August 12, 2023 – Week 7, Day 4

Paused 13” Kabuki Trap Bar Deadlifts (Versa Gripps, 2 seconds off the floor)
200x2
250x2
310x2
360x2
420x2
420x2
420x2
420x2
420x2

16” Kabuki Trap Bar Pick and Holds
542x3+30 seconds
542x3+30 seconds

Stone of Steel Roll Ups into Carries
140x2(3+10’)
140x2(3+10’)
140x2(3+10’)
208x1(3+10’)
208x1(3+10’)
255x2(3+10’)
255x2(3+10’)
255x2(3+10’)
255x2(3+10’)

Monster Mondo Leg Presses/Glute Ham Raise Holds
300x5/bwx10 seconds
400x4/bw+9x8 seconds
500x3/bw+17.5x6 seconds
600x9/bw+26.5x30 seconds
600x11/bw+26.5x30 seconds
600x11/bw+26.5x30 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: Just felt like I should get up at my usual work time Saturday and try and get to bed somewhat early Friday. Made sure to get a walk in and soft tissue work. Plans for Sunday to get things organized for the next week. Training didn’t really seem to be that much on paper but I know how deceptive that can be. Not sure who would be there training and how plans would work out. Slight traffic heading out but smooth after that usual spot of congestion. I also had intended to get out there a little earlier because I was also returning the throw bag that I know another person training for Nats will need. I bought one for at home to use going forward. I made it in time so that now interrupting their training program thankfully. Starting things off was trap bar work. A “deload” of sorts this session. No tempo work and no platform (the pulls were actually 10” and not 11” as I had noted previously). Plan was to do contest setup for paused doubles. 2 second pauses right off the floor with 55-60% of my max. which I don’t know. The app had 750lbs from when I input information for my suited pull stuff for PA Dutch and that was to a higher pick too. While my hope is to get to around this (I was repping this weight in suit), I know that is probably not where I’m at at the moment. I also wasn’t going to be wearing briefs for this session. So went with 700lbs. These actually felt really good. How I was expecting them to feel mostly. So seemed like a good sign to me. Second reps each set felt easier for obvious reasons. There was suggestion to potentially add bands and lower the weight but I felt that it would be too much a hassle to setup with this particular trap bar and how the band platform setup has to go at this gym if it’s not rack pulls. So this felt a like a good start to the day. Get those thoughts of not being strong enough to be quiet for a second. The next thing was still with the trap bar but no straps. Change of gear as well with shoes and knee sleeves. Reason being that this was to work the wheelbarrow part of the moving medley at Nationals. Putting most the moving part of that into the yoke basket as far as training as I did a lot of frame carries leading up to the last show and that was heavier weight in hand than this wheelbarrow is going to be. I had suggested this as a way to consolidate things where I could just go right into this rather than have it be separate. Similar to how regular press/squat and then pause variations. The plan was to do something that felt like RPE 7 on hold and raise the trap bar height to 16-20” range. Rolled it up on 4” of mats. Went with the lower side of things to work closer to the actual pick height for the wheelbarrow. Three picks of the weight and then hold for 20-30 seconds. Base it on the hold effort, not the picks. Suggested weight here was to do 80-85%. So since about 638lbs, then this would be 510-542lbs. I went with the 542lbs and I was thinking this would be light. It was not. I was not expecting the weight to have so much weight to it. I put forth the effort I was expecting to be needed and it didn’t budge. I started to freak out a little bit and checked to make sure the weight was accurate. So I was panicking a bit and put near 100% effort into it this time and it still felt heavy but it went. Video says the reps were easy. The hold was fine and comfortable. Second set of this was a little tougher. I was really surprised how tough that pick was. Maybe this was just a spot that wasn’t good for me to get lower body drive into it. Could also be going from straps to no straps and a 120lbs jump in weight. I think I felt confident in this with how well the pause pulls had went. I guess I’ll need to be mindful of this next time. Now the thing I really wanted to test out was the stone carry event. This is probably the toughest event for nationals with how it is setup and I say this as someone who is pretty darn good at stones. I’d say it is disproportionate to the other events really. I can see why the less taxing events are on Day 1 with it. Plan was RPE 6-7 working up to four doubles. One rep however was to consist of picking the stone and doing three roll ups and then walking 10’ with it. So 6 reps was two reps really. I wanted to deal with 20” diameter stone and I wasn’t sure what I’d actually be working up to so used my stone of steel. The other person training for Nats apparently is using it and didn’t treat it as nicely as they should (I advised their coach when they came in). It has markings where the hemispheres line up after I accidentally dropped it loaded from 5’ a few years back. I had to take a 25lbs plate to it and bang them apart to get it open for training today. So I was a bit annoyed with that considering how much I was sweating. I already had the grip shirt and was going to test out sticky things. Show is not allowing actual tacky but tacky-like (sprays, towels) are allowed. I’ve used tacky towel and it worked well enough I guess with stone of steel in the past but not spray. I needed to see what gave the most stick and what method was going to be the ticket. I’ve done tacky towel directly to bare skin so starting there. Empty implement I did a few runs. Low carry seemed to the best option for the moment. Trying tacky towel only, spray only, and combo. It was apparent early on that the spray was just not going to cut it. Initially it felt like it would be then it seemed for feel like a runny film and I think that had to do with my body running hot. So I just went with the tacky towel only. I could tell that I was going to have issues with appreciable amount of weight not because it was heavy but because I was sweating way too much. The “stone” would be slick with sweat once I went to repick it after the initial roll ups and scoot (hardly call it a run). Which is a same considering how easy I made it look the first set. Each set the second rep got tougher. I also made it tougher on myself by picking up from the side and then having to turn and go. I’m being cognizant of potentially grab and go to cut down on the transition time between stones. I was annoyed by this sweat defeating me and it wasn’t helpful that I had people walk in my path twice while I was doing the carry portion or that someone kept shouting any time I set the stone down because it made a loud sound (they thought it was funny to do). Last set really was trying my patience as I had to wipe myself, the stone and reapply tacky towel before I got it. Going to try some other things next time. See if tape helps with mitigating the sweat issue and if it helps regulate temperature of the sticky stuff so I’m not “melting/sweating” it off. Also see if real stones changes things either. I feel that since only the last stone is going to be repped, the sweat issue I’m having shouldn’t be as bad at the show (the A/C there was great last year). But even with that rationalization, I still wanted it to go better. Last bit was a slight change up. Initially it was to be quad fall backs into glute ham raise holds and potentially replacing the quad fall backs with leg press. The determining factor was what I felt was better. I ended up discussing with Drew as I never felt like the fall backs were “pumping” up the quads but seemed to help with mobility in my hips, ankles and knees and these were more an easier thing to recover from and for knee health. So he felt it made more sense to pair on the yoke sessions rather than leg press those days. So swapped in leg press with the timed sets of 30 seconds with these glute ham raise holds. At this point, I ended up shirtless. I had sweat through both shirts and I had the one out to try and was going to put it back on after stones but it had been blown by the wind (I hope) off the spot I had it and landed in a deposit of stagnant water in one of the tractor tires. So that was soaked with yucky water. Knees were a bit achy on the leg press but I knew I needed to warm up to use a decent weight for a training effect. The glute ham part was fine and simple really. I had my feet position slightly off that first set of leg press and I only matched the reps I had done last time in 20 seconds. I realized that and fixed for the rest of the sets and got more reps. Glute ham raise holds were good, felt these more than the carries. I know my biceps will be sore tomorrow from how much I had to crush the sweaty stones. Stretched before heading home (also ranted to George about OSG) to decompress.