If You Want To Build Huge Amounts Of Muscle Outside Of The Gym, Read On…
When people think about lifting weights and building muscle, they normally think of the gym. Whether it’s the stock question everyone asks about strength training – “How much do you bench, bro?” – or whether it’s something more subtle (normally “what can you curl?”), the focus is on shifting weights in a gym setting. Unless your gym happens to be Muscle Beach, this probably means you’re training inside for most of the year.
What About Cardio?
Cardio is something you can normally get outside for – having a run through the hills or the woods, making a nice cycle ride, heck, even hill sprints can be a good choice of cardio to break the monotony of the treadmill. HIIT can be done in the “comfort” of your own home – tabata burpees or a complex like “The Bear”. But what if there was a way to train both for cardio (including you high intensity addicts) as well as for muscle? What if this was the best exercise you could do for getting those killer gunz?
Enter The Tire Flip
Anyone that has spent even a moment watching the World’s Strongest Man will have seen what a tire flip is – but for those who don’t know, check out the picture above. The Tire flip is a full-body strength and conditioning exercise that will leave you breathless. It will also pack on a ton of rock solid muscle in your legs, back, butt and arms.
The Basics Of Flipping Tires
Before you go anywhere, you need to pick a weight that’s do-able for you. Make sure you check the shipping weights of the tire you’re planning to use, and if you get one second hand in a scrapyard/recycle center be sure to ask for the weight of what you’ve got. The good news is that you can easily flip a much heavier weight than you can deadlift, think 50lbs over your deadlift max for your first tire.
With the tire on the floor, squat down until your chest is level with the tire. Take a grip that’s around two feet wider than shoulder width, push your chest and shoulders against the tire, and then drive diagonally upwards against the weight. You should feel this in your grip, your arms, your legs and your back. Try and keep your back as straight as possible (although some rounding is inevitable).
Keep The Flip Going!
Once the weight is off the floor, you might be able to continue the push up and over in one go. If not, you might need to bring your knee in underneath the tire (whichever leg you’d use to kick a ball) to keep the flip going. For really heavy tires, you’ll need to rest the weight on your thighs and hitch it up your body until you can get the position to push it over.
Once the edge of the tire reaches chest height, switch your grip from palms facing you to palms facing away. Drive forward with the legs (short, staccato steps if it’s heavy), and be sure to flip the tire evenly so it lands flat and you can get back underneath the weight again for the second attempt.
Be Careful!
Be sure to keep your body safely out of the way of the path of the tire if you have to drop it. Don’t get your legs or knees caught in the path, or you’re likely to have a horrible accident. If you’re lifting something really heavy, be sure to have a training partner there with you to catch the weight if you fail. Most of all, if it feels too heavy, jump out of the way before it gets you!
How To Make A Training Program With Tires
Obviously this isn’t the whole of your training routine, but you should start a day’s training with a set of ten heavy tire flips. Time yourself to see how quickly you can get the tire over, and either increase the weight of the tire or try and beat your best time to progress. This is a full body exercise that will massively deplete your muscle glycogen, and will act in the same way as HIIT for fat loss and “afterburn” of calories post workout. If you haven’t flipped a tire in your workout yet be sure to give it a go! Hit up your local tire recycling center and get started today!
Neil is a blogger, fitness enthusiast and strongman from Singapore. He’s written Lean Mass Gains Made Easy, a practical book for gaining lean mass, losing fat and body recomposition based on intermittent fasting, calorie and macronutrient cycling. You can read more of his work on leanmassgains.com