Sprint 8 And Hammers

Being aggressive can be a good thing when you need to just let it out. Now we do need to control our aggression because we don't want to go as far as hurting someone or worse. Being productive in that is finding an outlet that will get shit out of your system safely and with good intentions. You can get into a fight but unless it's a last resort, we don't need to put anybody either the other person or ourselves in the hospital and regret getting that bill. 

Hammer Work is about as old school as you can get and there's a reason why it's one of the manliest things you can do. It builds Testosterone, it strengthens the tendons and ligaments, it's productive training and it freaks out Mormons (that last one was a joke). Let me give you a side story about the Mormon joke:

A while ago during a workout, I was using a deck of cards as my reps. Around the 5th card or so, these Mormon kids (one was in his mid 20's, the other was roughly a late teen) parked their car across the street and proceeded to go about their route to convert and spread the gospel of the Church Of Latter Day Saints (the church is literally right next to the complex). I was the first person they approached and one of them wanted to try out the hammer I was using (Big Barry 25 lbs). He liked it and gave a good critique on it as he did a couple swings (now remember, these guys are in nice shirt and ties with slacks on). I figured, I'd mess with them for a bit and brought out Big Bertha the 73 lb Hammer. The older of the two widened his eyes and said "you've got a bigger hammer than this thing" and I had him try it out. Didn't tell him how much it weighed, could barely even pick it up and couldn't swing it. He asked if I could do it and I did about 6-8 reps without breaking a sweat and he literally shouts out "HOLY CRAP" and the other kid whispered "holy shit" or something like that. Now imagine making two guys who are spreading Mormonism who've learned not to say certain aspects of language in their religion saying two aspects of words that would get them in trouble for saying them yet it took one big ass hammer to make them do that. That was one of the funniest things I've ever seen happen. That hammer freaked them out that much to resort to that.

Back to the article at hand....

Regardless of the rep/set scheme you use, hammers can do wonders for your conditioning and building muscle. Today I wanted to try out the Sprint 8 Protocol which was rep out something for 30 seconds on, 90 seconds off for 8 rounds. It was a pretty damn good workout and got me breathing hard and I can feel it in my forearms. The pump feels awesome. I've tried various styles of exercise with this method of training from animals to burpees to sprinting in place and others but the Hammer version felt great and was well rested and would go hard as I can each set. You get so many benefits out of it than just firing up the lungs, you build strength, grip, speed, conditioning, cardio and other kick ass things. 

The Sprint 8 Program in this day and age is more on the use of machines like treadmills, ellipticals and other things of that sorts and the course promotes mainly on those to help sell machines. Now does this mean the program isn't useful? Of course it is, you don't need a machine to kick your ass with this workout. Hell from what I understand Dr. Laurence Moorhouse created a similar program decades ago and worked for a lot of people. This program is done no more than 3x a week in my opinion but this method has people going up to almost 5x a week and I don't find that practical or safe because depending on the exercises you use and speed regardless of the rest period, you still need to recover from it. You can do other stuff on the off days for sure just not as intense. Recovery is what promotes growth and I'm talking optimal, not to the degree where you bust your ass on this workout than not do a damn thing for a month. 

Using hammers for this method, use a hammer that gives you the right amount of speed that will get you breathing hard, I would say anywhere from 10-30 lbs would be good for most. If you got the strength to use a heavier hammer than the weights I just mentioned and the speed of it is there, use it if you wish but the heavier you go, the slower the movement will be. Be wise and don't hurt yourself.

If you want a solid supplement to help boost testosterone as you follow this program, grab some Pine Pollen, Stag Swag or get a Tincture Bundle to really get things cooking.  

Be strong, get conditioned and be Amazingly Awesome.