The Posterior Chain Workout World's Strongest Man Competitor Paddy Haynes Uses to Build a 1,000 Pound Deadlift

The World's Strongest Man is happening this weekend, featuring a lineup of the strongest men from all over the world. One of the guys on that stacked lineup is Paddy Haynes, also known as "The Dark Horse." Hailing from Great Britain, Haynes is a former long-distance runner turned strongman athlete. He's quickly rebranded himself, going from a 68kg (10.5 stone) runner to a 130kg (20 stone) strongman in just the span of four years—so clearly, he's doing something right.

"His workouts largely depend on the training phase that he's in," says Jon Mallon, Haynes' coach. "On the buildup to World's Strongest Man, we would normally increase the specificity of the training and the exposure to the direct events."

When you look at the world's strongest men, you probably imagine they do wild exercises in preparation for the big stage. But Haynes' workouts aren't nearly as complicated as you might think, though they are highly calculated. For an athlete like Haynes, the goal is "expressing his strength, not just building it," Mallon says.

Below, Mallon breaks down one of Haynes’ regular sessions focusing on the posterior chain (the glutes, hamstrings, and back) to ensure maximum carryover to the competition floor.

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Paddy Haynes' Posterior Chain Workout

The Warmup

"Typically, we would start each of the sessions with a warmup," Mallon says. "So some movement, breath, mobility work that just kind of activates most of the muscles that are going to be involved within the training session itself." This involves everything from lighter band exercises to mobility work before moving on to the main lifts and event-specific skill work.


The Primer

Before the heavyweight moves, Haynes performs a lighter movement designed to switch on the nervous system and the energy system required for the day. This starts to "activate the relevant energy system and the nervous system accordingly," Mallon explains. "Within that, he would then do the first most specific movement early on, this is when he's freshest."

The Specific Primary Movement

"This is when we're going to get the highest carryover to competition directly," Mallon says. For Haynes, this movement is most likely a deadlift, but it doesn't look like the traditional setup you’d see in a powerlifting meet.

"So it might be using the particular deadlift setup that he's going to be doing, for example, within Giants Live, there's a lot of axle deadlifts, so he would focus on using that with his suit, with his straps," Mallon says.

When preparing for the biggest stage in the sport, the specificity reaches a different level. Mallon notes that for worlds, particularly, it's a heavy deadlift from the floor. "So we would replicate that directly using some form of ramp system where he would build up to a top set," he adds.

But that's not all he does. While deadlifts are a great primary movement because they have a lot of carryover to a lot of different movements, the quality of the rep is what matters most. Mallon notes that a lot of the time it is submaximal, and the exertion itself will always leave one or two reps in the tank because the focus is clean, strong, and powerful execution.

Take the Atlas stone, for example, a movement regularly used in strongman competitions that you wouldn't see anywhere else. While deadlifts will definitely carry over, Mallon also programs the direct movement as well as others like it.

"It will naturally transfer over to something like an Atlas Stone, something like a sandbag, um, even your ability to stay tight in the upper upper back relative to something like a log press, with Atlas Stones," he says. "It's things like farmers walk. There is still transfer, but it is limited to the movements that kind of fall within the same category."

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The Weak Point Assistant Exercise

Move into a variation that directs the transfer by working on a weak point relative to the main movement. For Haynes, that might be a front squat that directly stimulates the quads and upper back.

Accessory "Bodybuilding" Movements

Finish with smaller assistance exercises that "stimulate the muscle rather than movement." These provide a training effect without costing too much from a standpoint of fatigue.

• Pullups
• Single-arm dumbbell rows
• Hip thrusts

Programming

"In terms of how it fits into his overall training week, it depends on the training phase," Mallon says. "With regards to the build up to events or competitions, we tend to run almost for a conjugate model, which is where he would have a lower body, an upper body, a lower body, an upper body day, that or they can rotate in terms of logistics, but it does usually alternate between one of the two."