Brian was tied with Zydrunas Savickas going into the last event, the Atlas Stones, and finished a full stone ahead of Savickas to win the event and the championship!

Brian Shaw takes the final event, Atlas Stones:

Here’s another angle of the Atlas Stones:

To recognize Brian’s amazing suspense-filled victory, I am holding a sale on the Introduction to Strongman DVD.

Use this special link and you can get the Intro to Strongman DVD on sale for just $39 (regularly $49).

Special Price – Introduction to Strongman Training DVD

Congrats again to Brian, a true champion and ambassador to the sport. I have met Brian a couple of times, and what an outstanding guy – humble, approachable, enormous, and STRONG!

Click on the image below to take advantage of this special offer:

All the best in your training!

JeddSimilar Posts:

• 7 Reasons to Start Lifting Stones
• Diesel / Slater Strongman DVD Now Available
• How to Begin Training with the Atlas Stones
• More Strongman DVD Feedback
• Strongest Strength Coach at Juniata
  Demonstrating the Lifts for the Competition

So, my driver’s license is going to expire on like December 4th, and every time this happens I wait too long and usually my license expires and I drive around illegal for a couple weeks before I finally go to the DMV and get it updated.

I decided that I would make this year different and went today to get it done, roughly 6 weeks before it expired. It was about 10:00 AM when I left.

So, I get in my car and my GPS is in there, so I figured I’d see what the truly shortest route is to the DMV from my house. I live in the countryside of Pennsylvania, and there are lots of back-roads I am not aware of, and it is always nice to know multiple routes, so I followed the GPS lead and got there about 10:30AM, because I had to follow a bunch of Natural Gas trucks through the mountains.

I get out of my Exploder and look at my license card and I see that it says I have Hazel eyes. “That’s not right,” I say to myself. So when I go inside and walk up to the desk, I point it out to the attendant, and she tells me to take a number. Five seconds into what would be a 45-minute wait, I realize that I have made a serious tactical error, so I pull out my Blackberry and proceed to get a new Personal Record in Word Mole…I rake at Word Mole.

Finally, it is my turn to go back and get my card corrected and I finally get my picture taken. I was becoming very frustrated with the delay that was building in this whole process, but when I saw how great my new license card came out, “relief washes over me in an awesome wave.”

So, I get in my car a little after 11 AM and I begin to realize how extremely hungry I am. It then pops into my mind that I will have to drive past the Chinese place in order to get home, and with it being lunch time, the price is cheaper, so I head that way to get my eat on.

When I get there, the place is packed and I lose interest in seating down to put my feedbag on, so instead I grab a carry-out container, load it with the Greatest Hits, pay for it, and head out.

Now, what happens next is the most important part, so please don’t hate me for dragging you through all this.

Before I get to that part, keep in mind that until this point, I have done roughly a half dozen things that I did not need to do. I did what I felt like doing, or what I felt would be good. I wasn’t going by a routine or a schedule. I was just going with the flow.

When I get to the door, there are at least ten people there wanting to come in, so I hold the door open for them. As I hold the door I look out to my car at how bad the back of it sags from carrying around Inch Dumbbells and Blobs, and other grip equipment all over the countryside for the first couple of years I owned it, and as I am looking, I see this huge figure cross between my eyes and my Exploder.

“Man that dude is a big son of a gun,” I thought to myself.

I looked again, and to my surprise, the gigantic figure that was blocking my view to my car was none other than Phil Pfister.

If you don’t know who Phil Pfister is, I will tell you. Phil Pfister won the World’s Strongest Man championship in 2006, becoming the first American to do so since 1982. At 6 feet, 6 inches and around 350lbs, the guy casts a pretty substantial shadow.

So, I stand there holding the door and introduce myself and it turns out he is in town for the night having just done a speaking engagement at the high school I attended as a teenager. “You need a place to train tonight, brother,” I say. “You should come over to my place tonight. I’ve got everything.”

“How’s 4 PM sound,” says Phil. “It sounds great!” Phil takes my number and I rush home to straighten up my garage a bit for the workout.

So, I meet Phil about 4 PM and he follows me to my house and we train for about 2.5 hours.

I show him around my gym, and he falls in love with my Stronger Grip equipment, especially the Stronger Grip Club and Mace, so we take them along with my Demolition Club out to the concrete pad in my yard and get warmed up with it. I PR’d on the Demolition Club, getting two sets of two gama casts – Awesome.

Then we move on to Tire Flips. Phil was just getting warmed up still and hit a couple doubles on the tire with ease. I did a few singles. It’s cold out, so we go back into the garage for some log press.

We manage to hold off for about an hour, and then the Grip Feat onslaught takes place. Here’s a run-down of everything we tried…

Two Hands Pinch: Phil gets roughly 230lbs on it, which puts him near the top 10 in the world first time touching it. I’m fairly certain with an additional 10-mil insert in there he could add another 20lbs if not more. I have two cut up thumbs, but was able to get 243 roughly 6 inches off the floor and controlled it on the way down.

Wrist Developer: This thing is a serious bastard to work with. I think the first time I worked on it I got level 4 or something like that. Phil proceeds to hit Level 3, 4, 5, and 6 with ease. He takes two tries to get Level 7. I work up to either a good attempt at 8 or it was damn close. I know it felt like I had solid contact, but I couldn’t hear it click and it was shaking so bad I couldn’t see it. That matches my best ever. I did not try level 9.

Blobs: Phil deadlifted it with ease the hard way and then made it look even easier the easy way. He wasn’t able to lift it by the face, but that is a very hard way to lift it the first time you try, even with hands the size of Phil’s. I got it by the face pretty easy, as I have most recently been training to lift the Fatboy Blob by the face, which is much harder.

Anvils: I have two anvils here right now. One is the standard 55lb anvil and the other is a big gruesome 120lber on loan from Rick Walker. We started out with the big 120, trying to pinch lift it by the top. In all the months I have been training to do this, I have managed to break it off the floor only once and it was roughly one inch. I hit hard with some good chalk and managed to pop it off the floor on my first try. Phil then proceeded to air lift it at least 6 inches off the floor. I let out this big scream because I thought he was going to deadlift it. I then get it about 4 inches off the floor for a nice partial PR.

Vertical Bar: We set up the 2″ Vertical Bar and worked up to a max lift. Phil gets 280lbs with one of his hands and misses with the other. I was able to get 260lbs. This was pretty late in the game. I think he can probably get 300lbs fresh.

Rolling Thunder: I set a new PR on the new handle, with a lift of 190lbs with each hand. 200lbs was welded to the floor. I forget what Phil got with the new handle, but he got about 230 with the old handle. By this point his grip was completely wasted.

All told, I hit like 6 PR’s and had a very memorable workout with one of the most famous strongman competitors in United States History. It was an incredible experience.

And none of it would have happened if I hadn’t decided to hold the door for those people, or get Chinese, or take a new route to the DMV, or decided to even get my license card updated today.

What does this all mean?

Don’t be bound to a schedule all the time. Have a plan but don’t be a slave to it.

Do something different for a change. Expand your boundaries. Continue to stretch yourself with your life, your training, your relationships, and who knows what come about from it.

I had the best training session I’ve had since August, because I looked down in my center console and saw my GPS laying there…

Here’s a couple pictures I got with Phil after the session was over.

Here, you can see that Phil is saying I am number 1,
as in the #1 best story teller in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Phil shows off his monster Pinky Pad
while I try to pry his big meaty hand off of mine.

We compare thumbs. I think I’ve got him by a bit. What do you guys think?

All kidding aside, I had a great time tonight. It was awesome having Phil push me and I fed off his intensity for some solid PR’s. I really need a full-time partner.

Phil, you’re invited back anytime, brother.

All the best in your training.

JeddSimilar Posts:

• Demolition Club Update
• Strength Coach Resources – Team Grip Training
• The Gut Wrench Hold – This Week’s Grip Strength Challenge
• Rolling Frying Pans and Managing Radiant Tension
• Jedd’s Training Update – Fire Walk with Me

This past Friday I got a call on my cell phone around 9 PM. It was Rick Walker, who has written many of the articles we have in our strength and conditioning articles section.
CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS KILLER POST AFTER THE JUMP
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he says.

“Nothing’s planned buddy,” I said.

“You want some company?” he said.

“Oh hell yeah!” I told him.

If you don’t know Rick, he is the first person I am aware of to ever hold a grip contest East of Ohio, and he did so in September 2003. It was that contest that got me interested in pursuing competitive Grip strength.

Over the years, Rick and I have gotten together for some awesome workouts. Each one was several hours long and consisted of everything from Strongman training, to Powerlifting, to Grip Feats and Steel Bending. These workouts are always intense and we always push one another to keep going and hit PR’s.

These types of workouts are awesome, and I encourage anyone who loves to lift to attend workouts of this kind. If you are used to working out alone, when you get together with other dudes with similar training styles, you can really have a lot of fun and set new PR’s.

One advantage of these special group training sessions is that you can get a spot from one another, which in and of itself can lead to bigger numbers if you are used to training solo.

Another benefit of working out with special occasion training partners is that they might be able to see something in your technique that you are not able to pick up on or your normal training partner isn’t seeing. Rick was able to show me something with my sumo deadlift technique that made my lift feel much better for me.

Finally, these sessions can just simply make you push yourself harder because you want to put up as big of numbers as you can with the other guys. Your heart starts pumping, the adrenaline gets going, and you end up doing stuff that can even surprise you.

If you have the opportunity to attend or set one of the sessions up, I encourage you to do so, because you will not regret it. You will have a great time!  And that is what it is all about.  Your workouts should give you enjoyment.

So, this is what Rick and I got up to yesterday. You’ll see this workout had everything but the kitchen sink in it:

1. Deadlifts - I got 515 Double Overhand after not deadlifting for about a month. Got 520 to my knees before right hand grip slipped. Rick got 605 matching his best pull since focusing on his next lifting comp.

2. Overhead Press (Log) – I got 280 on my second try, matching my best since 2005. Rick couldn’t get comfortable under the log, having not used one since about 2005.

3. Muscle-ups – I thought for sure with Rick there I’d get one. Tried 5 or 6 times, but just couldn’t get up there to catch myself above the bar.

4. Farmers Walk – Implements weigh 174 lbs. We did four trips down and back about 200 feet total maybe. Rick did his with a massive dark brown beard that looked like it had something metallic sticking out of it. It looked like something left over from the Roswell crash. I told him if he dyed it white he would look like a lawn gnome.

5. Tire Flip (780lbs) – Been about a year since I flipped this tire. Worked up to a slow set of 3. Rick had trouble keeping his footing under the tire but managed 3 good sets of 1. This was great being able to flip this so easy without practicing for a year or so.

6. Prowler – Pushed up hill using the vertical handles and pushed back down using the bottom horizontal handle for as far as we could go, then switching to the top handle. Two sets each. It was during the Prowler work that i realized Rick had taken at least two and maybe three breaks to urinate, while I still hadn’t gone, so I must have had some dehydration going. We just kept going

7. Thick Bar Lifts – Picked up the bell and tried to hold it off for 3 sets of 6 each hand. My hands were so wasted from the farmers and tire I could not get the Inch off the ground one handed. Also worked on the Slater Loadable, weight 127. After this round, my forearms were totally brutalized.

8. Club Pendulums – I love this movement. The Demolition Club is so big that it is full body movement but it still kicks your forearms’ asses. Used the 89.5-lb Demolition Club for Pendulums. I hit sets of 6. Rick had never done this but managed to master the movement and end on a good one before we went upstairs and proceed to devour mass quantities of beef and various salads.

I put together a highlight video of yesterday’s workout. If you double click on the video, it will take you to YouTube and if you can give it a thumbs up, I’d really appreciate it. Also, feel free to leave a comment either here on the site or over at YouTube.

Here you go:

Look for a follow-up video sometime soon, as Rick says next time I need to come to his place and that it is going to be “Walker Rules” this time around.

Keep up the great work with your training.

-Jedd-

Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball | How to Bend Nails | How to Tear Cards | Feats of Grip Strength Explained | How to Build Your Own Equipment | How to Lift Atlas Stones | The Sh*t You’ve Never Seen | Sled Dragging for Athletes | The Road to the Record DVDSimilar Posts:

• The Clam Bake Workout
• Push Pull Workout for Powerful Upper Body Strength
• How to Perform Mace Swings
• Tools for a Seriously Strong Grip
• Double Blob Farmers Walk

All I could think about yesterday was what I had to do to survive.

It was a beautiful and hot day. The thermometer was showing over 90 degrees, and although it was slightly cooler in the Garage Gym, it was still humid and everything we touched got covered in sweat.

We started out with about 10 minutes of warm-up that included Mobility / PVC Roller / General Warm-up. By the end of that, we had already sweated through our shirts. Each of us went through a giant glass of water just during this time

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS KILLER POST AFTER THE JUMP

Next was Front Squats. We stayed higher in reps instead of going up in weight, and for our last set we dropped down for a giant set. This just added to how drenched we were, but we kept on going. I combined them with Log Military Press. This is a very intense combination.

Next, we moved on to Waddles using the Napalm’s Nightmare rotating handle which is 2.5 inches thick. These kicked my ass. We did four sets of them. The last one is the only one that really wiped out my grip, but each set burnt my legs and glutes up due to the short choppy steps we were taking.

During the waddle, with the sun seemingly only getting hotter, we had to work harder to focus and survive the workout. At this point in the video is when you really hear us pulling for one another each step along the way.

The killer, THE ABSOLUTE KILLER, for me was Lunges. We “raced” up the hill to the satellite and then came back and by the time I got up there, my groin muscles were completely fried. It was all I could to SURVIVE and finish the course.

I could really tell how weak my groin muscles are and I think I know what I have to do to get them strengthened back up…

We finished with Prowler Rope Pulls on the Glute Ham machine. We weren’t sure how to set up good resistance out in the grass, so at first we hooked the rope up to a 30-lb kettlebell, but that was just too light. Next we hooked up the empty prowler, but that was too light too, so we threw on 90-lbs. That was just right!

The prowler plus 90-lbs was so heavy that the Glute Ham machine was tipping over so we had to stand on the back of it for one another.

You’ll also see about 2/3 of the way through the video that I somehow miss the foot hooks on the station and do a complete nose dive / face plant in the grass. Awesome!

Here’s a video clip our training. It was great to get out of the garage and into the sunlight for a change, and it felt good to push myself and be pushed at the same time.

Here’s a clip of four session…

Keep up the great work in your training, and have an outstanding Memorial Day weekend!

If you want to do some crazy training outside, check out the Ultimate Sled Dragging Manual!

Dozens of Extreme Sled Movements <== (click here)

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Subscribe to our Newsletters Below…

How to Bend Nails | How to Tear Cards | Feats of Grip Strength Explained | How to Build Your Own Equipment | How to Lift Atlas Stones | The Sh*t You’ve Never Seen | Sled Dragging for Athletes | The Road to the Record DVDSimilar Posts:

• High Intensity Metabolic Training – Powerful Prowler Combination
• Heavy A** Prowler – Improve Leg Drive and Mental Toughness for Athletes
• Mess You Up Conditioning
• WARNING – Try at Your Own Risk
• 3 Insanely Effective, FAST Upper Body Warm-ups – Repost

Keg Lifting is a very fun and rewarding form of training.  Like Sandbags, Atlas Stones, and Logs, Kegs are considered odd objects.

What are Odd Objects

Odd objects are training tools whose center of gravity is unpredictable, often lying out away from the athlete.  Odd objects often have considerable bulk and gripping and controlling them is one of the primary challenges of lifting them.  While bars and dumbbells have a concise and predictable shape and center of gravity, odd objects force the athlete to react to the dynamic and unpredictable size, shape, and center of gravity of the object.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS KILLER POST AFTER THE JUMP

Because of the bulk and unpredictability of odd objects, the athlete must continue to react and make adjustments in the grip and core bracing throughout the range of motion of an object lift.

For more information on odd objects, you’ve got to check this post out:  Odd Object training

Where to Get Kegs

Kegs can sometimes be hard to come by. The most common place to obtain kegs are at the local beer distributor. You can go an buy a full half keg of beer and then keep the keg for training and lose the deposit, or if you speak with one of the employees, you may be able to get a retired or damaged keg.

You can also find kegs at junk yards and scrap yards. Prices will vary depending on what the going rate is for stainless steel and how willing the establishment is to let go of it. Some scrap yards seek to collect massive amounts of stainless steel so it can all be turned in at once.

How to Open and Fill Kegs

There are two main ways to open and fill a keg without compromising the strength of it. The first way is by opening or removing the tap. This can be done with some needle nose pliers. Once you take it apart, go to the hardware store and get a rubber cover that will fit over the tap and harness it on there tight with a hose clamp.

The other way to open and fill a keg is by removing the plug in the side. The plug or cork can be knocked out with a hammer or pulled out by stabbing it with a screwdriver. If the plug is lost inside the keg or damaged when removing it, a stopper can be purchased at a hardware store to seal it back up.

What to Put in Kegs

Kegs can be filled with many materials. Each material below is effective. Choosing the manner which you use to fill the keg depends on how heavy you want the keg to be once filled and how dynamic you want the keg to be when you lift it.

Water – One of the cheapest and lightest way to fill a keg, but also one of the most dynamic. A keg filled with water weighs about 150 to 170 pounds. The sloshing of the water inside the keg makes for a very unpredictable, challenging and fun training tool. Water can be easily drained out of the keg if it ends up being too heavy for the athlete to handle.

Sand / Dirt / Gravel – Materials such as these are also very affordable. They can also be removed fairly easy if the keg is too heavy for the athlete to effectively train with. However, these types of materials are more apt to settle inside the keg and result in a less dynamic training tool.

Scrap Steel – Many strength enthusiasts enjoy bending nails, bolts, and other steel, but later on have a hard time figuring out what to do with the steel once it is bent. Bent steel is great for loading a keg because it fits in very well and remains somewhat dynamic, shifting inside the keg as it is being lifted and moved.

Little or Nothing – Kegs can be kept empty or mostly empty and used for throwing. Kegs can be thrown for height or distance. The can be thrown bilaterally or unilaterally. The can be pushed straight forward like a chest pass, heaved backwards, thrown over the head in triple extension, or tossed diagonally when kept lighter and less filled.

How to Use Kegs

Many conventional movements done with barbells or dumbbells can also be done with kegs. These movements will be made much more difficult when using a keg because kegs are larger, their center of gravity sits out away from the athlete, and their shape makes them harder to grip and thus control. This additional difficulty makes the athlete work harder, increasing work capacity which will also increase performance in their sport later on.

Here are some of the movements that are possible when training with kegs:

• Cleans
• Front Squats
• Press / Jerk
• Clean & Press
• Odd Object Conditioning
• Bear Hug Squat
• Zercher Squat
• Deadlift
• Swings
• Shouldering
• Snatch
• Conan’s Walk (Zercher Carry)
• Throw for Height
• Throw for Distance
• Platform Loading (Atlas Stone)
• Bear Hug Get-up
• Turkish Get-up
• Keg Hub Lift (by Tap)
• Shoulder Carry

Conclusion

Keg Lifting is a great supplemental form of exercise for athletes and strength enthusiasts alike, in addition to more conventional training methods using normal barbells. Kegs provide additional challenge to the lifter, building n-planar, chaotic strength, and mental toughness. The size, shape, and weight of the keg makes keg lifting a reasonable manner of training for the atlas stones in a strongman contest if purchasing or making atlas stones is out of the question or time does not permit.

Keg Lifting Video

Here’s a quick video on how to do some basic keg lifts and a review of some of the information above.

So, any questions? Please leave a comment below.

Got more examples of how to train with kegs?

What do you do in your keg training? Leave a comment below!

Thanks and all the best in your training.

-Jedd-

How to Bend Nails | How to Tear Cards | Feats of Grip Strength Explained | How to Build Your Own Equipment | How to Lift Atlas Stones | The Sh*t You’ve Never Seen | Sled Dragging for Athletes | The Road to the Record DVDSimilar Posts:

• Beginner Odd Object Training – Safety Considerations
• More Medley Training for Serious Athletes
• 7 Reasons to Start Lifting Stones
• Strongest Strength Coach at Juniata
  Demonstrating the Lifts for the Competition
• Diesel / Slater Strongman DVD Now Available