Strongman training

What are some drills you could do for strongman training?

With the sled dragging technique is very important. For backward pulls have the guys get into a 1/4 squat position (like a d-back) and take very short steps. We have them step only about 6" max. For the forward pulls they need to lean way forward and stay low. We keep our feet spread. You want to go slow enough so there is no momentum, but yet not take "forever" to complete the walk. Our guys go 20-40 yards on the sled drags.

We do our strongman workouts 1 day a week and concentrate on speed technique the other day. But our guys really look forward to the strongman days. Guys are already talking about pushing and pulling a teammate's Chevy Blazer during the summer. Mike Alstott was big into that kind of work in HS and college. By the way where is he now? Is he still with Tampa?

Coach -

We train 5 days a week at my school. M/W/F are lifting days and T/Th is used for sled dragging and ab work. We do a ten-minute plyometric program on M/W/F prior to lifting. We don't do plyometric work on non-lifting days because it can have an adverse effect on recovery and recuperation.

Personally, I don't think that it is too demanding to ask kids who are not participating in a winter or spring sport to train 5 days a week. Our training sessions last usually between 45 minutes and an hour. Figure, at the most, we are training a little over 5 hours a week. Compare that to kids on the wrestling and basketball teams who are probably practicing for 2 hours each night and competing in a game/meet twice a week. Even with training 5 days a week, your off-season lifters are still spending less time at school than the wrestlers and basketball players. As for our football players who participate in winter and spring sports, I feel lucky if I can get two days a week of solid lifting out of them during the winter and spring. IMO, kids who are in-season with another sport don't need to be doing GPP because they are probably already in great shape from practice and games and they don't need to do plyometrics because most sports have many intrinsic plyometric characteristics.

As far as offseason agility work goes, I'm not a big fan. I think that the purpose of the offseason is to get bigger and stronger and leaner. If your kids get bigger and stronger and leaner, it follows that they will almost certainly become agile, mobile, and hostile!

As far as strongman training goes, I am going to implement it once every other week to start. Currently, we do a bench press variation and a squat variation on Monday. When we start the strongman training, I am going to drop the bench/squat variation on Monday and do the strongman training instead for that week. We'll do SLDL, GHR, and Lunges prior to the strongman training as a warm-up.

That will still allow for Tuesday to be a GPP/recovery day before we deadlift and clean on Wednesday.