Dinosaur Training
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Dinosaur training is a philosophy of weight training / physical culture promoting a return to traditional strongman types of exercises and training, including:
- A repudiation of drugs and supplements
- High weights for low reps, including singles
- Bodyweight exercises
- Lifting kegs, anvils, medicine balls, sandbags and other heavy awkward objects
- Compound exercises with barbells (squats, deadlifts, etc.)
Dinosaur training positions itself in opposition to aerobics exercise culture and to bodybuilding and other training methods geared towards cosmetic purposes. It stresses intensity, hard work, functional strength, power, endurance, and mental toughness.
The foremost voice in the Dinosaur training movement is Brooks D. Kubik, although Bob Whelan, Ken Leistner, and the late John McCallum are counted as allies. Historical lifters like Peary Rader and various late 19th-century and early 20th-century strongmen and physical culture proponents such as Eugen Sandow are regarded as heroes.
Kubik's book Dinosaur Training became highly acclaimed by the weight-lifting community. It offered simple yet effective routines, which appealed to those who had grown weary of the complex methods offered by many authors. The book was also motivational, and even humorous at times.
Recently Kubik's training philosophy has evolved to where he now advocates Dinosaur Training employing bodyweight exercises, as detailed in his latest book, Dinosaur Bodyweight Training and accompanying instructional DVDs (see Kubik's website, www.brookskubik.com). In contrast to his earlier book, this most recent one consists of detailed, illustrated instruction and programs comprising variations of such bodyweight exercises as pushups, handstand pushups, pullups, neck bridges, hanging leg raises, and two- and one-legged deep knee bends. The exercises, which use one's bodyweight as resistance, as opposed to weights and other heavy implements, range from easy, for beginning trainees, to extremely difficult, for advanced trainees. Many of the exercises incorporate such equipment as stability balls, 8-foot-long climbing ropes, power rings (similar to gymnastics rings), pushup bars, flat benches, and hyperextension benches, although some of the exercises require no equipment at all. Kubik, in addition, has an online forum, the Dinosaur Inner Circle, membership in which is available by paid subscription (see his website, listed above.)
The primary texts describing the Dinosaur Training philosophy are Dinosaur Training (1996; 2nd edition, 1998), written by Brooks D. Kubik; Dinosaur Bodyweight Training (2006), written by Brooks D. Kubik; and the Dinosaur Files newsletter, published by Kubik from August 1997 to August 2002, then resurrected, with revisions and updates, in 2006. Ironman's Ultimate Guide To Building Muscle Mass includes a chapter by Kubik on Dinosaur Training.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Ironman Magazine (2000). Ironman's Ultimate Guide To Building Muscle Mass. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-8092-2813-0.; chapter 19, pp. 201-226: Brooks D. Kubik, "Dinosaur Training: The Secret to Building Jurassic Size and Strength."
