I really liked this quote/add from Lance Armstrong. A lot of people are looking for a quick fix to get them to the top, not wanting to put in the work to get there.
“This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it,
study it, tweak it, listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I’m on.
What am I on? I’m on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”
-Lance Armstrong
Wednesday hit shoulders and forearms. We’ve doing more behind the neck presses – they are tough, but I think they will help my pressing. Afterwards my girlfriend and I went for a bike ride. It was nice to get out and enjoy the day, but we live in a very hilly part of town and the ride is more strenuous then fun.
Dumbell Shoulder Press: 50×8, 60×10, 70×10, 80×10, 80×8
Behind the Neck Smith Machine: 95×10, 105×10, 115×10, 95×10
Front Raises: 3 sets of 10 supersetted with side laterals 3 sets of 10
Reverse Overhead Dumbell Laterals: 3 sets of 10
4 sets of wrist curls
Thursday – Today is an off day of lifting, but I needed to get some cardio in. I headed to another path here in town, Standing Bear Lake Trail. This path isn’t as long as Zorinsky, it is only 3.5 miles. So I tried to run jog as much as the path as I could and probably did about half of it. I hope to hit this path more often since it is in between the gym and my home.
Still sitting at 275. Giving some thought to going heavyweight at Nebraska, but I think I’ll use the contest as motivation to lose weight. Workouts have still been good, I just need to add in more cardio. I went to Zorinsky Lake on Sunday and walked around it (7.4 miles). What a beautiful place to clear your head and enjoy the outdoors! I’ll definitely go back for a bike ride or jog a few more times this summer.
Today was squat day, Josh and I were pressed for time so we did a tough workout in about 45 minutes.
Started with squat: 135×7, 225×7, 315×7, 405×5, 495×5, 525×3, 555×2
4 sets of lunges with 25# dumbells
Stiff Legged Deadlift – 2 sets of 10
Finished with leg curls 3 sets of 10, both standing and laying down.
I was zapped after that!
Friday
Went to Jobes on Friday for some strongman training. Started with a keg carry, which if you’ve never done one you’re lucky. This event will be for total distance covered while bear hugging a 270# keg. I did runs of 120 feet with 200, 250, and 270. The further you carry the keg – the harder you squeeze it, which makes breathing difficult. This is going to be a tough event! After that moved on to axle press. I hit a personal best of 310 last week, and got 320 this week. I tried 340, got the clean but no press.
Saturday
Josh and I trying to get in the swing of a new schedule. So today we hit chest and it was still sore from working it on Wednesday, oh well.
Bench Press: 135×10, 223×10, 315×10, 315×8, 275×8
Incline Dumbell: 80×10 – 3 sets
Cable Flies from Bottom: 3 sets of 12
Then we did tons of forearm work. One of my training partners – Jesse Jobe – recommended it to help out my weak grip, since grip training didn’t help me much. Did probably 12 sets of 15-20 reps of wrist curls from 10 to 25 pounds. Also did 3 sets of holds with 100# dumbbells. I felt good after these and they are probably a step in the right direction.
All bullshit aside this has been a great week in the gym. Let me explain: I take my work in the gym very serious, it’s like a second job almost. Although I am focused during my workouts, I can get very annoyed by people lifting like idiots.
Example #1 - I saw some kids trying to squat (more like knee bends) and their form was horrible and yet they kept piling on more and more weight. MY ADVICE: Get your form down first. Lifting the weight incorrectly isn’t going to give you any gains and you could get hurt.
Example #2 – For some reason there are people who can’t bench or squat over 100#s, yet they will load up leg press and chest machines with as many plates as they can. MY ADVICE: You are not doing yourself any good by doing this and the attention you attract to yourself is negative. Again – Work with manageable weight and get form and technique down first.
Now according to my brother Josh, I shouldn’t let this stuff bother me. He is probably right, but I wouldn’t sit down at the piano and bang on some keys and tell you it’s Mozart, that would be a lie. It would take years of practice for me to play something like that. So don’t come in the weight room and throw stuff around and act like an idiot and call it weight lifting, that also is a lie and it’s disrespectful to those of us who are weight lifters.
Thursday – This was an off day lifting wise, but I still wanted to do something. So I went for a bike ride. It wasn’t supposed to be a long ride originally, but I ended putting about 8 miles in – and a lot of those were uphill! That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do after squating the day before, oh well.
Friday – My legs were killing me, but I still wanted to get some event work in.
Axle – 200, 220, 250, 280, 310 – Personal Best
Did one run of yoke and sled drag and decided to hold off on these, until me legs were recovered
Sandbag Loads – 150, 200, 250 – 2 sets in front of the platform, 1 set running back and forth before loading, 2 sets of loading from 10 feet out and 1 set of loading and unloading.
It is nice to have the contest behind me now, and just be able to lift weights. I have another contest coming up in 5 weeks, but the events are more speed than strength oriented. So right now I have no plan in the gym, just going in and lifting hard. I do need/want to drop some weight in the next month or two. I have been riding my bike some, and would like to do it more if the weather would cooperate. I also have started cutting out the crap food.
My numbers have still been good and I’m happy about that. Benched 405×4 and 435×1 on Monday and squated 495×5 and 535×3 today. I’ll take tomorrow off and start in on the Nebraska events on Friday.
Thursday and Friday before the show were tough, I started doubting myself…but by this point in time it’s too late to do anything about. I just try to remember how hard I trained over the past two months, and tell myself that I’ll be fine.
Saturday morning - I woke up around 5am, which is normal for me to do before a contest. I gathered up all my clothing and equipment that I’d need for the day. My girlfriend, brother, and a good friend from high school made the 2 hour trip with me to Des Moines. The hours before the contest I try to stay loose and joke around, do anything I can to keep me mind off of it. We made to the venue at 9am, I weighed in (271), got settled and then rules started at 9:15.
Press Medley – I was last to go on this event. I was very surprised that only 5 or so guys were able to press the final log. I thought I had a decent shot of doing so. I set a quick time for the first three presses, but then I was breathing heavy with a 330# log on my chest and it wasn’t going to go up.
Silver Dollar Deadlift – I felt good about this event, but I wanted to open light to get a good feel for it. I started at 600#, which was very easy. I talked to Josh about jumping to 700#, but I wasn’t confident enough to do it. I got 750# on a second effort, and put everything I had into 800#, but it wasn’t enough.
Farmers – I knew this would be my worst event, but I think I let myself off to easy. I had a good first effort, but my back and hands were tired from the deadlift and the second pick went no where. I quit on it…I really don’t know if I could’ve done any better, but I’d like to think I could.
Yoke – I’ve told myself before that if I’m going to let myself have bad events, I also need to let myself have good events. I took out my frustration on the yoke and had my best time ever. Good event for me!
Stones – I felt good about this event too. No one had loaded the final 405# stone, and I thought I could if I had enough air. So the first 4 stones I loaded in a decent time, I gathered myself – but I couldn’t get a grip on the big stone.
All in all it was a good day for me. My only regret is the points I left behind on the farmers. I finished 16 out of 28 and beat some of the 265ers I should have beat at nationals.
Didn’t workout today and probably won’t the rest of the week, so I can be fully rested for my contest on Saturday. Josh and I did go pick up some more equipment for our gym! We now have an adjustable bench for incline and bench press, as well as a cable pull down. I’m very excited! We hope to build a deadlift platform in the next week or so and get a squat rack by the end of the month.
Had a great chest workout Monday.
Hit bench first, sets of 5 with 315, 365 then 395 for 3 and 415 for 1
Incline 225×5, 255×5, 295×2
Decline Dumbell: 80×10, 110×10, 110×7, 80×10
Finished with Dumbell and Cable Flies
Tuesday – Worked back…nothing special
