Comments: Last workout involving weights for this training cycle. Trying to feel good and recover as best as I can for the competition. Starting to realize I’m actively nervous and not just subconsciously. Movement prep for today was a little different. Order of movements changed around and some for two times and some for three times. Used the weird wraps my dad had got me last week for the warm-up stuff. Again, not sure if they are the best for these or not. But I do notice knees feel better if I wear some kind of support on things. On to lifting stuff. Deadlifts from the floor again. Really light. 20lbs more than end of last cycle. Trying to focus on these and not have an oops like the last time where my back seized up on me. Think about pulling 700lbs. Set and pull with control. May not have done as slow an eccentric as previously. Right knee was bothering me a little on these. Not enough to hamper me. And possibly warming up some more could keep it ok. After that point it was the rep work stuff. As with the end of last training cycle, the next thing was goblet squats with heels elevated. I was told to do these with 3-5 RIR for 3x10. I wasn’t expecting to go as heavy as I did as with the knee things but I think I needed to do it to get those thoughts out of my head. Wore thin but tight knee sleeves for these. Knees still feel funky to me (and not like Earth, Wind & Fire) but this may just be what I got going forward. So next was a superset. Had a bit of this on Saturday with the pairing of hamstring stuff with the TKEs. This time though it was TKE step ups paired with the band gms. Now only real instructions I was given was light band. So that could mean light band tension or use a light band. I did the later seeing as how I was using a strong band for these the past two weeks. I felt like bodyweight was going to be too easy and honestly 40lbs in each had was pretty easy to do but needed something not too taxing as far as grip. Band gms are not fun haha. I will say I had less of a lower back pump this time around. I did have to take some breaks between supersets with how the gms were. My abs cramped up on the second set of them. Last bit for the session was hollow holds. Just two sets of 30 seconds. A little bit tougher than they usually are after the ab cramping but still quite easy. Workout was done quick enough that I still had to wait for my dinner to finish cooking so put stuff away and stretched before eating pot roast. Iced knees before bed.
Half Kneeling Single Arm Band Pulldowns sbx15/15 sbx15/15 sbx15/15
Paused Behind the Neck Strict Presses (3 seconds holds)/Band Face Pulls 45x10/lbx15 45x10/lbx15 45x10/lbx15
Hand Elevated Push-ups (11”) bwx15 bwx15
Single Arm Band Triceps Pressdowns abx20/20 abx20/20
Stretching
Comments: Week of the show. Winding down. Feel those nerves and anxiety. Trying to not let that take over things. Body aches don’t help matters as I feel like I’m not quite ready. If I had another month. If stuff just didn’t ache. Feeling like I should just not do the show. I have to remind myself that this is what happens. It happened the last contest. Deloading for competition sucks. Mental and physical stress. Knee is getting there but still not 100%. It at least hasn’t felt like it wants to explode recently. The day before, I did a ton of foam rolling for the upper back to try and get the left shoulder and neck to calm down as well as other stuff for the rest of the body. I do think that helped as I was finally able to “adjust” my neck and get some relief. Though still not feeling like 100% there either. So on to training. I wore a knee brace for this workout just to give more support and warmth to the knee. Just the right one. Also on the right side wore a compression cuff. Trying to keep things minimal for these next few sessions. Circus dumbbell stuff again. Really light. Advised to do 8-10 singles and work on the form and bracing like I should for a heavy lift. Leave the session feeling good about dumbbell. I setup my handle so that I had the weights spaced way out so that it was similar angle to how it will be with a big bell. I feel like these went ok. I could feel my right knee “clicking” on the dip for the left side but nothing really on the right side. I will be wearing my stiffest sleeves for this at the show. Inside for training in the garage. Seated axle pressing with bands again. Light stuff. Work up in doubles to 135lbs and do 5x3 with fairly short rests. I was told to press these fast and control the negative (as in didn’t have to do the usual 3 seconds) but I kept it that way so that reps remained consistent. This was easy but I was feeling some pressure on the ulnar nerve on the left side. Back was next but changed from the modified pull-ups to band work. One arm pulldowns. No holds or pauses, just 3x15. Highest band tension I have is the strong band so I just used that. Trying to think of pulling with the lats and locking the shelf for that side. Thinking circus dumbbell and some truck pull. Band tension was pretty light considering so I just did each set back to back so that fatigue made the last set within the difficulty range. Next was the superset of the btn presses with band face pulls. Back to doing just the bar and higher reps. Face pulls no modifications so back to doing them standing without pauses. Honestly, the bar stuff was right but I think the band tension too light for the face pulls. But it would be a big jump to the next tension so this worked out too. Thinking about opening up the shoulders. Push ups after that. Hand elevated. Two sets of 15 reps. Last time I’ve done these was to 18” with my jack stands and I did like 40 reps in one set so I lowered the height to the lowest setting to try and increase the difficult to be within parameters. Still pretty easy but honestly rougher on the shoulders compared to the other push-up variations I’ve been doing as of late. Possibly because those required more motor control so the irradiation made things feel better. Last thing bands for triceps. I knew that after last week that that band tension would work here. Left side still has some issues with control as far as the wrist rigidity but it is what it is at this point. Finished up with putting stuff away before eating and then stretching.
Lying Leg Curls/Paused Band TKEs (3 seconds holds) 90x15 – sbx15/15 90x15 – sbx15/15 90x15 – sbx15/15
Sled Drag Work (turf) 200x5 minutes
Stretching
Comments: First workout this week that truly felt like it was a deload session. I’ve been feeling stiff, worn and tired this week so I know I’m ready for things to wind down. The steel is ready for tempering. Tired and I kind of felt like I was moving in slow motion Friday as I didn’t really do anything besides work until after my shift was done as far as putting stuff away and getting food ready. I ended up sleeping in as my left shoulder and side of my neck was tight again. I’m not sure what is causing it and if it is originating in the neck, traps, shoulder or upper back or a combo. It’s not really painful, just annoying. It’s tense not loose. I guess all I can really do is continue to do soft tissue stuff and rest. So late start to the day. I realized when I was like 75% of the way out to the gym I forgot my phone so I didn’t have a way to record training or a way to check what my workout was. Luckily I had been reviewing it that morning before I left (I was also finishing up write-up for the Thursday workout) and I remembered it all (I wasn’t 100% sure). Low intensity day. Blood flow and pump deload. I probably missed a lot of people that are normally there as I came in quite late in the early afternoon when usually I’m in the late AM. Mobility stuff was just the two exercises from two weeks ago. No knee braces but I brought all the different stuff just in case. Besides belts that is. Nothing I was doing was going to be so taxing on the midsection. I did order some compression cuffs for the forearms to see how those worked out. Seem to be good. So first real exercise being the inverse curls. Advised to do a weight that felt like a I had several reps in the tank. Warmed up with more reps compared to last week since weight assistance was going to be a good bit more so less jumps to get to work weight. Right knee is still feeling tender when pressure is applied. It’s a different feeling from what I was expecting. Not like a tendon aching but a muscle and nerve discomfort. Not from the movement I was doing, just the pressure of the knee into the hard foam pad. Hamstrings feeling tight. Not so much the muscles, again more tendons and ligaments. So from there on to zercher gms with the ssb. Really, really light weight suggested here. Wore the knee sleeves on my forearms like last time. Really easy stuff here but felt good. After that was Spanish squats. Same bodyweight with 3x10 and using a strap. Knee sleeves on more to keep the bruising from the strap down. No specification of heels raised so I did these with feet flat. I do wish I had video of this so I could see if I was doing the form on these right. As they have been, they seem to get better as I do the sets. Similar to inverse curls, they may be something to doing a warming up to them but I’m really not sure how or what that would be considering I’m using just bodyweight right now. I do wonder if having something to hold on to so that I can really sit back and not feel like I may fall due to balance could be helpful. But again, don’t know if that will defeat the purpose or how to really implement that. Next up was kind of the only really event specific training for the day. Standing arm-over-arm pulls with RPE 6-7. Three sets to get the form work in for the upper body part of the truck pull. I tried to remember that I’d done on these and I think what I thought I’d done for decent work was “6lbs” (turns out “8lbs” is my best so far) and decided to do “4lbs”. Exer-genie can be fickle and setting up isn’t too bad if it is the same tension for all the sets. I had issues with it the first two sets that made it tougher than it should’ve been. On the first set, the lead line got tangled with about 5’ remaining so it wouldn’t budge and I had to go up to it to get it fixed and then pulled the remaining distance. The second set the lead line kept getting caught on stuff but it wasn’t tangled so kept pulling until done. Last set was a perfect run as nothing got caught on anything. So good note to end on there. Next was super set for the knees. Well hamstrings and then band TKEs with pauses. I initially thought I’d have to do the leg curls on the machine and then go into the other part of the gym to setup the band TKEs but I realized there was a post under the leg curl machine that was the perfect height to attach the band so I didn’t have much downtime between exercises. Knee sleeves down on the curls to pad the ankles and then up on the TKEs to minimize bruising. Used only 90lbs on the leg curls as these were hard last week. Keeping things light. Band TKEs felt good. Trying to drive with heel. On the last set, I had an idea of really putting that into effect with lifting the foot but not the heel so that I had to put all force into driving with the heel. Felt a harder contraction. Maybe that is something, maybe it isn’t. Last item was 5 minutes of sled drag work. Been a little bit haha. So I figured less weight and use the turf to get a good workout in. Well the larger area was initially being used by a group so I setup on the smaller section. They of course finished just as I started. So my small area required me to turn around a good bit but it was still good. I went home after cleaning things up as I wasn’t 100% sure I did everything I was supposed to do for this workout. Luckily I did remember it all so I then drank a post workout shake and stretched.
Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses Plate Loaded Dumbbell with Fat Gripz Extreme 70x1 L 70x1 R 80x1 L 80x1 R 90x1 L 90x1 R 100x1 L 100x1 R 110x1 L 110x1 R 120x1 L 120x1 R Circus Bell 130x1 L 140x1 L 150x1 L 160x1 L 170x1 L 177x0 L 5 Seconds in Rack 137x2 L 137x2 L 137x2 L Circus Bell 130x1 R 137x1 R 144x1 R 152x1 R 157x0 R 5 Seconds in Rack 121x2 R 121x2 R 121x2 R
Chaos Band Push-ups (5 seconds negatives, feet elevated 8”)/ Paused Inverted Ring Rows (2 second holds) bwx15/bw+20x10 bwx12/bw+20x10 bwx12/bw+20x10
Paused Dumbbell Lateral Raises (2 second holds)/Paused Incline Bench Dumbbell Rear Delt Flyes (2 second holds) 15’sx12/10’sx12 15’sx12/10’sx12
Stretching
Comments: I was again a bit surprised that this workout called for pushing things a bit this close to contest. Last contest things worked out near perfect so continuing to trust the process. I am feeling a bit beat from this cycle of training. Things had to be adjust a lot from the original plan with the arm issues and then compensating for it elsewhere added new stresses that didn’t really have before. But I’m getting older and recovery will continue to wane and while I’m relatively young, not so young with competing. Been doing some form of hard weight training for over two decades and specifically competing in strongman for the past 13yrs. Coming up on my 40th career competition. Just have to continue to adapt. So for today, the workout started off with the circus dumbbell. Plan being work up to a smooth single and then do supplemental exercises after that based off percentage of that lift. Advised to work up in smaller to moderate jumps. I was hoping things were clicking this week after last week seemed to be a return to form after a lot of issues getting back into the groove I had at the start. I have to remember that I broke shit and injured shit and it’s not normal to be putting this kind of strain on the body at the best of times. I’m never satisfied with my best. It needs to be better. A lot better. Pride in my achievements is fleeting and short lived. Which is good to motivate but terrible for lasting happiness in the moment. So find joy in the progress and the process. As long as that happens. As long as it makes sense. So for the dumbbell, I figured I’d stick to just the dumbbell handle with weights added rather than swap out different dumbbells until I got heavy enough for the empty circus bell. Keep things consistent. 70lbs felt tougher than I would’ve liked as the first weight so instead of taking 20lbs jumps up to the big dumbbell, I stuck with 10lbs jumps. Left side seemed to be feel good after that change and was feeling on point. Right side just didn’t feel too comfortable this session. Maybe the knee issue still on the right knee with how I press. But it didn’t feel like that, it was more the positioning just felt stiff and tight. Immobile. Not too concerned at the start as there is like 0% chance I will use that side at the competition. After 120lbs, went to focus on just the left side to start. Cleans were feeling good and elbow felt packed. Trying to settle and brace and not just go. I know I can’t do that for the heavy stuff. I tend to like to keep in motion as it makes it feel lighter. You stop when you die. I was really hoping that I felt like 190lbs or so would go up but I knew not to push that. I just knew if I could do that weight, I had an exceedingly good shot at 205lbs at contest. It already was a slim chance with the 6 weeks of direct training lost and then coming back with changes in form. 170lbs the weight went up well enough but I knew that I wasn’t doing anything over 180lbs and having it be smooth with how the lockout wasn’t one single movement like it was with the other reps working up. But I still thought I had 7lbs more in me today. But I didn’t. First attempt dip was too shallow and I readjusted. I should’ve stopped there as it wasn’t going to be a “smooth single” with a missed attempt. Refocused and went for bigger lower body drive and I got the height but it went out and away and trying to stabilize it caused my right oblique and lat to “shift” and I put it down. I get that in that side only sometimes when I push it on overhead and get off center. It’s not painful but it scares me. I think it has to do from scar tissue related to an oblique tear from about a decade ago. Could also be related to potential inflexibility in that area as it has only been acting up on me since 2018 to present and nothing before then so it could be something different. Even if I tell myself it isn’t a big deal, it still annoys me to miss a weight. Especially one I’ve done before. My best since the hard reset of 2016 is 187lbs but I did 180lbs for 5 in competition when that was my best. Circus dumbbell just seems tricky now. It is one of those lifts where I can miss it and come back and get it. I think part of it with overhead is from my younger days reading about giving it more than one try if miss because it can be form issues and not a strength issue. A mixture of a good and bad habit. I have to remember that 170lbs is the most I’ve been able to do this training cycle and it is the most I’ve done on circus dumbbell since 2018. So dropped 20% for the supplemental stuff. Clean and holds but adding in presses. Hold in the rack position for 5 seconds, bracing and then press. I didn’t think much of it at first but man was I wrong as that first rep was almost not even a good rep. Definitely found a weak point that is glaring here. The hold isn’t tough but my ability to press and stabilize from that is greatly hampered. I did try after that first set without the elbow sleeve to see if that changed anything as I fear that it is still pushing the dumbbell away from my body. Honestly, not sure if it did much of anything to change how I did. If anything, it may have made it easier to keep in line slightly but my lockout wasn’t as crisp. Could just be from not working without the sleeve up to this weight or just that it is a thing I have from the elbow injury. On to the right side. I knew this wasn’t going to go well for me on this side. Part of it being not using this side to compete and partly from not lifting as heavy as I wanted to be successful with on the left. But the form just felt all off today. I went with smaller jumps as I felt that getting even slightly above what I did last week was going to be a challenge. I’m really not sure what was up with this today. I was shocked that 157lbs didn’t happen. I cleaned it and it just felt off and put it down. Tried again and just felt the entire shoulder girdle and socket just shift as I had it on my shoulders and couldn’t really get anything into it. I don’t get it as I did 160lbs no problem for seven singles last week. This is 30lbs under my lifetime best with this side I just missed. I was super annoyed that I had to use the plateloaded dumbbell for the hold and presses because 20% off made the weight to use less than my empty circus dumbbell. I kept the elbow sleeve on just to keep the joints warm as feeling like crap. I had missed rep attempt on the second set and had to retake it. Not my day for the right side. I think I need to be better with expectations and adjust plans accordingly when it comes to exercises I haven’t done in a while or at least not pushed to the high points within the last 6 months or so. First week in with 160lbs on my left side felt just right and I assumed it was around 80% when that may not be accurate. I had made a new PR list after my injury in 2016 that kept me out of doing stuff for 7 months so that I wasn’t so focused on coming back to my best from before. So I should perhaps think of these as my bests and use percentages of them for training maxes based off the situation. That would hopefully lead to less heartache and better progress. The other thing is that maybe weekly hard stuff on circus dumbbell might be too much for me. At least it seems like it could be an issue with both sides being able to recover from it fast enough and efforts made. Every other week hard in the past seemed to work well enough for me but this has been a very unique situation with fracturing and spraining stuff and then coming back. And again, could be not basing working weights off what I can actually do and not what I used to do as well. I do think the form work stuff has been helpful though. Anyways, back to training. It was so dark out at this point. Circus dumbbell is a time vampire for sure, especially when working both sides. So the rack press situation again, using my yoke on the tables on the patio. This time it was do 3x4 with the same weights as last time with 5lbs added and then do a max rep set with the second weight. I wasn’t sure how these would go seeing how the circus dumbbell stuff on the one side seemed to be very poor. I could feel the oblique thing as well doing these so I was cautious about overdoing it here. I was paranoid that this was feeling too easy warming up. Turns out I had it one setting higher than last time so I lowered it down for the work sets. That made a difference. These do feel good. Down set I was hoping to get like 8 reps. Goal was leave 1RIR. Ended up getting 11 reps. So that was at least a positive. Again, I just left that stuff outside on the patio for the next day so I could move on to the rest of the workout. Into the garage. Push-ups and inverted rows again. Same as last time. I decided on the rows that I’d do 20lbs for all three sets. The push-ups started off easy enough. But second set felt a lot harder and I came up 1 rep short of what I did the week before. Third set was slightly easier and I was able to match what I did the week before. This might be a first with not getting at least an extra rep overall added with the push-ups when I’ve done them for volume. It could be that this was my first time this cycle not using the wrist wrap for the left hand so maybe that affected things a little. The rows were tough but good. I felt I had better control this week with the holds and contractions. Final item of the night was dumbbells for the shoulders. Laterals and rear delts. Same as last time. But not really. I wanted to try a little more weight on these as no band stuff afterwards and I was annoyed with not getting more reps on the push-ups and the circus dumbbell stuff still. So I used 15lbs kettlebells for the laterals and the 10lbs dumbbells for the rear delts. Really tough. The kettlebell stuff was at least decent but I need to get stronger at the rear delts as this was absolute limits of what I can do on those with holds. So many things that need work. So little time. It was dark and late and I wanted to eat so the stuff stayed out in the garage overnight for future Craig to take care of.
Band Goodmornings/Hollow Holds sbx20/bwx30 seconds sbx20/bwx30 seconds sbx20/bwx30 seconds
Seated Band Hamstring Curls sbx40
Stretching
Comments: I was honestly not expecting things to be as heavy as they were for this workout with how the last one went with me missing a lift. But I follow the plan as best as I can. Mobility stuff was unchanged from what it has been. My father had dropped off some new knee braces that had a unique strap system so I figured I’d try them out. Wore them on both legs for the mobility stuff and felt pretty good. May need to adjust as needed as too tight seems to pinch stuff and cause discomfort but the design does seem to put the pressure in set spots as opposed to all over like a regular sleeve or brace. I felt like I could test them out with the squatting as well. Same setup as last week with the rack and bands. 10lbs more than last week with it being 4x3. I did plate jumps again and while that seemed to work after doing deadlifts last week, it might have not been the best thing to get used to it as I put on the hard belt for the top weight and I got a little lightheaded the first set. Not as much after that. Knees seemed to tolerate this stuff today. I think the thick knee sleeves I bought would be better for a pushing things though. Not a ton of volume for this workout but with the different planned things, it was going to be a good bit of tear down and build back up. As the next thing for the evening was deadlift with the suit. Plan was warm-up in doubles to 405lbs and then do singles like last week. Add suit at 405lbs. Do a warm up single with 475lbs and then pull three singles with 545lbs. Pull with authority. I honestly wasn’t expecting anymore suit work until show time. But each show and prep is different. I definitely rushed getting into the suit to get set for the 405lbs double as the pressure was so intense it felt like my head was going to burst getting to the bar. I got better situated I think after that. Still feeling some hamstring and lower back fatigue. Calves being sore also a thing haha. 545lbs feels heavy but seems to be moving well enough. I wanted it to be a speed pull but it doesn’t feel as speedy as I want it. Just thinking about 700lbs. I want that. I feel like my last pull was my best form wise. Not done with deadlifts. Suit off and back to doing raw pulls with the holds. These were going to be tough. 10lbs more than last time but less doubles. 2 seconds again. Knees achy on these but it felt less like my hamstrings were tensed. But these did feel tough. Worked up in 50lbs jumps in singles to get used to no suit. Again, I wasn’t expecting this heavy of work this close out. Most frequency with floor pulls in a suit and heaviest I've gone on paused pulls. After training, I realized that I had scraped some of the leg hairs off my thighs from the bar so know I'm keeping this close to my body haha. After that point it was the rep work stuff. TKE step ups. I realized that I accidentally did these to 8” last time instead of the 6” I had listed and did the first time I did these. I didn’t really notice the height change with the increased tension. Again, sticking to the same weights on the dumbbells. This is the highest band tension I have too at the moment. Left side fine but right side decided to be painful and suck that first set. Not sure what that was all about as nothing on the second set and it felt perfectly fine. The weights don’t really feel like anything in my hands for these but I take breaks between sides so that I can focus on the knee and legs and not worry about grip fatigue. The superset that I usually have of Nordic curls and hollow holds had a substitution. Band gms are a lot less stressful. Advised to 3x20 with plenty of reps in reserve. Aim to work the hamstrings and not the lower back. Well lower back quite a good bit of pump. My hamstrings have gotten quite used to the wringer they’ve been put in this training cycle. Hollow holds I did with no weight added as I figured this was a deloading and that way I could focus on the band gms which were going to be more exhausting. Last item was band leg curls. One set of max reps with plenty left in the tank. Advised to do between 25-50 reps with no pauses. So I figured I’d try my strongest band tension for this. Actually felt good. I stopped at 40 as I felt like I was slowing down a good bit and would hit a wall but I probably could’ve gutted out several more but figured best to leave fresh and plenty in the tank. Put stuff away and ate a big pot roast before stretching. Again, figured I’d try to get to bed a little earlier and just do the knee icing the next day.
Paused Behind the Neck Strict Presses (3 seconds holds)/Paused Seated Band Face Pulls (2 seconds holds) Press Only 45x3 55x3 65x3 Both 75x8/lbx12 75x8/lbx12 75x8/lbx12
Push Ups on Kettlebells (5 seconds eccentrics) bw+25x13 bwx16
Defranco Band Pull-aparts mbx15 mbx15
Single Arm Band Triceps Pressdowns abx25/25 abx25/25
Stretching
Comments: Not a great start to the day having my left side of my neck tense up on me the night before. Thought a chair I was sitting in was going to collapse/fall back on me and caught myself suddenly and now the left side is stiff. Always something. Put on Icy Hot that night for a few hours before bed and soft tissue and massage work on it to no real avail. But at least it didn’t bother me to sleep. Still felt terrible the next day so took some aleve midmorning to see if that helped things calm down. Not really, so I applied more Icy Hot before I started training today. Calves super tight and sore from Saturday still and I’ve been working them hard with soft tissue work. Hamstrings also like that but not as bad. Rubber band on the right forearm seems to help still. I did order come compression cuffs to test out but haven’t arrived yet. I wore a knee brace for this workout just to give more support and warmth to the knee. I was given the option to do circus dumbbell to start things off as form work if I felt like last Thursday was garbage or I felt I needed it. I didn’t feel like garbage last week and maybe not needed it but I felt like doing it to since I didn’t last week and I felt like I needed some form correction. Treat it like it is heavy and work on bracing. Have to accept that 205lbs isn’t going to be easy. This also maybe helped with the neck issues haha. Nothing like blunt trauma to the area to get it to feel right. Focus and doing each rep like I would for contest. Wrist is getting better as I initially didn’t have it on until the work set as I forgot about it. That and the knee brace were the only support gear. Left elbow didn’t feel off which was good. Inside for training in the garage. Seated axle pressing but not the same. So for this time, the plan to work up in doubles and singles to a working weight to do a speedy EMOM (fast on the press but 3-5ct negatives). Suggestion was to add band tension if possible. So I did. These were feeling quite good and easy today. For the EMOM, I decided I’d do longer negatives. So did 3ct to work up and then 5ct for these singles. Only time it was any issue was if I got out of position. Otherwise, the press was feeling darn near effortless even with the long eccentrics. For the set of 5, I decided to go back to the 3ct. Keep the same weight that way. Next up was back work with the modified pull-ups. Warm up as needed and do 3x10 with 22lbs of chains added. Chains add a bit of instability if I pull fast. Felt decent. I was trying to get a good stretch at the bottom to decompress and hopefully assist the neck stuff and get tightness out of my back. Next was the superset of the btn presses with band face pulls. Advised to do the heavier weight I did for my top set last week across all sets. Reps reduced accordingly. I was also told to warm-up for it in triples so I did that, going up 10lbs a set. Felt good. Not as much fatigue I think. Also increased the band tension so now back up to light band on the face pulls on this variation. I thought it might be too much with how it felt testing but it was perfect. Push ups after that with the kettelbells. Same thing with the 5 seconds eccentrics and stretch. Two sets this week, first with 25lbs (the chain and weight vest haha) and then no weight. Goal was to add some reps to last week and I was able to do that. For whatever reason, I feel like I can feel the chest and shoulders work more (stretch) without the weight added. Maybe the tactile sensation keeps me more tense and rigid whereas without I’m just moving my body and I don’t feel restricted. Who knows but working things in both weight and movement so all good. Defranco band pull-aparts feeling good. First set was super easy but the second set the fatigue in the little shoulder muscles was apparent. Last thing was triceps band stuff. Back to doing normal sets. I didn’t want to deal with several bands so I figured I’d give average band a shot. No wrist brace needed. Surprised myself with how I had plenty of reps in the tank on both sets with this amount of band tension. Cleaned things up in the garage and ate dinner before stretching.
Comments: I was exhausted this week from work and life. This is the first time I can remember where I’ve had to double up on allergy medications. Usually just one thing was a enough. I didn’t help matters missing a heavy deadlift earlier in the week. But feel like training is back under control as far as dealing with the tendonitis. But I was beat but it was that exhaustion where you feel like you have so much still to do. And that lead to me trying to do some more recovery stuff and then getting creative inspiration. Essentially up to 1am before I could fall asleep and at that point I decided I’d wake up when I wake up in the morning. Not force myself to a set schedule. I needed that kind of sleep. Training wasn’t too involved for today, similar to last week. I think a bit of it is just trying to show up to the contest in one piece and let my joints and tendons recover. I just remember the last training cycle this week had been a hard one on some things as the week before was to be too. But shit happens. The day where it counts is the one that matters. Not trying to be the best at practicing. So I got out to train at around 1:30PM I think. Drive out mostly good. Greeted by Teagan again when I got there. Just hear this little pitter patter out of the darkness as my eyes adjust and realize it’s the dog haha. Wasn’t really expecting to see anyone today but I thought that last week and I was proven wrong again. Maybe the schedules are just lining up. Some changes with the mobility prep stuff again. Didn’t feel like I needed knee brace this week. As has been the case, inverse curls to start off. I’ve been treating these more as a warm-up then a true exercise and I think part of that was when hamstring stuff like this was introduced, it was noted as to “warm up the hamstrings” or something to that effect and I kind of focused on that part of it. So what I should be doing is more sets to get ready. And I definitely needed it today as my hamstrings have been sore since Tuesday. These working up sets actually felt quite tough. Plan was to do 115lbs assistance for 3x8-12 with 2-3RIR. With how the other sets felt, it seemed lower end might be pushing it. But then they felt like they should and I did them for 3x12. After that was Spanish squats. Not terribly thrilled to do them as they were tough and rough last week. Especially this early in the workout haha. I wore knee sleeves on these to keep from having bruises on my legs from the strap. I was told to elevate my heel on these. Again, not certain if I’m doing these right. They felt easier this time and I think part of it was the heel elevation as it helps with my dorsiflexion issues, making less stressful on the knees. I had to swap out what I was using for elevate as the wood plank wasn’t heavy enough to stay put with the force being applied to sit back and keep shins vertical so I took a tumble. 100lbs plate worked better after that. Bent over rows were up next. Plan this week was to work up to 325lbs for a max rep set with 1-2RIR. In my head, I was thinking that I had done this weight or slightly more for like 10 reps many years ago. So I should be good for that many right? I feel like these felt better this time around. Last time my pecs were really sore from suit work for the first time in like 6 weeks and being able to do push-ups again. So not having that discomfort was good. I had wanted to get to 12 here but I called it at 10 reps. This is apparently a PR as I never got over 315lbs for 11 reps a decade ago. So it is kind of neat that I can beat PRs from years ago with minimal direct focus. Which is good for strongman and general fitness. But my upper limits need to improve. Drop down sets I was told to match reps (similar to the feet elevated pull-ups) but try and do pauses and holds. First set felt fairly tough but I also felt like I was not doing the same form at first. Second set felt way better. I felt like I was holding the reps for a longer time but video says I wasn’t. Still felt good. Then on to event specific stuff. Again, modified a bit from what was probably on the menu before my knees and body started to feel like ouchies. The focus for today for the sandbag and yoke medley became just the sandbags. I was instructed to three runs of it to work on transitions. I tried to make this as event specific as I could. The sandbag into yoke, the sandbags are the weights for the yoke and go in baskets. The baskets are compact and about 3’ off the ground so can’t just plop them down. Luckily, the gym has something I could use in the form of 55 gallon water barrels. I set them up on the sides of the empty yoke. So do the sandbag run and loads and then get under the yoke. Stand up with the yoke to stop the clock. Now the sandbags are a lot lighter than what I was training for with going down to open from Pro. 200lbs sandbags vs 250lbs sandbags. I decided to stick with the 250lbs sandbags for reasons. One, I like the challenge and if not for this show, perhaps training for a future show. Two, event order could be something that makes a 200lbs sandbag feel terrible so have that reserve strength. Three, gym only has a single 200lbs sandbag at the moment and it leaks so my other options would be a 175lbs bag or a 225lbs bag. There are two 250lbs bags (there were until I finished the session). Having three sets to test out I figured I’d try different knee sleeves on each set to see how they felt and figure out which to use at the show. I had the ones I bought for duck walk to protect my legs and never had any intention of using as knee sleeves, a pair from back when I was wrestling and had bursitis in my knees (tight but soft) and the new sleeves I got from Cerberus that were very stiff and tight. I needed to see if my knees held up, if I felt they’d be good for the yoke portion and if they affected my mobility and speed. I did a pick with one of the sandbags to warm-up. It felt easy so I figured all the rows were enough to warm up for this. So first set with the duck walk sleeves and that seemed good. I knew I could move in these from the previous training cycle. Second set was with the wrestling ones. I felt like I was moving faster but they weren’t staying up that well and my right knee was a little stiff on the yoke pick. The difference between those first two was negligible that it could just be me getting warmed up on the moving and breathing vs mobility improvements. I was also sloppy with some of it but that could be from having a fingernail tear slightly on the second sandbag causing me to bleed a bit. Last set was with the knee sleeves. I was figuring these would be too restrictive but I was wrong. Two second improvement on the first set. Knees a little sore but I guess that is going to be how it is on this event. Next was for the truck and boat pull. I don’t have that and been using the Exergenie. However, with the knees, the though was that doing a sled push would be less stress and I’d have more distance to work with to really push the time portion of it. The event is for 90 seconds to finish a 60’. So it is probably going to be heavy. I was advised to do a set of 60 seconds at RPE 7 and then a set of 90 second at RPE 10 and rest 5 minutes between them or so. Now I didn’t really want to do this. Not because I don’t want to embrace the suck, more that setup for this would be a pain to do and get it done in a timely fashion. I also had limited options for space. The outside concrete was in use for someone training for SC Nats and the asphalt was blocked by construction equipment. So I had 93’ or so of turf that I could push things on. And one way is quite a bit tougher than the other. So for the heavy set, I could run the risk of it not moving or being too light and running out of room. My hope was that someone would be there that I could have them let me push their vehicle. That ended up happening and I was able to do that for the 90 seconds. Uphill in the street so that it would get tougher the longer it went on. I told George that if it felt too light I’d let him know to hit the e-brake. I wasn’t sure what to expect as he mentioned his car was decently heavy (I don’t know cars). It was moving pretty easy after the initial break of the inertia and when it was at 30 seconds I told him to pump the brakes. That was when the fun began. I was so close to stopping before I heard him countdown to from 3 seconds left as it was so darn tough to move at that point. Only reason I won’t finish the course is because it was too heavy as I will work the whole damn time if needed. So after that was the lighter stuff. More lying leg curls. Regular style, 3x15. Told to do these as pump with 3-4RIR on these. I was expecting to use less weight after I saw last time but I went a good 45lbs lighter than I had planned with how sore my hamstrings felt doing these. I did start adding 5lbs a set as I felt I could do more reps but the soreness (especially in the tendons and in the left side) was making me stay a bit lighter. Last bit of training for the day the same trio from two weeks ago of seated calf raises with holds, tibs with bands and planks. I assumed I could use the same weights as last time for the everything. I was wrong. The goal was to leave 3RIR on the calf stuff (no problems with the bands and planks as easy stuff) but my calves were apparently not cooperating today. I guess the pushes took a lot of out them as this weight was darn near max effort to do when it was fairly comfortable last time after all my truck pull simulations. I cleaned up and headed home to stretch out because my dinner was going to need 90 minutes to cook and my groceries were getting delivered like an hour earlier than I had planned for them so rather be home to put those away then have them outside. Cleaned up and iced the knees before bed. Only now realizing that I’m less than 2 weeks out. I feel like if I had just another month that I’d be perfectly ready for this. But you do what you can with what you got.
I’m a little taller than 6′6″ and I really like to lift weights. I’m a competitor in amateur strongman contests. My hope is to become a competitive professional strongman. Currently I'm training for Natural Strongman World's Strongest Man in Glasgow, Scotland on August 21-23, 2026. I’m not a major competitor yet and I have a long way to go but I’m having fun.
