October 27, 2018 – Week 7, 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

Stone of Steel Over Bar (60”)
138x1
185.5x1
234.5x1
280x0
280x1
336x1 PR+6lbs & 2.5”
EMOM
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1
302x1

Wide Grip Axle Hang

BWx25.75 seconds

Prowler 2 Drags/Pushes (turf)
145x93’/93’
165x93’/93’
185x93’/93’
205x93’/93’
225x93’/93’

Stretching

Comments: Body and mind beat. I was tired and had been getting maybe 6-6.5hrs of sleep a night. I had wished two people competing at SC Nats good luck, forgetting the competition isn’t until Saturday. It had started to rain when I left work so I figured I’d just get dinner ready. Ended up breaking another desk chair at home, despite being 70lbs under the max weight limit. I’m not that heavy damn it. I already had a plan to wake up at 8:30AM so I just set that for my alarm, not having to deal with getting up a lot like usual. Wet and cold in the morning but made good time for the gym. I had brought stuff to fix and make sandbags. Quite a few people there today, but not the owners so not really able to do anything to make a 300lbs sandbag. Left lower calf has been getting crampy since Friday night for some reason. Not sure why. I had used the car buffer on it before leaving to keep it from cramping while driving. Knees sore too and right shoulder tight and achy. Warmed up on the exercise bike. Felt good today. Probably the Kendrick Lamar playing of the sound system. Calves felt good after that. Just very tight. No knee issues on goblets today. RDLs felt better today too. Band rows were super easy. Trying to pull to feel how my shoulder structure is moving on the right side. Push-ups were not the best. Right shoulder aches initially but I can manage. Plank is nothing really at this point. Biceps stretches felt good. Needed it today. Hip swings were ok too. Time to lift the weights. Stone of Steel is here again. Sticking with it since it allows me to work my weak point on stone lifting and odds are high real stones won’t show up at the Arnold. Not to say this doesn’t make me nervous. I’ve had two injuries on the SOS. The back one and the arm one. Back from bad programing and the arm one more that I was being stupid with my lifting and grip slipped. I don’t blame it on the SOS. Still makes me nervous sometimes. Ok, most times. Plan was to do 50lbs jumps this time. Working on the form adjustment I made last time right from the start. I definitely need a few lifts to get ready as I feel like I’m going to black out after the first two singles from how much I crush the stone and extension to the top of my chest. I weighed it before every set to make sure I had the weights right. 280lbs I made a mistake. It was easy enough off the floor but I kept it too low and didn’t bother to adjust it or my stance and short changed the load. That was on me, sloppy mistake. Would’ve gone over my old bar height of 57” but not 60”. Even though it was easy lift, I redid it before moving on. Had to get it for real before moving up. 280lbs appears to be the most I can put in the SOS with just 25lbs plates before it hits the top and bottom support structures so I switched to 45lbs plates to go on. I had in my head that my best no grip assist lift on this was 335lbs so I put in weights to make it just 1lbs more. I was apparently off by 5lbs so this would be a 6lbs and 2.5” PR if I got it. Risky considering how much trouble 314lbs gave me three weeks ago. I got set, Rhianna was playing, and I gave it a go. Felt like I had some resistance picking it up but I knew I had it unless I underestimated how well I can crush and extend at the same time. And over it went. Yeah. Then it was time for the EMOM with 302lbs. I elected to continue with no assistance stuff. My receiver gloves are missing and I didn’t bring my grip shirt. Putting on tacky towel might make it hard to get an honest grip time for the axle bar hang after this. First rep felt good and tough. Underestimated things on the second one and it ended up being a bit more lower back on the extension as I didn’t square my stance and bring it in. Every lift I went up and beyond for the extension. Quite pleased with how this went. Axle bar hang for time after that. I just had a feeling it was going to be tough today to even match my previous time. My thumbs were still feeling sore from circus dumbbell. I guess the increased weight and the solid steel handle make a difference. I got set and I knew right away that this was going to be a fight to even get past 10 seconds. I just crushed with everything I had. My upper body from my lats to my fingers was in on this. In the end, I was just under a second shy of my time last session. Still good in that this was another session going over 20 seconds. This one is so fickle in that some weeks it feels great and others it is a struggle to improve. I guess that is going to be the case when you are pushing the grip to the max. Prowler on the turf to end the day. Goal was to improve on the weight from last time. It was raining so the doors were closed which meant that if I went with my usual length of tow rope for the drag, I would be short about 3’ so I figured I’d fold the lines in half so that I could get the full length done. I took my time on the rests periods for these. During the breaks, I checked on how my friends were doing at Nats, checking in with Mike, and fixing up the sandbag stuff. This was the heaviest I’ve started the sled with on the turf. The third set, someone was doing a conditioning circuit so I had to keep to the right a bit more than usual. Ended up running over a cone so had some additional friction working against me near the end. Had to toss it aside to push it back. Thankfully, the push portion didn’t really bother my shoulder as it was more when I got that initial start to move it rather than arms extended. Final set I had  to wait a little as some people came in with their horse like dog and they pulled out the conan’s wheel. That was definitely a tougher run but still good. Before I left, I tried out some other exercises to see if I could find stuff to work the chest muscles without bothering the shoulder. I’m hoping some rest and recovery will help. May need to see the chiropractor after work Monday if still an issue. Home to stretch and recover. Events for the Arnold are supposed to be announced Sunday night allegedly.