Journey to become a Strongman

[northtexasbb]

I am 26 years old and aspiring to compete in our local strongman competition that's held at a gym nearby every year. They already did it this year but I want to be able to go to it and DOMINATE come next year and I know that it will require alot of hard work.

I have become out of shape and de-conditioned so I am starting from bare bones weight and hopefully by the end of the year I can look back and see how much progress I've made.


Stats

Height: 5'9
Weight: 290

5 rep maxs

Bench: 115
Squat: 205
Deadlift: 215
Push Press: 105

I am not familiar with the Olympic lifts just yet so I will be practicing form and technique until I feel comfortable adding weight to it so you will see me using it as a warmup prior to my main lifts since it will be sub 100lb lifts. Maybe during round 2 I will go about adding it to the program as a progressive lift but until then I will be doing the practical programming routine.

Goals by Week 12

Lose around 20 pounds
Squat 315+
Deadlift 330+
Press: 155+
Bench: 155+


Some of these goals are rather modest so we will see how it goes.

[strong_over_matter]

These are great goals and strongman training/competitions are a lot of fun. The most important thing for you will be to focus on your strength gains and get your weight stabilized and then work on losing. Your extra size should make it easier for you to progress quickly. Do not get distracted early on by dieting and exercises outside of Starting Strength (use DOH for your dead lift as much as you can for grip work) including Oly lifting and any sort of specific strongman training. Once you build up a base you could add clean & jerk, but I'd recommend clean and push jerk as opposed to a split jerk. It is hard to utilize a split in strongman events but a good push jerk is critical. Once you get close to your competition and know the events you can then practice and work on your conditioning.

I saw that you started a log before. Make this one count. You only fail, when you fail to try. Good luck.

[northtexasbb]

These are great goals and strongman training/competitions are a lot of fun. The most important thing for you will be to focus on your strength gains and get your weight stabilized and then work on losing. Your extra size should make it easier for you to progress quickly. Do not get distracted early on by dieting and exercises outside of Starting Strength (use DOH for your dead lift as much as you can for grip work) including Oly lifting and any sort of specific strongman training. Once you build up a base you could add clean & jerk, but I'd recommend clean and push jerk as opposed to a split jerk. It is hard to utilize a split in strongman events but a good push jerk is critical. Once you get close to your competition and know the events you can then practice and work on your conditioning.

I saw that you started a log before. Make this one count. You only fail, when you fail to try. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice, Ya I will be sticking to strictly compound movements and the only thing I cant do is pullups so I will alternate heavy rows both BB and DB instead until my strength levels increase.

[northtexasbb]

Saturday 10/8/2011


Hang Clean Practice: (Progression towards Power Clean)
3x95
3x95
3x95

Bench:
5x45
5x45
5x95
5x95
5x95

Squat:
5x135
5x135
5x165
5x165
5x165

DB Rows: 3x8 55


15min Foam Rolling/stretch after