Mobility Prep
Sandbag Tosses (15’)
30x1
40x1
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
Sandbag Tosses (15’)
30x1
40x1
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
50x0
Paused Safety Squat Bar Squats (2 seconds)
75x3
125x3
165x3
215x3
255x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
75x3
125x3
165x3
215x3
255x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
305x3
Keg Carry & Duck Walk Medleys
150x25’/220x25’
150x25’/220x25’
200x25’/310x25’
200x25’/310x25’
250x50’/400x50’ in 30.36 seconds
250x50’/400x50’ in 29.39 seconds
250x50’/400x50’ in 29.64 seconds
150x25’/220x25’
150x25’/220x25’
200x25’/310x25’
200x25’/310x25’
250x50’/400x50’ in 30.36 seconds
250x50’/400x50’ in 29.39 seconds
250x50’/400x50’ in 29.64 seconds
Atlas Stone Over Bar (54”, tacky)
240x1
290x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
240x1
290x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
345x1
Atlas Stone Roll-ups (tacky)
310x5
310x12
310x5
310x12
Lying Leg Curls
45x3
90x15
105x15
115x15
45x3
90x15
105x15
115x15
Stretching
Comments: Maybe the news from Thursday evening still weighing on my psyche. My body and mind felt sluggish and heavy Friday. Since this training cycle started, I’ve maybe felt like I was having shin splints while doing my walks on my off-days two or three times. Never been to the point where I had to reconsider my footwear like I did in months past. But it felt like that with my walk Friday. I also may need to stop trying new restaurants on Friday nights and move that to say Saturday or Sunday. More that I have to train earlier in the day for event work compared to other days that are after my work shift. I won’t be eating from that Mexican food place again. I’ve never had a “greasy” burrito or taco before haha. Now that it is June, the temperature has decided it is time to be boiling. Every day after today this coming week is to be at least 90 and potentially record highs for this time of year. Going to need to bring out the fans for training now. I need to get used to this as I know both upcoming shows will be partially or fully outdoors. No breeze today. I got there and setup for sandbag toss again. Movement prep remains about the same. Discomfort on the right knee for the stepdowns, discomfort on the left knee for the Cossack squats and lower back pump from the other two haha. Again, this is something I’ve come to expect and adjust my expectations accordingly as I know it gets better. It was damn hot and I was wondering if I should’ve brought another 3L bottle of water with me (I had my 3L of BCAAs and a 3L of water) and more towels (3 with me). For sandbag toss, the plan was 10 tosses to contest height with 45-50lbs. I was feeling confident after last week with working my extension. It was not to be. Now I did start out ok with my warm-ups. I got it right with the 30lbs bag and it was like I did a toss and at the top of it did a volleyball set as it went like 6’ above the target. 40lbs was also a good one but not quite as dramatic a toss. Then it fell apart. I probably should’ve seen the sign of one of my shoelaces breaking as a harbinger of the things to come (I always got spare shoelaces in my first aid kit haha). Another competitor training for the same show was working in with me and the 40lbs for him is like the 50lbs for me right now. One of his tosses with 40lbs hit the setup just right coming back down and snapped the one busted wooden rod. So had to stop and repair that. I didn’t do any warm-ups after that as I never really cooled down from how hot it was but probably should’ve to make sure my form was on point. I was too close and the 50lbs bag got caught in the band and snapped both uprights. This required some more repairs as I didn’t want to give up on training. Maybe my thoughts were of urgency seeing as how the standard is being pushed even higher with Nats being 1.5ft higher. Measured stuff (using a measuring wheel as I couldn’t locate my measuring tape) and tried the setup again. I again broke it but not enough for me to stop so I just moved over to the none broken one and then that one snapped and I was just done. Now I had nothing to do a toss over for the day (and I was going to need to by replacements). I had lost track of how many attempts I had made and decided I’d just do max tosses with the 50lbs bag using the roof as a backdrop. I ended up doing 11 tosses by the end of it. Hopefully I can get stuff to arrive in time to make a new setup. The owners do have something but they haven’t set it up as it is a pain in the ass and may require replacements. I also think it is less broken to breakage as the crossbar is able to swing and move. But I usually get there after they leave and odds are they won’t set it up unless people start qualifying and training for SC Nats. I was pissed off with myself and just wanted to be out of the sun. I was seriously thinking about calling it a day out of frustration but I told myself that it was just one thing. One thing out of 12 weeks of training that didn’t go how I wanted it to. And it had been an aggressive self-imposed plan to try and do 10 tosses at that height with that weight when I barely got 2 tosses a few weeks ago for a big lifetime PR. Be humble. I was just glad to be inside with some cover from the sun and some fans blowing. Squats with the SSB again. Pauses this time for 5x3 like I did that first week with them. 10lbs more. There was no restriction last time about wearing a belt but I didn’t wear one as I was thinking it was a semi-deload. I wore one this time. I was advised to do just 2ct pauses and not to just rest on my calves. Oops. I tend to do that with pauses or anything where I go that far down. Never saw a reason to be struggling and straining things that don’t need to be. I used to sit in a full squat all the time when I was younger as it just was relaxing to me. Not as easy now obviously but I can still do it. I wasn’t sure if I could really make myself strain in the pause but I figured that I had to try. I can if I don’t go fully down all the way like I did that first week. I need to keep it just shy so that I don’t stop loading the muscles and joints. Knees get quite a bit of work doing pauses on pause squats correctly. I felt good warming up and those first two work sets. The third set was where I got a little concerned. On the descent that first rep as I was trying to control so that I got things tensed right, I felt that braking sensation I have when I slow the eccentric give way on the left knee. It startled me. This is like what happened with my right triceps that one session with the extensions where I couldn’t keep the negatives the right pace. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t nearly as abrupt on the following reps. My anterior tib muscles did feel like they had done a substantial amount of work on the left side after the set and the following sets. I seemed to control it better on the following two sets but still present. It is a little similar to how things feel with the Cossack squats when I don’t do a bunch of things beforehand to warm-up. I wasn’t sure how it would go with other stuff today. My hope and thinking is that this was just a new stress being imposed on the knees that they haven’t really had done before and they will adapt and be stronger for it. So next thing was duck walk but not exactly. Now is where the pieces of the medley come together. So plan here was to do keg and then duck walk for a few sets. Still don’t have details on the weights for the medley for the upcoming show but I do for the show about 6 weeks afterwards. That event has 300lbs keg into 350lbs duck walk. My training for today was to work up to 3 sets with 250lbs keg into 400lbs duck walk. My hope here is that I’ve been working over comp weight on the duck walk for both shows as that part of it is brutal. And I can see how the 100’ run from two weeks ago helped prepare for the fatigue of doing the duck walk secondary in the medley. I did the short run warm-ups and tried to be a bit smarter with the choices in weight jumps on the duck walk. I was tempted to do a pick with 400lbs but I figured with how the warm-ups went, that the run with the keg seemed to serve as enough of a warm-up to prepare for the duck walk pick. Plan was to try and be faster each run and work on transitions. Honestly, it was so damn hot that I was going by instinct and not thinking too much. I was just trying to finish these and not make mistakes like dropping either. On the keg, I feel like I put a limiter on myself here. For the one show, I’m to put the keg in the sled and the other show I have to set it down upright on a mat. In both cases, I’ll need to slow down near the end to control that so that I don’t overshoot the distance. Course for both is 40’ at comp which is about how long it takes for me to build up to max speed. I’m finding that I need to start with a narrower stance on the initial pick of the duck walk and then shift to the wider stance as I move. That duck walk felt slow. I was out of breath after that first run but it came back quick. I just knew that it would get worse as the sets went on. I stood in front of one the large industrial floor fans to cool down before doing the second set. That one went better, almost a second faster. I felt like I’d hurl after that one. So again, more standing in front of the fan. Needed to get this third set done. Fatigue was building and I didn’t beat the second set time but it was close. After that was done, I needed a few moments to rehydrate and cool off as best as I could before going on to stones. It has been a while since I’ve done stones in hot weather. And it can be very frustrating when stuff isn’t cooperating. The plan for today was do 5 singles EOMOM style with 345lbs and then do stone roll-ups. First part pretty straight forward, it just depend on things I can control and things I can’t. Singles so not a problem with having it over bar. Never used the 345lbs 21” diameter stone. I only mention that as the other stones I’ve been using have been 20” or less. Right biceps was feeling tight today and not sure if that is from just the heat this whole week or from training. Stone seemed balanced and just had a spot where it was dusty on the bottom so I made sure that was facing my stomach so that my grip in my arms and hands was good. I was a little tentative due to the right biceps but this was pretty solid. Still doing the quick pick and lap and just doing the amount needed to clear. I probably could’ve done EMOM style. Last single I stood away from the stone to attack and load. This had been suggested to make the lifting tougher for all singles but with how I was mentally and physically feeling by this point at the start it didn’t seem like a good idea tempting fate but I felt like I was good by the end. Just 30lbs off contest weight. Next thing was dropping down to the 310lbs stone for roll-ups. I think I’ve only attempted these once in training for a plat plus show in 2013 with a carry and load event and I maybe did 3 reps total. Plan here was a set of 5 and then a set of max until I slowed down or needed to take a breather or readjust. There was a lot of tacky on this stone. I got set and it was bit hard to breath with the stone there but I think I got it figured out that first set. But there was so much tacky that when I went to drop it, it took about half my hair on my belly with it. I figured off how that set felt, I could do 12-15 reps on the rep set. I was standing in front of the fan after the EOMOM to cool off and same after the first set of roll-ups. I felt like I could keep going but the stone was slipping down further in my arms so that it wasn’t getting much ROM so I stopped. If I was able to stop and readjust, I’d of kept on going and going. It will be interesting to see how these are implemented further. Fairly big change to the end of the session. I had to clean up the stone stuff first obviously. In the past, it has been hamstring work and then sled drag. No sled drag this week. Hamstring work was no longer GHRs but machine lying leg curls. Never done them with a plateloaded machine so I wasn’t sure what I could do and each model is different. So I was a bit surprised I could handle 90lbs so well. It felt light at the start but generally hamstring seem to fatigue quickly so it could have been enough. But I guess all the banded hamstring stuff for high reps has made them better. I kept adding weight each set and I think finally got it to the right difficulty by the end. Put stuff away and stretched before driving home with the AC blasting. I again sat in front of a fan to cool off before finally cleaning up and then eating pot roast for dinner. Iced my knees and just hoped I had a good and restful sleep as it is going to be a rough and hot week.
Comments: Maybe the news from Thursday evening still weighing on my psyche. My body and mind felt sluggish and heavy Friday. Since this training cycle started, I’ve maybe felt like I was having shin splints while doing my walks on my off-days two or three times. Never been to the point where I had to reconsider my footwear like I did in months past. But it felt like that with my walk Friday. I also may need to stop trying new restaurants on Friday nights and move that to say Saturday or Sunday. More that I have to train earlier in the day for event work compared to other days that are after my work shift. I won’t be eating from that Mexican food place again. I’ve never had a “greasy” burrito or taco before haha. Now that it is June, the temperature has decided it is time to be boiling. Every day after today this coming week is to be at least 90 and potentially record highs for this time of year. Going to need to bring out the fans for training now. I need to get used to this as I know both upcoming shows will be partially or fully outdoors. No breeze today. I got there and setup for sandbag toss again. Movement prep remains about the same. Discomfort on the right knee for the stepdowns, discomfort on the left knee for the Cossack squats and lower back pump from the other two haha. Again, this is something I’ve come to expect and adjust my expectations accordingly as I know it gets better. It was damn hot and I was wondering if I should’ve brought another 3L bottle of water with me (I had my 3L of BCAAs and a 3L of water) and more towels (3 with me). For sandbag toss, the plan was 10 tosses to contest height with 45-50lbs. I was feeling confident after last week with working my extension. It was not to be. Now I did start out ok with my warm-ups. I got it right with the 30lbs bag and it was like I did a toss and at the top of it did a volleyball set as it went like 6’ above the target. 40lbs was also a good one but not quite as dramatic a toss. Then it fell apart. I probably should’ve seen the sign of one of my shoelaces breaking as a harbinger of the things to come (I always got spare shoelaces in my first aid kit haha). Another competitor training for the same show was working in with me and the 40lbs for him is like the 50lbs for me right now. One of his tosses with 40lbs hit the setup just right coming back down and snapped the one busted wooden rod. So had to stop and repair that. I didn’t do any warm-ups after that as I never really cooled down from how hot it was but probably should’ve to make sure my form was on point. I was too close and the 50lbs bag got caught in the band and snapped both uprights. This required some more repairs as I didn’t want to give up on training. Maybe my thoughts were of urgency seeing as how the standard is being pushed even higher with Nats being 1.5ft higher. Measured stuff (using a measuring wheel as I couldn’t locate my measuring tape) and tried the setup again. I again broke it but not enough for me to stop so I just moved over to the none broken one and then that one snapped and I was just done. Now I had nothing to do a toss over for the day (and I was going to need to by replacements). I had lost track of how many attempts I had made and decided I’d just do max tosses with the 50lbs bag using the roof as a backdrop. I ended up doing 11 tosses by the end of it. Hopefully I can get stuff to arrive in time to make a new setup. The owners do have something but they haven’t set it up as it is a pain in the ass and may require replacements. I also think it is less broken to breakage as the crossbar is able to swing and move. But I usually get there after they leave and odds are they won’t set it up unless people start qualifying and training for SC Nats. I was pissed off with myself and just wanted to be out of the sun. I was seriously thinking about calling it a day out of frustration but I told myself that it was just one thing. One thing out of 12 weeks of training that didn’t go how I wanted it to. And it had been an aggressive self-imposed plan to try and do 10 tosses at that height with that weight when I barely got 2 tosses a few weeks ago for a big lifetime PR. Be humble. I was just glad to be inside with some cover from the sun and some fans blowing. Squats with the SSB again. Pauses this time for 5x3 like I did that first week with them. 10lbs more. There was no restriction last time about wearing a belt but I didn’t wear one as I was thinking it was a semi-deload. I wore one this time. I was advised to do just 2ct pauses and not to just rest on my calves. Oops. I tend to do that with pauses or anything where I go that far down. Never saw a reason to be struggling and straining things that don’t need to be. I used to sit in a full squat all the time when I was younger as it just was relaxing to me. Not as easy now obviously but I can still do it. I wasn’t sure if I could really make myself strain in the pause but I figured that I had to try. I can if I don’t go fully down all the way like I did that first week. I need to keep it just shy so that I don’t stop loading the muscles and joints. Knees get quite a bit of work doing pauses on pause squats correctly. I felt good warming up and those first two work sets. The third set was where I got a little concerned. On the descent that first rep as I was trying to control so that I got things tensed right, I felt that braking sensation I have when I slow the eccentric give way on the left knee. It startled me. This is like what happened with my right triceps that one session with the extensions where I couldn’t keep the negatives the right pace. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t nearly as abrupt on the following reps. My anterior tib muscles did feel like they had done a substantial amount of work on the left side after the set and the following sets. I seemed to control it better on the following two sets but still present. It is a little similar to how things feel with the Cossack squats when I don’t do a bunch of things beforehand to warm-up. I wasn’t sure how it would go with other stuff today. My hope and thinking is that this was just a new stress being imposed on the knees that they haven’t really had done before and they will adapt and be stronger for it. So next thing was duck walk but not exactly. Now is where the pieces of the medley come together. So plan here was to do keg and then duck walk for a few sets. Still don’t have details on the weights for the medley for the upcoming show but I do for the show about 6 weeks afterwards. That event has 300lbs keg into 350lbs duck walk. My training for today was to work up to 3 sets with 250lbs keg into 400lbs duck walk. My hope here is that I’ve been working over comp weight on the duck walk for both shows as that part of it is brutal. And I can see how the 100’ run from two weeks ago helped prepare for the fatigue of doing the duck walk secondary in the medley. I did the short run warm-ups and tried to be a bit smarter with the choices in weight jumps on the duck walk. I was tempted to do a pick with 400lbs but I figured with how the warm-ups went, that the run with the keg seemed to serve as enough of a warm-up to prepare for the duck walk pick. Plan was to try and be faster each run and work on transitions. Honestly, it was so damn hot that I was going by instinct and not thinking too much. I was just trying to finish these and not make mistakes like dropping either. On the keg, I feel like I put a limiter on myself here. For the one show, I’m to put the keg in the sled and the other show I have to set it down upright on a mat. In both cases, I’ll need to slow down near the end to control that so that I don’t overshoot the distance. Course for both is 40’ at comp which is about how long it takes for me to build up to max speed. I’m finding that I need to start with a narrower stance on the initial pick of the duck walk and then shift to the wider stance as I move. That duck walk felt slow. I was out of breath after that first run but it came back quick. I just knew that it would get worse as the sets went on. I stood in front of one the large industrial floor fans to cool down before doing the second set. That one went better, almost a second faster. I felt like I’d hurl after that one. So again, more standing in front of the fan. Needed to get this third set done. Fatigue was building and I didn’t beat the second set time but it was close. After that was done, I needed a few moments to rehydrate and cool off as best as I could before going on to stones. It has been a while since I’ve done stones in hot weather. And it can be very frustrating when stuff isn’t cooperating. The plan for today was do 5 singles EOMOM style with 345lbs and then do stone roll-ups. First part pretty straight forward, it just depend on things I can control and things I can’t. Singles so not a problem with having it over bar. Never used the 345lbs 21” diameter stone. I only mention that as the other stones I’ve been using have been 20” or less. Right biceps was feeling tight today and not sure if that is from just the heat this whole week or from training. Stone seemed balanced and just had a spot where it was dusty on the bottom so I made sure that was facing my stomach so that my grip in my arms and hands was good. I was a little tentative due to the right biceps but this was pretty solid. Still doing the quick pick and lap and just doing the amount needed to clear. I probably could’ve done EMOM style. Last single I stood away from the stone to attack and load. This had been suggested to make the lifting tougher for all singles but with how I was mentally and physically feeling by this point at the start it didn’t seem like a good idea tempting fate but I felt like I was good by the end. Just 30lbs off contest weight. Next thing was dropping down to the 310lbs stone for roll-ups. I think I’ve only attempted these once in training for a plat plus show in 2013 with a carry and load event and I maybe did 3 reps total. Plan here was a set of 5 and then a set of max until I slowed down or needed to take a breather or readjust. There was a lot of tacky on this stone. I got set and it was bit hard to breath with the stone there but I think I got it figured out that first set. But there was so much tacky that when I went to drop it, it took about half my hair on my belly with it. I figured off how that set felt, I could do 12-15 reps on the rep set. I was standing in front of the fan after the EOMOM to cool off and same after the first set of roll-ups. I felt like I could keep going but the stone was slipping down further in my arms so that it wasn’t getting much ROM so I stopped. If I was able to stop and readjust, I’d of kept on going and going. It will be interesting to see how these are implemented further. Fairly big change to the end of the session. I had to clean up the stone stuff first obviously. In the past, it has been hamstring work and then sled drag. No sled drag this week. Hamstring work was no longer GHRs but machine lying leg curls. Never done them with a plateloaded machine so I wasn’t sure what I could do and each model is different. So I was a bit surprised I could handle 90lbs so well. It felt light at the start but generally hamstring seem to fatigue quickly so it could have been enough. But I guess all the banded hamstring stuff for high reps has made them better. I kept adding weight each set and I think finally got it to the right difficulty by the end. Put stuff away and stretched before driving home with the AC blasting. I again sat in front of a fan to cool off before finally cleaning up and then eating pot roast for dinner. Iced my knees and just hoped I had a good and restful sleep as it is going to be a rough and hot week.
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