Just over a year ago I did a session with the giant off of gladiators, Jamie Christian. I trained legs, nothing crazy in exercises or volumes, just next level intensity.
Afterwards I had to ‘shimmy’ down the stairs extremely slow and carefully. I then sat in my car for 10 minutes before even attempting to be able to clutch. Then after finally getting home I literally couldn’t climb the stairs and had to go up on hands and knees. It took 6 days until my doms went.
In a similar story the 1st time a friend of mine trained with me later that night he fell down the stairs dislocating his shoulder and spending the night in a&e
So I thought it would be cool to hear everyone’s stories about their toughest ever sessions and the aftermath
The first time I ran Jon Andersen’s Deep Water program, week 5 of beginners, between sets 6 and 7 of squats (10x10 total), while laying on my back in my garage, in the 2 minutes I was allowed to rest, I legitimately came up with a plan to sell all of my home gym equipment, because at that point I wanted to quit lifting forever.
The “abusive relationship” portion of it was that, of course, I got back up and finished out the rest of the workout.
After every squat day on Deep Water, I’d spend the next 6 days walking around like a wind-up toy soldier. Legs were locked straight from DOMS. It would heal up JUST in time for the 10x10 deadlift workout.
While I was running intermediate, I eventually learned that I needed to take 2 excederin and drink a Rockstar energy drink between sets 7 and 8 of the squat workout so I could chase away the inevitable exertion headache.
More “fun stories” about that program, is you start off with 4 minutes of rest between sets, and by weeks 5 and 6 you slash that in half to 2 minutes, yet the workouts STILL take the exact same amount of time, because you will spend 20 minutes laying on your back at the end of the workouts on weeks 5 and 6 just waiting to finally gain enough life to limp out of the gym.
Did this involve any other exercises? Sounds horrendous, I ran 10x10 a few times while doing strongman but never timed rests and certainly couldn’t imagine doing 2 minutes rest
Oh yeah, it’s stupidly brutal. On the 10x10 squat day, you also do 3x10 deads (light weight, technique work), 3x10 lunges, and some ab/core work, using a superset that somehow NEVER gets easier. That’s beginner. Intermediate had some box jumps in it, and instead of 10x10 with limited rest, you would spend the next few weeks getting the 100 reps done in 9 sets and then, eventually, 8 sets, and you still had to keep it below 4 minutes rest.
It’s definitely the most transformative program I’ve ever run. I’ve done it 3 times now, and each time I come out different on the other side.
Probably pre season conditioning for wrestling, which was like 4 weeks of 2 hours per day of burpies, pushups, log rolls, indian runs, pool sprints, agility drills, bear walks (forward & backward) up & down stairs, and any other deranged conditioning/torture tests the coaches could come up with.
Not much aftermath really. Being young and having infinite recovery ability was great. Go home, eat a sammich, drink a yoo-hoo and do it again tomorrow.
This brought up trauma for me! I remember laying in a bathtub after early season high school wrestling conditioning sessions just positive I wouldn’t be able to get up and go back the next day. Somehow we always did, but those were brutal.
The worst drills I remember were just doing shots, left leg, right leg, all the way around the gym for laps (think lunge walking if you’re not a wrestler). That and running stairs for literally an hour or more.
@T3hPwnisher every time you bring up Deep Water, it sounds enticing… like a trailer to a horror movie or something.
I was dating a woman who was a CrossFit instructor and she allowed me to choose my workout. I chose this as it was, in my eyes at least, more geared toward bodybuilding. After the second series of wall ball shots, even before finishing the first round with the 145 pound clean, my legs no longer had feeling. How I made it through, I’ll never know; pretty sure I blacked out at some point. We did this at the gym I worked at and, afterwards, went to the store next-door which I frequented. The owner looked at me and said “Greig, what happened? Are you OK?” I’m not sure I answered. I think my girlfriend paid and drove me home. We broke up shortly afterwards.
Oh! Now we’re even. . We only did them on the mats in the wrestling room, but yeah. 4 lines of us- down and back, through the whole line. First line wins, next 3 do the same till everybody wins.
Shin splints from those flat, flappy Dan Gables!
Man. Those were the days, huh?
I told my coach at my second school that he F’n Sucked for what ever reason, so he had me shoot takedowns for 2 hours straight against a wall.
I completed it just to spite him. Cuz he did suck. But maybe I didn’t need to tell him that.
I have this weird thing (called being old) where I can barely remember anything, until something like this conversation sparks it. Now I’m thinking I’m better off without the spark!
I never, ever thought to tell a coach he sucked. I’d just go grumble behind their backs about how I was really awesome (and could throw a football over them mountains) like a hero. That’s actually pretty amusing both as a punishment and you knocking it out.
. I wouldn’t have at my first district. Those guys were great. Undefeated section chams and all that. Plenty of kids going to states, etc. My balls to brains ratio has always been problematic.
This guy though, He sucked. He’d scream at us and tell us as a team how disgusted he was.
I know the coaches that replaced him, and was team mate with one at my first district. They turned it into a dynasty.
After morning weight lifting, mid morning batting practice, work in afternoon as a server, afternoon practice, we ran up and down these bad boys. AMRAP in 1.5 hours.
6 years of wrestling. Coach had us doing twice a day training. Our “warmup” was essentially a 1 mile sprint THEN we got to climb the loooong flight of stairs to the school attic/wrestling room to start the real work.
It wasn’t until my Junior year when we went to a training camp at Idaho State and he saw that, shockingly, those high level wrestlers gasp mostly…wrestled! They weren’t being trained to run marathons or compete in calisthenics like he had us doing.
Our training changed a bit after that. But he still ground us into the dirt and I’ll never regret a moment of it.
He was a great coach and a phenomenal wrestler but had that old school mentality. Keep in mind I started around 1991 but still…every week was Hell Week, lol.
In general, for wrestling. Specifically for weight training I would pick Westside Conjugate. As I progress through the periodization it becomes a real bitch.
My work is done here.
. We only did them on the mats in the wrestling room, but yeah. 4 lines of us- down and back, through the whole line. First line wins, next 3 do the same till everybody wins. 
