Went on a 6 mile walk/hike with the Mrs this morning.
Getting the itch to do a half marathon with her. Might see if I can work that in with my training.
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I think you must be sick. Quick go and do some curls!!
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Is this real? Not the sweat, but that it has a specific smell?
Stress sweat definitely has a smell. Iām sure itās the same thing. Most people just donāt say theyāre scared of something.
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@simo74 Just looking for the new challenge I think. Mrs. seems to be getting burnt out with running and Iām just kinda bouncing around on strongman. Not really thinking of training terribly hard if I do go for it: just deal with the suck come event day. Weāll see how my schedule holds out.
@jshaving @Frank_C has it nailed (at least from my experience). No idea if there is any science behind it, but I wore 1 cut off t-shirt for all of my squat workouts in Deep Water and it smelled awful when it was done. Iām definitely willing to call it fear rather than stress, because I was terrified, haha.
PM WORKOUT
Max Effort top Down Deadlifts
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x405
1x495
1x585
1x625 (5lb PR)
1x635 (10lb PR from PR set within training session)
GIANT SETS (dead-hyper-squat)
(2) Axle deficit deadlift (deadstop) 346lbs
3x10
Reverse hyper 340
3x10
Buffalo Bar Squat 210lbs
3x10
Notes: 3:45 between heavy pulls, 2:00 between giant sets. Honestly wasnāt feeling very strong coming into the workout. The set of 585 felt incredibly heavy. Went for a small PR and it felt decent, so pushed harder. All seemed to pay off. Giant sets are moving along well, but the back pumps are insane. Happy with the weight now, as Iām 100lbs shy of what Iāll be doing in comp, and thatās using an axle, with a deficit, after max effort pulls. A barbell at normal height while fresh is gonna be awesome.
On the top downs in particular, hardest part remains the unrack and the brace, but I think thatās going to carry over well to medleys where I have to get set quickly. I notice Iām forced to pull much smoother and hitch less with this style. My hope is that between the heavy partials and the full ROM top downs, Iām building everything through on the actual pull. I foresee this paying off to a big full ROM pull down the line.
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EVENTS DAY
Axle continentals
5x136
3x206
1x256
Farmers (215lbs) and Sandbag (250+lb) medley
5 rounds
1 more 36ā carry with the sandbag
Notes: 2:00 between rounds on the medley. For the farmers, 36ā, turn, 36ā. Sandbag was 36ā. And then, since it was odd rounds, I had to carry the sandbag one more time to get it back to the starting line. Feeling better and better with my footspeed each week. The first round is always basically a warm-up, and Iām plodding along, but after that I can feel myself moving, and the 3rd round was my best one, as I had the whole ācontrolled fallā thing going on, along with an explosive start. Grip is holding out strong with the turns as well, which means a straight shot should be good. Need to focus on keeping my head up past the finish-line to keep the shoulders from rolling forward.
Broke out my new Inzer belt with the soft belt underneath, and it worked REALLY well. Very pleased with the combo. Sandbag can get just a little slippery with it, so come gametime I MAY strip it off in between runs on the medley; weāll see. However, where it REALLY shined was on was the continentals I did at the start. About 5 weeks out form comp now and needed to see if I still could do it. The continentals were definitely ugly, but I hit 15lbs over comp weight. If I can get it faster, Iāll save energy. The soft belt meant no pinching on the continental, which meant I could focus a lot more on the pull. Always a plus.
Iām ramping up the training pretty hard these days. Calories are gonna need to follow.
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EARLY PM WORKOUT
SUPERSETS (press-pulldown)
Axle strict press
5xAxle
5x66
5x171
3x196
8x216
7x216 (push press)
1x216 (continental, no press)
GB pulldowns 100
6x14
GIANT SETS (press-dip-raise-pull aparts. Behind the neck press on odd sets, axle strict press on even)
Barbell behind the neck press 115
3x10
Axle strict press 156
3x10
Dips
6xFailure
DB lateral raise 30
6x10
Band pull apart
6x12
Dumbbell curls run the rack (no rest between sets)
10x10lbs
10x15
10x20
10x25
10x30
10x35
5x30 (hammer curl)
5x25 HC
5x20 HC
5x15 HC
5x10 HC
Notes: 3:45 between heavy presses, 2:00 between giant sets. Really think I coulda gotten 9 on topeset, but once again was running into the garage door motor. Need to take 1 more step back in the set-up and get really cleared. Push presses had similar issues, in that I kept falling forward and having to correct. All that said, this session bodes well for the comp, as Iām at more than 90% comp weight and moving it with strict presses with ease. Hit the continental just to keep getting in some practice.
Giant set moved smoothly. Fun fact is that, when I first started 5/3/1 way back in 2011 or so, my first ever 5s week ended with 155lbs, and I managed 8 reps. The fact Iām now using 155 for a psuedo-BBB style supplemental workout for sets of 10 is pretty nuts in that regard.
Hurt something in the arch of my right foot yesterday during events, but specifically in BETWEEN events, when I was just pacing around my garage. Just feels like a sprain in whatever muscle is there. Should bounce back quick, but itās annoying.
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But 5/3/1 doesnāt have enough volume to increase your press. Clearly not natty.
Hah! Iām in such a weird place with that too. Dudes will ask me how to build the press and I give them the full rundown on 5/3/1 only to hear āI tried 5/3/1 and it didnāt work for meā
And like, thatās cool, but I donāt seem like the kinda dude where the press comes naturally. Iād get it if we were talking deadlifts: you could just point at my monkey arms and short torso and go āWell yeah, ANYTHING you do builds the deadlift: youāre a deadlifterā. But those same assets make me an AWFUL presser. So likeā¦what do those guys need to do if 5/3/1 isnāt going to build their press?
I tell folks they need to build the beach muscles, because everyone seems to neglect those, and I hear that they do it ALL the time. I dunno really. Just seems easy to make the press strong to me.
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Only to find out they did just the top set with zero care about accessories or supplemental work. It also comes down to what you said about using 155 for your topset in 2011. Thatās 8 years to go up 60 pounds which is insane to some of us here because we get how slow press progress is. To others though, they want that magic program to add the 60 in a year or less. All they do is set themselves up for failure and program hop so much to where they gain zero out of it.
5/3/1 works for everyone. Everyone wonāt make 5/3/1 work for them.
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Mine got moving once I put a little bit of effort into bodybuilding the upper. Who wouldāve thought bigger muscles would help move more weight? I saw you post some iteration of that statement about a hundred times before I realized, yeah, duh haha.
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Yeah I remember reading that on your blog. Had gotten into the midset that curls and shoulder stuff (side raises and such) werenāt helpful for strength and all you needed to do was pressā¦I think it may have been my Starting Strength phase, haha.
I think including that stuff is more fun though! And sure seems to actually help.
@oldbeancam Whatās also interesting is that the time doesnāt tell the full story. I went prodigal son on 5/3/1 and presses when I got super into strongman at the beginning, because I got so focused on putting as much weight overhead that I abandoned strict pressing for push pressingā¦and my strict press dropped. Apparently Iām the only guy that happens to, and everyone else sees the push press carry over to the strict press, but whatever that is, eventually I decided Iād rather have a high strict press and an ok push press than a high push press and a bad strict press. Happy with that decision. Only wish I made it earlier, haha.
@mr.v3lv3t and @jshaving itās amazing how much we have to ālearnā the things we already knew. Arnold got cast in the movies as a strong dude, because everyone else in the world knew ālots of muscles=strongā. But somehow, us super smart dudes all figured out that you got strong by NOT building muscle. So dumb, haha.
On that topic, this training cycle has really had positive impact on my physique. Been getting cat calls and compliments from randos. One of the best ones that happened recently was walking into a pizza place with my kid and the guy at the counter saying āLet me guess: military discount?ā
My kid goes āWhy did you offer my dad military discount?ā
And the dude goes āBecause your dad looks like an action figureā
I was pretty proud of that one, haha.
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Thatās awesome. Hearing that, and @isdatnutty 's wife telling him it looked like he had steel cables running down his back are probably some of the highest honors I could think of after years of lifting.
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Most of the compliments I get these days are a little back handed. Some young kid at the powerlifting workshop I went to a few weeks back asked me how old I was. When I told him he was like, 'whoa you dont see many guys your age benching more than 2 plates!! ā
I think it was a compliment but I also kinda took it as 'whoa you are old !! ā
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Same thing happened to me when I did it. Only benefit I got from push pressing was when I took a page out of your book and did a set of push presses after my top set with the same weight. I also used them when I was running bill starrās OHP protocol and Hepburn method. Iād do all the reps I could strict and the ones I couldnāt, Iād push press just to finish the sets and saw good benefit from that.
When I strictly used PP to build my strict OHP, it went down as well.
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For life beyond lifting even.
Iāve gotten āKen Dollā a few times. Itās a compliment and all, heās pretty fit, so I canāt be unhappy haha. Heās no Duke though.
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iāve simply been called ājackedā, ābulkyā, and āa fat fuckā. I take all three as a compliment. Iām 185 pounds and 5ā8", and I can still deadlift 450 and do 16 chin-ups at a clip. Havenāt done a curl in a long time, either. Got strong off the main work. I love being fat. I donāt even have to watch what I eat, because I do manual labor for a living. So long as I stick to my safe foods, Iām good.
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This is pretty much life goals, right here. In front of little one as well.
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ā¦or have surgery once a year.