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Other/Mixed Fun training methods

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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Philippe Geoffrion

Philippe Geoffrion

Level 7 Valued Member
Good Day StrongFolks!

I have just competed in a powerlifting meet. But that’s not the point…the point is despite my never ending quest for strength, the whole meet prep killed any wish to do a single powerlift…however, my desire to lift heavy things remains healthy as ever!

These conditions have led me to training in my favorite fashion…Westside, GTG, strength practicing, old time heavy lifts on a very near daily frequency. It’s just too fun.

Basically, I work up to a heavy single (a la Westside) on a diffferent lift everyday. However, the heavy lifts are much less demanding than the power lifts.

These aren’t simple barbell moves either; One Arm push-ups, weighted chins, pistols and similar calisthenics/kettlebell exercises fit the bill.

Monday is a press/Tuesday a pull/Wednesday a lower day. The rest of the body is trained afterwards in a less draining fashion. For example, before leg day, I may do Hindu squats or renegade lunge reps ie hardly killers and they usually make my legs feel ready and primed for the next day. In fact, they basically serve as a warmup the day before that muscle group is hit.

For each heavy lift, I will alter the next session for that body part to be as dissimilar to the previous lift. For lower days this might be a heavy pistol one day, and Zercher squats the next. For pressing, I alternate one overhead and one horizontal press. And pulling is easy on the spine such as weighted chins/OAC practice or what I did today, single arm deadlifts.

Though this seems incredibly random, I must say it has made training fun again. My body feels the best it has in months and I don’t feel all that fatigued. While specificity is indeed important, I recount how my best barbell gains came after a two month layoff. Maybe coincidentally during this time, I was able to heal and still keep getting stronger. I think the spinal decompression, single limb work and high tension calisthenics really made me stronger in ways the barbell wasn’t helping any more.

I understand training serves a greater function than entertainment. However, shouldn’t it make you feel good overall? And if it does, isn’t it making you stronger?

I enjoy exploring variations. Pr’ing on random lifts. I almost locked out a 265 lbs One Arm deadlift today but the hook grip killed my thumb…almost halfway to Larry!

I suppose I might be alone in this thread and was quite excited to share this. It’s a training style that seems to always make sense to me. I remember Pavel, writing a brief mention in Naked Warrior of a “high mileage lifter” successfully combining Conjugate and Sheiko. This makes sense to me now.

So…for all you StrongFriends out there. What kind of training do you find the most fun?
 
I have inherited one old wooden club and started swinging it around a bit. Some of the patterns are very interesting and get your shoulders and wrists warmed up. I've had a go with two light clubs as well - trying to twirl them in opposite directions at the same time can be a bit of a brain strain but is interesting and fun. Not sure but I think the Indian Clubs might originally have been the warmup tools for the heavier maces.

I have a newfound respect for the skills of marching band leaders and cheer squads at football matches who do twirly things with their hands. I think I'd enjoy learning how to use a quarterstaff like Little John from Robin Hood. Various martial arts also use Staff and Batons and Maces.
 
BillSteamshovel said:
I have inherited one old wooden club and started swinging it around a bit. Some of the patterns are very interesting and get your shoulders and wrists warmed up. I've had a go with two light clubs as well - trying to twirl them in opposite directions at the same time can be a bit of a brain strain but is interesting and fun. Not sure but I think the Indian Clubs might originally have been the warmup tools for the heavier maces.

I have a newfound respect for the skills of marching band leaders and cheer squads at football matches who do twirly things with their hands. I think I'd enjoy learning how to use a quarterstaff like Little John from Robin Hood. Various martial arts also use Staff and Batons and Maces.
Click to expand...

Indian clubs are a lot of fun.

But after farting around with them for a year, I'm still such a n00b that I can't really do double club swinging without going really slow or clonking the clubs into each other.
 
Philippe Geoffrion said:
I understand training serves a greater function than entertainment.
Click to expand...
I've posted about this before, but to me the main function of training is to have fun, albeit I see "fun" as different than "entertainment."

I think of entertainment as something external that occupies your attention in a pleasurable way. Fun is more generally any experience that involves a high level of pleasurable satisfaction. I only do training that is fun while I'm doing it, and the fact that it has effects that I also enjoy just adds an additional dimension of fun. There's fun in both the process and the result.

By far my first priority in my training is whether it is fun. Life is short and in many situations we don't have free choice. In choosing training drills and programs we do. To me, training is less a means to an end that takes discipline to stick to, and more a form of play.

One of my favorite quotations is by GK Chesterton: “It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

So play away!

This brings up one of my pet peeves, or at least a mindset that I don't really understand, a focus on "discipline" as a key to life.

Retired US Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink wrote in the book "Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win," which he cowrote with his former platoon commander Leif Babin:
Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning," he writes. "I say 'first alarm clock' because I have three, as I was taught by one of the most feared and respected instructors in SEAL training: one electric, one battery powered, one windup. That way, there is no excuse for not getting out of bed, especially with all that rests on that decisive moment.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win — you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life ...
Click to expand...

But to paraphrase Denholm Elliott in the film Trading Places, "Discipline is a fine thing -- taken in moderation." Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do. However, I don't really want to live my life on the basis of forcing myself to do things I'd rather not do. And I certainly would not like to live my life with the mindset that every moment and decision is a test that I have to pass by forcing myself to make the less pleasant choice.

It's good to have discipline when you need it, but I'd rather be able to avoid needing it as much as possible.

To stick with Jocko Willink's alarm clock example:

I get up at 3:45 every workday, and one of my life rules is: "Set the alarm for the time you want to get up and get up when it rings. The snooze button does not exist." On the surface, this might seem congruent with Jocko Willink's attitude, but I look at it in very different terms.

I don't think of it at all as a matter of discipline, and it takes zero willpower.

I don't consider this a matter of discipline but of practicality and logic. Why would I want to wake myself prematurely out of a sound sleep if I'm not going to get up? I wouldn't ask my wife, "Honey, I don't have to be up until x:00, but could you make a loud noise and wake me half an hour earlier? Then could you do it again nine minutes later -- and then every nine minutes a few times in a row after that?"

I have to be at work early, don't like to feel rushed, and like some quiet time to shower, dress, walk the dog, make and eat breakfast, have coffee, read the newspaper, and mentally prepare for my day.

Of course, the tradeoff is that I don't get enough sleep. By itself, I would never say I only NEED this little sleep. But all things considered, it's a reasonable, albeit imperfect, compromise for me, and I've been doing it for almost two decades. I also have two months out of the year when I get up between 7 and 9am and can get 7 or 8 hours most nights.

Maybe some would consider this discipline, but I look at it as doing things the way I prefer (as opposed to discipline being forcing yourself to do something you would prefer not to do).

There's definitely a tension between getting the maximum amount of sleep possible, which has many benefits, and waking up earlier than you absolutely need to in order to carve out a little extra time each day where there generally aren't a lot of other demands, but I don't think there's any moral dimension to it.

So in terms of training, I always try to organize my training in a way that I want to do instead of what I need to force myself to do, whether it's choosing individual drills, committing to specific structured program, or designing a looser or tighter framework for more freestyle programming.

This takes a bit of honest self-reflection to figure out, but it's a lot easier, and takes a lot less willpower and discipline, to do something I really want to do. Then, once I make the decision, I can set my mind that there isn't any more decision making from that point forward (or at least for a reasonably long period before I reevaluate). If I have to make a new decision every day to stick to a program (and I use the word "program" loosely to refer to whatever training parameters I decide to follow), that takes a lot more willpower and discipline than just deciding once. It's very liberating not to have to make a choice. And again, the choice can be to pursue a very loose freestyle programming rather than a traditional tightly structured program.

Maybe this is all just a semantic game I play with myself, but I think there's actually a substantive difference between having a little person inside your head cracking a whip and yelling, "You HAVE to do this!," and having a little person inside your head saying, "Now you GET to do this!" Partly it's a difference in mindset, but more than that it's figuring out how to make compromises (almost everything in life is a compromise) that are easier to live with rather than harder to live with.
 
Steve W. said:
I've posted about this before, but to me the main function of training is to have fun, albeit I see "fun" as different than "entertainment."

I think of entertainment as something external that occupies your attention in a pleasurable way. Fun is more generally any experience that involves a high level of pleasurable satisfaction. I only do training that is fun while I'm doing it, and the fact that it has effects that I also enjoy just adds an additional dimension of fun. There's fun in both the process and the result.

By far my first priority in my training is whether it is fun. Life is short and in many situations we don't have free choice. In choosing training drills and programs we do. To me, training is less a means to an end that takes discipline to stick to, and more a form of play.

One of my favorite quotations is by GK Chesterton: “It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

So play away!

This brings up one of my pet peeves, or at least a mindset that I don't really understand, a focus on "discipline" as a key to life.

Retired US Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink wrote in the book "Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win," which he cowrote with his former platoon commander Leif Babin:


But to paraphrase Denholm Elliott in the film Trading Places, "Discipline is a fine thing -- taken in moderation." Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do. However, I don't really want to live my life on the basis of forcing myself to do things I'd rather not do. And I certainly would not like to live my life with the mindset that every moment and decision is a test that I have to pass by forcing myself to make the less pleasant choice.

It's good to have discipline when you need it, but I'd rather be able to avoid needing it as much as possible.

To stick with Jocko Willink's alarm clock example:

I get up at 3:45 every workday, and one of my life rules is: "Set the alarm for the time you want to get up and get up when it rings. The snooze button does not exist." On the surface, this might seem congruent with Jocko Willink's attitude, but I look at it in very different terms.

I don't think of it at all as a matter of discipline, and it takes zero willpower.

I don't consider this a matter of discipline but of practicality and logic. Why would I want to wake myself prematurely out of a sound sleep if I'm not going to get up? I wouldn't ask my wife, "Honey, I don't have to be up until x:00, but could you make a loud noise and wake me half an hour earlier? Then could you do it again nine minutes later -- and then every nine minutes a few times in a row after that?"

I have to be at work early, don't like to feel rushed, and like some quiet time to shower, dress, walk the dog, make and eat breakfast, have coffee, read the newspaper, and mentally prepare for my day.

Of course, the tradeoff is that I don't get enough sleep. By itself, I would never say I only NEED this little sleep. But all things considered, it's a reasonable, albeit imperfect, compromise for me, and I've been doing it for almost two decades. I also have two months out of the year when I get up between 7 and 9am and can get 7 or 8 hours most nights.

Maybe some would consider this discipline, but I look at it as doing things the way I prefer (as opposed to discipline being forcing yourself to do something you would prefer not to do).

There's definitely a tension between getting the maximum amount of sleep possible, which has many benefits, and waking up earlier than you absolutely need to in order to carve out a little extra time each day where there generally aren't a lot of other demands, but I don't think there's any moral dimension to it.

So in terms of training, I always try to organize my training in a way that I want to do instead of what I need to force myself to do, whether it's choosing individual drills, committing to specific structured program, or designing a looser or tighter framework for more freestyle programming.

This takes a bit of honest self-reflection to figure out, but it's a lot easier, and takes a lot less willpower and discipline, to do something I really want to do. Then, once I make the decision, I can set my mind that there isn't any more decision making from that point forward (or at least for a reasonably long period before I reevaluate). If I have to make a new decision every day to stick to a program (and I use the word "program" loosely to refer to whatever training parameters I decide to follow), that takes a lot more willpower and discipline than just deciding once. It's very liberating not to have to make a choice. And again, the choice can be to pursue a very loose freestyle programming rather than a traditional tightly structured program.

Maybe this is all just a semantic game I play with myself, but I think there's actually a substantive difference between having a little person inside your head cracking a whip and yelling, "You HAVE to do this!," and having a little person inside your head saying, "Now you GET to do this!" Partly it's a difference in mindset, but more than that it's figuring out how to make compromises (almost everything in life is a compromise) that are easier to live with rather than harder to live with.
Click to expand...
My thoughts on desires/discipline

“Sometimes I do what I want to. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.”

If anyone knows the source, kudos.

Way I see the balance of discipline/desires is we don’t always have at hand what we want. A teacher of mine once said, “Anything gained quickly is lost quickly”, or in David Lee Roth’s words, “Here today…gone later today.”

Novelty is a great thing. The only problem is…it doesn’t last. I feel the things that truly last and are rightfully earned require discipline. The things we truly want of life are never given…even the safe homes, schools, our health, entertainment,food we buy is earned somehow…

However, perhaps the true greatest life goal is to really learn how to enjoy life to the fullest. Funny how this simplest belief, that is to experience our being functioning at its most ideal form, can require so much work. If you e mastered this, then you only do whatever you want; because everything is what you want to do.
 
Addendum -

I realized, in this moment, that I’d become dehydrated. I realized I had to drink water. I did. It was the best thing I could’ve done.
 
Hung said:
Speed day (or power - like Kenny has stated many time) of WS is definitely fun for me
Click to expand...
Do you use accommodating resistance? I enjoy incorporating DE work as well, but perhaps I should just call them power exercises. For example, before a heavy pull or squat, I like to do jumps. Similar moves before the strength lift both sharing the pattern. Before one arm deadlifts, I did some kbell snatches. It goes like so

A1) Snatch (rest 30 seconds)
A2) Hang from bar, leg raise rest as needed beforw
A3) One Arm DL

When I get to heavier weights, I’ll stop the DE move and do my heavy lift with longer rest periods. I’ve felt definitely more primed this way…sitting and waiting between warmup sets makes my enthusiasm for heavy lifts wane…

So I like to do some power work every time, mobility work alternated with the main lift as opposed to done separately.
 
watchnerd said:
I actually have a lot of fun with my "gap day" each week, which is all stupid bodybuilding work.

As part of that, I've started to learn bodybuilding posing.

Which is actually totally silly and fun.
Click to expand...
What does this day’s routine consist of and what benefits do you derive from it, if any, training wise? I remember you mention triceps size helping overhead stability for your sport.

If it’s purely done for fun and confidence, that is also awesome.
 
BillSteamshovel said:
I have inherited one old wooden club and started swinging it around a bit. Some of the patterns are very interesting and get your shoulders and wrists warmed up. I've had a go with two light clubs as well - trying to twirl them in opposite directions at the same time can be a bit of a brain strain but is interesting and fun. Not sure but I think the Indian Clubs might originally have been the warmup tools for the heavier maces.

I have a newfound respect for the skills of marching band leaders and cheer squads at football matches who do twirly things with their hands. I think I'd enjoy learning how to use a quarterstaff like Little John from Robin Hood. Various martial arts also use Staff and Batons and Maces.
Click to expand...
It’s interesting because I’d imagine the high skill AND strength factor would be a lot to…juggle? Twirl?

Where did you get instruction on this practice? It is a strength art form so it seems.
 
Philippe Geoffrion said:
What does this day’s routine consist of and what benefits do you derive from it, if any, training wise? I remember you mention triceps size helping overhead stability for your sport.

If it’s purely done for fun and confidence, that is also awesome.
Click to expand...

I don't even come close to following it to the letter, but here is Thib's perspective on it:

www.t-nation.com

Training Split – Whole Body + Gap Workout

Here’s a workout split most people have never tried. Too bad, because it makes a whole lotta sense. This is the training split I use the most with athletes and strength-focused clients. Think of it as a classic full-body split with the addition of a “bonus” workout. Whole-body training is...
www.t-nation.com www.t-nation.com

Although I'm not following any of Thib's commercially available plans, it's pretty simple conceptually.

A gap workout gets used in a hypertrophy phase, like I'm in now. You can also read more here:

thibarmy.com

The Jacked Athlete 31 Plan Part 3 – The Template - Thibarmy

I will provide you with a recommended periodized plan. However, I want you to keep something in mind: it is for illustration purposes
thibarmy.com thibarmy.com
 
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Philippe Geoffrion said:
Where did you get instruction on this practice? It is a strength art form so it seems.
Click to expand...
Nowadays there are all sorts of juggling videos/forums/resources on the internet offering advice and instruction. Best to start with 3 balls then try 3 clubs.

Juggling is different from club swinging - the clubs are much much lighter, however Juggling with clubs does stray into twirling and swinging patterns but the clubs are extremely light - for throwing them high.

The strength exercise known as Club Swinging was practised in various Asian countries for a long long time and was taken up by British armed forces in India and taken back to Britain in the 1800s. https://www.functionalmovement.com/articles/736/indian_clubs_history_and_application

- huge clubs at 9:30

Small wooden clubs at the light end of the spectrum and monstrous wooden maces at the heavy end (see 09:30 in the video above). Club swinging seems to be becoming more popular today with western countries making heavy metal clubs and maces as well as wooden ones.

There are now lots of modern videos on Youtube describing techniques and you can purchase training programs over the internet. Some kettlebell instructors also teach club exercises ie Mark Wildman has some videos about steel clubs and Maces on youtube.

Some of the instructors on this forum might also teach clubs.
 
Philippe Geoffrion said:
Do you use accommodating resistance? I enjoy incorporating DE work as well, but perhaps I should just call them power exercises. For example, before a heavy pull or squat, I like to do jumps. Similar moves before the strength lift both sharing the pattern. Before one arm deadlifts, I did some kbell snatches. It goes like so

A1) Snatch (rest 30 seconds)
A2) Hang from bar, leg raise rest as needed beforw
A3) One Arm DL

When I get to heavier weights, I’ll stop the DE move and do my heavy lift with longer rest periods. I’ve felt definitely more primed this way…sitting and waiting between warmup sets makes my enthusiasm for heavy lifts wane…

So I like to do some power work every time, mobility work alternated with the main lift as opposed to done separately.
Click to expand...
I don't use bands or chains, I think it's out of my league right now :)

Your approach look like what Kenny Croxdale used to share. He mix a heavy movement with a lighter, more explosive movement after that. Like heavy pull up then explosive dumbbell row.
 
watchnerd said:
I don't even come close to following it to the letter, but here is Thib's perspective on it:

www.t-nation.com

Training Split – Whole Body + Gap Workout

Here’s a workout split most people have never tried. Too bad, because it makes a whole lotta sense. This is the training split I use the most with athletes and strength-focused clients. Think of it as a classic full-body split with the addition of a “bonus” workout. Whole-body training is...
www.t-nation.com www.t-nation.com

Although I'm not following any of Thib's commercially available plans, it's pretty simple conceptually.

A gap workout gets used in a hypertrophy phase, like I'm in now. You can also read more here:

thibarmy.com

The Jacked Athlete 31 Plan Part 3 – The Template - Thibarmy

I will provide you with a recommended periodized plan. However, I want you to keep something in mind: it is for illustration purposes
thibarmy.com thibarmy.com
Click to expand...
Ah yes, I’ve seen this as I follow Thib’s work quite closely.
 
I too like variety and have the fun in training as the primary factor. Luckily, it seems that this approach has also provided me with decent strength development.

I'm all about heavy loads and lots of effort. I do little, but do it hard. I have so much fun I like to do it almost every day and I also try to do two sessions on some days.

I'm not sure how much necessary it is at all for training to be repetitive to be effective. the demands for specificity when it comes to weightlifting or powerlifting seem way overblown when we consider other sports. And I also question why intensity is not considered a part of the specificity.

Some time ago someone, I'm sorry I don't remember who exactly, on this forum posted how consistency does not beat intensity. It is absolutely true. Every gym I've gone to has lots of very dutiful people, laboring on the machines or weights, day after day, year after year, with little or no progress at all. And I'm talking about the people who would want to develop, it's fine if you're fine with it. The body has no need to adapt to anything if you don't demand anything more from it than it is used to.
 
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