When you first begin training, you adopt some of the more popular trends of weight lifting such as lifting super heavy, and lifting to full max effort each day possible. I mean, the law specificity states you train for the desired outcome! But these early misconceptions of training can be detrimental, and if done long enough, develop bad habits that are hard to break. I have had a chance to work with many lifters and some of them feel that if the workout isn’t at least two hours long and requiring the heaviest of weight, it is a waste. This is by no means realistic but sometimes teaching an old dog new tricks requires heavy effort, thankfully science has progressed and allowed us to have a much smarter approach.

When it comes to human performance, I am a proponent for corrective feedback, corrective movement, and having a proactive approach with programming. What I mean by this is making sure that before I work with a client, I understand not only their strengths but their technical and physical deficiencies as well. One of the biggest areas of deficiency in performance is the hips. Whether you are a Division 1 running back, or a part-time powerlifter, the hips are the number one weapon for any athlete. If you struggle with development of the hips, your performance will suffer. So, how do we fix this issue?

Whenever I was young, I was proud of my strength. I felt I could press a mountain, but obviously the mindset of a young post-pubescent man has an altered reality. My world was shook the day I stepped into freshman year of Chemistry, though. To be technical, it was “Introduction to Physics and Chemistry”, I’d hate to be a bad story teller! Our teacher was known for her direct manner of communication, and after meeting her she told me...

“Joey, you have a big chest and I am sure are strong! But your arms are tiny, seems very disproportionate”

...WHAT?! I mean, yeah she is right and I totally support that notion. But I mean, come on, I am 14 years old, no need to destroy my manhood yet! Regardless, though, it was true. My bodacious pecs were beyond superior to my inferior arms, it needed to be addressed and surprisingly didn’t come easy. I would work all the movements necessary for growing my arms, but I still was unsuccessful. It wasn’t until my 20’s did I realize some of the mistakes I was making.

It’s Saturday morning and you have the day off. You’ve been itching to finally get a workout in, but you know that at 9am your family wakes up with the expectation of pastries, mountains of bacon and some of the finest scrambled eggs you have to offer. You have limited time to blast the iron, so what do you rely on?

You don’t have to be a calculus teacher to be strong, or do you? Well, not really, BUT math is a big part of our success with the iron. You can discuss the anatomy, physiology, and cellular level focus on generating movement, but in addition to these topics it’s also import to understand the biomechanical aspect of lifting which in this case, we will focus on the levers of the body. These levers are the bones of our body, but if you were to get really technical, it would be the appendicular skeleton we would be discussing. For the focus of this topic, I would like to discuss how the lever distance of the femur can have an effect on your squat. In other words, why do some people seem to squat better than others?

The term “powerlifting” can be broken down into two components: strength and speed. In order to conquer any feat in the world of competitive weightlifting, it requires the manifestation of strength and speed to defy the odds. For the past several years, I have been a competitor and continue to train for future events. My biggest accomplishment, though, occurred in March of 2011, when I set a personal record of deadlifting 630 pounds at a body weight of 234. The amount of time and effort dedicated to this task required several months of training, physically and mentally. Initially, training towards this goal consisted of typical training protocol; less reps and more weight.

We have investigated this topic extensively, discussing the areas of corrective movement as well as various tactics for triple extension. Now it’s time to focus on the heart of the sport and actually begin to implement various types of event training. To bring us back to the start, the purpose of this series was to document our success with training for strongman without traditional strongman equipment and access. COVID-19 had just hit the US, and it was limiting my ability with various clients to promote strength training especially in the area of strongman

These individuals who are referencing the squat, bench and deadlift also call them “the big three”. The big three are important for many reasons, as they incorporate all the major muscle groups and support our growth and development to evolve from “average” to “great”. Yes…there is an argument as to why certain lifters would choose to do certain movements, there is no arguing that. But I believe if you are not a fan of the deadlift, what about the Romanian deadlifts? If you are not a fan of the deadlift, what about a single leg deadlift? What I am doing with these statements is adding a version of the deadlift that although it is not the authentic deadlift, it is a variation of the deadlift that best fits an individual of different “needs”. So if you are a distance runner and do not feel necessary to deadlift, the single leg deadlift becomes a movement that transfers to your sport or hobby tremendously that it is hard to argue against.