Sat, 31 Dec 16

Block 9, Wave 1 - Events @ Iron Athletics

Today I had the distinct pleasure of training with one of my original strongman training partners and co-founder of the Meathead Dream Team, Steve Mattheu.  Steve owns Iron Athletics Gym in Forest Hill, MD and has pretty much all the equipment you could want or need to train for strongman.  Since I'm not training for anything specific right now and I was just happy to see him and train at his facility, I told him I'd train whatever events he and his guys already had planned.  We did have a little bit of a time constraint today due to various NYE plans, but Steve, Aaron, Ryan, and I still got in work on 3 events and finished up with some conditioning and a good old time was had by all (except maybe while prowling).

Press Medley (log C&P x 3, axle C&P x 2, viking press for max reps in 60 sec)

complex x 90 - Log

complex x 140 - Log

4x120 - Axle

5x90 - Viking

3x180 - Log

3x135 - Viking

2x200/1x200/3x135 - Log, axle, viking, this was my last warmup.

3x250/2x250/15x180

The log and axle were clean once and press for the prescribed number of reps.  Viking press was as many reps as possible in the remaining time.  I ended up doing 20 total reps on this, which I'm fairly certain is the most reps I've ever done on a press during event training.  I did take about a 5-10 sec break after the first 10 reps on the viking press, so there is definitely room for improvement.  Also we used the Core Blaster Viking Press Attachment for viking press and it worked great.  The press feels just like doing viking press on a conan's wheel setup.

Farmer's Walk/Backward Drag Medley (100' each)

100' x 110 - Farmer's

100' x sled + 250 - Drag

100' x 210 - Farmer's

100' x 260/100' x sled + 350 - Farmer's was easy, but Steve and I opted to keep the weight lighter in the interest of time.  I was slow as a constipated unicorn without a squatty potty on the drag, but at least I finished it up without having to stop and rest.

Tire Flip

2x2x500

10x500 - We ran it doing 10 reps for time.  These flips felt bett(er) than all of my flips at Colosseum from a couple weeks ago, which is a good sign.

Prowler Hi/Lo

5x {40' x prowler + 180 high handles/40' x prowler + 180 low handles} - Four man rotation.  This killed me.  Steve has a long runner carpet for pushing the prowler on now to use with the indoor skis.  This allows more weight to be used more readily than back in the day when he used to just push the prowler on the rubber flooring, but the increase in weight thanks to easier sliding feels EXACTLY as awful as it used to with the much lighter prowler without the carpet.  Steve had fast and furious feet of fire on all the runs.  This was motivation for me to suck less, but I could still feel myself dragging more with each successive run, especially on the low pushes.

I had an awesome time straining with Steve again at IA and all 4 of us had a pretty good day overall as far as I could tell.  I am looking forward to being able to train up there again toward the end of the month.