Sunday, May 9, 2021

May 8, 2021 – Week 8, Day 4

Mobility Prep
 
Sandbag Tosses (15’)
30x1
35x1
40x1
45x1
45x1
45x0
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1

Safety Squat Bar Dead Squats (2” above parallel)
65x10
155x3
245x3
295x3
335x3
385x3
425x4
372x4
372x4

Duck Walks
200x25’
250x25’
300xpick
300x50’ in 10.76 seconds
350x50’ in 11.03 seconds
400x50’ in 15.44 seconds
400x50’ in 13.63 seconds

Atlas Stone Over Bar (54”, tacky)
240x1
290x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
330x1
310x4
310x4

Glute Ham Raise Negatives (5 seconds)
bwx7 (miscounted)
bwx6
bwx6

Backward Sled Drags (turf, uphill)
335x100’ in 43.83 seconds
335x100’ in 40.18 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: Just can’t seem to get some things figured out. Now I wasn’t feeling so confident in things as I was feeling symptoms of disc pressure (not pain) and I couldn’t understand why until later. I had been a bit stressed the day before with stupid work stuff and stress makes things tense and tense things aren’t good. Stress needed some release. Had no idea what to expect with traffic, plans or the weather for the day going to sleep. At least it seemed like the weather would be ok out in Lancaster if not at home. Turns out no plans I needed to work around outside of my own for the day and no construction driving out. Not sure why construction last week and none this week. So good time out to train. As I’ve been doing, setting up the sandbag toss setup before getting ready to train. I finally got it setup without needing to use the ladder so I was happy with that timesaver. Mobility prep stuff was mostly fine. Again, I’ve just come to accept discomfort in the knees at the start and that it will go away as I do the motions. And that I will also get a bit of a lower back pump on this day too. Now to the work. So the plan on sandbag tosses was to do 8 tosses with 45lbs. The plan here is to get used to more weight, even if it can’t clear 15’. Launching 40lbs higher and higher won’t mean much if I can’t improve on max weight. I feel the two weeks here with that weight were good to get me comfortable with tossing again and consistent. So I needed to see how things would go with 45lbs. I was advised I could lower to 14’ if needed, as long as it was between 14’ and 15’. My thinking here was to aim for 15’ as I know that I’ve been able to clear 14’ with 50lbs in the past with some consistency leading up to the failed attempt at 2019 USS Nats. It was going to depend on how warm-ups went. I did less than I did last week as it felt like I was doing more than needed to feel ready. Did a kind of toss with the 30lbs, 40lbs and 50lbs and a double swing with the 32kgs kettlebell before starting actual target tosses. I was iffy on it until my 40lbs toss went like 2’ above so I figured I had to try 15’ with 45lbs. Now the bags are 30lbs, 40lbs and 50lbs for the Rogue ones and I have the one Cerberus one. I had brought sand so I could increase the weight of that one. My scale at home matches the scale there so that is good. I could tell right away that this was going to be tough as my first toss went over but it clipped the band. Second one smacked the band hard. Third one was a disaster. Now I can’t see what I’m doing spatially until I rewatch the video to see how the toss is going as far as the arc. Video says I had plenty of height but the arc was off and the damn thing landed right on the band. Now I guess I had the band secured too well because instead of giving way, it stayed on and the weight snapped one of the wooden uprights I had. I was distraught that I broke it and was trying to think what to do now. I eventually calmed down and got out my athletic tape and secured the dowel rod as best I could and set the setup back up. I reset the timer and clock to get the remaining tosses. Even though the toss that broke the setup was high enough, it didn’t go over so I didn’t count it as successful and set for 6 more tosses. I also had to set the thing 2” higher as the bag had moved the bands down a bit so not quite at 15’ then without adjusting it. I didn’t want to get the ladder out haha. It wasn’t until after the 3rd to last toss that I realized that I was too far away. I moved a little bit closer and those last two tosses went over no problem. Last one might have been my best one of the day. I’m going to have to be mindful that different bags and different weights may require different setups and positions. Took down the setup fairly quickly and on to the next thing, the ssb squats off pins set just above parallel. I should add that a good bit of the more serious people were there today. So some social distractions while training today after the sandbag tosses. All I can and should really say about it is that I can’t see myself doing these kinds of things if I get to the pro level. No sponsors, just be doing the hard work I’ve been doing for over a decade. Anyways, for the squats, plan was similar to the first week of them in that I was to work up to a top set with 2 reps in the tank, working up in triples and then do some down sets. First week, I wasn’t sure what I was about on these squats as I hadn’t really been pushing squats for (to be honest) years. I had a better idea this time. I had it in my head that I wanted to do 425lbs for this top set of 4 reps. Now working up, that didn’t feel like it was going to happen. Knees were really achy. I think part of it was I forgot to use my support gear earlier on to get ready as with everything set, that weight was great and might have actually been light. Part of it may have been having the music cut-out three times before I got it to stay on (sound system cut sout if it gets too loud). Down sets were just ok, not as much effort needed on them since I’ve done more for sets the week before. So next thing was duck walk. I had ordered replacement spring lock pins for the handles so I didn’t have to makeshift something with whatever I could find to jam in the peg and tape up. So for this time, plan was to warm up and do 4 runs, one each of 300lbs and 350lbs and then two at 400lbs. I had bought knee sleeves to were on my calves to hopefully minimize the contact bruising.  There is still some (and more so on the right leg) but it is a lot less. 300lbs and 350lbs felt like nothing. Which is good as they should be. 350lbs is probably contest weight for the next two shows (yes, I signed up for another one 6 weeks after this upcoming one). The jump to 400lbs on that first run was stark. I wasn’t expecting it to be that difficult. Expectations adjusted and made the second run much better. Then it was stones. Not feeling as much pressure as last time. Part of it being that it was just EMOM singles and that there was no AMRAP. I think only concern I had was my biceps had been feeling tight this week. Not much to say here on stones. Still able to do the style of loading I did last session with this weight. I didn’t need to really bother anyone for assistance since it was singles and I can get enough rest between those bringing it back. Only minor issues. The music was loud so I missed the beep for the first single and I had to keep checking to see on some singles. Rubber matting was a little uneven and I was trying to avoid that but needed have space for other people doing stone to platform. I misjudged how much tacky I was using so I’ll need to order more and a larger jar of it to last through now to competition. Only one of the singles (7th) was not as good as I’d like as I was too close to the bar and had to kind of lean back and then up to clear the bar. Then after a decent rest, 2 sets of 4 with 310lbs. This was easy and comfortable. Trying to go fast. I realize that I may be moving too much with how aggressively I’m loading it over the bar as Ideally I should be able to stay in the same spot but that isn’t that big of a deal right now. Had a slight bobble on the last rep of the last set. I caught it off center and rather than fight it up, I set it back down and regripped it. Had to clean up before finishing off the session. Glute ham raise negatives. I was expecting these to be harder considering how they felt last week. But no, I guess either stones warm them up better or I’m getting stronger. These had uneven rests as I had to assist with other things and while I was away, another gym patron took over that area. I did end up miscounting the first set and did an extra one. Sled dragging to finish up the day. It started raining torrentially at this point so I had closed up the storm doors. Plan was to do 10lbs more than last time I did these (2x100’) and take 1 minute less rest between them. I setup two sleds as it was easier than resetting the course with a set rest period. I went up 15lbs as it was easier just putting 3 100lbs plates on the sleds. These felt comfortable. No weird knee issues this time. These were actually faster than my runs last time. Decompressed by putting stuff away and stretching before driving home to clean up and eat pot roast.


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