Mike Irwin may be back in the good graces of Arkansas fans...

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Arkansas media sucks!

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midget



I know you’re lurking.

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I honestly get all of my Hog info here.

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I don't believe there's any value in being able to squat 850 lbs.....SO WHAT! There's just no point in it...there's no point on a football field where you're going to have to squat 850 lbs...but you are going to have to run by somebody and tackle somebody. Football is a speed game...."

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Also known as the “trap-bar” deadlift, it gets its name from the hexagonal-shaped bar the lifter steps into, effectively allowing him to center himself over the weights (see above). Unlike a traditional straight-bar deadlift, a lift using the uniquely shaped hex-bar takes pressure off the lifter’s spine, lower back, and hamstrings. Also, because of the more balanced range of motion, out of every lift in the gym, it’s the one on which your body can lift the most weight. (Yes, even more than a squat.) Because the hex bar is so efficient, every rep utilizes 90% of skeletal muscle.

What’s more, these are the same muscles you rely on to run, jump high, and explode upward, fighting gravity.

When he ran the numbers, Flaherty found that the Force Number calculated from a one-rep max for the hex-bar deadlift yielded the exact same correlation as the ratio derived from force-plate treadmill numbers. He also discovered that the bigger your hex-bar deadlift, the bigger your Force Number. In other words: Congrats! You’re a better athlete. (For the record, Jamaican sprinter and reigning world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, holds the highest Force Number ever recorded: 3.9.)

In 2014, Flaherty used the hex-bar deadlift to skyrocket Manziel’s combine numbers. Manziel arrived at Flaherty’s camp with a maximum hex lift of 530 pounds, a vertical leap of 27.5 inches, and a 5.09-second 40-yard dash. Weighing 201 pounds, his Force Number was 2.39. After two months of Flaherty’s deadlift program, Manziel had packed on eight pounds of muscle—and could lift 680 pounds for a Force Number of 3.2. Official combine stats recorded Manziel with a 31.5-inch vertical leap and a 4.68-second 40-yard dash, an improvement of about 0.4 second.

At the high school in California, hex bars are everywhere, scattered about like weapons in an armory. Later that afternoon I watch first as NFL hopeful Jake Brendel, a 6'4", 300-pound offensive lineman sporting a UCLA T-shirt and red Viking beard, steps into the center of one that’s stacked with so many weights, there’s no room for collars. He grips the handles, bends his knees, straightens his back, raises his chin. The bar elevates and then crashes down, over and over again, like a monstrous piston. I do the math in my mind: five 45-pounders on each side plus the bar itself over five reps means he’s lifted over a ton.

When the 23-year-old drops it for the last time and meanders his way to a box for a round of single-leg jumps, I ask him if he knew how much weight he was moving.
“No idea,” Brendel says, without breaking stride. “I just do what the man says.”

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