Good to see you still working hard pwn, but then I wouldn’t expect anything less.
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@simo74 Much appreciated!
Ya know, I was thinking about this the other day. I’ve been given a promotion at work, and with it, my workload has increased and my schedule is less flexible. And the more that stuff happens, the more I resonate toward early morning training. “Chaos is the plan”, and in the eye of chaos, there’s so much power in being able to say “You will NOT take my time from me”. Work can require me to show up early, work through lunch, stay late, work weekends, etc, but they can’t interrupt my training if I get it done BEFORE all that happens. And I’ve had SO many days coming home from work where I say “F**k I am SO glad I don’t need to train right now”, haha.
AM WORKOUT (0615 natural wake up, new time zone) FASTED
KB ladders w/24kg bells
1 press
2 front squats
2 press
4 front squats
…
5 press
10 front squats
Start back over at 1/2
Repeat series 5 times. Do 5 band pull aparts in between sets.
Total time: 22:30
Notes: This was a unique challenge. Out of nowhere, my lungs were gone. I imagine this is adjusting to the elevation. It’s unique how it works. When doing the 5 minute ABCs, I only notice it when it’s done, at which point I just can’t seem to get in enough air. But with these longer workouts, my heart rate will be low while my lungs are compressed. It’s tough to get my head around.
This got me 75 presses and 150 squats in under 25 minutes. Not terrible. I would like to get in some more volume, but this is a vacation, so I’m gonna train what I can when I can, call everything else recovery, and crush everything in my path upon my return.
From the nutrition standpoint, this is going to be an excellent opportunity to drop some extra weight. I tend to undereat when staying with company, as I feel self-conscious eating ALL the food in the house.
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A wise man once said “start the day with a win” and it seems to be the best way to get daily work done. For those of us that are human, it’s also great for getting to bed on time at night, if you know you have to get up early to train.
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My day started with a cop scolding the hell outta me for taking a wrong turn onto some other federal building. In order to keep my spirits high I chose to assume he is trained to be a douchebag who doesn’t know how to talk to people.
But I still made it to the field office trailer on time 
@T3hPwnisher I need to invest in some kettlebells man. They’re such an awesome training tool.
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@mr.v3lv3t Hell yeah dude! That movie remains a classic. Super quotable, and David Spade nailed it!
@dagill2 Appreciate the nod dude! If nothing else, if you can’t sleep more, you can always sleep faster, haha.
@tlgains Definitely get some ABCs on dude! Great volume builder.
Got in 22 ABCs in 5 minutes in the AM, and a leisurely 3 mile run with the Mrs in the PM.
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I used to be like this when I was a runner. I never felt like running after a hectic day at work. Running early and knowing I had already done my training before the day even started was very satisfying. With the weights I just prefer to do it late in the evening. It’s like i use all the frustration to fuel the workouts.
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@simo74 Running afterwards would be a tough sell for sure. I had to give up on letting lifting take out frustration a while back: it was burning my body out to “train angry”. I’m now “train bored/compete angry”, which might actually make a great blog post, so thanks for that! Haha.
AM WORKOUT (0630 natural wake up) FASTED
-
20 clusters
-
20 thrusters
-
20 front squats
-
20 clean and presses (clean each rep)
-
20 double KB snatches
-
20 double KB cleans
-
20 double KB swings
-
20 single arm KB swings (alternating arms)
total time: 19:45 (Under 20 minutes…get it!?)
In between each group of movements, I did 5 band pull aparts, just to break it up and prevent me from chaining one into the other.
Notes: Came up with this while I was drifting off to sleep last night. Name of the game this trip seems to be training density, and 20 minutes is a cap I like to work within. Sets of 20 made it cute that way. I’m missing my Monument to Non-Existence, but this didn’t quite scratch that itch. It was still a ballbuster. Working within the elevation change is the key.
Think I figured out a way to get some chins in, so I’ll work those at some point. Seems like daily runs might be on the agenda with the Mrs, so that’s cool. I’m experiencing a degree of soreness that comes from dehydration, lack of nutrition, and elevation changes. Might be in for some sort of rebound when I get home.
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I really liked your most recent blog post about strength vs skill and avoiding adaptation. I think two key points that are inherent, if not explicitly stated, are:
- You have an ability to see the value in multiple avenues, even if they aren’t the ones you feel like practicing (Meadows and CrossFit in this post). That’s a lost art in society as a whole.
- I really think this misinterpretation of sports skill vs strength is why folks think there’s a big difference in training to get bigger vs stronger. This isn’t just strength sports (or even sports, really), but that’s the forum we’re on and it shows up over and over.
Anyway, great writing!
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I came here to say exactly this.
Also: another timely reminder that chaos is the goal.
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Happy to help ha ha
@TrainForPain Always appreciate your feedback dude! For point 1, it’s funny how much of this is just going back to “my roots”. When I was a kid, I appreciate strength and size in all forms. I didn’t care if it was powerlifting or strongman or bodybuilding or highland games (tossing a giant log: holy cow!): a big and strong dude is simply an awesome dude. Somehow, we lose that appreciation and become tribal, and it just make us stupid and blind. It’s why I’m pretty jazzed that they brought back the “strength sports” subforum here vs splintering it into various disciplines. When I joined in 2007, you had dudes from all the strength sports coming together and sharing ideas. It was perfect.
And point 2 gets to that as well. “If I wanna get strong, I gotta powerlift”. Or hey, maybe, “If I wanna powerlift, I gotta get strong!” Haha.
@dagill2 Hell yeah dude! Chaos is the plan: plan the drive, drive the plan.
Got in 21 ABCs in 5 minutes and a leisurely 1 mile run with the Mrs. Also a 1+ mile walk with the dog and walking around a museum for a few hours.
Thinking tomorrow I’m gonna open with 5 minutes of ABCs, do 100 burpees, close with 5 minutes ABCs. It’s gonna be a busy day and I wanna get in a lot of training in a short amount of time.
Haven’t done any direct core work since arriving. Glad to be on my diet/training break.
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It is kind of crazy how everything comes full circle. Turns out our first impressions were probably pretty close to our real impressions.
I haven’t caught up on everything, but I’m with you and @simo74 on the morning training. When I start work is essentially the only thing I feel like I can control - it’s nice to have the workout done before the day does whatever it feels like doing.
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@TrainForPain Hell yeah! I get a little bit of Schadenfreude hearing my co-workers complain when the joy eats our day and say “Well there goes my workout!”, haha
AM WORKOUT (0525 natural wake up) FASTED
22 ABCs in 5 minutes w/24kg bells
10 minutes of burpees (83 accomplished)
18 ABCs in 5 minutes w/24kb bells
Notes: Ok, THIS is gold right here. Too many ways to make it better. Beat the ABCs in the first or second round, more burpees in the 10 minutes, do more than 10 minutes of burpees or 5 minutes of ABCs, etc, but this met my goal of totally anihlating me inside of 20 minutes. Trick is to not let any time pass in the transition time between the ABCs and burpees.
Probably got a light run later in the day, and maybe some chins, but if I had to not train for the rest of the day, I’d be at peace.
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I did an amalgamation of ABCs and swings yesterday, rather than burpees. Alternated EMOM of 2 ABCs (even) and 10 KB swings (odd). Not as intense as the AMRAP version you did, but I agree that combining ABCs with another exercise is gold.
Have you tried tweaking the ABCs? I’ve messed around with alternating the traditional way with 2 cleans, 3 presses, 1 squat. So you’d do a normal ABC then do the altered one. Why do this? I don’t know, but it balances it out so you do an even amount of cleans, presses, and squats.
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I did a bit of alternating ABCs a while back: going 1 ABC and 2 burpee chins
Definitely has some wings.
I haven’t changed the order with the ABCs. I appreciate Dan’s logic: a weight you can press for 1 rep is probably one you can clean twice and squat 3 times. I figure, once I mess around with that, I can do KB clusters, which is pretty much what I do if not ABCs, haha. Although double snatches have caught my interest as well.
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Got in a tabata workout of double KB snatches in the PM, then did 20 minutes on the magnetic rower in the evening. Still not really sold on the rower: I most likely need to know what a good workout is, rather than just wing it.
Also managed 50 chins with a creative set-up with blast straps.
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Dan has pretty clear views on double snatches, which is that they’re stupid and he doesn’t like them. Which i’m aware is essentially double daring you to do them.
I appreciate the neatness here.
@dagill2 Any time Dan John has a bad idea, I HAVE to try it, haha. Same with Tabata thrusters. I will say that they’re a little gnarly on my elbows, but I think they’re going to have solid carryover to weight over bar.
AM WORKOUT (0615 natural wake up) FASTED
“Russian 3-way: Don’t Forget Protection”
KB Fran into KB Isabel into KB Grace into ABCs
24kg bells
Time Cap: 20 minutes
Got through 5 ABCs at the end. The shoulders are the limiter. I was doing strict presses on Grace, since the bells are lighter than RX. Isabel is full snatches vs halfs. This didn’t floor me like yesterday, but it’s still solid
Got some approx times on WODs. Fran was about 7:30, Isabel was around 4:30, Grace took about 4:30, and I got 5 ABCs in about 2:30, which shows how much it was beating me up at the end.
I brought SO much weight on this trip and have just been sticking with the 24s. I imagine if I wasn’t limiting myself to 20 minute workouts I might expand more, but right now this is answering a lot of mail.
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G’day Pwn hope you are well. Any updates on the strongman comp ? Is it still going ahead ? Do you know the events or weights yet ? Any thoughts around adding in some more event training ?
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You have to be doing that on purpose, haha.
Comp is still scheduled to release the weights/events the week of, which will be the last week of June. I should have no problems making weight.
Got in a leisurely 3 mile run with the Mrs and then 22 ABCs in 5 minutes w/24kg bells. Been able to get in ab work with some fallouts as well.
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