Watch the podcast (episode 18) without Dave.
I won't dive too deeply into the non-essentials of the weekend.
- We did the podcast on Thursday night
- We lifted on Friday
- I got a new nickname Friday night (actually, a pretty cool one)
- We did the conditioning on Saturday in the mid-day heat
- We ate A LOT (I gained 7lbs)
- I'm sore
On Friday we made sure to procrastinate so it could get pretty hot and humid. Awesome choice. I wasn't feeling well. In hindsight I was dehydrated and did a bad job of making sure I was good to go.
I had a hard time getting focused and ready to go, but Jim and Vincent seemed to be feeling pretty good so I stopped feeling sorry for myself and did my sets. As I got up to my "test" weight some doubt started creeping into my head. Instead of talking myself out of it I just got under the bar, failing to let Jim and Vincent know. Halfway through the set they figured out what was happening. Despite my pity party I hit an all-time (post-surgical) PR of 345x8. I'm only 100lbs shy of my pre-surgical PR of 445x7.
I opted for an upper body fluff and puff workout to finish my day. My Bench has been going well and I felt no need to see where I am because I know where I am. On Wednesday I hit 165x3.
Saturday we again waited until it got hot to push the Prowler. Our goal was under 40 minutes with no real idea if that was realistic or not. Turns out, it was way too easy. We pushed 4 plates for 1 mile (2 laps around Jim's neighborhood) in 24 minutes.
The first lap was pretty easy. i believe each of us ended up getting 5 sets of 50 reps. Lap 2 set in about 1/4 of the way through. We still made it look easy, but we definitely didn't cover as much ground per set as we did on Lap 1.
I know Vincent had a tremendous day hitting 2.5x body weight on the Squat and Trap Bar and 2x body weight on the Bench with his feet up.
Jim looked awesome on the Trap Bar, but ended up popping/tweaking something in his quad. This did not hinder his Prowler push the next day.
All in all, I'm very happy with my strength and my conditioning level. What I'm doing is working. The key to victory is continuing the process. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do during football camp. i usually like to do 2-a-days with the kids. Usually lift in the morning and run/condition in the afternoon. If I go this route, which I probably will, I will just do one Main Lift every day. I'll probably do Squat/Bench/Deadlift/Incline and just keep repeating those for the duration of camp. The smart move would be to drop all Assistance work while doing this.
I KNOW this will make me weaker, but for 2 weeks it won't kill me. i have this week and next before camp starts so I'll see what's going through my head at that point.
This was an awesome weekend. The best part was catching up with Jim and Vincent. We did a lot of laughing and ball-busting. I highly recommend that you do this with some friends (even if they're internet friends) at least once a year. I love training, especially by myself, but these days are always the most fun.
