Squats and Fish Oil

First day of leave today.  Its always a good feeling knowing that you're not at work when you should be and still getting paid for it.  Especially when you have to wake up at 3am to go to work...I can feel my Test level increasing already.

Last night I got in my workout late due to me not having scheduled day care this week and not being able to take my kid to the gym with me.  There was definitely something wrong with my leg yesterday.  My knee was hurting all day for no damn reason and by the end of the day there was some serious pain in my tibialis anterior, or just below that.  Couldn't tell why, wasn't really injured, just really sore.  It probably should have prevented me from squatting, but I'm a little hard-headed so when its time to squat, well.... that's what the hell I'm gonna do.

Workout:

3-3-3-3-3 Power Cleans
125#(4)-135#-145#-155#-165#

3-3-3-3-3 Back Squat
225#-245#-255#-265#-270#

100# per hand Farmers Carry (100ft x 5-6)

I got home and took like 4 grams of Fish Oil, 10,000iu of Vitamin D3 and went to bed.  This morning I didnt have any leg pain, so hopefully it wont be coming back.

In the words of Lift Big Eat Big - "If you can't fix it with Squats or Fish Oil, you're probably going to die"

Gettin it in On-the-Job

This last three days were LONG!  It was my last cycle before taking leave in Georgia.  On the last day I spent a little time in the gym. (we have one in the area where we work)

Granted, lifting heavy things while having less than 10 hrs sleep over three nights isnt the most productive thing in the world, neither is not doing shit in the gym for three days.

Worked up to heavy singles on deadlift at 385#.  After that I threw 115# and the bar and did sets of 5 on strict press until it became impossible (with pullups x 3 in between), the did sets of 5 push-press.  Really trying to get my overhead strength way up.  Finished up trying out the Klokov Press with an empty bar for a couple reps...That one could get ugly down the road, its brutal!

Klokov press is essentially a wide snatch-grip, behind the neck, strict press, or SGBTNSP if you're an acronym loving crossfitter.  It was made popular by the Russian weightlifting phenom/psychopath for which it is named.

Here is a video of the beast from Lift-Run-Bang doing it at 185# for 9 reps.

In other news, Kill Cliff hit a deal with GNC, that means you can get that shizz anywhere soon!

Georgia on My Mind

So in about a week, I'll be hopping on a plane to GA and visiting family for about 10 days, including a trip to Water World, and hopefully, Falcons Training Camp.  Otherwise this has been a fairly normal off cycle.

I made an attempt to hit up my (sort-of) college gym, unfortunately they wont let you in if your not registered for classes.  So I turned around and headed to Midtown Sports and Wellness for a little workout:

Back Squat 3x5 @ 250#
Press 3x5 @ 120#
Seated Dumbell Press 2x5 @ 50# each

First time ever doing dumbell presses but I think I need to incorporate more overhead shoulder stuff, seeing as how its my weakest point.

BTW, that was yesterday.

Today was spent at the base gym for deadlifts (only place I can use chalk...).  So today's workout went a little like this:

Deadlift 5-5-5 (315#-335#-335#)
Bench Press 3x5 @ 185#

I didn't feel very sore.  This may be due to the fact my Kill Cliff came in a couple days ago and I've been drinking the shit out of it.

If you've never heard of (or tried) Kill Cliff its the first "recovery drink" on the market. (that's not a protein shake) It is very refreshing and the ingredients have anti-inflammatory properties as well as some other benefits.  Its also not LOADED WITH CRAP like Red Bull, Monster and the ton of other gut bombs available in your local truck stop.

I drink the hell out of it regardless of the fact I can only get it online for now.  If you want to try it, click on any where in this post that says Kill Cliff and order a case, you WONT be disappointed.

My Neck, My Back! My Neck and My Back!

Friday was fairly heavy.  Once again I took advantage of an opportunity to use a local gym instead of the base gym, Midtown Sports and Wellness.  I like to go here because its clean, they have decent equipment, the rowers WORK, and they have a pool and Jacuzzi. (for recovery, of course)

After doing some rower warm-up, I hit the squat rack and worked up to heavy doubles.

Then I was interpreted.

I HATE being interrupted in a workout, however, its the nature of being a Husband, Father and Active Duty Serviceman...so be it.

Anyway, after a 45 minute rest, I hit up some bench press, working up to a heavy single (210#) and then proceeded back to the rack for heavy rack pulls (below the knee), working up to a single at 455#.

Finished up with "assistance work", which is a fancy powerlifters way of saying isolation without sounding like a body builder.  Basically 3x10 shrugs @ 315# and 3x10 elevated/weighted(25#) situps.

So you're thinking, that sounds like a lot of volume.  Well seeing as I'm not really a elite level lifter, yea, it was a shitload of volume.  Come Saturday morning I felt like a steamroller had plowed over my Traps, spinal erectors, and whatever's in between.  Even contrast baths after the workout Friday were of no help.  Needless to say, Saturday was rest.

Sunday, as I was prepping to head to the base gym for a workout, the Wife got called into work.  So what was prepping to be a little "Grace" and running, turned out to be a quick little garage burner:

70# KB Swing x 25
80# Sandbag Clean/Press x 30 (about 12 min w/time to re-tie the sand bag 3x)
70# KB Swing x 25

KB Swings were unBroken

Back feels a little tight, time to roll...

New Things

Today was interesting.  I was sore all over from previous days workouts but I know I wont be doing anything over the weekend. (3x15-17 hour shifts) So I figured I would try a couple new things and see how it goes.  First I warmed up the old Deadlift to 315x5 and tried out some 315 Deadlift Carries.

These are fairly simple; simply do a deadlift, then walk a distance carrying the weight, easy enough right?  

I liked these, it was something like poor-mans Yoke walks.  (I'll have a Yoke one day)

Next up was Zuercher (spelling?) squats.  These are the ones where the bar is held in the pit of your elbow...I have a feeling this will be felt in the abdominal region tomorrow!

I also threw in some tire flips and farmers walks for good measure...

Sandbagging in a Good Way

60 Pounder

Finally got around to building my own sandbag this morning.  I was cruising around the interwebz last night and checking out ITS Tactical when I came across a sandbag building article written by Jake Saenz.  Jake is the owner of Atomic Athlete, and a partner gym of Military Athlete.  These guys specialize in make war-fighters harder to kill...basically.

The article was the easiest I've found involving the construction of a homemade sand bag using my green canvas bag from basic training.  20$ worth of rubber mulch from Home Depot and I was done.

ITS Sandbag Training/Building Article

So I got mine up to the recommended starting weight of ~60 Pounds.  Afterwards I decided to test it out with 10x100m sprints (50m out/50m back), with about a minute rest between.  Fairly brutal way to start it out.

Later this evening I'll get into some of the other movements and see where I stand with them.  A whole laundry list of shit to do with a bag can be found in the previously linked article, and a video to boot.

If you're also interested in other knowledge of tactical shit, self preservation and general usefullness I recommended browsing around ITS Tactical and maybe even picking up a Crew Leader membership.

Getting back at it.

Obviously its been awhile since I've kept up with my own blog.  Trying to keep up the training, summer's here which means it close to PT testing time again and I probably should step up the conditioning a bit.  Where I live there should be no problem finding stuff to do to get the heart rate up.  Lots of trails to run, outdoorsy shit to do, good stuff like that.

Got a little strength in this morning.  Didn't hit it too hard though, the weekend was long hours, little sleep and two days of the flu that I'm still recovering from.  Gonna do some conditioning tonight with some running with/without heavy objects being carried, some body weight stuff, etc..

I'll try to keep this thing better updated, especially now that I have followers. (2 to be exact).

See you out there...