Got out with some of the guys to Wintergreen last weekend to play some tennis and hang out. That’s me in the back. With the beard.
I started playing last summer when the pandemic shut the gyms. I needed to get out and do something and tennis was a reasonably distanced activity.
It was a great weekend, obvs., but now I think I’m battling some tennis elbow. It’s not ideal. I’m curious to see how weightlifting affects it.
Coming into the last couple of sessions before the contest. I’m tired and sore. I’m also a good bit stronger than I was when I started. The stone above is ~40lbs. heavier than this one from a month ago and it felt a lot easier.
Feeling beaten down and sore leading up to the contest is par for the course in my strongman training experience. I’ve stayed injury-free, which is always Goal 1. There is some more heavy training this weekend and then a relatively chill week to rest up.
I have not trained a ton of stone loads so I don’t trust the movement to go heavy-heavy. I think this is ~200 lbs. The contest event is a 60-second limit to load up to 3 stones, heaviest stone wins. I’m hoping to lift this one first and the see what the ceiling is. I only have a minute so it won’t take too long.
I’ve done a little more farmer’s carry training and I am stoked I got this one done. 250 lbs. in each hand for 40 feet is a huge PR for me. The contest weight is 235-per-hand for 60 feet so I feel really good about that.
I had some trouble with my feet on the heavy carries a few weeks ago. I switched up my footwear and started taping my feet to keep them tight. It’s gone a lot better since then, so that’s my contest-day plan. I might keep it up when I go back to Olympic lifts next month.
Happy born day to the timeless, Bartolo Colón! pic.twitter.com/TgmxnGJBd3
— New York Mets (@Mets) May 24, 2021
Liverpool FC are scrambling to qualify for Champions League next year and needed all three points from Sunday’s match to keep hopes alive. Cut to the 94th-minute and they have a corner kick. Alisson Becker, the keeper, comes all the way from his goal for the last kick of the match and scores the only goalie-header in the history of the goddamn premier league.
His touch chart for the game is hysterical.
Borrowed a copy of Defying Gravity from one of my gym pals. A lot of it is very “1981 meathead”, but there are some timeless bits of advice in there.
RVA Weightlifting had an intra-team meet last weekend. it had been over a year since my last meet and 6 weeks since recovering from goddamn COVID. Training went reasonably well but I still went with super conservative openers. I probably play it too safe on the platform, but I would rather sandbag early than bomb out of a meet. I went 2-for-3 on the Clean and Jerk, missing 105kg at the end. It was a timing problem, not a power problem, which is heartening.
This 80kg snatch is probably a 3-4kg PR. Hell, it’s probably a 2-3kg attempt PR. I have had a hang up on this weight for a couple of years and it looks pretty easy there in the video.
Like I mentioned yesterday, I’ve hopped off of the Weightlifting program to compete at a Strongman contest in June. Assuming I live through that, I should have a brand new base of strength to shoot for another Weightlifting meet (and a PR or two) in the Fall.
