- What is going on, everybody?
Pro strongman Rob Kearney here,
and I am gonna show you what it takes
to do a lower body and deadlift session
to be a professional strongman.
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- [Announcer] Yes, Rob Kearney, yes, Rob Kearney!
- So today we have some heavy safety bar box squats
along with some raised deadlifts
and then a little accessories after it.
You know, these are kinda staples in the strongman world
really to help build up that lower body power.
We don't squat too often in competition for strongman,
but when we do it's heavy and typically for a lot of reps.
Deadlift is pretty much in every single competition
that we do, so we need to build the fundamentals
around these lifts in order to excel
in the sport of strongman.
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So, when we're looking at the safety bar squat today,
what we're gonna be doing is we are doing three sets of two
followed by two singles after that.
So the entire time we're gonna be adding weight
to the bar each set, increasing up to one heavy rep
today during the training session.
So it'll be a lot of fun I hope.
Going through a few mechanical things
before we get into the safety bar squat,
the nice thing with the safety bar is the handles,
they come out in front of you so it rests
on your shoulders nice and comfortably
and you're not kinda cramped back
with your hands behind your head.
Our foot placement is gonna be a little bit more wide
or a little wider than it normally would
with a typical back squat because we really
wanna accentuate the glutes in this portion of the lift.
So I have my feet outside shoulder width.
I'm holding on to the handles, keeping my torso upright.
When we initiate the squat we wanna initiate
with our hips pushing back, really putting a lot
of pressure into the glutes and the hamstrings.
We're gonna sit back, control the descent,
keeping our tension on the box.
A lot of people tend to look at a box squat
as a rest at the bottom of the squat,
and that's not really what we wanna do.
When we're sitting on the box
we actually wanna keep tension in our core,
in our entire body, and not relax,
'cause then that's gonna make it a lot harder for us
to stand up and get through the remainder of the lift.
So we sit down on the box, keeping our tension,
keeping our shins vertical, and then explode and stand up.
(upbeat music)
Alrighty, so we just finished up
some heavy safety bar box squats.
Now what we're gonna be doing
is some heavy raised deadlifts.
So I have the bar set up.
Typically with standard plates,
the bar's about nine inches off the ground.
So we raised it about another two and a half
to three inches, so we're sitting at about a 12 inch pull.
So we're gonna setup in a normal deadlift position.
The bar is a little bit higher in the shin.
Biggest thing on this that you really wanna focus on,
and this is really just gonna strain your upper back,
that's where we wanna put most of the pressure in this lift.
So we wanna get our normal deadlift grip.
Take a mixed grip or double overhand.
You're gonna pull yourself down
into the bottom of the position.
Now here, you want your shoulder blades
to be pulled down and back, back nice and flat,
contracted through the core, and really,
you wanna push through the ground, squeeze your back,
and stand up nice and straight.
You don't want your butt to come up first.
You want to lead with your chest
to make sure there's not too much strain on the low back,
and this is what it's gonna look like.
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So I just finished up my squat and deadlift session.
I had to get out of the gym
and take a little bit of a break.
Just got what I call a back pump.
So the muscles are just tight, the hamstrings are tight,
there's blood flow going to the area,
and I honestly just needed to sit down.
Overall, it was a pretty good workout.
You know, I'm worked up to a top set of 765 pounds
on that safety bar box squat, again,
keeping those shins vertical, sitting back,
engaging the glutes, getting the hamstrings
really exploding off the box for a heavy single,
and then moving on to the raised deadlifts,
ended up pulling a pretty heavy 885 for three
which was pretty cool, felt really good,
and, you know, pricked me at a really confident place
going into, you know, my next training cycle
and getting up to the next big thing.
Thank you, everybody, for watching,
learning what it takes to train like a pro strongman.
It's not easy, it's a lot of fun though,
and, you know, being one of the smaller guys
I hope I can motivate you all to get in the gym
and, you know, get after your aspirations
and really try to become as strong as you possibly can.
So, you know, make sure you check out the channel,
check out the video, and I hope you have a good time.
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