• Brent Barbe
• Isaac Wilkins
• Mike T Nelson (part one and part two)
• Rob Newman (part one and part two)
• Doug Brignole

But I have to confess that the interview I have been really excited about for some time is this one.  I have finally persuaded Sumoman to take some time out of his busy schedule of lifting ridiculously heavy weights at a tiny bodyweight so that I can pick his considerable brains about lifting, partials and the strange and wonderful world of homemade gym equipment.

***

CB: Sumoman, thanks for agreeing to do this interview.  I’ve been wanting to discuss a number of things with you for a while but with all that has been going on it’s been tough to find a moment to pull it all together.  But let’s start at the beginning for those people who might not have come across you, despite your astounding strength and acumen.  Could you give us a brief introduction to your background, your training and your lifting history?

SM: I started lifting in 1981 and wanted to be the Incredible Hulk and wrote in my training diary: “in 5 years I would like to have a Mr Olympia physique with a 600 lb squat and 400 lb bench press.”

I read Weider magazines, couldn’t make sense of the routines and then came across HIT, which to my teenage Asperger’s type mind seemed very logical.  I was very intelligent, but as smart as a cabbage, so followed HIT for some 10-12 years.  I got nowhere and put this down to being genetically disadvantaged.

I came across Stuart McRobert’s stuff, which was really just a version of HIT, but from his writings decided that a power rack would be an excellent safety device. I built a rack, I built another 40 racks, I sold them. I tested each design of the rack by calculation and loading it with weights. I also tested it by lifting on it, but with my HIT strength I was too weak to use heavy weights so I tested it with partials. I tested it for about 7 years. in the process building up to 1,000 lb loads, the rack handled them with ease.

CB: That’s an interesting way of looking at it.  Let me ask you a bit more about HIT.  You said that you wasted a lot of time doing HIT routines.  What kind of routines were you doing exactly?  Why do you think they didn’t work?

SM: I followed routines that Ellington Darden wrote about in his various books and joined a Nautilus Gym at one point (that was a waste of £200). I even tried Superslow, which is the worst protocol known to man, even Fred Hahn and Drew Baye abandoned it and they are hardcore nouveau HIT.

• HIT doesn’t work because it is all about intensity and safety, rather than lifting weights.
• HIT is the sort of thing that is foisted onto the corporate wellness brigade because it is simple to understand and sounds scientific and has machines designed to fit into plush surroundings.
• HITers fear that using weights will create magical forces via acceleration and momentum.
• HITers are rubbish at Newtonian mechanics and will make up pseudo crystal ball physics that sounds alarming.
• HITers don’t cycle loads and volumes.
• HIT is worshipped by customer advisors and Ayn Rand fanatics all loyally following ex-multi-millionaire entrepreneur Arthur Jones.

CB: OK, I get the point.  Don’t do HIT.  But what happened to change your approach to lifting?  What kind of routines did you follow once you had abandoned HIT?

SM: After a dozen years of HIT I had a 130 kg Trap Bar lift… after 7 years of testing my rack with partials and not doing a single full move I lifted 180 kg in the Trap Bar lift. I therefore concluded that HIT with its strict form, full range of motion, high intensity regime was nonsense. That and the gradual realisation that on joining the web in 1997 that loads of HITers existed in the same predicament as me. They all claimed 300 lb squats, which to me seemed enormous, except that over time I discovered that they were adding +100 lbs to their claimed lifts. Some of them didn’t even lift.

At first I tried some Louie Simmons stuff, I also added mid-range partials and fuller moves. I now do everything from full range to lockouts. I cycle poundages, I cheat, do partials, ‘power’ stuff, bodyweight, dangerous exercises, etc.. Basically whatever HIT recommends, do the opposite.

CB: And now, having moved away from HIT, do your current routines have any over-riding framework to them?  (I freely admit that I have a mild form of OCD and that my programmes are planned for weeks in advance).  

SM: I’m freestyle in deciding what I want to aim for, unless its the yearly Strongest Man in the Village competition. When aiming at say a squat I will follow Sumoman’s 1-2-3 system.

Basically choose a former gym max to beat, then decide what my current gym max is, lets say its at 80%, do 1 rep. Next squat session do 2 reps, then 3 reps, then increase the weight to 85% and do 1 rep and so on until I am 2.5% over my previous best gym max.

For accessory moves I will do all sorts or things, a bit of Prilepin, a bit of repetitions, partials, strongman, whatever…

CB: OK.  You mentioned partials just now.  Recently, I came into possession of two things that have really piqued my interest for doing partial lifts: a power rack and a set of seminars by Andy Bolton, in which he describes his extensive use of pulls from blocks in training.  Why are partials such a good idea for a lifter seeking strength?

SM: I don’t really think of partials as partials but as lifts in their own right. When I was doing superheavy partial sumos on my SumoBar device for 7 years, my over-riding concern was how much can I shift off the floor. It didn’t matter that the weight moved only a few inches.

At some point I decided that I would calculate how much force it would take to lift the back of my 1,002 kg car off the ground and the number came out as 350 kg. So I worked up to 363 kg on my SumoBar device at which point I went up to the back of my car and put a dumbbell rod across the tow bar and, using a wide stance, lifted it off the ground.

The fabled SumoBar device

I continued all the way up to 524.8 kg (at about 160lbs) at which point, using a narrow stance, I lifted the car for a quick 10 reps.

The fabled Sumoman

HITers tell me that partials won’t make one strong… but I say how can shifting 1,157 lbs off the floor not make one strong? Partials don’t require ‘skill’ or mobility just brute strength, the work per inch is much greater than a full lift.

CB: What partial lifts would you recommend to a lifter like myself who is just starting out on the road to partial prowess and who otherwise just does full lifts?  Until very recently, I only ever did full lifts.  I have just this last couple of weeks started working with pulls from blocks (which are 4″ below the knee, or a 14″ bar height) and have been very interested to find that they seem to allow quicker recovery from session to session than pulls from the floor.  If I were to introduce a partial squat, what height would you recommend that I start with and how might I fit it into my programming?

SM: Chris, you are using partials as an accessory/assistance move to your full lifts.

For the regular style deadlift your method of doing the partials seems fine.  Any partial up to just below knee level closely simulates the forces of the full deadlift so doing it in similar fashion to the deadlift but with more weight and less wear and tear than the full lift is the way to go. However, I don’t really do partials as accessory moves so am not the best person to ask.

For a parallel squat I would mostly stick to the usual parallel squat but sometimes I do a bench/box squat where I sit on my 18″ high bench because this gets the notions of sitting back then sitting up with a heavier weight than normal. I suppose this is a sort of partial.

I always treat partials as lifts in their own right rather than poor relations of their ‘superior’ fulls. Partials are much more brute strength than ‘full’ lifts because the muscles are closer to their force producing zones, they are easier to perform so more effort can go into lifting rather than ‘skill’ or mobility.  As such I would reverse the question and ask what fulls are of use to the partials… except that I haven’t found any.

Lockouts/super-heavy partials, for me, were kind of like GPP for lifting heavy weights. They were the first lifts that I actually made continuous long term gains on. Once the gains started leveling out, I started investigating other lifts.

Thus it is not a case of, “are super-heavy partials superior to other lifts” so much as, “what effect do super-heavy partials have on lifting?” My answer to this is that super-heavy partials are the best way of getting used to supporting super-heavy weights and thus to making progress on weights in general. My supposition is that before the super-heavy partials I was too weak to impose enough resistance on myself to have a training effect. I still do super-heavy partials but nowadays it is mainly to keep me used to heavy weights, occasionally I may push the envelope on some of them but mostly the fuller lifts dominate in terms of volume.

Just get used to hoisting big poundages, supporting big, bone crushing, disc splitting loads. Find ways of doing partials that elicit this effect.

CB: OK, but what partials have you found give you personally the best results and which ones have you found to be effective for you in competing at strongman?

SM: The super-heavy partial sumo deadlift performed on my 4×4 Bar (aka SumoBar) is the most effective lift I have ever done. This got me used to supporting superheavy poundages.

By this I mean if a lifter is presented with a poundage which he has either never lifted before, or has never lifted and moved with before, he will feel overwhelmed, the lift will feel crushingly heavy like the lifter will break or suffocate and this will root the lifter to the ground. To avoid this effect get used to hoisting big poundages, supporting big, bone crushing, disc splitting, ear bleeding, capillary leaking loads.

One time, a few years ago, we had a competition with our yoke. We’d done a bunch of walks with 260 kg and 280 kg. My strongman buddies were better at the walk than me. We then loaded the yoke to 330 kg and none of them could even lift it off the ground, I picked it up easily and went a few steps at which point I was, paradoxically, the better walker. I then went all the way up to lifting 460 kg (though not walking with it). I relate this story because it makes me feel superior.

CB: Speaking of strongman, I was amazed to hear that you suffered a back injury just two weeks prior to competing at a strongman event last year.  Can you explain a bit more about what happened and how you managed to rehab yourself in time?

SM: I’d been doing a lot of strongman stuff and was feeling strong but also muscularly fatigued over the weeks. Then on that particular session we did walks with 260 kg and 310 kg on the yoke. I then went to pick up the 310 kg again and went a few steps and could feel a vertebral disc beginning to squidge sideways, I immediately went to put the weight down but the disk went before I reacted. My back immediately went stiff and I figured that I would have to miss the Strongest Man in the Village contest. I had dark thoughts. I figured that my disc was squirting jelly.

However as I’d spent months preparing I decided that I might as well rehab it. My back was stiff so I couldn’t stand up straight or breath properly. This meant I had to make the back limber with back bends, twists, traction, anything to pump fluid in the discs and ease the muscle rigidity. I’d do this every half hour or so. I did bench presses and superman’s to arch the back, i.e. squeezing the disc the opposite way to its injury.

Then I did barrel carries with a light barrel (66.7 kg) for 60 metres. Farmer’s with 186 kg for 3 metres (using my DeadBar which is more stable than normal Farmer’s). Then plate carries with 102.5 kg. Then DeadBar holds with 226 kg. Getting closer to the contest… I didn’t do any Yoke or tyre flip. 226 kg was the heaviest I used during this period.

The fabled DeadBar

The fabled Sumoman using the DeadBar

It was 2 weeks of active rest, so I came back stronger.

CB: I understand that you don’t really see yourself as a powerlifter but your squat is a thing of beauty.  Every time I stand in the rack with the bar on my shoulders, I find myself visualising how my squat is going to go and the first image that pops into mind is one of your videos.  How did you get such a great low-bar position and groove such great form?

SM: I would like to claim that I was a powerlifter but HIT does terrible things to you, or rather me. I’m amazed that I can do a local strongman contest with big brawny blokes because deep down there is a little HITer claiming that it is not genetically possible to do strongman with big brawny blokes.

The way to get a good low bar position is to go stupidly low with the bar and work up from there. Maybe having an upper back pounded by 1,000 lbs helps.

Flexibility isn’t needed because the weight pushes the bar into position, though perhaps an ability to shrug the shoulder blades back also helps, most men have shoulder blades that hardly move.

Good wrist wraps help.

Get the elbows forward grab the bar tight so that when the elbows spring back the bar has an upward rolling force applied to it to counter its downward rolling. Matt, my strongman/powerlifter buddy, also directed me to bringing my grip in. He uses a girlishly narrow grip for such a big man but it locks the bar in. Too narrow, though, and it is difficult to get the lungs full of air.

CB: And finally, are there any specific strength goals that you are working towards at the moment?  Do you have any long-term goals that you feel able to share?

SM: In 5 years I would like to have a Mr Olympia physique with a 600lb squat and 400lb bench press.

CB: Well, I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same…

Goat getting, a basic primer

It is said that one way to calm a racehorse down before a race is to put it in a pen with a goat.  If you want to upset your rival’s horse, then, you go and get their goat so their horse gets stressed and loses the race.  Hence the expression, “they really got my goat”, meaning “they have really annoyed me” (by stealing my goat).

I like the expression so I’ve started a new series.  “Don’t let them get your goat” will be about any and all articles that I have some issue with, either in part or in total.  I can’t promise I’ll leave any of your sacred cows unbarbecued but I’ll try to leave your goats untouched…

A goat  I saw in the Alps.

This week’s culprit

This week, the goat getter is Tim Henriques on T-Nation, writing about 5 Deadly Strength Errors.  He really got my goat because  he made some fairly misleading remarks about one-legged squats and pistols in the context of an otherwise quite sensible article.

And that brings me on to my next point.  I don’t like flame wars and taking big stands on issues just for the sake of it.  I’m not trying to suggest that everything Tim has said is wrong.  Quite the opposite, as a brief summary of his article will show…

5 Deadly Strength Errors, By Tim Henriques – a brief review

By my reading of his article, Tim suggests that you are erring if you:

• Listen to weak people – check
• Programme hop – check
• Don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing – check
• Don’t understand your body - check
• Don’t do enough negatives – hmm, not sure but OK

So, in principle, I agree with the key points of his article.  I nearly left it there but one statement really made me choke on my coffee.  What I struggled with was his description of pistols.  He made the following statement when he was talking about knowing what you’re doing (ironic, I know).

Tim says:

“…one legged squats (pistols as they are sometimes called) don’t do jack to increase maximal strength or muscle size; if you grow from doing them then you’d probably grow from doing almost any hard leg work. Why do we know this is true?  Because there are lots of people that weigh 135 pounds soaking wet that can do five good pistols, but if you were to ask them to get under the bar with 275 pounds on their back they’d get buried.”

OK.  Let’s back up.  I’m prepared to let the confusion about one-legged squats and pistols slide (they’re not the same thing whatever he thinks) because it’s not really that important.  People confuse these all the time.  Sometimes, they even confuse them with split squats.  But the point is that there is one leg driving the weight and one leg either hanging free or doing a supporting role.

What really gets my goat is that Tim presents the achievement of 5 good pistols as somehow relevant to the goal of building serious lower body strength.  Why 5 unweighted reps?  Why pick on unweighted pistols? 

If I said unweighted back squats were pointless for building leg strength, people would say “well, obviously”.  In fact, they’d probably look at me as if I were a bit daft.  So why is Tim’s statement taken any more seriously?

Athletes use weighted one-leg squats

If you look at Mike Boyle’s writings, he makes it clear that he is loading up his athletes with considerable weight when they’re doing rear-foot-elevated-split-squats and one-legged squats on a bench.

Mike is a big fan of single-leg training and I think he talks a lot of sense (so do some of T-Nation’s editors, by the way).  Mike’s main reason for having his athletes use the single-leg versions of squats is that he can build their leg strength while putting a lot less stress on the spine.  Because, in his considered opinion, the back gets injured a lot more frequently than the legs and you can train the legs more often than the back. 

The bottom line

I realise that there is a lot of noise being made at the moment about whether people should back squat at all.  I am not looking to add to that debate.  What I’m saying is that if you are going to compare apples with apples, then you can’t compare unweighted single-leg squats with weighted back squats.