Alpha's Work IV

Training Training Logs
141

[quote]Alpha wrote:
MattyG: You mean of me? To be honest, I don’t have a lot of pictures of myself. I have never been big on getting my picture taken. I posted a pic of me when I was a skinny 16 or 18 year old or something in one of my past logs. It was Alpha’s Work II I believe. You would have to search through it, but it is one of me flexing my bicep. In it you can see that I didn’t start with a very large frame. I still don’t when standing next to guys of similar height and weight…I just have a lot of muscle and thickness. Especially in my upper back.

[/quote]

I was referring to the video that rampant badger posted, the guy was using a car buffer on his muscles as a recovery tool, it was a lame pun.

142

Alpha wrote:_

TVS Coach: I’ll have to give that a shot man, thanks for the tips. And the words about the brain tumor were much needed, it seems as if I am starting ti have some complications so I have t go get them checked out ASAP. Thanks for stopping in!

Alpha Dude! Sorry to hear about that tumor brother, you and your family are in my prayers. I can empathize, my dad has a brain tumor, its been in “remission” for years but the threat of it is there.

143

[quote]FarmerOwen wrote:
Alpha wrote:_

TVS Coach: I’ll have to give that a shot man, thanks for the tips. And the words about the brain tumor were much needed, it seems as if I am starting ti have some complications so I have t go get them checked out ASAP. Thanks for stopping in!

Alpha Dude! Sorry to hear about that tumor brother, you and your family are in my prayers. I can empathize, my dad has a brain tumor, its been in “remission” for years but the threat of it is there.
[/quote]

I truly believe everyone knows someone who has or is fighting cancer. Owen, I will add your dad to my prayers. I lost my mom 7 months ago to her amazingly hard fought battle. She was ready to go home with her Lord and savior.

Alpha, like I said, I will continue to pray for you and your family. I know you have a great surrounding of family and friends, which I am sure must help tremendously. I remember on your old website 5100block, you said you were a Christian. My Moms favorite verse that gave her comfort and strength was Psalm 23, during her fight. Stay strong my friend.

Please keep us updated, if you are ok with that. If not, I understand.

144

[quote]Alpha wrote:
As far as my elbow goes, I am not really sure. It has been going on for the better part of a month now and any pressing with a barbell (be it bench or overhead) is pretty painful. It doesn’t bother me with the log because it is a semi-supinated grip. But anything with a barbell is painful right on the inner knob/bone of my elbow. I have been icing it and wrapping it when I lift, but it hasn’t subsided yet. I’m sure it will be ok in time.
[/quote]
If it is on the inner part of the elbow, one possible cause could be the inflammation of the pronator teres. This is actually a common problem for climbers, hence my familiarity with it. It is important to note the anatomy of the biceps and pronator teres, as the biceps turns the palm inwards (supination), whereas for climbing we want the hand to be palm outwards (pronation), and so pronator teres will battle with the biceps to maintain pronation, and can also cause microtrauma to this usually undertrained muscle of pronator teres, and cause medial epicondylitis.

One of the ways to help treat is is to do eccentric only pronator movements. Grab something like a small sledgehammer, or a loadable dumbbell bar with a 2.5 or 5 just on one end. Hold it by the empty end with the weight straight up and your forearm parallel with the floor, elbow at 90 deg. But have your forearm resting across something to minimize bicep engagement. Then slowly lower the weight to the outside until it is parallel with the floor (you should feel it sort of stretching across the point of pain on the inside of the elbow. Use the opposite hand to help bring the weight back to center and do the eccentric again. Do 2-3 sets of 8-10 several times per week for a few weeks, and it should help correct the problem.

145

MattyG35: Ahhhhhh I see what you did there…Hahahaha disregard what I said in the previous post then!

FarmerOwen: Thanks brother, but I have been dealing with it for a while now. I’ll be just fine. It is just something that I have to put up with from time to time. And I am sorry to hear about your father.

TVSCoach: Thanks so much brother. I am lucky enough that it doesn’t show any signs of being cancer. It is just a micro adenoma on the back of my pituitary gland that causes a lot of havoc on my endocrine system but like I said, I will be fine. And I am sorry to hear about your mother.

Ecchastang: My man! I was really hoping you would see this and give me some insight (I almost posted it on your log a few times now) after how helpful you were with FarmerOwen. I don’t think there is a more knowledgeable person for hand/forearm health than you. I will definitely give this a try and will keep you updated! Thanks again, brother.

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Well, with all of the weather pummeling the east coast right now, I am stuck where I am for a little bit. I will have a lot of catching up to do, workout-wise, when I get the chance. But for now, i can only hit a lot of bodyweight conditioning…Nothing too noteworthy so I will just leave you guys with this awesome quote:

"Give me, my God, what You still have;
give me what no one asks for. I do not ask for wealth, nor success, nor even health.
People ask you so often, God, for all that, that You cannot have any of left.

Give me, God, what You still have. Give me what people refuse to accept from You.
I want insecurity and disquietude; I want turmoil and brawl.

And if you should give them to me, my God, once and for all, let me be sure to have them always, for I will not always have the courage to ask for them." --Prayer found on Lieutenant Andre Zirnheld, SAS…Killed in action 26 July, 1941

146

Alpha,

Do you normally cycle down your reps from phase to phase like this?

4x8
5x5
10x3

or do you alternate it

5x5
4x8
10x3

Not that i feel its a huge deal but just curious what you do. thanks

147

Animal Mother: I cycle down. 4x8, 5x5 then 10x3. I think it helps me start each wave a heavier weights than I would have estimated otherwise.

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“I was wholly fulfilled. Most people never get there. They’re afraid or unwilling to demand enough of themselves and take the easy road, the path of least resistance. But struggling and suffering, as I now saw it, were the essence of a life worth living. If you’re not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you’re not constantly demanding more from yourself - expanding and learning as you go - you’re choosing a numb existence. You’re denying yourself an extraordinary trip.” --Dean Karnazes

SUNDAY, 08MARCH2015 - Work For Today

CONDITIONING
30 Pull-Ups
30 Dimel Deadlifts
30 Handstand Push-Ups
30 Double Unders
20 Pull-Ups
20 Dimel Deadlifts
20 Handstand Push-Ups
20 Double Unders
10 Pull-Ups
10 Dimel Deadlifts
10 Handstand Push-Ups
10 Double Unders

STRENGTH - Was mainly working on my deadlift form here, so nothing too heavy.

Worked up to a 585 axle deadlift with 10 Glute ham Raises between sets

Then worked up to a 585 Double Paused Deadlift

EVENTS - Did some stone for about 20 minutes

NOTES:

  • Just getting back into he swing of things today. Felt pretty good but I have to be careful how hard I push this close to the competition.
148

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“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” --T.S. Eliot

MONDAY, 09MARCH2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Day 1

STRENGTH GIANT SET
2 Farmer’s Handle Deadlifts: 410, 510, 590, 640, 690, 750
1 Log Clean & Press: 205, 225, 245, 275, 295, 305
10 Reverse Hyper: 180, 250, 300, 300, 300, 250
3 Meter Butt Walk: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

ACCESSORY GIANT SET - 10, 8, 6, 4 Reps of
Weighted Pull-Ups: 115x10, 8, 6, 4
Log “Z” Presses: 115x10, 135x8, 155x6, 175x4
100 Foot Farmer’s Walk between Roounds with 225lbs each hand

RANDOM CONDITIONING
After running the work-out, there was a friendly bet with the athletes there. Long story short, I ended up doing a lot of bupress in payment.

NOTES:

  • Wasn’t feeling it on the Farmer’s Deads today but got a decent amount of work in.
  • Working a lot on my log technique. Hopefully it goes well in the competition
  • Love place loaded reverse hypers.
  • This is the first time I have ever tried Z presses with a log. I stayed light and worked on getting lots of reps in, but I really liked it. Hopefully they will help me find a better groove and get my log clean & press out of the funk it is in.
149

Next time you should make a bet to do a 225 z-press-buttwalk hybrid for distance.
Don’t forget to film it :slight_smile:

150

MattyG: The carnage would be intense!

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“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done–then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” --Frances Hodgson Burnett

TUESDAY, 10MARCH2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Day 2

CONDITIONING
20 Burpees
1:00 Plate Touches
1:00 Wall Sits
1:00 Walkout Push-Ups
1:00 Jumping Squats
1:00 Plate Holds
1:00 Bear Walks
1:00 ManMakers
…And some other bodyweight stuff that I cannot really remember

MORE CONDITIONING
10 Rounds
10 Pull-Ups
10 Thrusters @ 135lbs

NOTES:

  • Nothing but conditioning for me today. The bodyweight stuff was done with a group and I pretty much did it so they didn’t have to do it alone. Pretty easy stuff there.
  • The latter was much more demanding but still very doable.
  • Hopefully i will have time to hit some decently heavy yoke walks tomorrow. Looking to work up toward 900lbs. We will see how that goes.
151

Alpha, how’s the elbow doing? I am confident doing the aforementioned movements several times per week for a couple weeks will make a difference.

152

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Alpha, how’s the elbow doing? I am confident doing the aforementioned movements several times per week for a couple weeks will make a difference. [/quote]

Reading your post reminded me of this. Different but similar movements.

153

Alpha and anyone who wants to chime in,

I just made some DIY Farmer Walk “bars” I can use. Up until now, I’ve never trained it because it was a pain in the ass with what I had available. So I’m pretty bad at them.

For someone just starting the movement, how would you prefer they mostly train it? A focus on time/distance, or focus on moving heavier weights? An even blend? Also I’ve seen you do the Farmer DLs a lot – do you think it would be good to practice just locking out weight I can’t quite move far yet?

Thanks.

154

Ecchastang: You are a witch doctor my friend! It feels a lot better already. So good in fact, I was acutely able to bench with some decent volume and weight today. Thank you so, so much for your help! I will continue to do the exercises and keep you updated my friend!

Sutebun: Good job on the fabrication, brother! I would use them a few different ways. The first being for conditioning. I would throw on a moderate weight then go 100 ft every minute on the for like 12 minutes. Other days I would work up to a 1RM 50 ft walk. Finally, I use them almost like a rack deadlift and load them with weights that I know I cannot walk with just yet, but will overload my grip and upper back. This has helped me with car deadlift and regular deadlift progression. You can also throw them into different strongman type of medleys.

At first, you grip can probably only handle training them about once per week. But when you are ready, I would use them in one of the above ways twice a week. You really cannot go wrong with farmer’s walks, they will make you stronger at everything you do. Definitely a game changer. I hope that helps you out some man!

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“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.” --D.H. Lawrence

WEDNESDAY, 11MARCH2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Day 3

EVENTS & CONDITIONING
Completed as many tire flips as possible in 15 Minutes. 700b tire.

STRENGTH & EVENTS
10 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 360
9 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 540
8 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 630
7 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 720lbs
6 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 810 (Added Belt)
5 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 860lbs (PR in the Vid Below)
4 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 900lbs (Bigger PR and vid below)
3 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 720lbs
2 Bench Presses @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 720lbs
1 Bench Press @ 315lbs
50 Foot Yoke Walk @ 720lbs

NOTES:

  • So, when I got to the gym, I hit the tire flips really hard. This must have left me with less oxygen in my brain then I would have wanted because it lead to a great/horrible mistake.
  • My unloaded yoke weights 180lbs. So my first warm-up run is just with 45’s on all 4 posts (360lbs). I did this and it felt fine. Then my normal progression is adding 45’s to 2 of the corners adding 90lbs each run…For some reason my brain thought I had to add 45’s to all FOUR corners to increase the weight by 90lbs…So my second run was supposed to be 450, but I had loaded the bar to 540. I did my 50 feet and just noted that the weights felt heavier than normal.

I am supposed to add 45’s to the corners to increase by 90lbs, but my brain is still not working, so i add plates to all four again. So my brain is thinking 540 but in reality the weight is 720lbs… I am dumbfounded by how heavy things are feeling today. The entire walk, my head is screaming at me that something is wrong with me. That I am going to embarrass myself at the upcoming competition…Even that I might hurt myself on this weight… I complete the 50 feet and sit down, very discouraged. …Then my brain realizes what I have just done…I am an idiot.

  • Since I was already up there, I threw on 90 more pounds and walked an easy 810 for 50 feet. My previous PR was a very sketchy 850, so i figured I would go for 860 and see how it went.

It went very well. Semi-fast, and little wobbly but I’ll take it. The weight actually felt relatively light. So I decided to try for 900, which was my goal for the upcoming competition.

Previously, I had picked up 900 about 3 times. Walked 1-2 steps and it folded me. This time I stood right up and seizured my way 50 feet across the gym.

  • I am also really stoked that my elbow doesn’t seem as bad as it was after Ecchastang’s prescribed exercises. Ended up doing quite a few reps with 315, so that was cool.

  • The yoke walk was only 20lbs off being a 4x bodyweight lift. i will be there soon.

Here is the vid of the 860 and 900b Yoke walks.

155

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“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” --William Feather

THURSDAY, 12MARCH2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Day 4

CONDITIONING
Did about 20 minutes of different bodyweight stuff for 1:00 Minute intervals each.

STRENGTH - All squats extra low with a 3 second pause at the bottom
5 Paused Squats @ 455lbs
4 Paused Squats @ 475lbs
3 Paused Squats @ 500lbs
2 Paused Squats @ 550lbs
1 Paused Squat @ 585lbs (PR)

ACCESSORY - 20, 15, 10 Reps of
Good Mornings @ 225lbs
chest to Bar Pull-Ups
Handstand Push-Ups

NOTES:

  • Really good squat day today. In reality almost all of the squat numbers from above are PR’s because I usually only do these as a second thought and never go that heavy with them.
  • My intention was to work up to 500lbs and get a bunch of triples there, but it felt pretty light on my back (probably due to the 900b yoke last night) and so I just decided to continue dropping a rep and adding weight.
  • 550 was a great set, so I loaded 585 just to see if I could do it. I dropped into the hole, paused a loooonnnggg 3 seconds and came right up. In reality, I am almost definitely sure that 605x1 was there today. In retrospect, I should have started a little heavier so that I could have gotten it, but I wasn’t even sure how 500 would go with the long pauses. I’ll take it for now and hit is heavier next time.
  • The best part of all is that, since I have been working so much on my bracing, my torso didn’t collapse at all and I found it very easy to stay in the groove. My hips didn’t shoot back either…

…If there is one thing that I wish I would have learned earlier in my lifting career, it would have been how to brace correctly. I just started doing this like a month ago and have already broken my squat PR and see it continually going up for a little bit. and when my squat goes up, my deadlift goes up. That doesn’t really work in reverse (for me at least), so this makes me very happy. I feel like I am a brand new lifter again even after all of this time.

156

That yoke walk was crazy strong! I still remember watching, live on TV, Franco Columbu (back in the day obviously!) breaking his leg doing a refrigerator walk/race in a strongman-type competition. When you do a 1000 lbs, it will be epic!!!

Can you expound a bit on the bracing -what you did before vs. what you do now?

Fantastic log, tks for all the valuable info you post!

157

Nice job on the squat PR, and the 900 lb Yoke walk. That’s insane. BTW, love the inspirational quotes.

158

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
BTW, love the inspirational quotes. [/quote]

See Alpha! I knew I wasn’t the only one! Now anybody can google cool quotes, it’s quite something else when somebody who lives by them quotes them.

159

900 POUNDS!!!

Really amazing work in here, Alpha. Congratulations!

160

Sick work bro!