In Strongman, if you're on the Natural pathway, September is often a time to take stock of where you are, evaluate your performances and formulate a plan of action to come into next season even better. That often means being honest and working on your weakness'.
We'll, our stable of Natural Strongmen are currently doing just that and I'm about to tell you all about it.
Joe is first up and we're currently working on his fitness in terms of lifting. That comes in the form of 'Metcon' style lifting with very short rest breaks. That doesn't mean we've not been hitting anything heavy though! We start every session by maxing something out. One motion sandbag over yoke is a perfect movement for that as it allows us to be fast an powerful with a focus purely on acceleration, in a phase when those types of movements are sparse. Joes hit PBs of 140kg and 150kg over a 48 inch yoke in that. He's also been doing some shouldering and squatting to max with the Sandbag to Shoulder + 'Titan' Squat (I didn't pick the name) taking 130kg for a ride.
Taj is a non competitive weightlifter learning the sport for fitness and everyday strength and damn is his strength trending up. Taj hit PBs in the Back Squat of 108kg x1, 112kg x1 & 115kg x1 all for new 1RMs. These were off the back of a phase of quite high volume so we then looked to solidify this by running a second lower volume cycle hitting 5 & 3RMs where so far Taj has hit 100kg x5 and 107kg x3. We have also hit new 5RMs in the Snatch of 48kg and 50kg and in the Clean of 60kg, 62kg & 65kg. It's no suprise that his 5RM competition lifts increase as his Squat strength is trending up and i'm excited to see where his new found strength takes him in the competition lifts.
Weightlifting & 5s
People often shy away from higher rep sets in weightlifting keeping the competition lifts to triples or less, and in terms of specificity, thats logical. You build your strength in other areas like the squat and pull, and then you practice the kill of the sport keeping the reps low and high quality.
People shy away from it, but a little bit of technical breakdown in the competition lifts is ok and you can get so much from 5s in the Snatch, Clean & Jerk, including confidence.
As a quick tip you can do a first 3 to 5 week training cycle looking to build your max 5x5 in the lifts and then you can move to a 2 or 3 week cycle where you build to one max set of 5. You can then repeat the max 5s cycle for 3s.
Thats minimum 3 weeks of progression. Start week 1 at around 70% and build from there. I wouldn't perform the C&J together as one lift with these progressions as the sets of 5s end up being sets of 10, but I certainly wouldn't shy away from higher rep work.
Want to join our team of one to one clients? Click the link below to book a consultation.
James is starting to realise the strength we've built during his off season and hit new 5RMs in the Front Squat of 150kg and Axle Push Press of 112.5kg. I expect a new 5RM Deadlift is on the horizon tonight but he's not done it yet so that will have to wait until Octobers blog.
Offseason Training
The Offseason with no competitions on the horizon is the perfect time to work on your weakness. You have the freedom to structure things how you need and no pressures of training certain things. For James this means bringing up his static strength and also his general ability with Sandbags. Thats where James' weakness lies. We've also been looking to build plenty of upper body muscle so there has been more hypertrophy work than usual.
But everyone is different and that is just what James needs and unless you're his clone, it's probably not a good idea to copy, but if you're wanting help creating your own off season focus, I can give you the structure I used to make decisions on what James' focus was.
Immediately after the season finishes, you need to do 4 things, these are:
Reflect on previous season
Identify strength weakness'
Identify skill weakness'
Identify any niggles
Onc you've done that, you need to action those by building a program that:
Focus' on bringing up the major upper and lower strength weakness'
Focus' on bringing up the main skill weakness'
Address' the niggles
Outside of that, the focus should be on improving body composition to aid joints and increase potential with the last thing you need to do is set goals for next season based on the previous. This will help fill in the rest of the gaps.
The World Champion, Big Jo, is also in an offseason, for him it's about building up his Deadlift which was realistically his only weakness compared to his peers at the World Championships. Before that though, Jo solidified his log progress post competition with a 135kg Log Press for a new 1RM!
Funny that, Jonny is also in an off season after his 5th place at worlds. For Jonny it's not his strength, but his grip and moving event speed where he lost the most point, so thats exactly what we're focussing on with lots of hangs, grip work, sandbag rows and farmers. Oh, and you'll notice that Jonny has moved across from our online team to become a fully fledged athlete with individualised programming!
Marie is starting to see some progress in her training and is hitting 3RMs in a lot of lifts taking the clean for new 3RMs at 52kg, 56kg, and 58kg in subsequent weeks along with new 3RMs in the Block Jerk at 59kg and Push Press at 48kg. She even had a crack at a new 1RM Snatch at 54kg which she narrowly missed.
Knee Sleeves
A short bit on knee sleeves here. I'm aware in this blog I've chatted a lot about keeping kit off, but sometimes it's prudent to put some on. In olympic weightlifting there is a lot of knee bending and impact and as such sometimes the knees can get angry and you have to find a way of getting them to calm down. Isometrics during the warm up can help, as can altering ranges of motion like pulling off blocks or powering. Another way you can help is by wearing knee sleeves when you don't usually. The compression can feel nice and the extra stability with some spring they provide can help take a little of the load off while they calm down. If you do use sleeves, make sure they're legal in the sport you perform in, it then allows you to continue wearing them if you need to as you go into competition.
Olivia has hit a lot of PBs recently and is in the final week of her training cycle for Stags strongest, which will be her first Strongwoman competition ever and this is very exciting. In the meantime, while we entered Olivia into the Beginners category originally, we've decided to have her step up into Novice as shes taken to it quite well and I always prefer my athletes to compete at a level that challenges them rather than being there to collect trophies. She's also entered UKNS Englands in the U73 category so watch this space!
Want to merge online programming with in person coaching and join our team of hybrid clients? Click the link below to book a consultation.
https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/OneToOneCoachingConsultation
Liam P hit some great PBs in the Squat of 170kg x3 and Bench Press of 110kg x4. The pressure is off Liam as he decided not to compete in the powerlifting games, but that didn't effect our timelines. The plan for Liam is to hit some new PBs in the gym the week the Powerlifting games would be held and then move onto a nice offseason. For Liam, that means lots of upper body bodybuilding to put some much needed mass on his 6ft 3in frame, and lots of variation to eleviate the monotony of Powerlifting and hopefully find the enthusiasm for it again!
For the love of lifting
It's normal for your enjoyment in lifting to to wain and fluctuate, it's normal in any sport. The difference between field sports and lifting is, in field sports you can often just play against new people to eleviate boredom and get some variety. In lifting thats harder to do, especially in a sport thats as repetetive as powerlifting. In strongman, you have a multitude of events that create variety. In weightlifting you have the excitement of the the speed of the lift. In powerlifting there's very little of that. Very little possibility of a miss outside of PB attempts and very little variety. A bar is a bar and plates are plates, changing them up does very little to help, unlike changing the group of people you play with if you play a field sport. In powerlifting, that eleviation from monotony has to come from exercise variation or looking for ways to make the training interesting.
Scott had a nice end to his training cycle hitting a PB Push Press of 80kg x1 and PB Squats of 145kg and 150kg. Scotts looking forward to his next competition which we have already started preparing for.
Wil hit a nice new 5RM on pull ups adding 16kg to his bodyweight for a set of 5. A great feat of strength.
Want to join our team of online clients? Click the link below to book a consultation.
https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/OnlineCoachingConsultation
Ella, Megatron, Penny and Elbie are all having fun at Savage Strength School working on their press ups andf can all perform beautiful squats, while Jacob, Myles & Teddy have all been working on their split jerk!
Our Kids sessions runs two nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce kids to lifting in a safe, supportive and educative environment.
Want to join Savage Strength School?
Click the link below to book a session.
https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/SavageStrengthSchool
Jack has had a great month in our Weightlifting Club hitting PBs in the Front Squat of 120kg & 125kg x5 and on the Block Jerk hitting 110kg x5. He also hit a new 5RM Clean, 5RM Push Press & 5RM Squat literally today just before I wrote this, but he's not sent me the videos yet, so I'll wait to insert them into Octobers Blog. Great signs for Jacks Competition in 5 weeks time!
Our Weightlifting Club runs multiple nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce people to the sport of Olympic Weightlifting while giving them the opportunity to compete if they wish to do that.
Want to join our Weightlifting Club?
Click the link below to book a session. https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/SavageStrengthWeightliftingClub
Cori hit a nice PB on Monster DB of 52.5kg for a new 1RM and is currently 12 days or so out from Stags Strongest where he and George will be representing the Savage Strength men!
Our Strongman Club runs multiple nights a week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and has a history of taking people from the level of complete beginner to British Finalist.
Want to Join our Strongman Club?
Click the link below to book a session.
https://savagestrengthconsultation.as.me/SavageStrengthStrongmanClub
In our Online Weightlifting Team Karen has had a nice end to her block of 5s hitting a 45kg Snatch and 55kg Block Jerk for sets of 5 and then taking 60kg in the C&J for a spin for a new 1RM!
Our Online Weightlifting Team follows the British Weightlifting competition calendar with a focus on the bigger national competitions and the regional ones in the North East of England and is perfect for those competing in that area and for those looking for guidance and a periodised and focussed program.
Want to Join our Online Weightlifting Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/weightlifting-online-team
George F in our Online Strongman Team took second place at New Levels Strongest in the Opens category with the highlights being a PB Axle Clean & Press of 130kg and his dominance in taking the win on the 160kg Stone over Yoke event! Up next for George is UKNS Englands Strongest Man prep!
The Problem with AI & ‘Build your own’ Apps
Elliot is new to the Online Strongman team and I had an interesting conversation with him having came over from the MST Systems App. Now before I go on, I think the app is great and has many uses for various people. However, the issue with the app is also what makes it so good. It allows normal people to create their own effective program, and with the support they provide in the MST Groups, basically allows people to circumvent the cost of a coach... But thats also the flaw, it allows people to build their own program and in doing so, often allows people to pick the easy route or a progression they prefer over a progression they need. Now, I'm not going to go any further than that into it and i'm certainly not going to use it as a way to plug my own online team, if you're here then you probably know it exists. I just thought that insight was interesting as it's something that i'd previously not thought of as an issue.
Our Online Strongman Team follows the UK Natural Competition Calendar with room to stop off and compete through a few other competitions too. It’s perfect for those competing on the circuit and for beginners who don’t plan to compete yet but want a coaches guidance and a periodised plan.
Want to Join our Online Strongman Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/strongman-online-team
Callum has been mega busy, mega busy to the point that even the 75minute sessions are too long, but he is still making progress. Callum told me about his issue and I gave him a fix, do the main barbell work, leave and don't try to catch up.
Paretos Law
Paretos law states that 80% of the effect will be caused by 20% of the work. That means that the other 20% is caused by the 80% of the work left. What does this mean in terms of training? Most of your training effect is caused by the main stuff, the barbell work if you're into strength. And if you have a session of 5 or 6 movements, It's likely only one or two of them, usually the ones on a barbell that you can load heavy with full ranges of motion, are the ones causing most of your adaptation. So next time you're in a bind, remember that something is better than nothing and that most of your training effect will be caused by one or two movements.
Our Get Big Get Strong Online Team was created for those who class themselves as the average gym goer. For those that want to get stronger in the big barbell movements, who want world class coaching with a world class program, but who have no aspirations to compete in a strength sport and want a life outside of the gym.
Want to Join our Get Big Get Strong Online Team?
Click the link below to book for a free trial.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/get-big-get-strong-online-team
I'm done, there were a few other things I could have touched on like flexible programs, which i'm running with one of my clients, or mental toughness and how not to get spooked when going for new maxes, but i'll note them down and save them for the next one because frankly, I'm done with writing today.
Until next time
Adam
