For many men, including the readers (and writers!) of this site, the 90 minutes they spend in the gym is a chance to detach from the outside world, to re-stake their claim to their own lives and to tap into a primal and physical existence denied to them in the other 22 and a half hours of the day. In short, to be a man.
Strength has been associated with manhood and masculinity for as long as men have existed. From Biblical tales of the gigantic Goliath and the superhuman Sampson, to Viking Berserkers and Celtic manhood stones, almost all recorded cultures have valued strength as a positive masculine attribute.
And yet masculine strength is under attack like never before. The strong, silent type replaced by the weak, flabby one who confides to his therapist twice weekly and thinks lifting weights is toxic.
In this article, I will explain five tests of strength that every man should be aiming for. If you can perform all five within one training block then you are a giant amongst men. The rest of us mortals – and I include myself in this – should see this as a tick list, a series of challenge to be hunted down and executed with ruthless efficiency. But remember, the concept of periodization exists for a reason; normal people and the chemically unassisted often cannot wage war on five fronts.
If you achieve one of these challenges but find that in pursuing the next one, your strength in the previous discipline dwindles, fear not. You’re only a man.
One final note; this article is aimed at men explicitly. Female anatomy and strength ratios mean that the benchmarks here are not appropriate for women. Don’t be disheartened girls – your time, and article, will come.
2.5x bodyweight deadlift
The deadlift, as a concept, stretches back to antiquity. The idea of picking up a heavy object from the floor is as old and well worn as eating meat and drinking wine. Often it was a stone (more on that later) but around the end of the 1800s the barbell deadlift became the standard by which strength was measured.
For our challenge, you must master two and a half times your own bodyweight and bend it to your will. Strength is relative, so in this case I am prescribing exactly 2.5 times your bodyweight on the day that you perform the lift. Not 2.5 times what you weighed on your eighteenth birthday – so don’t try and cheat.
There are numerous other quality articles on the site about deadlift form and technique so I will not go into that here, but needless to say, your 1RM should be an absolute test of your strength so your form will suffer. This, coincidentally, is why you should not test your absolute deadlift max more than once every 6-8 weeks. Don’t play with fire.
If you can deadlift 2.5 times your bodyweight then you are stronger than almost everyone you walk past on the street. Your spinal erectors will resemble loaves of bread and your lats will be big enough for you to glide off any height you jump from. In terms of status, this milestone separates the gym rat from the ego lifter. No one could achieve this benchmark without guile, heart and determination. You will almost certainly pick up at least one niggle in your pursuit of this goal.
What are you waiting for?
3 plate bench for reps
Everyone knows about the bench press, but not everyone can do it. The reason I have chosen a definite number here rather than a relative bodyweight multiplier is simple. Three 45lbs or 20kg plates on each end of a barbell is a status symbol. However, many men focus on bench to an unhealthy extent, so to see a three-plate one rep max even in a commercial gym is not a rarity.
What is more uncommon is to see that weight churned out for multiple reps with solid form, maybe between 3-5 reps with a controlled descent, a clear pause at the chest and without an “it’s all you, bro” spotter rowing the weight back up for you.
If, in the pursuit of masculine excellence, you can manhandle this much weight with controlled intensity and brutal power, then you will separate yourself from the crowd without saying a word. For many of you reading this 315lbs on the bench is a formality. 315×5 however, is a mark of rare manly excellence. Get to it.
Double bodyweight squat – ass to grass
Double bodyweight squat to parallel (or just below parallel) is an undeniably impressive lift. However, to stipulate that it must be ‘ass to grass’ to join our pantheon of legendary lifts is important.
What makes a legal squat is the most subjective issue in strength sports. In powerlifting, depth is the cause of constant argument. Definitions of what is, and isn’t, acceptable shift from federation to federation. Hip crease dynamics and the bagginess of your clothing are pored over endlessly.
So, let’s strip all that away. If your hamstrings aren’t touching your calves, that’s not ‘ass to grass’. I don’t care about your biomechanics, your lifting buddy’s protractor or the funky video shot from the other side of the gym being analysed like the Zapruder film.
If you cannot hit this depth with any weight, then you need to work on your flexibility. The fact I am having to write this disclaimer proves how extraordinary this strength feat is. Become extraordinary yourself. Double bodyweight, ass to grass. Good luck.
Five reasons to lift more in 2022
If you want to get good at something – should you do more of it, or less?
What if someone told you that you had to learn a brand-new skill, let’s say learn a song on guitar – but you’d never played a guitar before. You have 6 weeks to learn how to play the guitar and how to strum these five chords. Would you only pick up the guitar once a week?
Sounds silly, doesn’t it? And yet, this is the approach many of us take with our training schedule. You might be eyeing that elusive three plate bench but how quickly are you going to get there if you only train bench once a week and have every fourth week off?
Legendary strength guru Pavel Tsatsouline coined the term ‘greasing the groove’ for the concept of training more regularly for success. In his words “specificity + frequent practice = success”.
In layman’s terms “focus on what you want to improve + do it regularly = take the W”.
The scientific term for this concept is ‘synaptic facilitation’. Essentially, repetitive and moderately intensive stimulus of a motoneuron can increase the strength of connections and even make new synapses which can help you get big and strong.
Click here to read more
Bodyweight strict press
Pressing overhead has become a lost art. Somewhere along the line, the idea of lying on a bench superseded the overhead press as the dominant pressing movement in the eyes of the gym-going public.
Look at any old-time strongman and the lift that defines them is the huge spheres on the end of the barbell being hoisted overhead. Pressing things – any things – overhead was an undeniable status symbol.
And then we lost our way. So let’s bring it back. If you can press a huge weight overhead this will differentiate you from almost everyone else in the gym. It is such a forgotten lift that for most people a strict press of 3/4th of their bodyweight is an admirable goal – but we are not most people.
The overhead press responds to beautifully to ‘greasing the groove’ (see my last article) but ensure that you are working on the opposite muscles too, lots of rows and facepulls to keep you balanced and ensure that all three heads of the deltoid are receiving similar levels of stimulus.
To achieve legendary status in this lift, ensure that you are doing it strict – and I do mean that. Knees should be still, and heels should remain on the floor. You can use a bit of butt-clench to get things going. If you want to remove all temptation and do it seated on a bench, you transcend human and become divine. Just make sure it comes down to below your chin, and your chin isn’t pointing upwards at an unnatural angle. You’re only cheating yourself.
Lift a heavy stone
The final of our famous five is a stone lift. Used since ancient days in Celtic and Mediterranean cultures to mark the journey from boyhood to manhood, stone lifting is unspeakably hard and equally cool. The most seen modern forms of stone lifting, as popularised by World’s Strongest Man, are the Atlas stones and the Husafell stone. Huge lumps of concrete designed to resist you at every turn, but sadly not every gym has access to such things.
Chances are that you do live somewhere where there are rocks and boulders. Find a large, intimidating one and set to work picking it up. First, to your lap and secondly to your shoulder. If you are certifiably insane, work on pressing it overhead as a development.
There is nothing mysterious or esoteric about stone lifting, or any of the other four challenges described here. Simple honest toil and determination is all you’ll need. All of these are accomplishable within the same year if you set your mind to it.
And, which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.
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