We moved around the entire weightroom and made room for a THIRD olympic platform!

Strongman training- The Iron Sport Method by Steve Pulcinella

A lot of internet trainers write a lot of articles about strength training but really have no personal success in the strength world or any athlete success stories to back up the stuff they write. Iron Sport historically has churned out great strongmen and lifters for over fifteen years now. Although I don’t consider myself a full time coach, I do consider myself somewhat of a mentor to all these guys and women that train here.I think that it’s more important to guide athletes at the mental aspect of ‘getting strong’ than it is at the X’s and O’s type stuff. Most of the training these strongmen are all doing in here was all stuff that was experimented and done by me years ago with my training partners. It has been tweaked through the years into the program that you see here.

Since the inception of Iron Sport Gym in the early 90’s we have had a great track record of serious strongman competitors. These are not guys that were good strongman before and then came here; they were home grown out of the Iron Sport Gym training environment. Some of the strongmen that have earned pro cards while training here include: Me, Walt Gogola, Kirk Nowack, Kevin Nowack, Adam Keep, Cameron Gardner and Reggie Barton. As well as some great up and coming amateur strongmen: Doug Kirby, Jim Dart, Craig Strohmeier, Dan Falcone, Maya Winters and quite a few more. It is not uncommon for Team Iron Sport strongmen to go to a NASS contest and sweep all the weight classes.

A lot of ‘experts’ will constantly warn you of the dangers of over training, meanwhile most of what I ever see is most people trying to get strong by babying themselves and UNDER training. The sport of strongman is an extremely taxing sport. On the day of your contest you will (hopefully) expend every ounce of strength and energy in your body trying to win. There are few sports that are as taxing on the muscles and central nervous system than a heavy strongman contest. Therefore your training must mimic this taxing environment. This style of training is certainly not for a beginner, but then again either are heavy strongman contests. So if you are a total beginner this may not be the style of training for you. It requires years of heavy lifting and adaptation before you can tackle a heavy routine with this much heavy volume. Yes, there are weeks when you feel beat down and don’t think you can push through but that is when you dig deep and keep going. Your body will keep responding in a positive way if you force it to. Trust me, I have seen it done a lot, and yes, by drug free lifters.

The basic function of this routine is two things; to make your muscles stronger and to temper your body and mind to the stresses of competition. The Iron Sport Method rotates your main exercises every week in three week intervals. Week one will be your heavy load week, You really want to stay at a high percentage weight this week and push your limits, between 92%-97% works best, this is where the real tempering happens. If it sounds harsh that’s because it really is. You should notice that by your fifth or sixth single they will actually get easier to perform.

Week two you will be just working up to a max single on your lifts and then doing one heavy assistance exercise.

Week three will be your ‘easy’ or as close to a “deload” you will get from this routine. This week should be about lifting comfortably, get a blood pump and not as much intensity. BUT, if you are feeling strong and fresh you could bump up the weight and go a little harder on your work sets. It wouldn’t kill ya. The assistance work on this week is usually some bodybuilding movements.

Week 1- Monday: Power squat to high box or to parallel: 95% 10×1
Wednesday: Bench press: 95% 10×1
Thursday: Deadlift: 90% 10×1
Satuday: Event training day

Week 2- Monday: high bar, deep back squat: work up to max single
Wednesday: Push-press: work up to max single
Thursday: 18” deadlift work up to max single
Saturday: Event training day

Week 3- Monday: front squat: 70% 3×5
Wednesday: Strict press: 70% 3×5
Thursday: Power clean: 70% 3×5
Saturday: Event training day

Assistance work: It is 100% an individual thing in this routine so I’m not going to outline it. I do that for people that I help train but have to see them lift and know a lot about their strengths and weaknesses.

Rest time: We are big believers in training at a fast clip here. Even the heaviest training days are done at a good pace. The talking and bullsh*t cell phone usage is not happening and we don’t train in large groups that slow things down. The tempering effect as well as conditioning doesn’t take effect if you are sitting or standing around for ten minutes in between sets and focus is lost.

Progression: 105kg pro strongman legend Kirk Nowack and I talk about this quite a bit. We always feel that at a beginner level progression is very easy to program because it is very easy to keep moving up and up and up at the beginner level. At a much higher strength level progression is very tricky and almost can’t be predicted. That’s why we like this method, it keeps you training at a very high percentage but you progress by instinct and how strong you feel. If you have a good day you will be going heavier and heavier but it’s a mental game. Strength doesn’t just happen and it can’t always be figured out on paper like a math problem, it’s something that has to be attacked every single session.Your training needs to be aggressive and without fear in order to gain a high level of strength.

If you would like me to tailor this routine to your training and help you program assistance work, just email me and we’ll work something out at a modest price. steve@ironsport.com

Bob and I were both pretty freaking sore from that damn Viking Press extravaganza yesterday. I could see he was hoping I was going to say “Lets just not train today, I’m too sore”. But EFFFFFF that noise.

Snatch grip high pulls: 120Kgs 5×3 (just to shake off the soreness)

Deads: My original plan was to pull 300kgs (660lbs) and blow everyone’s minds. Despite feeling great on the warm-ups my back got rounded a little more than I wanted it to be when the 660 got to my knees. And since nothing at all was on the line and no women were watching I bailed on it to save myself a month of soreness and misery.

Hammer seated shrugs: 3PPS 4×20

45 degree back raises: with added band tension: 4×20

After my deadlift failure, and the training was finished, Bob goes into the bathroom and pulls the ultimate failure of all. He dropped his iPhone into a piss filled urinal. We all laughed at him and a good time was had by all.

Next week I will take a new kid under my wing, a new strength intern will start training with Bob and I. He joined here recently from the YMCA down the road and is about to get a crash course in recreational hugeness. I’ll keep you informed on his progress. Start taking bets now on how fast he gets hurt.

Shoulders and Biceps today:

Strict presses: worked up to max single- finally hit 110Kgs (242lbs)

I decided to introduce Bob to the ‘Viking Press’ today: We did butt load of sets and kept working up the weight and then dropped and repped out. I have Bob’s bad shoulder on the ropes and I’m trying to finish it off. It was a brutal session.

Supersetted upright rows with rear delt raises: 4 sets till utter destruction.

Seated alternate dumbbell curls: 5×8
Preacher curls: 4 drop sets till failure

Just another one of Iron Sport Gym’s fun contests. We usually let 20 or so people come and compete. Email me if you are interested. steve@ironsport.com

Super Swole Sunday has returned to Iron Sport Gym!

Date: Sunday Feb 5th, 2012
Place: Iron Sport Gym
505 S. Chester Pike
Glenolden PA 19036
Time: Lifting starts at 10:00
Fee: Free to all, no rewards, just bragging rights.

Four Events:
Barbell floor to overhead anyhow: rising bar until a competitor has two misses. Lifting straps are allowed. Continental clean is allowed.

Touch and go bench press: butt must remain on bench, feet flat on floor. Wrist wraps are allowed, no bench shirts or elbow sleeves allowed.

18” deadlift: rising bar until one miss, straps are allowed, no deadlift suits.

Axle hang for time: men will hang from 2” axle, women will hang from 1-1/2” axle.

Points: We will use a percentage of weight lifted over bodyweight to determine placings in each event. 30% will be added to the women’s lifts. Men and women will be competing against each other.

Come out to Iron Sport Saturday November 5th, 2011 and check out all the action. Top level powerlifters from all over the northeast will be here lifting big weights. No admission for spectators, gym will not be open for workouts that day though. Email for info:
Steve@IronSport.com

When I made that Planet Fitness response video a few months back I never dreamed it would get so many hits. I certainly didn’t ever think it would get over 1100 comments! Almost all of them were positive but the ones that were negetive were just so funny.