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| The clean and press is one of the best exercises there is - and you can use it to get a terrific, head to toe workout. |
Hail to the Dinosaurs!
One of my favorite workouts is also -
can you believe it? - one of the simplest.
It's an ultra-abbreviated workout that
features a single exercise: the clean and
press.
I used to do it down in the basement of
the original Dinosaur Dungeon.
I used an old-fashioned, "exercise" style
barbell with iron plates.
An "exercise" barbell being the kind that
the York Barbell Co. sold for so many grand
and glorious years - a 1 1/16 inch thick bar
and iron plates sized to fit the bar.
The bar was six feet long.
In other words, NOT an Olympic barbell.
And i really had no choice in the matter.
The ceiling was so low that I couldn't do
an overhead lift with an Olympic barbell
loaded with 45 pound plates.
So I used the exercise barbell and the
smaller iron plates - and loaded it with
25s, 10s, 5s and 2 1/2s.
And for the record, it wasn't even a
real barbell. It was a six-foot length
of cold-rolled steel that I bought from
a local steel supply company.
I used some heavy duty dumbbell collars
from IronMind to make inside and outside
collars to hold the plates on the bar.
It was the same barbell I described in
chapter 25 ("An Island Gym") in
Strength, Muscle and Power.
I used two short lengths of 2 x 8 inch
board to position the barbell for lift-off.
That raised the bar to the same height
as if I had been using 45 pound plates.
The boards also helped protect the
concrete floor.
Of course, I always lowered the bar -
I never dropped it. Dropping iron plates
on a concrete floor is not a good idea.
That sounds too old-fashioned to work -
but remember, John Davis trained with
an exercise barbell in the basement of a
church in Brooklyn - back when he was
winning World and Olympic championships.
And Clyde Emrich trained with an exercise
barbell in his parents' basement - and
ended up setting a World record in the
clean and jerk.
So there's good precedent for basic and
simple - although, of course, if you have
an Olympic barbell, that's fine, too.
Anyhow, I did the following workout:
Clean and Press
120 x 1
140 x 1
160 x 1
180 x 1
200 x 1
220 x 1
240 x 1
250 x 1
260 x 1
270 x 1
And on a good day, I added:
275 x 1
That was in my early 40's - at a bodyweight
of 225 pounds - so I thought the program
worked pretty well.
It was actually a pretty complete workout -
but I alternated the clean and press work-
out with a workout where I did nothing but
bottom position squats - once again starting
light and working my way up to my top
weight for the day.
I trained three days per week, going back
and forth between the two workouts.
That's about as simple as it gets - but it
worked great.
As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day. If you train today, make it a
good one!
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. A couple of years ago I wrote a complete
guide to the military press - with a detailed
series of progressive workouts that will help
you build some serious pressing power.
You can grab it right here in your choice of
hard-copy, Kindle or PDF editions:
Hard-copy
http://www.brookskubik.com/militarypress_course.html
http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur_militarypresscourse_pdf.html
Kindle
http://www.brookskubik.com/militarypress_kindle.html
P.S. 2. My other books and courses are
right here at Dino Headquarters - including
links to my PDF courses and my Kindle
books:
Hard-copy and PDF
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
Kindle
http://www.brookskubik.com/kindle.html
P.S. 3. Thought for the Day:
"It's amazing what you can do with an
old-fashioned barbell and plenty of
sweat."
- Brooks Kubik
BEFORE YOU LEAVE . . .
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