Training Log: Entry 3008

AM WORKOUT (0405 Natural Wake Up) FASTED

**MESS (Mass-Easy, Strength-Simple)** Day 10: Hard Conditioning

*EASY STRENGTH*

Axle continental and strict press away/weighted chin superset

3x3x156

3x3x30

(3) Axle double overhand deficit deadlift

3x3x225+chains

Standing ab wheel

1x10 (abs super sore, short ROM)

100lb Log low zercher carries while wearing chains

3 trips

*HARD CONDITIONING*

30 minutes of 

* 1 log viper press w/170lbs

* American KB swing/KB throw w/24kg bell

EMOM, do 3 burpee chins.  

Ladder the swing up to 5, then start over (so round 1 is 1 press and 1 swing, 1 press 2 swings, 1 press 3 swings, up to 5, start over at 1)

Then max vipers for a minute at the end (5 total)

28 Conan Curls

Breakfast

2 mile walk w/dog

Notes: 

* Really tried to focus on moving faster on the press today. Something I’m picking up about myself is I’m a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to being slow twitch. I treat every lift like it’s heavy, so every lift moves slowly. I learned from the deadlifts that I can move light weight fast, so now I’m trying to do that for all the lifts. Just like Jim Wendler talked about moving things powerfully and explosively in the 5/3/1 main work. Which, in turn, it’s pretty interesting how it took Dan John for me to understand Jim Wendler, but given Dan speaks highly of Jim, they gel together. And, in turn, I can understand Dan through the lens of Jim.

* Because my belt doesn’t quite fit right with my current bodycomp, I tend to strain my abs on the overhead work, which happened today. Part of that is the ab wheel really stressing it as well. Which, I’ll say that the hanging leg raises in FFF were a breath of fresh air for ab work and I can appreciate where Jamie is coming from with them, the ab wheel is still king as far as ab strength and size goes. I’m certain it’s why my abs are “popping” again. But also, when I ran “to Valhalla”, I was totally NOT doing any direct ab work, so lesson learned there too.

* Those log carries rock! Wearing the chains is pretty goofy, but it’s a “loaded carry”. I can definitely see making these a more regular thing.  

* That conditioning workout I came up with ranks at “Kalsu level” of suck, which is high praise. I’ve learned that, as much as I don’t care for EMOM work, it keeps me honest compared to straight up AMRAP work, so I refer to those burpee chins as “harmony disrupters”. I need to throw those into an AMRAP for time workout so that I have something chasing me the whole time, as otherwise I’ll meander between reps and sets. Knowing that the time is ticking and I’ve got something evil waiting for me at the top of every minute makes me move quicker between rounds. Meanwhile, I had slightly more than bodyweight on the log (weighed in at 168.6 this morning), so it was heavy enough. The KB work is designed to improve my throw over bar, rather than be a hinge or swing proper. Originally, I was going to make this more of a Tower of Babel workout, but realized that the swings would eventually consume too much time and cut into log training, so settled on ladders. They’re a reliable standby, and totally answered the mail for this. I really dig what I came up with here: gonna need to keep that in the rotation.  

* I meant to include this in my training ramble yesterday, but today was a good proof of concept for why dips would be a good choice for Easy Strength pressing: I can get in my overhead work with the conditioning vs the strength stuff.