@s.gentz Outstanding to hear dude! I’m excited to follow you along on the journey. Oddly enough, the meals I’m about to post don’t perfectly conform, haha.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Breakfast was the same as before. For dinner, slight deviation with the chicken pesto parmesan meatballs from Costco alongside 3 pastured eggs and 5 whites. I also had a little more homemade tzatziki sauce to go with it.
AM WORKOUT (0355 wake up via alarm)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 2, Workout 4
“GO RUCK YOURSELF”
Treadmill walk w/45lb vest
Incline: 5.0
Speed: 3.5mph
Distance: 5.25 miles
Time: 90 minutes
Notes:
This continues to be the biggest favor I do myself each week. Woke up stiff and sore, finished off feeling good. Breathed through my nose the entire time and kept the intensity at the right spot. Still humid as hell, so lots of sweating.
I’ve pretty much eliminated the daily chins from Operation Planet Mongo, just getting in the work on my lifting days. Been keeping the daily sandbag carries though, as they’re playing toward my strongman competition. Balancing act continues to go well, keeping my body held together.
Didn’t try to set the world on fire with this workout. I haven’t walked an incline since Mount Vesuvius, and that was more challenging than this, so it’s good I’ve stayed in shape. Next week is the easy week, and I can evaluate from there. The fascia in my left foot finally healed from my 10 mile run, but I could feel it getting agitated from this workout, so I know to be smart here.
Weighed in at 80.3kg post workout: a 2 kilo drop from Monday, and right back to where I was pre-cruise. This gives me a good buffer for the upcoming 4th of July holiday, with my parents coming to visit, so I intend to do some eating and celebrating.
Another night of sparring tonight. Last night was a bit more active. Valkyrie and I were paired together in the first round, so that’s as far as I went, but the class was small, the tournament ended quickly, and I got in some extra rounds afterwards.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Breakfast was the usual. Dinner was…breakfast. 2 omelets with 3 pastured eggs, one with leftover burger patties, one with leftover sirloin, both with half a slice of jarlsburg swiss and topped with feta (deviation) alongside 4 pieces of pancetta.
AM WORKOUT (0358 natural wake up)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 2, Workout 5
MAIN WORK
SSB Squat
5x5x325
ALTERNATE w/
Axle strict press from rack
5x5x166+1 push press rep per set
ASSISTANCE/CONDITIONING
Crossfit Cindy WOD
20 rounds of
w/20.4lb vest
23 minutes flat (same as last time)
Notes:
In the middle of the night, I contemplated sleeping in and doing this workout later. I woke up 2 minutes before my alarm and strongly considered shutting it off and getting more sleep. I did some calculations on how I could possibly squeeze this workout in on the weekend sometime instead, then eventually bit the bullet and got out of bed. Heading downstairs, I told myself I could just do 3 sets instead of 5 and that would be fine. During the workout itself, I told myself I’d just go by feel. And then, I hated how each set of squats felt better than the previous one, and each time I said “I’ll see how this one feels and shut it down if it’s time”, I knew I could do another set. And suddenly 5 sets were over, the workout was done, and it was the best one of the week. It’s funny how that happens. Ultimately, I think the heat/humidity is what has been crushing me, alongside 3 nights of sparring, which has gone well, but is always exhausting in some way. And then my food intake is a bit lower than it’s been, which I’m sure is a factor. Ultimately, it’s awesome I’m still crushing my performance, but it’s clearly beating me down.
Focusing on trying to move the squats as fast as I can, which is still slow, but not artificially slowed down. The faster I move, the better I feel.
Cindy’s time was the same as last week, but set under significantly higher state of fatigue, as this was 5x5 with 40lbs more on the squat, alongside the heat/humidity and sparring fatigue. I’ll take that as a PR.
Sparring last night was the best so far. Didn’t have to go up against any family members, which meant an opportunity to really go for it. Went 3-0 against a senior student, and then 2-3 against our senior black belt, losing in overtime on a close decision. Got in some free rounds as well: just a good workout overall. This was on top of over 24k steps that day: lots of activity.
You’re describing how most of my workouts feel. Maybe I’ll take an off day. Maybe I’ll just do the main lift. Maybe I’ll stop the amrap at 8. Maybe I will just do one set of the assistance.
Before I know it, it’s been a solid workout.
It’s encouraging to hear that you have similar experiences.
Absolutely! I call it “hostage negotiation”, haha. These situations don’t happen all that often when my food intake is high. I’m pretty ready to train at that point. But when food is low and heat is high, recovery takes a beating.
Training fasted and having breakfast post training goes a LONG way. Telling myself “If you get through this training, you get to have breakfast” motivates me, because I love what I eat. The trick is to NOT turn it into “you have to EARN your food”, because that gets disordered.
which Tactical Barbell book would you recommend buying to get introduced to their programs?
To get introduced to their programs, you’d want to start with the first one. To understand the whole system, I’d buy book 1, book 2 and the Mass Protocol.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Breakfast was slightly different. Only had 10oz of lamb left, so threw in some leftover piedmontese meatloaf. Dinner was a full rack of ribs with a side of brisket from my favorite local BBQ spot.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Standard weekend breakfast of 2 omelets of 3 pastured eggs with some leftover meatloaf, steak and grassfed beef tallow, topped with some feta (deviation) alongside 4 strips of beef bacon.
For dinner, went out to our favorite hibachi buffet, which does steaks on Saturday, so I got 3 thin sliced New York strips alongside a bunch of shrimp and 3 eggs and some fish. Did another plate of oysters, some more fish and some shrimp.
Man you are still motivating as hell. Your work ethic and discipline and awesome. I’ve been waking up at 3 while on the ship to hit the gym and i have those same little self talks and its hard to get out of bed, but I do it. It’ll be easier knowing you are out there doing it haha
@taylortooswift Very much appreciate that dude! I don’t ever try to hide the fact that I absolutely HATE training, haha. It’s genuinely the worst thing I do every day, so it’s nice I get to do it first thing and then everything from there is looking up!
AM WORKOUT (0900)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 2, Workout 6
Sandbag over bar EMOM
10 minutes, doubles when I could, singles otherwise, 200lb bar, 50" bar
Notes:
This was rough today. I was a day off schedule, and just felt beat to hell over the hard training week last week. Got in what I could. Re-discovered that I’m training with a bag that’s 50lbs heavier than what I’ll be using in competition, so that bodes well.
Also got in 6 miles of walking today, 3 of it with a 20.4lb vest.
MAXIMUM DEFINITION DIET recap
Took the kiddo to the pizza buffet/arcade first thing this morning, so had their brunch service at 1100, fasting until that point. Scrambled powdered eggs, by the look of it, some breakfast sausage, pepperoni and taco meat, alongside a little bit of sour cream and butter. Went up for a second plate with more eggs, bacon, some more sausage, the cheese and toppings to 2 small slices of pizza. Yeah, not quite on point.
For dinner, we were honestly pretty fooded out, so I made my 3 eggs, 5 whites omelet with a small amount of leftover meatloaf.
@taylortooswift Very much appreciate that dude! I don’t ever try to hide the fact that I absolutely HATE training, haha. It’s genuinely the worst thing I do every day, so it’s nice I get to do it first thing and then everything from there is looking up!
AM WORKOUT (0900)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 2, Workout 6
Sandbag over bar EMOM
10 minutes, doubles when I could, singles otherwise, 200lb bar, 50" bar
Notes:
This was rough today. I was a day off schedule, and just felt beat to hell over the hard training week last week. Got in what I could. Re-discovered that I’m training with a bag that’s 50lbs heavier than what I’ll be using in competition, so that bodes well.
Also got in 6 miles of walking today, 3 of it with a 20.4lb vest.
MAXIMUM DEFINITION DIET recap
Took the kiddo to the pizza buffet/arcade first thing this morning, so had their brunch service at 1100, fasting until that point. Scrambled powdered eggs, by the look of it, some breakfast sausage, pepperoni and taco meat, alongside a little bit of sour cream and butter. Went up for a second plate with more eggs, bacon, some more sausage, the cheese and toppings to 2 small slices of pizza. Yeah, not quite on point.
For dinner, we were honestly pretty fooded out, so I made my 3 eggs, 5 whites omelet with a small amount of leftover meatloaf.
AM WORKOUT (0400 natural wake up…3 seconds before the alarm)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 3, Workout 1
MAIN WORK
SSB squat
4x2x365
ALTERANTE w/
Axle strict press from rack
4x2x186+1 push press rep per set
6 chins between sets
ASSISTANCE
6 round circuit (90 seconds rest between circuit) of
3x10 standing ab wheel
Notes:
I had a really good weekend, but it was really busy and, in turn, when I got up this morning, I tried to come up with a plan to be able to sleep in. It’s awesome I’ve become sleep seeking, but ultimately I let my breakfast and tonight’s dinner (we’re doing our family meal tonight, new recipe, carbonara style casserole and, of course, some cookies with honey) motivate me to get up and train.
I got in 100 total chins, because I had 1 extra warmup set to get in a set of 10s, and then I threw in 2 extra chins at the end of my work sets to make it an even 100.
My warm-up set of 315 on the squat was actually more challenging than the work sets. My back is getting beat to hell from the SSB squats, which I felt yesterday during the sandbag as well. It dawned on me that the last time I prepped for a strongman comp I used the front squat because it would reduce loading on my back to allow for more energy to be put into the event work. That was probably a smarter move. But here my thought was that the SSB would make me statically stronger for strongman in general, so I suppose we’ll test that theory. But either way, these workouts are getting heavy.
Press moved very well. Felt strong there.
The shoulder assistance circuit continues to totally blow up my shoulder girdle. I’m glad I brought this back. Great lesson I learned nearly 5 years ago. Made slow growth by adding a rep to the end 3 rounds, and to the raises and pull aparts.
Nice squatting man. That is some heavy SSB work there. 
@shaneinga Much appreciated there dude! You reminded me I forgot to log my weigh in weight of 81.1kg, which was one of those things I kept reminding myself through the session. I used to train much heavier than this, but I also used to weigh much more than this, haha. Having to keep things in perspective.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Going lean for breakfast this week: 3 whole eggs, 5 whites, 1lb of venison and some beef liver.
Dinner was the family carb up meal. New recipe of carbonara casserole (local pancetta, drum wheat pasta, aged dubliner grassfed cheddar, grassfed sour cream from Iowa farms, pastured eggs), total hit, alongside some bread from a local Italian deli (no sugar/no preservatives) with grassfed butter and 5 of my wife’s cookies with some local honey and a mug of fairlife skim milk
AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)
Tactical Barbell Operator Cycle 2, Week 3, Workout 2
“CHARON’S TRINITY” (basic)
3 rounds of
Notes:
Hard week of lifting means basic week of conditioning. For the trinity, it means 3 rounds vs 5, but it certainly doesn’t mean that those 3 rounds don’t absolutely suck. Coming into this post carb up meal, I was definitely itching to go full throttle, and I was gassed at the end of that third round.
I remain a fan of this modification to the original Devil’s Trinity as I feel like the rower helps answer a lot of the questions left from the swings and the burpees. This is very full body, and the order of the exercises also lends itself well to the rhythm of the conditioning.
Tang Soo Do is on the schedule for tonight. It’s basics/forms week, which tends to be a pretty good workout.
I’ll post my meals later, but I’m keeping up on those venison burgers for breakfast, and it’s honestly amazing how simple it is to make them. Take a pound of ground venison, break it in half, smash it flat into patties, cover with salt, put in the air fryer at 450 for 9 minutes, flip at halfway point. No real meal prep needed. I can see myself making use of this strategy for the future.
Nice to see things written correctly here
I dig how Juggernaut alludes to being a product of sorcery and Hulk being a product of science, and how that aligns with your take on alchemy. It’s not everyday you can tell someone their logic is just like the Juggernaut’s.
@PowPowPunishment Hah! I never put that together, but you may very well have cracked the code of why I’ve always liked the Juggernaut over the Hulk. Science vs Demonic Possession: too easy.
Maximum Definition Diet recap
Breakfast was the same as yesterday. No photos of dinner, but I deviated a little anyway. Cooked up some Gary’s Quick steak, seasoned it with gyro seasoning, then took 2 egglife wraps and heated them in a little tallow to make pitas. Used some of our tzatziki sauce and feta, but then also fried up 3 eggs and put 1 in each gyro to make a “breakfast gyro”. Had the remaining egg along with 5 whites. Didn’t eat all 12oz of the steak: left behind maybe 3.
