You will most likely find that there is a fair bit of waiting time at the obstacles on the day. The extra distance will not be an issue.
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Yeah, haven’t put too much thought into this, but i wonder if to start with, i could just regain my previous strength levels without adding much fluff? As you know being a bit older than me, it seems like our bodies want to store fat so much more than before.
If so, even just 30 seconds per station, would definitely make a difference since there are 25 obstacles!
Hadn’t thought about this before. Thanks for the encouragement!
5/10
Today’s training was a 2-mile run in the rain and some barbell strict pressing. Not much.
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Great burn mate. Managed to call me fat and old in the same sentence. LMAO
You are right though, it does get harder to stay lean when you get a little older. More muscle helps and the rest is just discipline with regards to the food you eat.
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5/12
1.1 mile run
10 rounds of monkey bars, EMOM
1.1 mile run
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5/15 Monday
2 mile run
Snatch: warmup then 10 EMOM 1X95
2 mile run
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when is the race mate, must be soon
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Saturday!
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5/17 Wednesday
1.1 mile run
Clean-and-jerk: 10 EMOM 135
1.1 mile run
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Friday 5/19/2023
Tomorrow is race day, so today was light and stress-free (the training, that is; life is rarely stress-free, and certainly not so today!)
Squat: 3x3x135
Deadlift: 3x3x225
Bench: 3x3x135
SS with Ab wheel, 3x3
Press: 3x3x95
SS with Pullups, 3x3 varied grips.
Clean-and-Jerk: 3x1x95
Snatch: 3x1x95
Kinda cool. I think I did every single important movement pattern, but nothing heavy or that I should be feeling tomorrow.
Caveat that the snatches ended up looking like power snatches followed by OH squats, because I’m really struggling to catch a snatch low. Not sure the solution, but when I do 10 singles I usually start to dial it in around the 9th or 10th one…
Race day is going to be tough. I’ll leave the house by 5am, drive 3 hours to my buddies’, then ride with them another hour, to show up much too early for our 11am-ish race.
So this evening I need to pack accordingly, including breakfast for consumption while driving.
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5/20 Saturday, Race Day:
It was awesome. Possibly the most fun I’ve ever had as an adult. Truly enjoyable - got to spend hours with old friends and new, and exert myself near the limits of my capacity.
I’ll summarize my personal experience like this: a lifetime of pullup specialization, a recent drop in bodyweight, and a recent focus on running/conditioning all paid off in spades. I was absolutely ready for this.
We “ran” as a group, so nobody went further past the next man than just reaching the next obstacle. There were also plenty of bottlenecks as @simo74 expected. Our goal as a group was to help each other and have fun, and we totally did. (We didn’t get a great pace, obviously).
I did a couple obstacles twice because they were so fun and I was so PUMPED. Lots of climbing things, such as monkey bars where the grips rotate under your weight, or swinging from ring to ring; 3 “carries” which all seemed MUCH too light; slogging through mud and rocks; a rope climb; bear crawling under barbed wire; and much more.
One unfortunate reality: I left the house at 4:30 AM and got back at 8:30 PM, because I had a 3 hour drive to my friend’s house and an hour from there to the event. Family men know the ways in which that sucks.
All-in-all, I’m so grateful for the opportunity, proud of my performance, and READY to focus on the barbell again. I have no plans to train running in the near future; though I’d be glad to prep for another one of these, way down the road.
Tomorrow will be my first trip to the actual gym in over 6 weeks, probably 8.
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Hell yeah man. Glad you had such a good experience
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Sounds like a great day out and glad you enjoyed it so much. I know exactly what you meant about taking a full day away, but it is important that you still take time for these things. It is also important to make sure your wife does things without the kids too.
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5/22/2023 Monday
First trip to my gym in many weeks. Everything could have been done at home but I really missed the environment of the actual gym.
Front Squat:
3x95
3x115
3x135
3x155
3x175
3x185
8x1x185 EMOM
Press:
3x65
3x85
3x105
3x115
8x1x115 EMOM
Snatch:
1x65, 1x85, 1x105 which was truly just a power-snatch followed by an OH squat - they all were but that was the worst.
Just enjoyed not having to run, and the front squats seemed a decent showing. Press is obviously way weaker, no surprise. The front squats were ATG, fully bottomed out, and felt good. Can’t sort out a program yet because a lot of other life things are in flux.
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Now we’re talking
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5/26
Lots going on and gym access extremely limited. I did get a few minutes with a barbell though:
Front squat. 3x135, 3x155, 3x175, 2x195 (just didn’t have 3). 3x1x195 IIRC.
Then back squats, not quite sure sets or reps but got a few at 225, don’t think I went above that.
Then overhead squats, didn’t get heavy, just did a few.
And that was all.
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5/30
No gym access. Ran 1.5-2 miles the other day. Today:
100 BSS, bodyweight using couch for the rear leg
100 pushups
100 hip thrusts (just humping the air with shoulders on floor)
I did that as 10 rounds of 10, 6, 10 of each, between and during work calls. Then 40 more pushups because @Chris_Shugart posted a challenge and it brought me up to 100 for the day.
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6/2/23
Got a few minutes with a barbell so i front squatted for @simo74 and @wiseman83 .
Overhead squats: a few sets of 3, up to 95lbs.
Front squats: a few sets of 3+ up to 175x3
10x1x175 EMOM
That’s all the time we have.
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6/4/2023
Had a 5-mile (ish) family hike. Wore or carried the baby 80-90% of the time.
The other kids held up amazingly well! 3 hours total.
No gym access until Thursday or Friday this week, and I can’t wait to get under a barbell.
I need the stability/routine of lifting in my life. The past few weeks have been challenging. I don’t know what’s on the horizon in a few more weeks, but I’m pretty solid that from this Friday, I should be pretty stable June and July and well into August.
Just enough time for the Front Squat Challenge with @simo74 @wiseman83 and others!
I’ve been wanting to get the Snatch and C&J mastered and achieve some basic milestones with each (135 and 185 I think is what I said). And I know I have those in me, mostly need technique work, but I’d been thinking that one could break up those movements and use the pieces for a pretty cool program. Then this morning I found a Zach Telander video where he suggests training Front Squat, SGDL, and Push Press for strength, as well as including a technique day for the O-lifts. And before that I was thinking of 5/3/1 Morning Star, which I LOVED, and which consisted of Power Clean, Squat, and Press - was thinking of modifying it to Snatch, Front Squat, and Push Press or something along those lines.
So I don’t have a program at this moment but one should coalesce soon. As I said I really need that part of my life to offer some stability and predictable routine.
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Zach Telander is the man, man. Love that guy and his content. Just a regular guy, not some crazed genetic freak. Refreshing.
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