July 28, 2018 – Week 1, Day 3

5 Minutes Misc Stationary Bike

Leaning Calf Raises
BWx30

16” Goblet Box Squats
20x25

Shoestring Romanian Deadlifts
45x20

Band Rows
MMBx20

Push-ups
BWx15

Bodyweight Plank
20 Seconds

Biceps Stretches
20 Seconds
20 Seconds

Front to Back Hip Swings
BWx10/10

Side to Side Hip Swings
BWx10/10

Mouser Block Presses
122.5x1
142x1
171x1
190.5x1
222x1
241x1

Wide Grip Deadlifts
135x3
180x3
257.5x3
335x3
412.5x3

18” I-Beam Farmer’s Walk/Keg Load/18” I-Beam Farmer’s Walk
117x100’ (drop at 50’)/150x1 to 60”/117x100’ (drop at 50’) in 44.11 seconds
202x50’/200x1 to 60”/202x50’ in 24.33 seconds
262x50’/250x1 to 60”/262x50’ in 28.59 seconds
262x50’/250x1 to 60”/262x50’ in 28.97 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I got to bed but it wasn’t as soon as I wanted to. I went for a walk in between the thunderstorms as I really felt I needed to after all the squats and because I hadn’t been able to go walk earlier in the week due to the flash floods. Got a later start to my day then expected to. Guess the chicken wasn’t fresh the night before haha. Out to Lancaster to train. Brian was there so I got to vent a little about the state of amateur strongman (I don’t get to talk to people about it that understand it). Bike again. Well not quite right away. I had to use the restroom again but a little girl had locked it from inside and closed it so had to get one of the owners to open it up with a screwdriver. The little girl then figured I was a captive audience on the exercise bike and procced to teach me her name, her brother’s name and her mother’s name in sign language. Kind of. The bike felt good on my legs. Calf stuff was good and easy. Goblet box squats were ok, no aches at all. This was probably the best these have felt this week. RDLs actually felt not half bad today. Just really tight hamstrings. I had thought I might need to do some soft tissue work on them but didn’t need it. Band rows were easy. Push ups were a bit tougher. Left shoulder ached like it has been as well as my elbows. The plank was easy, lost count of my time. Biceps stretch felt good on my tight shoulders. No issues with hip swings. Before we start with the weight training, I feel it is important to share something. The promoter of the contest had put up an explanation for the events in that they are being used to highlight not only West Virginia strength athletics but also Phil Pfister, the 2006 WSM (no relation). His win is what made me actually start trying this crazy stuff out. So kind of a little extra motivation and why I’m dubbing the training cycle “Make Phil Proud”. Now on to the workout. First thing was block press. Only pressed this thing once before so still learning. Plan was to hit about 90% of what I think I could do taking 20-30lbs jumps like at the show. I had done an EMOM with 202.5lbs with no support gear or real leg drive so no reason why I couldn’t do at least 220lbs right? But it could be tricky getting that clean just right. Forgot about my legs on the first set with the empty block. Had to keep backing up the camera to get the full lift in view. I was surprised how easy this was feeling . I was jokingly thinking I could do over 240lbs which is the WR for under 300lbs at this time. 222lbs went up good too. I had Brian look at it to see if he thought that was 90% and he said no so I went for the next jump. 1lbs over the WR. Chalked up my shirt for the first time of the day (was my usual sweaty mess) since 222lbs had slid down my shirt a little on the clean. Got it up to my shoulders and I knew it was going up. Just couldn’t believe this weight would feel this good. I was expecting it to feel crushing but it didn’t. I think the log chest supports helped that haha. Good place to stop for the day. This might be the only time I can claim an unofficial WR haha. I weighed it to make sure as I had thought it was a few lbs heavier based off of what the block had weighed at the old gym. This scale has it 4lbs lighter so I’ll go off that. After that was deadlifts. This is quite a change from past training cycles having deadlift on Day 3. This was sometimes the case during prep for Refuge Barbell show and SC Nats but it wasn’t for every week like it looks like is the case this training cycle. Wide grip deadlifts for percentages. I had them all planned out but then box squats felt easy and I increased the projected 1rm from 530lbs to 550lbs so I figured maybe I should do that for the other lifts? So added 20lbs to this one too. Wide grip deadlifts this workout. Triples and trying to not use straps. Get that extra grip work in. Only bring in the straps if grip would effect my setup on the lifts to pull as powerfully as possible. Reset each rep. Felt pretty good. Pulled reps with authority. Last set put on my hard belt. Kept it a little looser than I would for regular deadlifts or farmer’s walk and yoke. Getting down to the bar with the belt too tight I think threw me off the last time I did these heavy and went for a single. Think it helped. Grip was taxed but managed to hold on for all the reps on that last set. Took my time to setup the last thing for the day as Brian had to leave and just the powerlifting people. Farmer’s walk into keg load back into farmer’s walk medleys. Just when I started to feel like I was recovering from all the keg and farmer’s stuff haha. But it’s good as I shouldn’t have to push things too much here since contest I just did was heavier, further and higher. Contest is maybe 40’ runs (probably closer to 30’) and keg load over 48”. Well that won’t do so doing 50’ runs and loading the keg over 60”. Keep up good training stimulus for not just this contest but future contests. First set was to do the empty handles for 100’ each. I didn’t make sense to move everything out to the open turf area to do one run to get a 100’ straight shot so I did down and back 50’ before going to the keg and then to the handles again. Keg was nothing. My legs felt heavy even with the empty implements. Might be a challenge today. 202lbs on the handles and swapped out the 150lbs keg for the 200lbs keg. Felt better doing just 50’. I had been thinking in my head the best way to transition between the events and the best I can think is to have the farmer’s go forward on the way down and step back and turn to the keg area and then to load it and jump over the on handle back into the middle and go. Easier said than done. Felt like it was heavy as the contest I just did with the first run with 262lbs. Felt slow and like my hands would rip open. Keg was nothing. Just tossing that sucker over. Then more farmer’s walk. Took a good rest for the second set. This time it felt like it was light and I felt like I was moving. I messed up on the second leg as when I hopped back in between the handles my right foot was actually on the bottom part of the handle and I had to pull it out from under my foot as I lifted it up. So a little off balance isometric work. I forgot that was a thing that could happen on these and I should’ve remembered when I did it training for SC Nats last year. Ended up just under a half second slower. I was very glad to be done. Stretched and home for pizza with family. This was a good week.