No ‘specific’ training
I know what I meant to say 
I understood you fine, I am just a bit anal.
But that’s what I am getting at. It was the correct statement. I haven’t trained for THIS comp. I have been training, yes, but not for the comp. I legit don’t remember what the events are. I am just coming in to compete again.
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Got back to Santa Cruz where groceries are ridiculously expensive. Bought a whole chicken, spatchcocked it, brined it, barbecued it, ate the dark meat immediately, ate the breasts the next day.
Will repeat.
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@The_Myth Good to see some great minds thinking alike here! I love being able to cook a whole bird when I get the chance. SO much good meat.
AM WORKOUT (0425 wake up via alarm, sleep seeking)
JUGGERYOKE Week 5, Workout 1: Log and Front Squats
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (log-squat-shoulders)
Log clean and push press away
6x3x170 (3 reps anyway I could get them)
4x3x165
Front squats
10x3x220 (re-racks toward the end due to bar slipping rather than strength failing)
Band pull aparts
5x20
Lateral raises
4 sets
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (dip-chin-abs)
Weighted dips
5x3x117.5
Weighted chins
5x3x37.5
Hanging leg raise+10 lat shrugs
4x5
Breakfast
Walk w/dog
Notes:
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With no carb-up yesterday, I came into the morning feeling fatigued as hell, but once I started hitting work sets things clicked along well and I was strong. That very first set of log press was outstanding, and I had zero blackout issues. Timing was the biggest barrier to success, but my knee is holding out well. Kept having the bar slip on the front squats. I used an actual rack position for the warm-ups, and though I could manage it, it was beating up my connective tissue a bit too much. Something to strive for.
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Shaved a set of abs and lateral raises due to time. I slept an extra 20 minutes. If I’m seeking sleep, I’m embracing it.
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Those dips continue to move in an outstanding direction. I’ll have to make sure they’re still a regular feature in my training.
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Some thoughts/observations:
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My weekday posts are very detailed and my weekend ones are very sparse. That’s a recent change. It used to be that, irrespective of day, my posts were detailed. What’s changed? In truth, my relationship with my family is so much stronger now that I am healing. I realize now how much I was “hiding” from them on weekends, basically isolating myself with training and food prep. I was cohabitating, but not at all being a member of the family. Now, we spend so much time together, and we’re TOGETHER. In turn, my training time and internet time is reduced, and that’s absolutely outstanding. To say nothing of the fact I’m also able to finally sleep long enough to actually sleep in on a weekend, how my nutrition has opened up enough to share so many more meals with the family AND how it’s also streamlined enough that “meal prep” is really a non-entity.
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Let’s talk about that piece too. I used to exist in a state of nutritional denial. There was SO much food I wanted to be eating that I wasn’t, and being around it would cause me some sort of regret. That’s not quite the right word, but it hits close. I’d constantly wish that I could just stop caring and be that guy that sits on the couch eating Cheetos watching the game. But these days, I walk through the grocery store and legit do not even register these boxed items, cardboard carbs and frankenfats as “food”. Like, no joke: it doesn’t resemble food to me, in much the same way that a cow would look at a plate of bacon and not register it as food, or a tiger looking at a field of grass. Which, in turn, means no middle of the shopping aisle meltdowns when I pass a package of Red Velvet Poptarts or all the Pumpkin spice goodies that are out this time of year. It’s been rather amazing the psychological piece to finally getting my eating to match with my needs.
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That also holds true to eating TIMING. I’ve written about this a bunch already, so I’ll keep it on the short end, but I have finally managed to shake 37 years of a voracious appetite. I ate twice on Saturday, and last year alone that idea would have been unfathomable. I was eating something every half hour at one point. For me, this is legit like a super power: being able to go long durations without eating and being OK with it. No weakness, inability to focus due to hunger, concern about “wasting away”: I know that, when the next meal comes, I can feast. I really dig Robert Kiltz “intermittent feasting” idea.
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Caffeine is almost entirely out of my life. I went from 2 energy drinks and a pot of coffee a day to 1 Zevia and some sugar free green teas practically overnight. And that probably also speaks to my improved sleep quality.
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I’m at a much better place as far as having awareness of my bodyweight goes, but I still find myself struggling with the notion of being so light. Having been a weightclass based athlete since I was 14, I still associate value to the number, and that includes strength and simply “degree of dangerousness”. “A good big man will beat a good little man”. I still appear large and muscular, but being 30lbs lighter than I was in Mar is tough to swallow sometimes, and I still find myself wanting to GFH whenever I watch professional strongman.
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But on the above there, I also just plain don’t want to eat in the way that would promote that growth. I have it in me to do that, for sure, even abiding by carnivore principles. As we saw with that 28oz t-bone: I can put away food. I was, truthfully, not full when I was done with it (which checks, considering I ate a 4.5lb cheeseburger before). But having FINALLY found a way that works, I don’t want to abandon it now. “For once in my life I feel complete/and I still wanna ruin it”. And this includes the fact that I’m coming into my next competition 11-15lbs underweight. I like the 2 week light/4 week heavy nutritional approach Jamie laid out, and I’m also finding ways to make THAT more flexible (like this current short-famine, or the 3 day PSMF I ran recently). I like being able to regularly practice a form of fasting on the daily so that, when the meals DO come, I can just eat without thinking and stop when I’m done. I love how natural this all is. But it might also mean it’s time to consider moving away from Strongman, where I’m simply going to be undersized. But I feel like I’ve reached a good balance by picking local competitions where there is minimal travel/financial burden to encounter.
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Genuinely really glad to hear that.
All of these personal growth things are really good.
I’ve been slowly working my way through your old log from between when I left and now, and I’m amazed at the consistent level of detail, both in terms of training/eating/energy and worldview. You seem to be in a much better place now than you ever have been. Not to say it was bad before, just that much better now.
(Also, some of your old posts about nutrition are pretty funny to read in light of where you are now.)
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I appreciate what you wrote dude.
I’m glad funny is what comes through, because for me its the words of someone with disordered eating and damaged psychology. I was so incredibly damaged. It’s amazing to finally be healing.
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AM WORKOUT (0420 natural wake up)
JUGGERYOKE Week 5, Workout 2
20 minutes of burpee chins, EMOM do 1 ab wheel rollout
116 burpee chins total
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (curls-crushers-abs)
KB hammer curls
5x3x35
Skullcrushers
5x3x110
Hanging leg raise w/10 lat shrugs
5x5
Walk with dog BEFORE breakfast
Notes:
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Schedule is going to be tight these next few days, so cutting stuff where I can, re-arranging where possible, and shaving off time here and there.
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Was moving slow on the burpee chins. Combination of getting a little beat up yesterday (pulled something on my left glute during a warm-up of all things) and most likely the Famine eating.
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Hammer curls were really stressing the right bicep well today.
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Got in the walk with the dog before breakfast so I could get to work a little earlier.
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Weighed in at 166.2 this morning, so really, not much need for a famine at this point. I’m primarily doing it so that, when I bring in the high volume of food again, I’ll experienced improved nutrient uptake, but I’m absolutely peeled as far as bodyfat goes, just flat.
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Got full video that is currently uploading. Will post later.
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Great recent updates here, so many wins on the sleep, bowel, and most importantly more family & dad time sir. Dialing it all in nicely.
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@Raven78 Thanks so much dude! It’s definitely the best place I’ve been for a LONG time.
AM WORKOUT (0425 wake up via alarm)
JUGGERYOKE Week 5, Workout 3: Pull, bench and squat
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (pull-bench-pull)
Trap bar high pulls
6x5x195
Axle incline bench
6x5x176
Band pull aparts (front and overhead)
6x10
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (pause bench-abs-raise)
Axle pause bench
6x1x246
Standing ab wheel
1x7
4x6
Full ROM plate lateral raise
5x8x10lbs
Buffalo Bar Squat (3 min on-1 min rest-3 min on)
1x50
1x36
3 rep PR on total reps
OFF CAMERA
Tabata push ups w/2 KB throws during the 10 second rest (86 push ups total)
Breakfast
Walk w/dog
Notes:
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Another instance of feeling beat coming in and crushing the workout. Knee is really trending well, and I’m able to be much more explosive on those high pulls. Incline bench felt very strong today. Pause bench was solid. In general, my horizontal pressing is really taking off. Part of that could be the program, and part could be that I went without doing it through all of Easy Strength that I got to do some of that “softening up” that John McCallum and other spoke of.
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So pleased with that squat set. Along with getting a rep total PR, I got 35 reps done in the first round before having to pause. This timed squat is probably the highlight of the program. Along with driving a growth response, it’s definitely “strongman friendly’ as far as prepping for events goes. Derek Poundstone has spoken about this sort of lactic threshold/pain tolerance training, and it’s really been transformative for me. When I factor in that I’m dropping bodyweight while this is happening, that’s pretty awesome. My left hip was a little buggy these past few days, so I wasn’t anticipating a 3 rep PR, but I kept digging and it showed up.
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Conditioning at the end was just ad hoc. Trying to fit in the daily push ups, but didn’t see a need for even MORE squatting.
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Didn’t log yesterday that I had Tang Soo Do. My kid got a stripe on their belt and will be able to test for the next rank in November, so that’s exciting. With the Mrs out of town, I got paired with our instructor for one-steps, so I got to get some one-on-one instruction, which was pretty cool. I’ve also been getting in some evening walks with the kiddo when possible: just not logging.
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Pretty proud of my creation from last night. I stole inspiration from the KFC double down and made a venison and swiss burger using the leftover chicken breasts from my rotisserie chicken as the buns. VERY satiating.
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That’s ridiculous.
I had to do a few takes before I realized it wasn’t a bun.
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@LoRez Ridiculous is how I roll! Haha. Jamie Lewis has written about how colonial era Americans would use turkey breasts for a similar effect. They’re dry enough that you can hold onto them without the hands feeling too disgusting.
AM WORKOUT (0424 natural wake up)
JUGGERYOKE Week 5, Workout 4: Arms
GIANT SET CIRCUIT (crush-curl-abs/pull apart)
Grenade ball chain skullcrushers
10x10
Grenade ball chain reverse curls
10x10
Hanging leg raise w/10 lat shrugs
5xAMRAP
Band pull aparts
5x20
Poundstone curls
100xAxle
CONDITIONING
20 Tabata rounds of burpee into 24kg KB throw w/squats on odd round rest and push ups on even
Half mile walk
BREAKFAST
Walk with dog
Notes:
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I’ve once again grown bored with arm work and had to work a gimmick in, but a big part of that was that I just wasn’t getting much pump out of the skull crushers. The chain grenade balls allowed for a better ROM for me. It also seemed to be quicker execution.
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Poundstones are not RX, but a great way to round out the day.
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That conditioning workout was effective. Jumping to and from locations adds a nice bit of suck.
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The mini-famine has definitely achieved it’s goals. I saw myself in the mirror yesterday and I had achieved that level of leanness and definition that typically comes the day after a carb-up AFTER my 2 week famine. I’ve really grown pretty talented at this nutritional manipulation.
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I’m a few weeks into my own training inspired by Easy Strength. About 20 workouts in.
I was thinking about my own experience, and it seems like doing the same movements for the same rep/set scheme, day after day, would be incredibly boring. Enough so that it’s not sustainable for very long without changing something up.
Obviously “boring” isn’t the quite word, but “uninteresting” or “unstimulating” aren’t really either. Hopefully you get the gist despite my limited vocabulary.
So, I wanted to ask you if you found Easy Strength “boring”.
I saw this:
With that comment, and that you didn’t go the full 40 days, it seems like it needed a bit more variation to make it work for you. Even when you’re talking about just the bedrock “strength” portion of whatever other training.
Negative: that wasn’t about boredom but about schedule. I was going to end up in a weird spot with my competition coming up running the program for the full 40 days, and I had already completed the Mass Made Simple portion of it, which left the program with something of an identity crisis.
I honestly appreciated Easy Strength, because I knew what I was going to do every day I went into the gym. At day 30, I felt I had gotten out of it what I needed, which is something Dan has spoken of, running the program for 20-28 days. I feel like part of it may be that I ran it for 5 days a week vs 3. I got to maximize the benefits earlier.
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Ah, all right. I guess I’m just reading too many of my own biases into things
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It’s good to recognize that. “A solution seeking a problem”, haha.