Training Log: Entry 3765

AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, benadryl coma)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 9, Workout 1

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo bar squat
4x3x385

Axle strict press from rack
4x3x183

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) Incline DB bench
4x8x85s

DB row
4x8x150

GHR
4x8x65

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit up
30

Notes:

• Did yardwork yesterday for 1.5 hours, and went for a walk in the evening while everyone ELSE was doing yardwork, and was feeling some allergies. Took 2 benadryl before bed and slept all the way through the night. Normally it doesn’t affect me like that, but I’m thinking the stuff we had was expired, as this was a new batch and VERY potent. You sleep long but not necessarily well on meds, and I woke up in a bit of a hangover, but was excited about triples week after eating the family meal last night and got after it.

• This is always my favorite week of the program, predictably because it has the fewest reps. That said, the warm-up of 335 on the squats felt much heavier than I expected, but then the working sets felt light. Funny that.

• First workout where all the presses went without an issue.

• Body is continuing to feel better. Really aggressively trying to get the SI joint to play nice, and it seems to be paying off.

• Opened up with 18 chins this morning. Got 18-18-17 all 7 days last week, now it’s 3x18.

• Weighed 82.2kg this morning. Stupidly light. Had similar GI issues as last weekend, just to a lesser degree, so some of the weight loss is there, but I also think the goal of reverse dieting has paid off and my metabolism is humming along. I ate very well last night: 5 slices of homemade sourdough pizza (larger slices than usual) with lots of meaty toppings and then 4 homemade peanut butter cookies and 1 mini sourdough muffin, all with some raw honey.

 Training Log: Entry 3764

PM WORKOUT (1500)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 6

3 rounds of 1 minute stone of steel loading

• 160lb stone

• 2 minutes rest between rounds

 Training Log: Entry 3763

AM WORKOUT (0359 natural wake up)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 5

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo Bar Squat
4x6x360

Axle strict press from rack
4x6x168 (1 rep PR from previous workout)

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) DB incline bench
2x10x80s
9x80
9+2x80

DB row
4x10x140

GHR
4x10x60

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit up
30

Notes:

• Another Friday workout, another Friday where I need the carrot dangled in front of me to get moving. I actually do imagine part of this training ennui is a result of my recomp vs gaining strategy. When the food is high, the compulsion to get out there and make it work is greater, whereas, even though I’m seeing results in the weight room and through my physique, I don’t “feel” like I’m building Psychology is weird. But I got up a minute before my alarm, so that was good.

• The first set of squats I really felt like I was sitting back into the rep vs down, specifically on my way up from the hole. Just better balance in general.

• Was good to get all the sets of strict presses. I imagine there was a downstream effect on the incline bench as a result, but I still matched total reps from the previous week there.

• Tang Soo Do last night was a mixed bag of drills. Not a challenging workout, but with the humidity here it was still plenty sweaty, which may explain my weigh in…

• 81.9kg on the scale. Lightest I’ve been in a while, and I had a giant meal last night. Granted, it was my only meal, which has really just made this whole process sustainable. I enjoy being able to feast like that. But I also imagine I’m seeing the effects of humidity and sweat, because I was also plenty exhausted training in the garage this morning. Once I rotate the buffalo bar out, it will be back to shirtless training, which will save on some laundry.

 Training Log: Entry 3762

AM WORKOUT (0430 wake up via alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 4

Prowler “sprints”

• 4 rounds of high handle sprints w/90lbs loaded on prowler

Notes:

• Stuck with the plan of actually doing this today. I train in a parking lot closeby my house away from residentials, so that I’m not waking up the world with the sound of metal on asphalt (btw: when it’s dark out, you can actually see the sparks fly off the prowler). I walked the distance I’m pushing, and it’s 110 steps for me (my normal stride, not toe to toe). A fresh “sprint” took about 48 seconds, where I was able to move quick for the first 5/8s of the length or so and then have to resort more to slogging it out at the end. That’s not QUITE the same training effect as an actual traditional sprint, but I feel like it will have some value in prepping for a strongman tractor pull event.

• Rested 4 minutes for the first 3 rounds and 5 minutes for the final. 6 minutes per round would have been more appropriate, employing a 6:1 rest to work ratio, but first time out and wanted to keep honest on time.

• In the future, I intend to use the harness to actually develop the skillset necessary for the event, but for now I’m just trying to rebuild my prowler conditioning in general, because I was definitely feeling the effects of the prowler between rounds, and after the final round I contracted some prowler flu, and when I got back home to put stuff away my legs were like jello.

• The biggest win of this all was meeting intent. I struggled with sprint work in the past because of “opportunity costs”. I couldn’t cope with the idea of spending 30+ minutes of training time to get in 4 minutes of actual training, and I’d always turn these into endurance workouts instead and just miss the point entirely. I kept the weight light enough that I could sprint, despite the blow to my ego only seeing a 45 per side. I kept the rest times long enough that I could recover, instead of trying to force myself to perform while I was gassed. Once again, appreciation to Tactical Barbell here, because every workout has a purpose, instead of every workout trying to be all things at once.

• I will also note that getting to sleep an extra half hour was glorious.

• Tang Soo Do last night was the 90 minute class and a decent enough workout. Since it’s the wildcard week, we went through a wide range of material. Tonight’s class is 60 minutes.

• Weighed 82.6kg this morning. Was looking over my past 8 weeks of weigh ins and this week is trending very similarly to week 1. Been a fascinating experiment.

• This showed up in my facebook feed this morning

• 

• I’ll be attending that brief. I’m trying to not get too excited, but a boxing match has been on my bucket list since I was in high school. If my schedule can support this, that would be awesome, and Tactical Barbell would be easy to make it all work.

 Training Log: Entry 3761

AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, good night of sleep)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 3

MAIN CLUSTER

Axle bench press
4x6x251

(5) Texas Deadlift Bar Mat Pulls
15x455

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

Lever belt squat
4x10x255

Dips
3x10x80
7+3x80

Axle curls
10x86
2x10x81
8+2x81

ASSISTANCE circuit

Reverse hyper
3x15x360

Hanging leg raise
3x10

Notes:

• SI joint really seems to have resolved itself, and I managed not to aggravate it during the workout, so huge wins all around. Still doing the things that keep it happy, which includes swapping the ab wheel for the hanging leg raises.

• Mat pulls weren’t as successful as last week as far as wardrobe goes: bar kept snagging on my thigh. Need to pull up the knee sleeves a little more. But that makes the 15 reps all the sweeter. Feeling very strong on these compared to last time I handled this weight, and managed 9 reps in the first breath.

• Curl weight is just too heavy. Walked it back to last week’s weight, which was appropriate. Will adjust my max.

• Weighed 82.2kg this morning: a 1.3kg drop from yesterday. Also saw some veins on my abs. This has been a pretty awesome training block as far as outcomes go.

• Tang Soo Do last night was lower activity than usual. There is a tournament this weekend that only a few students are going to, so we focused on prepping them. Got in a little weapons work. Tonight is the 90 minute class, so most likely a little more focus.

 Training Log: Entry 3760

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

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 2

“ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BLOAT”

18 chins

20 minute recovery row

Notes:

• Changing things up. In theory, I’m going to hit the sled/prowler on Thurs and do some stone loading on Sat, so my recovery workout slots into today instead. It seems to be a good call as well, as I’m feeling the best I’ve felt since the race. SI joint is not 100%, but it’s in a very good way, and I’m moving fairly painfree. Saw this manifested in the fact that I got over 4000m in the 20 minutes on the rower, whereas last week was slightly over 3700.

• Tang Soo Do “wildcard cardio” is the theme for this week. Should get in some decent workouts.

• Weighed 83.5kg this morning. Called it before I stepped on the scale. Getting familiar with how weights “feel” and my fluctuations.

 Training Log: Entry 3759

AM WORKOUT (0400 wake up via alarm, very good sleep)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 8, Workout 1

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo bar squat
4x6x360

Axle strict press from rack
3x6x168
5+1x168

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) Incline DB bench
3x10x80s
8+2x80

DB row
4x10x140

GHR
4x10x60

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit up
30

Notes:

• Had really good sleep last night, which made it harder to get up and train because I was enjoying it. I like to take the moments to celebrate this, because at the height of my illness, I was sleep avoidant, absolutely hated sleeping, and would get up to train at 0300 because I just couldn’t stand being in bed any more. Big contributor to today is that it’s become grossly humid, so I had a fan pointed directly at me all night, which the combination of cool breeze and white noise put me right out.

• I was a little naughty on the squats and caught myself putting the bar a bit low on the first set. My superpower is that, since I’ve dislocated my right shoulder 6 times, tore the labrum in it and experienced a few dozen subluxations, I can contort by upper body into bizarre positions to achieve a low bar that’s actually illegal in some federations. Cool for moving max loads, but tends to shift the emphasis away from where I need. It being grossly humid has also made it that I’m pretty excited about moving away from low bar and no longer wearing my grip shirt.

• Pressing strength was pretty solid for today. It’s been a struggle with my bodyweight not climbing up rapidly to meet demands.

• That GHR weight keeps changing not because I keep changing it, but because I keep forgetting how much is actually loaded in the vest. I confirmed that it is for real 60lbs, so we’re going with that.

• Went the full week doing 18-17-17 chins. Now it’s 18-18-17. Opened up the workout with 18. Also been including 10-15 unweighted reverse hypers with each session, to help with my SI joint.

• Weighed 83.0kg this morning. Hard to know if I’m looking at “real weight” at this point. The humidity is making me sweat more, I’m coming down from a high sodium week, and this weekend’s gastrointestinal atrocities are a contributor as well, but I had a wonderful meal last night of 6 slices of homemade sourdough pizza topped with all the pork (bacon, pancetta, and lean ham) along with olives and pineapple, and then 3 sourdough cookies and a sourdough brownie alongside some raw local honey. That meal ALSO helps motivate me to train on Mondays.

• ABF may be in a holding pattern. My kiddo is prepping for a track and field day at school, prioritizing running events and the Valkyrie has her next half marathon coming up in May (she’ll be completing 40 half marathons before turning 40 with this one: huge milestone).