EVENTS Saturday November 7th

TODAY was a very good day. It hasn't exactly been a good week, evidenced by this being my first training session since last Saturday. Fortunately, it feels as though the time out has allowed the knotting in my spinal erectors to chill. It hasn't been affecting my sleep this week, and it didn't resurface while pulling today. I am hopeful that, so long as I keep monitoring it (and continue to decompress my spine before each lower body session), it won't become a bigger problem down the track. But I'm keeping that MRI referral in case it does.

I inhaled a stack of pancakes and spent the first part of the day in domestic bliss: doing chores and washing and detailing the car.

Deadlifts w/barbell:

70 kg x 10

120 kg x 5

170 kg x 3

200 kg x 1

220 kg x 10 TPR - no belt, no straps

Deficit deadlifts w/barbell:

135 kg x 10

Cardio:

assault bike 5 mins @ +50 rpm 

EVENTS Saturday October 31st

flashback to 2015

SOMETHING I have found I need to do before every session that works my posterior chain is to hang upside down from the glute-hamstring machine and wait for my spine to release just a little bit. What I really need, obviously, is a spinal adjustment... and an MRI. I have the referral for the latter, at least. But for now, this is working alright.

 

During my last pull session I decided to add some more height to my deficit deadlifts (a metal 25 kg plate + one inch rubber mat under each foot), which it turns out was a bad choice. This time around I knew it would be wise to avoid anything with too great a range of motion, and risk further aggravating my back issue. And I was prepared for farmers walk to feel, well, shit, especially since I'd not done it in quite a while. But it did not. The silver dollar deadlift I was not a fan of first go, but it also did not tax the region of my spine that is currently giving me grief, so I was able to do some reasonable work there before my grip strength gave out.

Today's effort definitely was not my best, at ten kilos per hand and about half a minute off, I think. But, again, first time in a long time. I always enjoyed farmers walk. I should start doing it more regularly again.

 

Farmers walk (p/h):

60 kg x 2 x 10 meters

110 kg x 2 x 10 meters

130 kg x 2 x 10 meters

130 kg x 10 meters

Static hold:

140 kg x 5 seconds, maybe

Silver Dollar deadlifts:

165 kg x 1

265 kg x 3

Face-pulls:

54 kg x 3 x 20

Lateral pull-downs:

90 kg x 5

75 kg x 8

60 kg x 10

DB front raises (p/h):

10 kg x 3 x 10

12.5 kg x 10

Cardio:

assault bike 5 mins @ +50 rpm

Training Recap: Just Not Enough

TO GET the disappointing stuff out the way first, no I did not compete in Static Monsters, which does mean this year is more than likely a total bust as far as competing is concerned. I still intend to try some new 1RMs before the year is out. I just couldn't risk further injury on the day.

While I've waited out lumbar strains that, in the past, took a few days to subside and wouldn't interrupt my training for more than a week, this last one was different. It caused what Dan Macri suggested is 'neural guarding' - muscle knots that graduated up my spine, from lumbar to thoracic. I carried it through training over the next two months as it mostly seemed not to be too bad, and I honestly assumed it would dissipate in time. But a week out from the comp, it flared up again - in the thoracic - during log press, and took a bunch of my power in the clean.

My current work/life situation has not made things any easier. I am sleeping an average of not even four hours per night, so my recovery is for shit. This was really apparent on the fifteenth, when I was barely able to do two of the three sets of squats I had programmed without passing out. I scrapped the rest of the routine, did some extra cardio, and went home to try and sleep.

All in all I felt, on the day, that entering Static Monsters would be foolhardy, so I sat it out and assisted where required instead. Had a good chat with a bunch of people I'd not seen in some years, from some of the first trainees I coached at PTC to some of the strongest men and women in the state, one of whom was my first coach. By my figuring, there was a combined total of well over fifty years of experience in strength sports, in that one room, on that one day, in our little gym in West Perth.

Of course, the day belonged to Navarre Top, current Western Australia's Strongest Man and the owner of a shiny new 400 kilogram axle deadlift! I have had the experience of training alongside this Minotaur, who is only in his mid-twenties and has decades of national and international accolades in his future, if he remains this passionate and committed to the sport. He is a phenom in a funny hat.

PRESS Saturday October 17th

Chest press (p/h):

15 kg x 10

Log clean-press (strict):

45 kg x 6

65 kg x 3

80 kg x 1 - back injury!

Cardio:

assault bike 10 mins @ +50 rpm

 

SQUAT & PRESS Thursday October 15th

(bent as shit) Axle squats:

23 kg x 10

70 kg x 5

110 kg x 3

150 kg x 1

170 kg x 1, 5, 5

Good mornings w/cambered bar:

15 kg x 8

45 kg x 5

75 kg x 10

Glute-hamstring machine:

base x 10

+10 kg x 10

+20 kg x 10

Cardio:

assault bike 5 mins @ +55 rpm

PULL Saturday October 10th

Deadlifts w/wagon wheels:

100 kg x 8

150 kg x 3

200 kg x 3

230 kg x 1

260 kg x 1

Deficit deadlifts w/barbell - extra height:

135 kg x 2 x 10

Seated rows:

52.5 kg x 5

75 kg x 5

97.5 kg x 5

120 kg x 4

Face-pulls:

54 kg x 3 x 20