1 OH yoke walk (beltless)
3 x (3x8m with turns!) @ 95 kg
The goal here is to build up the stabilizers and establish a good spinal position to hold weights overhead (still trying to move from the t spine, not the lumbar). This actually worked a lot better with 95 kg loaded compared to the 75 kg warm up.
2 strict log press (dead stop on chest)
4 x 10 @ 55 kg
3 hicks press
3 x 6 @ 100 kg + chains
4a side raises
3 x 10 @ 10 kg
4b reverse flys
3 x 10 @ 12 kg
4c cuba rotation
3 x 19 @ 5 kg/ 3,5 kg
5 lat pull down
5 x 10
Notes:
lower back randomly felt off this morning. I blame sitting 90% of the day yesterday as the main reason. No big deal physically, hurts more mentally. Who knows, maybe the source is more mental thsn physical at this point. Maybe it’s also just fatigue from deadlift day because of the new movements (hips flexors are still screaming). To be extra careful I wore my belt for the log press and chose a light weight.
all in all decent ‘tick the box’ work today.
edit: btw. back feels better after training. Will keep monitoring.
Had a chat with a friend yesterday that made me feel pretty good. He is a much, much stronger lifter and superior strongman than I am. Pretty much out of the blue he told me that I am and have been a role model of his for a long time. I was like “you fucking what when?!”. He explained his reason along the lines of: “It’s easy to fight and have fun doing it if you know you have a shot at winning. Real strength is showing up despite knowing that you’re not gonna grab a top spot and have to fight to not get last place and after that just showing up again the next time. Winning is easy, not winning and probably not ever winning but still keep doing it and strive for improvement is real passion and real strength. You just do it because you do it, not because you need applause and anyone’s approvement”.
Posting this publically may go against the last point but this made me happy and gave me a huge motivational boost. Never expected to hear something like that. Definitely not from someone who is about to total something like 1760 lbs.
I am not a student anymore and I dont have direct access to a university library anymore. All other libraries are a waste of time anyway. I could ask a friend if that’s a possibility at his uni
I knew that compliment would read like it is meant back handed, but let me assure you it is not. As I said we’ve known each other for some time so I’m as positive as I can be that he didn’t mean to imply any negativity.
He might have thought so himself though because he followed it up by saying that he wishes me all the best and a lot of success in our sport
Hey just caught up finally and glad to see you’re doing ok. Things seem to be going much better for you than they were a thousand or so posts back which is great to read. I’m looking forward to keeping up to date now and especially seeing how the DL stuff Mark laid out goes.
Hey man, good to see you back. How are things on your end?
You are right, I am currently doing better than even 4 weeks ago. A lot better than 1000 posts ago. I am definitely not “cleared” of my mental issues but currently it’s in a very sustainable range, in lack of better terms. I personally think mainly because I finally reached a sufficient dose of medication. Not a great solution long term but for the time being, I’ll take it. Maybe the hormone thing that’s currently on hold due to the pandemic will bring some more benefits.
If this is currently an upwards trend or just a momentary state of being a bit better is irrelevant either way, I just take it as it is. One foot after the other.
Yeah I’m pretty curious about how the DL plan will play out. I definitely enjoy just following something instead of thinking about it myself.
Busy day today which is a kinda weird but welcome change these days. Exhausting nonetheless. Lifted a lot later than usual after being on my feet all day.
1 box squats (briefs + sleeves)
6 x 5 @ 150 kg
2 farmer’s walk (no belt, no chalk)
3 x 2 lanes (repick at turn) @ 95 kg per hand
Mainly focused on a clean pick. Didn’t rush things.
Notes:
squats were a mixed bag today. Standing up was very easy. But going down, bracing, pausing and all that was hard. Felt a lot of pressure building up in my head. Strength was not the issue, I think I was just tired and fatigued.
I skipped the lunges. I was just dragging myself through the workout at this point, scrolling through Instagram and thought “I really don’t want to lift anymore today”. Call me a pussy but I realized there are no extra points for forcing yourself through (at least not every time). I decided to let it be, relax two days and come back stronger next time.
Got crafty and build myself a low budget deadlift platform today! Did I reall need one? No. Who really does? It’s cool! Why do you even ask?!
Man that would be awesome.
To be honest though, I am very humble about my expectations. Or is pessimistic the right word?
I have seen depths that made suicide seem like an attractive solution. That’s not meant to sound melodramatic, I just tell it how it is. Those things still feel like they are just around the corner, ready to come at me. That is the reason I haven’t changed the log title yet, I feel I can still benefit from my own reminder.
I am just enjoying how far I could climb out of the hole up to where I am currently at this point. I have the comparison to how bad it could be and that makes where I am at currently so much more beautiful, irregardless of how beautiful it actually is.
I will surely desire more in the future but right now I am thankful for what I have.
Hard topic change: I have always skimmed through your log but to be completely honest I didn’t pay close attention lately. I saw you did the 10.000 swing challenge which seems pretty hard from what I have seen. So kudos for that. What is your current goal sports wise? Well I mean if it wasn’t for the apocalypse and all.
The way I see it: you’ve been at the bottom now so it can only go up and if you’re not feeling great again, you’ve already climbed out of the ‘hole’ once so you know you can do it again. But yeah, it is really nice to see you feeling better, even if I only know you through this site. I’ve had people close to me struggle with mental health and I’ve seen how hard it can be.
Regarding my training pre-apocalypse, my goals were and are purely physique based right now. For whatever reason strength goals don’t interest me and I’m kind of fed up of looking rubbish and being chubby.
I finished the 10K challenge late August then until the new year tried building some muscle and only really caring about my bench press strength wise. My friends and I had a competition just before Christmas and me and another guy drew with PRs of 90kg. I’m not sure how much muscle I actually put on though. From January I have been dieting for the T-ransformation and really started paying attention to my diet. I also changed my training and started following a lot of Paul Carter and John Meadows stuff - mainly lower volume and high intensity focusing on the muscles I wanted to work. It made a big difference and I think I actually put on muscle while trying to lose weight. Then the last few weeks before lockdown I was losing weight at a steady pace. Now I’m trying to continue but it’s a lot harder to control my diet at home - I have some plans going forward though. I don’t want to fill up your log too much but I’m going to do a post about my diet, weight loss and the immediate future in my log either tonight or tomorrow if you care to read anymore.
It’s pretty sexy ngl. I’m partial to full rubber platforms though so like no wood centre. I associate wood with slip I guess and my sumo stance often falls on the seam between wood and rubber in this style of platform.
It’d be nice to have two and a half 1x1M rubber mats to fit my fully loaded DL bar which is about 230cm long but I have two to work with 2 mats.
I’m thinking of cutting a strip off each and putting them on the ends to make up the rest of the length and putting some weight on the ends so the whole thing doesn’t slide apart. Easy to pack away then too
Might be slippery if you deadlift in socks, although that type of wood is pretty raw, so less slippery than further processed wood. The middle part is 1,3 m long and the rubber parts are both 60 cm long. The middle part is therefore wider than most commercial platforms but I have no idea if it is suitable for sumo deadlifts.
The rubber mat solution is definitely the easier one. I went with the full platform just because I think it’s badass tbh and I could later add band pegs.
According to this bearded gentleman there are some real arguments for a full platform (around the 2 minute mark).
Thanks big fella it’s mostly just because that’s what I’m used to and lazy.
I’ll try out the mats as is and see how they do if they are too bouncy or something like Mr Thrall said I guess I’ll just sumo bounce deadlift AMRAP 500 for 20 or someshit.
