When you imagine how you would plan out your lead up to World's Strongest Man, it doesn't finish like mine did. I've been dealing with two herniated discs most of the year and it has never become a real issue til I had to prep for this HEAVY show. At about 3-4 weeks out I'd done enough therapy for it that my training was flying and I was hitting lifetime PRs left and right! I felt CONFIDENT!

Two weeks out my family got sick. I refrained from getting really sick but anytime you deal with family that is sick you will also be tired and rundown yourself. Nothing I couldn't handle though. Then, my "to be neighbors" began building a concrete wall that attached to my house. Every, freaking, morning, at 7 AM...banging on my bedroom wall. I think I was pretty patient. Seemed that they would work till 2-3 most days and I could get a quick nap before getting off to the gym. I was wearing down though.

Fridays were becoming a speed day where I just focused on explosive Weightlifting Squats against chains, some incline or standing log press (where I discovered that doing log earlier in the training session was so much easier than at the end), and any technical events that I needed work on. Nothing fancy here but just in case you want to see:

December 1 2017

And then they just kept banging on my house with a hammer. Except this time it was at 7 in the morning on a Strongman Sunday morning after my son had been up sick till nearly 5AM. I ended up going to the gym to train on no food and no sleep. Everyting hurt and I had no energy...at least I'm hoping that is what it was and not just a fluke that I'd been having great training sessions the weeks prior. I could not move 70% of contest weight on most events on this day...

Sunday December 3, 2017

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Wednesday rolled around. My back had been feeling OK so I'd stopped doing non-stop therapy work on it and I guess that was a mistake. If you couple no sleep, high stress, and back pain...it equals very sub par training. My appetite had also crashed by this point mostly because I was not able to get any sleep. I can't be the only one whose appetite is killed when they don't get sleep.

The plan was to just work out some soreness and so something productive. Box Squats hurt, bench wasn't great, incline log was solid for me, and I could barely move with an empty Super Yoke, Frame, or Hussafell Stone due to my back pain.

Wednesday December 6 2017

So then it came down to my last session in Cyprus before getting on a plane, Friday...leaving Saturday. To train or skip it? I talked to my buddies Charis Louca and Matt Ladewski. Charis reminded me that I have a Weightlifting background and my legs need the frequency and that older athletes need the frequent lighter work just to stay mobile. Matt Ladewski suggested that when I'm picking up my Super Yoke and Frame that I'm doing so by rotating my pelvis and not by using my glutes...so the plan was to do some speed work and get somewhere positive with some implements. Squats went great, log was on par with what I needed, and the tip from Matt paid off on Yoke, Frame, and Hussafell. Little to no back pain!

Friday December 8 2017

And with all of that, I felt better. Went straight home and began washing gym clothes and packing my bags so I could leave the next day.

Stay tuned, give me a few hours, and let me tell you about my near 40 hours in travel time that it took me to go from Cyprus to NC, USA 🙂