Got a great question from Felipe the other day that I wanted to tackle, concerning progressions in nail bending.
First of all congratulations Logan for having such a great website your one of the strong men I follow because you have such great information and knowledge. I will be buying the advanced bridging course some time with in a month from now, your lock out was crazy bro, good stuff. I wanted to ask you a question on bending, I bought the ironmind nails level one and two, white and green and I love them. They got to easy and I ordered the yellow nails, I can’t even bend them at all there to strong. what other nails do you recommend that is harder than the green nail and easier than the yellow nail so I can bridge the gap. How should I address the situation?
Thanks Logan hope to hear from you.
The white, green, yellow, blue and red nails
However, I don’t know what they were thinking with the Bag of Nails. The jump from a white nail to a green nail is small. The same goes for the yellow to the blue. But the jump from the green to the yellow or the blue to red is HUGE.
And to be honest, I don’t think any amount of working on the green nails is really going to help you get to a yellow. You need to look outside of Ironmind to make these jumps.
There is a lot of detail that goes into this and different ways you can approach it. You can buy lengths of steel and cut them to size. Get 1/4” cold rolled steel and cut it to lengths with a pair of bolt cutters. This way you can make your own progression cutting off 1/2” at a time.
Or for where you’re at Felipe, it may be easiest to pickup 40D nails at the hardware store and work with those. But again with these, the jump from a 40D to a 60D (about the equivalent of a blue nail) is big.
For complete details on progressions with bending check out Diesel’s Nail Bending eBook. It is the definitive resource on this subject.
Actually one of my friends is looking at making a brain dead simple progression for bending, where the jumps are tiny all the way through. Going from one nail to the next is easy but there are many progressions to go from the easiest nails to past the Red nail.
Its still in development, but this is something I’d love to see made available, as I too have been stopped in making these big jumps. I know that the more progressive you can make something the easier it is.
Is this something you’d be interested in? (I’m asking everyone, including Felipe) Comment below.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Feats of Strength, Hand Strength by on Apr 8th, 2010. 17 Comments. 
Don’t know if you heard about it.
I’m doing a special teleseminar with Bud Jeffries tomorrow night, where we’re going deep into the topic of twisted conditioning. What it is, how to apply it and much more.
In addition you can ask your own questions on any training topic.
This is just the first of many. Next week we have one of my mentors joining us. Now, if you want to build super human strength this is one guy worth listening too.
But for now jump on board and sign up for the first call. The details can be found at
http://www.strongerman.com/teleseminar-series/
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 7th, 2009. 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.
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.
