Shannon Green of Warrior Performance in Australia has a thick accent. My mate Tom says, “I live here and sometimes I don’t know what he’s saying.” But the words that come out of his mouth are top notch, and he can make you a strongman. His favorite hobby is competing in strongman competitions (he also makes good coffee, but that’s neither here nor there). We did a post on how to train for strongman as a beginner, and today’s post is a sequel in that it discusses programming for someone that has transitioned into primarily training for an event.

Shannon is quick to point out that there’s no best way to train for strongman and that most guys will figure out their own unique template that they’ve adapted to. They know their body and figure out what works for them, and that’s why Shannon considers establishing “table tennis strength” important before doing heavy event training. By getting strong, the trainee will have a good understanding of how their body adapts to stress as well as experience with lifting and training. Heavy events are progressions or variants of different strength lifts, but their dynamic nature demands experience, balance, and connective tissue strength.

Shan with the yoke

No, this didn’t turn into a sex or relationship advice column, but it is a good piece of advice. For training. And stuff (uh, NSFW for language?).



When you walk out of the gym, do you know how much time has passed? Or do you feel like you’re surfacing from underwater, breathing heavily, and gasping, “What happened, I blacked out?” Knowing how much time is relevant, because you most likely need to decrease that amount of time. I spent about half an hour looking for references on this topic, but I don’t have access to scholarly sources and my textbooks were vague, but Dr. Pascuale’s “Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete” provided the following:

Androgens such as testosterone (and trophic hormones such as LH) increase with intense exercise as long as it is not exhausting. Thus, short intense training sessions will give the best results and maximize lean body mass and strength. When exercise duration is too long, the level of testosterone decreases. Thus repetitive and prolonged heavy exercise results in overtraining and in decreased protein synthesis and increased muscle catabolism (pg 340-341).

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When I walked into the gym yesterday, there was a group of guys in the squat rack doing upright rows and shrugs with less than 100 pounds. There was a lot of fist bumping. Next to them was a well-meaning kid doing half squats with weight most girls I know can squat to depth. Then I saw a guy exploring his 1RM nosebreaker without a spot (he barely survived). Later in the locker room I heard a guy who walks around like he’s impressive brag about his whey protein, “It’s got hydrolized and ionized whey in it. I can’t wait to have my two shakes every day.” I’m normally calm and under control, but these events made me want to flip out.

The to weak shruggers I’d shout, “YOU’RE NOT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING!”
To the nose breaker I’d shout, “WHY WOULD YOU HIT A 1 REP MAX IN THAT?”
To the protein braggart I’d shout, “DO YOU EVEN LIFT?”



I’m sick of rear flyes, upright rows, and Smith machines. I’m sick of 30 minute elliptical sessions, half squats, and triceps extensions. Most of all, I’m sick of seeing people misinformed. I wish I could help everyone, but not everyone believes they need help. Coercion is a simpleton’s game. What I can do instead is to make sure that you, the “well-informed reader” understand why you do what you do. In the event you’re asked about it, you can effectively share this information legitimately. That two minute conversation will make or break your friend’s acceptance of “training” instead of “fucking around”.

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Monday’s are devoted to female related topics to help females begin or continue to train.

In this post, about 40% of female poll-takers said that they couldn’t do a pull-up (while 7% said they could at least do a chin-up). In this post we talked about how to develop a chin-up (underhand) or pull-up (overhand), but only briefly talked about programming these methods. While the Frequency Method works well, there is some leeway on how to implement it. We’ll discuss how to go about improving the pull-up based on current ability, give tips about the Frequency Method, and offer some other methods.



What To Do
Here are the levels from no chin-up to pull-up (use this post for explanation). Note that the chin-up will develop first, so all movements focus on that unless otherwise noted.

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Greetings lovely readers. I hope you had a jolly week. It’s PR Friday, so share your weekly PR’s and training updates. Today I want to hear what mobility concerns you have. In other words, what structures/joints do you need to work on the most?

Also, we will continue yesterday’s poll. If you already voted, please refrain from doing so.
[poll id=”36″]

This week started with a short video on Push-up cues that can specifically help females augment their strength training within the confines of a good externally rotated shoulder position. We then discussed what I call “Antagonistic Motivation” to provide long-term motivation in a program. On Wednesday we discussed the importance of keeping a good training log and Thursday we explained and discussed pulling styles in Olympic weightlifting.

Thanks to Jay for the pic

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