The tips I’ll be outlining below are great for any level Strongman competitor whether you’re a novice or competing at the highest level. These are things I’ve discovered while training for and competing in Strongman.

1. Drop the barbell clean.

Personally, I found that my axle clean improved tremendously once I dropped the barbell clean. The barbell clean and axle clean are very different movements. By training both, I found that I was doing more harm than good. Dropping the barbell clean also allowed me to get the axle in my hands more often, which helped me perfect my technique. I’ve put 35 pounds on my best axle clean in a fairly short time after dropping the barbell clean completely. While the movement patterns are similar, they're also very different. I’ve stopped training the barbell clean all together, but if you’d like to keep it in your programming, do it in the off-season GPP phase, not in any pre-competition SPP phases.

Conclusion: Train the axle clean and log clean the majority of the time.

2. Drop direct calf training.

Calf injuries and ankle problems/injuries are issues that plague some Strongman competitors. While I obviously think that every muscle in the body has to be very strong in order to be successful in Strongman, direct calf training can do more harm than good. How can this be? Well, it’s really quite simple. Keep in mind that this is only a theory of mine. I’ve discussed it with just a few others, but it hasn’t been proven as far as I know.

Training the calves in isolation, as a bodybuilder would, is detrimental to a Strongman competitor for a number of reasons. First and foremost, you're training the calves in direct isolation. At no point in Strongman should these muscles be working in isolation. When these muscles are trained like that of a bodybuilder, you're inducing sacroplasmic hypertrophy. This non-contractile tissue does increase the size of the muscle but without any true function.

You're also training these muscles for a “pump.” They then start to get a pump very easily when training Strongman events. For example, if you do a lot of calf raises, you're typically training high reps and going for the burn and pump. Most of the reps toward the end of a set typically aren't done through a full range of motion. You've increased the muscle size but not its strength. Now you perform a medley such as a keg carry or sled drag. You start carrying your first keg and soon after your calves are pumped full of blood and burning like crazy. And you’ve got more kegs to carry and a sled to drag. No matter how mentally tough you are, it's hard to get through the burning sensation and fatigue. This applies to many Strongman events including the truck pull, yoke walk, farmers' walk, frame, atlas stones, carries, and drags.

I also feel that by isolating these muscles, you're increasing the chance of injury. Let’s take the calves and tire flip into account. If you’ve been doing a lot of short range of motion calf raises to really get a pump and burn, there’s a good chance that over time, you’ll decrease your ankle mobility. If you're under an 800-pound tire trying to flip it, you explode up, driving up on one leg (and calf) very hard and explosively while shooting the opposite leg up to help knee the tire over. The trail leg's calf is now being asked to be explosive when it’s typically trained slowly in isolation. There’s also a good chance that it's being put into a range of motion that it isn’t accustomed to due to decreased ankle mobility. This highly increases the chances of a calf strain or tear or ankle injury.

Conclusion: You get plenty of calf work from explosive presses, yoke walks, farmers' walks, atlas stone carries, truck pulls, and tire flips. Best of all, they're trained just like they function in the sport of Strongman.

3. Drop direct biceps training.

Torn biceps seem to be very common in Strongman. Continuing my thoughts on direct calf training, I think direct biceps training should be dropped or at least minimized for Strongman competitors. When you isolate the biceps, you increase the chance of injury and bicep tendonitis, which is very common with Strongman. You're training the biceps in isolation and to fire independent of other muscle groups. These muscles typically aren't trained through a full range of motion, especially as a set diminishes. In my opinion, these two things can definitely be dangerous.

If the biceps are used to function alone, there’s a very good chance that on a heavy atlas stone, you’ll have the tendency to want to “curl” the stone into the lap and “curl” it on to the platform rather than use proper stone loading technique. Because atlas stones are typically much heavier than one can curl, this is just asking for a torn bicep, which is very common in the sport. Issues also arise for the biceps when it comes to arm over arm pulls with a rope, truck pulls with rope assist, drags, and other Strongman events. These muscle are trained to pump (like I explained about the calves above), which is detrimental to performance on these events.

Conclusion: I haven’t dropped biceps training altogether, but I definitely recommend minimizing it. I stick with high rep, light weight barbell curls every other week. This is more for elbow health than anything and to help prevent tendonitis in the biceps tendon, which is very common from the stress the biceps and elbow joints take from training Strongman.

4. Drop your pre-workout supplement.

The pre-workout supplements seem to be all the rage lately and everyone wants to know what the best one is. With all these pre-workout supplements, one thing I find funny is that they typically almost all promote “sick pumps,” “massive pumps,” “crazy pumps,” "unreal pumps,” and many other hardcore ways of saying “pump.”

To me, the idea of a crazy pump while I’m doing log cleans and presses for reps, car deadlifts for reps, any medley, atlas stones, or damn near almost all other Strongman events isn't a good thing. I want to delay the feeling of any pump as long as possible. I don’t want to be taking something that’s going to encourage my muscles to pump as fast and as much as possible. That’s just asinine. Conclusion: Stick with a pre-workout supplement that doesn’t encourage the pump. When in doubt, it’s hard to beat old-fashioned caffeine.

So there you have it.—four tips to make you a better Strongman competitor. These may be a little “outside of the box,” but I firmly believe in these thoughts and ideas. Give them a try and see for yourself.