I don’t see it having any impact. I haven’t trained for my last 2 comps.
But now you are big and strong, couldn’t you maintain it on a less intense training methodology?
Forgive the pedant in me going over this, I just always assumed deep doing you have some affinity for the process, your training always seems fairly extreme!
My goal is to be more. I have no desire to maintain. When I can no longer grow, I will be done.
And no worries dude. Always happy to discuss.
Fair enough!
Have always resonated deeply with this. I don’t particularly enjoy training unless I am training for something or I am breaking personal records. Otherwise, it’s a mundane depressing battle to stay robotic and put the work in.
Curious, what was your mentality when you were injured? Could it be summed up in a statement? Ambivalence? A battle to maintain positive?
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Your goal is to be big and strong, regardless of competitions. What will be your bench mark for “strong”. “Big” could most likely be achieved with much different and less damaging training if it was the only goal.
Previously “strong” could be measured through competitions and/ or competition relevant lifts. So it was at least in part determined from the outside. I am curious what you will use in the future to measure your progress in that regard.
@strongmanvinny2 You and I definitely share an ancestor somewhere, haha. With the injury, I wrote about it a bit with it being that whole “Myth of Sisyphus” choosing to push the boulder up the hill thing, but (and there’s no real way to have this dialogue without becoming incredibly self-indulgent and cringe inducing), it was far more a battle to remain negative, angry and evil. Prior to the injury, I was insufferably positive and upbeat, and the injury was the first real setback I encountered that finally proved to me that I was in fact human, and I just grew to resent that . I had to come back from it because I was pissed off about it and wasn’t about to be beaten by it. I wasn’t a good person to be around during the initial injury phase, but a big part of that to is that SO many people just wanted to say “told you so” that I basically had to bounce back out of spite just to rub it in their faces.
I think being positive would have actually stunted my recovery and progress, as I would have been satisfied with moderate results. I’d be ok just returning to normal function, or simply being painfree, or whatever small standard was out there. Telling everyone, including myself “f**k you: this isn’t over” put me on a course to bounce back hard.
@Koestrizer Right now, my axle strict press is something I’m caring a lot about. I discovered it after finding out how disappointed I was focusing on my push press in 2015 and finding out my strict press had dropped. I’d rather have a high strict press and a low push press than the other way around.
Deads don’t have a clear standard: I’ll keep pulling things off the floor.
But that’s the thing: these aren’t things I’ll do in the future. I feel like a lot of folks have completely misjudged me, assuming I was a strongman competitor that lifted weights. This is ALREADY what I’ve been doing. It’s what I’ve been since the beginning. With strongman, I wasn’t caring about how much I lifted on strongman lifts: I was caring about WINNING. What was significant was that, when I started competing, strongman put demands on me to get stronger in order to win. Lifts were heavy enough that I had to get stronger if I wanted to win. These days, it’s become more about getting better, or buying better equipment, and that just doesn’t matter to me.
And yeah, I could compete up a weight class, but it’s just a bandaid, and even then, like in my upcoming competition, promoters will STILL drop the weight on events.
I’ve got a full marathon milling around in my head, and a buddy of mine is selling me on indoor rowing. I’m sure I can find some other challenges out there, but even then, I plan to do it my way.
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Work has come through and made the decision for me: travel outside the local area restricted through the period of the competition. Going to contact the promoter this weekend and tell him I will have to withdraw. Going to tell him to keep the entry fee, as I imagine I am not the only one that will be doing this, and I know running one of these is costly.
Onto next challenge. Need to get back into running shape for a fitness test in May. Good time to shed some excess chub as well.
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I don’t always like when a decision is taken out of my hands, but sometimes it’s pretty damn liberating to be like "well alright this is it’'.
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Absolutely. Definitely easy on the ego, but the fact this doesn’t bother me is also a sign, haha. Very convenient escape.
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Been having some bad issues with my left shoulder lately and kind of regressed after hitting my head against the way for a while. Went from doing 185 for sets of 10 to only being able to do sets of 5 or less. Really had me bummed out and couldn’t understand what was going on except I was going to hard too often and ruining my progress.
Anyway, the reason for all this is that I’ve been doing the commercial gym version of what you’re doing for overhead days. Since running DW, I’ve found great success in doing sets of 10+ for practically everything, but it never occurred to me to do 2 sets of 10 of 3 different presses after main work to work different facets of overhead pressing. I’ve just been doing some type of variation for a 4x10 and switching it out every 3 or so weeks. All that did was fuck my shoulder more because it was too much in one area. Now, I’m finally progressing again on my overhead and when a lift stalls, I just change the order and knock the weight back to what I started with for the first movement, build it up and continue moving.
You help more people than you think and even when I don’t feel lost in training or know exactly what I want to do, I still enjoy reading your work. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing your training and your blog my friend.
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@oldbeancam Hell yeah dude! Outstanding to hear, and glad you got something out of it. Occasionally I stumble across some of these “why nots” that really seem to pay off. Other times, I find out “oh, that’s why”, haha.
PM WORKOUT
MAX EFFORT LOWER
High handle trap bar lift
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x405
1x495
1x585
1x675
1x700
4x585
LATER
65 bodyweight squats
1:05 plank
Notes: 3:45 between heavy pulls. That topset took pretty much all the life out of me, and though I had high hopes for 585 for reps, it sucked out of me quickly. I tried a set before the set of 4, went for the set-up, shook my head and went “nope” and took a slightly longer rest to come back for what I did. Good to be able to grind like that again.
Wife is doing a month long burpee/squat/plank challenge. Was doing it with our kid in the evenings, but bedtime came early this time, so I stuck out the squats and plank with her. Good to get in the extra work, because my hamstrings have been like piano wire ever since that squat workout, and the trap bar pulls didn’t do any favors. Been walking around in a fugue since that workout. Musta given it a lot.
Hoping my pulling leverages get better with some weight loss.
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Is that first 700 pull? Or did I miss some?
I think you are right, but it was with a cheat bar !!! Lmao
Only kidding @T3hPwnisher that was a mega pull. Nice work
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Awesome pull Pwn, quality. Inspiring.
@dagill2 Nah, I’ve managed up to 715 on the trap bar before. Pulled my first 700 around Aug or Sep. My deadlift leverages have taken a small hit with the weight gain, but my press has grown astronomically, so it’s been a fair trade.
@simo74 And @mortdk Much appreciated. It was a helluva grind.
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So you’re saying my deadlift is weak because I’m a fatty? I can see that.
Do you have a “secret” to training press, other than 2 decades consistent intense lifting?
It’s pretty funny, as almost every lifting corresponds positively to weight gain except for the deadlift, where you can eventually reach a point of diminished and then reversed returns. The stomach gets bigger and gets in the way of the legs. Now, in my case, the solution would most likely be to just play with my foot placing and figure out the right way to pull with my adjusted leverages and maximize it, but I don’t see myself staying at this bodycomp for a long time, so juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
For the press: @oldbeancam highlighted a bit of my most recent “discovery” above, but variety seems infinitely helpful in continuing to improve the press without mashing up your shoulders and connective tissue from too much stress. I think the “secret” to the press is that, since the muscles involved in it are so small, you can’t really “trick lift” it like you can with a squat or a deadlift and just learn how to maximize leverages and technique to move giant weights. Instead, you have to go about it all bodybuilder like and just hammer the absolute hell out of the muscles involved and make them get bigger. This also means keeping the reps on the higher side. I think ego harms a lot of folks in that regard: the press already uses lower weights than anything else, and now I’m asking someone to go from a 45 per side on a good day to a 25 per side.
I think dips are a great assistance exercise, and I think everyone is in too damn big a hurry to add weight to them. Weighted dips are awesome on their own, but as an assistance exercise, bodyweight dips are fantastic because you get like an entire upper body pump and really flush it out with blood. I like staying far away from lockout on them, and just focus on getting out of the bottom of the dip.
Rear delt work is pretty crucial for keeping the press locked into place. A big back in general tends to go far as well.
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Couldn’t agree more with this. The overhead press just requires you to be brutally strong because even with the best technique, you can’t add Immense amounts of pounds because you fix one thing (ie if you form fix a squat/dead/bench you may get 30-50 pounds or more, whereas the press gets MAYBE 10-15).
Weighted dips seem to be a good way to build strength with low reps, but the risk/reward for most people never seems to outweigh doing traditional body weight ones imo. Unless building a strong weighted dip is the goal, bw ones seem to work better as assistance in every way.
And the rear delt work point is so beyond true and such can overlooked point in pressing. Building a big strong back is always important, but attack the absolute fuck out of your rear delts is the most important part of building a strong OHP in my opinion. Bent flyes, high elbow rows, pulldowns with elbows flared, pull aparts, etc. I’ve even been using a circle band around my wrists and walking my hands up and down a wall in between sets for extra work there. Your upper back can never be too strong for them.
Since adding in more volume and working every facet of my shoulder, back and triceps, my overhead strength is progressing again. It’s funny because sometimes we get so focused on building the movement that we forget we need to build the body first.
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My speed off the floor seems better when I have a bigger midsection, but lockout is better when I’m more trim. Deadlift is a very strange movement in regards to weight.
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