The Most Basic Exercises For Building Brute Strength
If you’ve ever talked to anyone that’s been going to the gym for years,
even decades, you’ll know that there are people that are strong for the
weight room, but there are also people strong enough for anything. A
number of people have the “brute strength” necessary to lift big, heavy,
clumsy loads without any assistance or leverage, and if you want to find
out how strong you really are, try to do what they do – it’s a test of
your endurance and strength like no other
Robert Herbst, a coach, personal trainer and 18-time world’s best power
lifter has often been quoted as saying that this brute strength is just
untainted, animalistic strength that comes to you without thinking and is
available to you at any moment. When your wife calls you because she stuck
something under the oven, you go over there and you lift it without a
second thought – that kind of strength
However, while some folks are blessed with it, that still doesn’t mean
that you shouldn’t and can’t refine it or reach it. With the right
training routine, you can do anything, including this. Brute strength has
to be there, but you can’t shut down after just a rep of something – you
have to be able to do more. When the mammoths lived alongside the humans,
they’d be killed, then hacked to pieces and everyone would carry a piece
back to the camp or cave. That’s how we got our brute strength,
ancestrally speaking
Today, you can train it, but you can’t just start with the maximum
possible weight and then expect to become and stay strong. Like anything
else, you have to start a bit lower, having low weight and high reps,
meaning that you should do anywhere from six to twelve reps per exercise
so you can get your form down. When you train with maximum weight, your
form will reduce in quality so you have to get your form right before you
start the heavy workout
After that, you have to start with around five reps at 65-75% of your
maximum potential, and you should train for up to eight sets with a minute
of recovery between them so that you can improve your strength endurance.
If you keep doing that for a total of six weeks, you will have a very
solid base and your form will be good. After that, you are going to get
very strong in a relatively short period of time, however to accomplish
that you will need to use weights that are close to your maximum, with
singles, doubles or even triples. However, you will need to be able to
complete all your sets so make sure to rest well for up to 10 minutes
between sets and exercises, until you are at least at 90% of your total
strength
There are a few things that you can put into your strength training
program if you want to put on some more brute strength and increase your
capabilities. Remember, this won’t be a walk in the park – it will
actually be quire painful to make your body accommodate the new program
that you put it in. If you want to be really strong, you have to stiffen
that upper lip and clench your fists – it’s not going to be easy. When
you’re done training, you will have to take a while to recuperate – up to
two weeks – to get your strength to come into effect. You will be much
stronger when you start again. These are the 7 things you can integrate
into your program to increase your brute strength
Conventional deadlift
When you’re doing conventional deadlifts, you’re pushing the limits of
your real strength. This happens when you lift as much as possible off the
floor. When you lift, you should keep the bar as close to your legs as
possible, just so that you don’t change the center of gravity or put extra
force on your lower back, leading it to strain. If you know people who
have deadlifted for a long time, they’ve probably mentioned that when
you’re doing a good deadlift, your shins should be bleeding from the bar
dragging across them, this is why you put tape on your legs – so that you
won’t bleed up the gym
When you’re lifting, the instep of your feet should be located directly
under the bar with slightly pointed out toes – this ensures correct form.
Other things that you need to be careful about are your knees and arms –
your knees should be soft and your arms straight – straighten your arms,
lean forwards into a half-squat so that you can reach the bar on the
floor, while keeping your head up. Brace your abs, pull the slack out of
the bar so it doesn’t touch the plates anymore and flex your lats as hard
as you can
To lift, press your feet hard into the floor as you lift the bar along
your shins, and slowly pushing your hips forward when the bar is past your
knees. When the bar reaches its highest points, clench your glutes and you
have yourself a deadlift. Lower it down slowly so it doesn’t bounce, put
it down, take a breather and do it again when you feel ready
Deep barbell squat
True strongmen will laugh it off when they see someone putting a lot of
weight on the bar and then doing a nosebleed squat. It’s called a
nosebleed squat because it has a very high altitude in comparison with
real squats. Anyway, when you want to grow and improve the strength in
your hamstrings and your glutes, you will do much better if you try to
make use of the lower starting altitude that a deep barbell squat offers
you with the extra space to go
This means that your hips will be on a lower point than your knees, so to
initiate the squat you will need to start with your legs slightly wider
than shoulder width, with your toes slightly pointed outwards. If you want
to do a traditional low-bar powerlifting squat, put the bar on your
shoulder blades but if you want to do a high-bar squat you want to put the
bar a little higher, on the little shelf created by your trapezoid
muscles
Developing big traps requires a lot of work with deadlifts and farmer’s
walks but in the end you’ll certainly be there. Lower your body as much as
possible like when you’re sitting down, with your knees pointing straight
out. When you’re at the bottom, stretch your leg muscles and try to rise
up – you will need to drive your hips forward and consistently keep your
head up the entire time
Barbell bench press
The barbell bench press is a great exercise when you want to develop
extra chest muscles and also more brute strength. You will need to be able
to get drive from your legs, so practice this by putting your feet soundly
on the floor when you lift. Also, you will need to take a grip wider than
your shoulder width and you will need to squeeze your shoulder blades as
close as possible, as if you were that one thing stopping the bar from
falling down so it bends on both sides
Also, keep you back arched so that your behind is touching the bench
surface at all times. To initiate the lift, squeeze the bar and tuck your
elbows down when you’re lowering the barbell. Bring it at the level of
your solar plexus and then blast it back up and a little towards your head
so that it comes somewhere around your chin in level. When you lift, for
maximum effect, try to spread your hands as much as possible as if you
were tearing the barbell in two pieces
Barbell shoulder press
This one has a distinct name – the military press. I’ve seen a lot of
people doing this while seated because they think they will be able to
lift more from a seating position – this is wrong. This exercise has to be
done while standing upright, like they stand at attention in the military.
When you do this exercise while seated, you put a lot of pressure on your
spinal discs, meaning you might hurt yourself much more easily. You should
be standing with your feet apart at shoulder width, or they should be
staggered with one in front of the other so that your lower back won’t
arch when you don’t want it to
If you do this, make sure to make changes in your stances with every set
– you should switch your legs for maximum effect. Bring your barbell down
to your collarbone for a best lift, your chin for a medium level of
difficulty and the middle of your face for the easiest one. When you bring
the bar only to the middle of your face, your shoulders won’t be as
stressed and you will be able to do more
Bent over barbell row
Bent over rows are an awesome exercise for getting all kinds of strength
because this is both a core and a back exercise. Having perfect form in
this exercise means that you will have to change your body position with
regard to the weight you’re lifting. This means that you will have your
body bent over at a 90 degree angle when you’re doing reps with just a
little amount of weight, but you should bend your body only to a maximum
of 45 degrees when you’re lifting heavy weight
Also, you can change the width of your grip at your discretion so that
your lats are all equally affected, everywhere. Your movement pattern
should be a bit longer to discuss though, as even though your form should
be as strict as possible, you can’t just pop the weight up. You can only
do this with really heavy weights that are close to your maximum – jerk
them up to give them momentum and then continue with your lift
Farmer’s walks
This one is also called “farmer’s carry” because of, well, how farmers
carry things. When you want to put your core strength and also your force
distribution ability to the test and also check out your brute strength,
you do a farmer’s walk. Start doing these by getting as much weight that
you can carry for a distance of 50 feet, then put more weight every
subsequent time. Also, you can take a big starting weight, around 200
pounds and just start walking as far as you can. The next time, walk some
more and if you can do this outdoors you can even up the difficulty level
by climbing hills
Generally, you want your first weight to be somewhere around half of your
maximum deadlift. If you can deadlift 300 pounds, you will need 150 pounds
of weight for a farmer’s walk, which means 75 per hand, which means 37.5
on each side of a barbell. When you pick them up and start walking you
will start building crazy strength, but you will need to work the first
weight up to your body weight in each hand. You will also need to clench
your abs tightly, as if someone is about to punch them, and then also keep
your upper back in check – you don’t want it to go round because your
spine will be very stressed out
Chopping wood/Hitting with a sledgehammer
Apart from wrestling bears in the mountain, there are only a small number
of activities that you can perform when you want to build awesome brute
strength. Among these things are the regular household activities of
chopping wood or hitting stuff with a sledgehammer. However, this is one
activity that should have you watching your form until you perfect it.
This means that when you swing the axe or sledgehammer over your head, you
can’t keep your hands stiff – move the hand that’s closer to the axe head,
away from it and towards your other hand
This movement happens when your axe is at the peak of its swinging motion
and in the end your hands will both be on the handle and touching
together. Bring the axe down – if you haven’t chopped wood like this
before, you will be amazed at how easily it will split. When you start to
swing again, you will need to put your top hand in the same position
again, near the axe head. Repeat until you have enough wood to last the
entire cold season, and then chop even more wood and give it to your
family and close ones
Also, haul that wood to the shed and stack it – when you’ve pushed a
wheelbarrow full of wood for hours, your strength will improve on all
levels. If you live in a city or in some place without need for chopped
wood, buy a huge tractor tire and hit it as hard as you can with an
eight-pound sledgehammer until your neighbors show up at your door to see
what’s causing all the noise. All in all, just hit stuff with an axe or
hammer until you get so strong that you won’t need them to get the job
done
