November 19, 2022 – Week 4, Day 4

Hip Airplanes (0-10-0-10 tempo)
bwx5/5
bwx5/5
bwx5/5

One Leg 15” Block Pulls (3-1-1-0 tempo)
65x5/5
105x3/3
135x10/10
145x10/10
155x10/10

Paused Heel Elevated Sandbag Squats (2”, 2 seconds)
112x3
112x3
175x15

Paused Sandbag Roll-up (2 seconds, on toes)
112x3
175x15

Sled Pushes to Backwards Drags
505x50’/50’
505x50’/50’
505x50’/50’

Stretching
 
Comments: Felt rested but was slow to get moving. I think partly trying to figure out if I wanted to watch strongman contests happening or correct someone on the internet (never worth it lol). Not that I didn’t have the argument ready. Like writing a letter and never sending it. Doesn’t matter and I got things that do matter to me. Colder out compared to last weekend. First thing was hip airplanes. Same as last week in that low reps but high amounts of time in the max internal and external rotation with holds. 3x5 vs 2x6 last week. With balance stuff, I seem to progress well enough but then have periods of relapse after the initial success. I didn’t bother with trying to do these free standing considering how challenging just doing them for this amount of time was. Get good at doing them again and then worry about that stuff if needed. Only had balance issues on one or two reps total even with the assistance. I had to check to make sure I didn’t miss a rep about halfway through on video. I get paranoid like that sometimes with all the counting needed with reps and tempo stuff. Things were less taxing on my lower legs so I was able to actually feel the hips in those positions as actually doing something. From there I had another balance related exercise; those single leg block pulls. I felt that this week I could use 135lbs so I wasn’t going to use the jack stands this time. Plan was 3x8-10 with 3-4RIR. Hopefully I’d be progressing on these quick with getting used to the movement. Intent was to build these up to PRs and have it help with moving events. Always working on things to be a better strength athlete. Both parts of that need work and some people forget that. One thing I do like with tempo work during the colder months is that only need a few reps on sets to get nice and warm and not need the warm-ups later on. Good song on at the start and made my planned weight feel light. Light enough that I took bigger jumps for weights to get to more appropriate weight by the end of it. My aloofness did result in balance struggles on the second set for my left leg but I got it back under control eventually. I wasn’t expecting to be going up almost 30lbs from last workout. I guess shouldn’t be too surprising with how things tend to go up during off season for me, especially lower body stuff. Always feels like 4-5 weeks of off season training has me ready to start focus on competing. Whether I’m to stick to it for more weeks or not it up to coaching/programming. Already been here for a long time and good time, would like to continue you that so it becomes longer time and gooder time. Moving on to more event related things. And by that I mean odd objects and moving stuff. So up first was sandbag squats. This was changed a bit with it being work up to a set of 10-15 reps with 1-2ct holds. Warm up as needed with triples. But still indicating a light sandbag. I don’t have quite the selection at home compared to the strongman gym and I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d need. Sandbags go 112lbs and then 175lbs followed by 225lbs and then 363ish. I was debating 112lbs and 175lbs. I figured I’d see how 112lbs felt with shorter pauses and go from there. It felt easy but I didn’t think a single set of 3 was enough for that size jump. 175lbs was actually quite easy. Sandbag was big enough that it was resting on my thighs (like a stone would) so it was similar to a zercher squat in that I didn’t need to go all the way down but still do to get that full ROM. As I will need that for big and heavy stones I want to lift in March. So I know for next time to do 225lbs here. Then the reason I guess for just one set was that adding another sandbag exercise in the form of roll-ups. So just the extensions. I’ve been thinking about sandbags a little lately even though not likely to be at any shows I’m doing (SC allegedly wants nothing to do with them after this year and the hassle haha). But thinking that I may need to work the bear hug style a bit more as to have it be a viable option if I encounter similar situation to Nats this year. Anyways, plan was same as the squats with one top set with 1-2ct holds. But this was a lot harder because of what I was trying to do. See, I generally don’t get up on my toes for extension. I tend to rely on my hips and back to be the mobility. My ankles and lower legs aren’t up to par. Long feet makes great balance but terrible leverages. I was aiming to get up on my toes on these and that was the difficult part. I guess not that much but holding it certainly was. As I tend to extend up and out for a load rather than in place so I was getting off balance. A lot. I actually ended up dropping the sandbag about halfway in getting too far forward. So that was frustrating but a needed lesson. This is the time to work on those things. Out into the street for the last thing; sled work again. Same as last week with three sets of 50’ down and back but set weight. 30lbs more than the second set was last week. Maybe I should’ve done some warming up here but I kind of felt like it would take more effort warming up truly and time then just going and getting warm while I was going. I went 10lbs heavier than listed only because it was easier plate math with my sled so I could just worry about 45lbs plates. Plan here was 2 minute rests but judging from what I actually did, it was 90 seconds rest. I didn’t want to go back inside so I just walked to the stop sign and back and took like 15 seconds after that to go. Only paused for a little before the last set because I wasn’t sure where the mailperson was going after dropping off a bunch of junk and bills. As is usually the case for me on sled work, I got faster each set despite feeling the fatigue and breathing heavy. Put stuff away, had a protein shake and stretched out. I was planning to ice my knees but ended up not. I thought it would cause me issues sleeping not doing that but it didn’t.