The traditional route to strength is heavy weights and volume. It’s the path that led Andy Bolton to his first forty eight 900lb pulls, but it won’t be the way he gets his last two. Instead, the former world champion is having to rely on an alternative approach, namely heavy singles and aggressive conditioning.
Read more about Andy’s fight with kidney failure and cancer — and how training has helped him through — here.
To try and understand just what Andy is putting himself through in the name of strength (and health), I came along to two of his training sessions.
The first was deadlifts in the legendary Ralls Gym, where urged on by his ever supportive crew, Andy pulled a post surgery PB of 500lbs. Hopefully it’s the first of many bests on his journey to return to competitive lifting early this summer.
The second session was not something I expected to see from the legendary powerlifter: brutal conditioning. Andy and his team went hard for 90 non stop minutes, pushing prowlers, hitting tires, and slamming ropes. These are movements not often seen in powerlifting training, but Andy swears by it and his improved health and work rate are a testament to their effectiveness.
