July 28, 2024 - August 3, 2024 - Week 8

July 29, 2024 – Week 8, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

12” Log Strict Presses w/ Bands (+14lbs/+22llbs)
No Bands
87x5
Add Bands
90x3
120x2
145x2
165x2
185x2
185x2
185x2
185x2
185x5

Paused Chest Supported Barbell Rows
95x5
135x5
185x3
Added Straps, 2 seconds holds
230x5
230x5

Bench Presses w/ Chains (+22lbs)
No Chains
45x15
Add Chains
45x5
95x5
135x3
185x2
225x2
265x5
265x5

Band Face Pulls
lbx35
lbx35

Stretching
 
Comments: Just have to accept work is now at another level of dumb/crazy with how things are done/managed and just adjust to the “new normal”. I feel like people can tell themselves whatever they need to in order to tread water in one place. But enough of that. Seemed to feel ok after training Saturday and kind of getting stuff done Sunday. My weight is back under 280lbs. I am a bit surprised how drastic the drop has been. I was 284lbs when I got back from vacation (down 4lbs from two weeks prior) and now just a bit over 278lbs. I didn’t think I’d lost nearly that much and I didn’t feel like any was dropped. I feel no different from being about 10lbs heavier. Temps had crept up again so it was quite warm today. But I didn’t feel like it was so stuffy to require the fans and just kind of dealt with being a little sweaty. Warming up was ok. Just keeping an eye on things. Some soreness in the legs and aches in the knees. But nothing to really mention here beyond that. And to be expected considering the max distance sandbag stuff. Forearms were a little sore in spots and could tell hips were a little tight. Starting off the actual training was log strict press. Same as last time with it being with bands and 4x2 with up 5 for a fifth set. Suggested increase was 5lbs. Finishing out this week without support gear (at least for this upper body session). I could tell on the log that my hips and lower back were tight. But the good news was that I was able to get my glutes to connect with bracing with those areas feeling tight. Shoulders weren’t feeling too bad here either. I recall that I’ve said they feel achy at the start or things aren’t feeling great and then they do for the working sets. The working sets maybe didn’t feel as easy as I wanted them to but I have to remember that this was how things were last time besides the top set when it felt super easy. This time around I felt I was getting better each set as well. Top set felt the best but definitely wasn’t the super easy feeling I got on that last set last time. I had been tempted with how that went last time to go up 10lbs instead of 5lbs. It was probably best to do 5lbs, especially considering I wasn’t sure how things would feel after swapping sandbag carries for the stone loads. It is nice that I’m doing weights that I was having issues with at start of Regionals prep with bands and no support gear now. I’m just very glad that my shoulders are handling the workload and not having me regress in recovery. From there, it was into the garage for chest supported barbell rows with pauses. Same as last time with it being 2x5 and the 2 second holds at contraction. Indication was to just add 5lbs to last time. I probably could’ve done more but figured I’d stick with the small jumps and see how things are after the sandbag carries for max distance stuff. Weights were feeling a little heavy in the hands without straps working up but was moving fine otherwise. Adding the straps took away that heaviness feeling (I was expecting that to be the case from the casual farmers and the max distance bag carries). These felt quite comfortable and definitely good for a good bit more here. I think this might tie the PR for this exercise for me. Benching was up next. Same as last week but adding 5lbs. As I mentioned last time, I had brought my grip in and the setup is feeling a lot more stable/comfortable for me and wrists aren’t barking at me. But I did notice that I have to still be careful with unracking the weight to not get off balance or out of the groove as well as be aware that lockout is going to be a little slower. Warming up was feeling pretty good here. I was getting that feeling of being stacked with the weight. Lower back was feeling tight but it wasn’t as much of a discomfort coming back up off the bench as it was the last time I did this session. So even though still tight, it is more weight being moved in everything from last time and it feeling slightly better. Unlike last time, I didn’t rush things the second set on these so I didn’t misgroove and have to redo a set. So that certainly saved me some effort. I know these would feel easier with wrist wraps but I don’t need them for comfort like when I was using a wider grip. The chain setup for both these and front squats does require me spacing things out a bit, which adds to the “liveness” of the weight. So I also have to be mindful of that. Last thing being face pulls with bands to finish up. Outside for these for ease of teardown. Reps increased to for the upper limit range to 35 reps. Still for the two sets. I was going to aim for 2x35 here. I just know from experience that fatigue catches up to me hard on that second set but perhaps I can recover better. Honestly, that first set felt like it was more fatiguing and longer to finish than I was expecting. I do the “break it up” method in my head where I just kept telling myself I was doing sets of 5 reps with no rests on that second set and that did seem to help with me dealing with the fatigue here. I cooked up dinner and let it sit to cool while I put stuff away. Stretched out afterwards.

July 31, 2024 – Week 8, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Deadlifts w/ Bands (straps)
No Bands
135x5
Add Bands (+7lbs/+42lbs)
135x3
185x3
225x2
275x2
315x1
365x1
405x1
455x5

Step Ups (18”)
bwx25 L
bwx25 R
bw+10’sx10 L
bw+10’sx10 R

Single Leg Wall Sits
bwx45 seconds L
bwx45 seconds R

Crunches
bw+45x35

Paused Hanging Knee Raises (1 second)
bw+20x22

Stretching
 
Comments: Continues to be hot. That’s not really saying anything. But it certainly has been hot this summer as seeing the electric bill for this month was almost double the previous month. I got the next block of training provided and it seems that some things will be adjusted to more event specific, volume reducing on other stuff and intensity on others going up. While hot, I’ve not really been feeling like I need the fans on for training. Warming up felt fine. Some stuff was feeling little tight from Monday training session. Up first was deadlifts. Pulls from the floor with bands. But this time only a single top set of 5 reps. This and the farmer’s walks from this past Saturday (and maybe the front squats) that had me nervous about sticking to my no belts stance for the rest of this training block. Felt like I had to finish things out here considering next deadlift session will not be these floor pulls with bands. Plan being same warming up with it being 40-50lbs jumps with the weight. The plan was to work up to 425-455lbs and I was eyeing 455lbs with how this was going to be the end of these. I was being mindful with my setup here as I didn’t want it to feel like I couldn’t get tight and load the movement out of the start like it felt last week. But I think a part of it being that tight and focused was also making me feel a little lightheaded after the sets from bracing hard and holding my breath. I didn’t want things to feel like last time where stuff felt slow initially. And I think part of that was having too narrow a stance the one time. This time around I was also figuring if I perhaps had stance to wide and not having things in that “power position”. I’m still getting used to getting that sensation of having my knees past my shoulder which has taken me so long to get to click in some fashion. The heavier singles felt better than last time so I was hopeful that the top set would feel more like the second set than the first set from last time. It felt ok. Form didn’t break down and I’d say at least three reps were in the tank here. I was able to keep up with the big jumps in weight from the start of this cycle 8 weeks ago while no support gear so that was a good sign. Start using belts and such for next time. Outside for step ups. I was sweating but not so much that I needed the fans or a towel. Step ups were a little different this time. I was still doing the bodyweight set but that wasn’t going to be all I did. So first set was 25 reps for each leg. I had done that last time. Naked knees. Knees were a little achy but not enough that felt I had to put on knee sleeves. Breathing a little heavy but good and controlled. Powerful reps. The next part was a set with weight. Light weight. 10lbs dumbbells for a set of 10 reps each leg. But I got to be fancy and use kettlebells. These were a little tricky. Because when I do the step ups, I am also having my upper body move/gesticulate while doing the movement. I’m really trying to step up powerfully with my entire being. Which becomes a little awkward when holding light weights. I don’t seem to know what to do with my arms. With stepping up with the left side, I had more issues with keeping the upper body “relaxed” and not tensing so much compared to the right side. Maybe I had enough practice on the left to get it figured out by the time I got to the right side. Back inside for single leg wall sits were next. Goal to add 5-10 seconds to last time for the progression. I had done 40 seconds last time for a 10 seconds increase and that had been tough. This doesn’t feel like one of those exercises where it ever feels “easier”. 30 seconds the first time, the last time and this time all felt like suffering. I set the timer initially for 50 seconds in the event that I was feeling really good. I was not as previously mentioned with how 30 seconds felt like forever to reach. I know I could do 50 second here but it would’ve been at high cost and made progressing from there much harder. So I went with 45 seconds for both sides here. Left side feels awkward setting up while right side feels comfortable. But it feels the same amount of suck/difficulty regardless which side I do here. Improving this with time is going to be tough. I think adding weight to it would probably be easier with shorter time haha. Core work after that. Weighted crunches. I was debating on going up in weight or staying at 35lbs. Rep range 25-35 and I decided fine, I’ll do 45lbs as that would be the top end goal really. Turned out to be a good call. The iron grip plates have convenient places to hold the plate behind the head. Bite size sets of 5 reps seemed to help me get 35 reps here. The ROM is not very big but this is a crunch vs a situp so I feel I’m doing what is being asked here. Last thing being the paused hanging knee raises. This requires a bit of setup and I had been kind of tearing down other stuff and setting this up since I finished the step ups. Even though it is a pain with setup (elevating rack, ankle weights, liquid chalk, etc) I do like the exercise and how it hits the hip flexors. I did use a fan here but to keep my hands and arms dry enough to apply the liquid chalk so that sweat didn’t affect the grip for these. Lower back was definitely feeling tight and the traction these can provide were noticed with how tense things were. Things were feeling pretty easy until suddenly they were. I was feeling like 25 reps no problem but then decided I’d do the ole “1-2 reps more than last time” route here. I didn’t expect it to be as late as it ended up being or that it would take dinner that long to be done. I may have also made too much dinner for what I was expecting. It was late then my AC started making loud noises (I initially thought it was someone doing yard work) and had to turn it off before I started stretching. Hopefully I can get HVAC people out to take a look because I do not do well in a hot house haha.

August 3, 2024 – Week 8, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Yoke (Casual Pace, turf)
175x80’
250x50’
350x50’
450x50’
550x50’
650x50’
650x50’
175x80’

Sandbag Loads (58“)
200x2
250x2
300x5

Sled Pushes (turf)
105x50’
(60 seconds rest)
195x50’/195x50’
195x50’/195x50’
195x50’/195x50’
195x50’/195x50’
195x50’/195x50’

Stretching
 
Comments: Well the second half of this week decided to be a stressful affair. As mentioned end of Wednesday session about the AC needing to be turned that meant my house was hotter than I’d like for a good bit. Last summer it went out when it got really hot and I had the motor replaced. This time it was something else but with the outside unit only. But my motor in the basement shouldn’t be as loud as it is but the company isn’t sure if still under warranty since it was about a year since install. Using the outside hose to clean the unit revealed that there was also a pipe issue with water flooding the basement. So having a plumber next week to look into that. Thankfully it is only for the hose outside which I rarely use, but can’t be having water leaking where the internet and circuit breaker are. Took all day Thursday for the temperature in the house to get back to acceptable levels for me. Friday I was distracted with work and I suddenly started feeling hot and realized that the AC wasn’t working again. I was worried I’d have to have them out for a second time in less than a day like last year. Turns out they didn’t secure the door in the downstairs unit and the rumbling of the motor had knocked it open and the system shut off automatically. Still, I had a very hot house that I had to cool down for the rest of the day. My hope is the unit lasts through this summer and fall and get it replaced beginning of 2025 when the new coolant systems are released for use and when they won’t be busy. So that was not fun with also working through that. I wasn’t planning on getting up early to train after that but I got a message from a friend asking if I could come out earlier to train to assist with their training. It is rare I get asked to help in advance but I like to help people with training and contest prep. I was given enough notice to be able to adjust when I ate dinner and get to bed and get ready. I was not thrilled when I stepped outside as the humidity was off the charts. I could tell immediately that I was not going to be enjoying myself today. Getting up an hour earlier does at least seem to mean that traffic is smooth as this may have been the best time I’ve made out to train there. The humidity was ridiculous. I think that I’ve just been so used to training with stuff being somewhat reasonable that I’ve forgotten that I’d use to bring multiple shirts with me during the summer months. I think I was also not considering that with the “off season block” where I was doing not support gear. But I think I’ll need to start bringing back up shirts going forward as the training specificity ramps up. I wasn’t too sure how I was going to be feeling today besides the oppressive humidity. Tailbone on the right side was feeling “off” and achy. Not sure what that was about. And right knee feeling slightly achy as well. I helped out with setup and resetting and such with my friend for about 90 minutes (I got unexpected baked goods as compensation haha) before I started getting ready to warm up to do my own training. My shirt was already soaked by this point and I had my one sweat towel drenched as well. I ended up taking my shirt off to try and dry it out some outside while I was warming up. With how much sweat I was having, I was slightly worried about cramping (I was drinking plenty of my intraworkout drink). Other than the right knee feeling achy (and the rivers of sweat), I was feeling ok. There were a good bit of people training for upcoming contests so I had to change things up a little. The plan was starting things with yoke. Plan here was 620x2x50’ at casual pace and continuing with no support gear of any kind as well. One yoke was being used for yoke runs and the other lane for the concrete was being used as people were training keg loads to platform. Another person needed two yokes to train the every popular “steeple chase” event and that needed space as well. I felt that since I’d already been at the gym for 90 minutes and that my height compared to the person using the yoke already and such that it made sense to take the one yoke into the wind tunnel area on turf to do my yoke runs. I wasn’t adverse to going from concrete to turf as it appears the competition will be on turf anyways. Coupled with having to move the yoke a good distance and that next time I’m to do 700lbs for just one set of 50’ next time, I just went for 650lbs as the top weight set. 100lbs jumps here. Knees were aching a little bit but thankfully no issues actually walking with the weight, more so the pick and as I was doing more I was getting that sensation to be less and less. Getting better at bracing and being tight. Even though purposely going slow, this felt comfortable. I ended up taking a longer break than I intended between the sets because during my first set someone managed to break the toss tower and had to see what happened and advised that person to let the owners know. The second set actually felt better. I took my time with getting to the next thing. Put my shirt outside again to dry (it had rained a little bit while doing yoke but was sunny again) and put away the weights. Next was sandbag loads. Plan here was 275lbs to 300lbs for a set of 5 reps to 57”. I had done 275lbs last time to that height so it didn’t really make sense to do that weight again on paper. But with the humidity and how I was feeling, it wasn’t that bad an idea maybe haha. But I was set on 300lbs. I was thinking I was going to have to do it on the turf where I was but the one person had finished up with yoke so I could bring the yoke back. The yoke I was using last time was part of the yokes being used for the steeple chase training so I used the yoke I was using for loading. There are slight differences in hole placing and thickness of crossbar. So this meant I was going to be needing to 58” load height. I’m going to need to get comfortable with the 300lbs bag as looking at this next block of training, that’s the weight for the sandbag for everything. But when it comes to loads, this session I was about to do was likely going to be harder than the next few sessions since this was a set of 5 reps whereas it is more EMOM going forward (at least for loads, still going to be doing sandbag carries ugh). 50lbs jumps warming up with doubles. I think I forgot from last time that I was walking with the bags a little bit to setup rather than just wheeling them out on the handtruck. It was too humid to be doing that today. But that might have been to my detriment as 200lbs felt awful in the everywhere. Thankfully 250lbs felt a ton better but I was a little leery about the right hamstring. I knew this was going to be tougher than I’d like but I knew that was going to be the case going into this with having done beltless deadlifts and beltless yoke and not using any support gear for this. Just going to have to take my time and not rush it as the pick is going to be the part that is hard here. No issues with the hamstring on that first rep so that was a huge relief. But man did I fumble things for the rest of that first rep. I got off balance and stumbled backwards to catch myself and then got it to the bar and had to push it over. Not a great start. So I paced things accordingly. I thankfully didn’t have those issues after that. Last rep was the best one I feel. But it was a slow pace as it took me over a minute to do these reps. I was making sure that I didn’t screw up the picks on these with the accumulated fatigue of this beltless training cycle so far as well as just how much the humidity was sapping the will to live out of me. At this point, I just ditched the shirt as the last thing was going to be those darn sled pushes. I was not looking forward to this. Continuing to be 5 sets of 100’ with 60 seconds rest. With the pushes, 50’ with two sleds with the space available is the best option here. Have to use 10-20lbs more than last time. So 10lbs added. Thankfully, I will be given a little more leeway in the weights going forward (lower, increase, or keep the same) depending on how I feel. Now I took another long break here because wanting to make sure I was keeping my fluid intake up and not having that in my guts when I started. But also because I was helping someone else with training as no one else was really there that did strongman and they were doing heavy stuff for a heavy show. This was the same person that managed to bust the toss tower. This was a good bit of effort needed here as initially using one piece of equipment for frame carries but then the handles were a bit too thick and then swapping to another setup which broke after a run and then to another setup which required some help after they almost passed out. So I felt obligated to keep those shenanigans in check. So with the sled work I started off fine but then I pretty much had that drop off I usually have on the last set happen for the second set. However, I was able to keep things consistent for those following sets with my time increasing like 2 seconds per run. I didn’t need much time to really recover enough to start cleaning up and putting stuff away. Drank and ate what I had and was ready to get back home. The drive home was not like the drive out there. One of those “rollin’ coal” vehicles was on the road and almost caused numerous accidents with the smoke (not illegal in PA). I almost got hit by a car attempting to go into my lane not paying attention. And there was torrential downpour that was making visibility damn near impossible for a good stretch. I had to kind of just sit for a bit when I got home before I started doing stuff like eating and stretching out.