The gym I train at is having a strongman-type competition on October 1st. It actually sounds like a pretty watered down comp. but I’ve never competed in one before and at a long-limbed 6’1" 195 lbs I’m not really built like a “strongman”.
Anyways, the events are this: 350lb tractor tire flip, keg toss, 18lb medicine ball toss (not sure exactly how that one is going to work), truck pull with rope (pulling as in rowing, not walking with it) and a farmer’s walk with a trap bar loaded with 375 lbs. That’s it. I’ve got about 48 smelling salts and about half a dozen icepacks to place over my heart to create an artificial adrenaline surge and I’ll probably eat about 5 lbs of pasta for two days straight prior to the event and I plan on drinking roughly a gallon of coffee mixed with Surge Workout Fuel throughout the comp.
Basically, I’d love to hear some advice from some of you guys who are experienced at this sort of thing. Preparation? Comp-day preparation? Pre-event preparation? Workout aims? Any advice at all is welcome.
My workout right now is basically this: 5/3/1 every other day with about 7-10 sets of 1-4 reps on hanging cleans or hanging snatches on the days I don’t do the 5/3/1 workout, ramping up the weight on each set until I get to about 90% of my 1rm and do a couple singles like that. My conditioning is horrible since my idea of cardio is riding a stationary bike directly behind the nicest ass I can find in the gym for about 10 minutes on the highest resistance setting.
To work on explosiveness and conditioning I plan on running short sprints on off days as well. I don’t have access to a tire or a trap bar and the heaviest dbs at the gym are 120lbs so I’m doing farmer’s walks with those. I think every assistance exercise I perform now will be done with some sort of variation that targets grip strength, like pullups with towels, rows with towels, and so on.
I usually perform some sort of ballistic/plyometric/dynamic movement of some sort every day, so I’m up for some more advanced shit in that department if you guys have any advice. I’m very familiar with Thibadeau’s methodology but when I think about what to add or change I end up having trouble deciding what stuff NOT to include. I don’t have more than about 2 hours MAX to work out each day for 6 days a week and there just isn’t time to fit it all in.
Ideas? The events seem pretty easy and with only 5 events I’m not too worried about this, but not only do I want to win, I want to FUCKING DOMINATE. Oh yeah, there are weight classes and I plan on competing in the middleweight class. Which means I have to stay under 200 lbs. Thanks in advance.