David asked a follow up question regarding his Convict Conditioning routine. “Two questions: I forgot to ask, how would you add grip, neck, & calf work in there too; and can you give a more in depth outline of circuit training – how you would plan it?”
In today’s post I’ll cover hand strength training. For grip work I would train the hands two or three times per week. You could probably even get away with one session a week and still make good gains. Pick one to three exercises each time and go after it. These are the main types of hand strength but these are the main ones. Depending on your goals you may need other exercises.
Wrist levering – This can include wrist rollers, sledgehammer leveraging, dumbbell wrist curls, etc. Even handstands are good.
Crushing grip – This is usually done with steel spring grippers but can be trained in other ways.
Working the pinch grip with a block weight
Pinch grip – Pinching plates is the easiest form, block weights are great too, and then you can do feats like card and phonebook tearing.
Support grip – This is any type of holding. Kettlebell swings certainly work this. Farmer’s walk is probably one of the best exercises.
And many exercises cross over in different area. Bending nails works the wrists and your crushing and support grip. Plate curls will work your wrists and pinch at the same time. If you’re short on time I’d advise doing exercises that give you more bang for your buck.
Also for better hand health you should look at doing exercises like finger extensions especially if you go heavy into working the grip.
You don’t need to do heavy volume. Just one to a few sets is all you really need for your hand strength training.
In the next couple posts I’ll cover neck training and circuit training.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Hand Strength by on Feb 9th, 2010. 1 Comment. 
425 lbs. held in a wrestler's bridge
There are many ways you can strengthen the neck. Here are a few basic exercises you can do.
Bridging – To me this is the king of neck strengthening exercises. But it gives you much more than that. It build flexibility and works the spine as well as the whole body. In fact, I devoted an entire course to bridging exercises and many variations. Work into it slowly, but over time you’ll build a neck strong enough to scare people. (And I mean STRENGTH, not size.)
Shrugs – Shrugs of many variations (my favorite is the trapbar) primarily work the trapezius muscles. Being that this is right next to the neck and the muscles cross over this is a good neck exercise. Go heavy!
Neck Isometrics with Hands – You can work your neck quite well with just your hands. To the front, to the back and to the sides. Resist with your hand as you move your head back into place.
Plate lifting – I learned this one from Mike Bruce. Lay across a bench, placing a plate across your forehead (you may want to fold up a towel as a pad to make it comfortable), using your hands to keep it balanced, but drive with the power of your neck. You can do this from the rear and to the sides as well.
Harness lifting – If you have a head harness or lifting strap you can lift weight in a variety of ways.
That’s a number of neck strengthening exercises I’ve given you now let me tell you how I do it. While I gave you many exercises I mostly just do bridging variations. I’ve done a 10 minute wrestler’s bridge on a couple occasions. But that took too long plus it wasn’t as much resistance as I wanted so I started adding weight. My current best is the 425 lbs. pictured on this page.
I typically train my neck twice a week. I usually do a single set each of two different exercises. All my neck training in about 5 minutes a week.
Simple exercises = BIG results. This is a missing key to training almost everyone neglects. Don’t let that be you.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Barbells and Dumbbells, Bodyweight Exercise, Strength Training Concepts by on Feb 10th, 2010. 3 Comments.
Hill sprints are always an excellent choice
There are many possible circuit training ideas. I’m going to list some just off the top of my head.
- Pick three exercises. Do each one for a minute before moving onto the next with no rest. Repeat this all for five rounds.
- Pick a strength exercises that you can only do for one to five reps. Have a conditioning move you can do a hundred reps in. Go back and forth between the strength exercise and conditioning exercise for a number of rounds. (This builds the ability to apply maximal strength while fatigued. Great for fighters.)
- Have 10-20 exercises of varying difficulties. Do as many reps of each before moving onto the next. Keep track of the reps for each exercise and your total time.
- Have an implement like a kettlebell on one end of a field. Do a set number of swings with it. Sprint to the other side of the field. Do a bodyweight exercise like pushups. Run back and repeat.
- Pick a number of exercises to work the whole body. Do a set followed by jumping rope for a minute. Go onto the next exercise then jump rope for a minute. Continue in this pattern stopping after you’ve done each exercise or just going once through them all.
There you have five potential workouts. With variations of each you could use these for the rest of your life.
Personally I like to mix it up with my circuits. Plan something then go after it. As long as you keep track of your workouts you can do something similar a month down the road and see how you’ve improved.
Alternatively, you can add a few reps or a bit of time to each exercise thus making each circuit harder. Do this on a regular basic and you have a formula for improvement.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. As for calve work as David mentioned about his Convict Conditioning Routine I haven’t directly worked my calves in even distant memory. Sprinting and/or jumping rope is all you need.
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells, Workouts by on Feb 11th, 2010. Comment.
What time is it? Time to train!
We sent out a survey at www.Strongerman.com the other week and the results we’re quite interesting.
One of the most insightful questions was “What would you say is the biggest thing holding you back from getting as strong and enduring as you want?”
As this was an open ended question there were many responses but they could be broken down into a number of categories.
You know what the number one answer was? That over one forth of all people attributed to holding them back?
TIME
I must make a distinction. There is a difference between having enough time to get a decent workout in versus having enough time to do all the training you would want.
If you’re in the second group that’s good to be reaching for an ideal. Not everyone’s a professional athlete whose job it is to train. But I think most people fall more towards the first group.
Does it take time to train? Yes. Some people work a full-time job or even more than that. And then you have other responsibilities like family or friends. At that point working out can seem like something you just don’t have time for.
Here’s the thing. Workouts shouldn’t take long. I’m a big proponent of doing short workouts. I’ve done effective workouts shorter than 10 minutes. And if you don’t have ten minutes you need to take a good look at your schedule and find out where you can find that time.
Now not every workout is that short, but to be honest most of my workouts are under 30 or forty minutes. I haven’t done a workout longer than an hour in a long time. Not only are those marathon sessions unnecessary but they can be counter-productive.
As a concrete example, last week I did a kettlebell snatch test. The goal: in ten minutes to do as many snatches as possible. With a 32 kg bell this is an absolute brutal workout. I not only got 160 reps but I did it without setting the bell down (but with multiple hand switches) a new record for myself.
Ten minutes is tough. For beginners even with a lighter bell you won’t be able to last that long. Do eight minutes or even five. Since this is such an effective exercise working the entire body that’s all you need.
Now if you’re after certain goals you’ll have to play around with what you do and the timing in order to reach them. But it can be done.
Don’t tell me you don’t have time to train. That’s the worst excuse there is used by the lazy to mask their laziness. I can guarantee that you have the time somewhere
Stop making excuses and do it. If you train smart and effectively everyone has the time to train.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Kettlebells, Strength Training Concepts, Workouts by on Feb 18th, 2010. 3 Comments.
This weekend they held an RKC in nearby San Jose. While I was not an assistant this time, my friend and I decided to stop by just to say hello. Great to get to see and chat with guys like Pavel Tsatsouline, Dave Whitley and many others.
While I was there I decided to see how my training was going. As you may know one of my goals is to do the Beast Challenge which is to lift a 106 lb. kettlebell in a one arm press, pullup, and pistol. I hit the pistol for the first time the other week and I’m working towards the other two.
After focusing on the one arm press for a significant amount of time I decided to switch it up and focus on double presses. As this move is harder I had to drop down in weight regularly working with the 70 lbs bells. As I’ve only done two arm presses for a few weeks now I was curious if it was making my one arm press stronger.
Now I found out it was. I had access to a 44kg bell which I don’t have at home so I decided to attempt a press.
This video shows the second rep. After pressing it once each side I decided I should have got it on film. The second rep was not as nice as the first. While both had side action going on this one was a bit more.
Just one step closer on my path. Are you moving forward?
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Kettlebells, Videos by on Feb 25th, 2010. 3 Comments.
