Mattjp's Training Log

Thursday, 10 January

Today’s training is brought to you by the following song:

Down to 224.6 today. I think this is just my weight normalising after Christmas and adjusting to lower carbs. If it keeps dropping I’ll probably have to add carbs back purely for the sake of getting the calories in.

Eggs: 30/480
Beef: 1.5/26kg

Training

Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Glute Drills

Deadlifts
5x105kg
5x120kg (straps and belt after this)
3x5x135kg

Bench Press
5x50kg
5x55kg
5x5x62.5kg
This felt a lot more solid in the Romaleos; think I had better leg drive. Accidentally went too wide on the first set because I was using a different bar with differently-spaced rings and tweaked my pec/shoulder a bit. Nothing major though and the rest felt fine.

Dumbbell Rows
2x15x35kg
3x12x35kg

Barbell Curls
100 reps @ 20kg (20/20/4x15)

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Sorry, I forgot to reply to you yesterday!

Neither my lifts or my body comp haven’t improved as much as I’d like but it is nice to see some progress - quantifiable progress, in fact.

I am a bit number-ish, so you inspired me to take a look and it looks like my maxes have increased around 35-40% for lower body lifts and 15-20% for upper over the past 15ish months which I guess isn’t the worst. Progress is progress.

Thanks for dropping by; I hope I can give you another 20-40% increase to follow this year.

Friday, 11 January

Up a little to 224.8 today. Think my weight has stabilised a little now so would expect to see a few pounds added to the scale by week six of Monolith.

Eggs: 38/480
Beef: 2.1/26kg

Training

10m elliptical at easy pace
10m wattbike at easy pace

Going forward I’ll do some slightly-less-pansified conditioning involving KBs and bags.

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Saturday, 12 January

Down to 223.0 today.

Fantastic session. Went to the Crossfit gym because I can drive there now, and it has almost everything I need: farmer’s handles, axles, space to lift overhead…

So I diverged from Monolith to play with implements and see where I stood.

Workout

Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five

Squats
10x20kg
8x40kg
5x50kg
3x60kg
5x75kg
5x90kg
5x100kg

Press
5x20kg
5x30kg
5x40kg
5x45kg
3x50kg
3x55kg

Farmer’s Walk
Approx 10-15m distance drop & turn
Handles only (15kg each hand)
25kg
35kg
45kg
55kg
65kg

Axle Clean & Press
3x20kg
3x40kg
3x50kg
3x55kg

Axle Continental Clean
3x20kg
5x3x40kg

Misc
Facepulls 4x25 @ 20kg
Chin-ups 5x5

Competition weights/progress

Press Medley
Comp: 50kg DB / 80kg barbell / 90kg axle (pyramid set)
Current: ~30kg DB / ~60kg barbell/axle

Deadlift
Comp: AMRAP 180kg in 60s
Current: 12x130kg / approx. 175kg 1RM

Bag Medley
Comp: 60kg/60kg/75kg bag
Current: have done a 50kg bag pretty easily.

Farmer’s Walk
Comp: 100kg 20m drop and turn
Current: 65kg 15m drop and turn

Car Pull/Push
Comp: 3.2T land rover 20m each way
Current: fuck knows

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I have been looking for some events and opportunities to get into strongman in the Midlands area so will look into this one. Do you have a link to the comp weights for each weight category?

Are you on any uk strongman sites? Where do you find out about events?

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The fuck? That’s a little heavy for a novice comp. Rest of the events look fine from what I’ve seen of comps but the overhead is a little on the heavy side

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If you can drive, I assume you have a car. Prowler pushes are just a modern car push. Have the Mrs steer and just push up a slight incline.

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@kd13 here you go. Sorry for the pisspoor image quality.

As for finding it I just Googled UK Strongman events and this one suited me timing-wise. Rebel Strength has a list of 2019 UK comps. This is my first one so I don’t really have my finger on the pulse of the strongman scene.

@duketheslaya do you think so? I’m not sure it’s that out of line… the max press being half the deadlift for reps weight seems OK. I don’t really know though as I’ve never really looked at comp weights in other events.

@T3hPwnisher excellent deduction; I do indeed have a car. We also have a small lane behind our house that is up a slight incline so that’s perfect. Not sure about the pulling portion but I’ll look into putting a tow hook on and getting some rope. For now I’ll just keep trying to get stronger.

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Nice one thanks, will look a bit more into it.

Good luck in training for your first comp buddy.

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Oh, I almost forgot: there was a bosu ball leaning up against the squat rack when I arrived today and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to recreate your favourite picture.

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Mate, you realise they use their legs in strongman, yeah?

Psh, yeah, if you’re a wimp. A real strongman is nothing but erectors, deltoids and scar tissue.

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Depends. I don’t think most novice strongman will have good enough leg drive/technique to warrant the weight.

I would obviously have to try and remember where I left them. Used to own a strongish set though!

From what I’ve seen of the events a squat event is much less common than a deadlift one.

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Monday, 14 January

Back up to 224.4 today. Had a cheat meal Saturday (McDonald’s) so not overly surprising.

Given my new access to strongman stuff and a better gym I’ve decided to abandon Monolith and return to @Alpha’s LP in six-week blocks again; that’s two weeks 4x8, two weeks 5x5 and two weeks 10x3. So, new title (again).

I still really want to run Building the Monolith at some stage in my future but at this point I should be prioritising training for the contest. A 25-week prep is pretty long but I have a good bit of work to do.

Plus, I’m pretty fat, so giant sets and conditioning won’t hurt my chances of winning T-ransformation 2019.

Training

In and out in about 85m including warmup.

Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Agile Eight

Conditioning/Dynamic Warmup
Five rounds, 30s each:
Double KB snatch/barbell row/Airdyne/rest

Main Giant Sets
5x chinups*
8x clean & press @ 40kg**
20x bandy twisty thingies w/red band

5x chinups
8x strict press @ 45kg
20x bandy twisty thingies w/red band

4x chinups
8x strict press @ 47.5kg
20x bandy twisty thingies w/red band

5x chinups
8x press @ 50kg (PR)***
20x bandy twisty thingies w/red band

*These were AMRAP chinups, which is sad considering I’ve hit 8-10 before - though that was 20lbs lighter.

**I was going to take each rep from the floor but realised it would exhaust me too much to get an effective press workout in. I have cleans/clean & presses programmed in later this week so I switched to taking them from the rack.

***Push-pressed the last two of these, but 6x is still a rep PR for 50kg.

Assistance Giant Set
Three rounds:
12x DB row @ 35kg
10x incline bench @ 50kg
12x Russian twists w/15kg plate

Strongman Conditioning
10m EMOM: 2-3x axle continental clean & press @ 40kg
This wasn’t bad. First few sets were dreadful but it clicked a little midway through. Will definitely need to check out some videos and practice this, though.

Question for the strongmen here (@T3hPwnisher @flipcollar @strongmanvinny2 and anyone else): this axle has really aggressive knurling, whereas I believe that most comp axles are smooth and harder to grip.

Is it going to have a significant impact if I train with this? Worth my buying a metal pipe to emulate a smooth axle? Or am I overthinking it?

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For a press event, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. More a factor for no strap deads.

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oh hai.

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I mean, it can make SOME difference on the clean if, especially if you have a particularly weak grip. But that’s mostly if you’re using a double overhand grip to initiate the clean. If you’re going over/under, the effect of the knurling will be minimal.

I wouldn’t worry about it, since it’s not a max weight event, just max reps.

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@T3hPwnisher @flipcollar thanks guys, that’s good to know!

Just gonna agree with Flip and Pwn. I once had an axle in my contest in Jan 2017 that had aggressive knurl on it and it fucking destroyed my shins on a deadlift event. Axle’s with knurling are…silly.

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