Almost a year ago I was talking to professional strongman Dennis Rogers and he presented me with an opportunity.
His friend and one of the world’s strongest men, Bud Jeffries was looking for someone to take over his business.
If you’ve been in the iron game for awhile its likely you’ve heard of Bud and www.Strongerman.com.
Perhaps you’ve been influenced by his work with Twisted Conditioning or How to Squat 900 lbs (among much else).
I know I have.
Due to some issues with the business he wanted to step back, have someone else take over and allow him just to write and train.
I took that job. Now this has been a secret project that virtually know one knows about. In fact, you are one of the first!
But all that work has finally come to fruition. The NEW Strongerman.com is live.
Go check out the site. There’s a bunch of great articles up. You can get his best selling ebooks right now.
But that’s just the start. Go now to find a few of the exciting projects we have in the works.
And be sure to sign up with your email on the site. Not only will you receive tons of incredible strength training and endurance building tips but we’ll give you a bonus to get started with.
Just last week I interviewed Bud to talk about what he’s been doing lately in his training. We’re talking about shedding 100 lbs and counting. Doing thousands of kettlebell swings in a single workout. Training MMA fighters and much more.
You get the whole hour long interview just by signing up on the site.
I hope my enthusiasm comes across because this is something that you should be excited about. Just talking to Bud recently has increased the intensity of my own workouts. It can do the same for you.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. When you visit the site please leave a comment telling us what you think or would like to see. Would love to hear from you.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Nov 5th, 2009. 1 Comment. 
Tire Flipping Can Build Strength and Endurance
How do you know if your conditioning is getting better?
Yes its easy when you do the same workout over and over again. If you are running then you know you’ve made progress when your times go down. If you are doing a set of kettlebell snatches or bodyweight squats you know you’re better if you can do more reps.
But does it really mean your overall conditioning is better? Perhaps you’ve just increased your skill in the exercise and built up the muscular endurance that was previously holding you back.
You may not really increase your wind or cardio capabilities.
You’ve likely heard of the SAID principle in training. That is Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This means your body will get better specifically to what you make it do.
And what this can mean is that even though you are training hard, you could be getting better at one specific exercise, but if you’re not careful you can really be sliding back in the grand scheme of things.
There is no great example of what conditioning is.
One concept I shoot for is to be able to go into any arena of training and perform well, if not dominate. Obviously, I won’t be winning a powerlifting meet one day and running an ultra-marathon the next. But that’s a guiding principle for my training.
Back on the SAID principle we realize that there isn’t 100% carryover from any one thing to another. Much of the time there won’t even be 50% carryover depending on how you do things.
Are you conditioning yourself hard or are you building muscular endurance?
When we step away from the cardio machines and get into bodyweight exercises, kettlebells or whatever we start doing exercises for our conditioning that have a muscular component. This is a good thing. But you have to be careful.
You want to build muscular endurance and you want to build conditioning. You can build both at the same time. However, there is ALWAYS going to be one thing that fails first.
Pushups can get you breathing hard but unless you are one of those guys that can do them non-stop your muscles are going to force you to give up way before your lungs would.
Here’s a different example. I just finished a set of kettlebell snatches with the 53 lb. bell a couple hours ago. I hit seven minutes with a 25 rep per minute pace. That’s 175 reps in 7 minutes. My goal is 250 in 10. Something stopped me.
Was it my conditioning? I was sucking wind big time but no I could have kept going. Was it my muscles burning? Nope. With swings and snatches the load is fairly well distributed so no problems here. In this case it was my hands which tend to be the weak point for most people in this exercise. They tore open and in order to preserve myself from more damage I stopped.
There’s a problem when you rely on one means of conditioning. If I only did kettlebell snatches (or swings) I could never fully push the boundaries of my conditioning. I could increase my ability but not as well as if I did something else.
Let’s use the example of a guy that lifts weights in low rep sets. He also runs long distances to get his cardio. Do you see the missing component here? Will this guy be able to apply any strength and conditioning at the same time? You throw him into an intense circuit style training and he’ll crap out fast.
My case is to use a variety of conditioning exercises and methods to eliminate this problem. Variety is good here. Yes you should have goals and regularly do the same workout trying to progress. But on top of that add more.
Also you need to work different levels of conditioning. There’s a big difference between sprint level conditioning and longer term conditioning.
Think about the difference in running a hill sprint versus flipping a large tire for two minutes non-stop. Doing a ten minute snatch test versus a bodyweight exercise circuit that lasts an hour.
I have to credit Bud Jeffries primarily to opening my eyes to this. His Twisted Conditioning 1 & 2 go into more details on these concepts and much more.
If you missed the previous announcement check out the new www.Strongerman.com where we are working together to bring you to very best training information. And if you haven’t got those books yet do it now. They’ll make you train harder and in a more complete manner.
In the near future I’ll give you more on this subject including some complete workouts.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells by on Nov 7th, 2009. Comment.
What is the best time to workout?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. But I want to cover all the different times to workout and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
This is going to be individual to each person. Some people have tons of energy when they wake up at 5AM in the morning. I am not one of those people. Then there are the night owls and everything in between.
Why mornings are the best time to workout.
If you are having troubles actually doing your workout this is a good option. When you do this you get your workout in and then you are good for the rest of the day. There is nothing else that can get in your way when you do it first thing after you wake up.
I don’t want to go into nutrition here but there are certain advantages to training first thing on an empty stomach. There are also advantages for not doing so. Maybe I’ll cover these another time.
The biggest issue with morning workouts is your body is not warmed up. Yes you can do a warmup to get your body running and warm. If you are doing morning workouts this is a necessity not an option. You need to get your joints running smoothly and your muscles warmed especially as it gets colder.
This is not just to prevent injury but to optimize performance. Just think about trying to do a near max lift the moment you roll out of bed and you’ll get the idea of why this is a must.
Why noon or afternoon is the best time to exercise.
This is personally my favorite option. I like to sleep in but when I get up the morning time is my best time to get work done. Like this post right here I am writing in the morning. But after a few hours my mental energy starts to dip. I need a break.
The best and most effective break for me is to go and train. Intense mental work followed by intense physical work. And after that I like to eat, nap, and then get back to work. This nap falls in line with the midday energy dip that most people feel if you‘ve ever studied the circadian rhythm.
While some kind of warmup is a good idea since you’ve been up and moving around your body is good to go. Despite warm-ups my performance just seems better midday then early mornings.
Plus since I train outside it’s a good time to get some sun (another thing you should try to do each day).
Why evenings or night time is the best time to workout.
For most people this is the only choice. When they get off of work is the only time they can workout. Though it can be tough after a long day at work you’ll feel better doing it. I think the best option is to start right away and don’t get side tracked by anything.
This is similar to the afternoon workouts in that your body has been moving all day and is ready to go.
Another advantage of working out later is that most people’s biggest meal tends to be dinner. You train hard, eat a good, big meal and then go to sleep. This sounds ideal for recovery purposes.
Now depending on the time between training, eating and sleeping this could be better or worse. For most people you don’t want to do either working out or eating too close to bedtime as it can throw you off. For others this isn’t as big an issue.
There you have it. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of what time you workout. Let me end with saying the best time to workout for you is when you can and will workout. If you don’t have options just do it when you can. If you do have options then you can experiment.
Another thing you might want to look at which I cover in the Keys to Successful Training Online Course is establishing a pattern of when you train and doing that the same each day.
Would love to hear your comments on this subject. Agree with me or not, comment below.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Flexibility/Mobility, Recovery, Strength Training Concepts by on Nov 10th, 2009. 1 Comment.
Today I’m going to give you a tough kettlebell and bodyweight exercise workout.
I first came up with this workout after hearing reading about Bud Jeffries’ concept of Yardstick Conditioning in Twisted Conditioning 2 several years ago.
I wanted a way to combine kettlebell exercises with bodyweight exercises in a single intense workout that would test overall conditioning as well as build muscular endurance. I picked four exercises that I felt where foundational and ones I wanted to work on. Those exercises are:
Double Kettlebell Jerks
Pushups
Bodyweight Squats
Kettlebell Snatch
(When I originally did this it involved hindu pushups and hindu squats, although when I started doing this workout again recently I’ve done the regular versions of pushups and squats.)
Each exercise is done for 5 minutes straight. Then without a break you move onto the next exercise in the order listed.
The goal is obviously to do the highest number of reps in each exercise.
But another big goal is to get to the point where you can do the exercise without dropping the bells or getting out of position for the whole five minutes. This means you can only rest with the kettlebells in the rack or overhead position for the jerks, and just overhead with the snatches. You can do as many hand switches as you need with the snatches.
On the pushups you stay in the plank position (much easier to maintain five minutes of hindu pushups). With squats its easy to go all five minutes so recently I added cables, a portable power jumper from lifeline, to make them harder.
Of course, in the start do as many sets as you need to do the whole five minutes.
For the kettlebell exercises I use 24 kg bells. You’ll want to start lighter especially if you have no experience with long sets. Eventually I’d like to work up to 32 kg bells. That may take awhile. I shouldn’t have to say it but technique is real important here.
I would recommend only doing this workout once per week mixed in with your other training. And each time you do it you seek to add just a few more reps to each exercise.
It’s a challenging workout. But rewarding and if you enjoy bodyweight exercises and kettlebells it’s a great way to work on those fundamental exercises.
Give it a try and let me know how you do.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells, Workouts by on Nov 16th, 2009. 2 Comments.
I’ll cut straight to the chase.
This Wednesday I’m being interviewed by Geoff Neupert on one of my favorite topics, kettlebell juggling.
I won’t hold anything back. And you can even submit your questions for the call.
It’ll be a great time. Go to the Kettlebell Interrogations page and sign up for it now if you haven’t already.
Geoff has been interviewing a whole bunch of kettlebell experts and generally strong dudes. I’m honored to get to follow the likes of John Brookfield and Zach Even-Esh (the last two interviewees in the series).
If you’ve missed the past calls, just be sure to get on board for this one.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. On the page I am billed as ‘One of the World’s Leading Physical Culture Renaissance Men.’ I like that title!
P.S.S. Oh yeah, if you want everything there is to know on kettlebell juggling be sure to check out The Definitive Guide to Kettlebell Juggling.
Filed under Conditioning, Kettlebells by on Nov 23rd, 2009. 2 Comments.
Sometimes you have to push the limits.
I didn’t plan this workout ahead of time. I just started bending and kept going.
In the end I had bent 50 60D nails in just under 30 minutes. This video shows the aftermath.
Now I know I’m a bit crazy for doing this. My hands have open wounds on them right now where the skin tore and blistered in many places. (It ain’t the first time and won’t be the last.)
Looking back in my records my previous best was 22 nails in 42 minutes. That was one year ago. That means I did over twice the volume in just over two thirds the time. That’s improvement.
Do I recommend doing this for everyone? No.
But sometimes you have to push the boundaries of what you’re capable of, even if that’s through comfort and pain. In your training and in life.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If you’re interested in bending nails, get this must have resource from the Diesel Crew.
Filed under Feats of Strength, Hand Strength, Mental Training, Oldtime Strongmen, Videos by on Nov 28th, 2009. Comment.
