COMPETITION WRITE-UP: 2022 Testify Strength and Conditioning Summer Strongman Showdown MLW (185) PART 1

 Going to break up the write-up into 2 parts: the pre-write up and the write-up itself.

**PART 1**

"Have you ever seen something as healthy as this?!"

**INTRO**

It’s been about 3 years since my last strongman competition.  I competed in Oct 2019 after moving to my new location in Nebraska, found myself developing a bit of ennui with the sport, signed up for a comp in Apr of 2020 that originally featured a 275lb keg press that got me REALLY excited, only to have it bumped down to a 250lb press that got me really pissed off and upset with the sport again, only to end up canceled anyway as the world shut down for 2 weeks to flatten the curve for 3 years.  

During THAT time, I had a blood lipid test come back that had my blood type listed as “Ragu”, so I had to turn the ship around healthwise.  In chasing that 275lb keg press, I had made the right decisions nutritionally for that goal, but now that health became the priority, I had to do a total 180.  And speak of 180: that’s how much I weighed when it was over (177 technically), dropping over 30lbs of bodyweight in the process.  I’m fairly certain I crashed my hormones too, but I was stupid lean and jacked, and now needed to find a way to eat that allowed me to perform AND be healthy.  It was a fun time of discovery and exploration.

I discovered a LOT of veins

Training emphasis shifted away from max weights and more into my own version of Crosssfit.  Lots of focus on longer duration consistent workouts, like Kalsu, Murph, and other evil stuff I wrote up in my E-book, with some occasional burst first stuff like Fran and Grace.  Got super into kettlebells too.  My conditioning is the best it’s ever been, and my strength stayed ok.

Eventually, the world seemed to have figured itself out and I found myself wanting to compete again.  I found a competition that was stupidly closeby AND all the events were a mystery until the week of the competition, which meant I could just keep training the way I wanted to.  This was going to be a good test to see if I still even liked strongman anymore.  On that note, here is now I trained.

**THE TRAINING**

I built as much armor during this training phase as I did during all my time in Skyrim

Prior to my current training phase, I had finished my second run of my 26 week gaining block (BBB Beefcake into 5/3/1 Building the Monolith into Deep Water Beginner into Deep Water Intermediate).  I experimented with a 7 week diet break/intensification phase in between Beefcake and Monolith and found it so effective that I decided to do it again before moving back into gaining, and it timed out perfectly that I’d finish the final week the week of the competition, be able to compete, then deload and get back to it.  

As an overview, I'm doing Zeno Squats on my squat day (from my book: take a weight you can squat for 6 reps comfortably, squat it, rack it, 12 deep breaths, half as many reps, round up, repeat until you get to 1, strip either a 25lb or 45lb plate per side, repeat process again, get to 1, strip plates, go for a widowmaker, add 1 rep to the topset next week and repeat), ROM progression deads on my deadlift day, and then one press day where I work up to a topset of 5, 3 or 1 on the log clean and strict press away, then another press day where I take the weight I hit for the log and use it for axle continental and push press.  Lift weights 4x a week. 

Day 1 is squat day

Day 2 is log press day

Day 3 is axle press day

Day 4 is ROM progression deadlift.

Hey, it worked for this guy

* On each of the press days, after I hit the topset, I take 70% of the weight used and do a set of strict presses.  On the log day, I clean once and strict press away, with 2 rest pauses (so something like 15+4+4).  On the axle push press day, I clean each rep and get as many total reps as I did on the clean once day.  I'll set a timer and try to beat the previous week's time.

* From there, on those press days, my supplemental work is that shoulder superset I've written about that goes some sort of press or weighted dip into bodyweight dips into lateral raises into band pull aparts.  For pressing exercises, I rotate between BtN presses, trap bar presses, incline DB bench and axle flat bench.  One of the press days will also include Poundstone curls (current record is 207 reps, I add 1 each workout).

If you hate training biceps, "It's just one set"

* On the squat day, for this training cycle, I've taken to following the squat workout with a 10 minute EMOM workout where I do pick up and extensions with my 250+lb sandbag.  It's helping me prep for a loading medley by getting good at lapping and moving a bag in short order.  After THAT workout, I'll do a set of 40 reverse hypers and 30 standing ab wheels and 30 GHRs, then follow it up with some more small assistance work until I run into my time to do a 10-20 minute conditioning workout.

* After the mat pulls, I have an EVIL EMOM workout I do where I spend 12 minutes alternating between deficit deadlfts and SSB squats.  I started it by going for 8 reps each movement, then 7, 6, 5, etc.  Then, each week, I add a rep to the back end.  I finished my last workout doing 3x8 and 3x7.  It was BRUTAL.

I legit hate what my brain comes up with sometimes

* After THAT is done, I'll do an unbroken circuit of one set of: Axle shrugs against bands, KB kelso shrugs, 50 band pull aparts, neck work, 40 reverse hypers, 30 standing ab wheels, and 50 dips.  I'll get in 30 GHRs somewhere in there, and then finish off the day with a 10-20 minute conditioning workout.

* Between my 2 press days, I’d pull a prowler with a harness as part of a circuit that included KB walking lunges.  I also was still doing Tang Soo Do twice a week and other conditioning.

* On Saturdays, the day after my deadlift workout, I’d do “Monument to Non-Existence II”.  It was a whole bunch of things for a while, but I settled on: Max front squats of 225, take that rep number and match it for squats of 225, SSB squats of 225 and deadlifts of 225.  Keep time between movements as short as possible

Doing stuff like this by choice will make anything in a competition feel easy

* Oh yeah, and every day I would do 5 minutes of Dan John’s “Armor Building Complex” with 24kg kettlebells, once again because Dan thought that was a terrible idea.  I went for max pain, no other real goal in them.  My best over the training cycle was 26 in 5 minutes.

**NUTRITION**

Never enough of this

My diet is all kinds of screwy, so I’m just gonna hit the wavetops and say that I kept it low carb, focused on quality fats, and actually went beyond a diet break and focused on fat loss.  I was competing in the 185lb class for the first time ever, and I didn’t want to do a water cut to get there, so I leaned out a ton and got myself to the point that I was 181.0 the week of the competition.  I could have been stronger if I was heavier, but whatever.  It was nice to NOT have my life revolve around food for a while: I was eating less, which meant less cooking and cleaning too.