GnomusMaximus’s BodyBlog

That’s exactly what I’m going to do.  I’ve been super frustrated recently with my throwing and not making much if any progress in lifting.  My weight and appearance kind of plateaued, and I’ve been feeling less than motivated.  Add to that sick kids, stress at work, a ton of stuff to do at home, and blech…you get the picture. 

So I’ve decided to click the restart and reboot myself.  I spent a week tracking my diet to see where it was.  I put it up here on this site and got some good responses.  I know what I need to do differently, now it’s a question of doing it.  I also put up a thread on nasga about training and what a typical week looked like for everyone.  The interesting thing is that, with only one exception, for the guys I really look up to  it was all 2 days/week full body workout, emphasis on squats and different pulls.  Sort of what I’ve always thought.  Now I just have that 5/3/1 template to give me a framework and keep me from goofing up all the time.

 Speaking of 5/3/1…I decided to restart that as well.  I’ve used the rep calculator to figure out maxes as opposed to my true 1 Rep max for now.  That sets things a good bit low for me, but I now see how that program works.  It’s very long term periodization oriented.  I like it.

I think I’m scratching the strongman contest for now.  Sort of blew the competiton/travel budget for the year and after the long Highland Games season I don’t feel like competing again right now.  There will be plenty more chances, I’m sure.

OK, I’m gonna do my first real strongman contest.  Not one or two events as part of a Highland Games, not an underground strength game in some field or yard, but an honest to goodness NAS sanctioned, non kilted, need to pay an entry fee strongman contest.  (I’m not to happy about this entry fee thing by the way.)  So if you want to follow along with me come on in.

I found a contest in Lebanon NH.  This is a town I often pass through on my way to Highland Games.  It’s about a 5 hour drive so it’s within reason.  Here’s the event on the NAS web page
http://www.nastrongmaninc.com/upcoming/upcoming_item.asp?UpcomingID=429

There will be a novice class, so I’m going to start off with that.  The Events/Weights for that class are as follows:

Press Medley - 70lbs DB, 115lbs BB, 145lbs fat bar, and a 160lbs log
Axle DL - 3 Attempts max wt.  (sort of like a standard PL meet, but with an axle)
Farmers Hold for time - 150lbs/hand
Tire Flip - 80′/60seconds, 500lbs
Atlas Stones - 115, 130, 150, 175, 200

I should be OK on all the weights, but I’ve never done a tire flip before.

I recently got a message from an old acquaintance on my facebook account.  The message was something like "There are other things to do with your time than lift rocks.  wtf?"  I, being the nice guy I am replied with something like "Ya, you can throw and carry them too."  Here is what I wanted to say, but didn’t.  "You know, you are right.  i promise you the next time I am at some fairgrounds in Maine or ski resort in Vermont, or in Scotland, or one of the events I could attend in Europe I’ll think about it.  After I have just gotten in for free and was competing in front of a big cheering crowd, I will search my thoughts.  I’m sure that right after I finish drinking the free beer or Whiskey from the event sponsor and leave the VIP tent I will realize, "there are so many other things I could be doing right now".

Well, here it is September and I am once again battling with the whole committment thing.  4 days (2/2) vs 3 days (all strength).  So before I wrote a post here I decided to look and sure enough I had been through the same argument before.  Decided to do the 3 days/week for most of the year.  The result….weaker and not throwing as far. So, I’ve decided what do I have to lose let’s do the 2/2 thing for a bit.  Besides I really want to do a strongman and I desperately need some conditioning.  So let’s see what happens.

Well, here it is September and I am once again battling with the whole committment thing.  4 days (2/2) vs 3 days (all strength).  So before I wrote a post here I decided to look and sure enough I had been through the same argument before.  Decided to do the 3 days/week for most of the year.  The result….weaker and not throwing as far. So, I’ve decided what do I have to lose let’s do the 2/2 thing for a bit.  Besides I really want to do a strongman and I desperately need some conditioning.  So let’s see what happens.

Saturday: Celebration of Celts
All proud of myself because I got there by 8AM. Then we wound up not even starting until 9:30. Oh well, next time I’ll be late as usual.
Here’s the event run down:

Braemar Stone: Nice rock. First attempt I hit a PR!!! Felt really strong right off the bottom and had a nice pop. The next 2 attempts were not as far but still were my #2, and #3 best throws ever. The PR was by more than 2 feet!

Open Stone: Same deal, PR by a foot. Good shuffle, then a really nice
throw. The next 2 were again the second and third longest throws ever. 2 for 2.

Heavy Weight for Distance: First attempt felt so good. I really felt like I THREW it rather than just letting it go. Another PR!! Second one was almost as good. The guys all said they think I have gotten all I can out of 1 spin, so I decided to try 2. Did OK, actually was only 19feet something. I used my "extra attempts" (you get 3 extra attempts for winning an event) to do 1 more single spin throw.

Light Weight for Distance: This was the one event I wasn’t very pleased with. I haven’t had a chance to use a real implement this year, so I guess that explains it. It still was the #2 attempt ever for me so that wasn’t bad.

Light Hammer: First attempt felt really good. It had some good air time, I swear I heard the judge say 62′ which would have been a PR. The second attempt I drilled the ground on the final spin. I had already committed to throwing the darn thing so I let it go. Before the third I found out that the opener was listed as 52 not 62. When I did the third I was a little over aggressive as a result. It was the best for that series but not a PR. Used my extra attempts and bumped up a bit but didn’t keep track of them. I swear he said 62!!

Caber: 17′, 110lbs, wicked hook in it. All 3 attempts were good, without a doubt the best pulls I had ever had on a stick, but it wouldn’t go over.

Weight over Bar: Started out at 10′6" (my best is 11′). Hit that on the first attempt. We went right up to 11′6". Three good attempts but didn’t get it over. Michelle said the last one looked real good, but didn’t get the roll. At least I know I was good for 11′.

I think my decathlon points was like 600 over my best. Really happy with that.

I’m really struggling right now with what direction to take.  1/ of me is worried about getting more healthy and the other 1/2 is saying to make a full commitment to this Heavy Events, heavy stuff sort of thing.  I have a plan of doing either doing 3 days of strength training with no cardio or a 2/2 split, 2 days strength/2 days cardio.  I do miss playing in the woods, and riding things with wheels, but throwing rocks and picking up heavy things is a lot of fun.  right now I’m leaning toward sticking with my original plan for the few more weeks until my first games and then switching over after that.

Wow, been a bit negligent of this of late.  Things are going well.  The weather has broke enough to start throwing and the bicep tendon is holding up well.  I haven’t lost any weight, but my strength is doing well.  This past week I felt great while doing squats, and BP’s.  The Rear Jerks on Thursday were good.  Took a stab at that 90kg that I have been chasing, but just couldn’t lock it out.  The throwing session on Sunday went pretty well.  Had one HWFD that was waay over my previous best.  Now if I can just do that next month.

Not a bad week.  The biggest issue has been struggling with the arm.  I can’t clean or curl anything.  Couldn’t even do D. Bell Presses because I can’t get the stupid weights to my shoulder.  That said, at least I did OK working around it. 

Well, got in two short workouts this week.  Started to get some of the strength back when my Left bicep went bad.  Felt it sort of "yank" and then noticed it started to form a small (1/2 dollar sized) bruise.  Went to see a Dr. and she Dx’ed a mild tendon tear.  Suggested 6 - 8 weeks of rest.  Got on the nasga message board and got lots of 1 arm training advice.  I should be able to work through it pretty wel since it’s my non-throwing arm.  I’ll just replace DL’s with Dbell snatches, and BB rows with Dbell rows.  any curls will have to be R arm only.