MUSCLE CHURCH: Our Father, the Iron

Thor's shirt really makes a statement! Hey everyone I’m back with two updates today, both featuring 2 time Europe’s Strongest Man, Hafthor Julius Bjornsson AKA The Mountain. What a lucky guy to get such a cool nickname…and the paycheck that surely comes along with being on one of TV’s hottest shows! Well, while he is strolling around collecting paychecks and challenging for World’s Strongest Man later this year, I am trudging along in my gym getting ready for my next contest in under 4 weeks! I’m not a huge fan of publishing my training journals because the pounds you lift in the gym don’t always correlate to what you can do at a contest. Oh let’s say a 700 pound squat in the gym when you're fresh and rested might only equate to 600 at a contest held outside in the summer and after a truck pull! I’d like to start sharing some more of my specific training theories though, but after this first contest when I can really sit down and analyze how my preparation related to m

There has never been something so simple and so correct! To those of you who train at a high level, whether you compete of not, you already know how to see yourself achieving your lifts. You practice this type of mental preparation regularly and at times you find yourself getting lost in it. I know I do. However a lot of you out there don’t practice this and I believe it’s because a lot of you don’t understand the importance of it. I wrote once about how important the leg press is for strongman prep because it allows you to feel a lot of weight crushing down on you, so that way when you’re harnessed up to a massive truck or tugging away on a heavy implement, you can recall what that felt like in training. Mentally, it’s just as important to see yourself crushing the lifts you need, because when you get to those few, cherished “champion” sets near the end of your workouts, your muscles will be lacking but your mind can be a source of fuel for them. It’s important to store

The Man from Coldwater, Michigan...that line just reads like a crazy action flick! Dan "The Beast" Severn...yeah, he's kinda good When someone mentions the name Dan Severn, my ears perk up. Not that Dan would ever need me to defend him, but I’d take anyone to task for not agreeing with me that he’s one of the hardest, toughest, meanest fighters of all time and certainly among the most underrated wrestlers in American history. He’s also kind of a teddy bear and I once ate nachos with him while he was in his underwear. Let that last line sink in for a minute, ha ha ha! Back in the early 1990s MMA didn’t really exist and the UFC was a very small entity that had promoted a few shows and gained a dedicated but small following. Dan Severn had emerged as a very blue-collar, no-nonsense kind of man which fit the rough and tumble image that the UFC had during that time. His trademark grey shirt, handlebar mustache and grimace as he walked to the octagon became

My first strongman contest was a learning experience every step of the way. I guess you want, or at the very least need, your first time doing something to be educational as much as you want it (or need it, remember that word) to be rewarding. I thought I had done everything I could to prepare for what was to face me on that cool West by God Virginia morning, but I forgot to bring one thing…my A game. I had studied the events and knew where my weaknesses laid and what my strengths were. I knew that the overhead press would be good and I tied for second, just like I knew the Atlas Stone could be disastrous and I failed to even lift it. I wound up coming in last place, by only a few points but still, LAST PLACE. Normally that would infuriate me and I’d write journal entries about how motivated I was to come back stronger and blah, blah, blah but in reality I took my picture with Phil Pfister (truly a large and silly man) and went to Ruby Tuesday and ate a little steak and some d

I’ve tried several times to sit down and pen something genuine about a man who really touched my life in a number of ways, perhaps too many to count if I’m being honest. I never hid the fact that I cut my hair and beard to look like Ferg. I could routinely be seen in and around any gym I trained in singing his praises and mimicking his soft-spoken, yet often profane, verbal tirades when given the chance. He was my guy. Everybody has their fighter or their team and mine was Kimbo Slice. Kevin Ferguson AKA Kimbo Slice 2/8/1974-6/6/2016 By all rights I shouldn’t ever have been a fan of his. See I’m an old school MMA nerd and I make no bones about how I think the sport has had a steady decline of testosterone (ironically, despite the many failed drug tests) and a rise in paper champions.  Even during the UFC’s rise to global prominence in the mid-2000s, which coincided with Kimbo’s rise to internet stardom, the MMA world slowly began to get a little too “fancy” for my taste. Guys

Sometimes talking about strength gets to be a little too self-serving for my taste and well, sometimes it gets to be a bit much. I'm not one to boast or brag because there is always someone bigger, stronger or faster but every now and then you find yourself in a situation where you just need to do something silly to get the job done. I present to you Exhibit A, "the stack!" I'm a big fan of using cables for assistance work, namely working my triceps and biceps. On my bench day I typically do one cable exercise for my triceps Today I was doing pressdowns with the V bar which I love but there's never enough weight on the stack. However, I found this tiny chain...(which I promptly forgot at the gym, but I digress...) And suddenly this stack that only goes up to 250lbs, became a much better stack that I went up to 295lbs on. However, not everyone understands that this stack doesn't fit my needs and next thing I know I got two of the so-called "trainer