Personal Inventory, State of Things and Plans

This is going to be a long post. Short of it is I took about a month off from injury to my back and I’m going to try and do my own programming.

Another injury, another setback. Well maybe the same injury. It is frustrating. I think from that frustration, I wanted to take some control back on things. Don’t get me wrong, having coaching has been beyond helpful. Learned a lot about myself and how stuff goes. So timeline here is that no injuries since the big one in 2016. Then December 2018, I aggravate it doing off season training. Almost think about stopping and probably pushing through things to compete on the world stage. I got there but fell well short of my expectations. Fighting for inches of progress while seeing others lap yours.

It took a lot to convince myself to try this thing again after I injured my shoulder being lazy on sandbag toss. I think that even with that injury (still have it) I could’ve competed at USS Nationals in June. But I was scared. The thought of bombing another 300lbs (or more) log press in competition made me want to recoil into my own skull. I’ve only recently gotten over that with my training leading up to the NY Record Breakers contest. So the idea had been do things for fun, don’t worry about big shows. See if that didn’t exacerbate my anxiety and keep me from contemplating if I’d reached my peak 8yrs ago and had just been battling waves since. Training was fun and interesting. But it wasn’t great in that things weren’t optimal and it didn’t help matters when I fractured my one finger. But I had a great competition and had two more to come up.

But it was too much. I push too hard if not made to rest and it seems that this again aggravated the injury. I tried to work through it. Doing what I could for recovery and trying to eat lot too. It was literally up until the night before the contest before I decided to withdraw from it. I had gone to a charity event (that I had thought was going to be 30 minutes at most) that ended up being 2.5hrs and all that standing bothered my back and I just freaked out at the end as I knew I had to admit that I was injured and I wasn’t ok. Accepting injury can make things more present. Been blocking some of it because I was in that “I’m going to compete” mode. I ended up having to withdraw from the other contest I had planned this year as well.

I knew I was going to feel down and last time, working on my own training program (in theory) seemed to help me get out of it. Like a puzzle to solve. I did make one but it was not workable for other things and I gave up on it and went back for coaching again. But this time I really wanted to figure things out. I make one, I can then make several. I’d be responsible. I had already signed up for NY Strong-est Man in January and I didn’t want to pull out of another contest I’ve paid for. However, this gave me a possible deadline to be well enough. I’d have to be ready to start training by 10/22/19 and have the plan finalized by then too. I had looked at other contests as plans was actually looking at a mid-February show that was local too. However, this is the proposed plan for 2020:

NY Strong-est Man – 1/18/20 – White Plains, NY (USS) 13 weeks out

Press Ladder (axle,log,axle,log) – 260lbs/275lbs/290lbs/305lbs or 315lbs/330lbs/345lbs/360lbs

Deadlift – 600lbs or 725lbs, no suits

Frame Carry & Drag – 700lbs or 800lbs, 60’ course

Max Distance Sandbag Carry – 300lbs, turns at 60’, 60 seconds limit

Atlas Stone Over Bar – 335lbs or 400lbs, 54” bar height

Delaware’s Strongest – 4/4/20 – Rehoboth Beach, DE (SC) 11 weeks out

Max Circus Dumbbell – 10lbs jumps, Wessel rules

Car Deadlift – TBD, no suits, up and down commands, side handle

Sandbag Toss – TBD

Max Distance Husafel Carry – 350lbs, turns at 50’

Keg Over Bar – 350lbs, 52” bar height

USS Nationals – 6/27/20 – Minneapolis, MN (USS) 12 weeks out

Press Medley (log/axle) – 270lbs/280lbs or 280lbs/300lbs, back and forth, start on either

Deadlift for Reps – 645lbs or 685lbs, no suits, touch and go allowed

Farmer’s Walk – 285lbs or 305lbs, 100’ course, turn at 50’

Husafell & Sandbag Carry – 325lbs/275lbs or 350lbs/300lbs, 50’ each, run back for 2nd implement

Stone Carry and Load – 300lbs/320lbs/340lbs or 320lbs/340lbs/360lbs, 56” bar, staggered distances (15’/10’/5’)

SC Nationals – 10/15-18/20 – Montgomery, AL (SC) 16 weeks out

TBD

I had originally signed up for NY Strong-est Man purely because the open SHW class winner qualifies for the Arnold contest in Canada in July. But most of those weights are beyond me, even healthy. I had signed up for under 275lbs class as it was lighter and if I felt things were going well, maybe try the SHW stuff. That was before injury. The new plan is to get strong and healthy-ish and try to compete in that weight class to qualify for USS Nationals. I’ve already qualified but as under 308lbs. USS has a HW and SHW with weight differences. Most events aren’t bad but the deadlift is without a suit and I know I’m not there. I’d have to pull an all-time best. So plan is to have options, depending on how the rest of 2019 and first half of 2020 is. Then comes Delaware’s Strongest Man. That is to hopefully qualify for SC Nationals. SC Nats has more spots open for the Arnold amateur and I’d like to get back there for some redemption. So that pretty much would mean about 12 weeks between the definite shows and then 16 weeks for SC Nats.

So now for a training plan. Trying to put pieces from the different things I done. I felt my strongest on my overhead in 2015-2016. I had done 300lbs for a clean and press double on log on a difficult log at Nationals and managed 200lbs circus dumbbell for almost a triple the next day. But I even hit a 320lbs axle clean and press in competition and was darn close with 340lbs. However, I feel that I was slower than I am now on things. My technique has gotten better and I’ve been timing stuff. The pressing was from a lot of volume and two upper body days a week. This would mean four workouts a week. I’ve been doing three a week for years now. Ideally I’d have a few weeks to get used to the change but things aren’t ideal. The split:

Day 1 – Upper body (heavier overhead focus and accessories)

Day 2 – Lower body (squats and events)

Day 3 – Upper body (heavier bench focus and accessories)

Day 4 – Lower body (deadlifts and events)

The workouts will also have mandatory deloads setup for every 4 weeks. I’ve noticed when I go heavy and have the same exercise, three weeks of it is about where I can go before I drop off. Previous training has been setup so that no deload needed until competition peak and it has worked well but that is also a lot more rotation of stuff and less volume. I think that the less volume has let me put it all out there in one go but has made it difficult for me to repeat. Like a matchstick, can only light it once. Sometimes it can take until the third set for me to be moving optimally. So something that is placed out at say 9 or 13 weeks would be ideal, otherwise, I’d need to modify the deloads to get it right. Like a semi deload. Also going to take a week off after the contests too.

I’m hoping to get my brute strength up in the overhead press by building up my shoulders, chest and triceps. I’m trying to be very mindful with exercise selections and testing things out. I’ve had to toss things that were possibly more dangerous to recovery efforts. Right now, event training volume will be mostly low since I’ve been doing it a lot and I can generally get a good deal out of it. The building block stuff is going to be the harder stuff. Building up the overhead on log and axle and deadlift. Deadlift really needs to come up and I’m trying out ideas that have worked recently as well as ideas I’ve wanted to try. Planning for this workout is lots of volume at the start and decrease as closer to peak.

So let’s see how things go. I’m usually very cautious about indicating my plans for competition or goals at competitions as things happen. This could all crash and burn within the next month. Who knows but I guess I have to give it a try. I got a fire burning still.