How To Become A Strongman: Requirements & Training Plan

If you’re looking to dive into strongman training and are interested in building an effective workout regime, there are a few crucial things you need to know. Focusing on gradual improvement is the essence, so you’ll deal with Atlas stones and pulling trucks like a pro in a short time.

Strongman Sports Overview for Beginners

Strongman sport is a discipline that involves speed, power, and endurance, performing exercises of lifting, moving, pulling, and pushing weights, within a specific time or distance. The Strongman standard disciplines include the farmer’s walk, log lift, super yoke, carrying weight for distance, Atlas stone lift, Conan wheel, tire flips, etc.

Strongman competitions, also known as Strength athletics, where athletes should be well-trained to succeed in these events. There are no exercise machines or barbells, Strongman athletes should combine the qualities of wrestlers and weightlifters, e.g., endurance, resilience, and strength to succeed in this sport.

1. Strongman vs Other Strength Sports: Key Differences

Let’s discuss the difference between four major strength-oriented sports, namely Strongman, bodybuilding, weightlifting, and powerlifting. Some use these terms interchangeably, however each of them refers to a specific sports discipline and weightlifting style, offering different results and requiring specific training regimes.

2. How to Get Started Strongman: Basic Requirements and Qualities Needed

To take up Strongman sports and compete in the events, an athlete should have a good base of strength not to end up sucking pretty bad in it. They should know what their strengths and weaknesses are before competing in strongman.

Most of the Strongman movements came from powerlifting and weightlifting, additionally carrying, dragging, and pushing the items. It’s better to begin with these basic movements before going to more complicated things.

Here are some basic strength standards every strongman beginner should work on:

• 2x bodyweight deadlift (conventional or trap bar)
• 1.5x bodyweight squat
• 1x bodyweight bench press
• 1x bodyweight clean
• 0.75x bodyweight press

If you want to incorporate Strongman training into your sports routine, there are specific ways that beginners can build their strength to get ready for pulling trucks and flipping the tyres. 

These points will be your initial guidance before deciding whether it’s worth starting Strongman sports and taking part in first competitions.

1. You need to be strong and skilled with a barbell. Strength coaches recommend building a solid base of strength and muscle first. It will help you to ensure that the body can handle the heavy loads required for such training.
2. Learning the proper technique to excel at the lifts. Many strongman exercises require coaching before mastering the technique and performing each movement clearly and safely. 
3. Arranging the proper diet program regulating sufficient calorie intake. It’ll enable muscle growth, fueling the body for intense training and improving recovery.
4. Start with carrying, holding, and moving the weighty objects. It’s not necessary to work with extreme weights, just look for items similar in size, shape, and weight, and practice carrying, holding, and pulling it.
5. Build a background in deadlift and presses. It provides the building blocks for anyone wanting to perform some strongman lifting. For beginners, it’ll be okay to deadlift at least one day a week, gradually moving to heavy weights. 

Insights on Preparing for Strongman Training

There are lots of ways to train strongman movements, so you’ll find a surprising variation on how to train this sport and finally how to become a strongman. Whatever you do works, you’ll get stronger.

Whenever you train for specific events, treat it more like light practice than an opportunity to get stronger. The key goal of a strongman workout is to master how to pick an object off the ground, lap, and triple extend, using those basic movements in all of your loads.

1. Start With the Basic Lifts and Exercises. These compound movements include the farmers’ walk, stone lift, yoke walk, etc. Don’t push for speed or volume, keep practicing until you can perform all of the exercises easily. Do strongman workouts without any extra weight at all when you just got started. This way you’ll develop enough strength and stamina.

2. Join a gym or training group. You can find lots of gyms and training groups that focus on strongman training. Strongman gyms don’t look like standard weight gyms

3. Watch video tutorials on how to perform exercises, or find a proper strongman program. You can find different tutorials from professional athletes with plenty of experience in the sport.

4. Try some strongman competitions for beginners. Strongman is a sport that promotes community and can fit almost everyone. Still, this competition doesn’t have to be competitive, it can be done simply for fun.

5. Have your own set of strongman equipment. You don’t need any Olympic barbells or calibrated plates. Instead, you need odd-shaped items like axle bars, logs, stones, sandbags, or farmer carry handles. This equipment will suit you to get started in strongman training.

1. The Importance of a Medical Examination Before Starting Strongman Sports

Physical activity, a healthy lifestyle, and regular exercising are great ways to keep your body in form and proper physique. If you’re just starting training like a Strongman and want to challenge yourself more, it is vital to consult with your doctor before taking up any new sports.

Physical assessment can define any hidden health issues that may affect your performance. High blood pressure, asthma, heart condition, or arthritis may affect training regime. So, you need to adjust it accordingly to stay safe in the long run and be sure that your exercising will improve your health.

If you have muscle strains, torn ligaments, or weak joints, you need to know about these issues before starting Strongman training to avoid aggregating them. 

So, considering the nature of Strongman sports that requires immense power, agility, stability, and consistency of the training process, pre-exercise screening will help in identifying acute medical conditions.

2. 6 Ways to Adapt a Regular Training Program to the Specifics of Strongman

For beginners who want to add up strongman training into their workout regime, they should prioritize the idea that they should be strong. Otherwise, they’ll struggle to increase weight and fail to progress.

Here are several essential steps you’d follow to get into Strongman without hassle:

1. Focus on exercises that are done day in day in any lifter’s routine: deadlifts, overhead presses, and squat variations. Using weighted holds and carries will promote core strength, while accessory movements, e.g., cleans, curls, abs, rows, and grip work should be added too.
2. To adapt for Strongman training place stress on the body to force an adaptation. Increasing core strength, maximal strength, proprioception are samples of an organism’s physical reactions to progressive overloading. Heavier weights will support you at a fundamental level in Strongman competitions.
3. You need to eat like a Strongman to become one. Putting on size, building muscle and fueling the body to remain anabolic and grow, you need to consume more calories than burning per day. This will leave you with a net-positive caloric surplus and allows the muscles to grow in this anabolic environment. Quality food and timing are also vital. Your daily intake should contain 45-50% carbs, 25-30% fats, and 30% – proteins.
4. Do not neglect wearing wrist wraps and belts: this will help avoid discomfort in the joints and lower injury risk. 
5. Don’t forget warming up: try light cardio, dynamic stretching through a full range of motion. 
6. Remember your limits: train wisely with progressive overload.

Following simple principles, like proper meal planning and listening to your body, you’ll prevent the most serious injuries. When you feel your joints hurt, some discomfort, or potential injury, stop working out.

3. Basic Equipment for Beginners Needed for Strongman Training

Whether you’re an advanced or a beginner strongman, you need equipment to get high-quality training. Since the movements in strongman training divide into the following categories – load, carry, pull, and push, you need such training garments like atlas stones, log press, yoke carries, axle deadlifts and others. 

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Strongman Training Plan: What to Start From?

If you’re new to Strongman training, building up an effective strongman program can be challenging. Many exercises require coaching to master the movement performance, preserving proper technique as this aspect is highly crucial and is the main reason why you excel in the lifts.

As usual, a Strongman training plan consists of 4 days of working out with 3 days of rest.

This is a sample of a workout routine for you to train like a Strongman:

• Day 1 can be dedicated to legs: you can perform front squats, leg press, lunges, or step ups. 
• Day 2 is a day of chest or shoulders training: it’s possible to do bench presses or overhead press variations, e.g., dumbbell bench press, overhead extensions, and tricep pushdowns.
• Day 3 is the back day – you can perform deadlift variation, hyperextension, dumbbell or seated rows.
• Day 4 can be used for training several Strongman movements you’ll perform for maximum reps, with maximum weight, or for the defined time. For example, doing axle press max reps, or farmer’s walk with a distance over 15 seconds.

How to Create an Effective Strongman Training Plan?

Whether you’re lifting atlas stones, or dealing with immense weight with deadlifts or pulling huge loads from A to B, Strongman training is all about raw power and brute strength, it connects all the dots in your body challenging with awkward movements and showing all the weaknesses.

It needs to be mentioned that high intensity should be balanced with lower intensity to prevent overtraining. Athletes need to possess a comprehensive background of physical fitness and strength. 

It’s vital to create a working training plan to prime your body and get ready for everyday challenges while building gains for the future.

4 Basic Strongman Exercises for Developing Strength, Endurance, and Technique

You need to practice carrying large heavy and awkward items, increase your push and pull capacity, increase your aerobic capacity, build explosiveness and flawless movements, and perform under imbalanced loading. This scheme for Strongman training for beginners will help you to pump up your performance in strongman, fuel up your body, moving you to the next level in the strength sport.

1. Barbell Deadlift (5 X 3-5 Reps)

Brace your core and stand tall while reaching down and grasping the barbell with an overhand grip. Bring your hips to the bar at the top. Rest for several minutes between sets. This exercise will improve your grip and overall power, and bone density, boost core strength, and mitigate lower back pain.

2. Barbell Hip Thrust (4 X 6-8 Reps)

Sit on the ground with your upper back on a bench holding a barbell across your hips. Tuck your heels under the glutes and drive your hips upward, pushing through your feet. Lower down slowly. Complete the set and go back to the pull-downs.

This movement will strengthen the hip, buttocks, and quads. It’ll also stabilize the pelvis, lower back, and knees, promoting strong glutes and improving balance.

3. Reverse Sled March (20 Meters)

Attach straps to a sled and grip them with both hands standing 2 meters away from the sled when they’re tight. March backward for 20 m with powerful steps. This exercise is useful for developing strength and endurance in the lower body, namely quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. 

4. Kettlebell Swing (10 Reps)

Gripping a kettlebell with both hands, you hinge at your hips and push your glutes back, with your torso parallel to the floor. Swing the weight beneath you, squeezing the glutes and snapping upright explosively, with your hips drive the kettlebell almost to eye level.

Kettlebell swings target the upper and lower back, glutes, and hamstrings, known as the posterior chain. It can also improve overall fitness, performance, and power.

Alternating Loads to Avoid Overtraining in Strongman Sports

To excel in Strongman sports, you need to use this equipment properly. Although, to avoid spending lots of money, it’s possible to find alternatives. The concept remains the same, so you can always increase or decrease reps/sets/time/distance to suit your needs. 

• For Yoke carry you can use a squat bar with weight;
• For Farmer’s walk use a trap deadlift bar with weights;
• For Truck pull you can use a rope and attach it to any stable object;
• Axle press/deadlift can be done with fat grips on a standard barbell

Strongman training requires implements such gear like kegs, circus dumbbells, axles, and logs. 

The log bar is a crucial component for your Strongman training, since you’ll use it for a unique movement that’s hard to perform with other equipment. For pulling exercises, you’ll need deadlifts and ropes. You can use a heavy prowler or sled instead of the original equipment. It’s also possible to use wall-mounted rigs for pull exercises.

The most common carry activities are farmer’s walks and the yoke. For carrying movements, you need kegs and sandbags. If you are a beginner, you can start with a loaded barbell. You can attach heavy kettlebells on both sides. 

Load activity is major in strongman training. It includes lifting equipment and putting it over a bar or onto a higher platform. To perform such exercises, you need sandbags, kegs, or stones. Sandbags are affordable and easy to store, so it’s the best option for a starter. It’s recommended to start with light weights and increase the weight gradually as you get used to such loads.

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Proper Nutrition and Recovery in Strongman Training

Nutrition is an essential component of any training regimen. Strongman competitions require athletes significant strength, endurance, and energy to lift heavy objects, pull vehicles, and carry weight over long distances. Thus, incredible results can be obtained due to a healthy and balanced diet. 

Foods and Nutritional Supplements That Are Useful for Strongmen

Eating the right macronutrients, i.e., carbs, protein, and fats, will provide the body with the needed nutrients to support muscle growth, recovery, and strength performance.

Strongman athletes should focus on carbohydrates during competition preparation to increase glycogen storage in muscles and improve performance in events longer than 90 minutes. This fuel will provide glucose to the muscles, which can be used as an energy source.

As for protein intake, strongmen should consume 1.5 grams per pound of their bodyweight. This amount is necessary for amino acids to be absorbed and used by the body during competition preparation.

Six or seven meals are the norm, which include plenty of high protein food, like lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs, milk; low glycaemic carbs like cereals, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes; fruit and vegetables, nuts and legumes are also good variants of protein sources.

Opt for things like oats, brown rice, wholemeal pastas, sweet potatoes, etc. Eat plenty of vegetables and fruit to meet your micronutrient profile. Add products containing essential fats: good sources of healthy monounsaturated fats are olive oil, mixed nuts, avocados, and peanut butter. Oily fish such as mackerel or salmon, flaxseeds, and walnuts contain essential omega-3 fats.

What about supplements, it’s possible to add some protein pre-, during and post workout, both on gym and event training that can be useful for gaining size and strength. However, it’s not a substitute for a good wholesome food.

Pre-workout meals containing carbs and protein are good for maintaining optimal performance. Carbs will give you the needed energy, while the protein aids muscle growth and recovery. The same is with protein powders: they can aid in muscle growth and recovery in between training.

Caffeine supplements can reduce pain and exertion during working out, as well as improving calcium handling, which can enhance power output.

Regeneration and Recovery After Strongman Training

Fitness and conditioning exercises are important for strongman success. They not only help athletes to gain muscle mass and strength, but also promote recovery processes. So, they can perform at their best during competitions and maintain proper physical condition.

There are various options for fast recovery that will help to increase training volume, intensity, and frequency:

1. Massage

Doing massage regularly relieves stress, improves blood circulation, and decreases muscle soreness. It’s an effective method for reducing muscle tension. Another active massage method is foam rolling. It helps to break up adhesions in the muscle tissues and promote blood flow.

2. Stretching

Stretching is useful in preventing muscle stiffness and soreness for strongmen. Like massage sessions, it can help promote blood flow and prevent muscle stiffness. 

3. Contrast Shower

Strength athletes like plunging in ice baths. Even cold cryotherapy is an effective way of speed recovery. Practicing a cold shower after training and then running hot water for a minute and cold water for 30 seconds, can help to remove the lactate from the muscles. 

4. Rest

Rest is a vital component of recovery for strongmen. Adequate rest enables muscles to repair and grow stronger. This approach includes having enough sleep, relaxation, and mental recovery.

Proper sleep hygiene involves at least 7-8 hours of sleep. Meditation, deep breathing, and yoga are also worthy options for reducing stress levels and promoting muscle recovery. 

Strongman Competitions and Community: Your First Steps in Strongman 

Strongman is a combination of picking things off the ground, carrying and putting them overhead. It’s a competition of strength where participants perform events such as deadlift, farmer’s walk, and powerlifting. The events are typically performed for time or distance, while the competitors compete in weight categories. 

Strongman competitions involve a series of events that assess athletes’ strength and power, which include the following activities:

• Deadlift
• Farmer’s walk
• Atlas stones
• Log press
• Tyre flip
• Yoke carry, etc.

1. How to Prepare for Your First Competition?

To prepare for the first strongman competition, you need to know all the events. This will help you better understand how each exercise is scored and how to propel your performance. 

There are key things you should know about how to start strongman training and consider before pioneering in the sport:

• learn proper form and technique for each event. It’ll ensure you perform the exercises properly and efficiently;
• choose the weight class and events for your skill level. This will improve your overall performance, build strength, and power;
• stick to the specific nutrition and stay hydrated for optimal performance.

It’s better to start with low-intensity exercises and gradually increase it as you become more advanced in the movements. This way you’ll build up strength without feeling fatigue.

2. Benefits of Joining the Strongman Community

Strongman community-based gym is a perfect option for those who need help, support, and encouragement on their way in advancing in this strength sport. Joining the community brings the following perks:

• you’ll find the environment welcoming and less intimidating when training alone;
• you’ll be guided by professionals in Strongman and get your workouts programmed and led by certified coaches;
• like-minded people will cheer you on, giving the sense of comradery;
• you’ll overcome mental and physical barriers you never believed possible.

The Strongman community is a powerful influencer and motivator for those who want to break their barriers and become their stronger embodiment.

Summary 

After a thorough overview of the Strongman sports, hope you cleared up how to become a Strongman and what to start from. Becoming stronger, more endurant, and mentally powerful are key essentials of this sport. 

Want to know more about Strongman and join this sports world? Write back and we’ll give you more details.

Also read:

• Strongman Vs Bodybuilding: Which Path to Choose?
• 12 Strongman Exercises to Build Strength (+Workout Example)
• Strong Woman Competitions: History & Current State
• Effective Strongman Training Program to Gain Max Strength
• Strongman vs Powerlifting: Key Differences Explained
• 10 Strongest Women in the World: From the Origin Till Now

References:

1. William J Kraemer, Lydia K Caldwell, Emily M Post. “Body Composition in Elite Strongman Competitors”, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, no.34(12), (2020), p. 3326-3330.
2. Benjamin R Hindle, Anna Lorimer, Paul Winwood. “The Biomechanics and Applications of Strongman Exercises: a Systematic Review”, Sports Medicine Open, no.5(1) (2019): 49.
3. Winwood Paul W., Pritchard Hayden J., Wilson Daniel. “The Competition-Day Preparation Strategies of Strongman Athletes”, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 33(9), (2019):p 2308-2320.
4. Daniel Plotkin, Max Coleman, Derrick Van Every. “Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations”, PeerJ Life & Environment, no.10 (2022).
5. Nanci S Guest, Trisha A VanDusseldorp, Michael T Nelson. “International society of sports nutrition position stand: caffeine and exercise performance”, Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition, no. 18(1) (2021):1.
6. Photos are made by Torokhtiy Media team.