Squats in Nav's Garage

THURSDAY night was my first time training with Western Australia's strongest man, Navarre Top, in his garage. The nostalgia was palpable for me, as it was in then Western Australia's strongest man, Daniel Macri's garage that I first began properly training strongman events, in June of 2011. It's eerie coincidences like this that caused the ancient Greeks to conclude that time was non-linear, and whatever was happening now has happened before, in the past, and will occur again in the future. Hence their recording of significant events is allegorical.


We are, at this point, somewhat limited in what we can do. So we did enough squats and good mornings to make sitting and standing the next day a constant challenge. Between sets we also discussed what other movements and events we could conceivably add down the track. I mentioned that there's a vacant block of land next to my house which is crying out for some keg toss, I've just never had kegs to toss (and wasn't about to buy a set only to have some prudish neighbour tell me it was private property and yadda yadda), but now given the circumstances, I will train wherever the fuck I possibly can. And Navarre may have access to things we can toss.


One of the exercises I used to do regularly is Good Mornings. Recently I've mentioned how I became quite proficient at this particular movement during my early years of Strongman training, but gradually performed them less and less frequently. Well, now they have made a return to my weekly programming. They are one of the most useful exercises one can perform for strengthening the glutes, hamstrings, and lower posterior chain - especially if you don't have access to machines. I was supposed to do three money sets tonight. Next week I will need to rectify that. And do some goddamn cardio. My resting heart rate is already climbing due to the inactivity.


Here's a blog entry from late 2012 where I'm doing reps of 200 kilograms, on a cambered bar. About a month later I dropped back to 150 kilograms, and went deeper for almost ten reps. These loadings are several months away from me at the moment, but I do intend to be moving 150 kilos plus for deep, comfortable reps by early July, maybe sooner.


SQUATS @ Nav's Garage Thursday April 2nd
Axle squats:
35 kg x 10
85 kg x 5
125 kg x 3
145 kg x 3 x 9 TPR
Good mornings w/cambered bar:
30 kg x 10
60 kg x 10
80 kg x 10
90 kg x 2 x 10 - missed 3rd set!