Is Strongman Training

W here that may lead a coach isanybody’s guess: Some searchfor an edge by looking

beyond the exercises used by powerlifters,Olympic lifters and sprinters. In the yearssince strength coaching has been recog-nized as a legitimate profession, we’ve seencoaches try everything from Pilates toSwiss balls to oxygenated water.

One reason some fads persist for solong is that there are many factors thatinfluence the outcome in sports and it’sdifficult to attribute success to one single

factor. The University of Utah was unde-feated in football last season, but are theystruggling this year because their coachmoved on to the University of Florida, orbecause they lost so many outstandingstarters, including quarterback Alex Smith,who became the number-one pick in theNFL draft? And whereas last year theUniversity of Oklahoma was in the nation-al championship game, this year they arenot even in the top-25 polls despite thereturn of their head coach and 2004Heisman Trophy finalist Adrian Peterson.

Such uncertainty is one reason coach-es become susceptible to straying from thebasics and trying the latest fads. And onesuch novelty that is currently capturing theinterest of strength coaches is strongmantraining.

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“Win or get fired!” is a motto that seems to have taken overthe coaching profession. In the pros and in college a losing sea-son is forgivable, but if you’re below .500 twice in a row you’dbetter start thinking about putting up a “For Sale” sign in frontof your home. There is enormous pressure for a coach to suc-ceed, and not just in the professional and collegiate ranks. Evenat the high school level, the pressure to win may prompt acoach to stray from conventional training parameters.

A look at the benefits and pitfalls of one of the latest fads by Kim Goss

PHOTOS COURTESY ALLEN HEDRICK, US AIR FORCE ACADEMY

Strongman competitions consist ofunusual events designed to teststrength in activities people can relateto, such as lifting stones. (DAN BRYANT PHOTO)

forYou?

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The Downside of

Strongman Training

As with any new training method,BFS believes that coaches should look witha skeptical eye at strongman trainingbefore including it in workouts as auxiliaryexercises. Playing devil’s advocate, here aresome of our concerns.

BUDGET. Although many athleticprograms make their own strongmanequipment – a practice that raises all sortsof liability issues – chances are if you wantsome of this equipment, you’re going tohave to buy it. But how many high schoolprograms have all the necessary equipmentto perform the core lifts with their athletes,much less auxiliary training with strong-man equipment? Do you get a few strong-man logs, or another power rack? A set offarmer’s walk handles, or bumper plates?

STORAGE. Have you ever met astrength coach, at any level, who thoughttheir weightroom was “too big”? Whatyou’ll find at many high schools are simplytoo many athletes in too small a space, cre-ating a safety issue. Creative schedulinghelps, but the point is that many of thesestrongman tools take up a lot of space. Doyou store them outside, in a large closet orin the corner of the weightroom when notin use? In one issue of BFS we featured aschool that had equipment, but no weight-room! They would store weights in a closetin the hall, and when school was over, theywould pull out the weights and lift in thehallways!

SAFETY. Not only must athletes be

trained to safely practice and spot strong-man exercises, coaches must address thefact that there can be a high risk of injurywith some of these events – especially tireflipping, in which there is the possibility ofthe tire falling back on the athlete, or injur-ing the biceps when improper flippingtechnique is used. Just ask Gagné.

“I work with a lot of high-level ath-letes in hockey and football, and there’s agreat-enough risk of injury with thosesports that I don’t want to risk injuringthem in the off-season with strongmantraining. Only if an athlete has an adequatebase in Olympic lifting would I considerperforming these movements,and I wouldn’t perform themyear-round.” In fact, Gagnésays that despite his own skillin the exercise and his knowl-edge of proper warm-up tech-niques, he almost snapped abiceps tendon while practicingthe exercise. Art McDermottagrees.

Coach McDermott,owner of the PoliquinPerformance Center in Boston,is one of the foremost expertsin the world on strongmantraining and is writing a bookon the subject. Says

McDermott, “There are too many peopleusing strongman techniques without prop-er training. It would be like my mom try-ing to show someone Olympic lifting —you can expect the worst to happen!””

SCHEDULING. Then there’s theissue of time limitations. Often manycoaches we interview get their weighttraining in during the day in class, whichmeans their athletes are usually limited toabout 45-minute training sessions. Couldstrongman training detract from theirresults? I posed this question to NewMexico Head Strength Coach MarkPaulson, who has been with the Lobos for19 years. Coach Paulson said that even atthe collegiate level it’s hard to get in thebasics of football conditioning, such asweight training and running, let alone dosupplemental strongman training.

In high school, often coaches havetheir athletes lift during the school daywithin a separate weight training class. Butwith only 45 minutes, not much more canbe accomplished other than the core liftsand a few auxiliary exercises.

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58 | BIGGER FASTER STRONGER JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006

Canadian strengthcoach Mario Greco saysthat instead of strong-man training, a betterway to develop legdrive for running wouldbe the use of pushingand pulling sleds.Shown here is a pushsled he designed that isbeing tested at thePoliquin PerformanceCenter in Boston.

Erin Warnick from Dallas,Texas, was a figure skater

who used Olympic lifting toenhance her athletic ability.

(REG BRADFORD PHOTO)

Strongman 12/1/05 11:53 AM Page 58

If you haven’t spent much timewatching midnight telecasts on ESPN,strongman competitions consist of unusualevents designed to test strength in activitiespeople can relate to. In the past there havebeen events such as pulling buses, liftingthe ends of cars, tossing tires and runningwith refrigerators. Now there are morestandard events, and prize money is gettingrespectable to attract the best athletes inthe world. Josh Bryant, one of thestrongest young powerlifters in the worldand who was featured in our Spring 2004issue, is now actively involved in this sport.

Despite the difficulty in predictingsports success, with strongman training wecan at least examine some of the pros andcons to help you determine if it should bea part of your program.

Does Strongman Training Work?

One of the most vocal advocates ofstrongman training is Allen Hedrick,strength coach at the Air Force Academy,who has been implementing strongmantraining with his athletes for the past fiveyears, starting with water-filled barrels,then tractor tires and logs. On a brief visitto the Academy this summer I saw animpressive arrangement of heavy tires, kegsand other strongman apparatus. SaysHedrick, “We use this type of training tosupplement our emphasis on barbells anddumbbells, not as a replacement.”

The rationale for including this typeof training is that Hedrick believes that theresistance is active, compared to the staticexercises performed with barbells. Oneexample he provides is the water-filled bar-rels. As the barrel is lifted, the water shiftsand makes the activity unstable. Althoughthere is little scientific research available atpresent to evaluate the effectiveness of theactive resistance of strongman trainingcompared to the static resistance of bar-bells, Hedrick believes that in sports suchas football, this type of training would bemore sport specific because athletes

encounter active resistance in the form ofopponents.

“The ability to demonstrate maximal1-rep strength is only important in thesports of Olympic lifting and power lift-ing. In football – and most if not all othersports – functional strength is moreimportant than 1-rep barbell strength.Having my athletes benchpress or squat with a kegmay not be the best way toincrease their ability todemonstrate max 1-repstrength with a barbell,but I believe it does builda higher level of functionalstrength.” Hedrick alsobelieves that such traininghas resulted in fewerinjuries, citing that onlytwo of their playersrequired knee surgery thisyear.

Although there are many proponentsof strongman training, it does have itscritics. One is Mario Greco, an accom-plished strength coach from Canada whohas worked with many world-class sprint-ers and professional hockey and footballplayers. Coach Greco believes that strong-man training is not the panacea of athlet-ic enhancement.

“The duration that most of theseexercises are performed makes it impractical to use them for maximalstrength training,” says Greco. “You don’tperform a farmer’s walk or a tire flip forone rep, so the recruitment of the fast-twitch motor units cannot be as high asyou’re able to achieve in conventionalweight training. I also see little value inthis type of training for improving agilityor running speed, and for that matter theskills that are required for football line-men. In football, linemen are continuous-ly driving through with their legs, andthey are reacting to the actions of theiropponents. If you want to really get more

sport specific, have offensive linemenpractice speed bag work and defensivelineman practice grappling or wrestlingdrills.”

Asked what auxiliary exercises he useswith his athletes, Coach Greco says he usesa “power acceleration sled” he designed toimprove leg drive by reducing the involve-

ment of the arms, as occurs insled dragging. Resistance can beaccurately increased by a brak-ing system on the wheels andby adding additional weights.Greco says that pushing such adevice, which is more practicalthan many because it can beused indoors, appears far saferand more sport specific thanflipping a tire. “I can also quantify my results with a stopwatch – if pushing a sleddidn’t make my athletes runfaster, I would know it.” [Note:

If you want to know more about Mario’sresearch with sled training, he can bereached at mgreco@idirect.com.)

Another strength coach who chal-lenges the idea of sport-specificity is PaulGagné. Gagné’s client list includes two ofthe best golfers in the world, Michelle Wieand Michael Campbell; Olympic champi-ons in figure skating; and over 100 athletesin professional hockey and football. SaysGagné, “One problem with saying thatstrongman training is sport specific is thatthe grips used often depress neuromuscularactivity. With a barbell or a dumbbell youare always able to apply the precise amountof tension you want because your handsare closed. If you flip a tire, your hand isopen, which reduces the neuromuscularactivity. For sport-specific training, Iwould rather rely on complex neuromus-cular exercises such as the Olympic lifts. SoI would say that if you want to train theenergy systems, strongman training is fine;but there are limitations to applyingstrongman training to sports.”

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Canadian strengthcoach Paul Gagné,

shown here workingwith a professional

football player.

Strongman 12/6/05 9:51 AM Page 57

COACHING. Just as you don’t send gymnasts into a room and say, “Playgymnastics,” you shouldn’t do the samewith strongman training. But where doyou learn how to do this stuff? Fromreading a magazine article? Of coursenot. Hands-on training is key to propercoaching, but do you simply look up“strongman training” in the Yellow Pagesand hire a coach? Fly to Canada perhapsfor a private session with Paul Gagné?

And how do you evaluate the abilities ofsomeone teaching strongman techniques– by how fast they can flip a 400-poundtire?

Such is the nature of sports that it’sdifficult to isolate single factors thatmake the difference between winningand losing, and our conclusion is thatstrongman training for athletes is a rela-tively new trend with little scientificresearch to support its use. Maybe we’ll

come across reports in the future thatindicate strongman training is a key fac-tor in the success of many high schoolathletic programs. Maybe the answer isin being conservative, trying one or twostrongman events at a time during anygiven workout. We certainly know whathas worked in the past to develop cham-pions, but with strongman training onlytime will tell whether it will earn a placeat the high school level.

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