Bad Ass Muscle Building Exercises #2 - Walking with Weight

Many exercises that are performed in the gymnasium are not what you would call functional by any means.

But to build some serious functional muscle you need to be hitting your body with big compound movements, one such type of exercise is 'Walking with Weight', a favourite of Strongman past and you should make it a favourite of your own to get building some badass muscle.

Walking with weight, can be anything from farmers walk, atlas stone carry, overhead barbell walking, deadlift and carry to squat walking.

Brooks Kubik mentions walking with weight in his awesome Dinosaur Training Book and states that it was a favourite of Milon of Crotona and a staple of Oldtime Strongmen.

My own personal favourites are walking with weight overhead and deadlift walking. A simple way to implement deadlift walking is to deadlift the barbell and if you have space to take several steps backwards and then several steps forward but ideally would be done where you have plenty of space to take a barbell for a walk.

Steve Justa bases most of his unconventional training routines around walking with weight. You can fin lost of information in Steve Justa's very unusual training book Rock Iron Steel

Be warned, that walking with weight should be taken seriously as you'll more than likely be hitting ligaments and parts of you're body you would normally be so ease this type of training carefully into your routine. Build up te weight and distance gradually and enjoy the benefits of walking with weight which will be improved grip strength (farmers walk), stronger legs, bigger fitness capacity and badass shoulders,legs and traps!

Bad Ass Muscle Building Exercises #1 - Clean and Press

OK I haven't posted in a while and got round to thinking that I needed to run a series on the Best Exercises for building muscle, even in my own training it's sometimes easy to forget what works and did work for you in the past.

Many of the best exercises do come from the past (some more than a century ago), so you can guess right now there'll be no single legged deadlifting with a neoprene coated pink dumbbell or any bosu squats whilst sipping on a carrot juice!

Only big functional badd ass compound exercises!

So first up is the Clean and Press

The clean and press can be done using a barbell, a dumbbell or dumbbells or even a kettlebell. The main thing is that it is done with a heavy weight and aggression. The classic way is using 2 dumbbells and a great measure of manliness, it was stated by Sig Klein that a 75lb dumbbell in each hand clean and pressed 10 times would seperate the men from the boys.

So there's a great goal straight away, 10 clean and presses with 75lb dummbells.

Ultimately the clean and press is so fucking great because you have all the trimmings of olympic lifting mixed in with a pushing movement which can be made into an endurance strength movement or a big baddass 1 Rep max lift. Either way the clean and press is going to destroy you in the gym if you put in extreme maximum effort.

If you're clean really sucks you could try a continental clean to get the wight up to your chest before the press.

Some variations of the clean and press would be as follows:
Power Clean and Press
Hang Power Clean and Press
Reverse Grip Clean and Press (Like a power curl)
Single Dumbbell clean and press
Kettlebell Clean and press (1 or 2 kettlebells)
Continental clean and press

and of course any of the above using a push press or a jerk

Hits the legs, back, trunk, shoulders and almost everything else.

How to Put on Weight

How to Put on Weight

When someone wants to ‘Put on Weight ’ it can only be assumed that they wish to gain lean body mass and not chug a load of crap down their own throat and become 'Jabba the Hut' over the course of a weekend. I could give you many well devised to put weight on this way.

However, the question is ‘how to put on weight’ not ‘how to get fat’!

Firstly, I would recommend taking up a suitable exercise regime that will build muscle by using the biggest muscles in your body, the legs back and chest. The exercises to target for this purpose are called ‘Compound exercises’ (these are exercises which use multiple joint movements simultaneously), these could be any of the following:

Squat

Deadlift

Bench Press

Clean and Press

Snatch and so many more

You get the jist…. You won’t build much muscle just doing bicep curls and calf raises!

Check out the York Bodybuilding programs or The EDT System for some great muscle building programs, to help you gain weight.

The other significant factor (which is also the main one) with regards to putting weight on is what you put into your mouth (nutrition).

Many folks just eat a load of crap to put on weight, but you should treat your body kindly and eat as ‘clean as you possibly can’ to achieve this. The better the quality going in the quicker the gains will be

How many calories should I eat to put on weight?

You must first calculate how many calories your body will need to cover the activities you would pursue in a normal day (this would include any training you intend to do).

To make easy work of this, use this weight gain calculator

To gain weight you need to over eat by about 500 calories per day, your body will not respond to muscle building exercises if you eat less than what you need.

How Much Protein?

Another important factor for weight/muscle gain is your protein intake.

You should be eating between 1-2 grams of protein per pound of body weight for healthy muscle growth.

What Foods to Bulk up on for Putting Weight on?

Some good choices are nuts, eggs, lean meats, chicken, protein powders etc

It shouldn’t be difficult to add at least 500 calories per day with some quality foods.

To close out, to Put weight on you must train compound exercises to build muscle, eat extra calories (around 500 per day) and best of all make sure you get plenty of rest (you won’t be gaining anything without plenty of shuteye). Gains won’t happen overnight but with this method you will actually see good quality gains and stay healthy at the same time.

Go off do some more research into healthy eating for weight gain and I’ll see you back here when you’re 20lbs heavier and squatting another 2 plates each side

BIG Bench Press Tips

Great Post on UnderGround Strength from Zach Even-Esh about Bench Press Tips by Mark Bell



Excerpt from UGS

9) In general, always smash your posterior muscles as these are the muscles that will bring up your squat, bench and deadlift: hamstrings, glutes, back, triceps…

10) If you’ve hit a plateau in your bench press, it’s time to step back and assess your training. Focus on optimal training so you can progress regularly. If something isn’t working don’t be afraid to change.

Check out the full post On Under Ground Strength

Chaos Bench Press Training

Chaos Bench Press Training

Simple training exercise for the BENCH PRESS which can be used as an alternative to standard barbell bench press. Very similar to the Bamboo Bench Press



Equipment required:

2 Handles
2 Stretch bands (of equal tension)
2 Kettlebells or 2 weights (dumbbells or weight discs are just as good as kettlebells)

Terry Hollands 155kg Block Press

Terry Hollands155kg Block Press

With block pressing being a key part of World's Strongest Man 2010 and no doubt a part of the future here's the UK's Terry Hollands getting the better of a 155kg block.

Nice work



Odd Object Lifting is always a winner for Strongman Training and weekend warriors a like.

CoC 3 Sam Solomi 120kgx4 dumbell rows

Awesome display of back strength and grip power from Sam Solomi, with 120kg Dumbbell Rows