I’m back! Vacation was much needed - lots of new sights, new foods, and new friends. I didn’t train at all besides some pushups, BW squats and lots of walking, purposefully avoided social media and TV, muted my work email, and just kind of unplugged… and it was amazing. The days felt long and relaxing; much different than my daily life where it feels like every minute is accounted for. Of course, I did have some time to reflect on training, and reflect I did.
I’ve realized that I miss competing: I need that pressure in my life to really give my training direction, and if I’m being honest, I miss the sense of accomplishment as well. I was at my strongest and in my best shape from Apr 2023 - Feb 2024, and lo and behold, I did 4 different competitions in that timeframe. I trained like hell to make sure I didn’t lay an egg on gameday, and the results spoke for themselves. Other than a random deadlift-only charity event last June, I haven’t competed for 14 months, and it’s no coincidence that I’ve been program hopping and not making any real progress.
I mentioned that local strongman show a few weeks back, but for whatever reason, that alone doesn’t get the juices flowing. Then I remembered back in 2017, I did a weightlifting meet and a powerlifting meet less than a month apart, and those resulted in my best numbers in all 5 lifts for a long time. That supertotal doubleheader, so to speak, is one of my fondest athletic memories; it felt like my “Mt Everest” story and sticks out above pretty much every other competition I have done. So what else can I stack on top of this strongman competition to really create something worth remembering that will leave me no choice but to train like a madman? How about the polar opposite of a strongman show: a run? I looked at the local race calendar and found a 5-mile trail run the day after the strongman meet. Now THAT got my wheels turning; anyone who could show up and survive both of those tests, back to back, would have no choice but to be strong and in-shape. And so here we are, less than 6 months out, and the prep begins.
I want to keep the training as simple as possible: 3 days of lifting and 3 days of conditioning. I thought about trying to program for myself or to shoehorn different programs together, but quickly realized the futility of such an endeavor. Then I read @T3hPwnisher’s writeup of using Tactical Barbell to train for his competition and it all kind of fell into place. I will start with a few months of Mass Protocol: the wide variety of lifts and rep ranges will help me regain some general strength that I’ve lost in the program hopping, and the prescribed easy conditioning/recovery runs will help maintain an endurance base. In the summer, I will switch to Operator/Black: the increased specificity of the lifts will help me peak for the competition, while the change in conditioning protocol will allow me to work in strongman implements while still training endurance. One last note: no more missing training sessions either; if it rains I will drop in to a local gym.
4/21/25 - Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol: General Mass, Grey Man - Cycle 1, Week 1, Day 1
1A) Bench Press - 45 x 10, 89 x 5, 122 x 3, 144 x 8 x 4 sets
1B) Ab Wheel - 5 sets of 5
2A) Back Squat - 45 x 10, 133 x 5, 177 x 3, 210 x 8 x 4 sets
2B) TRX-style Face Pull - 5 sets of 10
3A) Chest Supported DB Rows - 51’s x 12 x 4 sets
3B) Dips - 11 x 12 x 4 sets
3C) Good Mornings - 67 x 12 x 4 sets
56:33
- Yeah, that was hard. Once again, more proof why I can’t write my own workouts - I won’t force myself to work this hard, left to my own devices. Bench wasn’t so bad, but high rep/high volume squats on shortish rest periods just envelops you in the darkness. And the assistance work, though light, was no joke either; it was basically a full-body workout on its own. One note - I may have to switch the chest supported row to a barbell version; I was hitting the bench with my adjustable dumbbells.
4/21/25 - Daily Work
10 chins/50 pushups/50 BW squats in 5:00
