On Travelling For Training
The sport of strongman is growing rapidly but maybe not at a fast enough rate for many of us who still struggle to find any places to train for the sport locally. You've had limited success checking out all the local gyms and haven’t had any luck finding enough equipment to train properly with and there are not many people interested in the sport in your area.
In the upcoming book and training manual, Seasons of Strongman, there's a full chapter about the different options that are available to you for getting more practice with strongman training in these situations, whether you're just starting out our taking the sport to the next level. Today let’s look at one of the options that are most often avoided and prevents lifters who would otherwise really enjoy the sport from getting involved: travelling for training.
The world revolves around instant gratification today but there was a time when dedicated lifters would travel regularly to train with specific equipment or training crews like it was no big deal. Now the thought of even half an hour of travel for training seems unreasonable to too many aspiring athletes.
If you want to be successful in strongman and advance your skill you’ve got to train with the specific implements you see in competition and it also helps to train with other athletes who are better than you and can help you to improve. If this means travelling an hour or two each way to your training destination, make it happen as often as you can.
This is not as unreasonable or as uncommon as you think even for great lifters.
At some point in their training career, many successful top-level athletes have had to travel to train and learn from other lifters. My coach, Giles Sharpe, a long time competitor at the top of the Canadian strongman circuit, used to have to travel 2 hours each way for training and back when he was just getting started in strongman. To top it all off the veterans of the sport he went to learn from would only allow him to train farmers walk until he had mastered that movement.
Imagine that. 4 hours of total travel only to get to work on farmers walk.
Sounds very Karate Kid to me.
I think it helps newer athletes to know that they aren’t alone when it comes to having to travel to train and learn about the sport of strongman. It’s usually a natural part of the learning process with this sport unless you’re lucky enough to live close to a strongman training haven.
Use the map at liftershome.com to find the strongman gyms or training crews closest to you. Don’t be discouraged if you have to travel for now. In time you may find more opportunities sprouting up closer to home or you can start to acquire the equipment you need for yourself.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more of the stories and insights from Seasons of Strongman so that you can find out more about the upcoming book and who it was made to help.