July 23, 2022 – Week 7, Day 4

Patrick Stepdowns (3 second eccentrics)
No Eccentrics
bwx8/8 at 6”
Added Eccentrics
bwx15/15 at 9”

Drinky Birds
mb+17.5x10/10
mb+17.5x10/10

Front Squats w/ bands (+10lbs bottom/+56lbs top)
45x3
95x3
145x3
195x3
245x3
245x3
245x3
245x3
245x3

Farmer’s Walks (16” pick, drop and turn halfway)
Casual Pace
50x100’
Normal Pace
100x100’
140x100’
190x50’
230x50’
280x100’ in 19.21 seconds
300x100’ in 21.53 seconds

Hercules Holds (hook grip)
230x94 seconds

Glute Ham Raises (4 pins showing)
bwx20
bwx20

Leg Extensions
45x30
45x30
(up with 2, down with 1, 5 seconds eccentrics)
45x15 right
45x15 left

Stretching

Comments: I told myself that I had to get up at a reasonable hour today and get out to the gym to train earlier than I have been. Reason being that I really wanted to make sure I had assistance for the two actual contest event runs of two events but also because holy hell was it going to be hot today. It was going to be the second hottest day of the year so far (I guess hottest but tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter). Besides Monday, it has been over 90 degrees every day this week with each day being warmer than the day before. A main reason that I kind of what to not be training event specificity during these months because it is a whole ordeal. Luckily the show(s) I’m prepping for don’t have atlas stones as that just becomes misery and frustration. I really wish that I had been better against competition this year so that I could be focusing on Nationals outright rather than another show and then Nationals. I seem to feel best when I got a long build up and plenty of time to fine tune. I tend to peak really hard from what I can gather seeing other people doing stuff like the day after a show. Or I’m not as fast at recovering. I didn’t quite get to bed as early as I wanted/needed to so I hit snooze I think 3 times or so. Still earlier time getting up and going compared to two weeks ago (not counting last week as that was an aberration). Debating on whether to wear a light-colored shirt or one that was made by either niece or nephews. One would be cooler I guess while the other offers some motivation (I just wish they didn’t keep picking dark colors lol). Drive out took a little longer due to being out when more people are out. Sun was constant, almost concerned about getting sunburn through the windshield it was that bright and hot. I got there about an hour earlier than I had and the temperature had already creeped up 6 degrees in that 45 minutes of driving. Lot of people there for training group which I’ve been kind of missing as they are leaving once I show up. They had car deadlift and fingal fingers outside. They probably couldn’t do them inside I guess because the Hercules hold was setup for me (oops). I have no idea what contest (if any) they were prepping for. A few shows within reasonable driving distance have car deadlift but only one for fingal fingers and that’s for veterans. And none of those shows are on the board for people doing things (but not always accurate). Some people doing those that I know are prepping for other shows in the next month or so that don’t have those events or events similar to that. But different folks, different strokes. Lot of bodies and it was making the place warmer than it should perhaps (I say this as it felt cooler after most people left despite getting 6 degrees hotter still). I wasn’t too sure about the music situation so I kind of left it be until after the person whose initials were on the Bluetooth adapter had left. Stepdowns to start. Only one set and less eccentric time but more reps. I figured that I could do lower height than I had been doing as just to warm up. No eccentrics lower box height to get things feeling ok. Felt fine. I got startled by someone turning on loud music as I was starting on the other side and started over. It is exhausting always being on alert. Drinky birds after that. They are something and they feel like something but I’m not sure if I’m really getting them right. I think one side is having an easier time than the other. With those out of the way, it was on to front squats. Plan for today was to do 5x3 with between 225lbs – 245lbs and keeping it RPE 6-7 with 90 seconds rest. And have 15% in band tension added to the top of the lift. I’m not sure what my max is right now on front squats but I feel like I’m probably around where my best was (385lbs) so I used that. I had brought an assortment of bands as I would need to find out what would get me to about 58lbs. Turns out mini and micro did the job. I wasn’t sure how fast I’d be actually moving with these. I really wanted to use 245lbs so I did 50lbs jumps and made a mental note that at any time the weight was starting to feel like it wasn’t in the cards for being easy today, adjust the jumps. The only point where the weight jump felt like a bit much was 195lbs and that was one jump away so I just went with it. Glad I did as this weight was perfect. Good when things come together like that. I took time setting things up for farmer’s walk as well as putting things away from front squats. The plan here was to work up to two decent sets of 100’ with the drop and turn at 50’. Goal being 280lbs – 300lbs (contest weight). I had to do some thinking on that. What was the best option here and what would benefit this coming show and hopefully Nats. Nats also has farmer’s walk and it is like a double blast of what this show is going to be with it being 2x80’ with drop at 40’. I had to look back through my training archives for when I last did farmer’s walk like this to see how I found best to warm up for it. I needed to practice the drop and turn efficiency and also not exhaust myself warming up to the top weights in this heat. As well as preserve my hands. This heat and the amount of sweating was having dead skin and calluses be an issue. Which usually isn’t. I’ve also kind of realized that I’ve never really used these particular handles this much really and haven’t gone over 300lbs with them either. I’m using them because they are what I think is closest to show (though I think contest pick height might be higher and the implements shorter). Now I’ve in the past done this with the I-beam handles and warming up was usually full course (100’, drop, turn at 50’), half course (50’, drop, turn at 25’) and then 50’ run. That show prep in 2018 I did contest weight two times (but only one top set each time). Plan was to do that but I realized that if I did, I’d end up with the handles at the end on the far end so I adjusted to have more drop and turn practice. Warming up was feeling pretty good. I did notice that I was radiating a lot of heat off my body when I was bent over in the start position working up. Enough so that I felt I could reheat a pizza on my chest. So I had to take that into consideration when I got setup. As far the top set runs, I had to figure out the best approach here. Now the competitor in me wanted to do 300lbs for both sets. Heavier and heavier. But I knew that wasn’t needed for this show. But also thinking about Nats which will be more grueling a farmer’s walk event. I already knew though that with how I had setup warm ups that a 70lbs jump would be a bit much and not reflect how I’d prep at show. So I decided that I’d do 280lbs and see how it goes. If I got below 20 seconds on it, then I’d consider going up to 300lbs for the second run. Most people had left at this point and I asked a fellow competitor and friend to assist. I knew he was a fast call on the start commands. Hard to get consistency. I can’t be choosy here though and it will matter when it counts I guess. He did “competitor ready, go” instead of “competitor ready, set, go” and I just stood up and said it was to be a three command, not a two command. I don’t mean to be picky about stuff but it matters. This felt fine but I also felt slow. The repick felt heavy too compared to the warming up. But I got it under 20 seconds by a good margin but still within a second. So I was iffy about going up. Yes I did get it within the self set parameters I had but I was worried I’d be too slow and next run with more weight and that I’d wear myself out. I reread my training and it didn’t say it had to be fast, just aim for speed and I said fine, I’ll do 300lbs. This was slower but not a whole lot. I fidgeted with gripping the handles on the repick and it was so much slower compared to 280lbs on that. It felt like forever. But I got it and was only a little over 2 seconds slower compared to the 280lbs run. Probably was a good thing to feel 300lbs on these as I’ve not done that weight I think since 2019. Yes I’ve done frame carry with a lot heavier but that was with straps and a much higher pick height. And only one pick required. From there moved on to the other event for the day; Hercules hold. Well not right away. Plan was just to do one hold to try and maybe hit a PR and just get used to it to fine tune as haven’t done any of it this whole prep. I think reason being that this wasn’t probably going to be that heavy compared to the last show. The weights I’ve seen with this apparatus in the past have been listed at like 335lbs but the average time was something close to 70 seconds with the winner getting just over 2 minutes. Hook grip allowed here and I knew that my grip would probably not be able to hold on for 2 minutes without trying that really. Now it’s not like I feel the competition at this show is going to have that kind of grip but I don’t know. From the people I do know, I don’t think they will. But since I’m one of the last people to sign up in my weight class, I will have to go early and probably will be in the same position all day as this promoter generally doesn’t change position based on scoring due to time efficiency. So even if I’m in the lead, I may have to be first out and have to set the pace on everything. Which will kind of suck but whatever. If I had done better, I wouldn’t be in this position to begin with. So need to see if hook grip is a viable option to save grip really with the farmer’s walk and max distance keg carry on top of this. At this point, there were only two other people there at the gym and neither of them were strongman people. Or powerlifting people. More of one kid doing workouts for high school sports and the other crossfit kind of stuff. I had to think here as I was told if this was too much of a pain, I could do rolling d-handle hangs again. I did do a little of that but more to test out hook grip. See if I could still do it since I haven’t since 2018. Yes and quite painful but the main issue was that since the position isn’t as “closed grip” as regular style, I was hanging lower and would have to actively contract my legs up keep from touching the ground which isn’t what I wanted. I waited a bit and finally worked up the nerve to ask these two people to assist me. I’m always super anxious with things like this. I know how I look and try to walk slower if going the same direction as someone else for fear that I’ll scare them. Sometimes I will just walk in the opposite direction to avoid that being a possibility. Since Hercules hold isn’t exactly easy to coordinate, I knew I couldn’t request for help on multiple sets so I didn’t do any work up sets. It was just going to be one set which may as well be how it goes at the show. I didn’t bother to have them worry about filming or anything as I felt I was already asking too much as it was. And it ended up about how I expected. The one guy almost let go immediately and the other guy didn’t really take into consideration that he was sandwiched between the arm and the crash pads. So good thing my hook grip held as that one side was really getting yanked until they both let go. So that sucked but whatever. I had hoped to get closer to 2 minutes here but this was enough. I feel with better release I’d be closer to that. Considering that I did more time with 30lbs more per hand regular holding style, this is viable. Forearms got fatigued more so than grip and then fingers couldn’t keep closed as the forearms fatigued. Also the sweat lol. Thumbnails a little sore but ok. Putting stuff away I saw a praying mantis. Usually just see flies or spotted lanternflies around here. So that was neat. Just a few things left. Glute ham raises were up next here. Two sets and keep 2-3RIR. I had already decided to do these just bodyweight and aim for 2x20 reps to see if I could. I was able to do that. I feel I had more reps that first set but left it at that. Just getting tendons and muscles ready for last bit of heavy training next week. Last thing was leg extensions but accentuated negatives. Warm up as needed and then do 2 up, 1 down method. Just one set this time. I kind of knew what to expect this time. I did both of the warming up sets with the same weight as the knees would need to get tendons warmed up. Right knee really dislikes the lowering phase but after about 8 reps it was quiet enough to get through these without hesitation. About the same for the left knee but that was less discomfort overall anyways. Put stuff away and went home to stretch in the A/C.