Sunday, March 28, 2021

March 27, 2021 – Week 2, Day 4

Mobility Prep
 
Heel Elevated Safety Squat Bar Bulgarian Split Squats (3-0-3-0 tempo)
bwx3/3
15’sx3/3 (kettlebells)
65x8/8
68x8/8
70x8/8
72x8/8

Titan Fitness Farmer’s  Holds (20” pick)
135x5 seconds
185x5 seconds
225x5 seconds
275x5 seconds
315x5 seconds
365x16.69 seconds
315x30.45 seconds
325x32.54 seconds

Power Keg Loads Over Bar (62”)
144x1
193.5x1
244x1
284x1
319x1
319x1
319x1
319x1
319x1
319x0
319x1
319x1
319x1
319x1
319x1

Sandbag Carries (turns at 50’)
313x100’ in 22.33 seconds
313x100’ in 21.60 seconds

Treadmill Backwards Pushes
3 minutes
3 minutes

Stretching
 
Comments: This was another long one. To be expected really when it comes to doing event type training. Always has been. Session began and ended thinking about mortality and strongman. Little bits of motivation but half the time I can’t tell if I’m fueling a passion or an illness. I slept well so that was a good start. So starting off with movement prep stuff. Legs and core. Stepdowns didn’t like my knees today. No issues with anything else. Better balance on the b-stance rdls and didn’t feel quite as bad fatigue wise on the core stuff for my lagging side. Stepdowns did feel slightly better the second go through. Hoping that they don’t complain too much (especially the right one). So on to lifting. As I mentioned last week, I was really not looking forward to the first exercise of the day. Split squats with tempo. My legs had just finally gotten over the soreness from last week (which was exacerbated by push pressing I think haha).  I hoped though that since I’ve done them once, I’ll have some adaptation to it and it won’t be as rough. Plan being 4x8 again and aim for same level of intensity. Tips for this time was to start with lagging side (now that I know) and to take full rests between sides so that full effort given. I also made a purchase of a foot rest with a rolling pad that was ergonomic for the back foot so didn’t have to worry about balancing on the bench. That was a game changer. These honestly went a lot smoother this go around. I actually felt comfortable enough to add weights to the bar (very tiny weights). Didn’t start feeling the leg shaking fatigue until the very last set. No cramping during the sets either. I can definitely see that there is a tightness difference between the sides but actually seemed about even strength wise this time around. So after that was heavy stuff. Farmer’s holds, working same schema as the behind the back holds from last week, plan was 15 seconds with 1-2 seconds in the tank followed by 2 sets of 30 seconds with 3-5 seconds in the tank. I’m a bit better with gauging seconds in the tank with farmer’s handles but depends on the day and how the handles sit in the hand. The thing that is tricky here is that I can hold on to stuff well above what I can actually lift. With the behind the back lift, I can elevate the bar high enough that no really lower body effort involved and the weak link is the grip. Depending on the pick height with farmer’s, I can potentially not even get the weight off the ground but if raised up a little, I can pick it and hold it for a good bit of time. So the advisement for this was to have the pick height be 18-20”. So that lead me to using the little wood platforms and the crash pads. I was uncertain. One, I’ve never tried to pick up anything heavier than 650lbs total on these handles before and this weight had not felt good in the hand with the makeshift frame grip despite being elevated to 28” pick. I didn’t use chalk for the warm-ups and working up sets. I guess I like to have that knowledge that I add that and my grip will be solid. My rehband belt of 11yrs (literally to this date) had a piece of it break. I can still use it. I tend to hold on to things until they no longer function. Maybe that says something about me? 315lbs felt a bit harder than I would’ve liked. My hands were a little sweaty and the these handles are slick where there is no knurling (and I hate knurling on farmer’s handles). So began that period of figuring out where to go from here. I told myself I had to try heavier. The plan I had in my head had been to give 365lbs an honest shot. But that didn’t seem likely. I’ve built a lot of worries into myself this past year. Worries I can’t recover from training, that putting my all into it will result in me having to dial things back for a month or more. Lack of confidence in my grip strength and just my body in general. The same stuff I’ve been feeling since 2019. So talked myself into going for 355lbs a hand. But right as I was about to go, I remembered that I am able to still do this stuff. Life and death haven’t stopped me yet. And there are so many that no longer can do this sport. So I put the extra 10lbs on and got set. The pick was really fricken’ hard but I got it locked out. I thought I’d drop like right away with how hard the grind to lockout felt but once I was there, I felt pretty darn solid. Honestly, I felt more in control of the weight in my hands then I did with the behind the back grip last week. So then the downsets. 315lbs I think was a little too light so I added 5lbs per side for the second set with 30 seconds. That was about right. Heavy stuff but not done yet. Still got a good bit of work left to do. So next up was keg loads. It has been 2.5yrs since I last did one. So I was going to be a little rusty I’m sure. The plan here was to do 70-75% of a casual keg load for 10x1 EMOM. However, I wasn’t really sure what that would even be for me. I’ve never attempting a keg heavier than 354lbs and that had been for height prepping for an event. I had commented to myself that I could probably do a 450lbs keg earlier this year despite my deadlift feeling like crap. So initially, I was thinking I guess 245-265lbs to be that percentage of 354lbs. But after talking with Drew, that number was drastically more. The suggestion then had been doing the load to 54-58” and aim for low to mid 300’s or keep it at 62” and do between 300lbs – 320lbs. So that changed this considerably. Only keg I’ve touched in the past 2yrs has been 215lbs to 296lbs. So this was going to be interesting. I did at least remember that it was going to scrape the crap out of my shins and bruise my arms. Taped my thumbs as I remembered that was a spot that sometimes got rubbed raw. Warming up was necessary but felt weird. Keg loads are weird in that the pick is usually the hardest part followed by standing up with it. The lap and extension are super easy for me. At least when I remember how to grip the keg. Those first six lifts, I was jamming my thumb into the lip to support. Learned that after I got off balance on the sixth attempt that my thumb was too fatigued to stay stable and lost it. I escaped the keg that time. I felt like such an idiot when I realized I just had to grip with the meaty part of my palm and the lift got easy. Almost done. So next up was sandbag carries. Medium bag for two sets of 100’, turn at 50’. I was advised to do picks to warm-up but I didn’t. After doing a baker’s dozen of lifts that were essentially that, I figured that I’d just be burning my back out more for the actual sets. Had a discussion on what constitutes a medium bag. As fairly recently I was doing runs with my 313lbs bag and sprints with my 275lbs bag. I was told either one works, this was more to make sure I didn’t forget how to move with weight. As if I would. I did. Holy hell was my posterior chain just wrecked by this point. The picks were pretty hard considering and I moved really slow. I tried to go fast but my fast just wasn’t there. Last thing for the day was to be a lot of sled drags. Light weight for 3 minutes, rest and then 3 minutes again. I elected to do the treadmill stuff I had been doing as a warm-up previously as about the same thing and purpose but a lot less worry about setup and avoiding cars and people. 3 minutes feels a lot longer than 2 minutes. But the same can be said for the 3 minutes rests too. I was a very sweaty person by the end of this. Ate big dinner and stretched before icing my knees. Got to keep my recovery up for next week.


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