- Deadlift and Squat 2x your body weight
- Bench press 1.25x your body weight.
- Be able to do more than 10 good pullups and 20 good dips
Voila
Striving beyond these benchmarks will get in the way of your tricking. If you cannot do these benchmarks, then striving to achieve them will be good for your tricking. The benefits of reaching these benchmarks include better resilience to injury, more explosiveness, improved recovery capacity, more flexibility (since flexibility is dependent on strength), and better extension on tricks (IE - cleaner tricks). And probably some more stuff too.
Now, don't get too excited about the benefits of strength training for tricking, because they are terminal in my experience. I noticed that further focus on strength gains past those bench marks I listed above have just gotten in the way of my tricking progress. I reached those strength bench marks in 2004 when I was 18 years old. Back track my video uploads and you'll notice my absolute tricking aptitude hasn't improved since then, in fact it's declined.
My advice for pure novice regarding strength for tricking
If you have never done any physical activity in your life and you want to start tricking, by all means get at it! While you are doing this, I would highly, highly, every-so very highly recommend you get a gym membership and start working on your strength and flexibility too. You might want to do this first for a few months. Get used to moving your body. Reach those bench marks I listed above while you work on your tricks, any untrained person can likely reach them within 2 years of a normal training load.
My advice for tricksters regarding strength for tricking
Unless you are gifted, you will likely find value in reaching those strength goals for the reasons I mentioned above in blue text. Once you have reached these benchmarks, continue strength training in a remedial manner, as needed for maintaining these benchmarks, rehab and prehab.
My advice for strength traininers who want to learn to trick
If you can't do those bench marks, then reach them already! And while you work on those numbers, put in some time to learn some tricks. It's time to get explosive and agile through tricking. And you should be excited about it too, because tricking is great for strength training. From my experience, tricking has helped my strength training way more than strength training has helped my tricking. So get into tricking!
My advice for tricksters who want to get buff
If you've already been tricking for awhile and you want to get buff now, then you need to reach those benchmarks and go beyond them. You need to be ready for your tricking to be humbled because getting bigger means harder tricks. You will also need to focus on bodybuilding methodologies (IE - body part split and isolation work). The work will be harder and you will find that as you get bigger the worse your tricking will get, but if you keep at it intelligently you will balance out in the long run with both beautiful tricks and a bad-ass physique. This is what Acrobolix is all about, it's not easy, but it's worth it.
Thank you so much for the great article, it was fluent and to the point. Cheers.
Hi Jon, looking at your lifting benchmarks and you can bench/deadlift/squat/whatever x amount of kilograms or pounds, so I was wondering what is your maximum vertical jump and your forty yard dash time?
Hi Juji, I remember reading a Verkhoshansky sports science book (supertraining?) where it says 2xBW squat is the best for maximizing standing jump and from somewhere from internet that for women may be a bit less (1.8xBW? becose they have less upper body mass?). But where do you get the other ones? I train for Parkour. So, I guess I need stronger dips and pull ups.
Me too, I wish someone had written it for me, I coulda used it myself.
I wish you had made this article back when I first discovered TT in 2005. Wasted too much time during my prime teenage tricking years in the strength and conditioning section thinking I needed to hit some magical numbers or it would be completely worthless to even attempt tricking. But at least I got to discover powerlifting which I ended up loving just as much as tricking! And it’s never too late to trick, of course. I’m just glad I can point my beginner friends to this article when they ask if they need to be able to lift a ton to trick. Thanks for clearing up the notion that more strength is always better. It was an easy trap to fall into.