Hardcore Strength & Power Training, Part One: A Hepburn-Inspired Program

 Hardcore Strength and Power Training Part One:
A Hepburn-Inspired Pure Power Program

Doug Hepburn, the Canadian strongman, didn't let being born with a club foot keep him from becoming one of the greatest strength athletes of all time!

     I thought I would do a series of articles on my true love, the one form of training that has always been closest to my heart: hardcore strength and power training.  The sort of training done by elite powerlifters and strength athletes, not for money or fame, but because they can’t think of anything better than being the absolute strongest human being on earth, man or woman.

     I understand the mentality.

     I love the mentality.

     I had that same mentality when I was a powerlifter.  Until I was hit with a series of career-ending injuries, I had one goal and one goal only: to be the strongest powerlifter walking the earth, drug-free, at my bodyweight (I competed, most often, in the 181-pound category, so this was usually around 175 pounds).  Although, in hindsight, I would do some things differently, in regard to my training, especially to prevent injuries, I wouldn’t change much.  And I don’t regret anything.  I loved the sort of training—and still do—that produces elite levels of strength.

     Also, there is just something about training for raw, unadulterated strength and power—not aesthetics, or even “functional” strength or some form of athleticism—that I always found to be the most enjoyable.  So, I’m sorry, nothing but nothing beats the feeling of finishing a session of 10 singles on the bottom-position squat with 90-95% of your one-rep max.

     So if you’re a powerlifter who wants to reign supreme, a Crossfit athlete who loves training for one-rep maxes in the quick lifts more than anything, or a wannabe World’s Strongest Man, this essay—and whatever ones that might follow in this series—is for you; the lifter who craves strength and power, and loves the training methods as much as the goals attained.

     These are the most hardcore—and the greatest—strength and power training methods on Planet Earth!

Hepburn-Inspired Methods

     When writing about the very best methods on earth for building superhuman strength, the main quandary is where to start?  There are so many good methods out there for building elite levels of strength, I thought it would be best—and easiest for my brain—to start with the earliest methods, and then move on to more recent methods.

     Doug Hepburn rose to prominence in the ‘50s as possibly the strongest man on earth.  He won a gold medal in weightlifting at the 1953 World Weightlifting Championship.  So it’s certainly possible to find training methods before Hepburn, and I could have started this series with some of the training methods of the turn-of-the-century strongmen and strength athletes such as Herman Georner or George Hackenshmidt, but I believe we need to give credit where credit is due, and Hepburn deserves credit for creating some of the first truly strength-specific training methods that were easy-to-follow and very specific about how to train, and produced results for just about anyone who was willing to give them an honest try.  In this regard, it might be good to look at early 20th century strongman training as a way to train, an ideology of practicing lifting that was incorporated differently by different strength athletes, whereas Hepburn’s methods were (and are) a very specific methodology.

     When I was doing a little research for this article, it turns out that there is quite a bit of information about his training methods on the internet.  A lot of those articles and posts refer to his training as the “Hepburn Method.”  Hepburn never called it that, nor did any old-time, classical bodybuilding magazines; not that I could find.  And most of those articles, if I’ll be honest, just aren’t that good.  There is ONE exception that I could find: Mike Mahler wrote a couple of fantastic articles on Hepburn for T-Nation in 2008.  I have spoken with Mahler before via email and DM, and have written some articles for his website in the past.  He seems like one of the genuinely “good” guys in the industry.  Anyway, if you want MORE information on Hepburn than what you’ll find here, I recommend you look up his articles on the legendary Canadian strongman.

     This article is going to be a little different.  Looking through some of those internet articles, and then reading Mahler’s articles, made me realize that Hepburn trained just slightly differently from what I had believed.  So this article will be the kind of workouts that I used early in my career after reading some old articles on Hepburn’s methods, and the kind of workouts that I recommend.  So consider the program here Hepburn inspired instead of a verbatim repeat of what you’ll find in other articles and posts.

The Program

     Hepburn used a systematized program of multiple sets of low reps.  This is one of the best ways that anyone can train for strength.  This program is based on that same methodology.  Here you will train using two separate workouts.  One workout will be for increasing your bench press and your overhead press.  The 2nd workout will be for increasing your squat and your deadlift.

Workout One

Flat barbell bench press: 5 to 10 sets of 1 rep.  Take your time to warm-up on this exercise.  I recommend doing ramps of 5s, then 3s, nothing too much to fatigue you, but enough to actually heighten your central nervous system for your “work” sets.  The amount of sets that this will take will depend upon your strength level.  Once you are warmed-up, select a weight where you think you can get at least 5 or 6 singles.  Perform however many singles you can get with this weight.  Once you can get 10 sets of 1 repetition with the weight, add weight at the next bench session.

Standing barbell overhead press: 5 to 10 sets of 1 rep.  Use the same methodology as the barbell bench press above.

Flat barbell bench press: 5 sets of 5 reps.  Now that the neural training is complete, you are going to return to the flat barbell bench press.  Select a weight where you can get 7 or 8 reps.  Attempt to get 5 sets of 5 reps.  If you fail on, say, your 4th set to get 5 reps—maybe you only get 3—go ahead and do a 5th set, even if you only get a couple of reps.  Stick with the same weight at each workout until you are able to get 5 sets of 5 reps with that weight.

Workout Two

Barbell squat: 5 to 10 sets of 1 rep.  Perform these using the same methodology as the bench presses and overhead presses from Workout One.

Deadlift: 5 to 10 sets of 1 rep. Same methodology as the squats.

Deficit Sumo Deadlift: 5 sets of 5 reps.  Unlike with the first workout, when you simply returned to the flat bench press for 5 sets of 5 reps, you won’t be returning to the barbell squat here.  Instead, you will be doing an exercise that will help your squat and your deadlift to get stronger—and help to build muscle in all the right places for a big squat and deadlift.  I’ve touted this exercise before as the single best exercise that no one ever does!  So here’s your opportunity to be a lifter that discovers the power of this lift.  Set your “deficit” so that the bar is just above your feet, but no higher, forcing you to really squat down to begin the pull.  As with the 5x5 from Workout One, select a weight where you can probably get 7 or 8 reps for one all-out set.  Stick with that weight at each workout until you can get 5 sets of 5 reps with it.

The Training Split

     When selecting a training split—in other words, how frequently you should do these workouts—make sure you are recovering adequately between sessions.  These workouts will really work your nervous system, and therefore cut down on your ability to train frequently.  This is NOT a program for high-frequency training.

     Here is the split I recommend, at least to start with:

Day One: Workout One

Day Two: Off

Day Three: Workout Two

Day Four: Off

Day Five: Off

Day Six: Repeat

     This split gives you five days before you repeat each workout.  For most, this seems to be ideal, or sort of a sweet spot for the majority of lifters’ recovery ability.  If you know you need a little more rest, then take two days off after each workout so that the split would look like this:

Day One: Workout One

Day Two: Off

Day Three: Off

Day Four: Workout Two

Day Five: Off

Day Six: Off

Day Seven: Repeat

     Conversely, if you’re an advanced lifter or the kind of lifter who knows that you achieve better results with a little more frequency, switch to this split:

Day One: Workout One

Day Two: Off

Day Three: Workout Two

Day Four: Off

Day Five: Repeat

Other Factors

     Here are some other factors that you need to consider while following this program:

• Keep your rest periods consistent between each one of your singles.  I have never been keen on prescribing rest periods—I get asked to recommend them quite a bit, but I typically don’t—because of how individual recovery-between-sets can be.  You should find yourself naturally resting a certain period between each heavy single, and this will typically be between 3 and 5 minutes—you want to ensure that your strength has had adequate time to recover.  Keep track of how much you like to rest, and stick with that rest period between each single throughout the program.

• Even if you think you want to add an exercise or two, try to refrain from doing so.  Let your recovery ability be solely aimed at getting stronger at these exercises.  If you add anything, let it be an abdominal exercise and/or a loaded carry (or drag) of some sort, but little other than the actual program should be done.

• On that same note, refrain from doing much additional activity outside of the gym.  Sure, you can go for a walk each day, or some sort of light activity such as that, but limit anything that is much harder.  You can’t train for hardcore strength while simultaneously training for a marathon.

• Unlike bodybuilding, when it comes to serious strength and power training, the training itself is more important than nutrition.  But nutrition is still important.  Make sure you’re getting enough protein on a daily basis—shoot for one gram per pound of lean body mass—along with plenty of (either) fat or carbohydrates.

• If you are a competitive powerlifter who needs to stay in a weight class, make sure you still get a gram of protein per pound of lean mass daily, but limit your carb intake to keep down weight gain.  You may want to try intermittent fasting, as well.  I used intermittent fasting—the Warrior Diet, to be specific—while doing a program as hard as this one, and I got stronger while going down a weight class, so it can be done.

Closing Thoughts

     If anyone has any questions about this program, please email me or leave them in the “comments” section below.  For the next installment of “Hardcore Strength and Power,” we’ll look at some of the methods that came from the ‘70s.  Until then, train hard and heavy, and stay at it.  Consistency trumps all else.