Thread: Tip: pumping iron to beat steel more easily

Hey guys, I thought I'd share this tip with you. Since a couple of months, I do a lot of upper body strength exercises with dumbbells, slowly building up strength in all muscle groups around shoulders and arms, front and back. I do this as part of getting back into shape. Or rather, getting in better shape. Anyhow... I do this 2 to 3 times per week, just a couple of different muscle groups each time.

As a side effect, I noticed that I can now easily swing my heaviest hammer (3.5 pounds) for a full hour without getting tired arms at all. In the past, this was not the case, and I gradually lost fine control of my hammer while pounding steel when using that hammer.

Now, I bet that if I did this for a living or as an apprentice, every day, that would be all the exercise I needed. But I don't. I only have hammer time once or max twice per week. Dumbbells and weights don't cost that much, and if you like smithing in a limited amount of time, the small investment in time and money will allow you to have more fun during fun time And it is healthy exercise at the same time.

I like that you call it "hammer time."

On a related note, I noticed a similar trend when honing.

I don't know about hammering steel, but I have added strength and lean muscle mass in the last year using a lot of dumbbell exercises. You really have to harness all the supporting muscles to balance heavy dumbbells. In fact, all the biggest guys I see at the gym use them.

And yeah, I too am trying to picture some blacksmith in his leather apron saying "Stop-hammer time!"

Can't forge this. Okay, I'll stop now.

Yeah. Funny how time changes opinions too. Back in the 80s it was all about isolation exercises and trying to isolate every muscle with another exercise. Very time consuming and could easily lead to overtraining injuries.
Now it is back to the compound exercises favoured in the 50s and 60s where you want to do something that engages all the core and supporting muscles. Like you would in a real life situation such as forging, grinding, honing, etc.
Seemes the old ideas are just Too Legit to Quit.
Adam

There's a down side to that Bruno;
You keep working out, getting bigger, all the neighborhood women are gonna start checking you out; the wife will get jealous & turn your forge into a giant laundry room.

Chin Ups, Pushups, Squats, Deadlifts are all my favourite exercises! I think some forearm exercises would be good for hammer blows too no? and you could even incorporate a hammer exercise into workouts, Get an old tire and maybe a sledge hammer shortened down to normal hammer size and hit it as hard as you can for max reps or something, I dunno just a random idea I like inventing new exercises hehe

I agree about using dumbells, you do need to balance yourself more so than using barbells. I used to do a lot of bench presses, flat incline and decline, also Smith Machine bench presses. Then I swapped to dumbells. I think you can go heavier with a barbell, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. I'm in the 'older' category now (51) so if I go too heavy with my weights I start to get injuries.

For the last year I've worked out in the gym at work twice a week during my lunch time, prior to that it was after work at a local gym. The lunch time workout consisted of supersets, for instance incline DB Presses followed immediately by leg presses, etc etc, the whole thing lasted only 40 minutes. But I've worked out with weights since I was 16. A year ago I did no exercise at all for a year, but generally I've been really consistent with it, even when I was a Recruit Instructor and was running and exercising almost constantly with the recruits.

However, having said all that I changed my workout two weeks ago to consist of only sets of pushups immediately followed by leg presses immediately followed by chin ups in a tri-set. Now my lunchtime workout takes only 30 minutes, but that's 30 minutes of really intense work, so intense I normally really do feel like vomiting afterwards. I'm finding two workouts a week (Tues and Thurs) and indoor bouldering is all the exercise I need, plus the occasional walk through the forest with the dog. I've gone from 79 kilos to 71 over the last few months at 5' 7".

So, Bruno, I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. BTW, Bruno, I find bouldering REALLY good for grip strength, esp traversing. If you've never tried indoor bouldering give it a go, your grip strength will improve almost immediately, and you'll get a really good pump in your forearms, esp if you traverse the walls...

I like your style carlmaloschneider. HIT high intensity training, Mike Mentzer former mr Olympia perfected the HIT principles, later in life he used to train his clients for 15-20 minute sessions, and let them rest for 6-8 days and still got great results.

Yeah, I used to workout for an hour or so. I started the shorter workouts when I started working out in my lunchtime, and I read somewhere that 40 mins is the optimum time. Because I do Supersets and tri-sets I can fit more in. I don't want to hijack Bruno's thread, but here are my last two workout types. There is 1 min only between supersets, no rest beween exercises. C.G. = Close Grip, W.G = Wide Grip, U.H = Underhand, O.H = Overhand

Previous

Tues

C.G U.H P Down 25, 25, 25 with 100kilos
Step ups , 1.5 min, 1.5 min, 1.5 min

W.G P Down 10, 8, 8, 8
Leg presses, 20, 20, 20, 20

C.G P down, 10, 8, 8, 8
Leg Curl, 10, 8, 8, 8

U.H C.G Chin ups (chin over bar, all the way down to straight arms) , max, max, max (about 8)
Sit ups, 26, 25, 25

Thurs

Push ups (touching nose to floor)25, 25, 25
Step ups , 1.5 min, 1.5 min, 1.5 min

Inc D.B presses 10, 8, 8, 8
Leg presses, 20, 20, 20, 20

E.Z bar shoulder Press 10, 8, 8, 8
Leg Curl, 10, 8, 8, 8

Body weight dips (touching chin to bar), 9, 9, 9
Sip ups

Both of those I used to do within 40 mins, I always use a stop watch and actually time the 1 min between supersets and note the start and end time of the workout. I worked to cut the time each workout, I got down to 38 mins for each. Then, last two weeks, I've been doing this (again NO rest between exercises in the tri-set, 1 min only between tri-sets, it's taking me 30 mins to complete it):

Tues and Thurs

Push ups, 25, 25, 25
Step ups , 1.5 min, 1.5 min, 1.5 min
W.G Chin ups, 8, 8, 8

Push ups with feet on box (i.e. head lower that feet), 17, 15, 15,
Leg presses, 20, 20, 20
Medium Grip Chin ups, 6, 6, 6

Body weight dips (touching chin to bar), 9, 9, 9
Leg curls 10, 10, 10
C.G, U.H Chin ups, 5, 5, 5

I don't do sit ups during these lunch time workouts any more as I get a lot of a core workout indoor bouldering. When I tested myself the other day I could do 16 chin ups. What I call 'army' chin ups (as we used to do in the army) ALL the way down to straight arms, chin over the bar at the top.

I don't do squats as I have bodgy knees (torn ligaments, missing ligaments, bits of cartridge floating around and bone rubbing on bone) and I get a bad back from time to time. The heavy leg presses (for me, using 85 kilos) allows me to stress my entire body. These days I don't really want a lot of size. I'm training for the bouldering on weekends and want to loose almost all my fat.

I'm going to get one of these soon so I can do chin ups on it and also exercise my finger pulleys:

BTW, Bruno, kettlebells are supposed to be really good too, but they seem to be expensive...

No worries Carl. I don't think it really matters which way you train, as long as you cover strength and endurance. Stamina and endurance are covered by my martial arts training. I use the dumbbells for strength and muscle development only, not high intensity exercises.