I will be competing at The Odd Haugen Northern California Strongman Challenge and Visegrip Viking Challenge on May 21 and 22, 2016. I am thrilled to be back to competing in strongman and finding my passion to train once again. My return to strongman isn't just about getting back into event training. It's also my return to dropping weight, becoming athletic once again, maintaining solid nutrition AND figuring out how to incorporate and maintain grip training in the mix. In the past that has not been possible and I generally go out in a big ball of flames. This time I'm optimistic.
A perfect storm is brewing and many different components of who I am as an athlete are changing and improving. Part of this process is reflecting on where I have been in order to catch you all up while continuing the inner strength to rebuild and compete at my best.
You can catch up on the first two installments of background information here,
Rebuilding: The Fat Doctor & Inevitable Decline
There is more to come on this entire process and more background and I hope you find value in some of the lessons and struggles I have experienced. Keep your eyes peeled for the third installment. Who knew I really had that much to say?
From 4/4/16
Rolling
Mobility
Planks - 4x30 seconds
Box Jumps - 3x6
Stiff Leg DL
270, 1x1
260, 2x6
260, 1x7
Big Bald and his training partners are now training early in the morning. They typically arrive 45 minutes after I get started, but I have some selfish issues with this. First, when I roll out of bed at 4:00 am, I don't even brush my hair, let alone remove any rogue mascara under my eyes. I look ugly to put it nicely.
Second, I'm getting uncomfortable with them witnessing my music selections. When I heard about the new arrangement for my morning time, I laid the hammer down and said first person in the gym gets to decide the music and you can't touch it. They are not pointing and laughing at me YET, but I know they want to.
Shoot, every morning I watch them do their warm ups, rolling and planks I point and laugh. I still don't know why it's amusing to me, except for maybe watching three big guys essentially doing synchronized swimming with their warm ups IS amusing. Finally, I can't sing. They don't need to hear that, I'm sure it's bad enough looking at me, the slits of my eyeballs, all while resisting the urge to take and post tons of pics of me as pay back for me laughing at them.
I am feeling the effects of training. It's grueling at this point and look forward to deload next week. I'll include my thoughts on that in the weekly evaluation. When the 270 only budged for one, I went out to talk to Mattie for some motivation. The PG version is it went something like, "Stop being a sissy. Get in there and LIFT." To which I complied because I could feel them looking at me and making mental note of how they could blackmail me with pics from morning training.
If you notice, I cut one set out. I couldn't budge the bar off the floor and cut it there.
Grippers
COC 2 (106 lb), 2x2
Double Overhand Axle Rack Pulls
Loaded the bar to 245 which should have been a nice starting point. Not even a rep.
At that point I made an executive decision and cut the day there. Went home, crawled back into bed for ten minutes and carried on with the rest of my day. These final two weeks are sucking the life out of me but I'm bouncing back each day and putting in the work.
Cardio
4/3 - 35 minutes, walk
4/4 - 30 minutes, treadmill
4/5 - 25 minutes, treadmill