[quote]Alpha wrote:
The CB: Thanks man, but I have literally never even looked at 1 instagram post in my entire life. Other than internet popularity, what does a good following get you? I am not trying to be a dick, I just am ignorant to it and would really like to understand. I can see how it might help advertise for my gym, but other than that, are there benefits for the time I would spend away from here and my other focuses to do it?
Again, not trying to sound smug, just not sure what the benefits are.
[/quote]
Actually itās not that productive other than for advertisement and getting attention but itās really not that time consuming, all you do is posting a picture or a short 15 sec video.
Regev: Yea man, I may have to start one up. I could also highlight other athletes from my gym when they hit PRs and stuff. We will see. Iāll look into it.
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āBillions of people have traveled and continue to travel the other path, and it grows wider every yearā¦The trouble is that on this wide path, you donāt end up at awesome. You just end up at old. This path is called āaverageā.ā --Jon Acuff
āEvery advancing step I take toward my goal of comfort is yet another retreating step I take away from Godās goal of the impossible.ā --Craig D. Lounsbrough
āMediocrity is the companion of passivity and will not heed the call of great things. Courage is the companion of sacrifice and cannot help but heed the call of great things. And we are left of our own accord to choose one or the other.ā --Craig D. Lounsbrough
āBeing our best is asking how can we take ourselves to the precipice of our own limits in any and every situation.ā --Craig D. Lounsbrough
TUESDAY, 17FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 3/Day 1
CONDITIONING
20, 15, 10 Reps of
Pull-Ups
Squat Cleans @ 205lbs
Handstand Push-Ups
Sledgehammer Swings (Each Side)
STRENGTH GIANT SET
1a. Deadlifts: 500x3, 550x3, 570x3, 585x3, 605x3, 620x3 (Vid)
1b. Bent Over Row: 315x3, 335x3, 365x3, 385x3, 405x3, 415x3 (Vid)
1c. Incline Log Bench Press: 245x3, 295x3, 315x2, 335x2, 355x2, 265x1, 385xNope
EVENTS
50 Foot Yoke Walks: 360, 450, 540, 630, 720, 810
NOTES:
- Conditioning went really well and I flew through it.
- Deadlifts were slow and felt heavy, I think because of the Farmerās Handle dead from a few days ago. Either way, I got up to 620x3 and am very happy with that. Especially on a day when I didnāt feel strong at all.
- Bent over row. I threw it in the vid just because I never record lifts like that.
- Incline log bench was hard today. Elbow was hurting and I was having trouble getting mentally into it. Iāll do better next time.
- I also threw a 610 squat in the vid from the other day just because I had it on my camera. It was an easy rep.
Here is the vid of all of the above:
Thanks for the detailed reply man. That makes me want to try a log clean one of these days. Thereās no chance of that at my uni gym though. What exactly do you mean by ācontinental methodā? According to Wikipedia itās a style of knitting, but that doesnāt quite fit with the context.
Continental is when you hitch it, itās pretty messy compared to a proper clean, but as Alpha pointed out, thereās a reason for it.
Alpha dude! Thanks for putting up the 415lb rowing vid dude, that was frickin cool! How many people have 415 as a max deadlift and here you are rowing it! Keep up the good work my friend, your a huge inspiration!
TheWolfMan: Yep, Matty beat me to it. It is like a 3 part clean. Since you canāt flip under the bar it is a way to get it up to front rack without losing it.
MattyG: Thanks brother, i was going to post the same video.
FarmerOwen: Thanks man, yea I am glad some one found a vid of me doing rows motivating! Thanks for checking in brother, looking forward to your 600 squat set!
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āMost humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the deadā¦ā --Og Mandino
WEDNESDAY, 18FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 3/Day 3
SKILL & CONDITIONING
1 Overhead Squat
1 Squat Clean (Catching the barbell in the bottom of the squat)
1 Barbell Snatch (Full Snatch, catching the barbell in bottom of the squat)
Add 10lbs and Rest :60 seconds, then:
(10lbs Heavier)
1 Overhead Squat
1 Squat Clean (Catching the barbell in the bottom of the squat)
1 Barbell Snatch (Full Snatch, catching the barbell in bottom of the squat)
Add 10lbs and Rest :60 seconds, then:
(10lbs Heavier)
1 Overhead Squat
1 Squat Clean (Catching the barbell in the bottom of the squat)
1 Barbell Snatch (Full Snatch, catching the barbell in bottom of the squat)
Add 10lbs and Rest :60 seconds
I did this and ended up with 245lbs for my top set.
STRENGTH
Squats: 135xsome, 225x3, 315x3, 405x2, 455x1, 500x1, 550x1, 585x1, 615x1, 650x A really good looking eccentric! Then it just stapled meā¦
ACCESSORY GIANT SET
Good Mornings: 225x5, 275x5, 315x5, 315x5
Glute Ham Raises: 10, 10, 10, 10
Plate Loaded Reverse Hypers: 180x10, 200x10, 200x10, 200x10
NOTES:
- I went into today feeling really beat up from yesterday but due to my schedule, there is no other really goo time to hit my squats. All of them felt pretty rough. 615 was fairly smooth but felt much heavier than the 610 from last week. I figured Iād give 650 a run and was really stable on the way down, came out of the hole about 4 inches and it came out of the groove. I dumped it before I broke in half.
- The conditioning portion went well but all of it was fairly light so it didnāt beat me up too much.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Continental is when you hitch it, itās pretty messy compared to a proper clean, but as Alpha pointed out, thereās a reason for it.
[/quote]
Gotcha. Thanks. I see what you mean. Canāt really explode it up like you would with a bar but you still need to keep it as close to your body as possible.
āHe who is an athlete only is too crude, too vulgar. He who is a scholar only is too soft. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, a person of thought and a person of action.ā ā Plato
Alpha, Iām new to your log, so apologies if youāve already addressed this. Could you elaborate on the reasoning for putting conditioning first in the workout? I see above that it doesnāt impede your strength work, but is there a positive reason for doing it this way? E.g., Iāve seen plenty of arguments for strength work firstāglycogen usage, fat mobilization, etc.āwhy eschew tradition?
Not Alpha, but I find being slightly fatigued, you have to focus more on form/technique
TheWolfMan: Nah man, it is like the least efficient movement ever, but it is necessary when weights get heavy. Believe it or not, (for me at least) it is like 5x harder than a regular clean because there are so many places it can go wrong. Also dropping the weight right on your diaphragm, leaning back so far and the weird breathing pattern you adopt when performing these makes a set of 10 feel like the end of the world. They are a really tough movement. I would also only recommend doing them with an axle, Iād stay away from trying them with a regular barbell.
BJack: I love the quote man! We miss you at the gym, I hope things are going well for you. And great job on the deadlift PR from the other week!
Antho: Well, that is a tough question and most people are going to hate my answer, but here it is anywayā¦
Part of it IS what MattyG said in that I feel like it does help me focus more on my technique more than just brute strength, but I also feel like it primes the main movers and my CNS for what it is about to go through. I have trained many, many different ways and I have found that this is what works best for me. Also, in my line of work (and the people who my programs are written for [Military, agents, police, fire, etcā¦]) you are never feeling 100% when a 100% situation is thrust upon you. I used to name the conditioning and Event portions of my workouts āInsertā and āextractā with the meaning being that you have to get to the actual location (insert) before that actual āworkā (Strength) can begin, then you need to get yourself back out (extract). For the people involved in the above occupations, your hardest moments are usually always preceded with some sort of exhaustion before the hardest part of the work begins.
Even if you DO happen to go directly into some immediate struggle, your heart rate shoots through the roof and your sympathetic (Flight/Flight/Freeze) nervous system takes over. This will make your body feel as if you had just completed a very hard conditioning session in a matter of seconds and there is still work that has to be done that you canāt just give up on.
Programming the way I do is as much about the mental game as it is the physical. It helps you get comfortable with being uncomfortable and teaches you that you are still very capable of performing great feats even when you feel completely spent. I cover a lot of this extensively on my website in the articles, main page and warrior athlete sections if you want to check them out.
For the average lifter, I think the mental hardening that takes place in workouts like mine is very beneficial for everyday life (even if you are not fighting bad guys or trying to save people) in that it can be applied to many other aspects of a personās existence. Being mentally and physical strong as well as knowing where your true limits are makes people harder to kill or victimize. Not to mention that it teaches them how to turn off their brain and to work harder even when every fiber of their soul is telling them to quit.
If I were only training to win competitions, impress people or get oiled up on a stage, I might train differentlyā¦but probably not. I have found that for myself and all of the athletes under me that this way is very effective.
And as far as eschewing tradition, well, if we donāt try anything new we will continue to get the same results as we always have. Many years ago I was dead set on training 4 sets of 8 and 3 sets of 10 and got decent results. Then I read a workout by Chad Waterbury about 10 sets of 3, I gave it a shot and it changed not only my body but the entire way I approached training. If I hadnāt tried something new (and against ātraditionalā beliefs) I would still probably be where I was all those years ago.
Some people from these forums have tried the conditioning first approach and have really loved it and others have hated it. It is a very individual thing. What works for one person will not for everyone, but you never know until you give it a reasonable shot.
Sorry for the long answer brother but I hope that didnāt come across harsh (it wasnāt intended to) and I hope it answered your question.
MattyG: Thanks for jumping in man! It never hurts to have other peopleās opinions in here!
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āMaybe itās an issue of being unable or unwilling to realize that we can actually impact things sufficiently to change things, rather than seeing ourselves as being exiled to some distant side line of life where we can do nothing more than sheepishly root for a life that?s far too far away to touch.ā ā Craig D. Lounsbrough
THURSDAY, 19FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 3/Day 4
STRONGMAN EVENTS - Atlas Stone Over Bar Work
Part 1
Worked my way up to hitting a few reps with a 19" Stone with a 35b plate inside it. Not completely sure how much it weighs but know it is over 300lbs
Part 2 - 5 Rounds
As Many Loads As Possible, over a 54" Bar in :60 Seconds (Did this with an 18.5" Stone)
1 Minute rest between Rounds
Part 3 - 3 Rounds
Get as far as you can up the ladder in :60 Seconds
1 Stone Load Over a 54" Bar
1 Burpee
2 Stone Loads Over a 54" Bar
2 Burpees
ā¦Did this with an 17" Stone
I was surprised at how much the axle clean takes out of me, compared to a barbell clean, and Iām not even at a point where I need to continental it.
Iām used to the clean being the easy part, and the press being the hard part, but itās almost opposite with the axle.
[quote]Alpha wrote:
Many years ago I was dead set on training 4 sets of 8 and 3 sets of 10 and got decent results. Then I read a workout by Chad Waterbury about 10 sets of 3, I gave it a shot and it changed not only my body but the entire way I approached training. If I hadnāt tried something new (and against ātraditionalā beliefs) I would still probably be where I was all those years ago.[/quote]
Could you elaborate on this a bit more? Iām interested in what changed and how it changed (both physically and mentally).
Alpha: Things are good man! And Iāve PRād on pretty much everything. I actually might be able to come by the gym tomorrow if youāll be around
Alpha,
Today I started your conditioning-first stuff and liked it. I started super easy, but since Iām adding it on top of fairly demanding program I wanted to make it doable and make sure I could recover from it, and will eventually build it up over time. But so far I liked it a lot.
It was a simple Tabata of alternating a Hang Snatch with jumping rope. Got my legs and shoulders ready for the main work, got my lungs going, and āwoke me upā for the strength portion just as you said it would.
Thanks for inspiring and teaching everyone on here, myself included.
No apologies needed; that was a detailed and sincere answer. I probably wonāt incorporate this structure into my workouts any time soon, but I know the idea will be rattling around in my head now. To echo Lonnie, thanks for the dedication and inspiration.
Hey Alpha (and others), kind of came across this randomly, itās a shortish crossfit strongman presentation. Kind of takes the same approach as you for scheduling your extract as strongman events, as you mentioned above.
From the last page
[quote] Performance Standards for Mastery of Strongman Movements
- Shoulder a stone = (1.25 x Body Weight) x (3 Reps) < 60 Seconds
- Keg Clean and Press = (.75 x Body Weight) x (5 reps) < 60 Seconds
- Log Clean and Press = (1.25x Body Weight)
- Viper Press = (1.25 x Body Weight)
- Axle Continental Clean = (1.1 x Barbell Clean) x 1RM
- Axle Double Overhand Grip = (Body Weight + 30 Pounds) x 60 Seconds
- Axle Deadlift = (.85 x Barbell Deadlift) x 1RM
- Farmer?s Carry = (1.25 x Body Weight in Each Hand) x (100 ft. Without Dropping)
- Yoke Carry = (3 x Body Weight) x (100 ft. Without Dropping) <20 Seconds
- Zercher Yoke Carry = (2x Body Weight) x (250 ft.) < 120 Seconds
[/quote]
If you google ācrossfit strongmanā (not in quotes), itās the second hit
LoRez: Yea man, typically if I can continental clean it up to front rack I can press it. For that particular exercise, I feel like the clean is the limiting factor. Also, you donāt realize how much more the clean takes out of you so you are already in an energy deficit before the bar gets to a pressing position.
As far as what changed when I switched to 10x3ā¦It started when I read an article on here from Chad Waterbury. He talked about the 10x3 set up and it explained that if you could squat 100lbs 10 times for 3 sets then that was 30 total reps at 100lbs. Then it talked about how if you could do 225x3 for 10 sets then you are still getting 30 total reps but at a much higher weight. This seems very innocent now looking back at it, but it was the first time I had ever heard about total number of reps and total weight moved in a given workout. I was still of the mind that if you completed anything less than 8 reps, then you were only working strength and that hypertrophy wasnāt possible.
I still run into this argument a lot with some of my athletes and co-workers. If you ask most lifters (even experienced ones) they will tell you 3-7 reps = Strength but not size, 8-12 reps = hypertrophy and some how 15+ reps will get you cutā¦I am not sure who came up with this idea but it is insane to me. If you complete a bench press workout with 4 sets of 8 reps (32) total reps @ 100lbs you will gain more muscle adaption than you will doing bench 10x3 @ 225lbs (30 total reps)? It is just my opinion based off of my own anecdotal evidence but lifting heavier weights is better for strength and size than lifting lighter ones. I am not sure what people think magically happens at different rep ranges (and the idea that one protocol will fit everyone) but it is sacred in our community. This logic didnāt add up to me and seemed more like it was about people selling articles than it was about actually getting bigger and stronger.
When I switched to 10x3 I found that I obviously could move more weight. I got used to being under more oppressive loads. I found out that I didnāt need as much rest between sets as I previously believed. That I could super-set antagonistic movements without losing strength in either, and that my body instantly started growing more due to adaption to the heavier weights.
I ran that program for its entirety then went back to a 4x8 set-up and amazingly, now I could more more weight than I previously could in the same exercises for the 8 reps, which meant more adaption, more strength and more size.
Then I tried out a 5x5 protocol but did all 5 exercises is a giant set format. This just about killed me at first. But I found that my muscle endurance improved along with my conditioning.
ā¦All of the above experimentation took me the better part of a year. I canāt remember my exact weights back then, but I DO remember that a 405 deadlift for 3 just about killed me and a 365x3 squat meant death (bodyweight was right below 200lbs). Fast forward to now and I just did 620x3 deadlift last week and a 605x3 squat recently so something has workedā¦
After that year I started experimenting with my own programming, ramping giant sets, going 4x8 for 5 weeks, 5x5 for 5 weeks and 10x3 for 5 weeks then taking the next few weeks to try and set new PRs. Still to this day I fall back on this type of programing for the strength portions of most of my workouts. I have ran 5/3/1 and the cube method and loved them both, but still feel like I get the most gains from following what I described above.
People often ask me why powerlifters and strongmen donāt look like bodybuilders and the answer is their diets. I have always said that body comp has much more to do with what you put in your mouth than it does with what you do in the gym. Unless a bodybuilder is getting ready for a show, I donāt feel like the body types are all that much different than other strength athletes. And we have all seen the amount of muscle mass powerlifters/strongmen have when they are hurt and diet down.
Before I started the 10x3 I was all about getting bigger and that was seeming like an impossible task. Then when I started training for performance, the aesthetics were a great byproduct. For most of the last decade I have been training for nothing BUT performance and I run into trouble with gaining too much massā¦It is just funny how things turn out i guess.
I know that was a super long winded and rabbit-trail filled answer, but I hope it covered what you asked. If it didnāt just ask in a different way and I am sure I will pontificate on something else, haha!
BJack: We connected over the phone. Iāll be seeing you soon!
Lonnie123: That is awesome man! Yea, with what you are running right now, I would start slow and just add as you feel itās needed but I am sure you will love the results! And I really appreciate what you said about learning, it makes me miss people like maraudermeat who have left because of the negativity on these forumsā¦That is exactly why I donāt really leave the training log section.
Antho: Thanks man, you need know how stuff comes across love the internet. If you ever give it a shot and need some ideas feel free to email me or just post in here. I really appreciate your question!
MattyG: Yea, Rob Orlando actually gives that exact sheet out during his Crossfit Strongman certification. I can proudly say that i can smash all of these numbersā¦other than the continental clean one! That would have me continental cleaning 445ā¦I have tried just the clean portion of that movement, but I can tell you right now that I am not at 445 yetā¦ Thanks for posting it!
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āIf I am always standing at the bottom of the mountain longingly looking up, in all probability it is because I have heeded the pillaging dogma of mediocrity which persistently tells me that the dream is not worth the climb.ā --Craig D. Lounsbrough
FRIDAY, 20FEBRUARY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 3/Day 5
CONDITIONING - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Reps of
Single Arm Kettlebell Snatches (Left)
Kettlebell Swings
Single Arm Kettlebell Snatches (Right)
Dumbbell ManMakers
*Run 400 Meters Holding a 25lb Medicine Ball After Every EVEN round
There has been a lot of great questions lately, and Iāve enjoyed the detailed answers. Thank you everyone, and thank you Alpha for taking the time out of your day to be so helpful.