Not all strongman events are created equal

Not all lifts were created equal

If you’ve been training for years or if you’ve been competing then you know what I’m talking about. Some lifts have a huge training effect whereas others just don’t.
As I said before, if you’ve been training or competing, you’ve most likely noticed that leg extensions, rear delt flyes and glute kickbacks (and the list goes on) do very little in the way of overall strength. Leg extensions make you good at leg extensions, but don’t do much else in the way of strength. Some of these movements may function as great rehabilitation exercises after an injury, or for cosmetic purposes or maybe even for bringing up a specific weakness. However, they’re not going to increase your squat by very much, they’re not going to make flipping tires any easier and they’re not going to help you hit a better a Fran time. These exercises may have a place in your training, but they are not major performance enhancers.
So once again, if you’ve been training or competing you’ve probably selected your own arsenal of movements that do enhance your strength and performance. If you’ve been seeing consistent gains and/or doing well in competition, then this arsenal probably includes some variations of squats, deadlifts, overhead presses and rows. These large compound movements not only make you better at doing them, they have a tremendous carryover to all other movements. In other words, squatting doesn’t just improve your ability to squat, squatting makes you stronger all around.
This probably isn’t anything new for most of you. However, strongman or event training may be something that is new. Much like the other lifts, not all events are created equal. Some events are great for building overall strength and some events are not. Axle deadlifts are great overall strength builders. Consistently doing axle deadlifts will improve your regular deadlift, your grip strength, your farmers’ walk and your ability to lift awkward objects like stones, sandbags and chains. Circus dumbbell, on the other hand, is not a great strength builder. Consistently doing circus dumbbell will make you much better at pressing circus dumbbells. Infact, its probably the absolute best way to get good at circus dumbbell. Unfortunately, it wont do much else for you. These types of lifts are not strength builders so much as they are tests of strength.
Its important that you keep these things in mind when programming your training routines. This is especially true if you are on limited time or just prefer abbreviated training routines. If you’re only doing 2-5 movements per workout or only working out 2-3 times per week, then you may be best served to choose the movements with the greatest training effect. For instance, axle presses will greatly improve all of your overhead pressing. If you are routinely doing axles presses then your log press, keg press and stone press will improve as well. The converse would not hold true.
Not all strongman events are created equal, so you need to prioritize certain movements over others. That’s not to say that you should neglect or ignore certain events altogether. I’m just saying that the real strength builders should take up the bulk of your programming and the more specialized events should be thrown in when there’s an obvious weakness, a competition is coming up or simply when time permits (or just for fun!).
Heres a very short list of performance enhancing events and tests of strength (or stunts as I like to call them).

Strength Builders:
Axle Deadlift
Squats
Log Press
Axle Press

Tests of Strength:
Circus Dumbbell
Truck Pull
Super Yoke
Pole Push
Atlas Stones
Keg Presses
Rolling Thunder Deadlift

Intermediate events:
Arm Over Arm Drag
Farmers Walk
Sandbag Press
Steel Bending

– John Mouser, CPT