I have been competing in strongman for two years. I train four days a week at a specialist strongman gym in Coventry, and atlas stones are a regular part of my programming — they appear in most local competitions and they are one of the events I most need to develop. The problem with atlas stones, for anyone who has not trained them, is what they do to your forearms. The rough concrete surface of a stone creates friction against the skin of the forearms during the loading motion, and that friction produces skin tears, abrasions, and bruising that accumulate across a training session and take days to heal.
I had been managing this with tape — wrapping my forearms before stone sessions to provide some protection. Tape works partially. It shifts and bunches during the session, provides inconsistent coverage, and still allows enough friction to cause damage on heavier stones. I was limiting my stone training frequency because my forearms needed recovery time between sessions.
The CERBERUS Strength Atlas Stone Sleeves ended that limitation.
Why Forearm Protection Matters for Stone Training
Atlas stone training is limited by two things: the strength to lift the stone and the ability to recover from the skin damage the stone causes. For most intermediate strongman athletes, the skin damage is the more limiting factor — the muscles recover faster than the skin. A serious stone session can leave forearms abraded and bruised enough to make the next session painful or impossible for three or four days. This means that without protection, you can train stones once or twice a week at most.
With proper forearm protection, the skin damage is eliminated and the limiting factor becomes the muscles, which recover in 48 hours. You can train stones more frequently, accumulate more volume, and develop the event faster.
Why CERBERUS Strength
The CERBERUS Strength Atlas Stone Sleeves are the gold standard in stone lifting protection — used by some of the world's top stone lifters and handmade in the UK from premium leather hide. CERBERUS is one of the most respected brands in strongman equipment, and the Atlas Stone Sleeves are their flagship forearm protection product. When the best stone lifters in the world use a piece of kit, that is a meaningful endorsement.
The leather construction is the key design decision. Leather conforms to the forearm, provides genuine protection against the rough stone surface, and becomes more supple with use rather than degrading. The three large, heavy-duty straps keep the sleeves locked in position throughout the session — they do not shift, bunch, or require readjustment between sets. This is the specific failure mode of tape, and the CERBERUS design addresses it directly.
I found them through ALTOE's Weight Lifting Gloves & Hand Supports collection. They also sit within the Weight Lifting, Fitness & General Exercise Equipment, and Sporting Goods collections if you want to browse the wider range.
The First Session: No Damage
I used the CERBERUS sleeves for the first time on a stone session — six sets of five reps on a 100kg stone, which is a session that would previously have left my forearms abraded and sore for two days. The sleeves stayed in position for the entire session without any adjustment. The leather conformed to my forearms within the first set and did not shift on subsequent sets.
After the session, I removed the sleeves and checked my forearms. No abrasions. No bruising. The skin was completely undamaged. I had done the same session without sleeves three weeks earlier and had been unable to train stones again for four days.
I trained stones again two days later. And two days after that. In the three weeks following the purchase of the CERBERUS sleeves, I trained stones six times. In the three weeks before, I had trained them twice.
Six Months of Stone Training
The CERBERUS sleeves have been in my kit bag for six months. The leather has broken in and conformed to my forearms — they fit better now than they did on the first session. The straps have not loosened or frayed. The hide has not cracked or stiffened.
My stone training volume has tripled compared to the six months before I bought them. My stone loading has improved significantly — not because I am stronger, but because I am training the event more frequently and accumulating more practice. I placed third in the stone event at my last local competition. I had placed fifth in the same event six months earlier.
If you train atlas stones and you are managing forearm damage with tape or accepting it as a cost of training, the CERBERUS Strength Atlas Stone Sleeves are the piece of kit I would buy first. Browse the Weight Lifting Gloves & Hand Supports collection at ALTOE. Your forearms should not be the limiting factor in your stone training. Remove them from the equation and find out how fast you can actually develop the event.
Dan Kowalski is an intermediate strongman competitor and warehouse logistics manager based in Coventry. He writes about strongman training, the equipment that has improved his performance, and the two years of competition that have taught him more about strength than anything else.
0 Kommentare