Tough History, Brutal Workouts – Part 2 Bud Jeffries www.StrongerMan.com Well I didn’t intend to do this, because it sounded a little hoaky, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might be fun and productive in training to do some workouts that simulate the training of the ancient strength cultures we spoke about in the last article, Tough History, Tough Present. I also thought it might allow us to improve our cultural strength education in a hands-on way and pay a bit of homage to those who paved the way before us by suffering a bit in the way that they did. A couple of things here; first off if you don’t find some way to have fun in your training, to connect to it with happiness and deep internal passion you’re not going to stay with it in the long run. Second, don’t think for a minute that any of the training we do today would be truly copying or equaling the training of the ancient warrior. Because most of us aren’t literally fighting hand to hand for our lives and don’t base the majority of our time in life around our training. We have petty little things like jobs, family responsibilities, sewing circles, etc. We are not living at the Shaolin Temple or a Sumo school or on the hunt with a band of nomadic Mongols or in the Scottish Highlands fighting English or Roman oppression. Therefore our training tends to reflect that we are not involved with these titillating pursuits. Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com While I want you to understand that our time commitment and therefore thoroughness of training is not the same as these ancients we will be getting a deep, powerful taste of what they were made of, how we compare and how physically incredible we can become with a part of their training methods. In the last article we established some trends with the training of these cultures. In fact all of them had remarkable resemblance in the implements that they trained with. So what I’m going to do here is set up a serious of workouts that reflects all the common tools that they use for training with individual twists and variations to reflect the individuality that they displayed. Most of the training of the ancient cultures was based around combat, but it was also meant to create physically superior beings with which to do that combat. For our purposes we will adapt modern tools to replicate what they were training with. From the last article we can see that all the ancient cultures participated in bodyweight exercises, stone lifting, stone throwing, heavy weapon training (for us this will be expressed in sledgehammer swinging), a kettlebell type implement (we will actually use modern kettlebells), as well as a few specifics and lots of combat training. So each of the workouts below will adapt some form of each of these exercises into a routine specific to the individual area that inspired it. Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com A couple of notes here. I realize that not everybody is training for combat however I’m going to put a combat element into each of these workouts. I think almost everybody can benefit from some type of combat training even if it’s just solo bag work, which is what we will use in these workouts. I think everybody ought to have some self-defense skills and everybody can benefit from the strength and conditioning you get from that type of training. If you have a partner or someone you wish to do a little more person to person type training with that would be applicable here, but we’re not responsible if one of you cracks the other ones head. What I would suggest if you do it with a live partner is basic simple wrestling. Possibly Cumberland style (From the Scots. Starting in a chest to chest lock, one arm over, one arm under the shoulders, hands clasped behind the back. First guy to let go or touch any part of the body besides his feet to the ground loses.) Simple belt wrestling. Practiced all over Europe and Asia. Stick a weightlifting belt, rope or sash around your waist, grab on and the first guy to throw the other wins. Or Sumo, first guy to push the other Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com out of the ring or throw to the ground wins. I don’t think you need to be exceptionally technical, but I think grappling is a very natural extension of human movement. If you wish to grapple, but don’t have a partner you can always use a heavy bag or grappling dummy or sandbag and simulate grappling movements. You can also simulate them by doing isometrics against a tree (Hindu thing), or by strapping rubber cables to a tree and practicing grappling throws holding them. Other than that I suggest you do striking work against a heavy bag. Lots of guys have or have access to heavy bags and it’s very simple to practice hand to hand stuff on one. This is modern combat as we no longer use swords against each other. (Well… maybe in Detroit.) Also a lot of my personal training comes from taking from these types of workouts, but I also believe in very heavy weight training with barbells or dumbbells for the most all around strength. I think they are a key at getting the best of high level strength and when added to these workouts will give you the best of high level maximum strength, strongman training and endurance strength together. I suggest you start every workout with a basic whole body warm up, then four or five sets of singles of one barbell or dumbbell exercise of your choice. Squats, deadlifts, one arm presses, rows, floor presses, clean and press, etc. Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com Got it? Here we go. The Hindu Workout 1 We’ll start with one of the simpler ones because there has been much made lately about Hindu training and pretty much everyone has seen the exercises. After your warm up and optional heavy barbell exercise do: 1. Six minutes straight on a heavy bag. I don’t care what you do, but I would mix open handed strikes, elbows, knees and kicks and try to keep a fast pace, at least 50 strikes per minute. 2. Three super-sets of 20 rep Hindu pushups and 40 rep Hindu squats. There’s always the option to do more here. Above, hindu squats performed on elevated blocks and wrestlers training in the “pit” in the background Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com 3. Three super-sets of 40 reps “Digging the Pit,” with a sledgehammer and three sets sled drags. Each set go down 50 to 80 feet facing forward and come back facing backward. That’s one set. “Digging the Pit” is a bent over sledgehammer swing as shown in the picture. 4. Hindu stone shoulder. A round stone will work best for this, but use what you’ve got. Including sandbag or keg if no stone is available or odd shaped stone. Shoulder stone to the right shoulder, then drop it over backward behind you to the ground. Turn around, shoulder to the left shoulder, drop over behind you. Repeat till you hit 20 reps. 5. Stone throw and kettlebell walking swing. Pick up a moderate to light implement, preferably a stone and throw it. Now grab a kettlebell and do walking swings over to the stone, pick it up, throw it again, walking swing to the stone, repeat until a feeling of enlightenment sets in or maybe I should say lightheadedness. I always confuse the two. Hindu Workout 2 1. Six minutes non-stop on heavy bag. 2. 100 Hindu Jump squats 3. 50 Hindu squat thrusts. Performed the same as a regular squat thrust except you perform one Hindu style squat, then on the second rep your hands go to the ground, legs come back to a wide stance, perform a Hindu style push up, then come back to standing. 4. Three super sets of 20 mace-style sledgehammer swing and strike and 20 stone throws. Throw high instead of long so you don’t have to chase the stone to keep the pace fast on this superset. 5. Kettlebell Halo and stone lift. Perform three super sets of 15 reps kettlebell halo swings and five to ten reps of stone lifting using the stone lift Copyright 2005 www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com of your choice. For the Halo swing hold the kettlebell upside down by the horn, backswing, then swing it up, circle the head and come back down between the legs. Each of these workouts fulfills all the requirements of the ancient exercises, but gives you exercises specific to the Hindus. The kettlebell Halo, sledgehammer mace-style swing and “Digging the Pit” exercise and the Hindu stone shoulder as well as sled dragging are all exercises inspired by their training. Just lesser known than the popular Hindu squat and push up. Look for more workouts from different cultures in Part 2. God bless. Bud Jeffries is a professional performing strongman and former World Powerlifting Champion, World Record Holder, competitor in strongman competition, No-Holds Barred fighting, Highland Games, Girevoy Sport and more. He is the author of four books and ten training videos including a brand new book, Twisted Conditioning II – Advancing Concepts in Super Strength and Endurance Training, which is the next step in informational power to get you to the goals of world class strength, muscle and endurance while training with barbells, strongman and alternative conditioning exercises.