Yesterday before work, I went down to my gym with the intention of doing ABCs, but my back just felt too tender to get the swings done efficiently. So instead, I went back upstairs and knocked out 60 push-ups,, which is either a PR or tied with my all-time best in one set.

Came home after work and found that I was able to do the ABCs quite handily by then. Did 20 using the 50 lb kettlebells, followed by 2 sets of 15 hanging leg raises.

This morning before work was a 5 minute jumprope round, ending with 30 seconds of high knees.

Currently weighing 207 at night with belly full of a day's worth of food and drink, while this morning I was 204. Gotta get to 198 by weigh-in day on April 18. I've stopped taking creatine to deload some water weight and reduced my morning bone broth mug from 4 eggs to 3. Lots of little easy cuts I can still make.

Squats: 300 x 20

Super-set with axle deadlifts: 320 x 20

Was ready to cut this short at the slightest sense of things feeling wrong, but back held strong. Will see how I feel in a few hours and tomorrow, of course.

Immediately afterwards, went on a 15 minute walk with my lady, which was really nice and brought my heart rate down a bunch.

 Did a 4 minute round of weighted shadowboxing yesterday before work.

Came home and went on a 3.31 mile run, interrupted midway with some training at the bomb playground gym I've mentioned before. Cycled between ring hanging leg raises while holding myself up at the top like a gymnastics L-sit, ring chin-ups, battle ropes, and calisthenic chest flyes from some rope handles that were hanging low to the ground. Tried to do rope climbs but the rope was way too slick; I won't be able to hold on without chalk. Back felt so much better during and after the run. The hanging leg raises and L-sits also felt therapeutic.

This morning was a 5 minute round of jumping rope with the last 30 seconds being high knees, followed by 51 push-ups.

Came to the gym yesterday evening to train log press. Back had some fading pain but was on the mend. I had to clear the sandbag out of the training space and I saw that as a good test for whether I could handle log pressing today. Well, moving the bag came easy during the task, but after setting it down my back started to hurt. Decided not to chance doing any kind of cleans today and instead set-up to axle press from the rack, but I stopped mid-rep of 155 because it didn't feel right. Pivoted from there to incline benching.

Incline axle bench

200 x 1

230 x 1

250 x 1 (PR)

260 x 1 (PR)

200 x 7, 7, 5 (last set wide-grip)

160 x 10

Wide-grip chin-ups

3 x 15, 10

Lateral curls

50s x 2 x 20

Super-set with kettlebell lateral raises

15s x 2 x 10

Back is feeling better. Finished off my lower-body yesterday:

Reverse hyper single leg curls: 6 plates x 3 x 15

10 hanging leg raises, 2 sets of 10 with the ab wheel (kneeling), 30 crunches

This morning right after waking up, I jogged out to Heart Attack Hill and did 1 backwards uphill jog followed by 1 sprint to the top.

4-min jump-rope round in the morning with high knees burnout in the last 30 seconds

Evening:

Squats

365 x 3

415 x 3

465 x 1, 2

Strip-sets of 405x3, 315x7, 225x8, 135x8, 50x10

Felt EXTREMELY heavy, but after racking the first single of 465 I decided I had more in me so I went for another set.

Held off on doing anything more to gauge how my back would feel. It started hurting about 20 minutes later, but in a way that feels like the muscles are wrenched vs the previous chronic low back pain I've historically had. Haven't trained legs or abs in more than a week since getting food poisoning.

Thursday night:

Bench press 

250 x 5

285 x 3

320 x 2

250 x 8

I called it a night here as it was getting late. Probably for the best so soon after illness. Really happy I still repped 320 after feeling so weak due to not eating. Everything felt heavy but I also felt strong and explosive at the same time, which was interesting.

Came back Friday:

Swiss bar bench press: 235 x 3 x 8

Super-set with lying dumbbell rows: 115s x 3 x 8

Giant sets 

Dumbbell curls: 35s x 3 x 10

Kettlebell lateral raises: 15s x 3 x 10

Band pull-aparts: 3 x 15

 Went to boxing yesterday not feeling 100% but with a hunger to attend. It’s been over a month since I’ve been to the boxing gym. I’d neglect to sign-up for class knowing I would have a packed week ahead of me with the intention to walk-in to open gym, but life things like plumbing emergencies and house organization left to do after the big move-in kept getting in the way. Right away, we walked outside in the 90 degree heat and started doing shuffles and sprints down to a wall and back. I ended up finishing first for the first several times despite being the oldest and biggest in class and feeling like I was about to pass out. I'd finish the exercise, tag-in my partner, and then stare upward with head spins as I made sure not to pass out. My throat and lips immediately felt parched after the first round, as well. But it took no more than 45 seconds or so for me to mostly recover and be good for another. About half-way in my recovery did fade a bit and I was no longer sprinting full pace to come in first, instead finishing near the middle of the pack.

Went inside and did 2 rounds of jump rope, which I was struggling on, and then partnered up for some simple combos working the high and low jab, then adding a straight to that, and then finally a hook at the end. Reset the combo to just take turns throwing any number of jabs. Finally finished with non-stop 1-2s and uppercuts with our partners.

After I came home and washed up, I felt energized enough to finally get to a plumbing project I meant to do on Monday before falling ill and I replaced the stem in one of our toilets' shut-off valves to stop it from leaking. While an easy repair, it was a good test of whether the brain fog had cleared as I was having trouble concentrating at work the past few days.

Also made it a point to eat some kimchi, sourdough, and Grillo's pickles after getting home from the gym to get some probiotics and sodium in.

 Feeling better yesterday and today but still very queasy. No more danger of throwing up, just perpetually uncomfortable and burping constantly. The thought of eating straight meat is actually disgusting to me right now, a sentence I have never written before, but I'm sneaking it in via a Persian stew with eggplant and chickpeas. Will probably be freezing all the awesome meat I got from Costco so I can return to steaks and ribs in a few more days. Pesto pasta salad with mozzarella has been hitting the spot, supplemented with protein shakes. Managed to force down 3 eggs with light beef bone broth this morning.

Yesterday I did 50 push-ups and then went on a 45 minute walk. Today I have boxing class after work. I simultaneously don't want to go due to how I feel and am excited about making myself go despite that.

Experienced the worst food poisoning episode of my life yesterday from bad rotisserie chicken bone broth. Violently threw-up twice in the men's room at work and then a third time at night after a bath. Came home with a fever and the sweats, too. We're going through a heat wave here and while pumping gas after work I stood in the shade and started feeling cold.

Feels like the worst is over, although I still have some queasiness and a loss of appetite. Have mostly just been sipping on casein shakes and this morning I made a new, very light batch of beef bone broth with a couple of rib bones and no seasoning.

Watched some Dragonball Z (Gohan vs Cell, of course) while I was resting and it seemed to have medicinal properties, as I was less lethargic afterwards. What your doctor doesn't want you to know about.

Log clean and press
147.5 x 3
167.5 x 3
187.5 x 8 (6 in 1 minute)

Axle clean once and press away
150 x 8, 7, 5
Super-set with wide-grip chin-ups
10, 12, 12

Giant sets
Behind-the-neck press: 112.5 x 9, 8
Lateral flyes: 15s x 10, 10
Band pull-aparts: 12, 12

Sandbag floor-to-shoulder
200 lbs x 3

Log performance felt strong. 10 lbs heavier than last week for the same amount of reps. I’m shelving the log higher than ever, to the point that I’m leaning my neck back more to accommodate it. I’m also experimenting with flaring my elbows against my better powerlifter instincts in order to allow my upper-back to pull it closer into me. It feels more stable and like there’s less of a chance of letting the log drift too far in front of me as I press up.

The work-up sets were all strict press and then I automatically strict pressed the first rep of 187.5 before remembering to use leg drive.

Shoulders were dying on the axle press but I was expecting that because I cut my rest times down compared to what I’ve been allowing myself before. The effort was mighty and there were some real grinders on the 2nd and 3rd sets.

Sandbag shouldering was originally going to be saved for later in the day when my back was fresh, but my girlfriend came down and I helped her do a 10-minute upper-body workout and then I felt game to practice with the bag a bit. 3 good reps with no misses, and although I’ve been having some back pain the past 2 days (seems to happen if I sleep on my side for too much of the night vs my back), I walked away feeling better than going in.

 Bench press

235 x 3

270 x 3

300 x 4

Swiss bar bench press

237.5 x 3 x 8

185 x 13 (wide-grip)

Super-set with lying dumbbell rows

80s x 10

115s x 10, 10

80s x 25

Everything felt light, even the Swiss bar bench this time compared to last session. 

 Came back from a great birthday weekend for Eli in Santa Rosa. Ate really well, although being in a weight lose phase went a long way to allowing me to enjoy the weekend and not think about food all the time. 

After getting back I did some 2 rounds of 5 minute shadowboxing rounds: first with 3 lb weights, second with no weight, and then a light jog for about 10 minutes.

Monday morning: 20 burpees

Evening after work:

Squats (high bar): 300 x 20

Super-set with axle deadlifts: 320 x 20

One of the competition events is a 375 yoke walk for 50 feet paired with deadlifting 315 for reps until the minute is over. I'm subbing 20-rep squats for the yoke, which I feel is making the combo harder. Again, that will be the lightest yoke walk I've done. Obviously this is not under a minute, either, but I'm going for pain and suffering so the minute of work feels easy in comparison. 

My right knee randomly started feeling tender and hurting a couple of times when bending down during the work day so I was unsure if I'd be able to hit this workout. I planned to see how warm-ups felt and go from there, but it was all fine. I'm not ashamed to say I took rest pauses every 5 reps on the deadlifts: hitting them dead-stop instead of touch-and-go to simulate the competition and using an axle made them really suck. The competition doesn't specify it'll be an axle, but I've never done axle deadlifts at home before and this is a good time to introduce the suckage. One thing I'll want to keep in mind is practicing getting my wraps around the bar as quickly as possible, which I'll practice with a normal barbell as well as the axle.

On the equipment front, I'll be ordering new elbow sleeves as my SBDs are around a decade old and have gotten stretched out, along with a grip shirt and MAYBE new straps just as a bonus. My strap situation is comical: I lost 1 Ironmind strap and 1 generic Amazon strap, so I'm using 1 of each. And I actually prefer the feel of the generic because it has a rougher texture to it.

 Went on a run Wednesday night: 3 hill sprints followed by a 15-min jog. Going to want to download a different running app; besides constantly logging me out, the Nike one just replaced the very natural-sounding voice with an obnoxious one that sounds like a complete robot.

Got in some strongman training last night:

Log clean and press

137.7 x 5

157.7 x 5

177.7 x 8

Axle strict press

150 x 3 x 8

Super-set with chin-ups

Bodyweight x 10

15 x 10, 10

200 lb sandbag floor to shoulder practice

45 second chin-up

Log numbers are the way they are because the clamps I use to lock in extra tight for anything with cleans are heavier than my normal clips, weighing at least as much as the microplates I have. Anyway, the easiest part about this was the press itself. Legs were sore from squats and hill sprints so the mere act of squatting the log made my quads start feeling it by rep 5. 

The sandbag was trial-and-error, but I got the hang of it and managed 1 clean rep getting it to my shoulder after watching several YouTube tutorials. I was getting it to my chest just fine but struggling in trying to smoothly transition it further up when what I needed to do was bend my knees and get a final hoist. Once I did that, it went up with no issue. I'll be hitting this for reps next time now that the form has clicked. 

How about that? Strongman specific equipment before a comp: that's a first for me. Only things I don't have for this show are Dinnie Stones and a yoke, but the yoke weight in the comp will be the lightest I've ever done at 375 lbs.

 Made time in a packed day to go on a 15 min jog followed by a 5 min round on the heavy bag on Monday. It was quite late in the day and normally I wouldn't head out to do cardio so close to bedtime, but I was actually craving it.

Yesterday:

Squats

340 x 5

390 x 5

440 x 5

Strip-sets: 405x3, 315x8, 225,8, 135x8, 50x

440 felt heavy, but manageable. I trained a little hungry with a shot of espresso which is usually a recipe for lightheadedness under pressure and I was feeling that during the walks to and from the rack. ]

Been making an effort to not stand at my desk so much at work and my right knee is feeling better as a result.

Bench press

235 x 5

255 x 5

285 x 6

Swiss bar bench

235 x 3 x 8, 185 x 7

Super-set with bent-over dumbbell rows

115 x 8, 8, 8, 10

Alt dumbbell side curls: 35s x 3 x 16, 20, 20

Super-set with kb lateral raises: 15s x 3 x 10

285 felt much lighter than expecting. Had a 7th rep in me if I wanted to struggle, but I'm just getting over being sick and opted to stop before the bar slowed down too much. Very pleased with how this felt in my hands, though.

The Swiss bar bench was brutal and the very last rep of 235 was a fight. Something about that bar makes me slow down my rep tempo, likely due to how the bar requires more balancing in my hands than a straight, and I was expecting more reps of 185 but I was spent after those first 3. Chest is sore the next day as a result.

Over the weekend I signed-up for a strongman contest in April, my first one since 2017 (I've done a few powerlifting meets since then, though). The events are nothing I haven't done before except for a Dinnie Stones hold. Otherwise, we're looking at log clean and press, sandbag loading, sandbag floor-to-shoulder, and a yoke walk + max deadlifts. 

I'll be replacing the axle press with the log for my main lift on press day and add sandbag work throughout the week, but training via 5/3/1 will structurally stay pretty similar. This will be the first strongman show I'm training for with my own log and crash pads at my disposal. Same goes for the sandbags. 

I also happened to get sick over the weekend, but managed to finish my deload week with a simple session:

Walking kettlebell lunges: 50s x 3 x 16

Super-set with axle Romanian deadlifts: 250 x 3 x 8, 8, 10

Had dinner with the family that night at a Persian restaurant to commemorate Dad's birthday, so food intake was high. Sometimes I don't have an appetite when sick, but on this day it felt like I couldn't eat enough. It was good seeing everyone and going to Farah's house afterwards.