[quote]morrisonlc93 wrote:
Hey coach, I’m headed into the final week of the Power Look Program and feeling good. During the heavy doubles portion last week I was able to High-bar Squat 30lbs more than my 1RM at the beginning of the program and conventional deadlift 35lbs more than my 1RM at the beginning of the program.
I don't want to get to far ahead of myself, but I want to give my first strongman competition a go. Taking the recommended easy days at the end of the program puts me 15 weeks out from a nearby competition.
The events are:
(1) Log clean and Press @235lb AMRAP in 1 min
(2) Car Deadlift AMRAP in 1 min
(3) Max Rolling Thunder Deadlift
(4) 250lb Sandbag for max distance
(5) 250lb keg over bar AMRAP in 1 min
Thank you again for fueling my PRs and any advice you are willing to give me is very appreciated!
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Congrats, look like you made great gains so far and will have a good testing week.
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What I notice about the competition is that it is a lot of strength-endurance work. The FIRST order of business is being able to train on implements that are similar to those you will use in competition.
The log clean and press is NOTHING like a clean and press, the technique is very much different and the feeling of pressing with a log isn’t like pressing with a bar. YOU MUST clean and press with a log as often as possible until the competition.
For the car deadlift you can do Trap bar/deadsquat deadlift but it wont feel the same as a car. The best way to train for it is to put 2 bars parallelto each other (about 4" apart to that you can stand between them). One end of each bar is placed against a wall (ideally a corner) like when you are doing T-bar/corner row. You load the opposite end of the bar. You stand in front of the loaded end of the bars, facing the weights. You grab the bar by the sleeve and deadlift.
For the sandbag carry, ideally you would carry a sandbag, which isn’t that hard to make. Or you can do Zercher carries.
For the keg over the bar, again, ideally you’d have a keg to practice… but you can use a heavy sandbag with handles to practice or you can use either a log or a football/swiss bar (because they have parallel handles which will simulate the border of the keg) and basically do a “high pull” passing the bar over a stick at the proper height. Use bumper plates so that you can drop it on the other side.
You have the advantage of knowing the events: practice them.
You can breakdown you weak to train the basic movement pattern involved in the event and train the event at the end of those days.
For example:
DAY 1
Clean and push press
Use a barbell and train for strength. Try to get as strong as you can for sets of 3 reps… a scheme similar to the power look will work fine
Bent over dumbbell row
Here do 3-5 sets of 4-6 during the first 4 weeks, 8-10 in the next 4 and 12-15 in the weeks 9-12
DB neutral grip shoulder press
Same sets/reps as the DB row
DB clean and press
Use a moderate weight and do 3 sets of 12-20 reps
Log clean & press
Here it depends on your strength in the log. If you can’t do 250lbs right now you’ll have to work on getting there first. If you have never done the log before that 3-4 weeks to just play with it, learn to be optimal with technique.
Once you can get at least 4 good reps with 250 you can go on with the plan to do max reps in 1 min.
*Take the max reps you did … let’s say that you can get 6 reps in a set. Divide that by to(so 3 reps in our example).
Do sets of 3 reps with short rest intervals that will decrease over time:
Weeks 1-2: 1 minutes between sets
Weeks 3-4: 50 seconds between sets
Weeks 5-6: 40 seconds between sets
Weeks 7-8: 30 seconds between sets
Weeks 9-10: 20 seconds between sets
Weeks 11-12: max in 1 minute
How many sets? You do sets until you can’t get your 3 reps (or the number of reps you have to do) with the prescribed rest period.
DAY 2
Deadlift
Use a barbell and train for strength. Try to get as strong as you can for sets of 3 reps… a scheme similar to the power look will work fine
Goodmorning (arched back, start every rep from pins in the power rack)
Here do 3-5 sets of 4-6 during the first 4 weeks, 8-10 in the next 4 and 12-15 in the weeks 9-12
Thick bar deadlift (either use a fat bar or buy fat gripz attachments)
Work up to a comfortable 2RM
“Car deadlift” (drill with the 2 barbells that I talked about)
Find a weight you can do 6 reps with and then follow the progression given for the clean & press
Grip work
DAY 3
Zercher squat
Train for strength. Try to get as strong as you can for sets of 3 reps… a scheme similar to the power look will work fine
DB hammer curl
Here do 3-5 sets of 4-6 during the first 4 weeks, 8-10 in the next 4 and 12-15 in the weeks 9-12
Seated cable row
Here do 3-5 sets of 4-6 during the first 4 weeks, 8-10 in the next 4 and 12-15 in the weeks 9-12
Zercher walk (or sandbag walk if you have one)
Do 3 sets for max distance unbroken…
Weeks 1-2: 200lbs
Weeks 3-4: 225lbs
Weeks 5-6: 250lbs
Weeks 7-8: 275lbs
Weeks 9-10: 300lbs
If you have a sandbag simply try to do 250lbsfor max distance , 3 sets.
DAY 4
Clean grip high pull from hang or power clean
Train for strength. Try to get as strong as you can for sets of 3 reps… a scheme similar to the power look will work fine
Log/Trap bar or football/swiss bar Romanian deadlift with shrug at the top (hold the shrug 2 seconds)
Here do 3-5 sets of 4-6 during the first 4 weeks, 8-10 in the next 4 and 12-15 in the weeks 9-12
DB farmer’s walk with shoulders fully shrugged. Go very heavy but stop set when you can’t keep the traps fully contracted. Do 3-4 sets.
“Keg lift over bar” drill that I explained earlier
Do 4 sets of 6-8 reps using the double progression method.
apologies