Effective Strongman Training Routine
An in-depth look at how to design a custom Strongman Training routine to achieve your goals.
The sport of strongman competition has grown tremendously in the last few years. This growth in popularity has sparked increased interest in the training techniques and routines of strongman competitors. The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to strongman training with respect to the basics of building a routine. It will assume the reader is somewhat familiar with strength training in general and the specific exercises mentioned. Future articles will cover the “how to” of performing strongman specific movements (such a tire flipping and stones) and other nuances of the sport.
A simple Google search on strongman will provide a tremendous amount of training information. Making sense of all of that information and using it to put together an effective routine can be tricky business. Many individuals, excited by the prospect of newfound training techniques and exercises will create routines that quickly lead to overtraining due to excessive volume and loads. The following information will help you to avoid that pratfall.
Let’s start with a few basic guidelines:
- Use your heaviest working sets in the gym to focus on the lifts that will have the highest carryover: power cleans, deadlifts, front squats, push jerks etc.
- Begin with a low volume, low intensity warm-up and then work your way to a max effort (ME) set in one of the above key exercises. After that, focus on supersets and a mix of compound and isolation movements to improve your conditioning and muscular endurance.
- Only squat or deadlift once per week.
**If you are a powerlifter and looking to compete in both sports then you can do one ME and one dynamic effort (DE) day each week. For example, perform your ME work on Wednesday and DE work on Friday with events on Sunday.
- Low intensity cardio is the only kind of cardio that you should be doing when using traditional equipment (stair-stepper, stationary bike etc.). Higher intensity work should be reserved for plyometrics and sled dragging since they will have a more direct carryover and should not compromise, but rather can enhance your resistance training via the concepts of active recovery and improved muscular conditioning.
- Limit yourself to 3 days per week of resistance training with barbells or machines, 2-3 days cardio, and 1 events day. If you are just starting out, you should alternate your events days with both ÒheavyÓ and Òspeed/techniqueÓ focused workouts. Brute strength is important for strongman, but technique plays a nearly equal factor.
- If you are not feeling prepared for a good training session on any given day, cut out your heavy compound exercises and take it easy. Strongman training is very taxing on the central nervous system (CNS) and a recovery day can be much more productive than a heavy day when applied at the appropriate times.
Now, let�s take the above information and create some specific routines. Keep in mind that variety is important and even small things like a change in the range of motion, speed of movement, or rep ranges can provide the conjugate variety needed to avoid overtraining of the CNS.
Example Routine A (someone looking to get the most out of events day)
- Monday: incline / standing push jerk / log press, triceps & delts assistance work
- Tuesday: active recovery day – sled drag, swimming, etc.
- Wednesday: deadlift / front squat / cleans, leg assistance exercises (machines)
- Thursday: chins, calves, abs, cardio
- Friday: rest
- Saturday: events day (tire, yoke, farmers, stones, etc.)
- Sunday: rest
Example Routine B (focus on pressing strength)
- Monday: speed / technique pressing day – OHP, chins, rows, cardio
- Tuesday: rest
- Wednesday: ME squat / deadlift / cleans, leg assistance work
- Thursday: rest
- Friday: heavy pressing day – OHP, triceps assistance work
- Saturday: events (moving events only)
- Sunday: rest
Example Routine C (powerlifter / strongman):
- Monday: back & cardio (chins, rows, low intensity cardio / abs)
- Tuesday: bench work (bench, triceps)
- Wednesday: rest
- Thursday: squats (squats, glute-hamstring raises/rev hyper)
- Friday: rest / active recovery*
- Saturday: rest / active recovery*
- Sunday: events training (4 events, usually including a deadlift variation)
*Pick either Friday or Saturday to do some type of cardio / active recovery depending on how taxing the squat workout was. This can include sled drags, walking, low intensity sports, or swimming.
Example Routine D (bodybuilding / strongman)
- Monday: chest / back – incline press, chins, machines or dumbbell supersets through rest of workout
- Tuesday: rest
- Wednesday: legs – deadlift or squat, machine supersets and drop sets to finish
- Thursday: arms – biceps, triceps, delts (hammer curl, close grip, strict pressing then supersets using mostly free weights followed by machines to fatigue)
- Friday: cardio – low intensity, active recovery
- Saturday: events – this is where you will do all heavy training. Gym lifts should not be ME, but rather a 5×5 or 3×3 on your core movement followed by bodybuilding training
- Sunday: rest
One of the above programs should suit your individual goals. Choose one and give it your all! Train hard, train smart and you will soon reach your strongman goals and perhaps one day even join the ranks of professional strongman.
Written by Tom Mutaffis
The above article and photos were first published at AtLarge Nutrition. Please visit AtLarge Nutrition for more articles and access to their fine products.
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Im trying to get into strongman training. The problem is I workout at Golds gym and dont have access to event equipment and don’t know anyone involved in it. Anyway I’m 6′ 205 and am trying to put on around 40 lbs. So I know I have a way to go but could you give me a routine that I could do that will focus on getting bigger and stronger.I looked at some of the programs above, but not sure which one I should do and also the sets and rep ranges. Program D looks good but Im not sure on how to go about it. Thanks!
Nick, I am going to make a suggestion that may at first seem unorthodox, but I want to suggest you contact Ironmind Enterprises and ask them to suggest some copies of Milo that contain some strongman routines. I am the webmaster of this site and I am an aficionado of strength training, but I have never trained for an event-specific competition.
Ironmind has a veritable cornucopia of literature and DVD’s that you might be able to glean some knowledge from.
E-mail: sales@ironmind.com
Phone: +1-530-272-3579
http://www.ironmind.com
Let me know how this works for you.
I have searched everywhere online and cannot find a specific warm up routine to perform prior to a strongman workout. All I seem to find is performing warm up sets on lifts like bench press, deadlifts, etc..
I am wondering if anyone who is knowledgable on strongman training has a warm up routine
Thanks
Hey, Kevin
I regularly do lifting and strongman training and have found that starting out with a light weight and doing whatever motion/activity you plan to do for your work sets is a great way to prepare your body for the heavier work you are about to do. For instance, if you plan on doing a Farmer’s Walk with 225lbs in each hand, start out using 135lbs each hand and maybe follow up with a set of 185lbs each hand before hitting your heavier sets. Now if you are planning to do some tire flip it’s not too likely that you have multiple size/weight tractor tires around to warm up with. For this situation I would recommend assessing what muscles are going to be used to perform the activity and working those rather lightly before your strongman lifts. So with the tire example you might do some light deadlifting, front squats, shrugs, etc. You could also do some partial lifts before going full-range. Hope this helps!
Chris this is a terrific post, and very helpful. I stumbled across an article today that talked about “ramping” that you may find interesting, although whether or not you can adapt it to your sport is questionable. That said, the theory behind it is intriguing. Here is the link:
Ramping by Thibaudeau I hope this is useful. Thanks for your awesome input!!!!
To warm-up for a strongman workout I would recommend starting off with some light cardiovascular exercise (walking, elliptical, etc.) for 5-10 minutes and then moving on to light olympic lifting or band work as the next step in your warm up (snatches, band curls, strict press, squats, etc.). This should be done with very light weight and is not meant to be challenging but simply to engage your muscle and get some blood flowing. From there you can move onto training with implements – usually starting out with a press movement since those are easy to work your way up. For events like yoke and farmers you can also steadily increase the weights / distances throughout your training session. For something like a tire or stone where the weight is fixed you may want to perform a couple of sets of 1-2 reps before doing a ‘working set’. Always remember to cool down after a workout, and performing flexibility work on non-training days will help with injury prevention. If anyone has questions about the article, training programs, or anything strongman related you can feel free to email me tmutaffis@yahoo.com
Tom it’s an honor for you to come in and comment. Thank you so much for your input and your inspiration brother.
Timothy