Big_BK Training and Competition Log

Calf is doing very well today, i think it was just a minor sprain i had. Today was a pretty good workout.

DB Flat Bench -

45lbs 10 reps warmup

60lbs 14 reps

75lbs 10 reps

90lbs 5 reps

DB Incline Bench -

65lbs 10 reps

55lbs 8 reps, 8 reps
Skull Crushers -

75lbs 8 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps

Overhead Rope extentions -

60lbs 10 reps

70lbs 8 reps, 7 reps

Vbar pushdowns -

80lbs 14 reps

110lbs 6 reps

80lbs 15 reps drop set with 50lbs 20 reps

Well, all good things must come to an end. I have been pretty luck for a while injury wise and of course today i ended that streak. Was doing squats, a little tired but i kept going. Was doing narrow stance then super wide stance which i never do. Well i guess my lame calves were not used to that posotion and 405 seemed a bit much. I did a single with 405 narrow which is where i probably did the damage. Unracked it again to do the wide stance, just bent my knee then felt a pain in my right shin and dumped it. Fucking sucks getting hurt but it is minor, i can walk without pain it only hurts when i bend my knee. Ice, advil and rest should heal it up in a week or so, could have been alot worse!

Squats -

225lbs 6 narrow 6 wide rehband sleeves only

315lbs 6 narrow 6 wide sleeves and rehband belt

405lbs 1 narrow 0 wide

Also I am still pretty fatigued from my new workout regimen and have been working alot of hours so i will take the rest of the week off and start fresh next week.

Deficit Deadlifts -

135lbs no deficit, double overhand 6 reps, SLDL 6 reps  to warm up

225lbs no deficit 8 reps reverse grip

315lbs 6 reps standing on 100lb plates

355lbs 5 reps standing on 100lb plates

405lbs 3 reps standing on 100lb plates

No equip at all, only chalk. No shoes.

DB Shrugs -

90lbs per hand 4 sets of 10, straps on first 3 sets

Wide grip pulldowns -

110lbs 10 reps

180lbs 8 reps, 8 reps

150lbs 10 reps

Preacher Curls superset with DB Curls -

75lbs 10 reps | 20lbs x8

95lbs x6 | 20lbs x4

95lbs x6 | 20lbs x6

Arms were fried today and was still a little tired from yesterdays workout.

DB Flat Bench -

45lbs x 10
75lbs x 10
90lbs x 10
100lbs x 6

DB Incline Bench -

60lbs x6, x7, x7

Skull Crushers -

75lbs x8, x10, x8

Overhead Extensions w/ rope -

70lbs x10, x12
80lbs x10

Pushdowns w. v bar -

110lbs x10, x10
90lbs x12 drop set with 60lbs x25

Arm are FRIED!!!!!!!

Going to switch back to my older routine i was doing before strongman. Going to focus on chest alot more now as i need to balance out my physique and my back is so over powering it is screwing up my posture.

Day 1:

DB Flat Bench

DB Incline Bench superset with flys

Skull Crushers

Pushdowns Supeset with overhead extensions

Day 2:

Deadlifts (mostly defecit work because i need to work on strength off the floor not the top of the lift)

Shrugs

DB Rows

Lat pulldowns

Heavy Preacher curls supersetted with lighter high rep db curls till failure including cheating (im talking about rubber arms having to swing up a 30lb DB your arms are so fried )

Day 3:

Squats (narrow stance and wide stance to hit weak areas. Don’t expect big numbers till the winter)

Leg Press

Leg extensions and curls

Calf raises

Day 4:

BB Military press standing

Seated DB shoulder presses

front / side raises

BB Flat bench

Abs and obliques

Had to throw chest in there twice because it is really lagging and i need to nail it. This probably won’t be set in stone. I will adapt it after a couple workouts to suite my needs.

Back in the saddle right after NATS. Taking things easy for a few months to let my joints and stuff heal up because they really need it. Going to be doing alot more bodybuilding high rep stuff from now on.

DB Flat Bench -

45lbs x10 warmup

65lbs x10

90lbs x8

100lbs x5

DB Incline Bench -

55lbs x10 2 sets

65lbs x10, x8

DB Shrugs -

90lbs x10 4 sets

Ok before I start the write up let me start with the bad news. My dad fucked up the video taping on practically every event so I only have the truck pull and log medley on tape. Hopefully someone else was taping the whole thing so I can get the rest of the videos, my stone run was the best I have ever done and damn impressive from what I was told. I will have the pics up shortly I need to get the cable from my friend for the camera.

Where do I start?! Coming away with a disappointing 2^nd place in my last comp. in Maine I took away many things. Mainly that I needed to control myself when competing which I did phenomenally at nationals and one of the reasons I was happy with 3^rd. This was probably my best show, no major mess ups at all which I was happy with. When it was all over I finally realized to myself that this is nationals, not a regular contest. I went up against 16 of the best lightweight in the United States. Taking away a podium finish with no major mistakes that would have upset me severely if I had done poorly because of them. The day before was the worst day of my life, woke up at 4am had a protein shake, got to the hotel around 9am and had an apple before we went into the city to site see. Around 12 I was dying, no water since the protein shake at 4am and I was starving so I had ½ of a footlong steak and cheese from subway and a mouthful of lemonaid. Then we went up to the sears tower after that got lost and walked in a big circle further depleting my energy levels and putting me in a worse mood, lol. On the car ride back to the hotel I treated myself to one of those tiny cereal boxes kids get at hotels for breakfast, a whopping 190cals. Got back to the hotel around 2 passed out until 4ish. Then I went down to the hot tub and sweated out some more water.

We headed down to the weigh ins and 5 and I had weighed myself on the hotel scale before we left and said I was 197. The official weigh in I was 199, ONE pound away from the cut off! Very lucky. After that we went straight to get food then I went home and went to bed. Ate half a bagel with cream cheese, a little coffee and a little juice as well as a banana before the comp. I get bad nerves before comps and can’t eat anything.

First even was the truck pull, it was a semi truck which they said was between 20-30,000lbs (9-13,000KG). The only time I had done a truck pull prior to this was my first comp and I had a torn calf so I really didn’t know what to expect. When I stepped up to get chained in willie askes me what I weighed in at and I laughed and told him 199 and he said damn, you look like you’re 230, you’re going to have a good run. I was towards the end to go and most of the guys were putting up times around 37-35seconds. When I went I got 30seconds flat and set the new record. I ended up taking 3^rd in this losing only by 10ths of a second. The guys ahead of me had something like 29.85sec or so. With times that close anything could have set you down a place so I didn’t fret on it to much and tried to focus on the next event.

Log press medley was next, I hate this event. Right now I’m just not built for it and can’t really compete with at 200lbs with guys who are shorter then me and have much less of a ROM then I do. I did what I expected to do, all but the last log which was 230. Only 1 or 2 guys got this. I placed ok in this event, I think 4^th or 5^th. Overall I was consistently placing just shy of the top 3.

Then we had the tire flip. The tire was very very light, only 500lbs but the catch was there was NO GRIP. Now when guys say there tire has no grip because the nobs are worn down that’s not what I’m talking about, this tire was flat against the ground. There was physically no way to get your hands under it so what we ended up having to do was kind of try to grab on to part of the tread and just lay into it. The guys in the open were even complaining that their tire was easier to flip. Not sure exactly where I placed on this, I had a pretty quick time; I think I placed 3 or 4 on this.

Farmers were up next. It was only 210lbs per hand but for max distance and it was the 2^nd to last event and most of us were beat. I was shooting for 3 runs but just barely got 2. This was the worst performance on farmers I have ever had. Never before have I had my grip fail except this time. I placed middle of the pack here and basically blew my shot at winning with this piss poor run. I think I ended up getting ~148ft.

At this point I was 4^th place with 53 points, 2^nd and 3^rd each had 55 and 1^st had 61 I think. Stones were last, my favorite. I knew I had to set a damn good time to get some points to place but that wasn’t much of a worry. They ended up changing out stones to the same weights as the heavy weights but that wasn’t a problem for me. I blasted through the first 4 and then set up for the last one which was 335. From what I was told I was about 6 inches from loading it and I was too far back from the platform. Just breaking the stone and bringing it up that far was a big PR for me. I ended up taking 2^nd in the stones and only 1 kid was able to load the 335 and he ended up winning the whole thing.

Overall this was a very close race. It was pretty much between me and 5 other kids the entire time, there was a big gap between skill levels for about half the competition. From what I remember the top 5 were pretty much separated by 1 point for a long time. When I can get the official score sheets ill post them up as well. Again this was cut throat competition with the best of the best. This was my 4^th comp I have done so I am pretty happy with the results.

As for how the comp went. Very, very well organized we moved along pretty quick. Great job to Jason Bever for his hard work running the show. I want to thank elitefitness.com and agxsports.com for sponsoring me and helping me get to nationals. Without their support i probably would not have been able to go. Also want to thanks APT for donating prizes as well as everyone else that donated things and was there to support us. A few things that I heard brought up by some of the people: The location was kind of small for nationals and kind of secluded. I guess a lot of us were expecting it to be something real big in the city with a lot of spectators. The crowd was also pretty quiet the whole time seeing as it was nationals. I’ve been to a lot smaller shows and had crazier crowds. I didn’t think of this but heard someone bring up that there was no medical staff there. Now that I think of it all the shows I have been to usually had an ambulance there or some medical staff but I guess that boils down to an insurance thing. The important thing is nobody got hurt (that I heard of). Overall it was a great time. Made a lot of friends and was a great show. That’s all I can come up with now, I’m still beat from yesterday and have been up since 3am today so I need to get some rest. I’ll try and get all the pictures up around dinner time.

Friday will be here soon. Was 197 this morning and about 203 right now. I think i will eat light on the way down every few hrs to get used to eating again then throw on some sweat shirts a few hrs before weigh ins and get the water out and back in within minutes. Pretty confident about making the weight, my joints are feeling great today which is a bonus as they have been very sore all week.

Today’s event day was pretty sweet. I was tired when i got there, only got 6hrs of sleep last night since i had to work at the club. Farmers i didn’t go to heavy on and they felt heavy and i was still half asleep. Went in and did the tire, did better then i usually do but still get winded easily on that damn thing. I flipped a 500 and almost laughed at how light it was, i hope the use a heavier tire at nats or it will be a joke. Stones were last. I did not think i would do well since every time ive done stones since my last comp they have sucked balls but i was flying today. I guess i changed my form alot since i last trained with these guys and i loaded the 275 with ease, 300 i had a bit of trouble at the top getting it up because i had to wide of a stance. Not a problem though, it will go up at nationals!

Had a light leg and back day today. Did some deads. Not sure if i broke my beltless PR by i hit around 455 easy then went for 507 and missed it. Squats i only went up to plates, legs were sore as hell today. Gotta rest up the next day for events on sunday, should be fun!