As the final weeks of my internship come to a close I only find it fitting to max out my final week here. The Clint Darden seminar falls on the final Saturday before I leave meaning I would be maxing my lifts during the week. Since training has been rough lately and I have been trying to acclimate to so many new stimuli I decided to make this upcoming week dynamic effort and work capacity sessions only. Naturally I had to destroy myself prior to this makeshift deload.

8/1: DE Squat

Next Saturday I will be attending a strongman event to watch two of my clients attempt to break world records and the Saturday after is the seminar, meaning this was my final Saturday session at the compound. It was kind've sad honestly. I hit 8x2 speed squats and 9x1 speed deadlifts with average bands. After my speed dead I decided to hit increasingly heavier singles until speed dropped off, ended up getting 3 more for a total of 11 sets on deadlift. Finished off with some pretty tough accessory work totaling 18 sets and called it a day. It was a great session to end on.

8/2: ME Bench

This was another solid session. Went in feeling a little beat up but excited to bench as usual. I found myself being excited for every weekend session at The Compound because of the environment and coaching, it seems very tough to manage to have a negative session all things considered. After my main work sets Chuck gave me the opportunity to put a bench shirt on, which I obviously took. I gave it a go for 2 sets but we quickly realized it was a bit too big and I wasn't getting anything out of it. I am still glad I was given the opportunity to put one on because I don't know if I will get to again. It is certainly draining. Finished the session with some more high volume accessories and left knowing I had overreached.

My biggest take away from this weekend was to appreciate training. I am lucky enough to train at great facilities outside of this internship and I think that is what contributed to not appreciating it. Training is something that should be an escape that you truly cherish, somewhere along the way I feel like I lost it. It was certainly rekindled in The Compound this summer being surrounded by such great people and I haven't had this much fun training in a long time. Don't loose touch with what training really means to you.

Andrew Triana is a Springfield College student studying Applied Exercise Science. He competes in Strongman.