August 18, 2018 – Week 4, 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
123.5x1
143x1
172x1
191.5x1
223x1
242x1
270x0
270x0
270x0

Deadlifts
135x5
277x2
338x2
400x2
Added Straps
461x2
523x0

18” I-Beam Farmer’s Walk (turns at 25’)
117x50’ in 10.42 seconds
202x50’ in 13.67 seconds
252x50’ in 14.98 seconds

Mouser Block Carry (off floor, turns at 50’)
270x100’
324.5x100’
374x225’

22” I-Beam Farmer’s Hold
297xpick
352x30.14 seconds

Stretching

Comments: Right side abs still bothering me. Might be an oblique strain. Upper back just feels wrecked from this week of heavy rows and log supports. Wanted to get to bed at a reasonable hour to get out to train and with it thunderstorming off and on, I just cooked dinner rather than go for a walk after work Friday. Out to Lancaster to train. Bike again to warm-up. Comfort wise this is good now but my legs felt heavy. Calf stuff was good; felt nice and springy. Goblet box squats were ok, no aches at all. Moved nice and easy but some tightness in my abs on the right side. Holding up high may be the way to go on these. RDLs were good. Hamstrings felt good, no aches in my joints. Band rows were easy. Push ups felt great today. The plank was easy but tense in my right side. Biceps stretch felt good. No issues with hip swings. I was regretting not bringing more than one towel for sweat today. Block press again. Top single this session. I wanted to mimic contest conditions by doing alternating 20lbs and 30lbs jumps. Empty block was easy. Next jumps I was sloppy but it was light enough for me to shove up to lockout. I made sure it was better after that. My lower back wasn’t feeling so great after the first three lifts when I went for 191.5lbs. Not pain, it just felt like a little “hitch” trying to stand up straight like I do on some sets and I just stayed low and lapped it. With how the sets went, I felt like 270lbs was going to happen. The clean felt good on the first one and I got excited that it was going to happen. But I went for the drive after a little hesitation and it dipped forward so I had to adjust again. More time up there, the less likely this will happen. I gave it two shots and it just wasn’t there. This was like with 260.5lbs two weeks ago so I figured I’d try again. Good clean again but I hesitated again on the leg drive. Came back down and hit me in the throat so I just dropped it. I really wanted to hit this weight. Hey I got 260.5lbs on the third try so why not do it again? Last attempt was the least close of my attempts so that was it for today. At least I hit over 90% so not a total waste and I can clean 270lbs easy enough. Still bummed and pissed about it. After that was deadlifts. Plan was to do the same thing as the wide grip stuff with same percentages. That didn’t happen. This sucked. Every lift felt 100lbs more than what was on the bar. I just felt like I had no hamstrings. Needed my straps for after 400lbs and that double with 461lbs felt like near my limits. I thought maybe I was just babying things with my oblique and was feeling down because of block press misses (and other things) so I loaded up the weight for the planned top double. I might have broken it off the floor but it was not happening today. Hit that wall hard. It usually feels like there is some build up to it but past two training cycles it’s come on hard after 3 weeks of hard training. Even with modifying my intensity. It is discouraging to miss a weight I’ve repped in training but I can trust the process and know that I need to make the most of my recovery for this contest. It was really tough mentally to keep going with the workout after that. Farmer’s walk next. Short runs with turns, same weights as the past two weeks. I was not the fastest off the start those first two sets. I feel I was better on the turns but I was slow on my pick and with picking up speed on the first half. I was just over a second slower on both of the two warm-up runs. I made a point to try for a larger turn radius and starting it earlier. The other thing was having my right wrist rotate against the handles upon exiting the turn to keep it going straight. Things seemed to come together for the last run at least as that over half a second faster this time. Then it was block carry time. I wasn’t looking forward to this. This was going to be ugly. Two warm-up carries and then time for contest weight for max distance. 270lbs was still in the block from the presses so that worked out great for the first one. Adding 50lbs wasn’t going to mean it was 320lbs so I added 5lbs to make sure that the final weight was going to be 370lbs or more. That weight felt hard to pick up, like how 350ish felt last week. I was not optimistic about the next weight. I wasn’t even sure I could get the stupid thing into my lap with how beat I was feeling. But I got it up and was moving. I was like deliriously tired as I wasn’t sure how far I was going, like 100’ plus or minus from what I was doing off. It appears I was around the 200’ mark and I felt my legs could keep going but my grip was maxing out. 225’ on the dot. I had been hoping that I would’ve been able to beat last session’s distance but not with how I was feeling today. This had been the last thing of the day last time but not this week. Farmer’s holds again. Trying to beat last week’s time. I did a pick before going for 352lbs so that it wasn’t such a shock. Also wanted make sure I could even pick it up at this point. My upper back was done done and that mean my grip had to work overtime. When my upper back is strong and healthy, it seems to take stress off my grip. My hands hurt immediately picking up the handles and it felt like a struggle just existing. Big difference from last week where I held it for the time I did with maybe 10 seconds left going to the max. This time I had to go to the max and I felt short by about a second of matching last week’s time. I was done at this point. Hands and body hurt. Felt like the weight of the empty implements were double putting them back. Stretched before driving home to clean up. Hopefully I recovery fully for this contest.