IRON & STONE: Adventures of an Amateur Strongman

[mouse]

5/26/2022

Strict Neutral Press
185x6x3

Meadows Row
50x12x3

Neutral Grip Pull Up
3x5

[mouse]

5/27/2022

Squat
Worked up to 365x5 no belt

Farmers Carry 40ft
Worked up to 275x1

Stone Load
220x3x3

Only reason I squatted was to calibrate for Monday...

Farmers was a calibration too, I wanted to get to a weight that felt good, was reasonably heavy, that I could clear ~40ft with in ~10 seconds or less where grip felt solid. There's probably a few more pounds on there right now but 275 felt good... haven't exactly figured how I want to progress them... probably alternating speed/heavy weeks with some timed holds. Gotta get those up into a confident +300's before October...

Stone today felt much better, earlier in the week was probably just lingering fatigue.

[mouse]

5/30/2022

TnG Deadlift
365x10x3, 365x13

Squat
260x5, 315x5, 350x5

Good Morning
185x12x3

Yo this day sucked as hard as I thought it would. 85 degrees, hitting 13 reps TnG after 3x10 had me praying for death to take me on swift wings. Calibrating the squat last week did jack shit as after all that deadlift volume my hams/glutes were fucking toast and that set of 350 may as well have been 500x5 because that's what it felt like.

I plan on doing sets with reps above 5 as TnG to try and keep myself somewhat primed for that October car deadlift, where it's typically allowed.

[mouse]

5/31/2022

Press
150x10x3, 150x12

Pendlay Row
185x12x3

Rope Band Pressdown
3x20 (rest pause)

[mouse]

6/2/2022

Incline Bench
175x10x3, 175x14

Neutral Grip Pull Up
3x5

F/U Bench
185x12x3

Low/High Band Fly
3x15

Underestimated the fuck out of those bench reps and overshot my ending RPE by a mile. Next week drops reps to 10 so I'll keep them at 185...

Pull ups I will probably add a fourth set that will be whatever clean reps I can get...

[mouse]

6/3/2022

Farmers Carry 50ft
225x1x4, 185x1x6 EMOM

Sandbag Load to 50"
220x4x3

Arm Over Arm Drag 60ft
200x4

[mouse]

6/6/2022

TnG Deadlift
340x5, 385x5
415x2x10 EMOM, 415x12

Squat
285x3, 330x3, 380x5

Goodmorning
185x10, 195x10, 200x10

Everything was feeling really easy peasy... right up until that DL rep out lol

[mouse]

Car/Tire Deadlift: Competitor Start from the floor and have 60 seconds to deadlift a car or tire w/weights, with a neutral grip deadlift to full lockout for reps. Up and Down commands will be given.

Checking the roster out of curiosity I noticed this... looks like I may be suffering through TnG deads for nothing. However, I won't abandon them just yet because maybe there will be a long term benefit... I'm already a decent deadlifter off the floor, and the TnG seem to be absolutely crushing my hams in a way I don't typically notice...

[mouse]

6/7/2022

Press
140x5x, 160x5
175x2x10 EMOM, 175x12

Pendlay Row
195x10, 205x10, 215x10

Rope Band Pressdown
3x20

[mouse]

6/9/2022

Incline Bench
165x5, 185x5
200x2x10 EMOM, 200x16
(yo WTF I knew I was being conservative out of the gate with percentages but holy shit lol)

Neutral Grip Pull Up
4x5

F/U Bench
185x10x3

Front Plate Raises
25x20x3
(as long as I keep sticking a quick assistance in here I'm gonna alternate a chest/shoulder movement week to week)

[mouse]

6/10/2022

Farmers Carry 30ft
225x1, 245x1, 275x1, 305x1

Keg Load to 50"
265x3x2, 265x5

Reverse Sled Drag 50ft
300x8 EMOM

[mouse]

6/13/2022

TnG Deadlift
315x5, 370x3, 430x1, 460x8

Squat
315x5, 365x3, 405x6

Goodmorning
225x8x3

[mouse]

6/14/2022

Press
135x5, 165x3, 185x1, 195x10

Pendlay Row
225x8x3

Rope Band Pressdown
4x20

[mouse]

6/16/2022

Incline Bench
150x5, 185x3, 205x1, 225x15
(someone's E1RM is getting adjusted lol)

Neutral Grip Pull Up
3x6, 1x5

F/U Bench
205x8x4

Chaos Push Ups
3x10

[mouse]

6/17/2022

Farmers Carry
225x2, 275x2 (40 ft)
235x4 (60 ft)

Sandbag to 50"
220x4x3

Tire Throw (Overhand)
25x10x2

Air Bike
10 min @7

All week I've been feeling like a deload is premature until right now. Farmers moved well enough but felt like shit. Getting the bag off the ground was a chore either because I was just tired or because I kept scraping my nails on the pavement lol.

Decided to goof off with train some throws, but I was too lazy to break out my risers so I was basically ripping the tire off the ground as explosively as I could. Maybe it will help, probably won't.

A little bike because I felt like I needed to...

[mouse]

6/20/2022

Deadlift
325x5, 365x5, 405x5

Paused Squat
185x5, 240x5, 285x5

Rev Sled Drag 60ft
280x8 EMOM

Air Bike
10 min @7

[mouse]

6/21/2022

Press
135x5, 165x5, 175x5

Landmine Row
120x12, 130x12, 140x12

Multigrip Bar Skullcrushers
45x15, 65x15, 75x15

Maybe it's the different grip, maybe it was splitting my knuckle open with a power drill, but I find the MGB skullcrushers (hence forth they shall be known) a bit harder than with an EZ bar...

[mouse]

I have decided to dive in and take a shot at building a viking press attachment. Haven't quite worked out all the details yet but I at least have a rough idea for the lever and how it attaches to the rack... beyond that I've got to figure out:

Side vs top load - top load would be easier/sturdier, but a bitch to load... side load would be easy to load, but I'd have to beef it up...

Handles - self explanatory... not sure what I want to do yet...

Down position support - this one I have a wild idea on but not sure how well it would work depending on the length of the lever. I'm kiiiiiinda sorta thinking with enough weight on the rack I could use a spotter arm to rest the lever on... but it will need some testing... more on this later...

[mouse]

6/23/2022

Incline Bench
225x5, 245x5, 265x5

Chin Ups (supinated)
4x6

Neutral Grip Bench (wide)
135x12, 155x12, 175x12

Decline Pushup
3x20

Big surprise, a deviation on the first deload week. I was/am skeptical of deloading by lowering the intensities as much as was originally prescribed for ascending sets of 5. I think what I'd rather do is take the 'data' from the previous weeks AMRAPs to figure out a target E1RM, and then use ascending sets of 5 to calibrate that target by working up to a set of 5 around @7 or @8, which is what I did here. Should still get the benefits of deloading the volume, while using the time/effort to actually figure something out.

Doing a similar thing with assistance where even though I originally planned to continue the previous week's movements at lower rep ranges, I'm going to swap in the NEXT 3 weeks movements, and work up using sets at that next week's rep scheme until I find an @7 set, and then use that (or a number close to that) for next weeks sets across.

[mouse]

6/24/2022

Yoke Carry 50 ft
485x2, 525x2, 575x1, 625x1
485x5 EMOM

Arm Over Arm Drag 60ft
245x2, 200x2
(weights are approx, 8 year old was on the sled too)

Air Bike
15 min@7

Yo that might be my best yoke run ever. I've done slightly more but it was shorter, with belts, and slower/shittier. This was belt free and moved smooth, and was sub 10 seconds... pretty cool.