Train like a Strongman Injury Free
Are you thinking about diving into some strongman-style training? Perhaps programming it for some of your athletes in the off-season or offering it at your box? Not long after taking a look at the statistics behind Crossfit injuries, we stumbled upon this study, which examined some very similar parameters, but this time with regards to strongman competitors. The results were staggering, and if you’re even thinking about giving this type of programming a try, you need to read this article, then read it again.
Here’s why: Eighty-two percent of Strongman athletes reported injuries, which broke down to 1.6 training injuries per lifter/year, 0.7 competition injuries per lifter/year, with about 5.5 training injuries per 1,000-hours of training. Just about everyone is getting injured 1-2x every year. That’s unacceptable, and if you own a training facility or do your own programming, you need to pump the breaks and look into some ways at reducing that injury level, or you’ll be out of business and/or injured.
Although 54% of strongman injuries resulted from traditional weight training (mostly powerlifting movements), they were 1.9 times more likely to sustain injury when performing strongman implement training when exposure to type of training was factored in. These injury rates were actually very high, and although this was a survey-study (as was the Crossfit one), we think that the data ought to be quite useful for anyone, and if you’re setting up a strongman template, we think that breaking down the data will save you from exposing youself to unnecessary injuries.
This injury rate puts Strongman training at the top of all noncontact/nonplay sports, bar none. Here’s how that breaks down, in table 2 of the study we’re examining:
In our experience, looking over the programming of top-tier competitive strongmen, what we notice is that the training itself is often dominated by traditional powerlifting and bodybuilding movements, with actual competition movements being in the minority of their training. This is because the strength to complete a round of Atlas Stone lifts is built through barbelll work, like deadlifts and cleans, while the skill itself is being able to move the stone through space. Put another way, we’ve observed that strongman training is simply training for strength and power, with skill work being the practice of actual events (Yolk Walks, Log Presses, Axle Lifts, whatever). Don’t believe us? Check out these Strongman training routines:
We’re not cherry-picking here, these are the top hits on Google. If we discount the silly articles written by such Strongman experts as “Men’s Health” and the like, what we find is a lot of barbell work and a template that might include one skill move per day (a competition movement) or a single day per week dedicated to those moves. From the study cited above, we find that competitive strongmen are dedicating less than 1/3rd of their training to actual strongman movements.
So clearly when someone starts doing odd lifts and randomly “training like a strongman” by prioritizing those lifts over their barbell work, they’re not actually training like a strongman at all. Less than 33% of your training should actually be dedicated to the competitive lifts, while the rest needs to be heavy barbell work and assistance exercises. However, heavy training is not without its drawbacks…and the lifts that allow for the most weight (deadlifts and squats) accounted for the majority of injuries in this study, specifically when done with loads of 90% 1RM or higher. This trend continues even further, as we can observe that the competition movements that allow for more weight, are also ranked as more dangerous:
Again, we see that the strongman lifts that allow for the heaviest loads are ranked as the most dangerous by competitors. We can also draw a strong correlation between these lifts and lower back injuries, as this is the most commonly found injury site, with a huge gap before we start seeing lower body injuries:
With heavier weights, form breaks down, and if we look at the cause of the injuries, we see that broken form is the number one cause:
Poor technique, overtraining/overuse, poor warmups, and a preexisting condition are all cited prior to the load being too great, which we find sandwiched between fatigue (above) and poor flexibility/mobility (below). Proper technique is going to be our saviour when introducing strongman moves to our training, as will an adequate warmup. Obviously we want proper mobility and flexibility, and we want to cater to existing injuries while not overtraining/overuse. If we eliminate these factors, we drop 50% of the injuries off the chart above. Now if we eliminate the “WTF” injuries (wet conditions, bad surface, no safety gear, poor event/high risk), we’re way over 50%. Take out 50% of the injuries and we’re at an acceptable level, as it puts us below most other forms of traditional training.
A prior study by McGill, et al. demonstrated that the lifting techniques (generally) exhibited by a world class strongman weren’t just conducive towards lifting heavier weights, but actually represented a lower chance of injury as represented by EMG analysis. That same study also showed that for certain movements (like the stone lift), necessity dictates that there is a tradeoff between exposure to injury and maximal loads – in other words, the technique that allows you to lift a heavier stone will also place your spine in a compromised position (quoting directly: “because of the awkward shape of the stone, the protective neutral spine posture was impossible to achieve, resulting in substantial loading on the back that is placed in a weakened posture.”).
If we program to avoid the common causes of injury, teach proper technique, and avoid some of the more hazardous events, strongman training can be a part of our regular programming. Read and re-read this article and the studies we’ve provided in the links before you attempt to add any of this to your programming; avoid the dangerous situations and movements that will get you injured. Obviously that last bit of advice doesn’t apply if you’re going to enter a strongman contest, as you’ll need to include those types of movements in your training (because they’ll be in your competition). But for the rest of us, who aren’t going to compete, strongman training needs to be tailored to get the maximal results while minimizing injury.
