Strongman Brian Shaw Took on Jay Cutler's Mr. Olympia Back Workout
Brian Shaw may have retired from the world of competitive strongman earlier this year, but he's still hitting the gym and maintaining his legendary size and strength, leading to some speculation that he may pivot to bodybuilding or powerlifting, like fellow strongman retiree Thor Bjornsson. In a recent video on his YouTube channel, the four-time World's Strongest Man winner links up with the four-time Mr. Olympia champion, Jay Cutler, at Torture Gym to to find out how the former bodybuilding pro trains to build his giant back.
They start off with a chest supported machine row, executed with a supinated grip, to "get some blood" into the lats. "I won't go super heavy," says Cutler, adding: "I expect you to go a little heavier."
The second exercise is the standing one arm machine row, which Cutler demonstrates with slow, controlled extension of the arm and a strong contraction on the pulling motion. "I stretch so I'm engaging the lat all the way out, then pull," explains Cutler.
Next up is a wide-grip lat pulldown, and then they finish with a seated cable row, where Shaw is able to show off some of his famous strength.
"When you train with the strongest guy on Earth... I wanna see how many plates you can do on this thing," jokes Cutler. "But we're trying to think about repetitions, not power training."
"The hardest part when people trained with me when I was my biggest and baddest, was my speed," he continues. "I would rest 45 to 60 seconds, so you go, I go. Sometimes I'd train with people and it was like, my weight's the only weight that matters, so don't change the plate. So they'd step off, I'd step in. The endurance was really an important factor, and the speed... helped with my cardio, to help me stay leaner. So I felt really good when I was training for a contest and I came down in weight, I just got faster and faster with recovery." This is "way different," he acknowledges, from the approach Shaw is used to as a strongman... but might come in handy if he turns his hand to bodybuilding.
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