The #5 Best Clubbell Exercise for Fighters: THE BARBRIAN SQUAT

The Barbarian Squat received its name from competitive Highland Games strongman, Doug Szolek, in honor of the training preparation Arnold Schwarzenegger did for his role in the cult classic: Conan The Barbarian. This is one of the exercises I’m using to increase the speed and power of Alberto Crane’s level changing for his comeback UFC match.

10 Reasons that the Barbarian is in the Top 5 Best Clubbell Exercises for Fighters

• The Barbarian Squat is not merely a compression squat – it’s not merely weight loading the spine balanced directly above gravity’s pull. It’s essentially an “odd object” counter-stabilization squat. The knees must stay alive for any deviation in movement, just like in the clinch. But because of the displaced center of mass, the actual weight of the Clubbell is light, even though the force production is extremely high: which means faster recovery time so sparring, rolling and drilling aren’t negatively impacted.

• The core must lock down more tightly because extending the Clubbell to full elbow lock causes the corset of muscle around the torso to stabilize very tightly to prevent the displaced mass of the Clubbell from shifting. It’s basically a standing crunch since the abdominal wall is designed to resist extension. This will keep your torso “alive” so that you can quickly sprawl out if your opponent changes levels in the clinch.

• Isometric – or static – endurance to “co-contract” the upper arm biceps and triceps while squatting. This builds the ability to sustain the forward pressure of clinch fighting to create space for striking and kicking as well as for re-shots for double and single legs. Unlike a “wood-chopper” you need to use the eccentric strength to yield it to a stop while squatting, just like you must do in Thai plumb position so that you can start throwing big knees into his torso and head.
• For ground fighting, the Barbarian Squat develops the power to drive the opponent back when fighting from the guard while bringing the knees to the chest. It uniquely pulls the tailbone down to the ground contracting with the hams while stabilizing with the quads – an important element in Jiujitsu and in MMA.
• The Barbarian focuses a concentric pull out of the back position – the extreme range of strength for the arms. It creates the agile strength to prevent shoulder damage from submission attempts such as the Americana and Kimura. Unlike isolation exercises designed to protect the shoulder (like bodybuilding delt raises and behind-the-back military press), the arm cast out of back position in the Barbarian is coupled with a simultaneous squat stimulating the recovery the arms from extreme range while the knees are to your chest.

• Because of the wide opening effect across the chest and shoulders, it helps increase inter-costal strength, compensating for all of the forward flexion of bottom-game grappling. Most of us grapplers tend to look like Quasimodo from never opening the chest in the opposite direction, so overtime we become imbalanced and suffer sub-scap, infra-spin, super-spin and even lower lat over-stretch injuries. The Barbarian Squat helps prevent these problems and rebalances our structure.
• In most traditional and even non-trad squats, the arms are only used to hold the weight against the body so that the spine stabilize and the legs drive. The Barbarian Squat however addresses the “odd-object” aliveness of fighting a resistant opponent. While coming out of the bottom position of the squat, the simultaneous arm cast into back position develops the strength to control the sudden, surprise movements of an “alive” object – due to the displaced center of mass of the Clubbell as well as the timing of driving the mat away while moving the bell into extreme range. This is also a very important aspect of ground fighting to pull the opponent back down when he postures up out of your guard: both arms must rip his head down while sliding your guard in deeper. This strength may just give you the edge in getting under-hooks in on time.

• Most elbows give out well before they need to during arm-bars because the arms are never strengthened into full range of motion. If elbow flexion is constantly trained, then the range of motion slowly diminishes over time, meaning earlier and earlier submission pain from advanced tearing of connective tissue. The flag position of the Barbarian Squat allows you to develop full range strength even in elbow lock. Now, this doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to stop hyperextension, but it will prevent you from tapping too early!
• Striking and fighting back position: sure, no one wants to be in this position, but in the chaos of fighting an opponent of approximately the same skill, conditioning and competitive experience, you need to be prepared for the worst. Having the dynamic flexibility to strike someone fighting towards your neck, in back position, is mandatory. In turtle position, the ability to reach and maintain wrist control while defending your neck and sides of your head may mean the difference between the judge calling a TKO or not.

• Unlike overly-complex arrays of isolation exercises, the Barbarian is a compound movement with the above benefits. It can be performed for a metabolic conditioning effect. Once the technique is down you can turn up the juice high enough to cause serious circulo-respiratory distress. Performed for time, it can even be a stand-alone conditioning session.

How do you train the Barbarian Squat? For time. 

Sets are nice if you like looking good naked, and sure everybody does. Heavier weights are nice for being stronger, which ain’t nothing to scoff at. But for fighting, it’s more about how fast you can perform the technique with as fast a recovery between performances for as many times as you can cycle through that performance-recovery period (stamina). So, I train my fighters with the following progression in using the Barbarian - including if the Barbarian is only one exercise in a circuit:

• “Charlie” Program Barbarians (for strength-endurance): Each minute on the minute for 20 minutes perform 20 repetitions: every minute perform 20 repetitions. The faster you go, the more you will get to rest. All 20 repetitions must be completed within those 60 seconds in order for you to get credit for that round – with a maximum of 20 points. (use my Explosive Sports Performance Breathing to recover your heart rate as fast as possible!) When you score all 20 points, you can go up in weight. When you score 20 points with a 45lbs “Bruiser” Clubbell, you’re ready for the next test.
• “Sierra” Program Barbarians (for power-endurance): Perform as many repetitions in 20 seconds as possible. Immediately rest but for only 10 seconds. And immediately perform 20 more seconds of work but improve your numbers higher than the prior round of work. Complete that 8 times (20s/10s X 8 = 4 minutes), and rest for 60 seconds. Perform another 8 sets of 20/10s, a 45 second break. Then another 8 sets of 20/10s with a 30 second break. And then a final 8 sets of 20/10s. So, that’s a total of 4 stations of 8 sets of 20/10s. When you can complete all four stations improving your numbers each set for all 8 sets, using the 45lbs Clubbell, you’re ready for the final step.
• “Tango” Program Barbarian Squats (power/strength stamina combo): Without setting the Clubbell on the ground or resting it against your body (only holding it in back position or in flag position), perform as many repetitions as possible in 5 minutes. Rest 60 seconds. Repeat another 5 minute set. Rest 60 seconds. And repeat two more times (4 sets of 5 minutes with 60 seconds rest in between.) Work up to using a 45lbs. Clubbell with a pace of 30 repetitions / minute for 5 minutes / four times with 60 seconds rest in between.

Now, instead of failing to complete the entire timed period, pull the Clubbell into “guard” position rather than continuing to drop it out of flag position arm-lock. It’s more important to continue to move than to stop at the level of your arm strength. So, keep your ass moving and just make the arm-cast portion shallower.

How to Progress in Metabolic Conditioning? 

I developed the protocol progression of Charlie-Sierra-Tango specifically because during a fight, you don’t rise to the level of your technique, but fall to the level of your conditioning. A fighter may be a technical wizard on the mat when there isn’t any competitive stress of facing an opponent of equivalent technical, conditioning and competitive experience who means to do him bodily harm. But when facing that savvy competition, he drops down to a performance level equal to how he has been conditioning.

If you look at the training of Rich Franklin, Joe Hall in 2005 CIN Weekly interviewed Franklin, where Rich stated the following program load in only 7 weeks before a fight:

• 42 hours of grapping
• 42 hours of sparring
• 28 hours of weight-lifting
• 35 hours of conditioning (running, swimming and other conventional cardio)
• 7 days off for passive recovery

In other words, Rich stated that his weekly peaking involved (average of):

• 1 hour of grappling / day
• 1 hour of sparring / day
• 20-30 minutes of power-lifting / day
• 45-60 minutes of cardio / day
• 6 days / week with Sunday off

That obviously wasn’t sufficient recovery time. Most fighters are chronically over-trained, so they’re not getting sufficient recovery. If they’re not getting sufficient recovery, then the fighter is not possible able to achieve maximal metabolic threshold. You just can’t train hard enough if you don’t recover sufficiently!

The next year in 2006, Franklin switched over to training with Mike Ferguson of Powerstation in Middletown, Ohio.

Now, although in this video interview it’s called “weight-lifting” – it’s more appropriately called metabolic conditioning using weights. Ferguson pushes Rich through 45-60 minutes of sprinting between 10 machine station circuit 10 times, 3 days / week. Even though I do not agree with the exercise selection, since they’re all bodybuilding exercises and not functional, the energy system being trained is closer to fighting.

Ferguson focuses on strength-endurance, he says. Understanding that Rich has to go five 5-minute rounds, he progressively over-loads that strength-endurance threshold, moving from six 5-minute rounds of weight-lifting up to ten 5-minute rounds of weight lifting. Again, I don’t agree with the selection here, and I don’t think that any evaluations of progression (other than increased time / weight) is being used, but it’s not arguable that this is hitting the right energy system for Rich, especially compared to his previous long, slow, heavy approach. 

My education as a national team coach, international category official and internationally successful athlete in multiple sports has allowed me to be exposed to a lot of big, big brains. And I sponged as much of their brilliance as possible to make my athletes the best. That’s why I developed a specific progression to metabolic conditioning for fighters: strength-endurance to power-endurance to strength/power stamina… all monitored for appropriate recovery.

My Charlie-Sierra-Tango progression helps you progress to your fighting peak by:

• Removing all of the wasted time.
• Increasing performance speed.
• Cycling the pace of burst recovery.

 Hopefully, you get the chance to implement the Barbarian Squat in the Charlie-Sierra-Tango progression and see the huge results for yourself. It’ll take time. It’ll hurt a lot. But I promise you fight-specific results you won’t believe – if you dedicate yourself to it for 2-3 months.

RMAX International