Mobility Prep
Lateral Step Downs
bwx3/3 (12”)
bwx3/3 (16”)
bwx3/3 (20”)
bwx1/1 (24”)
bwx10/10 (24”)
bwx10/10 (24”)
Lateral Step Downs
bwx3/3 (12”)
bwx3/3 (16”)
bwx3/3 (20”)
bwx1/1 (24”)
bwx10/10 (24”)
bwx10/10 (24”)
Sandbag Tosses (15’)
30x1
35x1
40x1
45x1
50x1
55x0
55x0
55x0
50x1
50x1
50x1
50x0
40x1
40x1
40x1
40x1
30x1
35x1
40x1
45x1
50x1
55x0
55x0
55x0
50x1
50x1
50x1
50x0
40x1
40x1
40x1
40x1
Paused Safety Squat Bar Squats (3 seconds)
65x2
115x2
165x2
205x2
245x2
295x1
335x1
385x2
327x2
327x2
327x2
65x2
115x2
165x2
205x2
245x2
295x1
335x1
385x2
327x2
327x2
327x2
Husafell Carry/Duck Walk/Sled Drag Medleys
125x20’/252x20’/30 seconds reverse treadmill pushes
125x20’/252x20’/30 seconds reverse treadmill pushes
125x40’/252x40’/295x40’ in 36.56 seconds
140x40’/289x40’/435x40’ in 40.91 seconds
155x40’/324x40’/545x40’ in 42.39 seconds
125x20’/252x20’/30 seconds reverse treadmill pushes
125x20’/252x20’/30 seconds reverse treadmill pushes
125x40’/252x40’/295x40’ in 36.56 seconds
140x40’/289x40’/435x40’ in 40.91 seconds
155x40’/324x40’/545x40’ in 42.39 seconds
Atlas Stone Over Bar (50”, tacky)
230x1
290x1
375x1
425x1
230x1
290x1
375x1
425x1
Atlas Stone to Platform (51”, tacky)
375x6
375x6
Lying Leg Curls
90x6
145x12
145x12
145x12
90x6
145x12
145x12
145x12
Copenhagen Planks (ver 4)
bwx25/25 seconds
bwx25/25 seconds
bwx25/25 seconds
bwx25/25 seconds
Stretching
Comments: Coming to the end of this. Soon time to see if all the work and hours put in will translate to show time. Or game day. Or the arena. Whatever thing you think of when you have to compete. I kind of realized this week that this was essentially the last week and then it was show time. It seems too soon now. This year so far feels like a time compression but also like it has been so long. A different time. 5 months ago, I quit in the middle of a workout due to pain, frustration and depression and took off 10 days to figure things out and see if I wanted to even do this anymore. Tried my own thing for three weeks and again realized I have no idea what I’m doing. After that, I had no illusions of doing well and pretty much wrote off this year of competing and treating this more of a rebuilding. 5 weeks into a new training program with a new coach and I was feeling like I can do this and now I’m signed up for three shows this year. I feel good and people that I see at the strongman gym have commented on the changes they’ve seen in my musculature being a big difference from 2019 (really last time people saw me regularly) and early 2020. My mood has been loads better (other than that week with the knee and injury clinic haha) and family has noticed that too. So this was going to be the last day for the event work and with the essentially clean bill of health from result of the MRI (no tears, strains, fractures) I was allowed to push it. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t anxious or nervous. I had packed up stuff the night before as I figured that travel would stink with it being a holiday weekend. But it wasn’t. Actually might be a time PR getting out to the gym haha. I was nervous driving out there, thinking about training. It was about 20 degrees cooler this weekend so while I was still going to sweat, it seemed manageable. Same warm-ups and then on to the lateral step downs. Just indicated 2x10, no set height like last week. I figured I’d stick with 24” right now as last week that was a good bit tougher than I was expecting it to be. Knees weren’t as grumpy so I didn’t feel I needed to do more warm-ups with the lower heights. I did do a single at the working weight each side as I noticed that that first rep seemed to be the one that was toughest feeling for the depth and it was taking a bit out of me. Doing that as a warm-up seemed to help me on the other sets. Balance was a little off but strength was there. I do have the option to go higher but this feels good. Funny to see how much progress this has had. Again, left side is the lagging side. But no feeling of the knee wanting to go on me. So this then went to sandbag tosses. The setup was kind of already setup as another person there had set it up to train for keg tosses they have in a contest in September but have been doing sandbag due to lack of kegs (I brought two of mine but not worth it to use at the moment). His contest height is much lower than mine (I think novice) so had to adjust it. Then it started raining (there was a chance but it wasn’t supposed to until much later) but thankfully it did stop. This was my last week to really push the sandbag tosses and I wanted to see if I could get above 50lbs. I wasn’t willing to wait for the sun to come out and dry up the rain water and puddles (it did eventually) so I got a bucket and mop and mopped up the rain. Can’t be slipping and having sandbags getting wet. So plan for today was to hit a max and try to hit 1-3 at that weight and then drop 5-15lbs off that and do 3 more singles. Contest is max toss with 3 attempts but miss and done. Some promoters interpret “last man standing” differently and I had been hoping it would be keep going until miss and not just three attempts. That was confirmed just recently. So I decided to go up in 5lbs jumps. My trajectory with 45lbs and 50lbs weren’t great but I wanted to try 55lbs to at least get a feel for it as 5lbs is a big jump on sandbag toss. First attempt at 55lbs was laughable. I didn’t even get high enough to hit the bar. I wasn’t letting it frustrate me. I figured I’d give it one more shot to see if I would “wake up” as I did last time with sandbag toss where I was able to get the 50lbs to easily clear on some tosses when it all lined up. I did but that only meant that I was able to get 55lbs to hit the bar. I checked to see if I had gotten it high enough that it was hitting it on the up or down. I tried on more time and that wasn’t close like the first one. So then I dropped it back down to 50lbs. I had only planned to do a single here but my trajectory was off again and it took the arm off. I didn’t want to end it like that. Did it again and it was better and then once more and it was best toss of the day with weight above 40lbs. Got greedy going for another (lost track of how many I did) and that was not a good one. Dropped down to 40lbs (I had made the 45lbs the 55lbs) for the other tosses. These weren’t my best and I shut it down once I realized this wasn’t reinforcing good form. Sandbag can be hit or miss but I’m glad that 50lbs has become somewhat consistent. Still would’ve liked to get 55lbs over but it will get there some day. Then on to gym work for a moment. SSB pause squats. Goal was to work up to a top double and then do some lighter down sets. Knees were feeling a little achy. But no feeling of it giving out on me. Knee sleeves seem to be a thing now for squatting for me. Plan here was not a max but leave like 2 reps in the tank. I think I did that. Hard to guess when doing paused work and as far as basing percentages off a paused max. The set before honestly didn’t feel great so I wasn’t thinking adding 50lbs on to that was going to be the right difficulty level. An overreach. But it turns out I got it just right. The pause set down sets never feel as easy as they end up looking. This was a bigger drop down in weight from last time I did these. I’m not actually sure where the time was going at this point but it seemed like I had already been training for close to 4hrs at this point. It wasn’t like I was taking my time. My lower back just felt so tight going into the next thing. Not what I wanted haha. Medley work was next. I felt it was important with getting the ok on the MRI to do this. Got the specifics on it this week too. The intent had been to do some more training of this but with the knee, that got sidelined for a few weeks in training. As I thought, the stuff was lighter than what I was doing. Uncertain what the drag weight will be or feel like as only says sled plus weight and it isn’t that much. I figured the easiest thing to do for this was use the light husafell carry. The block might make it closer but that thing that is at the gym requires power tools to open and close securely and has sharp edges. I ain’t about that. The light husafell I can just toss in bumper plates. Duck walk is duck walk but I elected to not use the 100lbers on it as I’d be going lighter and I wanted it to fill up more so that it was closer to how the plates would be height wise for when it hits my legs. Sled drag I rigged up the frame carry so that hade more surface area and hopefully make it tough. So the things I needed to see was how I needed to move to control the implements (changed from loading in sled to placing on rubber mat) and see how fatigue goes from each leg. I did short warm-ups before going. The plan was to do three runs, 70%,80% and 90% of contest. The sled was a guess. I feel these went ok. I think I picked up on things like shoving the duck walk forward at the end to get it on the space and be able to use that movement to push off to get to the side step to get to the sled handles. I think the sled was too light on the first run but corrected for the other runs. Then it was time for stones. This was what I was nervous about. What I was anxious about. This is what I’m good at but I get worried when I start to push things. My hamstrings were tight and so was lower back. My right pec was feeling tight earlier after the sandbag toss but that seemed to have gone away by this point. Just had irrational worry that I’d tear my biceps and be injured and depressed after everything had been good. I’m realizing I’m still having trust issues with my own body. I notice this and I fight through it. So the plan for this had been to contest height and work up to a single above contest weight and then rest and do an AMRAP with contest weight. The suggested single to work up to was 400lbs. Problem, don’t have that weight, despite the best efforts of myself and Brian to get one. Stones go from 345lbs to 365lbs (22”) and 375lbs to 420lbs. 420lbs, 425lbs, 430lbs, 440lbs, 455lbs and 490lbs. So I’d need go a bit heavier if doing that route. 400lbs not a problem, even at not my best. Not sure above that. I guess part of it was that Heaviest I’ve gone on stones since 2019 is 345lbs. The first two stones, I just tossed over with contempt. The plan had been to then do the 365lbs stone but I realized it was in the corner and that would require me to move over a ton of atlas stones to get to it. So I decided I’d do the 375lbs stone for a single. Probably a good idea to do that anyways to get a feel for it since it has been a few years. I’ve never done more than a single (or attempted more than a single) with it. It is egg-shaped and is sticky but also gritty at the same time. I found on that attempt that I couldn’t do the lap and go style I had been doing with the other stones right away. Didn’t fail here so that was good. But it didn’t feel great. So the heavy single. Looking at the stones, I decided to go with the 425lbs 21” diameter one. I was trying to not use the 22” since that isn’t what I’ll be lifting at the contest and it takes a little bit of practice to get used to them (not a lot, but not going in cold). Setup the stone and went for it. Only part that was difficult in any way was the extension. It was easy pick and rolled right into my lap. Didn’t show any real emotion on this. Trying not to as this should be routine. This essentially 93% of my max (I’ve done a verified 457lbs to above this height, the 505lbs was to only 44”). Considering that closest to this was 80lbs under this whole training cycle, it’s a good sign. So that stress done but still had another. Rep sets for maxes get me too. Now I had thought I had someone here to assist but I didn’t. If I had known that, I’d have been using the platform from the start. Plan was AMRAP for 60 but have it go for 75-90 seconds so as to let me do a 1-2 more reps outside of that. Advised to end on a positive. In my head, I had told myself I needed to get 6 reps total to be the person I was from almost a decade ago. I say this as I had done 390lbs for 5 at 2012 Nationals and 350lbs for 6 reps in 2013 at Maryland’s Strongest Man. I had also done 360lbs for 5 reps on the stone of steel at Nationals in 2017. So doing 5 reps wasn’t going to be good enough. But with how things felt, I had resigned to it being a double or triple. But I had other plans. My technique on the stone that I’ve been working for the fast lap and load that didn’t work warming up was working now. But my lucky stone shoes finally came apart so I had to keep adjusting my foot to keep it on stable footing and secure my grip. I got 5 reps fairly casual in 60 seconds and that stone bounced a little off center so I needed to let it settle and reposition it. I had decided I’d do just the one extra rep. A bit tough but got it. At this point, I considered this me surviving the workout as the rest of it was just hamstrings and Copenhagen planks. I cleaned up and got to work on those. Leg curls felt good and hamstrings feel stronger every time. Copenhagen planks had less knee irritation on the one side. I’m not sure if it has to do with exercise selection or what as it seems like the even weeks it feel better compared to the odd weeks. Timer says I had been lifting for 5hrs and 45 minutes by the time I finished. Certainly the longest of this training cycle but not sure if of all time as I haven’t always timed them for the longest time and the app times them most of the time. I needed to stretch a good bit before driving home to clean up, eat and ice knees before bed.
Comments: Coming to the end of this. Soon time to see if all the work and hours put in will translate to show time. Or game day. Or the arena. Whatever thing you think of when you have to compete. I kind of realized this week that this was essentially the last week and then it was show time. It seems too soon now. This year so far feels like a time compression but also like it has been so long. A different time. 5 months ago, I quit in the middle of a workout due to pain, frustration and depression and took off 10 days to figure things out and see if I wanted to even do this anymore. Tried my own thing for three weeks and again realized I have no idea what I’m doing. After that, I had no illusions of doing well and pretty much wrote off this year of competing and treating this more of a rebuilding. 5 weeks into a new training program with a new coach and I was feeling like I can do this and now I’m signed up for three shows this year. I feel good and people that I see at the strongman gym have commented on the changes they’ve seen in my musculature being a big difference from 2019 (really last time people saw me regularly) and early 2020. My mood has been loads better (other than that week with the knee and injury clinic haha) and family has noticed that too. So this was going to be the last day for the event work and with the essentially clean bill of health from result of the MRI (no tears, strains, fractures) I was allowed to push it. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t anxious or nervous. I had packed up stuff the night before as I figured that travel would stink with it being a holiday weekend. But it wasn’t. Actually might be a time PR getting out to the gym haha. I was nervous driving out there, thinking about training. It was about 20 degrees cooler this weekend so while I was still going to sweat, it seemed manageable. Same warm-ups and then on to the lateral step downs. Just indicated 2x10, no set height like last week. I figured I’d stick with 24” right now as last week that was a good bit tougher than I was expecting it to be. Knees weren’t as grumpy so I didn’t feel I needed to do more warm-ups with the lower heights. I did do a single at the working weight each side as I noticed that that first rep seemed to be the one that was toughest feeling for the depth and it was taking a bit out of me. Doing that as a warm-up seemed to help me on the other sets. Balance was a little off but strength was there. I do have the option to go higher but this feels good. Funny to see how much progress this has had. Again, left side is the lagging side. But no feeling of the knee wanting to go on me. So this then went to sandbag tosses. The setup was kind of already setup as another person there had set it up to train for keg tosses they have in a contest in September but have been doing sandbag due to lack of kegs (I brought two of mine but not worth it to use at the moment). His contest height is much lower than mine (I think novice) so had to adjust it. Then it started raining (there was a chance but it wasn’t supposed to until much later) but thankfully it did stop. This was my last week to really push the sandbag tosses and I wanted to see if I could get above 50lbs. I wasn’t willing to wait for the sun to come out and dry up the rain water and puddles (it did eventually) so I got a bucket and mop and mopped up the rain. Can’t be slipping and having sandbags getting wet. So plan for today was to hit a max and try to hit 1-3 at that weight and then drop 5-15lbs off that and do 3 more singles. Contest is max toss with 3 attempts but miss and done. Some promoters interpret “last man standing” differently and I had been hoping it would be keep going until miss and not just three attempts. That was confirmed just recently. So I decided to go up in 5lbs jumps. My trajectory with 45lbs and 50lbs weren’t great but I wanted to try 55lbs to at least get a feel for it as 5lbs is a big jump on sandbag toss. First attempt at 55lbs was laughable. I didn’t even get high enough to hit the bar. I wasn’t letting it frustrate me. I figured I’d give it one more shot to see if I would “wake up” as I did last time with sandbag toss where I was able to get the 50lbs to easily clear on some tosses when it all lined up. I did but that only meant that I was able to get 55lbs to hit the bar. I checked to see if I had gotten it high enough that it was hitting it on the up or down. I tried on more time and that wasn’t close like the first one. So then I dropped it back down to 50lbs. I had only planned to do a single here but my trajectory was off again and it took the arm off. I didn’t want to end it like that. Did it again and it was better and then once more and it was best toss of the day with weight above 40lbs. Got greedy going for another (lost track of how many I did) and that was not a good one. Dropped down to 40lbs (I had made the 45lbs the 55lbs) for the other tosses. These weren’t my best and I shut it down once I realized this wasn’t reinforcing good form. Sandbag can be hit or miss but I’m glad that 50lbs has become somewhat consistent. Still would’ve liked to get 55lbs over but it will get there some day. Then on to gym work for a moment. SSB pause squats. Goal was to work up to a top double and then do some lighter down sets. Knees were feeling a little achy. But no feeling of it giving out on me. Knee sleeves seem to be a thing now for squatting for me. Plan here was not a max but leave like 2 reps in the tank. I think I did that. Hard to guess when doing paused work and as far as basing percentages off a paused max. The set before honestly didn’t feel great so I wasn’t thinking adding 50lbs on to that was going to be the right difficulty level. An overreach. But it turns out I got it just right. The pause set down sets never feel as easy as they end up looking. This was a bigger drop down in weight from last time I did these. I’m not actually sure where the time was going at this point but it seemed like I had already been training for close to 4hrs at this point. It wasn’t like I was taking my time. My lower back just felt so tight going into the next thing. Not what I wanted haha. Medley work was next. I felt it was important with getting the ok on the MRI to do this. Got the specifics on it this week too. The intent had been to do some more training of this but with the knee, that got sidelined for a few weeks in training. As I thought, the stuff was lighter than what I was doing. Uncertain what the drag weight will be or feel like as only says sled plus weight and it isn’t that much. I figured the easiest thing to do for this was use the light husafell carry. The block might make it closer but that thing that is at the gym requires power tools to open and close securely and has sharp edges. I ain’t about that. The light husafell I can just toss in bumper plates. Duck walk is duck walk but I elected to not use the 100lbers on it as I’d be going lighter and I wanted it to fill up more so that it was closer to how the plates would be height wise for when it hits my legs. Sled drag I rigged up the frame carry so that hade more surface area and hopefully make it tough. So the things I needed to see was how I needed to move to control the implements (changed from loading in sled to placing on rubber mat) and see how fatigue goes from each leg. I did short warm-ups before going. The plan was to do three runs, 70%,80% and 90% of contest. The sled was a guess. I feel these went ok. I think I picked up on things like shoving the duck walk forward at the end to get it on the space and be able to use that movement to push off to get to the side step to get to the sled handles. I think the sled was too light on the first run but corrected for the other runs. Then it was time for stones. This was what I was nervous about. What I was anxious about. This is what I’m good at but I get worried when I start to push things. My hamstrings were tight and so was lower back. My right pec was feeling tight earlier after the sandbag toss but that seemed to have gone away by this point. Just had irrational worry that I’d tear my biceps and be injured and depressed after everything had been good. I’m realizing I’m still having trust issues with my own body. I notice this and I fight through it. So the plan for this had been to contest height and work up to a single above contest weight and then rest and do an AMRAP with contest weight. The suggested single to work up to was 400lbs. Problem, don’t have that weight, despite the best efforts of myself and Brian to get one. Stones go from 345lbs to 365lbs (22”) and 375lbs to 420lbs. 420lbs, 425lbs, 430lbs, 440lbs, 455lbs and 490lbs. So I’d need go a bit heavier if doing that route. 400lbs not a problem, even at not my best. Not sure above that. I guess part of it was that Heaviest I’ve gone on stones since 2019 is 345lbs. The first two stones, I just tossed over with contempt. The plan had been to then do the 365lbs stone but I realized it was in the corner and that would require me to move over a ton of atlas stones to get to it. So I decided I’d do the 375lbs stone for a single. Probably a good idea to do that anyways to get a feel for it since it has been a few years. I’ve never done more than a single (or attempted more than a single) with it. It is egg-shaped and is sticky but also gritty at the same time. I found on that attempt that I couldn’t do the lap and go style I had been doing with the other stones right away. Didn’t fail here so that was good. But it didn’t feel great. So the heavy single. Looking at the stones, I decided to go with the 425lbs 21” diameter one. I was trying to not use the 22” since that isn’t what I’ll be lifting at the contest and it takes a little bit of practice to get used to them (not a lot, but not going in cold). Setup the stone and went for it. Only part that was difficult in any way was the extension. It was easy pick and rolled right into my lap. Didn’t show any real emotion on this. Trying not to as this should be routine. This essentially 93% of my max (I’ve done a verified 457lbs to above this height, the 505lbs was to only 44”). Considering that closest to this was 80lbs under this whole training cycle, it’s a good sign. So that stress done but still had another. Rep sets for maxes get me too. Now I had thought I had someone here to assist but I didn’t. If I had known that, I’d have been using the platform from the start. Plan was AMRAP for 60 but have it go for 75-90 seconds so as to let me do a 1-2 more reps outside of that. Advised to end on a positive. In my head, I had told myself I needed to get 6 reps total to be the person I was from almost a decade ago. I say this as I had done 390lbs for 5 at 2012 Nationals and 350lbs for 6 reps in 2013 at Maryland’s Strongest Man. I had also done 360lbs for 5 reps on the stone of steel at Nationals in 2017. So doing 5 reps wasn’t going to be good enough. But with how things felt, I had resigned to it being a double or triple. But I had other plans. My technique on the stone that I’ve been working for the fast lap and load that didn’t work warming up was working now. But my lucky stone shoes finally came apart so I had to keep adjusting my foot to keep it on stable footing and secure my grip. I got 5 reps fairly casual in 60 seconds and that stone bounced a little off center so I needed to let it settle and reposition it. I had decided I’d do just the one extra rep. A bit tough but got it. At this point, I considered this me surviving the workout as the rest of it was just hamstrings and Copenhagen planks. I cleaned up and got to work on those. Leg curls felt good and hamstrings feel stronger every time. Copenhagen planks had less knee irritation on the one side. I’m not sure if it has to do with exercise selection or what as it seems like the even weeks it feel better compared to the odd weeks. Timer says I had been lifting for 5hrs and 45 minutes by the time I finished. Certainly the longest of this training cycle but not sure if of all time as I haven’t always timed them for the longest time and the app times them most of the time. I needed to stretch a good bit before driving home to clean up, eat and ice knees before bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment