Yes I plan to enter a meet sometime or maybe even a strongman at some point which I saw you did, well done btw but I think powerlifting is a good base for that.
Iāve actually done about a dozen strongman contests, and Iām competing nationally this year. I can tell you that if you do have aspirations to compete in strongman eventually, start doing heavy carries and plenty of overhead pressing now. I never did when I was competing in powerlifting. So the transition was difficult in some ways. I still lag behind on carries. Iām very good at the static lifts (any form of powerlifting movements), but to compete in strongman, you need to be a more balanced athlete. Just something to keep in mind. Powerlifting is such a limited sport, athletes who focus too much on the ābig 3ā tend to develop some severe imbalances that make other athletic activities difficult.
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Concur; if your goal ultimately is strongman, instead of trying to build a base with powerlifting and then transition to strongman, start training strongman. Itās cool being strong for 1rms on 3 movements, but you end up with more weaknesses than strengths doing that vs if you were to approach things a little more balanced.
If I was really hardcore on doing a sport before strongman to ābuild a baseā, Iād do crossfit. Lots of carryover.
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I do want to get 120kg on my bench at least currently I can do 55kgx5 on Barbell OHP and 27.5kg on Dumbells, Not great but I did see a rugby player getting PT sessions envying the dumbell OHP lol I was also going to get some Atlas Stones making them, I did notice there is a shitty barbell in the gym I could unscrew to practice Atlas lifts but the strongman contest wont be for a long time it is an 80kg novice event with an 80kg Log AMRAP 200kg Deadlift AMRAP Stones 75kg - 125kg not 100% sure if I am going through with it but it will be August 2019 around then so plenty of time.
Are you still doing 5/3/1?
If you can put 120kg over your head youāll get that bench benchmark (heh) as well.
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That is a good fucking point lol.
no, i havenāt really run a program at all in years. I still apply a lot of the principles I learned from it, but I just canāt get to the gym consistently enough to run it, AND I have to train for specific events. So like, I havenāt overhead pressed a heavy barbell inā¦ maybe a year? All my heavy sets for pressing are on logs or axles.
So hereās how I loosely structure my programming. If Iām only going to be able to make it to the gym twice in a week, one day will be an event day, where Iāll probably overhead press a strongman implement, practice a carry, and maybe load stones, or something along those lines. Sometimes it will include a deadlift variation. The other day will likely be either bench press or squats if I deadlifted on my strongman day. If I didnāt deadlift, then deadlift is the focus of my 2nd workout. Basically I prioritize my lifts as follows: Overhead press, Deadlift, squat, bench. I do some form of overhead press every week. Deadlift is very important to strongman, so thatās second. My squat is very good, and itās useful for strongman, but it has to be prioritized after deadlift. And the bench press is mostly just incorporated to build my OHP. Itās not a competition lift, so sometimes Iāll go a month or more without benching.
As far as sets/reps go, I do something similar to 5/3/1, in that Iāll work up to a heavy set, something between a single and a set of 5 or 6. Then Iāll lower then weight and do 4 or 5 sets of 8-12. Then Iāll move on to accessory movements like pull ups, reverse hypers, bicep curls, tricep extensions, lateral raises, rows, stuff like that. So the overall idea is to prioritize the movements prioritized in 5/3/1, and put those first in my training, and just making sure I get some volume in on the accessories.
EDIT: keep in mind, Iāve got 15 years of experience in the gym, so training by intuition, without a plan, is something i can get away with, but I wouldnāt expect someone with less than 5 years to be able to do the same.
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