“How Much Ya Bench?!”

This is a guest post from Chandler Marchman, designer of the SWOLE System: The New Authority for Building Size, Strength, and a Lean Athletic Body

The Bench Press – the one lift in the gym that’s seemed to transcend beyond the realm of just meathead weightlifting enthusiasts, and solidified itself as the official lift that every man must know his number for. So pretty much, if an over eager Man-Crushing beckons the question, we as men must be prepared to respond proudly with a stout number otherwise risk getting asked to turn in our MAN-Card…

But what if you are a competitive Strongman, CrossFitter, or Olympic lifter that holds the Overhead Press in higher regard????

I for one can attest to this dilemma. However, instead of ditching the bench press all together, I have found a simple and extremely effective way to not only do both, but also utilize one of powerlifting’s most prominent training systems to do so. That’s right, for those of you afraid to expose your undying allegiance to the Overhead Press, you no longer have to shamefully explain to people that you prefer a different movement pattern than the King of Meathead lifts…So rejoice, and restore your MAN-Card to its rightful place in your wallet. You no longer have to just do Overhead, you can Bench Press too!!!

The Birth of the SWOLE System

The solution I found to this meathead conundrum was birthed whilst training for my last Strongman Competition in which the pressing portion of the competition would be a certain number of reps on different implements for time. Noting that the weights for this event weren’t my limiting factor, I had to focus my time and effort on developing as much speed overhead as possible.

It wouldn’t be enough to just be able to lift maximal loads overhead, I had to lift them with a relative degree of speed. So taking what I have implemented successfully with my own interpretation of the Westside Method, I simply adopted the same principles utilized to build the bench press, only using the Overhead in its place.

Let’s examine.

If you know the Westside Method and the results this program produces you can expect to produce an athlete that can lift a hell of a lot of weight as fast as greased lighting. Pretty much, their power output rivals that of an angry bear with the munchies going after your picnic basket. Scary…I know…

The Basic Concepts

How are they able to do this? Simple, their training goals (squatting, benching & deadlifting as much as humanly possible) are met by two different methods with two different objectives. The Dynamic Effort Method, which is put in place to increase the rate of force development in each core lift, and the Max Effort Method, which is put in place to be able to continually overcome the maximal load your body is able to lift.

***Because inducing hypertrophy and a greater degree of work capacity are important goals for my athletes and I, we also implement a Repetitive Effort day for our core lifts as well***

Applying Dynamic Effort Training to Overhead Lifts

The objective of the Dynamic Effort Method is to increase the rate of force development in your core lift so that your max effort lifts will have greater bar speed. In order for me to take advantage of this training effect so that I could lift not only heavy weights overhead, but do so with speed, I would focus my efforts on the Strict Press, Push Press and Jerk as my core lifts instead of the Bench Press. I follow the same percentage (40% – 60%), rep (3 reps), and set (8 – 12 sets) range as the Westside Method, just with a different core lift.

Applying Max Effort Training to Overhead Lifts

The same principles apply to my approach to Max Effort Method training days. Three days after my Dynamic Effort Day, I would focus on hitting anywhere from a 1-5 rep max on the SAME core lift I did three days prior (it’s important to note that I’d rotate implements as well as the style of OH lift in order to continuously adapt to different stimuli).

By focusing on developing as much maximal strength as speed, I was able to develop tremendous power output in this movement pattern, insuring that on competition day, those lifting against me would soil themselves in fear! It worked… #Strength,Speed,&Stamina=Dominance

So where does the Bench Press fit in? Well, just like with the Bench Press, I found that focusing your supplemental work on the muscles involved in the core lift itself was the best way to improve the core lift. In this case, conveniently enough, the same muscles that are used in increasing your OH Press are the ones being used in the Bench Press (triceps, shoulders, and upper back to be specific). So my supplemental work was composed greatly of Bench Pressing.

Training Volume Considerations

As far as volume goes, I used the same protocol as that of many powerlifters using the Westside Method. On Dynamic Effort Method training days where the weight is submaximal, my supplemental work (on the Bench Press) would be relatively heavy (3-5 sets of 4-8 reps), whereas on Max Effort days when I’m lifting near maximal weights for my core lift, the supplemental work would be much lighter with far greater volume (3-5 sets of 12-20 reps).

So all I had to do was implement the Bench Press as my supplemental lift and BOOM, I could actively achieve my objective of increasing not only the weight I could put over head as well as how fast I could do it, but also answer the most important question any and every meathead could be faced with… HOW MUCH DO YOU BENCH?

This has been a guest post by Chandler “MANdler” Marchman, author of SWOLE System: The New Authority for Building Size, Strength, and a Lean Athletic Body

NOTE FROM JEDD: I recently met MANdler at a seminar in New Jersey and asked him to tell us a little bit about his program, and this is what he had to say (I had just beaten him in a Hulk Hogan impersonation contest).

Here’s a run-down of what is included in the SWOLE System:

Component 1: The Training Manual
Understand the SWOLE System and how MANdler gets such awesome results with his clients.

Component 2: 12 Week Training Routine
MANdler lays out 3-months worth of programming to turn you into an ass-kicking machine.

Component 3: Exercise Video Database
MANdler shows you exactly how to perform each exercise to ensure proper form and best results.

Component 4: The Diet Manual
Understand how to eat the right way in order to get Swole even faster.

Component 5: Meal Plans
Apply the Swole Methods for quickly and easily with this done-for-you diet plan.

Component 6: Supplements Guide Book
Not all supplements are bad – find out the ones that are worth your money and will help support all your other hard work and discipline.

Common Questions About the SWOLE System

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Q: What is the SWOLE System and HOW does it work so fast?

A: The SWOLE System is an all-inclusive training packet that focuses on a percentage based scientific approach to training and easy to follow diet guide, that lead to fast and efficient results such as increased size, strength, endurance, and a lean athletic physique.

Q: What is included with this training system?

A: Included in this success pack are a done for you 12-Week transformation program, Video tutorials for EVERY exercise, a simple to follow diet guide, as a well as a theory portion that explains WHY the SWOLE System works so well for increased size, strength, power, endurance, and SEX APPEAL (you’ll look good while performing good as well)!!!

Q: I’m an athlete that needs to build strength, size and SPEED…will this training system work for me?

A: This system was actually started with athletes in mind. You will build size, strength, endurance and yes, even speed at a ridiculous rate! All things held constant, the athlete with superior strength, speed and conditioning ALWAYS wins. You don’t want to be left behind or face an opponent that has trained with this system. TRUST ME!!!

Q: Is there a diet component to this program? How does it work?

A: Yes. It’s one of the most important issues you must address when working towards your goals, and the simple system we use to address WHAT to eat, WHEN to eat, and HOW MUCH to eat, are what make this done for you, “Plug & Chug” diet system SO effective.

Q: Will this program work if I’m just trying to get ripped?

A: HELL YEA!!! For many of the weekend warriors at my gym, this is there one and only goal!!! When you focus on the training protocol that we focus on with this training system, it is theoretically IMPOSSIBLE to not decrease your body fat percentage while developing a lean athletic physique.

Q: I’m older than a lot of your “success stories” seem to be (in my late 30’s), will this program be suitable for me as well?

A: Absolutely it will work for the older than 30 crowd! Our bodies are meant to adapt to the demands that we place upon them. When we go through this specific, science based training protocol, it’s all the more important that we focus on training efficiency. And that’s the cornerstone of the SWOLE System’s philosophy. Train smarter, not harder. Train optimally, not maximally. When we match our training, our nutrition, and our lifestyle with the proper road map that are dictated by our specific goals, we are guaranteed to have success, REGARDLESS of age!

For more information on the SWOLE System, click the image below:

High Volume Kettlebell Training and its Benefits

by Bud Jeffries

First I want to say, “Thanks,” to Jedd for giving me the opportunity to step in and do a guest blog for the Diesel Crew. You guys have done great work for the fitness and strength community and I wanted to throw a bit back. When we talked about my contributing a blog post Jedd wanted me to answer, “Why would I do crazy high volume kettlebell work and what are the benefits of it?”

Bud Jeffries – 1-hand Swing

So if you don’t know I’ve specialized in the kettlebell swing for the past few years. I say “specialized,” in that it’s been one of my primary combined strength and cardio workouts and there’s an entire methodology behind why and what I do. It’s primary in that I’m also always working on much heavier strongman work and I’m also working on different types of cardiovascular capacity so the high volume workouts that I do are not just limited to kettlebells, but they’ll also involve barbells, dumbbells, bodyweight, sledgehammers, cables, maces, and strongman work for instance super high rep tire flipping, sled dragging, heavy bag punching, etc. I’m normally circulating through any of 100 or more different types of exercise.

Overall though I really have specialized in high-rep kettlebell work. When I say “high rep,” we need to quantify the term for the purposes of this blog. If you don’t know what I’m talking about already – I’m not talking about 100 reps – I’m talking about something in the neighborhood of 1,000 reps. Not all the workouts are that high, but some of them are much higher – Even into the 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000 repetition ranges.

Why Such High Volume Training?

Why would I do that since it seems counterproductive in the idea of building maximum strength and muscle? There are many reasons.

I Wanted to Remake Myself

I spent 16 years with one goal in mind – squatting 1,000 pounds. Over that 16 year course I went from 230lbs to 385lbs and went from a 225lb squat to a 1,000lb squat. I achieved my goal, but I also got freakin’ huge. I was huge and muscular and incredibly strong, but it was way too much fat to carry for a long period of time and I wanted to change that.

After much research and thinking it through the kettlebell swing was probably the primary vehicle by which to do that. I also believe that people who are like me who don’t have the easy, fast, fat burning metabolism that most people do either because they don’t eat right or they have years of gaining weight behind them instead of losing weight respond well to the kettlebell.

The idea behind “…years of gaining weight instead of losing,” is that the body is always learning to do one thing or the other. If you’re teaching it to gain weight then it goes permanently in that mode until you spend enough time going the opposite way and then it begins to lean out, resetting your hormones and whole body. I believe the kettlebell swing was the most opportune way to do create that effect.

1700-lb Rack Squat

The swing created the most muscular work that you could maintain for the longest period of time, spread across the largest range of the body, with the highest cardiovascular demand at the same time. On a rep-per-rep basis there are other exercises that you could argue create a higher cardiovascular demand, however not necessarily the right type of demand that I’m talking about.

For instance, rep-for-rep the kettlebell snatch (essentially an extended kettlebell swing), is possibly more aerobic, because on a rep-per-rep basis it covers twice the distance, but it also begins to pinpoint other muscles. That really long distance makes it, for most people, truly slow down until you have a massive cardiovascular and muscular base under which to work. I believe the spread muscular work of the swing combined with the idea that you can continue it for long periods of time and at the same time achieve an extended cardiovascular capacity and an extended muscular strength capacity made it the ultimate exercise for fat loss as well as a huge base from which to do 1,000 reps of thousands of other exercises.

It cut fat while not ripping into my strength which is a major factor for me. The average person might just want to cut fat, but I spent a lifetime building up massive amounts of strength and it would terribly hurt my feelings to lose all that strength just because I lost weight. I’m sure for most of you it would as well. The key in not losing strength as you lose weight, and this is a bonus here, is not doing it super fast. You can’t drop 50 pounds in a month and not expect it to take a hit to your strength.

Combining Muscular and Cardiovascular effort

Every time you do a swing you’re teaching the muscles strength and teaching them to fire and you’re also creating high cardiovascular capacity. The high calorie burning and cardiovascular component of the swing burns off fat. That continuous repeated muscular motion teaches the body not to give up strength and muscle just because you’re doing it in an extended way. I found that by going to the one-handed swing I could switch hands every 10 reps or so and keep pushing my whole body for long periods of time. This began to reset my entire definition of what strength and cardiovascular capacity combined were, should be and could be.

I know right now it’s popular to do interval cardio and short cardio and I believe in that style of training and I’ve quantified it in my own way by calling it “short-intense cardio.” Through exposure to other people and through one of the brilliant things great strongman John Brookfield said to me, “You have to get past the interval to really get to strength and to really get to endurance,” I began to have a modified thought on this activity. Stopping just because you have a pre-planned set of time is actually teaching the body to quit versus just going as hard and as far as you can.

When you explore that deeply you find that you can go much harder, longer and faster than you thought. That’s what we’re all after. Why would you only sprint 100 yards if you could sprint 400? Now I understand you may want to repeat those things and I’m not saying anything against intervals and I certainly do believe in very intense, short levels of cardio so in comparing that I might take a 53lb or 24kg kettlebell and swing it for 1,000 or 2,000 reps without stopping, but I also might take a 150lb 2-handed kettlebell and swing it for multiple sets of 20 reps mixed with bodyweight exercises moving back and forth in a workout that only lasts 5, 10 or 15 minutes. That would be incredibly intense both from a muscular and cardiovascular standpoint.

The whole point to this is I want some of my cardio to be as intense as possible and as long as I want to make it 30 minutes or more, because I truly believe this creates a high calorie burn as well as a massive overhaul in your potential muscular strength and endurance. I want some of it to be as intense and heavy as possible and not governed by a time interval, but more by the weight and difficulty of the exercise often using more than one exercise switching back and forth so I can go as long as possible for the pre-set time period or repetition count – whichever I had chosen. The idea is to absolutely max out my heart rate for a short period of time and the other idea being the “Third way cardio” idea as put forth by Marty Gallagher which is long, extended, muscular and aerobic effort done in a continuous fashion.

Really it’s a type of capacity that most people haven’t tapped that most everyone does possess the ability to achieve. If you really want to be able to recover from those workouts, build the ability for your heart and muscles and lungs to fire for an extended period of time and then five to ten to 20 reps of squats just doesn’t feel very hard when you can do a 1,000 or2,000 swings without stopping. I felt there was an entire other level of strength to be had there, but what most people have missed and truthfully only a few people have explored, is not mixing them together and I think that’s why it’s more effective to do it the way I’ve done it.

John Brookfield is one example and a few other people have done things that go along the lines of this: 1,000 reps of push presses or 1,000 snatches or 2,000 swings and the ability to do other heavy exercises at the same time, but if you approach both capacities together, it is possible to have them at the same time. For instance; on my birthday this year I did 4,000 swings and a 1,500lb quarter squat just for fun to see if I could personally challenge myself.

What am I doing? I’m expanding my capacity in both directions, both my maximum strength and maximum endurance together. John has done all kinds of incredible strength feats and grip work in an absolute max capacity, but has also done incredible endurance work and I believe that is the upper end of physical capacity that most of us are missing. When you build into thosem you play them into each other – Your maximum strength will tie exactly into your ability to perform your maximum strain cardio or short cardio I spoke of, which will, in-turn pull directly into your third way or very long cardio. They will all play back and forth to each other as long as you begin to develop the capacities. That doesn’t mean you should do them all at the same time, it means they need to be mixed specifically. You should build a base first and build up to them.

Let’s Be Honest

Let’s be honest – Real long term health and long term strength has to have a strength endurance capacity. It’s wonderful to be able to squat 1,000lbs, but not great to be 380- 400lbs to be able to do it and give up years of your life if you carry too much body fat or you aren’t physically or cardiovascularly as healthy as you could be (that doesn’t mean that big guys can’t be healthy. I believe I’m still living proof of that,) or you’ll ever achieve a physical Adonis perfection which I’m pretty sure the men reading this site aren’t terribly worried about.

Though if we’re being honest we all want to look better. I’ve been able to rip 120lbs of weight off, but I’m still not “perfect,” by contemporary standards. My physical perfection by others standards is not what concerns me, what I care about is having an increased cardiovascular and endurance level and a totally different level of physical capacity and I found this by doing it with those explosive muscular and continuous movements. I got better at the short cardio and maintained and built types of strength I didn’t have before.

You can have maximum muscular strength, maximum short term endurance and maximum long term endurance and not spend every waking minute in the gym. I cut that 120lbs and didn’t work out more than an average of three hours per week. That includes one third way cardio session, one max intense cardio session and one max strength work session per week and all of them reasonably short and most of it not with incredibly high volumes. However when I worked high volumes in specific work such as circuits of 8-10 bodyweight exercises done for 25 reps a piece, repeated 4 or 5 times so I get more than 1,000 reps in a 30 or 45 minute workout, or one exercise done as far and as hard as possible I saw massive results.

Both have their place and are incredible ways to build world class cardiovascular capacity as well as world class muscular strength and endurance and keep your body fat low in a way that lets you still be a normal guy – eat real food, have a beer occasionally and be able to play in any world you want to.

I was able to maintain a schedule that had me doing 300 strongman shows in 9 months. I was able to keep high level strength in pressing, rowing, deadlifting and squatting. I was able to burn off a tremendous amount of body fat and play into any other type of training that I wanted, inclusive of martial arts, without having to specialize in them, all on four or five hours per week by training all those capacities together. The health you build in your tendons, ligaments and bones and muscles by that extended work, the incredible circulation, the heart and endurance capacity, is impossible to beat in just about any other way. It is far superior to the average slow cardio.

So – What Is It Doing?

So what is it doing? It’s taking what the average person thinks is hard cardio and extending your possible ability to do it for the same amount of time that you would do easy or slow cardio. Thereby you are building a really elite capacity for strength and an elite capacity for short term strength endurance. It’s building the ability to do amazing physical things and max out every area of strength as well as max out your health. It’s keeping your body fat low and doing it in a way that gives you the ability to play for a lifetime in any way you want with simple implements. That my friends is an amazing amount to get for just a few hours of training per week and that’s why I went to the super high volume kettlebell work.

I believe in working with the swing it allowed me to build the base to jump off to every other type of kettlebell work – For instance I’ve been able to do massive snatch workouts, massive one arm pressing workouts, which are my other favorite work to do with the kettlebell and set some incredible PRs inclusive of 200 one arm presses in 5 minutes and 7 seconds with a 24kg/ 54lb kettlebell. 340+snatches with a 35lb kettlebell in 10 minutes as well 1500 snatches in 68 minutes. Also 1,100 one arm push presses with that 24kg bell in one hour.

You can do amazing things if you just set your mind to it and treat your cardio with the same type of intensity as you would your strength work. We all want to get incredibly muscularly strong and you can if you follow all the smart stuff Jedd and the guys and I talk about, but you also need that high level capacity and I believe they can be reciprocally inhibited. What does that mean? If you don’t keep your cardio up high enough, eventually the strength work becomes so taxing you that you cannot recover from it and then your body does not allow you to become stronger.

Similarly speaking, if you do not keep your strength high enough your body will eventually interpret your cardiovascular movements as so difficult in their percentage of perceived intensity as well as their actual physical level of strength that it won’t allow you to go further because you won’t have the strength to keep going. But if you work them together you can get max world class capacity at both if you just learn to do it the right way. High rep kettlebell stuff is really one of them – You can do amazing things if you just put your mind to it. See the video for more training info.

Bud Jeffries is the owner of Strongerman.com where you can read much more about in combining super strength and super endurance together like in his newest book I Will Be Iron.

Programming Your Movements for Muscle Gains

In Part I of this Build Muscle The Right Way Article Series, I spoke about the three most important keys I use for building muscle and gaining strength at the same time: Multi-joint Movements, Training for Power and Speed, and Working for Muscular Balance. You can read Part I here: Keys to Muscle Building.

Sample Upper Body Training Split

In Part I, I put a lot of emphasis on maintaining antagonistic balance so that you do not develop muscular imbalances that will cause you trouble later on down the road. Also as I stated Part I, if you perform your complementary Push and Pull movements on the same day, it can be easier to keep everything balanced. However, because I spend so much time training for Grip Strength, I run out of time in order to accomplish everything I like to do, so I split the two days up. Lately, my split has looked like this:

• Week 1 – Day 1: Push, Week 1 – Day 2: Pull, Week 1 – Day 3: Lower, Week 1 – Day 4: Grip Specific
• Week 2 – Day 1: Pull, Week 2 – Day 2: Push, Week 2 – Day 3: Lower, Week 2 – Day 4: Grip Specific

In other words, I go Push, Pull, Lower, Grip for the first week and then flip flop the Push and Pull so it goes Pull, Push, Lower, Grip the second week.

Sample Upper Body Push Workout

Here is a recent workout I did for Upper Body Push. This workout took place on a Monday. It was followed by an Upper Body Pull Day on Tuesday and then a Lower Body Day on Thursday. One week later, I followed the schedule and did my Upper Body Pull Day first and the Upper Body push day second, etc.

Optimally, the order of this day would go like this:

1. Overhead Power Movement: Requires the most skill and energy, so it should take place first

2. Bench / Incline Bench: Because the body is supported on the bench, even after doing a big movement like the Overhead Variations, I still feel strong on the bench going second.

3. Auxiliary Bench Movement: Examples could be Speed Bench Against Bands, Incline Bench, Dips – All these are awesome, especially if your shoulders are feeling good.

4. Isolation Movement: If isolation movements are your thing, you can include them here or you can do another auxiliary movement, work on the rotator cuffs, or bring up a weakness in your upper body (triceps, etc)

Bench Press

On this day, I started off with Bench Press, although often I will actually start off with Overhead Press, especially if I am using the Log. I was able to work up to an unassisted single of 365 on the Bench Press, for the first time in about a year. My all time best is 405 with a spotter.

Speed Bench Against Bands

In order to perform this one correctly and get the most out of it, you should be moving the bar much quicker than this. I should have either used lighter bands or lightened the bar weight, but I did not.

Military Press

My back was feeling a bit seized up after the heavy benching, because I was actually arching pretty hard for me. That is about all the angle I get. If I worked on my thoracic mobility more, I think I could get a better arch. Anyway, because my back was tight, I stuck with Military Press instead of a more powerful movement. Like I said, I like to do a Push Jerk, Push Press or a straight out Jerk movement first, but it didn’t work out that way this week.

Gironda Lateral Raise Complex

This is a combination I never even knew about until I reviewed the book, Vince Gironda, Legend and Myth. In that book he has what he calls the 8 Sets of 8 Keep-You-Honest Workout and the finisher for Upper Body Day is Side Laterals followed immediately by what he calls the Dumbbell Swing, but I have affectionately called it the Pirate Ship. Regardless of what you call it, it mimics the movement of the Pirate Ship ride at the amusement park in the way the arms swing rhythmically back and forth.

I don’t want to say that this movement pairing or even that just doing the Pirate Ship movement “fixed” whatever was aching in my shoulder the last few weeks, but after doing it every week for roughly 6 weeks straight as my finisher for my Upper Body push day, my shoulders have felt outstanding! I was able to perform dips pain free, getting my rib cage to touch the cross-bar on my dip station for the first time I can remember in years, and I was able to Bench 365 touch-and-go style for the first time in ages. I encourage you to try this out. At the very least the combination pumps your shoulders with a very nice burn.

This is how I set up the strength training muscle building workouts. Because I work a variety of percentages of 1RM, a variety of speeds, and train volume as well, I have been fairly successful at building muscle and strength at the same time as long as I am eating enough calories, staying injury free, and getting enough sleep.

I have had several months in a row now where I have been free of lower back injuries so I have not missed many workouts and recently my strength levels and size have increased.

Now that the latest Grip Contest, Gripmas Carol 2011, is out of the way, I plan on adding conditioning work back into my weekly routine separate of my workouts and cleaning up my diet as well in an effort to trim down a bit and get just plain ripped to shreds in 2012.

If you want to watch some of the stuff that I do for conditioning and fat loss, I can certainly film it, but only if you are interested. I don’t know if this is something you want to see or not on my site, so please leave me a comment an let me know.

Thanks and all the best in your training.

Jedd

For further information on building muscle, check out Smitty’s AMD Program by clicking the image below. This is one of the best Muscle Building Programs on the market, shares many of the same principles I am sharing here, and includes many other ways to keep you healthy and balanced in order to build muscle the right eway.

I recently got this note from Rob Russell about a charity event he is holding very soon. It sounds like it’ not only going to be awesome, but very challenging as well. Check it out and please give if you can. I have donated a couple of ebooks, the Nail Bending eBook and the Card Tearing eBook.

Jedd, I love challenges and the tougher the better! I’ve been training for many years now and been down just about every avenue possible.

Over the last 7 years I’ve taken up many forms of non-conventional training, kettlebells mainly, along with strongman, maces, sandbags, grip training and over the last 2 years heavy sledgehammer training.

The first person I ever saw swinging a heavy sledgehammer was John Brookfield, it looked so brutal I knew I had to get one of my own (a 25kg one to be precise). Initially training with it was really hard, until I learned the technique and shortened the handle. In 2009 I was inspired by kettlebell and sledgehammer fanatic Stepf Dogman to go for a 1 hour sledgehammer challenge after seeing this guy weighing in at only 69kg strike a tire 520 times with a 20kg hammer. I managed 791 reps on my first challenge for a charity that I support.

October 15th sees me return aiming to break the 1000 rep barrier (that’s roughly 17 strikes/min). I have been training since May and racked up over 13,000 strikes over nearly 60 sessions. The basis of my training has been 10 min sessions 3 times per week, setting off at 10 reps/min increasing by 1 rep per week until I hit 20 reps/min for 10 mins then I started upping the length of my sessions. I knew 1000 reps was going to be a tall order so I thought starting early would get me a great base to work from.

The carryover from hammer training to repetition snatching has been great too, I recently did a new best in the 24kg 10 min snatch test with 252 reps without any specific kettlebell work, it has also done a great deal for my grip strength (my hammer handle is nearly 2″ thick). The best thing about the training I have been doing is that it’s all been done in my half hour lunch break at work. It’s resulted in being a bit sweaty at work but really gives you a physical and mental boost for the afternoon and allowed me to do other training in the evenings.

My event on the 15th October is for Charity and to boost fundraising I have written my first ebook – ‘Unconventional Conditioning,’ a 45 page book packed with many videos, tips for training and program ideas.

To get hold of this ebook and be entered into a raffle for some strength and fitness goodies I am asking for a 2GBP minimum donation on my nation on my Just Giving Page.

Rob Russell

Thanks Rob! This event sounds AWESOME. I can’t imagine how brutally strong your hands, wrists and thumbs are getting from swinging the sledgehammer for such high volume. I know when I take my sledgehammer outside to swing it, my thumbs blow up like hot water bottles. All the best to you with your event – - Jedd

Hello DIESELS!

I wanted to share a note that I got from a member of the Diesel Universe this week about the Intro to Strongman DVD. This comes in from Carlos Rodriguez…

“Thank You Jedd for the Strongman DVD!!! It was freaking Great!!! You and Steve put together a rock solid production that is extremely helpful & fun to watch, both of you kick ass man!!! I will definitely use that info on the warm up section, a lot of stuff I was not aware of!” – Carlos Rodriguez

Thanks Carlos for the awesome report on the Strongman DVD that Steve Slater and I recently put out. It’s great to hear from all of you guys when you pick up a product I put out. I always try to over-deliver on any ebook or DVD I produce. It’s just engrained in me, I guess.

If you haven’t seen out DVD, you can check it out here: Introductory Strongman DVD

As you can see from Carlos’ statement, Steve and I didn’t just cover Strongman Training Technique in this DVD, although that portion of the DVD is, of course, killer and loaded with golden nuggets.

We also wanted to cover the maintenance and recovery side of Strongman Training in this DVD.

In short, we wanted to show you how to do everything safely as well as prepare for awesome workouts and recover from them as well.

With that in mind, the night before we shot the DVD we sat down and mapped out all of the things we had ever heard about that had caused injury to us, our friends, training partners, competitors and others who had reported bumps, bruises, sprains, and strains. We then tried to identify possible causes of the injuries and how to prevent them.

What we found is that a lot of it came from either lack of warm-up or improper technique.

So, we then made sure that we incorporated each item into our outline and instruction.

The Contents of the Strongman DVD

This brought about our Warm-up Section, Support Gear Section and Recovery Section, which as you can see, has been pretty helpful for people who have bought the DVD, especially my boy Carlos, above.

So, if you’re thinking about implementing Strongman Training into your program, you should consider this DVD for sure.

All the best in your training,

Jedd

Click the image below to get your copy of the Introduction to Strongman Training DVD…