Training

Last week:

We decided to do a 4 or 6 week cycle of high volume stuff.

Press:
incline 8 sets of 10
weight ranges from 185 to 225

Lower:
SSB squats
8 sets of 10 with 245
These were awful, and still 4 days later I'm not walking right and have to brace myself to sit down.

Events 11-4-12

Log from rack
worked up to 310 for a single.  The press felt easy, I just need to get used to having a log on my chest again.
did some strict pressing up to 250 after.

Farmers Walk
big handles were used
245 x 80 feet x 2
295 x 80 feet x1
335 x 50 feet x 1
355 x 25 feet or so

I think the 335 was actually a PR because I'm not sure I've ever even picked that up before, so I am very please with picking and walking with 355.  Once I got my feet in the right place the 355 pick was actually pretty easy.

Bear Hug keg carry
220 x 120 x 2

Neck and ab work.

Quad Cities Strongman

I have been terrible at updated my training log the last few months.  Here is a video and brief write-up from the meet that was on 10-27-12.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E18XLiae9IM&feature=g-all-u

Axle - 250 lbs
I got to 10 reps in 30 seconds, then just got tired.  I was credited with 11 reps, and had two more overhead but just didn't get my feet stable.

Car Hold
I got 50.x seconds.

Deadlift - 525 lbs
This was from like 13 or 14 inches
I got 11 reps.  I'm happy with this, but it just confirms that my deadlift sucks.

Truck Pull arm over arm
21.x seconds

Stone - 320 lbs over 48 inch bar
I got 8 reps.  My lower back was torched from the deadlift still so these could have been better.

10-16 Press

We decided to start pressing on Tuesday and doing lower on Thursday.  So, since we had already pressed last Thursday and again on Sunday we kept this lighter with a little higher volume.

Seated Axle (no back support)
170 x 8 x 3
170 x 5

Pull Ups
Some

DB Bench
100 x 10 x 3

Axle Rows
210 x 5
210 x 8 x 2 or 3

Landmines
some

Bear Hug Keg Carry
180 or so for 4 carries between 100 and 200 feet

Events 10-14-12

My upper back was all kinds of messed up all week, so I didn't do a whole lot but active recovery and a little pressing on Thursday.

Events
Axle C&P
I planned on just doing one set of 10 at 250, which is the weight for the next contest I'm planning on doing, and calling it good.  I ended up doing more.
250 x 10 I set it down after this even though I probably got through these in 20 seconds just because that's what I had planned
250 x 5 I recleaned the axle and did 5 more easy since everyone was yelling at me for stopping
310 x 3 clean and press each - I had no intention of doing this, but Spenser Remick came and trained with us and was doing this for nationals and so I figured I would do a few reps.

I brought one of my monster dumbbells to mess around with, and it weighs somewhere around 150.  I did a couple pretty easy reps with it.

Car DL hold
stupid event
Did one pick and held it for maybe 20 seconds.

Stones over 54" bar
I planned on not doing anything too heavy since my back was still not feeling great.
That didn't happen.  Also, a 54" bar is pretty damn tall.
360 x 1
400 x 4 singles, Spenser and I just went back and forth so there was probably a minute rest between each of these.

Arm over Arm Truck pull
Tundra plus car dl frame plus 150 lb monster dumbbell
2 runs, each pretty fast.
I really like this event and might try to remember to work it in as conditioning sometimes even if it's not in a contest.  It's great grip and back work as well as being good conditioning.

Events 10-7-12

I forgot to post what I did last week, and don't remember all of it.

Basically Tuesday was Safety bar box squat heavy with chains and Thursday I felt like shit and didn't do much of anything.

Sunday Events

Axle C&P

3 singles at 300

1 set of 2 clean and press each rep

1 set of 10 with 250 clean and press each rep (this was horrible)

Car DL hold

some

12" Deadlift

495 x 5

Stones

not much

Arm over arm truck pull

2 runs with my truck and the car deadlift loaded in the back.

Events 9-30-12

I decided I wanted to start Carb Back Loading and am in the middle of the preparation phase (no carbs at all for 10 days) so I didn't have a ton of energy going into this.

Also, I decided that between not really feeling ready for all the events (mostly just yoke) for nationals and not wanting to spend the money and take the time off work to go that I'm not going to.  I am going to focus on just getting stronger this winter, and really try to work my weak events as much as possible before next spring.

The things I feel like are my weakest points would be deadlift strength, upper back strength, posterior chain strength, grip strength, and conditioning in that order.  Obviously, if my upper back and posterior chain get stronger it is going to help my deadlift, so there is some overlap.  I am going to take the approach of trying to work in one exercise, even if it is just one or two sets, to work on at least 2 of these things every workout.

Having said all that, I am planning on competing in the Quad Cities meet on October 27th with Jesse and Troy, so those events are what I will be training.

Axle
250 for reps
I got 11.  I know I can probably hit around 15 in a minute, but my jerk was basically non-existent because my knees were pretty sore.  Also, conditioning.

Arm over Arm truck pull (Tundra)
60 feet x 2
These were both pretty easy and fast.

12" Deadlift
525 x 3
I was tired so I stopped.

Farmers Hold
300 per hand x 2 holds probably somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds
I just wanted to get some grip work in, not ruin my hands for a week

Stones
320 x some
I was completely out of gas by this point.

Pretty decent day considering I was ready to be done after the truck pull.

USAPL Power Surge 9/22/12

I have really dropped the ball on keeping my blog updated for all of the 3 people who actually read it or care about what I'm doing in the gym.  Since I can hardly remember a workout 24 hours after it is finished I am not even going to try to recap all of them.

I decided to compete in my second ever powerlifting meet, and the first full meet I've ever done.  It was in Alliance, so it was convenient and also a lot of fun because I got to lift in a meet with my dad.  I competed in raw which in USAPL mean belt, wrist wraps, and single ply knee sleeves are allowed.

Squat
476
530
562.xx - This was an all time raw PR of a little over 7 pounds.

All weights are approximate conversions from kilos.

Bench
355
375 - I did this easily, but I lifted my head off the bench so I got redlighted
385 - I planned on going for around 400, but I knew I was going to be more concerned with keeping my head down than anything so I took a smaller jump.

Deadlift
550
600
628.xx - This is an all time PR of 3 pounds, if you count deadlifts that I didn't hitch then it is a 13 pound PR. It felt pretty easy, so it reassured me that my goal of hitting a 650 dead by May, 2013 is definitely in reach.

I ended up with a 715 kilo total (1576.289 pounds) which I was very pleased with.  I had to be over 1565 to get on the top 100 total list for USAPL, and this should put me somewhere around number 95 on the list. I also set the Nebraska state record for total, beating all 3 previous lifts, by about 165 pounds.

I ended up winning the Raw Open 125+ division, which doesn't mean shit because I was the only lifter in it.  I won Best Lifter in the meet though too, which means a lot more.

Also, since I think just about everyone who could possibly read this knows my dad too, he did pretty well.  He ended up with like a 402 bench (with a shirt).  He wanted to go for around 415, which I think he has in him easily, but his second attempt he had his hands on the wrong marks and got off balance so he stayed with the same weight.

I really enjoyed this meet, and am going to plan on doing more powerlifting meets in the future.