Event Training

Long time no post. I've been back in Nottingham for a whole week without uni (I forgot about all the bank holidays), and so I've literally been eating, training, eating and watching tv shows for the majority of my days. Hard life. I'm still on the Wendler's 5/3/1 and have seen progress in my overhead and bench already. I've not tried a 1RM in squat or dead cos I can't stand increasing by 2.5 or 5kg, I'll wait til I feel I have another 10kg in me lol.

Anyway, I went to The Cauldron today for my first strongman events sesh. Using my epic Google Maps skills, I left my house at half 6 to travel to Leicestershire by public transport. Yeah, fuck. To be honest there was only an hour of travelling in total, but as these were desolate lands, I had hour long waits in between buses.

Finally I arrived at JT's shed and as I was the first there, decided I'd get the log out of the way first. My cleaning technique was completely blagged and terrible, but when I eventually got it up (lol) I managed 67kg in strict presses for reps. When I moved on to push presses, bizarrely I actually couldn't get any more than 10kg on there before the sheer size and awkwardness started to take effect. I managed 77kg for reps but failed miserably on 87kg. A good start, but I've got a 100kg log for reps in June. Already I have a glaring weakness, so I really need to work on my technique I think.

Next up was the yoke. Now I was pretty confident with this as it involved my legs, but when I got under it I realised I had severely underestimated how much punishment my lower back would take too. I managed 220kg for 20m and did that twice which was pretty fun, but absolutely shattering. Still, I felt this was a good weight for my experience, and with a bit of practice I reckon I can get another 40kg. Not next week though, it's comp prep only after today!

Anyway, soon after this I tried the farmer's walk; the event I was dreading due my poor grip. Surprisingly, I managed 50kg, 70kg and 100kg in each arm fairly quickly, though the turning was by far the hardest part. (I think I was worried about grip due to the revolving Olympic bars in the gym, where I can never get a decent hold under it). Anyway, the best thing about this is that my comp in June is only 10kg heavier and I essentially nailed this first try. Shockingly what I thought would be my weakest event may actually be my strongest come comp day.

Finally, we went on to the thick handled dumbbell press where we played around with 30kg and 40kg for reps, til we bust out the circus dumbbells. Now I was confident with a 51kg lift as I managed a 50kg, albeit with a thinner handle, back in Deeping around Christmas time. Sadly, I couldn't quite get the last few inches of height for what felt like a ten second lockout. A second attempt only aggravated the situation as it fell backwards tweaking my elbow and making it feel all weird. A third attempt, even sleeved, wrapped and belted still couldn't budge it. I'm gonna partially blame the farmers on this, my shoulders felt utterly destroyed by this point. What's cool was the other lads went on to do this for reps, and one even pressed a 64kg, which was pretty sick.

Unfortunately, with my arm feeling like ass, I didn't fancy taking on the stones at the risk of broken toes and so decided to call it a day. It was mad fun and I learned a lot, and spent the two hour journey home thinking about what to do next week. And speaking of which, thinking is a lot nicer when the pubs next door to the bus stops are open, a pint of London Pride really does go down well after a good 3 hour workout.

Above is a nice little vid showing some of the toys I got to play with today. Sorry, no actual pics or vids from today unfortunately. Next week, perhaps.


More event training next week, but for now, I'll be sticking to a nice light week this week so I can recover from today. Feel like death.