Strongman Training For MMA & BJJ w/ 2x WSM Competitor Colm Woulfe (SSOF Podcast Ep. 8)

Colm Woulfe2:19

I have done it myself and it didn't work well back in the day when I was doing MMA. So there can be similar crossover things can be a little bit, certain exercises can be a little bit more specific. Say sandbag carries that sort of thing, opposed to just doing traditional strength training.

But the idea that you could just pick up any basic kind of strength training and pair it alongside, your prep for a fight, I wouldn't advise that at all. I could see, let's say in the off season, let's say you're moving up a weight class or something like that, you're a fighter, you've been, you've got a big frame and you're probably going to have to move up. Let's say in the off season, I could see a place for some strength training or using the strongman exercises in that regard to help put on some size far away from a fight.

Even then I wouldn't do, I definitely wouldn't train someone how I would train them to compete in strongman. Again, even in the off season, even if you're not having lots of heavy sparring sessions or whatnot, the fatigue cost is just too high. And I think the risk of injury is just not worth it to do.

So when I'm talking about a traditional strongman training, I'm talking about say, four or less reps from failure on the implement. So quite close to the maximal. Most common to be honest, to step back a little bit, the most common, unfortunately, still strongman training program, you'll see someone take a powerlifting program and then they just have an event stay where they essentially just max out every strongman exercise they have for their next competition.

So I don't think that's the smartest approach for strongman. And I wouldn't, I think it's even worse to have an MMA program and then chuck that in on top. But again, that situation I was talking about before where you're far away from your next fight, you're trying to put on some muscle, I could see a place for say some farmer's walk, some sandbag carries, sled drag, sled pulls, that sort of thing. But the say heavy stones, heavy yoke walk, I just don't think that's a smart idea.

Cost benefit wise, will it make you stronger in a general sense? Yes. But there's probably, there is more efficient ways to do that, sticking with regular gym training. Just the nature of carrying a heavy, truly heavy weight on your back, and then trying to move quick with it. Just saying it out loud, I'm sure it sounds more dangerous than standing in a rack doing a squat.

And then we've also got a bit of research on it, showing the same thing that it's about two times, about twice the risk basically of getting hurt doing strongman training, opposed to general strength training. So yeah, you could, there's definitely some elements that you could use from it. But yeah, just taking the true, if you just Google strongman training program, take whatever pops up there and try to combine it with your fight training, I would not advise that.

James de Lacey6:09

Just I didn't realize it was twice the risk with some of those, I guess you could see it with this, I guess the events moving quickly as you're saying with the unstable yoke on your back with weights heavier than your squat and stuff like that. The rest of it isn't so great.

Colm Woulfe6:27

It's a study by Justin and Paul Wynwood. I might be off on the exact number, but I think it's about two times. So still, safer than a lot of sports, if you look at their injury rates per thousand hours. But again, why take that risk?

Plus, let's say you were trying to put on size or increase your strength for the, to help with wrestling or something like that. Carrying a yoke again, yeah, it'll get you stronger, but is it going to get you as strong as just doing, let's say some squats? Probably not. The range of motion is much better in squats. You can load it more evenly. So yeah, and less risk. So it just doesn't make sense.

James de Lacey7:16

What kind of volume were you doing when you were combining strongman at MMA for the people listening today? No, okay, I won't do that. Do you remember?

Colm Woulfe7:16

Basically, I was doing exactly what I just said. But I was only, okay, this is when we're at uni. So I was young, I was just full of recovery. I was a typical meathead and I was only doing MMA three times a week. I had a Tuesday, Tuesday evening, Thursday evening, and then Saturday morning. And then I would do strongman training, I think two to three times a week.

Every now and again, though, I would instead of doing the MMA training on Saturday, I'll do strongman. And it was exactly what I just described. So I would, let's say I knew what six events I would have, I would just go as heavy as I possibly could on those events every Saturday. And honestly, those sessions were four to five hours. It wasn't smart.

Lots of the time is with strongman, that's setting up the gear. So it's not like I was just straight training, but it's still not smart. But as a student, I could kind of get away with it. Plus, I wasn't that strong. So it's not like the loads were super heavy. But still, I think I was lucky to get away without hurting myself.

James de Lacey8:35

Fair call. The strongman, as you mentioned, take a strongman program probably isn't ideal. But you mentioned obviously, there's strongman exercises and things in strongman that can potentially help carry over to various grappling and other sports or other combat sports. Is there, I guess, any exercises in particular that you're fond of in terms of maybe carry over to combat sports?

Colm Woulfe9:00

So I'll go through, if I, because we're talking strongman, I'll just talk about the most common ones. So I'll go through the list. So let's start with log press. I'm sure you're familiar with log press. It's always the staple overhead event of strongman.

I don't personally, I don't think it's worth doing for fighters either. A log has neutral handles, so you will be holding it like this, it can be a little bit easier on the shoulders. And so I could actually see, to go back on that a little bit, you could use say an eight inch diameter log. So it's not too big. Let's say I've got shoulder issues, you want to do your push presses, or whatever, some kind of explosive upper body movement, you could definitely do a log that way, an eight inch log.

But the ones that we use for competition, they tend to be 10 to 12 inches. And I do get asked quite a lot by athletes of all sorts of sports, oh, do you think I should incorporate log into my, should I get it one of those logs? I don't think so. A 10 to 12 inch log, it's so big that it requires you to have yourself. Ideally, you want to put yourself in a large amount of thoracic extension. But if you're not flexible enough to do that, it's going to come

from lumbar. And you'll see most, let's say World's Strongest Man, right? Most of the guys are giants. So comparatively, 12 inch diameter is not going to be as big. But let's say you're under, so an extremely serious half door, like six foot nine, you know, that 12 inches, he's going to be able to maintain a relatively neutral spine in that position.

If suddenly you're under six foot, but you still have to balance this 12 inch diameter log, one, that's putting yourself like you're not in the most stable position. And two, in terms of the actual exercise performance, you're not going to be able to transfer all your power into it anyway.

It's just the challenging aspect of the log is no longer going to become your pressing power, but it's going to be your ability to stabilize it in that position. So one, I don't think it's safe. And two, I just don't think it's effective in terms of what it offers you. But I could see say an eight inch log, you could get away with doing that. Or you could just do a football bar. Same grip. Again, it's just a small diameter, it's not going to put you out.

So log, those are my thoughts on log. So next, I would go say monster dumbbell, much the same. So that's a big, you clean it up with one hand, and then you press it any way you can overhead. Same sort of deal with log. Again, it's not, you might as well train the same qualities with different exercises. I wouldn't bother giving that one a go.

So an axle, another overhead one, I definitely wouldn't do it either. It's just, you've seen people continental cleaning, right? So you lock it onto your belly, you want to lean back, and then you power it up to your chest. So I wouldn't bother with those either.

James de Lacey12:12

What about just using the axle for pressing and other things like that?

Colm Woulfe12:12

Yep. So using just the axle itself as the, let's say you're doing axle, maybe explain the axle to the listeners. So an axle is normally about a two inch thick, it depends on which one you have, a two to two and a half inch thick. So it's like a barbell, but you have to grip it like this essentially. It's just a fat bar.

So in Strongman, it's called an axle because it's meant to be the axle of some kind of vehicle. So I think traditionally it was from a train. I could be wrong on that, but I think a train with big metal wheels that don't rotate. So that's right up Strongman's alley. What could implement that doesn't rotate, which forces you to put it in this weird position.

So in terms of doing the clean and press with an axle, I wouldn't do it, but you could use an axle for rows, get a bit of extra grip work, deadlifts depending on the goal of your deadlift. And you could use it for overhead presses or bench presses if you wanted to.

James de Lacey13:37

Axle by itself is good. I think it's a valuable tool. I'm a big fan of pressing with the fat bar. If I had my whole gym set up and I was training combat or collision athletes, I'd replace the barbell with a fat bar for all pressing. I love it that much.

Colm Woulfe13:37

For the extra grip work.

James de Lacey13:37

Just the robustness of the wrists and elbows and things like that. It's so different when you're pressing a thick bar than the barbell and the carryover is insane too, just to the normal barbell pressing anyway.

Colm Woulfe14:04

For sure. You could definitely use it for that sort of thing. Even curls if you wanted to.

James de Lacey14:23

That's my favorite.

Colm Woulfe14:23

In terms of actual axle clean and press, the continental style, I would not play. I can't think of a situation, even an off season, someone trying to gain weight. The only situation I can think of is if someone had a strongman competition and they were doing their MMA fighting, which again, I wouldn't advise. Those are the three main overheads.

The next category would be carries. So yoke walk, farmers walk, those are probably the most common ones you see in combat sports training. And so farmers walk or frame carry. So you're holding a heavy implement each hand and then just trying to walk with it. I actually think these could be one of the exercises that could be used in a fighter's training program.

You can load it. So it's not going to be, basically, you can regulate the loading really well. It's not like it's a set weight or anything like that. And it's going to load the upper back and traps really well, but also it really hits the grip. And depending on how far you're carrying it and whatnot, there's going to be a little bit of cardiovascular work.

But you wouldn't really, if you're doing MMA or some combat sport, I wouldn't advise using farmers walk for your cardio training. There's a little bit of carryover there. But I wouldn't say stop your road work and just get the farmers' bars.

James de Lacey15:57

How far would you, and I guess it's hard to say how heavy, but how far would you recommend, say, carrying a farmer's walk per set if you're preparing for a sport like MMA or Jiu Jitsu?

Colm Woulfe15:57

I would go about 50 meters. So I can't remember what that is in feet. But normally something like, it depends on what gym you're training at. I would just go normally there and back. So most of those gyms here are 20 to 25 meter lanes. And I'll just go there and back. For say two to three sets.

But it's the other thing. It's similar to a trap bar deadlift, right? So if someone's working around back issues or whatnot, you can keep a relatively upright torso. And plus the farmer's handles tend to be quite high off the floor, opposed to a traditional deadlift where it's quite low, like eight and a half inches or whatever it is off the floor. So they can be, so it's a good exercise in that regard.

Yoke walk though, I wouldn't. Yoke walk personally, I don't think would have any place. I know some people are a fan of a chain yoke. So that's with chains hanging off the sides of the crossbar that makes it really unstable. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of it. But I could see someone doing it basically. It's not going to, because of the unstable nature of it, you're not going to, well, you shouldn't load it super heavy.

But it'll be a bit of extra core work, a bit of stabilizing as you're walking with it. Again, though, you could probably just get the same sort of effect from doing a bunch of Pallof presses and other core exercises that are a bit safer and just quicker. Let's say you were to do a chain yoke, it's going to take you maybe 10 minutes to set up, opposed to walking over to the cable station, sticking the pin in the way you want and then doing a Pallof press.

So MMA training as it is, so many qualities to train for. So I would guess most people are wanting to keep their S&C training as minimal as possible. So in terms of those carries, frame carry farmers walk, I think could be used for fight training. Again, though, not going super heavy. But it depends. In terms of RPE, I would say something like a seven out of 10 in terms of just how hard the set of 50 meters felt.

James de Lacey18:39

Are you trying to walk out as fast as possible or are you just kind of just walking?

Colm Woulfe18:39

So for strongman competition, I would advise to go as fast as possible. If I was doing for fight training, I would just try to go, normally, I'll tell you as fast as you can comfortably. So you're wanting to go generally short steps, fast feet. You're not wanting to break into a full-on jog. But I wouldn't worry about, so because the goal of the strongman is to complete the course as fast as possible, that's who wins.

You're really kind of pushing the limits in terms of finding that gate, that length of your gate, the speed of your feet, that you can do everything you can. And a lot of the times, you might lose balance and lose the farmer's walk. That's just part of training. I don't think it's worth trying to go that fast for fighters really. You're not going to score any points on the judge's scorecard by doing a faster farmer's walk. But you can still get the benefit of doing the farmer's walk by just holding back a little bit.

But yoke walk, personally, I wouldn't really advise. Those are the two main carries. And in the other category, I would say the main strongman ones are loading. So stones, like picking up a heavy stone in the front and loading it, or a keg, sandbag, that sort of thing.

I don't, so there could be some, I know there is some, there's that line of thinking of wrestling with the sandbag or whatever helps you develop that grip for wrestling. Personally, I don't, I think doing one of those loading exercises, again, will definitely get you stronger in a general sense. And also, it does train a form of hip extension that I think translates well to wrestling and that sort of thing, driving the hips up forward that you don't necessarily get with normal barbell training.

So let's say I've got a sandbag on my lap, I'll then extend my hips. I'm extending it forward basically to where the camera is. And you go into kind of a triple extension, and you're pulling the implement into yourself at the same time as your hips are going forward. So it really hits the hips quite well, provided you're doing it right, which you don't get that from a squat where you look.

So that particular aspect I think can be quite beneficial. But I don't, so this is another line of thinking that led to, I'm not sure if you remember when Mariusz Pudzianowski debuted in MMA. So anyone listening, this is five times World's Strongest Man when he transitioned into MMA. In the Russian league, right? Was it KSW?

James de Lacey21:13

He was with them now. I think he was with Strikeforce when he started or he was at some stage.

Colm Woulfe21:13

But so he was known in the strongman world as having great conditioning.

Really good at those front carries. Like not just like he was literally the best in the world at him. So people kind of said, he's carrying 160 kgs, manhandling it, blitzing it, doing it for a minute. A minute to 75 seconds without stopping, maintaining a really good speed. So on the internet it was, he's doing this, he's gonna... I can't remember who his first fight was, but he fought Tim Sylvia really early in his career.

And it was, everyone, I remember from the internet saying, man, he's just gonna manhandle Tim Sylvia. Tim Sylvia, not the best wrestler in the world, but could still shut him down. Like at the end of the day, wrestling is wrestling. Like the sandbag will help you develop a bit of grip for sure. To rely on that to develop grip for wrestling, do not do it. Like it's just not even in the same ballpark. But to help complement it, it definitely could help a little bit.

And again, with that triple extension and being quite hip dominant, it can be good. Just to add to that though, Atlas stones. So the round stones, I actually wouldn't do. So the motion is pretty much the same whether you're loading a sandbag or a stone. Like there's a little bit of difference with the grip, but I would say do it with a sandbag. There's not really too much benefit of doing it with a stone, but I feel like it'll put you at a little bit more of a risk for a bicep tear, which again, you just why take that risk.

In strongman competition, so I don't have a direct study on this, but anecdotally, we've seen a lot of people tear their biceps on stones. And because they're those smooth ones, you actually a lot of the time use tacky. So it's like this glue kind of resin substance to stick yourself to the stone. So if you don't have that, you really have to pull it in really tight and it can recruit quite a lot of biceps. It's just a lot of strain.

Whereas doing it with a sandbag, there's still a smaller amount of risk, but because you can grip with your fingers a bit more and because the sandbag's more malleable, you can get it in a nicer position. So yeah, I would, I think loading can be a great movement to again, to assist fight training, but it's not like, let's say you wanted to develop just a vicious double leg takedown that no one could stop. You can just drive through people. You should still be doing wrestling to do that.

Don't just start doing a ton of sandbag loads and thinking you're just going to be able to drive through everyone because it's, they'll just throw you off center and your power is going to go nowhere. But to complement it, so I think the benefits of the sandbag are going to be that little bit of extra grip because it's like you want to hold with open hands, pull it in tight. It's going to be training the upper back to hold it in that position.

And then it's kind of the actual lower body movement. It's kind of like a hybrid between a front squat and a hip thrust. Again, this is just me talking. It's not like I've got a biomechanic study to say this, but I'm sure you've seen the same thing that you're sitting in kind of a front squat position. And then imagine driving your hips up on a 45 degree angle. So your hips going forward is what's going to help load the implement.

So yeah, those out of those main strongman moves, I think those particular ones, so sandbag farmers, stones, I don't really think is worth it. Axle can be fine in the gym, but definitely not continental clean and press. And log, you could go with a smaller diameter log just to work around injuries, give you an alternative to the barbell.

And then the final, I would also add in as a main one, is like the truck pull. So you can do like to set up a truck and train. I mean, honestly, you could. It's a lot of setup though. But you might as well do it with a sled. So doing it with a sled or prowler, it's going to be harder anyway, because once you get the vehicle moving with a bit of momentum, like it gets a little bit easier. So the sled or prowler is always going to have that kind of dead resistance, which is good.

But I think both the arm over arm variant, that's where you're sitting down. And imagine where you are in the camera, I'm pulling with a rope, and then there's a vehicle that side of me, I'm pulling it towards me. I think that can actually be a really good exercise, especially if you can get a really long rope. It's going to really hammer the grip and upper back, which if you're more involved with gi, like it can really help develop that endurance.

And let's say you're in guard, and you're grabbing up and pulling collars. Again, don't just think, oh, this is all I have to do. And then I'm going to dominate gi, no, but it can supplement that training quite well. Because you're really developing big pulling power through the upper body, but also because of the nature of driving yourself back, there's quite, it's kind of like a leg press, kind of like a bigger range of motion leg press.

So these strongman exercises in general, are quite general exercises. So they're hitting the majority of the body. Overall, it's not like say, if we jump, let's say you really needed legs, you could jump on hat squat, you're just going to really hit the legs, not too much else. Really hit the quads, but with an arm over arm, this big time grip, big time upper back, definitely a bit of biceps in there. And also a lot of lower body.

And it's not too technical. That's the other thing that can be quite nice about strongman training. It's not going to take, you're not going to have to spend three sessions learning how to push a vehicle or push the prowler. You can kind of just jump in and get away with it. I should also mention, I forgot, the last category is throwing. So in strongman there's keg toss quite a bit.

Now there's, I'm not sure if you've seen the Cerberus and Rogue make a sandbag with a handle on it. I think that's fantastic. So you could do, you could do a medsimbal toss, but I actually quite like the idea of the handle because you'll be holding it like this, right? So your palms are facing down, opposed to the medsimbal holding it like this. I feel like, just puts those biceps a little bit of risk.

So I've actually got a friend who tore his bicep doing, it was like a brick toss. So it just holds, it's that same, because you're holding it like this, right? It's putting a bit more, which I can see similar to a medsimbal toss.

James de Lacey28:25

How heavy was the work?

Colm Woulfe28:25

It was like 20 kgs or something. So it's more, it wasn't too heavy.

James de Lacey28:25

No, not too heavy.

Colm Woulfe28:25

But just that act. That's why I say, so again, this is anecdotal, but why, let's say I was getting someone to do that and I wanted to produce the load a little bit. Like why do it on a medsimbal when we could just use one of those sandbags, you can have, you can load whatever weight you want to that and you've got that handle. So there's just very minimal risk of tearing. Like I wouldn't say it's impossible, but very minimal risk of tearing your bicep that way.

So I think those can be a good alternative to medball toss or any kind of vertical throwing. But keg toss itself, you could do as well. So a keg, you normally has handles and you'd be holding it like this, a neutral grip. So it can be good. The problem with a keg is it has the hand somewhere and it's a big metal keg. So you kind of have to, it's just a bit of setup work.

But let's say you had a strongman club or something training nearby and you had access to that. Yeah, you can definitely do that. It's not going to be, it's not going to be too detrimental to your training or anything like that.

James de Lacey29:36

Well, you can use kettlebells too, right? The old Russian method was that's what kettlebells were invented for back in the day for throwing.

Colm Woulfe29:54

Yep, I didn't realize that. But yeah, kettlebells for sure.

James de Lacey29:54

For the buddy, one of the fitness people now that have come along and decided to create competitions out of, what do they do? I think they have like a one arm snatch competition now or something like that. And it's like how many you can do next time.

Colm Woulfe29:54

Yeah, I'm not too familiar.

James de Lacey29:54

Do they just used to throw it and like on the grass field or something? And just yeah, and just stamp it. Stuff like that. So kettlebells are another good way you can do that. And unless you load, I guess the throws heavy too, obviously, light throws are great to develop speed and power. But I mean, if you have to pick up humans and suplex them, obviously that would be the ideal thing to do in training to develop that strength. But you can supplement it with things like kettlebells, unless we're in tear on the body, throwing heavy stuff over your head.

Colm Woulfe30:38

And the advantage of that bag would just be you could do it indoors without...

James de Lacey30:38

That's true.

Colm Woulfe30:38

Provided you've got a big gym, but it's just so handy. You can just load it up and it doesn't really matter. But yeah, that would, it's kind of a, they have started using them in competition. So I'll claim it as a strongman.

James de Lacey31:04

The bag toss. Oh, I'll maybe I'll find that one. I'll link it in the description for any listeners that want to, they want to potentially grab it. But I wanted to ask you as well, the front loaded carry variations. Do you, what do you think about those for combat sports? They're like Zercher carries, Bear hug carries, like all the sandbag and whatever carries there.

Colm Woulfe31:24

So the front loaded carries are kind of classed as the loading variant. But yeah, I think those would be another good one, again, with the sandbag. So a sandbag, you could carry it this way, but also if you stood it horizontal lengthways, but you can also stand it up, right? And then you could bear hug grip, you could do gable grip, you could do kind of any kind of grip you want, and then carrying it back and forth.

So again, it will definitely supplement being able to pick someone up, keep them there. And you're just holding and walking back and forth. I think that's a fantastic exercise. And it's not—so again, this is anecdotal—but it's not too taxing of an exercise. So it's obviously going to stress the upper back and the grip quite a lot. But those will generally give out before your legs will.

So depending on your particular strength and weaknesses and the weight that you're using, but if you've got a good grip on it as you're walking, let's say you're doing quite a decent weight, the grip will start to give. And I think that can be a great thing to help, again, supplement that aspect of grappling.

James de Lacey32:34

I like what you said about it's not as fatiguing in a sense that it doesn't carry over. When I have access to a sandbag, I love just carrying it like that. And then yeah, at the time it sucks. But yeah, you don't have that residual soreness going in. Well, unless it's the first time you're doing it, but you don't have that huge soreness and fatigue and stuff later in the day or the following day.

Colm Woulfe32:57

Yeah. And it's a lot easier opposed to asking a training partner if you can pick them up and carry them around the gym.

James de Lacey32:57

You said they're not heavy enough anyway.

Colm Woulfe32:57

Yeah, that's true.

James de Lacey33:17

Yeah, that's definitely the benefit of the sandbag. But those kind of front carries in general?

Colm Woulfe33:23

Provided you're doing—I would say in terms of fatigue, doing the whole having the bag horizontally and holding it this way will be a little bit more fatiguing. But doing that vertical, you could also do the boxing bag, like having a vertical grip and carrying that, it tends to be a little bit less fatiguing.

But I would say in general, those front carries, again, unless it's really new to you, or you just go ridiculously heavy the first time doing it, I would say it's a little bit less fatiguing than say doing sets of squats and whatnot. It's obviously a little bit different stimulus. But again, if you're training, if you've just got a general strength training plan with the goal of just carrying that strength over to your training, it could be a good option.

James de Lacey34:09

On that truck pull as well, I guess if you don't have a truck, you can just drag a sled, right? That's essentially a sled pull. Have you done it with the Exer-Genie before?

Colm Woulfe34:26

I have actually, yes. And yeah, that's a pretty good alternative as well. The only hard thing about that was I think you needed, we had to do it with two people, one person to help set it back or something like that. Can't say that we were experts with it, but yeah, it was actually really good.

Especially in terms of space in that as well. So if you don't have—because you can just set it up against a pole or whatever. It's not like you have to have space to, you have the rope that you're attached to, and then you have to have the sled as well. You could just stand right next to where you're starting and then pull from there.

But otherwise a real easy way to set it up is if you just get an old tire. The old tire is a good, easy setup. So you basically get a tire, drill that bolt into it, attach a rope to that. And it's actually, if you use it on a surface with lots of friction, I would just do that, opposed to having to load it really heavy. Because that's just a pain. Otherwise, having to load stuff really heavy.

That was a good thing about that Exer-Genie. You could make it quite heavy just really easily. Again, opposed to with sleds a lot of the time—again, depending on the surface—but if it's just a regular AstroTurf or whatever, they slide quite well. So you have to just load so much weight on it to get what you want. Whereas with that Exer-Genie, you can just adjust it and it's got a good resistance.

James de Lacey35:46

Yeah, for anyone listening, the Exer-Genie, essentially it's a friction dial, like a rope. And you can just essentially dial the friction up and then it just adds resistance on the rope. And essentially you can use it in pretty much any way. Because all you need to do is tie it to something sturdy. And you could do your truck pull or your sled drag or whatever with that without having other equipment that you need.

Colm Woulfe36:24

Yeah. And you can set up doing arm over arm rows and stuff towards you as well. Seems pretty versatile. And yeah, it doesn't take up too much space. So that's the, I suppose the gold standard would be you have access to a super fancy gym with all the best equipment. But if you don't have space or whatnot, it's a pretty good alternative. Otherwise, yeah, just a good old tire sled.

James de Lacey36:46

If you're not worried about dragging it down in front of the neighbors.

Colm Woulfe36:46

Yeah. At least it's not as noisy as a metal sled scraping on the road.

James de Lacey36:46

Yeah, that's true.

How many times a week would you have an MMA, jiu-jitsu athlete or any other combat sport athlete, I guess, do some kind of supplemental strongman training within their training program? Is there a too many days a week? Is there a kind of a sweet spot that you see that works well?

Colm Woulfe37:08

Yeah. So there's a couple different approaches that I think can be taken with it. I would do, so this is what I would personally do, is either do it a little bit, I would say do three days of strength training far away from a comp or sorry, from a fight.

And then you could get rid of some of those bigger, once you're getting closer to comp season, I think the strongman exercises can be good to maintain a large range of qualities. So for example, that how I was talking about the arm over arm, it's hitting quite a lot of different muscle groups at the same time. So I feel like you'll be able to maintain a certain level of strength without having a large amount of volume that's going to fatigue you pre-comp, if that makes sense.

So let's say far, let's say 20 weeks out from the fight and you had, I don't know, three sets of squats, and then you were doing, I don't know, just one or two sets of the arm over arm, maybe towards the fight, you could start to get rid of those squats, or just do them very minimally, but do a little bit more of the sled drags. Just because it's going to maintain, again, training economy wise, you can get away—you're not trying to gain massive, well, I wouldn't advise trying to gain massive strength going into the fight, right?

You should do your, you should kind of be done once you start the actual camp, and you're just maintaining what you have. And I think those kind of exercises could be used well to maintain. Again, I don't have direct research to use on that. But I've used a similar thing on myself and with other athletes. But I would say something like three times a week, further away from a fight to improve qualities, and then I would probably drop it down to just two times a week, potentially even one, the closer you get to a fight, just to maintain those qualities.

James de Lacey39:02

I like the idea of the heavy sled drag as you get into fight camps. Obviously, you don't have that eccentric action, right? You have less muscle soreness, less fatigue. For anyone listening, obviously, the eccentric action is that muscle lengthening phase, like, for example, the descent in the squat. And if you're doing heavy loads or a lot of reps things, they can come bite you in the ass with a lot of soreness.

Whereas when you just drag the sled, it's only that muscle shortening phase, like riding a bike, basically. And you kind of, it's almost like a restorative feeling too afterwards. Your knees feel good, hips feel good, a lot of blood in there. Yeah, it's a nice concept, that one.

Colm Woulfe40:05

So when I've talked about doing that sort of thing before, I will get people, again, most of the people I talk to are more biased towards strength. So they, their concern will be like, oh, my squat's going to get a lot weaker. And the truth is, yes, it will in that period leading up to the fight.

But it doesn't, as long as you maintain your general leg strength, it doesn't really matter if you suddenly lose a bit of your motor pattern towards the squat. It's not really, you're not going to try squat to your opponent.

James de Lacey40:27

Hope not.

Colm Woulfe40:27

But if you can still load the sled nice and heavy to keep that general strength in your legs, you can give it enough stimulus to maintain basically, for a little while. Yeah, and you can always pick that up. Let's say you were wanting to, let's say you were a fighter, but you still had this desire to get stronger over time. And you just really like the power lifts like squat, bench, deadlift. You can definitely resume those after the fight once you've had a break, whatever.

It's not, and this, once you get that motor pattern back, it's going to come back. It's not like it's disappeared forever, which I'm just saying that because I get a lot of people that as soon as they feel their squat has gone down a little bit, they panic. But yeah, the goal if you're training for a fight, the goal is to perform as best you can in the fight. So it doesn't necessarily matter if suddenly, when you're—

James de Lacey41:32

Squatting five sets of five a week and feeling like squats are super easy, suddenly you're only doing one at a lighter weight so it doesn't destroy your spine. It doesn't like the worst thing, but what normally happens, right, is someone will get to that phase, then they'll get a bit insecure, and then max out their squat. No, I've lost strength, I need to test. And then yes, they max out and do worse. But that's to be expected, but you'll be maintaining enough strength for the fight.

But I don't know, have you had that similar train of thought and like, with people that you've trained?

Colm Woulfe42:07

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think most people confuse the idea of a certain lift maybe going down to reductions and being able to produce force, right? So obviously, when we're talking about things like squats, I think there's a huge coordination component, and there's coordination under heavy load. And if you aren't doing heavy loads, so a good example is someone who runs the 20 rep squat program, right?

And very rarely do you see case studies of people improving their one RM after doing six weeks of 20 rep squat program, because one, you're not training that rep range, but two, you're not developing that load specific coordination with heavier loads.

So when people move away from the squat, they go, oh, my squat's going down, doesn't mean that you're suddenly weaker. It can often mean that you haven't, I guess, maintained or developed that coordination with that lift. Whereas you can still maintain that strength, if you're doing heavy sleds, as you mentioned, you still develop producing a lot of force, doing that, but you're just doing it doing something different.

So I tried to cover that a lot when I'm writing about it on the blog as well. Strength isn't just, most people equate strength to squat, bench and deadlift, right? Because that's kind of the markers, but just because you can't squat, bench or deadlift doesn't mean that you're not strong. It just depends on the task or whatever activity you're doing.

James de Lacey43:26

Yeah, a good way of putting it. And funnily enough, that kind of that's where strongman came from, essentially. So nowadays, if we're looking at strongman as a sport, all the athletes train the actual implements, right? When it started, there was no training for strongman. There were powerlifters, shot putters, whatnot. And they just were all put into this comp and like a bunch of random events and let's see who's the strongest.

So it's kind of if you think of, there's a, I don't think I'm articulate enough to make the comparison. But let's say you're, you know, you're doing how it was back then for strongman, you just trained in the gym, right? You want to get generally strong. And then you find out on the day what actual implements you need to do and you transfer that strength over, you're trying to do the same thing when you're fighting.

So you're trying to maintain, you've done your strength training in the off season or whatever, and then you're maintaining it with a little bit of these strongman exercises, if that's what your plan is. And then you're using that to just show your strength on the day if you need to in the form of whatever happens in your fight.

Colm Woulfe44:36

Yeah, for sure. That's good. What's your take on strongman medleys for conditioning? Because I think that's outside of just pure farmers, I think that's where you see strongman being, I guess, its application being most used, as even within other sports as well, it's often strongman circuits are kind of the way that fighters use to disguise strength training when they go to the gym, but it's not really strength training. So I guess what's your take on using that as a conditioning modality?

James de Lacey45:23

I think it can be good. Kind of with some of those reasons we talked about before, some of the exercises aren't too taxing, and they're not that technical. So you can kind of do them under a high level of fatigue, like you would be in a circuit. I don't think, personally, I don't think it's optimal, I think you'd be better off just doing whatever exercises, a little bit more specific to fighting.

But I don't really think, let's say again, more towards the off season, you wanted to maintain a bit of conditioning and you enjoyed strongman exercises, I think that's fine. But maybe if you have, let's say you're already doing a bunch of other training and then towards closer to fight, you've got some kind of a higher intensity day. I don't know, I just feel like there'd be better, more specific exercises to do to develop the qualities for fighting. But yeah, so I can't, as much as I love strongman, I don't think it's the best approach, but I think it can be done.

But it's like, let's say we're going to set up a, like what's the most common MMA circuit? I always see, it's not really strongman, but sledgehammer slams, you have some kind of tire flip. So just to go over the tire flip quickly, I think it can be a good exercise. Again, it's got some, it's got a level of triple extension in there.

And provided you've got a tire that lets you hold it with a hammer grip, do not, I wouldn't do it this kind of. That's how you see everyone doing it. That puts, especially if it's heavy, a lot of strain on the biceps. Seen a lot of people tear their biceps doing it that way.

So if you are going to do tire flip, you want to kind of, you want to find a tire that's high enough that when you're bent over, so I think rugby scrum position, torso about parallel with the ground, you want your upper chest driving into the tire and you want your hands this way. That is a relatively safe exercise, still with a bit of triple extension, but it's not, you can't regulate the load. It's always just one.

So if you happen to have a good tire for you personally and you enjoy doing it, I think it's good. But otherwise it's just, let's say you're training with a team of 10 people or five people, whatever, it's very unlikely they're all, you guys are all going to be the same strength. And then as soon as you guys get a bit stronger, you probably need a heavier tire and it's just hard to load.

I've experimented with putting sandbags or whatever in tires and it's just, I just don't think, I think you might as well just load. You could do a sandbag load and then you can actually be explosive and throw the sandbags from the front squat kind of position. I would do that over a tire flip. But anyway, just to go back to the circuit, I was saying sledgehammer, slams, tire flip, what else? Farmers work sometimes.

Colm Woulfe48:27

Farmers work a bit, some kind of sled thing.

James de Lacey48:33

Again, to maintain, I feel like it's quite general. You're a little bit of everything and cardiovascular wise, it's not super, you could probably do stuff with a little bit more research behind it, but it's just, it's a general training way for running circuits. But in terms of setup and that, really easy. So that's a positive.

Colm Woulfe48:33

It can be, I guess, can be a nice way for if you just finished a fight and you've got a little bit of transition time, a long time before your next fight, it's something you can do just for cross training. Just some real general prep. And even myself, not as the biggest enjoyer of cardio. I think it's quite, strongman circuits can be quite fun. So it's a, yeah.

James de Lacey49:03

That's true. If you've just come off a grueling fight prep with different cardio, I don't know, doing sprints or plyers, whatever, doing strongman circuits could just be a bit of a mental break, while still maintaining quite a few different qualities. So I think that could be useful.

But yeah, I don't think my personal opinion is I wouldn't think it's the, I feel like they're overhyped in the MMA world. They're just, I see them very prominently. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? I'll be curious.

Colm Woulfe49:52

No, I agree with you completely. Obviously, it's as a general, as a general mode of training, for sure. If you're far away from a fight, but yeah, I mean, often it's used as a substitute for strength training. In my eyes, I see because it's like, oh, we're going to smash you up with some circuits, you know, that's conditioning. And then it just adds on so much extra training volume on top of, you know, the rounds of sparring, paper, whatever else, rolling, everything that you just don't need to do if you need to target whatever adaptation you want to target with in conditioning, you can do that within the sport itself, or if you're going away from the sport to do it, do something off feet, something that's relatively easy on the body, you can control the intensity, things like that.

James de Lacey50:40

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, for sure. I think we've covered pretty much everything. Is there anything else that you want to cover in here on strongman stuff?

Colm Woulfe50:50

Not really. I'll talk about the exercises and the other things that I would see, I suppose the misconceptions about it. So mainly the main one I used to see was that thing about Mariusz Pudzianowski, the thing that the big thing that I used to see was the fact he could essentially sprint with this front carry for a minute straight without slowing down. That would translate to him just being able to punch for a minute straight, just massive power in the fight.

And we saw real world example, it just did not happen. And he gassed out. So don't make that mistake of thinking if you become a beast at these strongman exercises, it doesn't mean it's going to directly transfer to the cage. You still need to do your priority

Has to be your fight training. You can, there will definitely be a little bit of carryover in a general sense, but yeah, it's not going to, just watch those early fights of Mariusz Pudzianowski. You'll see he, again, a little bit of lack of experience as well would have led to him not being able to control his breathing and whatnot and get out of it sooner.

But yeah, it's not going to, that's a sentiment I used to see not so much now, but every now and again I'll still see it that, you know, if you suddenly become an absolute monster at these carries, it's just going to carry over. If you're suddenly carrying 160 kg sandbag, you're going to be able to throw heavyweights around. That's just not the case. But if you're a fantastic wrestler, then you'll be able to throw heavyweights around if you're relatively a heavier weight class fighter.

James de Lacey52:25

Perfect. That's a way to end it too. Is there anywhere where people can find you, follow you, or anything like that if they want to learn more about you?

Colm Woulfe52:25

Just Instagram. Sorry, the Wolfman, Colm Woulfe. That's the main one at the moment. Same thing on Facebook, but more active on Instagram.

James de Lacey52:50

I'll check that down in the description for anyone who wants to give you a follow. But thanks for coming on, Colm. Really appreciate it.

Colm Woulfe52:50

No worries. Thanks for having me.