Thurs, 14 June 18

Lower @ BSG

I had to change up my training days this week because I ended up staying 2.5 hours late after work on Wednesday to finish up all my patient notes.  This was partly because I had to do some stuff that I could have come in and done this AM, but couldn't do because I was observing surgeries today, and partly because my brain just kind of turns to mush after staring at a computer for too long.  On the bright side, I did treat my CI's entire caseload for the day except for 3 patients who she had to see herself for different reasons.  Anyway, I wasn't about to start warming up after 7 PM and try to salvage some sort of training so I bumped it back a day.

After a morning of observing more minor arthroscopic surgeries on a knee and 2 shoulders (minor meaning not open surgeries like full on joint replacements), I headed out to eat lunch and relax for a little bit before training.  When I got to Brute, Andrew was just starting his work sets for mullet deads and I told him I'd be happy to jump in on that with him if he didn't mind.  He didn't and I proceeded to have to best DL day I've had in a couple months and the first one that really felt good in my suit.  So big thanks go out to him.

14" Mullet DL (w/ suit)

barbell warmups:

10x45

10x135

6x225

4x315

switch to 14" tugs on car DL frame:

8x135 + 700 tire

10x135 + 700 tire

10x185 + 700 tire - Add Metal Jack DL suit and belt

12x225 + 700 tire - Video

This was a huge day for me considering that doing sets of 5x for mullet deads with 225 on the bar has felt like a struggle prior to this.  Plus, I had way more in the tank when I stopped at 12x, but I am not pushing anything to failure from here on out leading up to USS nats.  Andrew also kicked ass on the mullet tugging today and is looking solid for nats as well.  And thanks to Stella for getting the video of this because I wasn't planning to film anything today.

A post shared by Andy Deck (@andydeck) on

Suited DL

10x45

10x135

5x225

5x315

5x405 - Suit straps up

8x495 - Add belt, started singing I've Been Working on the Railroad during the set.

2x545

2x585

We did these on a Texas DL bar.  This was the first time in close to 3 months that I've pulled from the floor and even longer in my suit and/or on a DL bar.  All the sets felt filthy easy and I really wanted to just keep working up, but doing an unplanned, standard height pull for a max in my suit 2 weeks out from nationals would have been the definition of stupid.

Standing Calf Raises/Reverse Hypers/Incline Reverse Crunches

2x{25x205/20x200/20xBW}

25x230/20x200/9xBW

I got hit by an ab cramp on the last set of crunches that felt like an alien chest popper was gonna rip out of my stomach so I had to cut the set short.

All in all today was outstanding and made me feel much better about my contest prep for nationals.  Now of course the last week and a half will probably involve me eating plates of poop, but I feel much more ready now than I did on Monday.