up until recently and in Twisted Conditioning I, for the most part we advised and used implements with strongman training for the purpose of getting repetition or sprint level conditioning. While that is still for the most part the way that we use strongman training I want to broaden the horizons of this training style. We’re always looking to build the most functional ability in the most styles of training in the most efficient way. While I agree with keeping programs as simple as possible, I want to go beyond the mindset of narrow specialization (except when it’s necessary for a competition or for achieving some particular goal). And build the ability to be at least responsibly good at everything.

This is why there’s such variety in our training. There are generally two ways to get super strong. One - Pick a couple of exercises and get ridiculously strong at them and allow that strength to flow over to things that you don’t normally train for. Second - Pick many different things, get strong at all of them gradually over time and then use that extra coordination and strength to be then completely all-around strong. In Twisted Conditioning theory what we were trying to do was give you the best of all possible worlds. Consistent work on a couple of exercises to get super strong at them. Plus varied work to create strength and coordination at many different angles flowing extra strength to the simple exercises that are important to you and generalizing your strength so that you can literally be strong at everything. Plus conditioning so that you resist fatigue and have world class endurance while not interfering with your strength and building powerful health and vitality.

One of the things that we do in Twisted Conditioning II is to further open up the idea of strongman training and to give you the ability to use any implement, anywhere to get a great workout. To have the flexibility to use strongman training not just for repetition strength, but also for maximum strength and maximum conditioning. So it is entirely appropriate to do heavy maximum strength, low rep or distance strongman training to build maximum power or light high repetition alternative conditioning style strongman training to build endurance and to mix it with any conceivable intermediate level in between. It is also entirely appropriate and advisable to add other dimensions of strongman training that we have added in Twisted Conditioning II. Such as bending, Old Style strongman lifts and feats, odd lifting and poundage lifting. In this way you create strength in the most areas for the greatest overall effect.

Here are a couple of example sled workouts showing you the various incarnations of strongman training:

1. Max Strength – Do 5 progressively heavier sets of 50 foot drags up to a maximum load you can possibly make for 50 feet.

2. Finisher – Finish off your squat workout with one warm up and two fast paced 100 feet drags with a moderately heavy weight.

3. Extended heavy conditioning – 12 sets of 80 foot drags as fast as you can with a moderately heavy weight.

4. Build Up or Recovery Conditioning – Drag a light weight one to two hundred foot for multiple sets. It should keep your heart rate up, but not overly tax your muscles.

5. Alternative Conditioning Interval – Load up a moderate sled and throw a pair of kettlebells in it. Drag it 25 feet, pull the kettlebells out, jerk them 5 times, repeat for 15 minutes.

6. Odd Lift and Strongman Bending – You’ll need a harness or a handle you can use with one hand for your sled. Load it with moderate weight. You can use either a dumbbell or kettlebell to hold in one hand while you walk and drag the sled or pick a light implement and shoulder it while you walk and drag the sled. Be sure to switch from hand to hand or shoulder to shoulder. Also in the sled should be a pair of bending pads and some nails or bars for bending. Every time you stop and take a break with your dragging/carrying combo you bend a nail or a bar.

Now these show you some of the ways you can use this one particular strongman implement, and there are many more ways to use these implements and implements to be used in these ways. This should give you plenty to keep you busy if you wish to try some of them. It should also start expanding your mind as to the use of odd implements for all around strength and conditioning. It doesn’t replace your barbell work (although it could), or conditioning, it just adds to it to make you a better athlete.


TWO NEW ARTICLES ON OUR SITE

There are two new exciting guest author articles on our site. You should definitely be checking out! The first is an interesting on using bands in power training and one of the first I’ve seen applied to Olympic lifting or other types besides Powerlifting. Some unique ways to attach the bands to yourself to make your training more productive and tough. A special thanks to Morgan Norval and Rick Bucinell for contributing this article. Very nice, very strong guys I met at the AOBS dinner.

http://strongerman.com/guests/norval_bucinell.html

The other is an interesting training style for putting it all together so-to-speak by Bryce Lane. Bryce is a trainer out of California who puts out some of the most lucent, logical and interesting training information around. This is a very unique program that plays right along with our Twisted Conditioning philosophy. Special thanks to Bryce as I really enjoyed this article.

http://strongerman.com/guests/lane_1.html