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Mike
Mike is a currently a coach at DeFranco’s Gym in Wyckoff, NJ. He studied under Buddy Morris and James Smith while at the University of Pittsburgh and has also studied at various physical therapy practices. He has coached levels of athletes from Pro-Bowl, MLB, to pre-pubescent athletes and has also consulted for high caliber athletes worldwide.
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Mike has also written articles for various websites and is the founder of a website that provides free information in hopes of properly educating a mass of coaches and athletes around the world.
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Do you really need to Bench, Squat, or Deadlift?

by: Mike Guadango

I always post about utilizing other exercises to enhance strength. Constantly preaching that you don't need to use mainstream exercises to get strong, or stronger. One of the more popular things I've said that always gets brought up in Q&A's are my stories of guys with 400lbs+ improving their squats by 50lbs+ without going above 60% and sometimes, guys won't even squat. Everyone is always in awe when I discuss this, but they really shouldn't be.

I mean, even without studying the work of the lateCharlie Francis, to me it still seems painfully obvious. What I learned from Charlie's work is that speed work will improve squat strength. I've learned that, I've witnessed that, I've experienced that, it's factual, it can, will, and does actually happen. But even without utilizing speed work, I think it's kind of in plain site of how to improve strength without utilizing popular methods.

One thing people need to realize is that the bench, the squat, and the deadlift are just paddles to propel the boat toward the destination. Bottom line, if you don't like the current paddle, then get a new freakin' paddle. If you didn't get the analogy, then I'll break it down even more for you...Dude, they're just exercises! Just like the lunge, pushups, pullups, situps, MB throws, pec deck, lateral raises, they all are just exercises; they're just tools in the tool box.

I often wonder how people ever got strong without the almighty bench, squat and deadlift. Before Billy Bench Thorton pioneered the exercise, there simply was no other way to increase upper body strength. And who can ever forget what Neil Patrick Deadlift did for the increase of lower body strength and the posterior chain by inventing the Deadlift. His work was unparalleled until Squat Luther King came in, and then it was game over... Does anyone else sense my sarcasm? And yes, all the lifts were created by all men with three names...

They're just exercises, you don't need them to get stronger! You can very easily have someone do something else. And before they were created or popularized, there were other ways to get strong. As a matter of fact, some of the strongest people I've ever met never lifted weights before. They had something people commonly refer to as, "farmboy strength."

What's funny about farmboy strength is that those guys never max out. All they do is train sub-maximally. Push sleds, shovel, lift buckets, throw hay, walk, etc... and everything they do, they do EVERY DAY. But does this kind of strength transfer to the athletic field? Of course it does! Consider the New Zealand national rugby team, prior to the advent of professionalism in the sport - they mostly had a bunch of guys who were farmers and who did other kinds of heavy manual work. Before the game went paid (in 1995), they had the winningest record of any international or professional team - not just in rugby, but any sport.

And those guys stay strong FOREVER. It's that way with most men that perform manual labor for a living. You ever shake an old mans hand that used to lay bricks, or was a mechanic, or used to work on a farm? It's so demoralizing. You get completely alpha-maled by an old man via handshake.

Long story short, you can do other things besides bench squat and deadlift to get stronger. In the end, what is training supposed to do anyway? The goal of training is to get stronger, in one way or another. You're attempting to introduce a stimulus to yield some sort of adaptation, no? Sometimes you need to introduce more, sometimes you need to introduce less.





CATEGORY: Training