Advice For Training A Bigger Guy

I've recently been asked to help a bigger guy train. Now everyone else that I've had come train with me have all been fairly slim and looking to put on muscle/gain strength, so I've just chucked them into the WODs as I do them (obviously scaled to their ability) but I'm not really sure what to do with this guy.
A little more background this guy is about 300lbs fairly fit but still carrying a fair amount of fat, plays a lot of rugby and has wrestled at quite a high level (won a gold medal in some European championship). He really wants to get back into his wrestling so what would he benefit the most from? Obviously the warmup, general mobility work would be good and I'm thinking that some straight arm work would be beneficial for his joint strength.

Next Tuesday (they day he is first going to come) I'm going to be a very handstand heavy WOD, should he just try his best with this like everyone else or should I build him up more slowly into it (I'm a little concerned about him being inverted for an extended period then falling on his head. What should I substitute him instead of headstand presses?

Cheers for any advice

Ring supports, eventually, and multiplane pulls.

And possibly a lot of locomotion variations as well as basic tumbling (rolls) just to become more and more aware of where he is in space.

In a nutshell: rope climbs + yewkis and meathooks = wrestling.

You'll want to get him to where he can do yewkis tucked first, and once he's strong in those and has a decent FL he should be ok to SLOWLY start moving towards self-spotted meathooks (may require grip training).

Even God might not be able to help his opponents if he ever got real meathooks on a rope... That may be beyond what his body, at his size, will do, but who knows? That would essentially be a bodyweight single arm arm-drag while gripping a wrist. He'd be throwing people his size around like rag dolls. That would take years of consistent, intelligent training for him, I think, but it might be possible. The closer he gets to it, the better his drags and wrestling-specific pull strength will be. 

Go easy on meathook pursuit at his size. Check his ROM diligently and work toward deep controlled two handed windshield wipers first. Work these away from the rope until his grip his very good.

My first advice would be "don't". Or, "have him trim down first". Even for a very tall person, #300 is either ludicrously muscular (in which case he already knows how to train himself) or carrying quite a lot of dead weight.

Imagine if you were just starting bodyweight training and had to wear a 50-100# weight vest. The potential for injury would be very high. 

If he really doesn't want to trim down first, make sure to start very slow with the bodyweight exercises, and progress extremely carefully. 

Nic Branson said:

Go easy on meathook pursuit at his size. Check his ROM diligently and work toward deep controlled two handed windshield wipers first. Work these away from the rope until his grip his very good.

Yes

I don't claim to know the official ways to work up to meathooks, but this is essentially where I would start, and use progressively less assistance from my "off" hand.

OP:

If you are not really sure you are qualified to train this guy on such things, don't.

I wouldn't mention anything beyond the basics and yewkis until he's more than strong enough and has had at least 6 months of training.

Strong doesn't mean properly prepared. Take your time with him, he's going to need to progress even slower than me.

There is a progression for it. That is one of the steps in it. After HLL's. I would not worry about them for a while. I would also advise being comfortable with them yourself or have a very very good understanding before trying to teach them.

Ok thanks guys. I think whats probably best is for me to take it really slow with this guy. Im definetly not really qualifird enough to teach him so I'll just introduce him to the basic concepts of GST and as I said take it very slowly. Ill check back here once I have a better idea of what he can do and where he's weak for some more advice

I'd be interested in hearing how it goes. Please be sure to post back with updates!

I totally agree with jfslocum: progress extremely carefully.

I am far from an expert, I can only talk about my own experience.

My weight is 130 kg as your clients. When I began GST, I progressed very fast. But one day there was serious pain in my right elbow while doing pullups so I had to jump off the bar. For a long time I was not able to do simple ring rows. It was a year ago.

I have done a lot of rehab and I have done low intensity pulling exercises only for a month now.

So be careful with the joints: they can be the weakest links by big guys.

Found out another thing that might need to be considered with this guy, he has a low blood platelet count and as such he bruises very easily. Now this doesn't bother him in the slightest, he plays rugby on a regular basis and is "used" to it. My concern is: will this have any negative effects on the ability of his tendons to heal and strengthen?

Unknown. That's a question for his medical staff.

Cheers for the quick reply, of course it is, how could I be so silly! I'll get him to ask his physician before we do any training.