Sat, 3 Dec 16
Strength & Speed Seminar at RMU
Friday I packed up the truck and headed north to the land of the ice and snow, to the midnight sun where the hot springs flow - a.k.a. Pittsburgh, PA, to present at RMU Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Todd Hamer's Strength and Speed Seminar. When I asked Hamer what he wanted me to present on, he said it was dealer's choice. Leaving the field wide open, I obviously immediately gravitate toward something in the realm of strongman, the stupidest of all the strength sports. But at the same time, being in physical therapy school and constantly expanding my knowledge of musculoskeletal dysfunction and ways to treat and correct it, I wanted to include some of that info as well since a large part of my impetus for going to PT school arose while working in S&C and seeing my athletes' injuries misdiagnosed and subsequently mistreated. I came up with 3 really solid ideas while sitting upon my thinking chair early one morning, but proceeded to forget two of them, so I went with the only one I could remember - how to recognize, test, and treat screwy butt muscles, specifically the gluteus medius. And since it was me, I included evidence for glute med strengthening using strongman events as well as some more traditional approaches.
Besides myself, the lineup of presenters included:
Britta Grafton
Nick Showman
Mike Hill and Dave Terry
Carl Johnson
Dave Forman
Joe Schillero
and a weight room session with RMU Women's Basketball
I learned something from each and every presenter and I hope that people were able to take some part or parts from my presentation as well that they can use in their future work with athletes, whether youth, collegiate, professional, team sport or strength sport.
I made the arduous drive from Salisbury to Pittsburgh more enjoyable on Friday afternoon and evening by listening to 7 straight hours of nothing but Christmas music spanning sub-genres including traditional, pop, beach-themed, acapella, and metal. I guess I spread my holiday cheer to mother nature because it was a wintry mix of precipitation for most of the drive while I was in PA and it was steadily snowing all morning on Saturday for the first half of the seminar, but thankfully nothing accumulated on the ground.
I have a list of conferences to attend annually if at all possible that has 6 entries on it currently (sadly usually not possible now due to PT school schedule conflicts) and Hamer's conference has been on the list since I learned about it 2 years ago. This was the first time I was able to attend, and to be a presenter on top of that was a lot of fun and I can't thank Coach Hamer enough for the opportunity. The fun and games wasn't over after the conference ended either. Sunday morning a Joe and I joined Hamer in his weight room to train.
Sun, 4 Dec 16
Block 8, Wave 3 - Events @ Hamer's Hall of Hamhocks
I was the lone dumb dumb doing anything strongman related, but I had lots of options thanks to the selection of strongman implements at RMU including logs, farmer's handles, atlas stones, keg, axles, and more. I decided to train snatch instead of my usual overhead pressing since I had missed my snatch/assistance training day this week. After that some farming and picking up of the stones rounded out my training nicely.
Snatch (weights in kg)
complex x 20
3x34
3x40
2x54
2x60
1x74
1x80
1x94
1x102.5kg - PR!!!
I was leaning toward working up to a heavy double or triple depending on how things felt, but things were feeling so good that I soon realized this was the best that snatching had ever felt in my life so I decided to go balls deep and see if I could beat my old all time PR of 100kg. My goal was to hit 101, but the math trying to figure out that weight between a mix of kilos and pounds was mind bottling so I finally said ef it and went with 102.5 using all kilo plates. Not only did I hit it pretty easily (though not perfectly by any means), but I also did it without my belt or wrist wraps, which I had needed last time I maxed at American University with head S&C coach Sean Foster. And the icing on the cake was that I didn't miss a single rep from warmups though to new all time max, which never happens. I definitely had more in the tank, but I shut it down because I reached my goal and did not want to get into the game of missing 18 times before finally either dropping a bar on my head or hitting a slightly heavier weight. I think part of this PR is due to the cafeteria sushi that I had for lunch during the seminar on Saturday. Since Georgetown head S&C coach Mike Hill also braved this questionable meal choice with me, I predict solid PRs in his upcoming training as well, perhaps on a no hook, no feet, no sleeve, 4 Jordan incline banded bench press with chains.
Farmer's Walk
100' x 130
100' x 218
100' x 288 - I thought this was closer to 275 per hand when I did it, but the math showed me otherwise when I was done. If I had known I was up that close to 300 I would have added a few more pounds, but as my time was not too shabby here and I had a 6+ hour drive home in my immediate future, I stuck with low volume for today.
Stone Shouldering
6x220
4x260
Hamer's stones are well made, and as such, slightly slippery to use without tape or tacky, but that just meant I had to squeeze a little tighter on the pick and coming out of my lap up to my shoulder. I alternated shoulders on both sets and after this, it was time to hit the old dusty trail to head back home. This was the most fun I've ever had in Pittsburgh and while it is still not my favorite city to visit, I'll definitely be back again to learn, train, or just hang out and air the grievances with Todd Hamer.