I had picked up on some of those things and a few other. Completely understand.
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join me on 418 mate 
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Thatās a fantastic quote lol
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@simo74 At this point, I think anything over 405 is just plain too heavy.
Nutrition Recap
Breakfast was the same as yesterday. No photos of dinner, but had the Valkyrie make my eggs into a scramble, which I topped with some Amish butter, which went alongside some Venison ring bologna and a tin of sardines.
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I was just pulling your chain mate, you know your body and you know what you want to hit. Iāll be there watching you smash the reps at any weight you choose.
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I like to imagine youāre a detective.
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An old timey one with a fun hat.
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@simo74 I just gotta watch out for these wax wings is all. I like Greek stories, but Iām going more for Heracles, haha.
@tlgains and @BethB Batman is billed as the Worldās Greatest Detective, and allow me to share my thoughts on that
But, at least itās not Cyclops
AM WORKOUT (0350 wake up via alarm, very good night of sleep)
TACTICAL BARBELL GREY MAN Cycle 2, Week 1, Workout 4
āGO RUCK YOURSELFā
Treadmill walk w/20.4lb tac carrier
Speed: 3.5mph
Incline: 4.5
Distance: 5.25miles
Time: 90 minutes
Notes:
- This was the easiest ruck in quite a while. No real specific period of time where I was watching the clock. Found a docu-series to watch without commercial interruption and it went a long way toward distracting me.
- Knee doesnāt feel as awesome as it did on Monday, but my bad days are feeling better than my good days felt like before PT, so thatās a plus.
- Sparring last night was awesome. Made it to the finals without having to spar the Valkyrie, and beat our senior black belt in the second round. Last 2-3 in the final round against another black belt in a very close match. My mobility is improving with the stretching and reduced knee pain, but Iām noticing my connective tissue feels ālooseā, as though itās slipping in and out at times. Weāre doing a double class tonight, so should be a good workout.
- Weighed 84.3kg this morning. Been a high sodium week with that kalua pig.
- Carried a 223.5lb keg, and got in a 1min 40sec hold immediately afterward. More challenging to hit the grip after the keg carry. Soon I need to dig out my rolling thunder and get to work on that.
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Nutrition recap
Breakfast was 8oz of ground venison, 3oz of piedmontese ground burger, and 6oz of air fried brisket with 3 whole eggs and 5 whites.
No photo of dinner, but a mountain of leftover kalua pig and 6 leftover scrambled eggs with Amish butter for a leftovers night
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AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)
TACTICAL BARBELL GREY MAN Cycle 2, Week 1, Workout 5
MAIN CLUSTER
Buffalo bar squat (flat shoes)
4x8x315
Axle strict press from rack
2x8x148
1x6x148
1x7+3x148
SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER
(3) Incline DB bench
2x12x70s
11x70s
10+3x70s
DB row
4x12x125
GHR
4x12x30
ASSISTANCE
GHR sit up
2x10
Chins throughout workout
Notes:
- Came into this just completely exhausted. I think a back to back sparring night was more than I anticipated recovery-wise, when stacked with that stupidly heavy mat pull on Wed. Training motivation was shot: one of those where the only thing that got me through was the thought of being able to spend Friday night with my family vs in the gym, so I got it done this morning. However, I also forgot that on Monday I trained in the afternoon, so I was comparing myself against that baseline, and in doing so I actually progressed really well today compared to Monday.
- I learned a lesson that was a long time coming from the belt squat: I have less knee pain when I squat with flat soled shoes. Honestly, Iām pretty angry with myself. I learned about squatting with flat soled shoes back in 2005, when I read āBeyond Bodybulidingā and Pavel Tsastouline wrote to āditch your sneakers on steroidsā and squat in Chuck Taylors, and I started doing exactly that and it transformed my squat. The most weight Iāve ever squatted in my life was in a pair of Chucks, where I squatted 502 in a meet and then 525 for 5 with wraps in the gym. And then I got a pair of lifters in 2014 because I thought it would have good carryover into strongman, and though I think Pendlay Dowins are a quality product and I love how my feet feel screwed in to the floor with how grippy they are, it just never had the same comfort that a pair of flats did. When I switched to that mutant high bar style I used for a few years, they really suited itā¦but that style itself didnāt suit me. Iām flat out not built to squat, with a short torso and long limbs, which means I use the style of squat we see with Steve Goggins, Layne Norton and Mark Felix: lots of forward lean, not a bolt upright torso. Flat shoes suit me. Thankfully, I have lots of them, and today I wore my NoBull high tops.
- Exhaustion was hitting hard through the workout, so the presses fell off a little, but I made some great progress on the incline bench, mainly because I forgot what I did last time so I beat an imaginary standard. Cut out a set of abs just for the sake of time.
- Double sparring class last night, got in a lot of great rounds. Really trying to work on moving off angle and sending strikes from there. Caught the Valkyrie with an awesome off angle sacrifice spin hook kick. Just happy I can move like that. The stretching is most likely helping out.
- Carried a 225lb keg yesterday, and then a 1min 50sec hang.
- Weighed 84.1kg this morning.
- Thinking about picking up a chest strap heart rate monitor for Christmas. Totally out of my element shopping for one. Anyone out there have recommendations for something bare bones? I just want something more accurate than a watch.
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Iāve got this one: Enduro 100 Heart Rate Monitor by WEGO.
Itās old school and about as bare bones as it gets, but it does the job well. Doesnāt look like itās available through Amazon at the momentā¦ Maybe thereās another place to pick one up?
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I might try this. The one I had is no longer working properly. Either that, or my heart has become so efficient that is doesnāt move from resting while I run. 
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@SvenG Appreciate you looking out there! Iāll have to see if I can track that down.
Sooooā¦.I accidentally wrote an e-book. This was meant to be a blogpost, and suddenly I looked up from my writing and discovered I had written 10k words across 50 pages. So I slapped a cover, table of content and intro on it. I could polish it up a bit more, and maybe I will, but here is the first edition.
I walked through 26 years of lifting to review 17 programs and 8 ways of eating, and then created a matrix out of them based off of either days per week of training or training goal and matched the ways of eating to suit the training. It was fun to write: hopefully itāll be fun to read. Letās see if this works.
LET ME GUIDE YOU ON YOUR VISION QUEST.pdf (310.3 KB)
Also, despite my buddy telling me to clear out my freezer, Iām pretty sure Iām going to buy 10lbs of frozen pork spare ribs and a bunch of ground beef before I come home today, because thereās a good sale I stumbled across on my lunch walk. I have a problem.
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Nutrition Recap
Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday. Itās an odd assortment, simply because I ran out of corned beef and had to pivot.
For dinner, we went out to Texas Roadhouse. I brought my appetite and got a full rack of ribs WITH a sidekick of ribs, no sauce. Since they caught on to my egg game, I just had a small side of hardboiled eggs and cheese along with the meat out of the chili.
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PM WORKOUT (1215)
TACTICAL BARBELL GREY MAN Cycle 2, Week 1, Workout 6
10 minute EMOM sandbag sprawl and carry
Notes:
- 200+lb sandbag, sprawl 4 different directions, pick and carry
- This was a repeat of last week, but exhausted me more while also not beating the hell out of my elbows. I think using the grip shirt was the right move.
- Carried a 226lb keg yesterday and a 227.5lb keg tonight. Did a timed hold of slightly over a minute with Fat Gripz on my chinning bar. This should have even better carryover to my competition.
- Got up at 0615 this morning: kiddo brought me the puppy, because it wasnāt going back to sleep. That was still pretty much sleeping in.
NUTRITION RECAP
Breakfast was a pretty typical breakfast of 2 omelets with 3 eggs, leftover kalua pork, beef tallow and a slice of jarlsburg swiss, topped with sour cream, alongside a Teton Waters grassfed polish sausage and 5 strips of āsideporkā, which is like pork belly, from the wifeās family farm in Iowa.
Dinner was NEARLY a full rack of ribs with brisket. I had 3 ribs left, and went for the third, and as I was eating it realized I wasnāt actually hungry: I was just eating it because it was there. So I left 2 behind: they make great leftovers.
I had ribs last night, ribs tonight, and Iāve got some bone in chuck short ribs dry brining in the fridge for tomorrow. Itās a good weekend.
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Ebook was a solid read! Felt like a great ālet me google that for yaā to all the dudes on here and GainIt who love to make posts like āI can only train every 3rd day for 47 minutes, my only equipment is a rusty bar and plates, wooden squat stands and bench I found on the side of the road, and also Iām allergic to peanuts, gluten, dairy, and shellfish. What program and diet should I do?ā.
The parts I found most interesting were your bucketlist program and diet lists. I have Keys To Progress and Brawn among my coffee table books whenever I need to pass some time, and the full body programs in there intrigue me too. I donāt have Powerlifting Basics, but I do have the Shrug Book, and it also has some full body programs I like the look of. Basically I just love reading about the old time lifters who trained that way!
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@BrandonCrawford Hey thanks so much man! You totally nailed my intent there, and I honestly want to spend time making it even more fleshed out in just the way you mention there. Itād be cool to program in all your equipment, restrictions and goals and be able to identify the right fit. Of course, itās still all based on just MY experience. I think about how you have such a different experience than I do even if we run these same programs, because you have a legit weightlifting background and wonāt be handcuffed by cleans or clean pulls showing up. But itās what I love about all of this: the gathering around the fire and sharing of our stories.
Nutrition recap is a fun one. I woke up without an appetite. Weāve been eating late and big the past 2 days, and I think it threw off my rhythm. Coffee didnāt even sound good. So I fasted through breakfast and lunch, and then ate well ate dinner.
Thatās 2 piedmontese grassfed beef chuck bone-in short ribs, 3 pastured eggs, 5 whites, and then a piece of piedmontese grassfed chuck roast that I cut into steaks.
And letās talk about the steaks, because I broke out my sous vide for the first time and really had a blast with it.
Made a filet mignon for the Valkyrie and a chuck steak for the kiddo and I. The latter 2 just do salt, but the Valkyrie likes seasoning, so she got a decent crust on her steak. 130 for 2 hours, and then onto a hot cast iron grill coated in wagyu beef tallow with some Amish butter to baste. Iām getting all fancy.
It was a hit with the whole family. Valkyrie prefers hers a little less red in the middle, so Iāll work on that for next time, but she was a big fan of the flavor and texture. And yeah, even a chuck roast cut into a steak was melt in your mouth.
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AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)
TACTICAL BARBELL GREY MAN Cycle 2, Week 2, Workout 1
MAIN CLUSTER
Buffalo bar squat
4x6x337
Axle strict press from rack
4x6x161
SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER
(3) Incline DB bench
4x10x75s
DB rows
4x10x135
GHR
4x10x40s
ASSISTANCE
GHR sit ups
3x10
Chins throughout workout
Notes:
- All the protective measures Iām employing have been adding up. Using the tacky shirt is keeping my forearms happy, and the flat shoes are allowing my knee to recover more and more. I was also wearing compression shorts under my strongman shorts, since my hips were hurting yesterday, which made my belt magnificently tight. In general, Iām feeling my old self, as Iām training like my old self.
- I am excited for Specificity Bravo. I think something really clutch about Tactical Barbell is itās interesting combination of doing the same thing all the time but switching things up frequently enough that it staves off ADD. Iām not bored of Grey Man so much as Iām tired of it: itās hard training. It pairs well with big eating, but I can only do both for so long.
- With the flat shoes, I notice my warm up sets have me on my toes. Iāll need to work more on sitting back.
- Carried a 228.5lb keg last night and did a fat gripz hang for about 1:10.
- Weighed in at 84.3kg this morning. Didnāt carb up yesterday, and only had 1 meal, but it was a big one. Saving myself for this holiday weekend.
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This is such a great way to sum some of these programs up, and awesome that you found a vehicle to balance it.
When you simplify things this way, it often helps me wrap my own brain around what I experience. Like, Iām not bored from pushing failure sets on various movements in a week, for sure, but I do get done with it kind of thing.
Even if youāre training hard, but with different goals/ parameters, something else gets to push where the first buckets rests.
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Appreciate the kind words there dude. Itās worth appreciating the catalysts for program change out there. āProgram hoppingā has become so taboo that I feel many trainees will continue to ride out a program that has long since exhausted itās value just to avoid the pitfalls of program hoppingā¦simply to fall into ANOTHER pit. Itās all a balancing act. Even the infinitely sustainable programs need something to shake them up every once in a while. Itās Dan Johnās whole āPark bench/bus benchā concept.
Requires a bit of introspection though. āAm I wanting to change programs because I found something shiny or because Iām no longer getting value out of this one?ā Itās a tough question.
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