So over the past few weeks I've been thinking about a challenge event for my uni no-gi club. The rugby club i interned at set a fitness testing day and a strongman day and that got lot's of players motivated to train harder in the gym. The american football team at my uni have a thing known as the "Iron man" in which they have to total 500kg in 4 lifts - bench press, push press, squat and power clean - to receive a coveted "Ironman blackshirt" Even Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den has a crazy entrance exam to push recruits to their mental limits - i like this idea. But i also like the idea of using it as a mini experiment to see what the experienced grapplers score against the unexperienced. Reading Martin Rooney's "Manthalon" has confirmed that I should do this. Guys can train for it if they want or not. I'm setting the date for 5/6 weeks from now: Weight measurements of everyone. Order is randomized. Perrcentage of bodyweight used rounded down. - Push Press at 0.5xBW – AMRAP. Testing upper body force transfer and explosiveness. - Chin Ups – AMRAP. Testing pulling endurance. 10-20 minute rest (timed from when first person finished their chin ups) – warm up if you want. - cant decide!Deadlift max – 3 attempts. OR Zercher squat at bodyweight percentage. I want a compound lift that is NOT too technical but also something that tests grip strength. considering grip is the first link in the deadlift chain, it seems appropriate. Compare to body weight. 10-20 minute rest (timed from when first person finished their Deadlifts) – warm up if you want during this time. - 10 x 50m sprints – Testing power endurance and also mental fortitude. record placing. Total scores. Person with lowest score is best. 30 seconds recovery between sets. - Two Hour Roll pairing experienced and unexperienced. unscored. Any advice on this guys?
I would go with Deadlifts. It works the posterior chain and is a pulling motion dependent on grip and is overall a more functional lift for grappling sports vs. a squat. I would throw out the idea of being able to deadlift a certain amount of weight for a 5 repetition max WITHOUT setting the weight down (you lower the bar to a inch or less from the ground then repeat the deadlift). Doing this increases the required grip strength endurance which is important for grappling, mental focus, and control for the lift. It's also more focused around strength endurance vs 1 rep max. While somebody may get 100 lbs over somebody, that doesn't mean they can still use that strength after a few intense rounds. For the track stuff, I think you would do better with 60 meter sprints. Coming "out of the hole" takes about 5 meters, the driving for acceleration takes about 15 - 20 meters, which leaves you about 20-25 meters left to judge the ability to maintain speed. I don't think that's enough with the scheme you currently have, you need a few more steps in there to really dig into the "mental fortitude" and endurance parts. I also think the rest time after the deadlifts is a little excessive. It really depends on the group of guys and amount of people that participate though. If you keep that time frame I would "strongly suggest" 10 minutes out from the sprints that people warm up again. Great idea though! Hopefully we can get something like this going at the Boxing gym sometime in the future.
5RM deadlift sounds good. definitely safer. I'm gonna go with touching the ground for a second pause though. inch off the floor is basically romanian deadlifts. I want to see them move from a deadstop repeatedly. I'll check out if the track has 60m marked, otherwise it will be 50m. The metal fortitude bit will come out in the rolling part, 2 hours no break. the sprints will get them tired as they're competing with each other each set. will have shorter rest time after deadlifts.
Elliot Hulse in conversation with Paul Chek argue the case for the Deadlift too [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nljpWski3Fk"]Why Deadlifts Are MOST Important (Elliott w/ Paul Chek PART 1) - YouTube[/ame] as far as challenges go (and i may have missed the point on this) i really liked a blog post on Ross Training recently about a guy with a long term goal of 50 consecutive pullups and 50 pushups. the latter was easy but the former, well... I think even starting at 2 + 2 then 3 + 3 since my back and chest aren't strong enough, chinups are okay though since i still have some bicep strength
everyone dropped out of training cos of exams and assignments. ill see if i can try it over summer with Slip and a couple of my HK friends.
A bit late here but since you are doing it later I will offer some suggestions. I would ditch the idea of having scores or a ‘winner’ or whatever and just make the focus on improving what your score was last time. So you might think of making these a regular thing. I would also want to add some things in there that are more associated with grappling. E.g. rather than sprints you might do 10x20sec sets of sprawls to burpees and you try and get as many out in the time allotted. With the strength stuff just also be aware that anyone who has done strength training will have an advantage over those who do not, regardless of grappling experience so you might not see the difference you expect if your sample size is small i.e. a single class. Also be aware that doing the strength stuff you need to be able to teach those movements properly. Guys being too ambitious in the push press and deadlift can quite easily do their back in, especially if they haven’t been practicing those movements in the weight room. If you really want to test pulling/grip endurance I would go for a weighted sled pull for rounds and time. Of course it’s going to depend on what equipment you have. But it might be a better gauge of this than pull-ups where the skinny bastards get the advantage.
