This week our latest toys arrived. Alex was able to organise some shiny new 44 gallon drums to be delivered to PTC and Saturday morning I went to Bunnings to buy ballast for them; I calculated about 340 kilograms of blue metal would do the trick. The drums themselves weigh 17 kg empty (rounded to 15), so we could either fill each one to 100 kilos, or have them at progressively heavier loadings. Just playing around with the first one I filled to 70 proved more challenging than expected, though we did all learn some new approaches to what is a new, bigger and harder implement than has been used in load and carry events like this in previous years. It makes kegs a wonder to work with by comparison.
I was poorly prepared for today's training myself, and spent most of the time we had either filling a barrel and standing in front of the camera while people did their best work to date on the log press, or discussing the next steps in PTC Perth Strongman's development; a shed for our equipment and a competition to be run this year... hopefully two; one novice and one ASA-sanctioned.
Steve, Mat and Alex were put through their paces today. Mat has only very recently returned and needs to be more consistent this year if he's going to improve. And I need to take my own advice on that one, as Alex and Steve are doing their best to outclass me in the press (which is not hard, let's be honest) and the blossoming, competitive bromance between the two of them makes me all soft and gooey inside.
After log press and some preliminary runs with the drum we moved on to axle power cleans and yoke walk. We are yoking because it's a standard strongman event and we all need to get better at it. The power cleans are to develop more power off the floor in Alex, who has noticed a loss of this since his last injury.
I am already feeling beaten up by my new program and am hoping I can make it through week 2 and still make a proper go of events next weekend.
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