Training Log: Entry 3750

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

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 6, Workout 3

MAIN CLUSTER

Axle Bench Press
4x3x266

Texas Deadlift Bar Deadlifts
12x440

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

Lever belt squat
4x8x275

Dips
3x8x85
7+1x85

Axle curls
4x8x91

ASSISTANCE CIRCUIT

Reverse hyper/Hanging leg raise
3x15x360/3x10

Notes:

• Sleep was good, so I didn’t wanna get up when the alarm went off, but I’ve been excited about this training day enough that I told myself, if I really wanted to, I could just walk away after the deadlift.

• On that note: I’m quite pleased with the deadlift. I noticed I was low backing it today, which seems to be me trying to save my hips, but even with that, the weight felt SO much lighter than my previous attempt at this weight. I’ve grown significantly stronger, and this was a 2 rep PR. I also saw places where I can chill out on the hips a little during the concentric. 12 reps was my goal and I met it. Grinded out a bit more than I should have, but so far no worse for wear. And the moonwalk afterwards was legit, as was seeing all the blown out blood vessels in my shoulders after my shower. I’m coming back to what I was.

• Benching was ok. Little bit of elbow pain to deal with. Felt it on the dips as well, and really showed itself on the hanging leg raise when I’d get off the bar. Felt more specifically in the bicep, similar to how my left felt before I tore it. Something to keep an eye on.

• Happy with how the belt squat is feeling these days. Far more viable movement when I don’t have knee pain.

• Tang Soo Do last night was a good traditional class of basics and forms. I’m really trying to get my stances deeper, now that my knees play nicer. Tonight is the 90 minute class.

• Weighed in at 82.8kg this morning: a full kilo drop from yesterday, despite eating like an absolute champ. Definitely some water weight shenanigans going on.

• On the topic of weight, this training phase has made me think I’ve got a decent year-round protocol going so far. Gain Oct-Dec, lean out first 6 weeks of new year, Recomp/reverse diet to June, lean out/be active outside for the summer, repeat. I’ve naturally fallen into the pattern and it’s really working well for me.

Training Log: Entry 3749

AM WORKOUT (0500 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 6, Workout 2

“VIKING RAID”

15 minutes

• 100m row

• 150lb sandbag carry

• Add 100m each round

Notes:

• Got all the way through the 6th round before the timer hit. Second best performance of the training cycle. Really tried to make it up in the rowing portion, as I was being a bit ginger on the carries.

• Opened up the workout with 17 chins.

• My hip has turned a corner thankfully in time for a deadlift PR attempt tomorrow. I was on the fence with doing this workout in order to spare the hip for said attempt, but this didn’t seem to bother it too much. Tang Soo Do may be another story. Right elbow/forearm is still a little pissy with this workout in general, but far better than it usually is this deep into Grey Man.

• Yes: I specifically wear my shirt that says “Viking” for this workout.

• Weighed 83.8kg this morning. Highest so far in the training block. With it being a gaining block, that’s not a bad thing, but I’ve also been living off the most sodium laden foods for the past several days, between kalua pig, corned beef and that Hawaiian BBQ spread last night. Consequently, thirst levels have been elevated as well.

 Training Log: Entry 3748

AM WORKOUT (0359 natural wake up)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 6, Workout 1

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo Bar Squat
4x3x377

Axle strict press from rack
4x3x181

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) DB incline bench
4x8x80s

DB rows
4x8x145

GHRs
4x8x65

ASSISTANCE

GHR sit up
20, 15

Notes:

• I was already dreading this workout before I went to bed last night, although “dread” is hyperbolic. It was more just plain not wanting to wake up early to go lift weights. But, as the natural wake up shows, my body was ready to go when it was time, and I actually felt much more physically restored. The Valkyrie gave me a massage last night around my SI joint, and that seemed to do the trick. Much more effective than rolling out on the LAX ball. Gives me hope for Wed’s deadlift workout.

• The week of triples suits me well. Still a wannabe-powerlifter. I felt strong on the squats and undeservably strong on the press. Geting into the squat position torqued my forearm a little, but I’m still MUCH healthier come week 6 than I typically am. And the press didn’t bother my hip like it did last workout.

• I’m actually challenging myself on the ab work at the end. Feel a decent cramp.

• Got in a full 7 days of 17-17-16 chins. Going for triple 17s this week.

• Weighed in at 83.3kg. I earned that, because I ate like a champ this weekend, with a capstone last night of 5 slices of sourdough crust pizza (2 slices with that guanciale…it was glorious) and 2 and a quarter large sourdough cookies with some raw local honey. Once again: I am such a fan of how I get to eat.

To give perspective, when I say “large cookies”, the ones in the photo are the “small ones”. The large ones didn’t make it into the shot, but they resembled Mrs. Field’s cookies in terms of thickness and size. Just wonderful.

 Training Log: Entry 3747

AM WORKOUT (0358 natural wakeup)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 5, Workout 5

MAIN CLUSTER

Buffalo bar Squat
4x6x352

Axle strict press from rack
3x6x168
5+1x168

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

(3) Incline DB bench
4x10x75s

DB row
4x10x135

GHRs
4x10x60

GHR sit ups
20
15

Notes:

• I came into this feeling absolutely destroyed. My hips are a wreck from 3 nights of sparring (more on that), but knowing it was Friday and I had breakfast waiting for me compelled me through. Surprisingly, it was the press that was the biggest X-factor, rather than the squats. I DID note that I wasn’t standing fully locked out at the top of the squats, with some forward lean to take some pressure off the hips, but the first set of press sent some electricity down my back/hip, and I lost the second rep forward and had to fight for it as a result. Had to really make a point to keep my glutes locked down. I took a full 3 minutes of rest before the final set to help out there. In general, it was a workout I was happy to come out the other side on.

• I giggled to myself while filming my GHRs realizing that my youtube channel is effectively the world’s slowest snuff film.

• I at least earned my hip pain. I was the Dojang champion last night, sparring through 1 junior student, 1 senior student, and our senior black belt that is always the biggest challenge. In the case of the latter, I threw him off my starting off in the bladed stance that they always tell us to start off in that I refuse to adopt. Much like Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride, it dawned on them that, suddenly “I am not left handed”. But after that, I couldn’t stand to fight like that, so went back to my original stance. It had the intended effect though: suddenly I was unpredictable. This also included sending a rear like side kick to his head, which, for reference, he’s 6’3-6’4 and I am 5’9. It worked because NO ONE expected me to be able to do that. And all it cost me was my hips. A real pyrhric victory: the best kind. Got to watch the Valkyrie take on the entire dojang one after the other in the redemption bracket and work her way back up to me. We had an awesome match, getting into overtime at 2-2, with her scoring a beautiful head crescent kick on me at the end. Good night for the family.

• All THIS said, each sparring week I come out of it pretty wrecked. Even though this is “no-contact” point sparring (or maybe ESPECIALLY because of that), it requires a fair degree of athleticism and agility regularly practiced, and I keep getting older while these kids keep growing more and more into their primes. Our schedules force us to go 3 nights in a row, rather than having a break in between, and by Thurs the Valkyrie and I are totaled. In light of all this, I’m considering pivoting my training and making the sparring week a week where I adopt one of the “Fighter” programs from Tactical Barbell. Basically cut the lifting from 3x week to 2x week. Simplest solution would be cut out the middle day and make it JUST the deadlift workout.

• Weighed in at 82.5kg. Weight continues to remain pretty stable.

• My coffee consumption has increased. I just plain enjoy it, and people at my work are enablers by asking if someone else will have a cup if they make another pot.

 Training Log: Entry 3746

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

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 5, Workout 4

“ROW ROW ROW YOUR BLOAT”

20 minute recovery row

Notes:

• This was just what the doctor ordered (I suppose that would be Dr. Shawn Baker, as he’s super into rowing). I was exhausted at the end of the day yesterday and just passed out, and woke up “broken, bruised, forgotten, sore”. Immediately post row I felt worse, but after going through the rest of my morning, I feel restored and able.

• This continues to be the most “all-in” this block of Mass Protocol has been as far as priorities go. I’ve picked sleep over rucking, and have used the rower as a recovery tool, and the outcomes continues to demonstrate that this is the right call. I make peace with the reality that, when it comes time to emphasize conditioning, that’s what Operator is for.

• Weighed in at 83.2kg. Between a diet rich in salty corned beef and housing a ton of water and electrolytes before bed, that checks.

• Sparring night wasn’t quite as intense last night, but it was a full 90 minute class. We had a lot more junior students, and I was paired off with my kiddo in the first round, so I only got to spar that one round of our tournament. Post tournament we did some rounds of free sparring, and I couldn’t get any of the junior students to come play with me, so I did matches with my hands behind my back to make it a challenge.

 Training Log: Entry 3745

AM WORKOUT (0359 natural wake up)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 5, Workout 3

MAIN CLUSTER

Axle bench press
4x6x246

(2) Texas Deadlift Bar Mat Pulls
14x440

SUPPLEMENTAL CLUSTER

Lever belt squat
4x10x250

Dips
3x10x75
8+2x75 (weight swung too much)

Axle curls
4x10x83

ASSISTANCE (performed in an unbroken circuit)

Reverse hyper
3x15x360

Hanging leg raise
3x10

Notes:

• Was not quite as motivated to tackle this today. Relied on the reality that I simply don’t have an option to delay this workout, since Wed is our busiest day of the week, and I had breakfast waiting for me when I was done.

• Felt very strong on the bench. As I was doing it, thought to myself “I feel like a 300lb bencher again”. It’s been an interesting journey trying to come back to where I was with a healthier approach. For you turbo nerds, this is like Final Fantasy IV, where you start out with Cecil as a dark knight, and he’s powerful, but his attacks take away from his hit points and are ultimately self-destructive, and then you start over as a level 1 paladin, you’re weaker, but you now can heal, and you can eventually grow to surpass your previous self.

• Holy f*ck at those mat pulls. If you’re observant, I missed the grab for the power rack and ended up just falling to the reverse hyper to rest. Definitely blew out some blood vessels, but feeling stronger than I expected. MUCH better than where I was last training cycle at this weight.

• Lever belt squats are really feeling good on the legs. Knee is healthy enough that I can focus on that. Dips were good: final set the weight just got a little too wild on me. Curls are feeling good. I’ve actually noticed my arms have grown, specifically because I normally roll up my sleeves at work, and I noticed I can’t drink my coffee anymore when I do that, because the sleeves compress my arms too much to comfortably raise the mug to my mouth. That’s a real “non-scale victory”

• Which, speaking of the scale, I weighed in at 81.9kg this morning. Part of that was sweating a bunch at Tang Soo Do (more on that in a minute), but I still afforded myself to throw an extra slice of corned beef on my plate as a result. I’m leaning into this recomp/reverse diet phase, since it seems to be working, but, in turn, I’m going to course correct when I see things going a little off kilter. With me eating only 1 meal yesterday, I recognize it was a little on the small side.

• Tang Soo Do sparring night went really well. We had 14 students in attendance, so it was a large bracket. I sparred 3 black belts, with a match with the Valkyrie in between the first and the second one. By all accounts, I won every match, but the final match against our senior black belt went into overtime and I scored a beautiful jump roundhouse to his ribcage…and the judges ruled that he scored a bodypunch on me. We both stared at each other in disbelief, and the black belt even pointed at me and went “Uh, no, he got the point”, but it’s baseball rules. I took satisfaction in us both recognizing it. Our dojang also implemented double elimination that night, so after that was done, I got to spar 3 more matches (2 against senior students, 1 against the Valkyrie), wherein I won the first two and lost a hardfought match the the Valkyrie at the end. It was an excellent test of endurance and I had to stay light on my feet. My matches against the black belts required me to come up with some individual strategies to address their unique tendencies (kinda like playing “Punch Out” back in the day) while I’m still trying to wreck everyone’s game by sparring Tang Soo Do using Bas Rutten’s fighting stance. Knees and hips have been happy enough to be able to pull that off, but we’ll see how tonight goes with 90 minutes of sparring.

 Training Log: Entry 3744

AM WORKOUT (0510 wake up via Valkyrie’s alarm, very good night of sleep)

TACTICAL BARBELL MASS PROTOCOL GREY MAN Week 5, Workout 2

“Viking Raid”

15 minutes

• 100m row

• 150lb sandbag carry

• Add 100m each round

Notes:

• Was in the middle of the carry on the 6th round when the timer went off. Still can’t beat week 1’s performance, which speaks to the impact of systemic fatigue. But I was definitely putting in effort and feeling the conditioning effect here.

• Body felt better than last week. Elbows and hips played nicer, but part of that was I was a bit less ballistic in the pick up to be a little more gentle on the connective tissues. Once again: it feels good to feel good.

• We did 22 rounds of ABCs last night as part of ABF, and it’s still functioning as an awesome tonic workout for me. However, I’ve noticed that my physique seems to have turned a corner and has returned to being a bit more shapely/bulbous, and it dawned on me that I AM doing a supplemental “bodybuliding” program with my family outside of my own training alongside my (now) 50 chins a day. I’m thinking the little bit of additional submaximal work is paying off.

• Woke up at 83.1kg this morning, which seems to be where I waver. Scale keeps weighing me 6kg less on the first attempt, which means it’s time for new batteries, but is a great “oh sh*t” sorta moment.

• When I have a little more bandwidth, I’m going to try to spitball some ideas for training leading up to the next competition. It’s a ways off, but I’m excited about it, and I’m excited that I’m excited about it. I already ordered my kilt yesterday.

With a name like that, I couldn’t pass it up.