By Elliott Hulse
Author
of Gridiron Strongman
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You might disagree, but hear
me out on this… as an ex-college football player and
currently as a strength coach, I have found the utilization
and teaching of Olympic lifts to be tedious, inefficient and
down-right boring.
As a college athlete I hardly
found the patience to learn the correct lifting technique
for the power clean. Although I held the St. John’s University
power clean record my freshman season, muscling 335 lbs. (152
kg) off the platform – my technique was completely flawed
and the attempt looked more like an Axle C&P in Strongman
than the smooth pull of an Olympic Weightlifter.
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After undergrad I studied Exercise
Science at the graduate level. The director of the Masters program
was an avid Olympic Weightlifting coach and ex-competitor. He spent
hours with the students teaching us the finer points and intricacies
of how to perform a proper Clean & Jerk. Once we were proficient
enough at performing these lifts we were granted permission to then
coach the university’s athletes on how to use these lifts to
better their sports performance.
I remember the very first day that
I was given the “OK” to start coaching the athletes; I
was assigned to the football team. Since I had been a former college
football player myself, I felt that I would instantly be greeted
with fellowship and amity. This was NOT the case! In fact, there
were a few of the kids who hated the fact that I was there. I sensed
their apprehension in allowing me to coach them, and they especially
hated it when I taught them how to Olympic lift.
As it happened,
many of the more “meat head-ish” type football players
confided in me that they wanted to, “lift heavier weights and
stop wasting time with this BS.”
It turned out, it was during the
off-season prior to my debut that these athletes were first exposed
to the technicalities of OL. It was also the first time that they
were coached in the weight room by graduate students instead of
their sports coach. They have previously been using a power lifting
model that yielded great size and strength gains.
I do believe that including power
cleans and other Olympic lifts into a Strength and Conditioning
Program for football players is beneficial. But, I also believe
that - the less an athlete has to “think” about a movement,
the more ATTITUDE he can bring to its accomplishment. Also, I am
a big advocate for saving time. I hate nothing more than “getting
things RIGHT before getting them going”. It is a personal philosophy
of mine that ‘success is more a product of attitude… than
of technique’ (granted, that you’re not taking foolish
risks and causing injury).
Consider for a moment – when
you are coaching a player on the Kick-Off Team do you tell him…
“Look Johnny, you’ve gotta
sprint down there with your elbows at a 90 degree angle, your jaw
relaxed, hands in a loose fist and be sure to breathe through pursed
lips. Now, when you get to the first blocker take a short inhalation
and hold your breath, brace your abdominals and furrow your brow
and your dip your hips, lower your shoulder and explode though him
by extending your ankles, knees and hips in a simultaneous manner.”
If this sounds crazy to you, consider
that this is the way that Olympic lifts are typically taught. Instead
of letting the athlete “do his thing”, we spend hours
‘breaking down’ and analyzing the movement for them. These
valuable hours spent “teaching” could very well be used
for building real strength and speed in a timely fashion.
In the same manner that you coach
your athletes to go “balls to the wall” on the football
field, you can coach them to go “balls to the wall” in
the weight room as well. Also, besides getting bigger, faster and
stronger by training like a maniac, these kids will then bring this
type of ATTITUDE to the field more often. Like they say, “you
play the way you practice.”
Training in the weight room should
be just as intense and as fun as training on the field. When athletes
learn to “attack” an exercise in the gym like they attack
a tackling dummy, they will develop size, strength, speed and, ATTITUDE
faster than ever before. Also, for weight training to become a REAL
part of your schools program, you’ve got to promote it as a
benefit of being on the team, not just a necessity. I remember looking
at a few small colleges when I graduated high school and one of
the most important questions I asked was, “what kind of strength
and conditioning program do you have?”
So, what the heck
do you do if Olympic Lifts are not working?
Train like the World’s Strongest
Men! Not only are Strongmen great examples of brute strength, they
are also well conditioned, and possess great speed and power. Strongman
exercises build functional strength, speed, power and most importantly
ATTITUDE! Besides the performance benefits of flipping tires and
loading sandbags, Strongman training is FUN and easy to teach.
Here I will discuss some of my favorite
Strongman exercises for making your athletes super fast and angry!
Tire Flipping
This exercise is a staple in Strong
Man and a big part of the football strength programs that I design
for my athletes. If there ever was an exercise that trains the entire
body from “The Rooter To The Tooter”- It’s tire flipping.
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Getting your hands on a 300,
400 or 700 pound tire is a lot easier than most people think.
Also, the best part of this piece of equipment is that it
is FREE! All you need to do is look in your phone book for
a tire company in your city. They’ve got tons of these
things and they need to dispose of them, and this costs them
money.
They are as happy as hell when
someone calls and says that they are willing to take one off
of their hands for free. This biggest issue will be finding
a way to transport it to your facility. Many times the tire
yard will drop it off for you; make sure you give the delivery
guy a nice tip.
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Car Push
It’s as simple as it sounds –
push a car. That’s it. But make no mistake, this exercise is
not only fun and brutal – it’s actually very useful. When
pushing a car it is essential that you lean forward which creates
a “positive knee angle”. This develops the quads which
are the dominant muscles being activated during short sprints and
change of direction.
This is probably the most practical
exercise to perform, from an equipment stand point. All you need
it an automobile, the bigger the better. I’ve heard stories
about Mike Alstott and how he used to push his Jeep around campus
in college to get in football condition. If Mike Alstott does it,
it’s got to be good!
Farmers Carries
I am often asked, “What are the
best overall exercises for strength AND conditioning?” My answer
without hesitation is always – Farmers Carries. There is NOTHING
that this exercise doesn’t do. Besides a killer conditioner,
farmers carries trains the arms, legs, core, shoulders, neck, grip,
eye lids, eye brows and ear lobes like nothing that I have ever
discovered.
What makes this exercise even more
incredible is that anyone can do it, anywhere, with little or no
equipment. Everything from the Torpedoes that you see those beasts
on ESPN2 carry; to milk jugs filled with sand will get you strong
and crazy fast.
Sand Bag Carry
This is another exercise that is easy
to put together. In fact, when I first began training athletes at
a local park, this is all I had to use. I simply went to Home Depot
(there may be one in your city) bought a few 80 pound bags of pea
gravel, threw them into contractor bag and duct taped them shut.
After a while I noticed that we needed heavier bags so I bought
a few large army duffle bags and tossed the smaller bags into it.
Now I’ve got bags from 40 pounds to almost 300!
This exercise is as simple as –
pick it up and go! But make no mistake, it is NOT easy. This exercise
goes on my list of the best overall body conditioners as well.
Keg Clean &
Press
We’ve all used or taught someone
to use the famous Olympic lifts, in particular the power clean and
press. And for good reason, they train the whole body and they produce
faster and stronger athletes. But I do them a bit different.
When you use a half filled keg to
clean and press, you are playing a whole new game. First of all,
the neutral grip is more specific to football especially if you
are a lineman. Second, the water (or beer) that you have used to
fill your keg will be sloshing around in there, which turns this
exercise into a real core conditioner!
If you want to get brutally strong
and fast, you’ve got to add this super strong man exercise
to your routine.
Sled Dragging
This is a staple is all of my training
programs and I use this exercise for several different reasons.
First, upright forward sled dragging
is a great posterior chain builder. Nothing gets those lazy glutes
into tip-top shape like sled drags. Second, backwards sled drags
does for the quads what forward dragging does for the glutes…
fries em! Third, when done for distances greater than 50 yards or
with short rest intervals this is one of my favorite work capacity
/ conditioning exercises. Finally, because your legs are always
moving in a concentric fashion there is minimal soreness associated
with doing this exercise. You can drag today and max effort squat
tomorrow.
Keg
Carries
A thick, strong and powerful
upper back is paramount for building upper body strength that lasts.
Everything from an increased bench press to decreased risk of shoulder
injuries are associated with having a strong set of traps, rhomboids
and rear delts.
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Nothing builds
a strong upper back in conjunction with leg strength and agility
like keg carries. Caring kegs weighing between 50 to 300 pounds
for short distances is one of my favorite ways of training
generally weak and unathletic athletes to build endurance,
strength and mental toughness.
I’ve got a
video at http://HulseStrength.com
about a great example of how to set up a “keg run”.
You can train several athletes at the same time with a set
up like this.
Keg
or Sand Bag Loading
Want to increase
speed and jumping capacity? Keg, Sandbag or stone loading
takes even the flattest ass and turns it into a J-Lo. And
we all know that a strong set of glutes is synonymous with
explosive hip extension and speed.
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Strong Man Training
is not only for those 300 pound beasts on ESPN2, it is a great
way to train even the most deconditioned athlete and turn
average boys into hulking men.
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CLICK HERE to learn more about Elliott's
book "Gridiron Strongman". You can also
read our review of the book by clicking
here.
About
The Author
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Learn about the "Top 10
Gym Exercises For Explosive Speed" in the free report
from Elliott Hulse's website (click
here to go there now). Elliott is a Certified Strength
& Conditioning Specialist who trains football players
to get bigger, stronger and faster at his gym in St. Petersburg,
Florida. His Football Strength System has helped hundreds
of football players, coaches and parents prepare for game
winning football seasons. For more information on the Football
Strength Systems that will help you gain serious mass, strength
and speed click
here.
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