Hopefully last entry for a while where I got a big word vomit beforehand haha. Another year has passed of me qualifying for Nats (SC) and not competing. I’ve competed three times total despite qualifying most years. Didn’t qualify first two years of competing (only did one show in 2008) back when I was under 231lbs class. 2011 I tore my hamstring and only did one show that year. 2012 I qualified and went and didn’t care for it so the next two years I tried to do just the plat plus shows to try and win at those and did poorly at them. 2015 got back on track and I competed and enjoyed it that year. Seemed loads better run compared to 2012. I didn’t in 2016 as I got the back injury that put me out for 7 months (and I was still trying to do that show but things didn’t go well in rehab or life). 2017 gave it shot after coming back and I didn’t care for it, on top of getting sick with the flu. So after that I tried to do the plat plus route again to just get to the Arnold instead and I did so skipped it that year to focus on that. Plan after that was to get back there for 2020. Injury relapse end of that year knocked me out of several competitions and then the world went to shit. Didn’t bother with 2020 as that year really sucked all around. 2021 I qualified but decided I wasn’t ready, especially with the event setup. USS Nats I’ve qualified every year since 2018 but due to injury or just bad luck haven’t. 2021 USS Nats I kind of just brushed off with the events and some other things but seeing as how some events have changed and with my next show being decided having some of the more unconventional stuff that is at 2021 USS nats as events, it isn’t so far out of training for and still working on what needs work. But ultimately, it will come down to how well things go as far as prep for this upcoming show and what the results of that are to decide. I guess I bring up both nationals because of things happening recently. USS because of the event change and realization I’d be doing similar things in prep and SC because it just happened and there appear to be changes coming. Thing is, if I want to do a USS show this year, I’d have to wait until after 5/28/21 for it to be for 2022 USS Nats. Unlikely the pro class situation with them is going to improve as so far only 1 of the three shows so far have met all the criteria to extend that invite. Only 2 of the 6 on the calendar have a chance of meeting the criteria potentially. The past four years of SC Nats I’d have been crushed. Not my strong suits most events that are contested these days. Averaging the numbers on the max events from this year and last, the average deadlift is 750lbs and the log press is 325lbs. I’ve known these are the numbers that are minimum for being a mediocre pro. Lowest for an Arnold qualifier from Nats was 650lbs deadlift and 295lbs log press. I can hit that deadlift with a suit but not without. As mentioned in the last session foreword, I need to get things feeling good and get a higher baseline for those lifts. But changes may make things harder and more confusing. It sounds like they will do away with my subclass (under 300lbs) and the subclass under that (under 265lbs) gets no incentives and will be its own class. No pro card, no Arnold invites from how I’m seeing it unofficially. So no sense in dropping 15lbs or so for that. I always want the heavier stuff. This last show was the first time where I went with the lighter option and I hated doing that and admitting that. I guess I’m growing. On top of that, the Plat Plus shows seem to be going away and being replaced by Regionals that you have to qualify for from local comps. Regionals aren’t required to get to Nationals thankfully. The Regionals appear to be for qualifying for the Arnold and Nationals. Just making this shit more confusing and tougher by the year.
Mobility Prep
Inverse Leg Curls
+225(ast)x10
+180(ast)x5
+180(ast)x5
+135(ast)x10
+112.5(ast)x10
+90(ast)x10
Mobility Prep
Inverse Leg Curls
+225(ast)x10
+180(ast)x5
+180(ast)x5
+135(ast)x10
+112.5(ast)x10
+90(ast)x10
Paused Leg Extensions (2 seconds)
45x7
90x6
135x6
155x15
155x15
155x16 (miscounted)
45x7
90x6
135x6
155x15
155x15
155x16 (miscounted)
Safety Squat Bar Squats (3-2-0-0 tempo)
65x3
115x3
155x3
205x3
245x3
275x3
305x6
305x6
305x6
65x3
115x3
155x3
205x3
245x3
275x3
305x6
305x6
305x6
Reverse Band Hack Squats (LB’s)
emptyx5
+90x5
+180x5
+230x12
+270x12
+300x12
emptyx5
+90x5
+180x5
+230x12
+270x12
+300x12
Lying Leg Curls
45x8
70x7
90x6
115x5
135x12
135x12
135x12
135x12
45x8
70x7
90x6
115x5
135x12
135x12
135x12
135x12
Quad Fallbacks (17” target, elevated 6”)
bwx2
bwx2
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
bwx2
bwx2
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
Sled Drag Work (turf)
235x5 minutes
235x5 minutes
Stretching
Comments: Got a bit of a late start to the day. I woke up after only sleeping through my alarm like maybe three times. No rush really as the session wasn’t really event work. More just machines that I only have access to at the strongman gym. This is the off season. I’ve been advised this session is going to be less event work and more quad focused training for now. With some rows add maybe. As a treat. The morning delay was trying to get my iPod to link with the “new” computer. I’ve just been charging it in outlets as I was worried it would erase everything since not the same one I was using and I know how Apple products be. Didn’t finish all of it but I figured out what was needed and how to do it. For another time. Turns out that a small section of the interstate was closed for repairs which meant I either had to take the turnpike and pay a toll to go train or I’d have to take a longer detour. So it took just over an hour to get out to train today. No one really there today which was fine. Mobility stuff was good. One leg rdls with light weight. Balance work seemed to be good for the lower legs and my knees. Starting things off with inverse curls but the intensity was being pushed a bit. Warm up and do 3x10 but increasing difficulty to try and have the last set be 1-2RIR. I wore light knee sleeves with padding on the front as the right knee seems to be tender when pressure is applied in front so maybe some bursitis with the tendonitis. Helps a little with the pain management. Happy to get down to just 2 plates of assistance added. My first set is where I was back in late 2019 first time trying. Hamstrings feeling good. Next was leg extensions. Not sure how these are going to go. Each machine on these is different and there are some that feel great and others that just feel like a knife in the knee. Never used the one they have at the gym but if it is like the lying leg curl, it should be good right? Right knee is the fussy one. Idea for these was to do higher reps with holds and controlled negatives. I decided to wear the same knee sleeves for these to keep the knee happy. The ROM isn’t very big on these where the tension from the machine stops on the lowering portion. The extension part is fine, just no real stretch. Leg extensions can be weird for me. I’ve done tempo before on them and I’ve done sets of 100 reps nonstop in the past. So once I was warmed up, these weren’t much of anything and it was easy to control. I did different counting methods for each set which didn’t work out on the last one as I accidentally did an extra. Then it was ssb squats. Tempo but thankfully not controlled concentrics. Those are the worst. Work up in triples to 3x6 with 2RIR on those. Lowering to 3 seconds and hold at bottom for 2 seconds. I guess it was to be 3-5ct (I do seconds so ends up being slower) so I probably would’ve tried to do 5 seconds if I had remembered that part. This was the first session of using my new knee sleeves that I got for squatting and such for actually squatting. Other times I’ve used them have just been for yoke at the show and for the sandbag runs and such. So curious to see how they’d do and if it would let me train unimpeded again. Left knee does still have that little shifty thing that happened but that is manageable and seems to stop after I get things warmed up enough. Ankles and calves have been tight since competition. Knees don’t hurt doing the squats and it isn’t like my knees going forward causes pain so I’d say this is a success for now. Then again, I only went up to 305lbs with is just over 60% of estimated 1rm on regular squat with ssb. I was initially tempted to go heavier but I thought better of it as I wasn’t to be taking super long rests at this point and tempo really makes even an extra rep that much harder. At most I was thinking 30lbs more here. Next up was hack squats. I had been worried these would show up again and I wouldn’t get through the session without something happening. I’m not 100% certain they are the culprit but it feels like they are for the neck issues and pinched nerves. Which is a shame as these seem like a great exercise to build up my lower body and get my knees back in the game. My solution was to add towels to the pads to see if that helped but Drew suggested I use a foam roller to move the location of the pressure from the traps to midback. So that added with towels for the handles sticking out would be the new setup. These were done with the reverse bands again to adjust the strength curve and be gentler on the knees. The foam roller setup worked perfectly. I mean my neck and shoulders still have aches and what not (seem to be getting better slowly) but it wasn’t made worse from this. First session I had just a terrible ache and holding ssb on my back just felt off and the second session I just got a searing headache and cramp on the left side of my neck. No issues at all. Other than it being a tough exercise haha. These are definitely rougher on the knees compared to regular squatting but the knee sleeves are definitely helping with that. So after that was lying leg curls. These haven’t felt the strongest the past few sessions. Hamstrings feeling tight and sore. Warm up and do 4x12. Hamstrings felt like they wanted to cramp up doing the first weight so I decided to do small jumps and more reps and give 135lbs a shot as that had been the weight I had intended to use before. It felt like it should which is honestly too light I think for what was prescribed for today’s session. I stuck to the same weight though in the even that fatigue would make it a lot harder possibly. But it didn’t. Which is ok. Next exercise was bringing back a knee and quad mobility exercise that had gone away after my right knee got angry at me. The quad fallbacks. Plan was to just do the movement and get the stretch and use assistance to get back up if needed. My upper quads and ankles weren’t really awake and mobile enough at the start. Took about four reps that first set to actually get to depth. I decided since only two reps actually got down far enough to tough the bench (5” higher than my best) that it didn’t count as a working set. But I kept falling back off the pad on the second set trying to do more than 2 reps with my flat shoes on. I swapped those shoes out to something that I could get some traction in to keep from falling over and that worked up well enough I think. These got tough in absence. Last thing for the session was sled drag. Backwards and forwards for 5 minutes. I went up in weight which might not have been a wise idea considering things. The patch I used for my last session I think is flatter compared to the tunnel as I know that has an uphill/downhill component. These were not fast feet steps haha but the turn arounds were better I think in that minimal time was lost where there wasn’t some drag. Weather seemed crap out and I had no clue what kind of traffic going home would be so I stuck around to stretch out before heading home.
Comments: Got a bit of a late start to the day. I woke up after only sleeping through my alarm like maybe three times. No rush really as the session wasn’t really event work. More just machines that I only have access to at the strongman gym. This is the off season. I’ve been advised this session is going to be less event work and more quad focused training for now. With some rows add maybe. As a treat. The morning delay was trying to get my iPod to link with the “new” computer. I’ve just been charging it in outlets as I was worried it would erase everything since not the same one I was using and I know how Apple products be. Didn’t finish all of it but I figured out what was needed and how to do it. For another time. Turns out that a small section of the interstate was closed for repairs which meant I either had to take the turnpike and pay a toll to go train or I’d have to take a longer detour. So it took just over an hour to get out to train today. No one really there today which was fine. Mobility stuff was good. One leg rdls with light weight. Balance work seemed to be good for the lower legs and my knees. Starting things off with inverse curls but the intensity was being pushed a bit. Warm up and do 3x10 but increasing difficulty to try and have the last set be 1-2RIR. I wore light knee sleeves with padding on the front as the right knee seems to be tender when pressure is applied in front so maybe some bursitis with the tendonitis. Helps a little with the pain management. Happy to get down to just 2 plates of assistance added. My first set is where I was back in late 2019 first time trying. Hamstrings feeling good. Next was leg extensions. Not sure how these are going to go. Each machine on these is different and there are some that feel great and others that just feel like a knife in the knee. Never used the one they have at the gym but if it is like the lying leg curl, it should be good right? Right knee is the fussy one. Idea for these was to do higher reps with holds and controlled negatives. I decided to wear the same knee sleeves for these to keep the knee happy. The ROM isn’t very big on these where the tension from the machine stops on the lowering portion. The extension part is fine, just no real stretch. Leg extensions can be weird for me. I’ve done tempo before on them and I’ve done sets of 100 reps nonstop in the past. So once I was warmed up, these weren’t much of anything and it was easy to control. I did different counting methods for each set which didn’t work out on the last one as I accidentally did an extra. Then it was ssb squats. Tempo but thankfully not controlled concentrics. Those are the worst. Work up in triples to 3x6 with 2RIR on those. Lowering to 3 seconds and hold at bottom for 2 seconds. I guess it was to be 3-5ct (I do seconds so ends up being slower) so I probably would’ve tried to do 5 seconds if I had remembered that part. This was the first session of using my new knee sleeves that I got for squatting and such for actually squatting. Other times I’ve used them have just been for yoke at the show and for the sandbag runs and such. So curious to see how they’d do and if it would let me train unimpeded again. Left knee does still have that little shifty thing that happened but that is manageable and seems to stop after I get things warmed up enough. Ankles and calves have been tight since competition. Knees don’t hurt doing the squats and it isn’t like my knees going forward causes pain so I’d say this is a success for now. Then again, I only went up to 305lbs with is just over 60% of estimated 1rm on regular squat with ssb. I was initially tempted to go heavier but I thought better of it as I wasn’t to be taking super long rests at this point and tempo really makes even an extra rep that much harder. At most I was thinking 30lbs more here. Next up was hack squats. I had been worried these would show up again and I wouldn’t get through the session without something happening. I’m not 100% certain they are the culprit but it feels like they are for the neck issues and pinched nerves. Which is a shame as these seem like a great exercise to build up my lower body and get my knees back in the game. My solution was to add towels to the pads to see if that helped but Drew suggested I use a foam roller to move the location of the pressure from the traps to midback. So that added with towels for the handles sticking out would be the new setup. These were done with the reverse bands again to adjust the strength curve and be gentler on the knees. The foam roller setup worked perfectly. I mean my neck and shoulders still have aches and what not (seem to be getting better slowly) but it wasn’t made worse from this. First session I had just a terrible ache and holding ssb on my back just felt off and the second session I just got a searing headache and cramp on the left side of my neck. No issues at all. Other than it being a tough exercise haha. These are definitely rougher on the knees compared to regular squatting but the knee sleeves are definitely helping with that. So after that was lying leg curls. These haven’t felt the strongest the past few sessions. Hamstrings feeling tight and sore. Warm up and do 4x12. Hamstrings felt like they wanted to cramp up doing the first weight so I decided to do small jumps and more reps and give 135lbs a shot as that had been the weight I had intended to use before. It felt like it should which is honestly too light I think for what was prescribed for today’s session. I stuck to the same weight though in the even that fatigue would make it a lot harder possibly. But it didn’t. Which is ok. Next exercise was bringing back a knee and quad mobility exercise that had gone away after my right knee got angry at me. The quad fallbacks. Plan was to just do the movement and get the stretch and use assistance to get back up if needed. My upper quads and ankles weren’t really awake and mobile enough at the start. Took about four reps that first set to actually get to depth. I decided since only two reps actually got down far enough to tough the bench (5” higher than my best) that it didn’t count as a working set. But I kept falling back off the pad on the second set trying to do more than 2 reps with my flat shoes on. I swapped those shoes out to something that I could get some traction in to keep from falling over and that worked up well enough I think. These got tough in absence. Last thing for the session was sled drag. Backwards and forwards for 5 minutes. I went up in weight which might not have been a wise idea considering things. The patch I used for my last session I think is flatter compared to the tunnel as I know that has an uphill/downhill component. These were not fast feet steps haha but the turn arounds were better I think in that minimal time was lost where there wasn’t some drag. Weather seemed crap out and I had no clue what kind of traffic going home would be so I stuck around to stretch out before heading home.
No comments:
Post a Comment