Strongman Training for Powerlifting Gains
By Michael Watkins
For www.EliteFTS.com

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The idea for this article began during and after preparation for my first Strongman meet. I had been powerlifting for just over two years and had never really given much thought to Strongman. While surfing the web, I came across a Strongman meet that was close to where I live. With only six weeks of training, I entered the Lake Cumberland Strongman Championship and had a blast competing with and against six other guys who were in our group. Altogether, there were 30–40 lifters, and even though I didn’t place, I ended the day on a positive note. I won’t give up powerlifting, but I do see more Strongman meets in my future.

Let’s get back to the article with a little background. As mentioned above, my powerlifting experience is limited to just over two years. I’ve been training since high school and took up powerlifting as a change from what I had been doing. I needed something different, and after turning thirty in May of 2005, I did my first powerlifting meet in October of that year. I competed raw in the 198-lb weight class, and despite a third place finish (really last because there were only three competitors in my division), I was hooked. Since then, I have continued to work toward my elite total competing in the 275-lb weight class while using single ply gear. I write this article not as an authoritative figure on training, nor an elite lifter or even a top Strongman competitor. I write this as an average trainee who, like many others visiting this website, is looking for additional knowledge to increase his total.

Transitioning from powerlifting to Strongman training took pretty much the same approach that was already in place. My training is based on a Westside template that is customized to my own needs. The major change is the frequency. I train an average of three times a week. This is mostly based around my work schedule, which is once every third day. I’m a paramedic and work a 24 on–48 off shift. Coming in before shift is an easy way for me to work toward my goal and balance my other responsibilities. The unexpected benefit has been better recovery because the standard four day approach takes too much out of me.

The competition I entered had four events—the log press, farmers walk, deadlift for reps, and stone sequence. I had never done any of these events except for the deadlift. I didn’t even have the implements to perform the events or the knowledge of how best to execute them. I turned to EliteFTS.com to gather my information.

Mike Johnston on the Strongman Q&A was very helpful in answering my rookie questions and so was CJ Murphy from Total Performance Sports. I even purchased the video, Functional Strongman Training for Athletes and Competitors, from EliteFTS.com to lay the ground work for my plan. I was even fortunate enough to find a Strongman competitor close to where I live who had all the implements I would need to train with and was generous enough to allow me and some other guys to come and train.

During the time leading up to the meet, I chose to drop the bench press and focus on the log press. As a powerlifter, I believed that I didn’t need any real shoulder work in my program to increase my bench. Needless to say, overhead pressing strength was of low priority. I embraced this same philosophy for bicep work. Hell, it was Dave Tate who led me to believe that “curls are for girls,” and like any good disciple, I took it as truth.

Unfortunately, these weaknesses would be glaringly obvious come game day, and bicep tendonitis became so bad that the idea of a bicep tear became a real possibility. Bench work was excluded for the entire six weeks while I focused on increasing strength on the log. ME days remained with an emphasis on deadlifting for reps. The farmers walk and stones were done either after leg days or on a separate day geared toward event work only.

Now that you see what changes were made in preparing for the Strongman meet, let me share with you the crossover effect it has had in my preparation for my upcoming powerlifting meet. During the six-week preparation for the meet, I took a max on the safety squat bar box squat. My previous max before the Strongman training was 605 lbs off a parallel box in a squat suit with straps up. After three weeks of Strongman, I hit 655 lbs. A 50-lb PR isn’t bad for changing no other component of the routine except for the addition of event work. As happy as I was over this PR, it in no way assisted the actual Strongman work I was doing. It hindered it if anything. Live and learn I guess. I also noticed that walking this weight out was far easier than any other attempt I have ever done. Walking weights out isn’t an issue for some, but for me, it is the hardest part of the squat.

The next thing I noticed was my increased deadlift ability. The deadlift has been a difficult lift since I went from a 198-lb lifter to a 255-lb lifter. The additional weight has benefited my squat and bench, but it has destroyed my ability to utilize the best leverage for the deadlift. The work performed using repetitions during pulls has helped me utilize better technique with heavy weights. This is something that speed pulls, rack pulls, and reverse band pulls haven’t been able to do. I haven’t performed a max deadlift yet, but all my indicators show that it should be significantly improved. The biggest surprise was yet to come…

I felt that during this phase of Strongman, my squat and deadlift would go up but my bench would go down. It would only be logical to conclude that while not performing a movement, one’s strength would decrease in that movement. My last 2-board with a shirt was done about two weeks before my last meet back at the end of July. I did shirt work for the first time since then and hit a 5-lb PR on the shirted 2-board bench last week. This to me was amazing. How do you get stronger without doing a movement? Again, I did zero benching while preparing for the Strongman meet and hadn’t been in a shirt in over eight weeks. I was unstable at the upper end of the movement, but the strength was there and I was ecstatic!

This has been my experience while utilizing the Strongman training. My training partner, who competes as a 198-lber, has experienced close to the same results. I believe the results can be attributed to the following factors:

Addressing weaknesses: Every program has weaknesses. Even programs that address weaknesses will create or reveal other weaknesses. Say you become more explosive and learn how to get out that last little bit of support from your double ply gear. Congratulations, now you realize that your core isn’t strong enough to support the weights it now takes to get you to parallel. We all have some weakness that is holding us back, and believe me, Strongman training will manifest any weakness you may have in a hurry. For me, the following weaknesses weren’t completely corrected but improved upon. This had the biggest carryover for me.

Core development. When it comes to big deadlifts and heavy squats, nothing can hold a lifter back quicker than a weak core. When the core is developed to an unusually greater degree of strength, the squat, bench, and deadlift are easier to execute. Nothing will work your core like lifting a stone and setting it on a platform or doing farmers walks that make your hips feel as if the femurs will separate from the pelvis. You can’t find that kind of core work in traditional powerlifting programs.
Posterior development. This is comparable to the above. I’ve done glute ham raises and reverse hypers and other work for my posterior, but nothing had the effect that the events I trained for had.
Shoulder strength. I never really thought that one needed strong shoulders to bench well. I was one of those lifters who believed that the indirect work received from chest and back training was enough. However, I can’t deny the effect my new found shoulder strength is having on my bench. The results of these are still being discovered.
Event training: As I said before, the events that were in the meet were new to me. Three out of four movements, I had never done. In Strongman, the events are always changing. Adding in tire flips, yoke, power steps, and medleys would add a whole new dimension of adaptation in one’s training cycle. This new level of adaptation has a crossover effect when going back to a traditional powerlifting program.

Conditioning: This probably had the least effect, but it did play a role. I’m one of those guys who did zero conditioning. Hell, the most I got before Strongman was looking at the sled and that was on a good day. The first time I did farmers walks I thought my heart would explode. After having performed it for a few weeks, I began to enjoy it, and I noticed that when I was doing heavy deadlifts, stone work, or even DE box squats, the movements were easier and not as demanding. I even noticed something that Mark Bartley had mentioned when talking about the Prowler work he did—better recovery between work outs.

This is what I believe was responsible for my recent across the board PRs. After the December meet, I will begin training again for my next Strongman meet. With more time and a better understanding of what my weaknesses are I hope to have a much better performance.

I will write another article at that time to chronicle my (hopefully) continued success with the Strongman protocol. Currently, I have added shoulder and bicep work to my routine to balance out my program and perform the event work every other week to better my form. I think many lifters can benefit from adding some of the Strongman events to their training. It doesn’t take a willingness to compete in Strongman to realize the benefits of such training. Adding in some of the events will have unexpected results that might be the ticket to getting yourself closer to an elite total. I know it has for me.