Training Log: Entry 3731

AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, rough night of sleep due to thunderstorms)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 5

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo bar squat
4x6x342

Axle strict press
4x6x166

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) Incline DB bench
4x10x70s

DB row
4x10x135

GHRs
4x10x45

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit ups
3x10

Notes:

• Crazy storms last night, woke me out of a sound sleep and woke up drenched in sweat from the high humidity. Less than ideal for training. It’s funny how I have weekly motivators to get me going. On Monday, it’s because it’s our 1 night of the week we get to relax, so I don’t want to put off training there. On Wed, it’s the deadlift day, and there’s no opportunity to slide the training to the evening. On Friday, I know getting this workout in on the morning punches my ticket to start the weekend when I get home. Whatever it takes.

• Progress all around. Got through all the sets of strict press. 2 mins rest on the main cluster, 1 min on DB row and GHRs/sit ups, 60-90-120 on the DB bench.

• Knee continues to be in a good way, to the point that I forget it was hurt. I’m just feeling very “normal” again.

• Weighed 82.7kg this morning. Upped my breakfast intake a little by including some cheese and sour cream, but also just was thinking on my way to work that I’m not really training for anything in particular at the moment. I like where my physique is at, I’m getting stronger, I like fasting through 2 breakfasts per week, and I’m not hungry for more food. I may just let this training phase play out intuitively and see what happens. Room to manuever, if nothing else.

 Training Log: Entry 3730

AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 4

“ROW ROW ROW YOUR BLOAT”

20 minute recovery row

Notes:

• This is traditionally my ruck day, but with our Tang Soo Do belt test on Saturday, I know I’m going to have a 2 hour workout ahead of me, and didn’t feel the need to stack up on that. And being in a recovery state from the flu, this seemed prudent as well. I have a 10 mile race coming up next month, so it’d be good to get in some manner of mileage, but I may also just join the Valkyrie for some long runs here and there.

• Body is feeling much better compared to last week.

• Weighed 82.9kg this morning.

• In-laws coming in today for the weekend, so a little more chaos than usual.

• Still keeping up with the daily chins and no elbow pain. Really kicking myself for not figuring out this grip shirt thing earlier.

• After observing a 2.8kg loss over the span of 9 years, I think we can safely rule out the “Vending machine chicken samosa diet”

 Training Log: Entry 3729

AM WORKOUT (0335 natural wake up, snoozed until 0400 alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 3

MAIN CLUSTER

Axle bench press
4x6x241 (smashed j-hook on 4th rep of first set)

(5) Texas Deadlift Bar Mat Pulls
15x440

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

Lever belt squat
4x10x225

Dips
4x10x65

Axle curls
4x10x81

ASSISTANCE circuit

Reverse hyper/standing ab wheel
3x15x360/2x10

Notes:

• Despite the early wake up, I got good sleep last night. We’ve been getting to bed earlier these past few nights, as the family has been recovering from illness, and last night the kiddo came down with what we all had. So still netted about the same amount of total rest, and woke up feeling ready and recharged. I’m also over the flu, from what I can tell.

• Smashed the hell out of the j-hook on the first set, which is indicative of being out of practice with the bench. But also a great sign that the pec has healed, because that kind of chaos would have really torn it up otherwise.

• Those mat pulls were unique. The first rep felt rougher than last week: more a pull than a squeeze off the mats. And as that happened, I thought to myself “ok (tap), this is going to be (tap) a rough set (tap), so I’m just (tap) going to see (tap) how it goes (tap) but the big (tap) thing is that (tap) I need to not hurt my hip (tap) holy crap that’s 9 reps and I haven’t breathed yet (EXHALE tap), wtf is going on?(tap)” And suddenly I was 12 reps deep and matching last week’s 15 came relatively easy. As the set ended, I was at a crossroads, as I DIDN’T blow up my hip and I COULD have gone for another set…but decided discretion was the better part of valor, especially with our belt test at the end of this week.

• The curls continue to prove delightfully challenging. Despite my torn bicep, I may still have some room to grow here.

• We skipped TSD last night and are going to waive off the rest of the week unti lthe test at this point.

• Weighed 82.6kg this morning. I’m the second week in to the mass protocol:

  

  Threw in a tin of sardines onto my planned breakfast this morning.

Training Log: Entry 3728

AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 2

“VIKING RAID”

15 minutes

100m row
Carry 150lb sandbag
Add 100m each round

Notes:

• Slower than last week: was carrying the bag after the 600m row when time ran out. Given I’m bouncing back from the flu, I’m ok with that.

• I threw myself a little pity party this morning when I woke up, telling myself I was going to just wait until the evening to do this, then I realized I felt just fine and got to it. Yesterday was ROUGH comparatively. That night, I took a night time Mucinex and, though I slept through the night, I woke up with a bad drug hangover and spent the day feeling sleepy. Last night I went without the meds, didn’t sleep as deep, but woke up feeling restored. But it could also just be that I’m on a healing timeline.

• My back felt much better this week compared to last, most likely because I’m further away from that strongman competition.

• In general, I’m a big fan of this. I like that I’m getting in the rowing and the carrying in a single workout. I may honestly move some more gear down into the basement to add some variety. It’s just nice to include carries as a regular thing, vs something I only do for competition prep.

• Weighed 83.0kg this morning. I’m still in a weird place between illness, but I think I’ll need to start intentionally upping the food intake to match the training demands.

• Tang Soo Do tonight. We’re skipping Thursday, since we’re testing for a new belt on Saturday. We’ll see how much the family can do tonight as it is, as the Valkyrie is still in a bad way with this flu.

 Training Log: Entry 3727

AM WORKOUT (0359 natural wake up)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 2, Workout 1

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo Bar Squat
4x6x342

Axle strict press from rack
3x6x166
5x6x166 (failed the 6th)

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) Incline DB bench
4x10x70s

DB row
4x10x135

GHRs
4x10x45

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit up
3x10

Notes:

• As I was doing the squats, I thought to myself “I have no right to feel this strong”. I spent the weekend healing like it was my job, FORCING myself to be inactive as much as possible despite really great weather and a strong desire to get in a walk or some manner of general exercise. It was the right call, for even though I currently sound terrible and am producing a log of phlegm, I’m feeling significantly better. I also took a night time Mucinex product that totally knocked me out, and I got up a minute before the alarm feeling quite refreshed.

• The squats felt strong, the presses didn’t feel bad, but I overextended on the 5th rep of the final set and didn’t put myself in a good position. I spent the weekend with headspins, so didn’t want to push too much harder for that final rep.

• Everything else was solid, especially given the circumstances. I tried calculating my weights for this workout yesterday, and woke up this morning discovering that they were all kinds of jacked up. Don’t mix math and over the counter flu medicine kids. Which, on that note, my guts were a little messed up this weekend for using a medicine that had sorbitol in it as an artificial sweetener, so lesson learned there.

• Weighed 83.2kg this morning, and had a wonderful family dinner last night of spaghetti, a banana bread muffing and 3 of the Valkyrie’s cookies with some raw honey. I’ve also been hammering electrolytes and hot fluids to help my recovery.

 Training Log: Entry 3726

AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 1, Workout 5

Buffalo Bar Squat
4x8x322

Axle strict press from rack
2x8x156
2x5x156

(3) Incline DB bench
3x12x65s
11+1x65

DB rows
4x12x125

GHRs
4x12x35

GHR sit up
10

Notes:

• Yeah, I definitely have the flu. I was exhausted and sore coming into this (you can see how often I put my head on the bar), those presses were too damn heavy, and once I got to work I just immediately turn around and came home. My resting heart rate is also pretty jacked up. I’m going to rest like it’s my job and recover.

• I weighed in at 82.2kg and was the leanest I’ve been in months. Completely not the goal, but that’s usually what happens in the first 2 weeks of reversing course on the diet.

• Got to spar against the senior student and one of our black belts last night. Should have won the final match, but a point was missed by all 3 judges. Kicked the guy in the throat. We both acknowledged that it happened, as we stopped sparring and looked at each other waiting for the point to be called. Then we just shrugged and went back at it.

• I remember having more I wanted to log, but can’t remember what it was. Most likely a sign of fatigue.

 Training Log: Entry 3725

AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 1, Workout 4

“ROW ROW ROW YOUR BLOAT”

15 minute recovery row

Notes:

• I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Perhaps it’s the jumping back into mass protocol immediately following a strongman competition while also engaging in sparring week, to include yesterday’s 90 minute class, but the Valkyrie has also been dealing with the flu, which the kiddo brought home, so maybe I have a touch of that as well. In either case, this was exactly what I needed: more sleep and a VERY easy workout to just get the blood flowing. I considered the option of NO workout, but figured it would actually be good to get some movement in this morning. And I still have one more night of sparring tonight.

• Yesterday’s class is worth discussing, because I’m going to count it toward conditioning. We did our physical testing requirements after our warm ups, which at my rank is 45 push ups (elbows tucked), 45 sit ups and 45 jumping jacks. I endeavor to actually do them with quality, rather than blitz through them. Prior to that, we did 30 reps of those via 2 sets of 15. At the end of class, we did another 30 reps, to make up for reps missed in the previous week. We also ran 5 laps around the Dojang, and then did sparring drills, sparring rounds, and rounds on the Wavemasters for the duration of the 90 minutes. As for sparring itself, I went up against the kiddo again, so not much opportunity for reps, but it gave them an opportunity to get to the finals again and square off against our senior black belt.

• Weighed 82.5kg this morning. I need to start mentally shifting gears to eat to grow, but it’s a balancing act to keep from jumping into the deep end. No shortage of awesome food though.

• I don’t want to necessarily bring back daily work, but I’m endeavoring to get in 2 sets of 15 chins daily, and have so far succeeded in that.