Old School Training

[Drum&Bass]

I'm becoming more and more fascinated with strength and power training out side of a gym.

I'm using heavy stones, bricks, heavy ass pieces of metal, furniture anything thats hard to hold comfortably and HEAVY, unstable terrain (grassy hills), people, animals, ANYTHING. I find it much more brutal than training in a gym and I'm using WAY MORE muscles than any barbell or dumbbell could ever hit.

Its an insane amount of fun coming up with exercises and its extremely satisfying to train during the most beautiful times of the day.

I got this one exercise where I hold up an old table over head and race my neighbors dog up a hill..its KILLER..and I'll flip and catch bricks to develop grip strength, or power clean stones in my yard. i'm tellin you its crazy !

gyms are cool, but Out Door/Backyard training is where its at !!

 

[jt the azn]

lol, the way man is supposed to train in nature. caveman style

 

[AlexTheGreat]

I'm with you on this one, inventing your own exercises is one of the most satisfying feelings you can get

 

[wuddupboy]

wowww

If i ever did that, people would look at me like I'm crazy! If it works, it can't be bad, just don't go too heavy with it, dangerous =-o Does it work with your balance as well?

 

[Drum&Bass]

Does it work with your balance as well?

HELL YEA !!! because of the unevenness of the ground and the awkward shapes of the weight, BALANCE is one of the main skills that comes into play.

 

[Kerpal]

Ever try sandbag training? It's great. It costs like $10-15 to make a 200+ lb bag and you can do just about anything with it that you can do with a barbell, but it's a lot harder because it's awkward to hold and the sand shifts around.

Ex)
Sandbag clean and press
Sandbag shouldering
Sandbag squats (zercher, front, back)
Sandbag overhead press
Sandbag carry (overhead, bear hug)

Another fun thing is sledgehammer training. It's an awesome full body workout and you can find sledgehammers and old tires anywhere.

One workout I like is to leave the sledgehammer at the top of a hill and sprint to the top, do a certain number of swings, and sprint back down, then repeat a certain number of times.

I also do circuits a lot where I'll do one exercise for a minute, then another for another minute, etc. I usually do 3 5 minute rounds with 1 minute of rest in between.

And one of the best parts is that you can do this stuff outside. So you get a good workout, work on your tan, and don't have to go to the gym and wait to use stuff, deal with dumb guys curling in the squat rack, clueless newbies interrupting you to ask questions, and dumb people critiquing your form when they have no idea what they're doing themselves, etc.

Another thing I really want to try is sled dragging, I just need to find a good place to do it and figure out how to work it into my routine.

 

[stronglifts]

I'm becoming more and more fascinated with strength and power training out side of a gym.

I'm using heavy stones, bricks, heavy ass pieces of metal, furniture anything thats hard to hold comfortably and HEAVY, unstable terrain (grassy hills), people, animals, ANYTHING. I find it much more brutal than training in a gym and I'm using WAY MORE muscles than any barbell or dumbbell could ever hit.

Its an insane amount of fun coming up with exercises and its extremely satisfying to train during the most beautiful times of the day.

I got this one exercise where I hold up an old table over head and race my neighbors dog up a hill..its KILLER..and I'll flip and catch bricks to develop grip strength, or power clean stones in my yard. i'm tellin you its crazy !

gyms are cool, but Out Door/Backyard training is where its at !!

I started with bodyweight exercises, went to bodybuilding, tried powerlifting, now more a mix of strength training & olympic lifting. I've been interested in going strongman for some time now. Lifting barbells is great for strength, but it's less funcitonal than uneven objects.

Problem with strongman is that you need a serious base of strength.

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

Yes!!! When I was stuck in Africa whout a gym we used to lift whateve boulders we could find. I always think about going back to that style.

Sometimes I do pallet runs. I'll do 5 miles with the heavest wood pallet I can find. It's big, awkward , and if you carry it wrong you get full of slivers. I haven't done that for a while....

And then another favorite is rock runs. Grab a couple of rocks that you can just barely grip with one hand. Then as you run do different exercises. Arms out to the side, presses, arm circles, etc.
I learned this when I was going through an intense climbing school. It's one of the fastest things to buil grip strength.

 

[MrS]

Tyres are fun as hell.
Tyre flips, tyre drags a la sled drags, sledgehammer whacks.

 

[stronglifts]

Here's some stone lifting. Check the trailers on the left here

 

[student warrior]

Checkout gpp or general physical preparedness; tire flipping, sled running, sledgehammer work, etc..