IRON & STONE: Adventures of an Amateur Strongman

[mouse]

8/13/2019

Log Incline - 275x4/245x6x2
-call me a pussy, my chest is bruised up from where the rebar was/slipped on Saturday and it's pretty much the touch point. Hurt like hell, these might go away too

Strict Press - 200x5x5
-eh just sticking with 5x5, change coming next week

JM Press - 185x6x4
-these make sense again lol

Log sucked ass. Chest pain was bad and very distracting. Just called it early, chalk it up to a mini deload for my shoulders haha. These might get swapped for more axle... might not... on the fence.

Strict Press felt pretty good for four straight weeks of 5lb jumps, gonna go to the axle next week. I typically press a little more on the axle so we'll see how 205 feels...

Spent some time this morning mapping out the next 7 weeks and crafting a contingency plan or two. Depending on how things progress/feel. Other than that just stay the course to Orange Elite...

Iron Maiden tonight in Buffalo! Thank God I don't have to train tomorrow haha

[mouse]

Maiden was fucking tits...

[cgeorg]

Maiden was fucking tits...

Seeing them Saturday night, can't wait!

[mouse]

Maiden was fucking tits...

Seeing them Saturday night, can't wait!

My pictures don't do any of it justice, after The Trooper is really picks up in terms of explosions and general craziness. It's about a two hour setlist, Raven Age has about an hour set before them, about 30 minutes or so in between. Hopefully they work the kinks out of Bruce's gear during Flight of Icarus before your show... he had some issues with it haha...

[mouse]

8/15/2019

SSB Squat - 290x6x4
- just didn't feel like doing the 8's so YOLO... call it dealing with a mental block. Left knee is still fuckedish and adductors feel like I haven't worked them in ever, especially at baby weight, but I squatted and didn't die...

Seated Press - 135/145/155/165x8
- audibled the Z's out. I just don't have the faith in training those long term I guess. These are similar enough, I can push them a little harder, and still feel more confident and clean in the reps...

Deadlift - 515x5/475x5x2
- I feel good about this choice, maybe one more week of a top set until I move to ramping singles...

[mouse]

8/17/2019

Axle Press - 230x6x4
-coulda been better, but not bad overall

RDL - 335x8x4
-adductor on the right side is being pissy, SLDL warm ups off the floor started getting kinda shakey and shitty around 335, so I decided to swap in RDLs today. Felt better...

Front Carry to Failure - x3
-tough to train sandbag carries in a thunderstorm. So just took leisurely strolls around the garage to tax my grip with the carry. Just missed the full 60 seconds by a couple seconds.

Incline DB Curl - 30x10/8/6 - 60 sec rest
-bro shit...

Air Bike - don't know what I actually did, kids were messing with the monitor and I couldn't get it to reset. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-7 minutes around 70rpm? I dunno... just a little extra work...

[mouse]

8/19/2019

Box Squat - 330/365/380/330x4
- sue me, I get bored squatting. Playing with wide stance high box squats for a "heavy" day. Want to maybe get into the 400's. Gonna try sticking to the plan of regular SSB squats Thurs

SGDL - 385x4x4

DOH Rows - 240x8x4

Air Bike - 5 min legs only

[mouse]

8/20/2019

Incline Log - 245/265/280/245x6
- ramping sets of 6 up to 280 to see how they felt, meh...

Strict Press (Axle) - 205x5x5
- weird nerve pain through my right thumb on the first set, wrap too tight + suicide grip? I dunno. Almost went night night on rep 3 of the last set for some reason, so those last two reps were REAL STRICT lol

SSB JM Press - 180x6x4

Shoulders and biceps were pretty pissy all day today, stuff went fine in lieu of it...

[mouse]

8/22/2019

SSB Squat - 295x6x4

Seated Press - 145x8x4

Last Man Standing DL - 405/455/495/545/585

Deadlift - 475x5x2

Not shabby for carrying a months worth of deadlift fatigue and not doing any singles since July... especially since diet and sleep haven't exactly been "optimal" lol... liquid dinner tonight

[mouse]

8/24/2019

Axle Press - 205/235/265 (PR)
- first time cleaning axle in a month-ish, my press is clearly limited by my clean, plenty more in there past 265 if I can get it to my shoulders...

Axle Press - 225x6x3
- see? Lol

SLDL - 375x6x4
-felt much better today

Air Bike - 5 min hard

Incline Curls - 30x12/10/8/6
-bro shiiiiiiit

Call em a puss, I needed a break from the sandbag. Just tired of it and my low back could use a break too. Plus my driveway just (finally) got paved and the wife was paranoid. Gonna reassemble my farmers for next week.

[mouse]

That went pretty well...

[mouse]

8/26/2019

Box Squat - 340/370/390/330x4

SGDL - 390x4x4

DOH Rows - 245x8x4

[mouse]

Curveball...

Found out yesterday that after this weekend football practices are moving to 5:30 instead of 6:00...

The good news is rather than Mon-Thurs like we have been, they will be on Tues/Thur/Sat schedule... so I'm thinking move the accessory slot on Tues/Thurs to Mon/Sat respectively, and see how that works. Not ideal, but I really only have to make it work for like 4 weeks before I can start my taper into Orange Elite...

[mouse]

8/27/2019

Incline Log - 245/265/280x6x2
- felt better this week, focusing on keeping my elbows tucked keeps my right side from lagging like last week.

Strict Press (Axle) - 210x5x5

JM Press - 190x6x3
-cut a set out here, tricep pump came on strong and the third set got a little grindy...

Sooooo curveball...

Found out yesterday that after this weekend football practices are moving to 5:30 instead of 6:00...

The good news is rather than Mon-Thurs like we have been, they will be on Tues/Thur/Sat schedule... so I'm thinking move the accessory slot on Tues/Thurs to Mon/Sat respectively, and see how that works. Not ideal, but I really only have to make it work for like 4 weeks before I can start my taper into Orange Elite...

[mouse]

8/29/2019

LMS Deadlift - 495/585/635

Deadlift - 515x3x2

Squats - fuck em

The last two weeks are catching up with me. Trying out my new time limits early, figured I'd try deadlifting first to be "fresh" and squat second. I knew ahead of time I wanted to move to triples. 585 felt deceptively good and 635 was clearly pushing the limit. It aggravated stuff on the left side and the triples made it worse. Was planning 3x3 but I started feeling the pressure of the time limit (tighter than normal today) so I moved on early. Squatting was definately not happening after that. Even light stuff was pissing off left upper glute stuff.

Not surprising really. I've been pushing a lot of volume this last month, haven't really taken a deload, and my work/football schedule is kicking my ass. Canning one day isn't gonna hurt long run, and the extra time can (hopefully) only help...

[mouse]

8/31/2019

Axle Press - 275(miss)/235x4x3
-clean was pretty good, fucked the drive, hit my chin, came SO close to lockout but didn't get it stable... backoffs looked good

SLDL - 385x6x3
-cutting back one set on these for farmers

Pin Press (axle/frhd) - 275x1/225x5x3
-see? working the lockout until the taper

Farmers Carry - up to 250 per hand with a hold, back offs for speed and extra grip
-expected these to suck but they felt great. Grip felt super strong...

[mouse]

9/2/2019

SSB Box Squat - 345x4/380x4/400x4/350x4
-not shabby

SGDL - 395x4x4
-extension could have been better, might hold here next week

Super Set
JM Press - 200x6x3
DOH Rows - 250x6x3

[mouse]

9/3/2019

Incline Log - 250/270/285x6/250x8
-meh

Strict Press (Axle) - 215x5x4/215x6
-rep PR... Yolo...

Tired and miserable all day. Had this feeling in my gut that presses would be hard. Clearly not the case. Decided to take the last set to 6 just because I could... cool.

Smashed down a couple chickens with leftover mac salad and an orange like I just got out of prison... writing this on the way to practice.

Knee has been... weird today. The swelling and stiffness in the knee has almost completely subsided in lieu of a pain in my upper calf that seems to be there regardless of if I'm standing or relaxing. Annoying, weird, could be paranoia but I sort of feel like my tendonitis is creeping back in... might do tempos to the bench on Thursday if I still feel like this...

[mouse]

9/5/2019

303 Squat - 275x6x3
-felt OK, straight bar, beltless

Deadlift - 545x3/525x3x2
-aimed for 545, bit of an overshoot... backed down to 525 and finished off the triples...

So fucking hard to cram this in to like 45 minutes... doesn't seem like a lot of work but DAYUM...

[mouse]

9/7/2019

Axle Press - 275x1(PR)/225x4x3
- botched cleans all day lol. Took me two attempts to clean 245 and 275, once they were on my shoulders the press felt fine though. If nothing else it gives me a little reassurance that if I bone a clean on game day I still have plenty of time to recover and get the press

SLDL - 385x4x4
- held these back a bit because of lower back fatigue. Dropped a couple reps but added a set and they felt good.

Pin Press (Axle) - 235x4x3
- more lock out work

Max Distance Sandbag - 240ft in around 50ish seconds

Turns out training on only 3 eggs, two piece of toast, and some bacon from like 4 hours ago is tiring lol