Strongman and Powerlifting

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Ok, A little background. I am a United States Marine and a Fairly decent powerlifter. We recently started a team on Camp Pendleton and have seen quite a bit of success in our past three meets. We are probably a group of the strongest Marines on Pendleton…or so we thought

I have never trained or competed in a strongman competition…but a few weeks ago I saw a flyer about a “Strongest Warrior Competition” That consisted of your usual Stone Carries, Farmers Walk, Humvee Pull, Tire Flip, etc. So I figured what the hell I’m stronger than most any Marine I have seen in the gyms on base. So I went…and got fuckin spanked!

I still had a good time…My question is would incorporating some strong man type training be beneficial to my powerlifting? Endurance and such. and also some advice on incorporating it into our training.

We Train Westside so Im not sure if it would be to much to incorporate alot of strongman stuff but some would be good right? if so Some ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks

2

I would say that it would benefit you in your conditioning. Not so much with max lifts, but in your training for competition. Plus, the different events are fun.

I am an Olympic lifter, so I don’t really know how to incorporate strongman training into a Westside program, but I can tell you that I put KB farmer’s carries and tire flips at the end of some of my workouts. Kind of like a fun finishing move.

3

Remember strength isnt all thats important.

Technique and practice are a good percentage of such competitions.

4

I personally have no experience in these matters, but there are some good articles on this on ELITEFTS that you could check out.

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/strongman_training.htm

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/effects_of_strongman.htm

5

Strongman training has very good carryover to powerlifting, as long as you are not in an active meet prep.

We train westside, with max squat on Sunday, Max bench on Wed, speed squat and deads on Thur and Saturdays are either bodybuilding or strongman, going by feel.

semper fi

6

Thanks for all the grea tinput so far…and articles. Since the posting I made my way down to the motor pool and scored a couple old 7 ton tires. and there is plenty of sandbags and cars sittin around to use.

I think we will star incorporating a little. I was thinking of doing some after speed days for conditioning…maybee truck pulls and tire flips on lower body DE days, and sandbags and farmers walk on upper body DE days. probably alternating weeks as to not overdo it.

7

my feeling is that competitive powerlifting is very specific, the 3 lifts as you know.

powerlifting requires no conditoning or stamina, your lift last mere seconds and then you have a long break before your flight comes up again. Personally I don’t think that training the strongman lifts has benefit in this case, unless you just want to break the monotony sometimes.

on other hand the reverse is true, that training powerlifting will help with strongman, because increasing your deadlift & squat = overall increase in strength which means you’ll be that much stronger for the strongman lifts.

8

[quote]bearcat1485 wrote:

…I have never trained or competed in a strongman competition…but a few weeks ago I saw a flyer about a “Strongest Warrior Competition” That consisted of your usual Stone Carries, Farmers Walk, Humvee Pull, Tire Flip, etc. So I figured what the hell I’m stronger than most any Marine I have seen in the gyms on base. So I went…and got fuckin spanked!

I still had a good time…[/quote]

I had a good time, too. I went there to watch and not participate, but the civilian girls there talked me into competing. I could have won only if my legs were faster and stronger. I was sore as hell from the day before the contest - I worked out my legs. I did smoke the other girls in the first two events - farmers walk and military press. :smiley:

I wish I had a better grip on the stone! Grrrr…