I think I'm going back to my ME/DE split for the lower body. It seemed to be working better for me.
Dynamic Warm-ups
King Kong Dumbbell Clean and Presses 60x3/3 (one clean, 12" bell) 105x3/3 (one clean, 11" bell) 136x1 right 136x1 left 158x1 right 158x1 left 178x1 right PR+3lbs 178x0,0 left 178x1 left PR+3lbs 198x0/0xalot
BiggDogg Strongg Husafell Stone Carries (turns at 50') 320x238' 3" 320x163'
Comments: Haven't been to the Capital area in a while. +2 hour drive to train is a bit annoying but Jerry had just done a contest the day before so I went to Barry's. He had been at the same contest and tore his bicep on the last event. Sucks. Started out with circus dumbbell work. CT is 200lbs for reps, I had to see where I was at now. The dumbbell Barry has is a monster; 14" diameter bells and a 3.5" thick handle. Incredibly awkward. I managed to get a little over the most I've done on a 14" bell. Tried 198lbs about 10 times each side. Had to change how I cleaned it up wasn't too close with my right, pretty close with my left. Got a lot of work ahead of me. Moved on to yoke/frame medleys. Warm-ups felt good, I think the roughly 200lbs jump in each implement was a bit of a shock though. Yoke was pretty horrid that first run, almost made the frame tough. Felt much better with how the second run went. Husafell took a bit of time since I had to scrounge around for stuff to put in it for more weight. Camera didn't catch my good run. Hopefully I can turn things around for May.
April has not improved for me. Overhead sessions have just been garbage this month and family/work related stress isn't helping that. I'm going to have to work around this shoulder thing for now since my lower body sessions are going pretty well. The deadline I've set for myself is mid-May for my pressing to be back to passable, if not, I may not compete at the Pro/Am. I really hope that doesn't happen. Plan is to let my shoulders rest for about ten days and if still feeling awful, see a doctor. For now, this is what I have done. I've altered my routine so that I'm doing, squat day, press day, deadlift day and event day. Big change was moving the squat and deadlift days around. I'm used to doing deadlifts early in the week. I only did my squat and deadlift session for this week. I tried the pressing day and it started out ok but my entire upper back and neck cramped up really hard and I had to call it there after trying to work through it. Still pretty tense even right now.
April 24, 2012 - Squat
Dynamic Warm-ups
21" Cambered Squat Bar Front Box Squats 60x10 110x5 150x5 200x5 240x5 290x5 330x5 380x2
Safety Squat Bar Lunges 90x3/3 115x3/3 135x12/12 145x12/12 155x12/12
Glute Ham Raises bwx12 bwx12 bwx12 bwx12 bwx12
31 Minutes of Stretching
Comments: Weird starting the week off with squats. Cambered bar swings like crazy, makes it really tough to come off the box. Would have liked to do better but whatever, I'll take it. Unsure if I'll be keeping this in the rotation. Actually not too sure about a lot of things. Next was lunges. Haven't done them in a while and I usually was doing them for much lower reps. These were awful (in a good way). First ten reps felt easy and I thought I had started too light. Turns out it was a very challenging session. Finished up with glute hams and stretching.
Comments: I was very worried about this workout. My legs were still incredibly sore from squats and lunges and my upper body from the base of my neck to the bottom of my shoulder blades was tense from whatever happened on my upper body workout. The chiropractor did an adjustment on my first rib which seemed to ease off some of the tension but he didn't see or feel anything in my shoulders, back or neck that would suggest I had torn anything or had anything out of place. That's at least comforting but still leaves me frustrated. Back to the workout. This routine is the modified Coan/Phillipi deadlift routine I had mentioned a few months ago. Just doing the main bits, sticking to my own assistance work. The big thing with this is doing it without a hard belt so this should be interesting. The goal is to hit my current 2rm on this beltless. Of course I screwed up on this workout. The top set was supposed to be 512 and not 502. I didn't want to use less weight than planned so I just added some more weight and readjusted the weights for the routine. Just going to move up a week in the routine. Actually felt good. Almost fun. Didn't seem to affect me much as I did quite well on gm's. Pull-ups have been bothering me (I feel like the one side was getting to the bar before the other) so I tried something different. Stayed light and did underhand grip for pulldowns. Really concentrated on keeping the shoulder blades down and it didn't bother my shoulders or feel weird at all. Hopefully this continues. Unsure if I'll be hitting events as most of my training places are closed since a lot of the guys are doing shows this weekend.
I truly despise this month so far. Training has sucked and been inconsistent. Had a truly pathetic overhead workout on Tuesday and almost didn't finish this deadlift workout because the set with 522lbs felt like utter crap. Feeling tired and unmotivated. Confused about training and it doesn't help that my grandma was in the hospital for heart problems this week. Got to get things back under control, on my own terms again. I'm hoping what I'm going to try out this coming week will do the trick.
Cambered Squat Bar Goodmornings
210x3
260x3
300x10
320x10 340x10 PR+10lbs
Pull-ups
bwx12
bwx12
bwx12
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25 Minutes of Stretching
Comments: Ok workout. I felt like crap warming up and almost left after 522lbs felt so damn hard. Glad I calmed myself down and managed to tie my PR with the contest weight (felt easier this time). Tried a fifth rep but no good. Took a decent effort to get eight for the down set. GM's felt good and pull-ups were a bit better than the awfulness that was last time. Rushed the stretching since it was getting really late.
BiggDogg Strongg Husafell Stone Carries (turns at 50') 300xpick 300x259' PR+12' 300x144' (hand slipped)
Comments: Today went fairly well. Just me and Jerry training today. Did what I had planned to do. Yoke felt awful just picking the empty implement but frame was just super easy. Hit the numbers I wanted for this week. Frame is kind of light for this contest so it gives me plenty of time to keep working on my deadlifting and yoke runs. Plan is to move up 50lbs on this medley every other week, work on just yoke the other weeks unless I'm feeling beat up. First run was up hill with yoke, down hill with frame. Down hill for the yoke and up hill for the frame on the second. I thought the husafell stone was empty when I went to pick it and move it outside. It was still loaded to what I had in there back in February. Quite pleased with my first run. Beat my PR from the ground by 42' and off of a platform by 12'. Second run my glove on my bottom hand bunched up and I couldn't hold on to it and it slipped out just short of 150'. Mistakes happen, just need to secure my gloves better next time.
Comments: Haven't done an extra workout in a while. Figured it would be a good idea to do something for the upper body that might help with recovery. Upper back stuff smoked me but triceps was super easy. Walking felt good, especially since my legs were quite sore from yesterday. I have a good idea as to what I'll be doing training wise now. Ordered some Fat Gripz so I can mimic a circus dumbbell in the gym (at least until my actually gets made). Tomorrow will be my first event training day since the comp. I got an idea on what numbers I want to hit. Hopefully they come easy.
I mentioned last time I wasn't pleased with how lifting was going. I'm trying out stuff to see if that works. Might avoid training upper body until Tuesday to see if that will be enough rest and perhaps give me enough time to sort my ideas. I'm hoping the shoulder stuff is related more to my cold than something wrong with my shoulders.
Dynamic Warm-ups
Reverse Band 21" Front Box Squats w/ Light Bands No Bands 45x10 Add Bands (-50lbs) 135x5 185x5 225x5 275x5 315x5 365x5 405x5 455x1 455x2 365x8
Comments: Decided to do something I wanted to do. Only done reverse band box squats before and it was to a lower box and for singles. Really surprised how much a 3" difference makes in the bands, 15lbs less assistance. Other than being surprised on some sets unracking the weight, these went well. Besides the sets with 455lbs. First set it felt like I was being crushed and couldn't breathe, got one rep and then stapled on the second. Managed a double on my second attempt but breathing was still rough. Did a down set but just did reps until I felt my form start to break. Step-ups went well this time, learned from the previous workout. Glute ham raises continue to improve but I have a feeling I'll be keeping them as a bodyweight exercise like pull-ups.
Tried doing my upper body workout on Wednesday and what a disaster that was. Barely got 220lbs for five reps. Something is still off with my upper back and shoulders. I'm getting very frustrated with my overhead training.
Walking – 32 minutes
Comments: Made sure I got a walk in to clear my head. Cold is getting better and I think getting more sleep has been helping. I am frustrated with my training for this month, especially with how well my first week back was. Got to spend some time sorting things out to find what works.
Cambered Squat Bar Goodmornings 185x3 235x3 275x12 295x12 315x12 PR+10lbs
Pull-ups bwx12 bwx12 bwx12 bwx12
31 Minutes of Stretching
Comments: Despite feeling a little under the weather, this went well. Plan was to hit a solid set of five on axle block pulls, aim for at least a double after that and then hit a down set for at the most 12 reps. I would have preferred contest weight for the set of five but I'll take what I can get. The double felt good and I went for another rep but only broke it off the blocks a few inches. Picked too light of a weight for the down set, getting 12 reps was only a slight struggle. I wasn't too sure how gm's would be after repping on the block pulls but it actually felt really good. Just aimed for a small PR and got that comfortably. Pull-ups were a different story. The time off and the reps on block pulls just killed my upper back strength. Really had to fight for every rep and had to break up the sets considerably to get all of the reps. Hopefully I'll be better at it next time. Stretching felt good.
Not dead, just tired. April has really sucked so far for me. Crappy workouts on both Tuesday and Wednesday followed by stressful days of work Thursday Friday led to being totally exhausted mentally by the end of the week. Need to get some stuff sorted out for my workout routine.
Walking – 31 minutes
Comments: Haven't done anything since Wednesday so I had to do something. Even felt somewhat crappy walking even though it was really nice out today. Hoping to be back to form for this week.
Was planning on events but not to be this weekend. This month is going to be kind of rough lifting wise with some schedule stuff. Kind of training myself at the moment.
Walking – 31 minutes
Comments: Walking felt good, even though it started raining half way through. Warmed up by digging out a dead bush.
I’m a little taller than 6′6″ and I really like to lift weights. I’m a competitor in amateur strongman contests. My hope is to become a competitive professional strongman. Currently I'm training for Northeast Regionals in Monaca, PA on 6/1/2024. I’m not a major competitor yet and I have a long way to go but I’m having fun.
