Sat, 25 Mar 17
Block 11, Wave 1 - Events @ Iron Athletics
Now before people go getting the flaming, red ass about this, it's a simple truth and if you disagree then you've never had a truly GREAT training partner. Sure you can have or may be a good training partner, always showing up on time, helping load plates without screwing up the math, putting aside your crappy moods to contribute to the overall development of awesomeness for all involved, paying attention, being a good spotter, breaking the occasional ball or three, but unless you are able to put motivate your training partners to do a better job solely through the virtue of your own effort, then you are not and/or do not have a GREAT training partner.
Iron Athletics gym owner and strongman competitor Steve Mattheu is a GREAT training partner for me. Training with him is never not an awesome and productive experience and I am 100% sure I would not be the athlete I am today without him. Our similar strength and speed on the different strongman events drives us to do and be better and it always has ever since the first time we trained together back in late 2006. Watching him nail a big axle clean and press PR triple today fired me up more so than I've been in training in a long time and his own success drove me to do better purely through the virtue of his hard work and dedication. No rah rah cheerleading bullshit or phoney motivational nonsense - just the raw effort and power he put forth on a challenging set eliminated any other possible course of action for me besides trying to give at least the same level effort myself.
Axle C&J (clean each rep)
complex x 70
5x120
5x160
2x210
1x250
1x280 - I was debating between continuing to work up to a heavy single or doing a heavy rep set, but Steve settled that debate for me by nailing the huge rep PR at 280 shown below.
4x280 - PR, I haven't hit more than a triple over 250 on axle with cleaning each rep that I know of. And the ONLY reason I got the last rep was from being so fired up and driven to succeed after watching Steve go before me.
Carry & Drag Medley
80' x 225 keg/80' x prowler + 365
I had planned to get in 2-3 runs here, but I screwed up the math for the drag weight by underestimating the heavi(er) keg and also the parking lot at Iron Athletics makes for much harder backwards dragging than the parking lot at Iron Strong CF. Solid work on this event from one of Steve's guys, Ryan Nelson.
Atlas Stone Carry & Load
30' x 230, 20' x 280, 10' x 300, a foot or 2 x 310
The yoke height ended up being about 50" since we measured it on a slant to start and then put the stall mat on top of it. This was approximately the weights that will be used by the Men's Open Middle Weight division in the comp I'm running at the end of May. We had further proof today that dusty, dirty atlas stones are virtually impossible to use, even with tacky and a good grip shirt so remember to keep your balls nice and clean to make them easier to play with.
Despite doing a little less work than usual, everything about today's training was outstanding and I felt like I made more progress than I would have, even with more sets and runs, thanks to training with Steve at Iron Athletics. We felt so dead after all this that we didn't even do conditioning, which is unheard of for us.