Strongman saturday and Super grip Sunday!

Sorry for the late posting.  I'll write more about my training and why I'm doing things in a later post.  For now, here's what I did Saturday:

Axle Clean and Press (clean once): worked up to 225 x1, x1 (fairly easy)
18" Axle Deadlift (more like 16" I think): worked up to 500 x 5
Farmer's Walk: worked up to 275 x 1 (about 50') x 4 runs
Sled Pull: Fell on my ass when my sled broke!  Have to figure out how to build / procure a better one.

Sunday: Grip work to the max!  Lots of wrist curling, wrist rolling, pinching and grabbing (no biting, though).  I'll explain this in more detail soon.

Skwat! Tuesday, Bench Thursday

Tuesday night we did some squatting.  It took forever because some of my training partners and I were teaching a newbie how to deadlift and squat.  So it was about 2 hours, and I really didn't do all that much.  That's alright though, still a good session:
Squat: worked up to 370 x 4. This is without a belt.  I do all my squats without a belt now.  I like it and you can't tell me I'm wrong!

Speed deadlifts:  I normally don't do these, but the other guy was doing these and I decided to join in.  He has about the same deadlift max as I do, so we did 10 sets of 2 with 285 pounds and 60 seconds rest between sets.   This is about 50% of my max, which is a decent weight.

Thursday we did some benchin'!  I worked up to 255 x 6.  I am excited, since this puts me at about a 305 pound max.  Slowly getting to a 315 max.  That would be great.  I think I'll have a little competition with myself and see if I can hit 315 by my birthday in June.  That should be very doable.  All this pressing is paying off, and my shoulders don't feel terrible.

After benching I did some overhead pressing with 105 pounds for 5 sets of 10.  It's boring work, but I think the high volume will help my pressing.  Ended the night with high-rep dumbbell rows: 150x20, x20.

Overhead Pressing

Last night was heavy overhead pressing (heavy for me anyway, you'll see some really heavy stuff in the video below).  Worked up to 195x3 on overhead press.  The third one was an absolute grinder and probably took about 10 seconds to complete.  But I tried to not push press the bar like I have been.  This will help my triceps get stronger.  After that I moved on to barbell rows, 255x10 for 5 sets.  Close grip bench 215x7, x7, x7, x8.  Front/lateral raise: 20x8, x8, x9.  DB Shrugs 120 (each hand) x 25.  Also did lots of bodyweight pullups between sets because I feel like this will help my pressing.

Here's a training video from Derek Poundstone.  If you don't know Derek, he's a strongman competitor, and has competed at the World's Strongest Man, as well as many other events, such as the upcoming Arnold.  He's also 330 pounds and a true athlete.  Enjoy.

Strongman Saturday

Did events by myself on Saturday at my normal gym, since my parents came to visit.  I was hoping to get it done in an hour and a half, but it ended up being two hours.  Takes forever to do this stuff when you have to load all by yourself.  Here's what I did:


Log Clean and Press (cleaned once)
As I've mentioned before pressing is terrible for me, so I just have to do it more often.  I tried to keep more reps in rather than go for an all out max.  Don't have my log in front of my, but I believe I worked up to 205x2, then backed off with 190x3, x3.  Anyway, not bad, and better than I was at this time last year I guess.

Farmer's walks
I believe the bars we have are 55 pounds.  I have really no idea though.  They feel at least as heavy as a regular barbell, so I just count them as 45 pounds to make the math easy in my head.  Started with 135 pounds down and back, which is probably a total of about 80 to 100 feet.  I counted one trip as "down," about 50 feet.  Also, that's 135 each hand.  So 135x2 (that's down AND back), 225x2, x2, 275x1, x1.  The 275's made me feel like my fingers were going to pop off my hand, so that was awesome.

After that I was pretty spent, and I went downstairs and flipped the tire very briefly.  Six fast flips one way, about a minute or two break, then four terrible flips the other way.  Done and done.

Deadlift Training!!!

Three exclamation points because it was one of those great sessions that only comes around once every 2 months or so.  The goal was to work up to 490 pounds for a single.  That's about 95% of my training max, but I calculated low for that, because I want to allow room for progress.  Everything was feeling fast, so I put on my belt just for my last set and hit 490 for 5 reps!  Felt great and I think I could have gotten one more.  So this puts me at around a 570 pound deadlift.  I won't actually try that for quite a while.  My goal this year is to deadlift 600 pounds.  Who knows, maybe it will come well before the year is over.  Also, definitely broke the neck harness at the gym last night.  I was doing neck raises w/ 60 pounds, and all of a sudden the leather strap breaks and the plates fall everywhere.  Either I will have to buy a heavy duty one, or make one myself.  Something like this maybe.  Anyway, gotta get going, later!

Training the past few days

Sorry for the long break between posts.

Saturday was strongman training.  We went through car deadlifts (side handles) up to 800 pounds, sandbag carries (250 pounds??), atlas stones over 56" bar, and one other thing I can't remember.  I did much better with the stones this time.  The 250 pound stone was flying over the bar, but I'm still a little off on the 300 pound stone.  Just gotta work on that technique and I'll get it.  Monday I did some squatting (in my new shoes! I will tell that story soon), and tonight I did some benching, rowing and overhead pressing.  Shoulders are still immobile and I can feel my lower back extending every time I push a bar over my head.  It's frustrating, and it feels like my shoulders go numb right at the top of the press.  It's really weird, and I wish I had the money to go to someone who knows what they're doing and get some massage and corrective exercises.  If I want to compete in strongman, overhead pressing is a huge part of that.  No one benches in a strongman competition.  Back at it on Thursday night with deadlifts.

Quick Deadlift Update

Tuesday night I did deadlifts.  Here's the session:

Deadlift: worked up to 440 x 5
Front Squat: 250 x 5, x5, x5, x5
Rack pull below knee w/ shrug: 410 x 8, x8, x6
Reverse Hyper: 90 x8, x8

I've said before that I need to work on getting my hamstrings more involved in deadlifting again.  What I'm going to try and do is go to the local high school twice a week and work on glute-ham raises.  They have an actual glute-ham raise machine.  I've inserted a video of one below showing how the exercise is done.  The high school's machine isn't as nice, but it works alright.  The point of the exercise is to work your hamstrings in the knee flexed position.  So think of them kind of like leg curls on the machine, but way harder and better, because it involves moving your body through space instead of lying or sitting on a machine.  I think once I start hammering these and stretching my hamstrings more, my deadlift will start going up faster.

Overhead Pressing

Quick post. Last night did some BTN pressing, along with some shoulder work, close grip benching, and chin-ups.  Was not spectacular, but was not bad.  Really need to work on my shoulder mobility, or I will be blowing something up in the next few years.  I don't want to have surgery on my shoulder in my 20s.  Tonight I will be deadlifting.  Should be fun!

Weekend Training

Trained strongman events again this past Saturday.  It was a good time again, and got out of there a little faster than last time, so that was good, too.  The events we did were log press, tire flip, farmer's walk, and I tried the Thomas inch dumbbell press (or circus DB press), and the yoke walk.  The circus dumbbell is massive.  I think the grip on the handle is three inches in diameter, so it makes for a really difficult hold.  The hardest part is getting the dumbbell set on your shoulder/traps.  Once I got that down, I did a few reps.  They were really tough though.

Also tried the yoke walk at the end of training.  The trick was to keep the yoke from swaying as you were walking.  I think we just worked up to 500 pounds, focusing on technique.

Today I went to the local high school so that I could use bumper plates and practice cleans on the lifting platform.  What a world of difference!  I didn't have to worry about controlling the bar down, and was able to work up to a fairly heavy weight (for me, anyway).  The only problem is that the high school has really crappy bars.  That, and the fact that the students don't know how to take care of their equipment, means that the bars are all bent.  The first one I grabbed wobbled straight across the platform because it was so bent!  I grabbed the best I could find and worked up to 245 pounds.  Tried 255, but it wasn't happening.  Did some abs and glute-ham raises after that, along with 15 minutes walking on the treadmill.  Felt good, and will be back to heavy training tomorrow.

Abs and the Gun Show

Last night was a quick 30 minute session:

Standing Abs: something X a bunch
Reverse grip curls: 85 x 12 x 12 x12
Wrist curls with Barbell: 55 x 50, x 50
Tricep Pushdowns: 160x15, 180x12, x12
Machine Curls: curl until you hurl (not really)
Not as much ab work as I should have done, but my back was feeling a little tweaky, so didn't want to do too much crunching.  Should have done planks, but I had no one to put 45's on my back.

Deadlifting and Benching

I'm changing things up a bit.  My typical cycle is a 4-day per week, 3-week block, then a deload week the 4th week.  Well I'm always excited to go to the gym on my deload week, so I figure my body can handle it!  So I'm taking the same workouts, but spreading them out to 3 days per week.  On Saturdays I'll try to do strongman events.  When I'm not training with a group, I can flip tire, do log pressing, and farmer's walks.  So my monthly cycle will be spread out to 5 weeks: four weeks of lifting, one week of deload.  I think this will work for me!

Monday was deadlift day:
Clean: worked up to 195 x 3 (horrible, but will get better)
Deadlift: worked up to 495 x 3
Front Squat: 245 x 5 x 4 sets
Rack pulls at mid-shin with shrug: 405 x 10 x a bunch

Tuesday:
Bench:  up to 240 x 7
Close grip bench:  210 x 7 x 4 sets
BB Row:  285 x 8 x 4 sets
Circus DB Press: 90x5 (ugh), 80x5 (double ugh)...decided to quit that
Front raise/side raise combo: 25 x 8 x 8 x 8

Done.  Tomorrow I will do some grip and ab work.

Blog Update and Strongman Training Today

I'm trying to get the blog changed, but the Blogger platform is being really buggy tonight.  Don't know if it's my slow computer or what, but if the blog looks weird, it's not my fault (I swear!).  I may update the look slightly, but after playing around with some of Google's new looks, I don't like them enough yet.

Okay, on to the good stuff!  Today, I got up at 5:45 AM so that I could drive an hour and 45 minutes just to lift.  But it was well worth it.  I met a bunch of guys that I actually contacted through Facebook, and it was a blast!  There were about 10 to 12 of us in a garage fitted out just for strongman training.  Some of the equipment included about five different logs, three different farmer's walk handles, probably 10 stones, two yokes, one power rack, one axle, a tractor tire, lots of kegs, and some sandbags.  There were a lot of other pieces of equipment there; stuff I've only seen in the professional strongman competitions.

The group's training was kind of dictated by the guy's who are actively competing.  One was invited to the Arnold Sports Festival, so he was training for those events.  The other guy that has something to train for recently competed in the World's Strongest Man competition, which I recorded when ESPN aired it a few weeks ago.  It was awesome meeting him, and he and the others gave me lots of tips on technique.

The events started with the log clean and press.  Everyone was kind of pressing to a max weight.  My max on this is 220 or 225, and that's about all I got today.  I may have pressed 230, but after that, I couldn't lock anything out past my head.

Next was the farmer's walk.  I'm not sure what the weight was that we worked up to, but I'm going to estimate it was about 315 (3 plates each side + handle weight).  I was actually able to handle that weight and walk it about 30 feet.  I did that two times.  It wasn't fast by any means, but it was the heaviest I've ever done.

They then brought out a sandbag that was supposedly 250 pounds, but it felt really light to me.  Either way, I lifted it really fast, bear-hugged it, then walked back and forth a bunch of times.  Good times.

The last event was the atlas stone loading over a bar.  This is my first real attempt at stone lifting, and I don't think I did too bad.  Before I get into it, I just want to say how awful tacky feels on your body.  For those that don't know, tacky is like pine tar in a jar, with stickiness amped up to 11 (yes I just said that).  I only used it on my hands, because I didn't have long sleeves (or stone sleeves as some guys use).  But there was already tacky on the stones, and my forearms basically got the hair taken right off of them.  It was quite painful.  But I powered on through like Rocky.  The guys had me start on the 275 pound stone, and it wasn't too bad.  The hardest part for me was popping the stone high enough to get it over the bar.  I'm really tall, so this shouldn't be too hard, but I didn't have great technique either.  After doing that a few times, I moved to the 305 pound stone.  I did this two or three times (not in a row, they were tough!), and then I was spent.

So that was it for the day.  Now I'm really tired and kind of want to sleep.  It's only 7:30, though, so maybe I'll watch a flick from the net.  One lesson you can all take away from this is that strongman is a very expensive sport, and if you can either make the equipment yourself, or train with another group, you'll be saving a ton of money.

BLOG CHANGES

Bear with me as I try to change the blog to make it more readable and "modern," if you will.  I think Saturday or Sunday afternoon I will have time to make all the changes.  Also, great news!  Strongman training tomorrow morning with a group of lifters!  I have to drive almost 2 hours to get there, but whatever.  Hopefully they will let me be a once to twice a month kind of guy there.  I'll fill in all the details this weekend.

FRONT SQUATS AND CLEANS

I was a total Olympic lifter tonight, albeit a weak one!  I practiced power cleans and worked up to 2 singles at 225.  These were a little difficult, but whatever.  I like them because they aren't too taxing, and I don't have to get all psyched up to do them yet.  After this I worked up to front squats for 315 x 2 for a couple sets.  Then I came home and did some cleans with my axle.  Right now I've only got 4-45 pound bumpers, so that's what I used.  With that bar, it's about 200 pounds.  These were really difficult because you can't rack an axle on your delts like you can a regular bar.  Just another thing I've got to practice.

By the way, just say a Planet Fitness commercial on TV.  I love it how they claim they are "judgment free" and don't discriminate or whatever.  Yet if you lift heavy weights there, they actually have an ALARM that alerts everyone to your lifting.  So you can't judge people who don't lift, but you can judge people who DO?  I could go on, but I won't...need to be a happy person!  Later!

TONIGHT'S TRAINING AND THOUGHTS ON SETTING GOALS

As I said in my last post, tonight was more light training.

Did a few barbell rows with 225, did some bulgarian split squats, did some incline bench pressing (have not done these for at least 5 years), and finished with some tire flipping.  The tire flips already felt immensely better than last time.  Once I can get that baby outside and out of the dusty warehouse, I should be able to train it just once a week to get good at it.

About this goal thing...I really need to shoot for something, or I am going to go nowhere.  I think setting goals for myself has been difficult in the past because of a few things.  One, because I thought doing this was dumb and "corny."  Related to #1, because setting goals and actually achieving them is rarely talked about seriously in life.  No one really tells you these things in school, and frankly, something like that doesn't come naturally to me.  After seeing my wife recently quit a job that was sucking the life out of her and making her unhappy, I have a better appreciation for goal-setting.  She is very good at writing stuff down, being positive, and doing all the little things that get her closer to her goals.

I need to start doing these things.  I need to write down what I want, how I'm going to get there, and then execute the plan.  I plan on writing more about this later, and tell you what my goals are for this year (I have to figure them out first, though).  I already have a good idea of what they will be...

LIGHT TRAINING LAST NIGHT

Last night was just some light stuff to get moving.  Trained with another guy that was there.  His maxes are about the same as mine, and he was doing a light day too, so I just basically did what he did.
Pause Squats: worked up to 2 sets of 275 x 3
Deadlifts: worked up to 415x2
Hip Thrusts: 235 x 10...I think.

Not much else going on.  I think I'll flip the tire around tonight, and maybe do some light log pressing.

LIGHT TRAINING AND STRONGMAN NEWS

This past Friday my wife and I went "home" to visit our families.  It's great because they only live about 12 miles apart, and we usually see both families every time we go.  Friday night I got to watch my sister-in-law play a JV basketball game.  She was in for nearly the entire game and is very scrappy.  It'll be exciting to see what she can do as a senior when she has crisper passes and a smoother shot.  Anyway, on Saturday the high school she plays at had an open gym, so her and I went and we scrimmaged for just over an hour.  Needless to say, weightlifting is not the best option if you want to run up and down a basketball court (though of course it's a great way to get stronger and faster for ANY sport).  I thought I was going to fall over, I had a splitting headache, and I could never catch my breath.  Luckily we took a break after the first hour, and my body was okay the second time around.  My quads and calves are still a little sore, but all-in-all, I'm doing okay, and it goes to show you that weightlifting can offset a lot of the soreness one might feel after doing a new activity.  I also could just "feel" that I was stronger with the ball and dribbling than I had been in college and high school.

On to lifting.  Sunday was going to do some tire flipping, but was too tired out from basketball the day before.  I just did what I like to call my "Anti-sitting" workout, or recovery session.  Basically I do any lifts or stretches that counteract all the sitting I do in my car and at my job.  Lots of hip thrusts (glutes), rear foot elevated split squats (stretch out the hip flexors), and lots of work for my shoulders, scapula, lower traps (to prevent the "forward-lean" posture).  I felt much better after the hour session.  I need to do these sessions more often, because I always feel great when I'm done.

In some exciting news, I contacted a local strongman group in northeast Wisconsin, and I think I will be traveling on Saturday to train with them!  I am really excited to learn from people who are stronger than me and are interested in the same sport that I am.  I will have to drive about an hour and 45 minutes one way, though.  That means I have to get up before 6 AM on a Saturday!  Not looking forward to that, but I can't pass up this opportunity.  Hopefully I'll get to know the guys well, and maybe I can get up there twice a month to train.

No training tonight, just a few beers with a buddy.  Tomorrow will be light stuff again.  Have a great day everyone.

Training and Good News

Writing this on my phone so I will be brief. I squatted yesterday with the normal group of lifters. I hit a 415 squat with no belt or wraps (RAW DOG as I like to say). So that was awesome! Also got the gym's code for the lock to the basement! So I've got access to the tractor tire and room for farmers walks. Today I benched and rowed and did some conditioning after by hitting my sledgehammer against the tire a bunch of times (more fun than it sounds). Going to be doing some light lifting tomorrow night, and probably won't lift until Wednesday... Going to a conference in Chicago on Tuesday

THE BIG BAD LOG

Tonight's training was a good solid session.  Slowly progressing...

BTN push press: worked up to 170x7

Barbell Curl: 105x10,11,11

Rear Delt Raise: 50x10, 10, 10, 10

Chin-ups (wish there was a belt to hang weight from): Bodyweight x 6, 6, 6, 6, 8

DB row: 150x22 per side

Log Press: worked up to 200x3.  Felt pretty solid.  Best is 225x1.

The competition I'm in uses a 10" to 12" log (I'm guessing).  Ours is 14".  The harder it is in training, the easier it'll be in competition.

Training and a Competiiton

Well I'm taking the plunge and decided to do a strongman competition.  The date is June 2nd, and right now the events are a tire flip for distance, farmer's walk for distance, atlas stone loading, sled pull, and log press for maximum weight.  Right now at my gym, I've got the farmer's walk handles (at home too), and 14" log.  We also have a tire, but right now it's locked away in the basement, so I can't get at it.  I'll have to figure that one out soon.  I've got some atlas stones here at home, but they are not very heavy, and I'd like to get one or two more to train with.  I also have a homemade wooden sled.  It's not that great though and really hard to load weight onto.  The sled at the competition is supposedly being loaded with 550 pounds, so I need to figure out how to get something heavy on it.

On to training:

Monday I did bench pressing and decided I need to up my training weight just a little bit.  215 for 12 reps isn't anything spectacular, but I wasn't expecting 12 reps, and I need to work heavier.  Tonight I did some light hip thrusts, some overhead pressing, and light farmer's walks.  Not sure how much the farmer's handles weigh at the gym, but my guess is around 40 pounds... I just call it 45 pounds in my training log because it's easy to add the weight in my head (since 45 pounds is the same as a normal barbell).  Tomorrow night I'll be doing some deadlifts, and maybe practicing more cleans.  I did hit a 215 pound clean this past weekend.  It wasn't too hard, and I hope to progress quickly.  I also got a present in the mail (from myself!) and I'll post video of me playing around with it soon!

MASSAGE: ROUND 1

Last night I had my first ever massage!  I actually had it done by a woman I lift with at our gym.  She does massages on the side in addition to her normal job.  It was awesome!  I will say that massages seemed geared toward the feminine side of society, which is fine!  There were candles lit, and the room I was in smelled really great (lavender???).  I guess I'm not sure what you would do to cater more towards men.  Maybe play death metal while they're lying on the table?  Anyway, it was a great experience, and I will definitely be going back.  I also would like to try myofascial release at some point.  I've heard that it's not very relaxing, but that your muscles feel so much better after having a session or two.

Oh look!  Groupon for myofascial release!  Coincidence?  I think not; it's destiny.

HELLO? STILL HERE!

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because there's been nothing worth posting.  My schedule's been kind of messed up since getting back home for the new year, but it will be back on track on Saturday.  I've still been able to get in all my lifting though.  Last night was overhead pressing.  I need to start consolidating my exercises, because sometimes I do too many different ones.  It would just be faster, easier, and possibly more effective if I just did a few more sets of the same big exercises.  Last night was a good example of how I'd like to set things up for pressing:

Behind-the-neck press:  worked up to 215 x 1.  This felt really good, even though I had a really crappy (slippery) bar.  Handfuls of chalk helped a little bit.
Barbell Row: last time I did 4 sets of 285x6.  Last night my back was a little bit sore from deadlifting, so I could only do one set of those. Then I just did 225 x 8 for 4 sets instead.
Barbell Curl: 105 x 10 x 3 sets
Log Clean and Press (cleaned each rep this time): 135 x 4, 155x4, 175x4, 195x3
The log felt pretty good.  I think my best on this is 225 x 1, so I am going to try to incorporate more rep work into my routine so I can be proficient with this monster log we have.
Okay, that's all for now.  Getting a massage tonight (first time ever!).  I'll let you know how that goes later in the week.  It should be pretty awesome!

CATCHING UP FOR THE NEW YEAR

Hope everyone reading this had a great Christmas and wonderful New Year!  I had a relaxing break from work where I did nothing but sleep, eat food, watch football and lift weights.  Even hit a few personal records!  I kept doing what I normally do, because I was fortunate enough to get in a gym in my hometown that is the same old-school type place that I lift in now.  If I remember correctly, I hit 405 on the squat (no belt), and 505 on the deadlift (also no belt).  I think I did a behind-the-neck press of 215, and a bench of 275 or 285 (not sure).  The benches were definitely not what I'm used to.  The uprights were very short and not adjustable.  So I had to have someone help me lift the weight off.  Unfortunately that made me feel like a loser because about 20 minutes after I did my benching, a guy my age was benching 335 multiple times without a spotter or liftoff.  So...I got a ways to go on that one.  He was a good guy to chat with though, and he tried to teach me how to do power cleans.  I will be implementing them soon in my training.


As part of my Christmas present (thanks honey!), I bought some bumper plates and a fat bar.  I bought 4, 45 pound plates from Rogue Fitness, and a hollow fat bar from EliteFTS.  I’m hoping that, since the bar is hollow, it holds up okay over time.  But I’ll be practicing cleans with that so that my grip can develop a bit.  It is absolutely horrible now.  So now I’ve got a pretty good collection of strongman equipment at my house: farmer’s walks handles, super yoke/conan’s wheel, 2 atlas stones (that are already too light for me), and a fat bar.  My gym has a log and a tire (if I can get at it in the spring).  I should be pretty good to go.  Not exactly sure how I’m going to program the strongman lifts into my training yet, but I’ll be sure to post some thoughts later.  Have a good weekend everyone.