The actual protocol was supposed to be 3/3/3 km of easy/medium/hard, but I made a choice right at the start to switch it up, because my foot falls were a little bit too heavy and it was jarring my back a little. Trying to sustain high levels of power for 3km wasn’t gonna end well.
Superset, 3x10
HLR
45° side bends (each side)
Gonna do this superset minimum twice a week. Ideally 3.
Additional notes:
Today was not and early morning adversity day, and I think I made the right call. My older dog was especially anxious last night, and we couldn’t figure out why, so he was getting up and pacing around the house all night and couldn’t get comfortable. He’s a formally feral dog, and is absolutely riddled with scars and injuries that didn’t heal properly (especially one of his back legs), and now that he’s old those are catching up with him more and more. We treat the pain, but at this point, there’s only so much we can do.
Following my dog’s pacing, my son woke up at 0500 and just… didn’t go back to bed. My wife went to comfort him, and I comforted the dog. Between those two and working out last night, plus my wife working early again today, I figured it was smarter to just let my body rest as long as possible and do the run after I dropped my kid at his gramma’s.
Easy, breezy, beau- wait, wrong thing. Anyways, light and slow run. Felt good. Untimed because it was just a recovery-esque pace. My west coast roots made me happy that this was done with a little rain.
Slow up and down, hard flex towards the top to make sure my hips are the main mover.
Bench
145x10
155x10
160x10
Too easy. Lots of room to grow here.
CGBP
2x10 @ 140
Good weight. Was able to really isolate my triceps finally.
1-arm DB row
3x10/arm @ 75
Good for now. Weight could probably be bumped in the next couple sessions. Stretch at the bottom, explosive concentric, flex, slow and controlled eccentric.
Kneeling ab wheel
2x15
It is what it is. All the HLRs I’ve been doing have made the ab wheel significantly easier.
Jeepers creepers, these are tough. Can’t quite get full ROM yet, but we’ll get there.
Superset 1
DB upright row-raise/top-down alternating incline curls, 2x12/10 @ 20
DB upright row-raise/Zottman curls, 2x12/10 @ 20
I use the term “row-raise” because I’m basically doing an upright row with a wide arc, so it looks like a combination of a DB upright and a lateral raise. Lets me use slightly more weight than a regular lateral raise, but far more control than an upright row. Great exercise. Curls absolutely ROASTED my biceps.
Superset 2
Goblet FFESS (R) @ 55/top-half band leg curls, 2x12/25
Goblet FFESS (L) @ 55/bottom-half band leg curls, 2x12/25
Weight was low on the split squats, but my balance was off. I wanted to keep the reps clean. That leg curl protocol is brutal. Hammies were screaming.
This goal has slowly begun getting lodged in my head again lately. I had a dream about it last night, even.
My fears? That it’s another fleeting passion, or that I’ll fail.
The counter? Training for loaded carries, especially a 400-fucking-pound one, will get you beastly strong if done with fervent focus. And even if I don’t succeed, attacking something like that can be personally glorious.
Alright, so after some rudimentary thinking, here’s a rough plan – should I pull the trigger and train for the Hus’ carry. Many of these ideas were pulled from the initial thread I started, as well as other people’s training experiences I’ve found online.
Day 1
P. Snatch
working up in sets of 1-3, for approx. 10 minutes. Not the focus of the program, but still a lift I’d like to keep in rotation.
Keg carry
Since I don’t have a loadable Husafell stone (yet), I’m gonna use my keg for now. Various holds for the moment, spending about 20 minutes working on max distance or max sets in that time.
B. Squat
Over a 12-week cycle, it’ll probably be sets of 10, 6 and 3, split into 4-week blocks. Aside from carries, squats will have the most volume per day.
Lat pulldown
Lighter back work, probably doing my old 2x12, 3x8, 4x6 cycling. It’s worked before.
Curls & shoulders SS
One thing I saw, and I had expected this to be the case, was one Hus carrier wished he had done more biceps work. Because it’s a front carry, this makes sense, so I’m going to be doing frequent biceps work, alternating strength or volume each day. Shoulder work is just to keep my shoulders happy and balance things out.
Day 2
Progressive Pulls protocol
The Progressive Pulls protocol is from Marty Gallagher’s The Purposeful Primitive. It’s a sequence of back exercises moving from a weaker movement into a stronger one as the weight increases, then back down after the absolute topset. I’ll be using power cleans, clean pulls, SLDL, BOB rows, and snatch pulls. 2 weeks of 10’s, 2 weeks of 8’s, 2 weeks of 5’s.
Curls & abs
Keep those elbows happy.
Day 3
P. C&J
Same protocol as the snatches from Day 1. Think of it as more of a warm-up for the day.
Keg carry
See Day 1. I’ll use a different hold, though. Could be bear hug, crossways, high-low grip, totally varied.
Z. Squat
Same as back squats. Zerchers will be important because of the carryover to a front carry.
1-arm row
Same as lat pulldowns. Just some volume work for the back at a lighter weight to pump in blood.
Curls & triceps
Elbow health.
Day 4
Bench variations
This will kinda be like @T3hPwnisher’s ROM training, but for bench. I’ll start with 4 weeks of incline, then 4 of CGBP, then 4 of flat. Not 100% sure of the rep schemes, but I might just use the same as for squats.
DB bench
Vanity work. The specific bench variation with change. Might be chest focus, neutral grip, flye-press, whatever I feel like.
Delt exercise
More vanity work. Not married to any specific movement here, and it will probably change depending on the rep scheme being used.
Triceps exercise
See above.
Light carry
Probably some kind of sandbag carry. I’m gonna buy bags of play sand or concrete mix, duct tape them securely all over, and chuck ‘em in a duffel bag. Boom, instant sandbag. Focus will be on breathing and footwork.
—
As you can see, lots of posterior chain work. But front carries are all about that posterior chain strength. The squats and progressive pulls are front and centre to build lots of leg strength and off-the-floor strength needed for a pick.
The Day 4 stuff is just to balance out all the posterior chain work, and make sure I’m still maintaining some pressing strength, especially my chest. Need to hug the shit out of a front carry.
The other thing I’ll try and do is put fat grips on everything, just to get used to involving my grip as much as possible. It’s definitely a weak point for me.
I am very much excited about the development of the log if it does in fact come back to the Hus stone.
I’ve only used a mock up stone once in a competition, but I think bear hug keg carries will really go far. Keg presses would be awesome too. And then I think there can’t be enough back work. Might be worth considering having chin oriented conditioning work, like Fran or anything that has you rowing or chinning during rounds. Could also just spend your downtime doing tons of band pull aparts or daily chins.
For zerchers, are you taking them out of the rack or off the floor? The latter would be very stonelike.
Oh yeah, maybe some zercher good mornings? Or even seated zercher good mornings?
Just spitballing a ton here. Full concur: simply training for this event will make you huge.
Post injury? That was about 6 months. Post surgery was 4 months. But I started doing them earlier than that: this was actually my final zercher workout before I was cleared to resume normal training.
Plate carries are another good option. Stack, pickup, and carry.
A pin works well if you have or you could probably go budget and secure them with rope or tape.
It would require a LOT of “body discipline” to ensure you’re actually ROM progressing instead of contorting your body at each stage of the ROM to maximize leverages. I could see it more as just 3 separate max effort movements.
Gotcha. I’m really unfamiliar with stuff like conjugate and Westside lifting, but they rotated max effort movements, correct? Would rotating through those three in 4-week blocks be a decent idea?
