BEYOND STRONG

It's been TOO long!

I have had a super busy year and just had no real spare time to be blogging over the last 5 or 6 months. Hopefully over the Xmas period I can get you all up to speed on how I've been managing my training on limited training time.

For now here's a video that will give you reason to go and lift some iron.

Nick

Andy Bolton - 457.5kg

THE GREATEST LIFT I'VE EVER SEEN

In 25 years of lifting and competing this is without a doubt the greatest single feat of strength I have ever witnessed.

Andy Bolton Deadlifted an incredible 457.5kg or 1008.6lbs!!!

World's Strongest Man Competitor Laurence Shahlaei and his younger brother Harry were right next to me cheering like crazy as we witnessed history.

Andy Bolton we salute you.

I have nothing else to say but watch the video and be in awe.

Nick

This is my video from afar and the second video is DARKSIDE BARBELL'S superior video

David Webster OBE

This is a fantastic short documentary on the life of the amazing David Webster OBE. David P. Webster is a world renowned historian on Weightlifting, Strength Sports and Highland Games, and has been involved in the industry since the 1940’s. He is author of over 40 books, still holds world records in Strand Pulling and received the OBE for services to sport from Her Majesty the Queen at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace in 1995.

I was lucky enough to visit David's house a see his incredible collection with David Horne, Lee Morrison and Mike Thompson in 1998. It was David Webster who officiated on our lifting of the Dinnie Stones along with Gordon Dinnie.

Congratulations David Webster OBE!

Nick

PoundSTONE

Derek Poundstone lives up to his name by SHOULDERING a 400lbs Atlas Stone!  Mind boggling strength...

Nick

The Belleville Weightlifting Club

This is a nice little documentary about The Belleville Weightlifting Club, SIU Carbondale. This gym is about as good as it gets if you ask me. Real strength training, plenty of equipment, great atmosphere and lots of HARD WORK. Check out the vids...

Nick

Ghetto Jump Training (part one)

The truth about training is that once you know what to do the only 'secret' is that of knowing how to work hard. For those of you who don't read all the Blogs at Beyond Strong, checkout Theo's latest  for some ways in which he is testing himself and his body in new ways.

I'm finding that I don't have the time or the access to the equipment I would like sometimes. This means I have to be innovative in getting the training I want into my routine. The following video is a simple way to implement jump training into your routine no matter where you are. The 'luxury' p1 I have is a small fitness gym in the basement of our apartment block. I also have stairs, kettlebells and a weight vest. Here's what I came up with.

Goblet Squat Jumps with a 28kg KB and a 30lb weight vest or around 90lbs in total. The idea is that it takes the arms out of the movement. I squat below parallel mainly to take the full impact with maximum cushioning. This will save your knees. I like sets of 5 but anything from 2-10 reps will work well. This puts most of the stress on the legs rather than the back and legs as the Goblet Squats force you to stay upright.

Plyometric Pushups. Hand speed and power in the triceps and chest will compliment the work you put in on the pulling muscles. Without the weight vest I can do triple clap pushups but for a change of intensity the weight vest is great. There are lots of variations so be creative.

Jumping up stairs. Jumping and indeed running up stairs is a fine exercise. Be careful and know your limits. Adding a weight vest is an advanced exercise. Depth jumping is not something I would do often but once in a while is fine. Again, know your limits. Start lower and build up the height and only add a weight vest if you can squat double bodyweight.

Finally I rowed a fast 500 meters on the concept 2 rower (about 1min 30 secs). After the jumps and with the weight vest this is tough. My legs were fatigued and the weight vest builds up on you throughout the whole workout. Anaerobic work like this is a great finisher.

This is a simple, effective and rapid (25 minutes) workout. There will be more...

Nick

Watch, listen and learn

Strongman videographer and strength training aficionado, Garrick Daft, posted this two part interview with Zydrunas Savickas and Andrus Murumets on YouTube. It's not riveting as such but the nuggets of true training are in there if you listen carefully. Here's my comments on interviews.

Andrus Murumets

The Best thing from Murumets is him saying that training grippers makes your hands weaker. David Horne and I have been saying that for years. Grippers are good for grippers. Can we please stop training them if you want strong hands!!!

Also, his training routine is BIG and BASIC with virtually no events! The man is incredible but what I think we forget sometimes is that the events are not the be all end all. Train them but the main thing is to get stronger. That means a BIG squat and Big Deadlift and Big overhead lifts. The rest will follow.

Zydrunas Savickas

Zydrunas is a quiet, determined individual. He says he has strength in reserve and that he saves his best for competitions. Many strongmen and athletes could learn from that. There's no point getting all fired up in training week in week out. Save the big psyche for competitions.

He loves the iron! I mean he loves lifting heavy. He may not get super excited like some guys but deep down you can tell he loves it. Do you?

See how he gives props to Kazmaier. Pure class. Young lifters could learn a LOT from that alone.

Here's the videos...

Nick

Olympic Sprinter Training

I always enjoy seeing new ideas and just what's interesting about this video is that nothing here is all that new. That's not disrespecting Dallas in anyway. In fact I applaud his methods and it just reinforces the old adage that there really is nothing new. Here's a young, determined, super hard working athlete just doing there thing. Training - HARD! Great stuff here for coaches and athletes alike.

Nick

Dallas Robinson is a sprinter aiming to be at the 2008 Olympic games.

High rep squats

Well for some reason I went for a high rep set or two of squats on monday. I can't say it was planned and the lack of high rep conditioning was evident. I'd read about Dan John's workout he did once in 1979 which consists of...

315lbsx30 rest
275lbsx30 rest
220lbsx30 go home and rest.

I didn't manage that and I don't think this is all that great but Rick wanted me to post it so here's the video.

Nick

Inch Dumbbell Snatch!

Well, it's a 'baby' Inch but it's still 53kg/116.6lbs and has the same thick 2 3/8" handle the regular Inch Dumbbells replicas have. I did this last week with Big Loz looking on a duplicated it twice today to get some video evidence etc. As far as we know I am the first to do this but I am sure others could do it as well. Loz got pretty close today with a mighty muscled out snatch/press. We both got air time under the Inch pretty easily as well with both hands (left and right).

Anyway, here's the video.

Nick