Secrets Of The Old-Time Strongmen

Some of the biggest names in weightlifting shared certain secrets on how to not only increase their strength but how to build tendon and ligement strength as well. Back in the early days of Physical Culture there were strongmen that didn't just lift weights and do bodyweight exercise....They added an arsenal of training methods to not only experiment with but it helped their advantage that much more. Back when gyms were just on the uprise there men across the country who couldn't get to a gym either because it was too far away or because they didn't have the money to pay for the equipment themselves to use at home so they improvised a lot and tested different methods and found exercises that not only made them very strong but it helped carry over to when they could use weights. There were exercises that tackled very differently then weights and challenged the body from different angles and were in different shapes and sizes hence the name Odd Object Lifting. Say you had a barrel laying around or a sandbag....You can do a good amount of training using these objects and can turn your body into a conditioning machine.

Odd Objects are not barbells and dumbbells they are peices of equipment that can come from whatever you have. Here are a few Examples....

Barrels

Kegs

Logs

Sandbags

Hammers

Rocks

Concrete Blocks

All these would be considered odd objects to train with. A man who has mastered these time and time again is strongman Steve Justa. If you never heard of him he is considered one of the strongest men in the world and has written a book called Rock, Iron, Steel. You can find that on the Ironmind Website or at Functional Strength owned by John Wood. Justa is best known for training in his backyard and lifting very heavy weight ranging from 500 pounds to 2000 pounds. He carries scrap iron, lifts heavy barrels and carries a yoke that weighs as much as a beetle car. I have very high respect for what he does and is a genius in the realm of strength training. Another man whom I have high respects is Strongman Bud Jeffries. He has a DVD series covering many exercises on odd object lifting and the way he teaches you how to handle them are just incredible. I've played around with Barrels, Rocks and Sandbags myself and I will tell you without blinking twice they are ass-kickers and once you learn to adapt them into your training you will get stronger.

Think of it this way, with barbells and dumbbells you can only move them in limited directions. Now what if you can move a weight in more directions and still gain strength? That be a better way to look at it in my book. George Hackenschmidt once said that to be strong overall you have to adapt to more then just limited movement. If you want to get strong you have to work different angles while working major muscle groups. If you think lifting a 135 pound barbell is the same as lifting a 135 pound barrel it isnt. It takes far more strength and stability to lift a barrel because you can't tell which way it'll go so you have to shift your weight and grip it much differently and not in the same places as a barbell. Odd Objects teaches the muscles how to stabilize differently and how it makes adapt over and over. Go check out Bud's DVD Series and then find out for yourself how awkward it really feels. Train smart and train effectively according to your training needs.

Odd Object Lifting Series