April 29, 2023 – Week 7, Day 4

Bulgarian Split Squats with Rotation
9’sx10/10
17.5’sx10/10

Sandbag Tosses (10’ away)
30x1
30x1
35x1
40x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1
45x1

Frame Carries
Titan Fitness (16”)
Casual Pace
115x50’
115x50’
Makeshift (18”)
Normal
276x50’
376x25’
476x25’
BiggDogg Strongg (20”, 1.5” handles)
568x25’
Drop and Turns Halfway
650x100’ in 22.82 seconds
650x100’ in 20.97 seconds
Normal
568x25’

Atlas Stone to Shoulders
205x1
235x1
265x1
265x1
265x1
265x1
265x1
265x1
265x6

Atlas Stone Roll-ups
265x10

Standing Band GHD Abs
(2)ab+(2)lbx25
(2)ab+(2)lbx25

Wide Grip Rolling Bar Hangs
bw+35 for 60 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: So might have overdone it with trying to get my shoulder/neck feeling better. Also could just be related to work stress. Friday was definitely that. Raining most of the day. I ended up doing some foam rolling during my lunch break and had put on Icy Hot on my neck, shoulders and upper back. Things were feeling pretty tense and it was feeling like part of the jaw and neck was too, which isn’t great. Raining most of the day and was checking weather to see what I needed to plan for the next day. It did appear that a later start to the day would avoid the rain so plan was to intentionally sleep in an hour and have stuff ready to go sooner in the event the weather changed. Woke up and neck was stiff and sore on the left side and yawning first thing made it tense up. I typically don’t do this but took ibuprofen to see if that helped things calm down enough that I could rotate my head to at least make driving safe. I tend to not like taking things to numb/dull sensations as can lead to more injury pushing through. It was still looking rainy as I was driving out there but I figured it would clear up in time for what I needed to do. I knew some people would be here and others would not. I brought the 5lbs sandbags and labeled them as well as some batteries for the digital scale but I couldn’t locate it so held on to those. Did some hangs with both and one hand to try and do some traction on the shoulders and back. Start of workout was Bulgarian split squats with rotation of back leg. Two sets this time. I did some mobility stuff for ankles and knees. But didn’t feel like I needed to do as much. Could be the ibuprofen dulling the aches. First set felt ok and I had been planning to just do the same weight both sets but decided why not and add some weight. More weight actually felt better and smoother. Maybe I need more ballast weight? Or doing some warming up with just bodyweight might be helpful for these to feel better. I mean, I should know that this exercise seems to take time to feel good first thing in a session from the past two years of training. So then it was time for sandbag toss. Like every week with this now. I wasn’t too sure really how these would be feeling considering pretty heavy last weekend in the rain and not much lighter really on the second day. And with the shoulder issue and now the neck. But I’m feeling the pressure with this event. It was going to be tough with it being 5 bags up to 50lbs but now up to 60lbs it really puts into perspective how much tougher a show this will be compared to last year. Last year there were different aspects (speed, conditioning) whereas still present but just turned up to 11 with strength involved too. This weight that ends the series is a weight that half the field at the Arnold pro in 2020 missed. Another detail was that the bags were going to be away from the setup and that would be about 10’. So needed to work that out too. The plan was to do 10x1 with a little more than last time. So I think 42.5lbs was what was listed. Got 5lbs jumps. Even advised I could stick with the same weight as last two times and just launch it. My thinking was that I need to get used to the heavier stuff. Initially I was doing a hop back to work on speed and see if I could clear the height doing that and where the limit was. Couldn’t really tell how close really without checking after the fact. After the first two tosses with 45lbs, I went to doing the tosses as if I took my time like when I was doing for max tosses. Those tosses were absolutely getting over the goal height without needing to check video. So that had been a concern as last three sessions have been with my setup at home and I wasn’t sure if I was getting the height. I think I’m getting the pieces together for a good throw again. So I decided to alternate between the hop back and the walk back to train the different tools. Buff the rolodex. Two one style and then two another. For the last four, I realized I don’t really know the setup to be used just yet and I might have to start from the side rather than the front. So did that to see how that felt. No real difference for the stand and toss but it did affect things with the hop back as those last two tosses were the lowest of the tosses (the only ones after the fact that wouldn’t have cleared 15’ but were still over 14’). I’m not upset that I didn’t get all the tosses over 15’ as I learned a good bit and can build from here. Time for frame. Had not conflicts or delays here warming up like last time. There was still standing water but the ground wasn’t slick by this point. Plan was to do RPE 7 with 2x100’ with a drop and repick at 50’. No timed rests, go as I felt. Suggested weight being 625-650lbs. See how I felt but I was gunning for 650lbs as this would be 90% contest weight and contest conditions essentially. Be a nice feather in my cap to be this ready on this event with like half a training cycle left to go. More on point, less devoted training needed to keep primed and can put more energy into the events that need it most to be the best competitor I can be. Only thing was whether this would bother my shoulder/neck but from past experience, this kind of stuff didn’t seem to do that for me. Gavin wasn’t here but I didn’t really feel I needed timing and commands if I didn’t have someone to assist for this as I could probably get my time off my camera if I setup the video in a way to catch it since the start and finish would be the same line. But George was there so that worked out. Now I didn’t do this “exactly” like contest as it will be front to front. The frame for that show is just over 7’ long so the first length would be 50’ but then the second run would be like 43’. So I did front to front the way down and stopped time when the back crossed so that I was doing 100’ full. First run felt smooth but there was some hesitancy in my steps and I fumbled my hands a little bit getting the repick as I was trying to be stable. A 5lbs plate shattered on the finish of that run so had to swap it out (I’ll bring in a replacement next Saturday). Second set felt much better but still not as quick on the repick as I’d like. But both runs were under 25 seconds which was what I needed. Put frame away and it was time to do some stone lifting. Up next was stone to shoulder. A bit more stone work compared to last time I did these. Plan here was to work up to six singles and then rest and do a rep set of 4-6. Weight for the singles was to be between 260-300lbs. With it being shorter rests like the sandbag tosses (60-90) I went with the lighter end of things. I think I also didn’t really want to use the stone of steel today because it was a pain using the scale last time and without the digital scale, it would be too much of a pain to do multiple weights with it really. I did less warming up as I trying to avoid using the smaller stones as the form is really different with my arm length. I was glad that whatever is going on with the shoulder/neck was aggravated by these. I wasn’t feeling that powerful today on these but other than one, video says otherwise. I thought I was taking a gamble then for the rep set as I was going to use the same stone here. I was initially going to ask for help for timing and pacing (I didn’t bring my timer today) but figured that it wasn’t worth it this time around (especially since George was getting ready to leave) and that it was more just getting used to reps. This event is a bit weird in that the most fatiguing part of things seems to be the pick and I seem to get better at the shouldering as I go. The sensation of stuff in the posterior chain feeling like it is fatiguing in misleading. I had every intention of just stopping at 4 reps but decided to do one more and that went up so well I went for a sixth to finish out. It seems that after the first 3 that I started to get my upper back to be more mobile like it should with viking press and sandbag toss. So maybe I need to think about the cobra pose as part of warm up for contest day prep. Obviously I went a bit over the time of a minute with this being about 90 seconds. But that is ok. I’m feeling better about being able to give a shot a multiple attempts at reps with contest weight with doing essentially 90% of contest on two events for reps. I wasn’t quite done with stones. Instead of the back extensions, Drew felt I should do some roll-ups with the stone instead as long as I didn’t feel it was hard on biceps. Suggested to drop weight down as needed for a set of 10 reps. I wasn’t sure based just on how things had felt when I did stone of steel version of this and last time I did these was almost 2yrs ago with actual stones. But I felt it was important to use the 20” stone and again with the stone of steel and weighing it, I stuck to the stone I was using for the shouldering. This ended up being really easy and I wasn’t expecting that. Especially when I wasn’t using any tacky or sticky stuff. I guess I’ll need to go a bit heavier next time if these are programmed haha. Abs up next and not the finisher for this workout. Standing with bands two sets at RPE 6-7 with it being 15-25 reps. I was going to do the same band setup I’ve been using and just do 2x25. As I’m not sure really on adding band tension to this. Those added reps were definitely adding to the difficulty. But can say my abdominals are recovering well in that no DOMS there like last week. So last thing was grip work. Just hasn’t needed the focus just yet. This was just to be a set of rolling bar hangs which I’ve found have been a good one for Hercules hold training. It has been a bit and I’ve done shorter holds and heavier in the most recent iterations of this. Plan was a set of RPE 8-9 that was over 45 seconds. Looking at what I’d done, I figured that I could do like 25lbs added and be good for 45 seconds here. Suggested was to just do bodyweight this first time. I felt like that would be too easy and over a minute. I know for this contest that a minute isn’t likely needed to win and will need to get stronger. I got set and the closest plate to me was 35lbs so I said screw it, I’ll just do that. I got set and took the strain and it felt like nothing. I was almost laughing to myself. This was too easy. Getting a minute was challenging though and I stopped when I was starting to feel things slip close to the minute mark. Really surprised with this considering not doing squat for it. Put stuff away and went home to stretch so I could hopefully avoid rain driving home and because someone that showed up later smelled like wet dog and it was going to drive me nuts. Stretched when I got home and iced my knees. Iced them again before bed. Hopefully the neck shoulder thing calms down.