Sat, 18 Feb 17
Block 10, Wave 2 - Events
It was up in the 60s and 70s this weekend, which served to reinforce my desire to live somewhere warm(er) after I graduate from PT school. Call it global warming, call it a shift in the orientation of the earth's axis, call it random chance, but whatever the reason or your own personal belief, I would have no problem living somewhere that is warm year round and where I'd have to drive to the mountains to see snow.
A couple of immutable rules of strongman Saturday proved themselves once again this weekend. Ryan was supposed to be at training, but had to change his plans last minute. This meant that Bill would be there since the two of them seem to never be able to make it to train on the same day, which is exactly what happened. And despite the fact that Gregg was at training today for the first time in weeks, he was unable to stay for conditioning at the end because Gregg doesn't condition. In all seriousness though, three of my training partners have a baby due soon with due dates ranging from next week to a couple months away, so they have a lot more time constraints and obligations than those of us without a mini-me.
My knee was not up to doing my originally planned events so I had to shift to the backup plan in order to avoid making things worse or just wasting my and everyone else's time at training today.
Chain Yoke Press
10x75
8x95
6x115
2x6x165
6x185
I had originally planned to throw weight over bar first today, but that would have either bothered my knee or I would have been doing some stupid weight shifting off of my left leg which would have made the whole thing stupid. I chose to press instead, using an implement I haven't trained in a long time that I also had to use a push press rather than a split jerk on, due to the instability of the equipment.
Farmer's Walk (turns @ 50')
200' x 110
200' x 220
This was the only thing I did which was pushing the limits of being dumb. I didn't really notice it on the first warmup run, but I definitely had a gait deviation due to my L knee that forced me to go very slowly with 220, especially on the turns. I had planned to do another run or 2 with heavier weights, but in the interest of getting back to 100% as fast as possible, I decided one long, slow, tortuous farmer's run was plenty for today.
Sandbag Carry (turns @ 50')
200' x 200
300' x 200
Gregg was training this today while the rest of us were training farmer's so I switched gear and carried the sandbag since that didn't bother my knee in any way, shape, or form - just my lungs. Training this served as further evidence that my recent return to conditioning is long overdue and will help improve numerous aspects of my training.
Arm Over Arm Truck Pull (harness and rope)
80' x taco with 6 clicks on the e-brake
80' x taco with 9 clicks on the e-brake
I discovered today that not all clicks on the e-brake are created equal. Gregg tried 9 clicks first and only made it about halfway through, grinding to a halt once he chucked the rope. We reset and he tried again and could barely budge it. I finished it with no problem, then Bill could only budge it a few feet before stopping completely. Ryan (note: I have 2 training partners named Ryan) then killed it on 9 clicks, finishing 2 seconds faster than me. Bill tried again with a similar result, going about 10 feet the second time. Gregg went again and finished 2 seconds faster than Ryan this time. By now I had realized that there was an "easy 9" and a "hard 9" on the e-brake with possible gradations between the two. Bottom line, setting the e-brake is only a very general way to add resistance to a vehicle pull. Bill came back after we realized all this and blazed through the 80' pull almost as fast as Gregg, while I tried 2 more pulls on 9 clicks and rolled a hard 9 both times so only went a few feet once and didn't budge it the other time. Take home message: get a bigger truck or use a prowler for training truck pulls and NEVER use clicks on the e-brake as a weight setting in competition since it is wildly inaccurate.
Prowler Bear Crawls
50' x prowler + 230 - Too easy.
50' x prowler + 320
2x50' x prowler + 430
This was today's short and sweet conditioning. We did this in a 3 man rotation since a certain someone had to leave when we got to conditioning. Overall this was a pretty good training day despite the e-brake shenanigans. I had planned to do atlas stones today, but much like throwing weight over bar, that would likely have ended up either being stupid or injurious.