You probably already
know that serious strongmen need all of the following to be successful:
Raw power
Supreme lower body
strength
Super stamina and
endurance
You may also know that
strongman workouts should be:
Fast and efficient
Goal oriented
A way to get an edge on
your competition
And that's why I'm
recommending that every strongman who wants to be the best add the following
workout to their training.
When I look at
Strongman competitions, I see the need for a unique combination of strength,
speed, power, stamina and (maybe most importantly) mental toughness.
Your training should
reflect these needs. You shouldn't be told to waste your time on stuff that
doesn't work. You shouldn't be told about the latest shiny, chrome-covered
machine, or to use long, boring (and useless) cardio, or just about anything
else coming out of those mirrored, carpeted social clubs that dare to call
themselves gyms.
No, what you need is
something "old school." An exercise that is simple yet effective. One
that can address all of the needs listed above and bring you to a higher level
in your training.
Because of all of this,
I strongly suggest you add hill sprints to your training. Here's why:
First of all, hill
sprints are a great way to develop power. They are a perfect blend of strength
training and sprinting. And, as you know, training strength and speed together
are the best way to develop the power necessary for competition.
Running hill sprints
can train your muscles to fire fast and strong - to increase both the speed and
the strength of contraction. This training will help you develop the power
necessary for many of the traditional strongman events. Your performance in loading,
Atlas stones, truck pulling, the stone lift, the log throw, and the weight
throw can take off like a rocket from the speed/strength of hill sprints.
Secondly, hill sprints
build strength in muscle groups essential to strongman training. Most importantly,
the hips, glutes, quads and calves. Muscles needed for pushing, pulling and
lifting involved in events such as the log or stone press, the stone lift, car
rolling and tire flipping.
Even though you train
these muscles already for these events, hill sprints add different stresses and
demands on those muscles. Hills are a great way to "confuse" your
muscles and force them to adapt. These sprints will ask your muscles, not only
to be strong, but to be strong and explosive at the same time. An excellent way
to break through a plateau in your workouts.
The third reason to
hill sprint is that it's an excellent way to develop stamina and endurance
needed for long training sessions and (even more demanding) competitions.
It's a training method
that pushes your heart and lung capacity to new limits, increasing their volume
and allowing you to move more oxygen in and out of your body (and to pump more
blood to your muscles when they need it most). Training your heart and lungs in
this way can also help you recover faster between trys or events.
And all without doing
what you may think of as "cardio." It used to be thought that you
could only improve your endurance by training like a marathoner with long, slow
distance. Who wants to look like a marathoner? All that training does is shrink
your muscles and make you look like a skeleton. Good thing is that science is
now proving that higher intensity training like hill sprinting can give you
even better results than plodding along doing "roadwork."
Think of how much
better your farmer's walk, car walk, crucifix, or Hercules hold can be when you
can stay stronger... for longer.
These are only 3 of the
benefits you can get by hill sprinting. In Part II, we'll look at how hill
sprints can help you fit all of your training into your busy schedule, give you
an edge on your competitors and develop your mental toughness to a point where
any goal is possible. See you then.
Tim Alan Kauppinen, or
Coach K, has over 20 years experience as an athlete and coach. He has worked with
athletes of all ages and abilities in track and field, basketball, speed
training and strength and conditioning after graduating from the University of
Wisconsin - Madison with a coaching emphasis. This has given him the privilege
and the opportunity to coach athletes who have become conference champions,
state champions and Division I college players. Coach K is the author of the
Uphill Fitness Training, Ultimate Insider Speed Training Secrets and Iron Shins
programs. He also publishes a FREE daily training email newsletter. Tim can be
contacted through his website at
http://www.makesyoufast.com/power_hill_sprint.html
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Tim_Kauppinen/3057
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/609668
Video: https://www.youtube.com/user/supertraining06
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