Keg Shoulder Squat
The water in the keg will be pushing you all around making your body work extra to stabilize in one spot.
Low-Carb Diet Q&A with Shelby Starnes
The very low-carb diet (VLCD) is a synthesis of the best of these approaches, but geared towards the carb-sensitive individual.
Reactive Training Systems for Strongman
Reactive Training Systems (RTS) began as a training system for powerlifters.
The ABCs of Tire Flippin’
Unless you live under a rock or in France, you know that incorporating Strongman events into training has become a popular way to add variation to any program.
Is Your Finisher Going to Finish You?
You’ve just spent an hour doing a grueling full body workout. Your body is spent from deep, heavy squats, weighted chins, and max effort incline presses. So what do you do now? How about loading up the bar for deadlifts? Why not do them with an underhand grip while you’re at it? Or while standing on a low box?
Practical Training for the Civil Servant
Testing your physical wit, pushing yourself to the very limits all to move the biggest numbers—awesome!
1100 Pound Abs
The other day in the gym, the topic of ab training for strength came up. I figured there was nobody better to ask than 1100 pound squatter Matt Wenning.
Separate from the Pack
After serving four years in the Marine Corps and one tour in Iraq, I was finally done. I had served my country valiantly and fought for my freedom. I said to myself, “It’s time to let loose.” So I did exactly that. Five months and thirty pounds of fat later, I was a mess.
Matt Holmes’ Journey of a Warehouse Gym
ZE: Matty, tell the readers of EliteFTS about yourself, how you started in the fitness industry, and what you have going on right now.
The Return of Hardcore
That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. These sissified commercial gyms and their clipboard holding trainers have just about ruined the weightlifting world.
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 3: (How to Integrate S...
At this point, we’ve discovered how Strongman training can be a viable substitute for Olympic weightlifting to develop brutally strong football players who not only display explosive physical capacities but have explosive attitudes as well. If you’re anything like me, you’ve become excited at the prospect of training your athletes with the fun and highly effective exercises like tractor tire flipping or stone loading discussed in the Part Two of this series.
What’s the Big Deal with Partial Lifts?
I’ll come right out and say it—I’m a big fan of partial lifts. Some say they’re dangerous while others say they’re unproductive. Why do a partial lift when you can do the whole lift?
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 2
In part one of this series on Strongman training for athletes, I made the argument that Strongman training may be a great option for building strong and explosive athletes and a viable substitute for Olympic lifting.
Assistance Training for Strongman and “Functional” Strength
A lot of guys who train for Strongman don’t put much thought into assistance work, if at all. Assistance exercises can improve specific attributes and get you through your sticking points in many cases.
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 1
You might disagree, but hear me out on this. As an ex-college football player and currently a strength coach, I’ve found the utilization and teaching of Olympic lifts to be tedious, inefficient, and downright boring. As a college athlete, I hardly found the patience to learn the correct lifting technique for the power clean. Although I held the St. John’s University power clean record in my freshman season, muscling 335 lbs (152 kg) off the platform, my technique was completely flawed. My attempt looked more like an axle clean and press in Strongman than the smooth pull of an Olympic weightlifter.
How We Use the Prowler
The latest installment in our “How We Use The Prowler” series comes from Elliott Hulse of St. Petersburg, Florida.
My First Year
On February 10th, 2007, I competed in my first Strongman contest, the Motor City Strongman at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It’s been exactly one year since my introduction to the sport so I feel like it's a good time to reflect on what I've learned.
A Day in the Life of a Strongman Contestant: The 10 Things I Learned
Rites of passage that involve impressive feats of strength have been around for thousands of years. They exist in many different forms and many of them originated in Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Tests like the Husafell stone carry, which originated in Iceland, have now become objects of desire for many would-be Strongmen throughout the world.
Spud Inc. Strongman Harness: Product Review
The first thing that you need for serious pulling is a good harness.
Strongman for Athletic Strength and Conditioning
The study of the science of strength and conditioning for sports is a huge endeavor. There are many differing opinions and many things that work. The key is to find out what works for your athlete based on his or her individual differences, strengths, weaknesses, and of course, sport.
Tire Flipping: Tips and Techniques
Aside from the Atlas Stones, the tire flip could be one of the most recognizable strongman events in the sport. However, it is probably the one event most incorrectly performed by athletes and most improperly used by strength coaches.
Blue Collar Strongman Training
What would be more effective is to change the dynamics of the lift slightly to stimulate new recruitment patterns and increase the use of often neglected muscles.
Maximum Effort Training for Strongman
As covered in my last article, the dynamic effort (DE) session is dedicated to speed. Max effort (ME) is dedicated to huge weights and re-writing the record books every session you train. My approach is a bit different from the traditional Westside approach.
Medleys for Conditioning
I’m known as the Strongman guy around here because I own a Strongman/Powerlifting gym, and Dave and Jim like to make fun of me for it. It makes them feel good to laugh at me. Anyway, strongman training can be adapted to athletic training in many ways. In this article, we’ll look at how to improve our athletes’ level of conditioning through the use of strongman events.
Strongman and Westside Training
I get calls just about every day asking for help integrating strongman training and Westside style training and I see a lot of confusion with this.