CROSSFIT IS THE NEW STRONGMAN?

If I had a dollar for every email or text message I got about this video, I'd be rich!

This video went viral on Facebook. CrossFitters went crazy and called the coaches who allowed it a bunch of idiots. Take it easy CrossFit world. Here is a video of a CrossFit royalty, Rob Orlando, doing the same lift:

The lift is actually a Strongman lift. The axle bar is very thick (as thick as the collars at the end of a normal bar), thus near impossible to clean and jerk by normal standards. It is considered lifting an odd object. The idea is to get the bar up to your abdomen area and rest the bar on your stomach as you then work underneath it to get it up to your shoulders and then overhead.

What cracks me up about the first video is that I've heard the bar was hollow, and most of the plates, as far as I can tell are 10# bumper plates. Nothing funnier than watching a skinny CrossFitter doing a lift meant to be performed by super strong men with big bellies!

I totally get the CrossFit "learn new sport", "varying your training", "lifting odd objects", and blah blah blah, but why are Crossfitters so caught up in doing strongman? You gotta walk before you run. To do Strongman stuff, shouldn't one get at least a little strong first?

Of course, maybe I am totally wrong and there are some benefits to trying an Axle lift if you can't press 95 pounds over your head with a normal bar. Maybe if you have done no training related to the axle lift, holding a weighted bar on your stomach as you arch your back is a good idea. I'm guessing no, but I don't know for sure. I'm hoping our newest Oly lifter, Jahed, who won the Illinois Strongman title at 200# back in 2009 can pipe in on this one. (He deadlifts over 600# and clean and jerks 315#....I'm guessing he is good to go with an Axle lift.)  

Post thoughts to comments.

P.S.- I can't lie though. I really want to play around with some of those Atlas stones! They just look like fun. 

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WORKOUT   12/10/2011

• Find your 1 rep max power snatch

Then.....

Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of:

• 2 rope climbs
• 5 power snatches @ 75% of 1 RM
• 10 ring push-up

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Comments

[BH]

what is a substitute for the rope climb

[wopweezil]

To do Strongman stuff, shouldn't one get at least a little strong first?

Lifting odd objects is more functional than doing the olympic lifts. If you're going to scrap anything, get rid of the snatch. Problem with that video is they are doing an advanced strongman lift. Lifting a axle overhead is not useful. Lifting it off the ground is useful though.

Functional strength should be built by lifting things you are likely to encounter in the world.
1) logs
2) sand bags
3) other people
4) furniture
5) stones
6) bags of manure

Most of the effort in training should be devoted to learning how to move these odd shaped objects from point A to point B.

[Jahed]

Hahaha, yes I've seen this video making the rounds and getting LOLs everywhere as well.

Freddy is right, the "continental" clean as these girls are demonstrating it is 100% standard in strongman, and is a LOT easier to do if you have a big power belly or at least a thick powerlifting belt. I had an axle in my garage in IL, and would basically, with a pronated grip, deadlift the badboy onto my belt, switch grips, budge it up to just below my chest, and then perform a mini-hang clean and get it on my delts for the press. I could actually clean and jerk like a barbell up until about 242, after that it was way too hard to get under.

Variety and "different training modalities" are good, but I see nothing but herniated discs in the future of these poor girls. Get strong first is good advice.

[Jor]

want to play with an axle bar and atlas stones, too.

[@sushi]

HAHA. SKINNY CROSSFITTERS.

[Ben B.]

The only thing that bothered me about the video was hearing someone say, "dip, drive, dip". Such a worthless cue, IMO.