Rebirth of the Juggernaut: Brute Force and Ignorance (Part 1)

They’re a very different beast. I think calling it a “stone” is a bit off. My mother-in-law watched me compete and she kept calling it a ball, and I think that’s more on the mark. It’s smooth and hard to handle, and the diameter is fixed. I honestly think it’s a little weird to see them in competitions, as they seem more like a training implement rather than a competition one, but since that’s the direction the sport is heading, no shame in learning how to play on one.

BtM has definitely been an experience. I haven’t trained fully body in years, and I didn’t think it was still viable for me. Really opened up a lot of possibilities for me.

And no tacky huh? At least with the regular atlas stone, as skin-tearing as it is, the roughness of the surface plus the tacky really lets you move it. A slippery metal ball sounds like a strongman sword-in-the-stone (which now that I think about it literally, would make one hell of an event). I guess as the sport gets more popular, there is more of an effort to streamline everything. Were you without one, what would you try and use to train it?

That’s awesome man. Are you going to run an anchor with it? BTM looks like it would be an awesome prep phase for the 1000% awesome program; like a 5-cycle super program!

Yeah, lack of tacky means it’s a lot more skill based. People are still finding cheats, with tacky towels and wide receiver gloves and stuff, but it’s not the same.

Without a SOS, I was prepping by taking a bunch of bumper plates and putting them on a loading pin. I think it helped out, because it meant I could at least lap the stone at my show. I couldn’t get it over the bar due to a lack of technique, but the bumpers were slippery and woudl rotate against each other, so I had to get really good at locking in tight and dealing with that.

From what I’ve seen Jim write, BtM is more a challenge than a leader program. It’s already got anchor elements in it, with the AMRAP sets on presses and the widowmakers, but also has a lot of leader stuff too with the 5x5/3/1 stuff. Next run is most likely going to be “God is a Beast” with some strongman stuff for assistance.

Man, I actually used receiver gloves for my arm-over-arm rope pull, I felt like a wimp a little bit, but 2nd place felt pretty good so that evened it out lol.

A stone trainer sounds like an easy-to-apply idea, I’ll have to use it prepping for a show after this off-season. I’ve never actually used one, but it seems harder than an atlas stone.

Yeah Monolith seems like a real kitchen sink sort of thing. I was viewing it as a leader in a work capacity sense, in that, it’s such a high volume of total work and could be used to transition to something with more of a conditioning, higher intensity focus. Admittedly I do not have the new book yet, but have spent a little time on his private forum. From the bits I’ve seen on there God is a Beast sounds awesome; I just have a bit of a training crush on 1000% though when I saw it.

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Hope the trainer ends up working you dude!


BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 12

AM WORKOUT

Buffalo Bar Squat
5xBar
5x100
5x140
3x190
1x230
5x280
5x330
5x370
20x205

Log viper and press away 140
5xLog
12x5x140

NG chins
5x55
5x80
5x105
5x130
5x105

Band pull aparts
5x20

Farmer’s handle shrugs 115
1x34
2x33

Standing ab wheel
3x8

Notes: The ramping on the NG chins worked out a lot better. Far less pain. Viper on log was a solid choice. This all sucked pretty good due to heat in the garage, but not unmangable. This was another 60 minute effort.

Woke up at 198.2. Going on a road trip, so nutrition is going to be down.

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BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 13

AM WORKOUT

Buffal Bar Squats
5xBar
5x100
5x140
5x190
1x230
5x270
5x310
5x5x350

Axle strict press
5xAxle
5x66
5x136
5x151
5x171
5x196
10x151

Chins (various grips)
10x9
1x10

Band pull aparts
5x20

Dips
150

Notes: Garage is getting sweltering and affecting recovery between sets, but just another opportunity to get better I suppose. I apparently hurt something in my right hand on Saturday, because it was pretty swollen that day and I had some pain holding the axle today. Not sure what I did.

General notes: Woke up at 200.2. Post road trip weight means pretty high from large sodium intake. I’ll see what I end up with around Wed. I didn’t hit the prowler yesterday, but my conditionign was carrying my 38lb kid 2+ miles while my wife ran a Half Marathon and I went to cheer her on.

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Whoa now! When’s the last time you saw 200 n the scale?

For a morning weight, probably around May 2015. I imagine once the sodium and fluids come down it’s gonna be more around 198, but that’s right in line with my 1lb a month or so I’ve been tracking.

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Hey, I was wondering… When was the last time someone asked you to give them a program of sorts?

If we’re counting online, yesterday, haha. But in real life, very rare.

EMOM Stone of Steel over bar (21)
Triples for 10 minutes

Notes: Original plan was to add weight, but time was tight, so I just took the bar higher than before. Technique is really coming along.

Woke up at 198.2. More realistic weight.

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AM WORKOUT

BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 14

Texas Deadlift Bar Deadlift (tng)
5x135
5x225
1x315
5x365 (straps)
5x415
3x5x470

Axle bench press
5xAxle
5x66
5x136
5x186
3x236
3x271
8x306
15x236

DB rows 105
2x13
3x12

Axle Curls
1x100

Notes: Faster workout. Right around 55 minutes. Still figuring out the best way to work in curls and rows.

Woke up at 197.6 this morning. Spent all day floating on the river, food was poor. Ate as good as I could.

For my Nine Inch Nails fans, they’re releasing another album. Just bought the single. Check it out. Video is awesome.

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BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 15

AM WORKOUT

Buffal Bar Squats
5xBar
5x100
5x140
3x190
1x230
5x270
5x305
5x350
20x270

Axle continental and press away
5xBar
5x123
15x5x156

Weighed NG chins
5x60
5x85
5x110
5x135
5x110

Band Pull Aparts
5x20

Farmer’s handle shrugs 105
1x50
2x25

Standing ab wheel
3x8

Notes: Took about an hour and 15 minutes. This was brutal. Those 15 sets take it out of you; part of that is the continentals each set. The set of 50 for shrugs had a huge impact on pressing as well; recovery took a hit there. Also listened to NiN’s new song for the entire session and I’m still not bored of it.

Woke up at 198.6. Really trying to push calories in the final stretch here.

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YESTERDAY

Prowler sprints, high handles, 200lbs on prowler
8x50’

Notes: 30 seconds rest between sets. I was dying. Got out of prowler shape.

TODAY

BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 16

AM WORKOUT

Buffalo Bar Squats
5xBar
5x100
5x140
3x190
1x230
1x280
5x305
5x350
5x5x390

Axle strict press
5xAxle
5x66
5x136
5x171
5x196
4x216
8x171

NG chins
10x10

Band pull aparts
5x20

Dips
100 reps

Notes: I saw this as being the hardest workout of the program, so I’m glad it’s behind me. Got it done in 65 minutes. Those 5x5 squats weren’t too bad; I think the program really got me in decent shape. The set of 4 of 215 was a challenge, but a 5th may have been there with slightly longer rests.

Woke up at 200.8. Really pushing in the final stretch here.

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SOS over bar (22)
Doubles EMOM for 10 minutes, 11 reps on final minute

Notes: Quick workout after my normal 3 hours of sleep when working overnight. Torqued my right hamstring on the very first double, so took it a little slow from there.

No morning weigh in today.

BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 17

AM WORKOUT

Texas Deadlift Bar Deadlift (touch and go)
5x135
5x225
1x315
5x415
5x475
3x5x525

Axle bench press
5xAxle
5x66
5x136
5x186
5x226
5x256
3x286
6x321
10x256

DB curls 35
3x15
1x10

DB hammer curls 35
3x15

Kroc rows 105
1x21

Notes: Deviated from the program and went with Kroc rows to ensure success on the deads while keeping my training time reasonable. This was still the most difficult workout to make time efficient. Really happy to have made it through all those deads, and that performance on bench is a fatigued state is strong. Managed to break some bloodvessels for the first time on this routine.

Woke up at 198.8. Still pushing calories as hard as I can.

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BUILDING THE MONOLITH WORKOUT 18 (FINAL)

AM WORKOUT

Buffalo Bar Squat
5xBar
5x100
5x140
3x190
1x230
1x280
5x305
5x350
5x390
20x290

Axle continental and press away
5xAxle
5x136
14x5x176
1x3x176

Weighted NG chins
5x65
5x90
5x115
5x140
5x115

Farmer’s Handle Shrugs 105
1x55
1x30
1x15

Standing Ab Wheel
3x8

Notes: It’s over. I might’ve been able to hit all the presses if I didn’t continental and took more rest times, but this workout ran into 1.5 hour territory and I didn’t want to do much more than that. Had to do 3 push presses as well to get through the 14 sets (1 on set 13, 2 on 14). That widowmaker squat sneaks up on me EVERY time. The set is never tough, and then I rack the bar and can’t breathe.

Woke up at 200.2. Already excited about not eating like it’s my job anymore, but I’ll enjoy this weekend before deloading and starting something else.

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1.5 mile track run

Time: 11:59

Notes: This felt much better than expected. First lap 1:46, mile at 7:53. Goal was a sub 12 and I just barely squeaked by. After 5+ weeks of not running, that’s amazing. Conditioning held up well; have BtM to thank for that.

Woke up at 199.8. Gonna just let weight free fall for a bit. Got a cruise in Sep and figure it’d be good to go lean.

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Having creeped around and been following along for awhile, the Building of the Monolithically proportioned human (probably a better name for it, right?) looks brutally fun and am kicking around doing this or the hardgainers template again once I’m decently healed, just figured I’d drop in and let you know that you’ve got some good shit going on, cool to see/read, and has me reconsidering and thinking about running different things, so bully for you.

Ive found my next contest and looked at the weights. They are significantly lighter in relation to my last one. Any differences that there should/could be in training? Train well over the contest weight, running test competitions, doing multiple timed sets with the competition weight, etc?