January 14, 2023 – Week 12, Day 4

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

Paused Cossack Squats (5 seconds)
bwx5/5
bwx5/5

Safety Squat Bar Squats
65x10
115x8
155x6
205x4
245x2
295x2
340x5
340x5
340x5

Stone of Steel Roll-ups (full squat, tacky towel)
140x3
175x3
209x3
242x5
242x5

Husafell Carries (taken from 20” box, turns at 50’)
Staggered Grip
150x100’
210x100’
270x355’

Hercules Holds (hook grip)
230x10 seconds
320x35 seconds
280x60 seconds

Comments: Probably a good thing this is another 3 day weekend due to holiday. Give me a chance to take care of some things that won’t require me to alter my schedule/routine drastically. Work was busy Friday and I spent too much time to really insure that I could go and get in a walk during lunch so that was saved until after work. It gets so dark at that time. I was contemplating not walking to just use that time for just soft tissue work and getting to be earlier but I had noticed walking around made the tightness in the lower back/glutes feel better so it was deemed a must. Also made sure to get in soft tissue work and I needed it from how stuff was reacting. Also discussing changes for upper body training to see if that gets things to be on track. Plan was to get out to train at a more reasonable hour (as in wake up to go to work time) as one I needed to make sure there were people there for something programmed in the workout and two to get about half of the workout done so that I could train my sister on the events for the show since this was a rare week she was able to train at the gym. I didn’t want to worry about getting gas in the morning so I just used all the gas in the gas can for the mower (not going to need that until late spring likely) and then worry about gas later. I was kind of surprised that the drive out wasn’t slow going as usually when I leave earlier traffic can be bad getting through the city and especially with it being a holiday weekend. But it was smooth going. Good bit of people there when I showed up but again, seems like even getting out like 2hrs earlier still seemed to be tail end for some people. Some people I was expecting weren’t there though. Starting things off with hip airplanes. Same as last week with just the two sets. I did these barefoot to see if that made the lower legs more active (I had been wearing my converse). I was kind of looking forward to these as I felt these would probably feel good on my tight piriformis stuff that had calmed down a good bit since Thursday. Cossack squats after that for same thing as last week as well. I switched to doing the left side first after how things felt. That side the knee just isn’t a fan as it feels “dull” and like I have to go in two parts at first until things are warmed up enough. This has been an issue since spring 2021 which was deemed as muscular related stability issue with something being too strong compared to other part of leg. This might just be the best it will be as it has been something managed since that time and I’ve not had my knee “go” on me like that time when I went to the urgent care to get it checked. Just keep to knee sleeves and know it feels better as I get more warmed up. No issues with the right side other than just noticing how much tighter my left side feels in the hamstring when in the stretch. Squats with ssb up next. So indication here was that this week would be like last week and then next week will be more a speed session for squats to allow for more freshness for heavy stones. Squats are training lift, stone is competition lift. So goal was progressing in weight linearly and having it be 3x5 at RPE 7-7.5. Considering how 335lbs had felt last week (and probably was on the high end of what I should’ve done last time) that I’d go just 5lbs increase and depending on how I felt decide if sticking to the weight or adding 5lbs a set as sometimes that works for me. Warming up initially felt fine but then as I got more weight it was feeling kind of rough. Feeling tougher than last week. And I had been nervous at that time. The weight never really felt comfortable to the point I could just walk it out and go in one breath like I sometimes am able to do as I get more used to the weight. These felt slow and heavy. Video suggests I still was leaving plenty RIR though and I think it is more than stuff was fatigued from heavy lower work (really heavy pulls and adding 15lbs to hatfields from already at 25lbs increase). I had a creeping suspicion that something was off. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve kind of kept a record of using the ssb at my house and the one at the strongman gym as different brands and it felt like the one at home was like 10% harder from pure numbers. I was wondering if this was the same bar as when I did that top set two weeks ago, it felt no easier than the one I had at home. It would appear that this is a different bar from looking at videos. I think the previous owner switched gyms and took it with them. That bar had sat a little lower from the wear and tear with the bar pad whereas this one sits higher like mine at home. So I may need to keep that in mind with using working maxes going forward. My sister showed up at this point for training so pace went a bit out the window but that was fine as the rest of the workout was stuff that kind of lent itself to longer rests between stuff as more event specific things. So next thing was stone roll ups but a bit different from how I’ve done them. In the past, I’ve kind of just lapped the stone and just did extension without readjusting each rep to keep secure. More like how I was doing the sandbag roll ups to box. This was to be going into a full squat like I would to catch a heavy stone and then extending and holding briefly. Indication was to use a sandbag or a light atlas stone (ideally the lightest 19-20” stone). I wasn’t sure if this was to be with tacky or not as usually not training stones every week (and when I’ve done in the past, it was always light and then heavy). I was low on tacky (some did arrive in time) and I felt that the stone that would fit the bill was the dirtiest stone there (265lbs) and that clean up from stones with tacky was going to be a problem as it wasn’t the last thing for the session and the other stuff were somewhat grip dependent (a lot grip dependent) and either having tacky residue would give inaccurate numbers and contaminate the equipment or having hands to slick and greasy would make these near impossible to achieve. So I decided that I’d use my stone of steel and tacky towel. I could stick to 20” and adjust the weight and allow for regular linear progression assuming this is needed. This is also probably what I’ll need to use for the show after this with stone to shoulder since that is a new movement for me. I did triples with 35lbs jumps. The full squat part of things made this a bit interesting and different. Breathing also was different as there was this requirement to crush really hard to extend and stay tight but not pass out. It looked a lot easier to pick and lap on video then it felt. Last rep the first set was the hardest as I could tell I wasn’t sticking as much on that one. Second set felt a lot easier. Definitely was feeling more comfortable with the extension on these. I know that will be on point with more practice with heavy stones in the position. May need to consider what abdominal exercise could mimic that or be close to the sensation. From there it was time for husafell carries. It was up to me if I wanted to do these from the floor or off the box again. Show is from floor but I’m doing a lot of lower back work with pulls and stones so it will be more a technique thing as we get closer. At this time, I just want to work on getting work done. Plan was work up to weight I did last week for a single set of max distance with turns at 50’. I was prepared this time as far as athletic tape and using liquid chalk and regular chalk for the top set. Staggered grip and 60lbs jumps. The weight was feeling light in my arms but I didn’t feel like I had the endurance in the lower body to go beyond 200’. I guess just from how squats had felt and how my legs had felt with soft tissue work. But I guess I was wrong as this went swimmingly. My lower body didn’t get tired this time around compared to when I did the sandbag at home (my street up and down really saps the lower body). My grip on the bottom arm/hand was what went on me. Please with hitting this distance with 90% of contest weight. This is right where I wanted to be come contest day and we are still 8 weeks out. Hopefully I don’t need to push it this far on the day but it is there. I’d say getting the lower body up to par for this was a success. Last thing was Hercules holds. I feel like this was a last minute addition after I mentioned it was setup in the gym. I have to do this for PA Dutch and Regionals but different weights and rules. PA Dutch is using this exact apparatus and hook grip is allowed. Regionals is different setup and hook grip not allowed. I figured that it was best to get sessions on the setup at this point using hook grip since odds are that longer hold time is going to be needed. I can hit over 40 seconds with the weight without hook grip but need to prepare for longer and get things ready as there will be a lot of stuff that requires hands and grip at the show so need to consolidate things. I am able to do grip work at home that is more in line with the rules of the other show and then when this one is done I can focus on that. First thing was the setup was out but not in a way that it could be used so had to get it moved out. Second was that there wasn’t really people there that had used it or knew how to use it and that was key with making sure that things go smoothly. I figured that this would be the case and only planned to do a single warming up set and then do the two work sets. Suffice it to say, things didn’t go smoothly. It took a few tries before spotters were able to get things in synch and I wasn’t getting launched one way or the other. Plan had been to do a top weight for 30 seconds comfortably and then drop weight but make it tougher by going for what I think would be decent for contest. I’ve not tried anything above 230lbs on this setup for hook grip but I did over 90 seconds the one time so I figured that assuming I could do this no issue, then something that I could get like 20 second regular style should be comfortable with hook for longer. So I went with 3 plates and then plan was to do contest weight for the longer hold. 320lbs actually felt quite good and I probably could’ve go closer to 45 seconds, maybe even a 60 seconds. It can be hard to tell as it is more a forearm fatigue thing than grip. I went 5 seconds longer as it had turned out to be too easy and it had been such a pain to get things setup for this attempt anyways. Repeated effort does seem hard with the hook grip though as 280lbs was feeling awfully close to how the 320lbs felt. I feel I probably could’ve done 75 seconds here but it would’ve been close. 60 felt like enough. Even though I was done training, I was there for a good bit later to help my sister finish up her training and talking with Guy and George before getting to stretching before driving home.