T Nation

Strongman Manual... It's Due Time For One!

Strongman
#1

It is apparent that its due time for an all around well written manual on Strongman. I have seen manuals and have a few, but none are all that great. They basically tell you what THEY do and you’re supposed to mirror this. Would love to at least see a manual that gives…

1.) Professional instruction on all the events, proper form and such (understood there are a ton)

2.) Professional tips on assistance exercises (what works and what doesn’t…cutting the crap)

3.) Professional tips on the best conditioning methods

4.) Routines that cover a wide variety of weekly and daily structures, lift combinations, and also tiered for beginners all the way to professionals (simply put, DO THIS workouts)

5.) Professional tips on warm-ups, cool-downs, stretching, recovery work etc… that applies better to the Strongman versus what applies to the general fitness populace.

6.) Possibly a section that gives people ways to make their own Strongman implements, or how to find what they need for lowest cost.

This manual would be great written by all the past winners of the World’s Strongest Man competition.

I understand that this would turn into an epic tome probably larger than War and Peace but it would be absolutely worth it and it might help expand the Strongman world and make it an even bigger sport. Wishful thinking? Absolutely! I just don’t get how someone has not thought of doing this yet.

If I am just absolutely blind and could not find a manual that fits this description please point me to it!

#2

cube for strongman is good

it’s not as detailed as you like, but why should it be? You’re going to have to have some sort of introspective ability to be the best youc an

#3

I would love to see it happen, but it probably won’t for two reasons:

  1. The actual community that is serious about strongman, particularly the ones actively competing, is very small, especially when considered against, for example, powerlifting. Just look at the level of activity in this forum section vs the powerlifting section. Ultimately, there’s just not a big audience for the book you’re talking about, meaning not a lot of money to be made for what would be a ton of work.

  2. Mainly because of 1 most information you’re talking about is transferred either face-to-face or via Facebook. Because it’s usually groups of people getting together to train for strongman, information on say the most efficient technique for an event or what programming has worked for people mainly gets spread amongst relatively close groups. The downside to this is that these data are not readily available to someone not “in the know”.

That being said, there is a lot of information available on the internet on each of your points. You just have to do a bit of the foot work yourself.

#4

I would have loved something like this before my first competition! But it’s kind of a double edged in a sence ,by which I mean, access to lots of information leads generally to over informed ,under trained individuals and lots of needless nerdy posturing from the form police, truth is strongman is one of the last “here’s roughly how to do it , now you try” kind of sports, which is great! It leads to an unspoken understanding that as long as the task gets done it’s all good (within common sence of course) and also fosters a camaraderie rearly seen in other individual participation sports these days.