Deload week

I have a love/hate with deloads. I know I need them, and feel better after, but lazy during. I hate that feeling of shutting things down and then worrying that I might be sliding backwards. My deloads now are a lot less of a deload volume-wise, and more of a deload intensity-wise. I have really just dropped the main lift of the day to a deload intensity and kept up with the accessory/conditioning work as normal. This has helped me mentally and physically with recovery from the demands of heavy training, and the mental need to keep pushing. 

HRV

I have started tracking my heart rate variability. If you don't know what that is, it's basically a measure of the interplay of your autonomic nervous system. Your body's autonomic nervous system is the non-voluntary background system that keeps everything working like it's supposed to. It's made up of the sympathetic (Fight or Flight) and parasympathetic (Feed and Breed) divisions. When your body is doing well and not under significant stress, there is a fight between the two systems for control. This "fight" between the two systems creates differences in the time between heart beats. When your body experiences stressors, the sympathetic nervous system gains the upper hand and, consequently, the heart beats are controlled with more sympathetic input, and the differences between heartbeats decreases. That is to say, it becomes more consistent and less variable. This would mean a low heart rate variability and when measured, gives you a peak into how stressed your body is. Mine has been averaging in the mid 50s which is fairly low, so I know I need to address some things. I have started with cold water immersion and green tea supplementation as well as increasing CV conditioning. These are easy things for me to do and don't take away from my overall training goals. I would like my number to be closer to 70-80 in a few weeks. I like HRV as a measure of recovery for a couple reasons:

• Heavy explosive training and throwing taxes the CNS more than other systems and HRV measures part of the CNS.
• It's fairly easy to measure and keep track of.
• There is a high degree of correlation between higher HRV and overall recovery.

I love data on my training and recovery level and this is a good way to attain it. The next step is what to do with it.

Keep it simple.

We live in a world where there it feels like there is a distrust of simple solutions. I see this a lot in Physical Therapy and the strength and conditioning world that I live in. It seems like people believe that a simple solution won't work, or can't possibly be enough, and tend to gravitate towards the complex. I don't know if they feel that, because they don't understand it, and somebody else does, it has to be the smart solution. Maybe it's more of a feeling that if something simple would fix this, I would have tried it by now. Except that if you aren't looking for the most basic way to fix a problem first, you will miss potentially simple solutions while looking for the more complex. It may also be that simple just isn't glamorous.

Simple is, well, simple. Simple probably doesn't get clicks or shares or likes. Simple is banging out reps and sets by yourself knowing that if you progressively overload your body with compound, multi-joint movements, you will get stronger. Simple is understanding that if you are plateauing in a movement, lift, or throw, it's your body's way of telling you that the stimulus is incorrect. Find something similar but different. It's your body's way of telling you, your recovery is not on point, your diet sucks, your sleep is off, your life is contributing more stress than your body can deal with. Simple is a dynamic warm up that is first general, then specific to the movement of the day. Are you doing cleans, squats, and good mornings? Make sure you are loose or mobile enough to get through the movement fully, and then get after it. There is no warm-up more specific to a movement, than that particular movement. Why are you spending 30 minutes on full body mobility before you squat, when 5 minutes of mobilization for the tight spots and a slow work up in the squat is all you need. That's making it too complex. You are wasting precious training time on something that is a low priority. If you can comfortably take a squat to depth without issue, your hips don't need mobilization. If you can catch a clean comfortably on your shoulders in a deep front squat, your ankles, wrists, and shoulders don't need mobilization.

On the other hand, if your body is a wreck, and you can't perform the movement even partially without issues due to joint problems, hypomobility, tightness, etc. The simple solution is to stay away from the lift for a while until you have your body right with the various stretches, mobilizations, and any soft tissue work that is needed for the particular body area. It's not exciting, but it's what you need, when you need it and nothing more. As training progresses and individuals become more advanced in training and life, time is precious. If you can only carve out an hour a day, what are your priorities?

Pound in a nail? Use a hammer.

Screw in a screw? Use a screwdriver.

Welp! Another long time without updating due to life, training, work, etc. I don't feel that I get much out of logging anymore. Maybe that is just laziness disguised as thoughtfulness, but I feel like with the autoregulatory work I'm doing, and keeping track of my main lift progression in the offseason, that I just don't feel the need to look back and check things out like I used to. I may try to do some writing on some topics that I feel would be nice to get down on paper (or pixels) for posterity I suppose.

The 2016 Highland Games season has come and gone. I feel like I put together my best all around season and certainly my averages for competition throws on the year have all improved. I keep track of best throws through the season through the NASGA Database and calculate the averages of everything except the Caber, which is hard to do with the variability. I have goals for my averages, which I feel is more important than goals for actually throwing distances. You are only as good as your worst throw and as your worst throw continues to improve, you will be progressing. I definitely have distance goals that I would like to hit in the next year, but who cares if I hit all those goals in the first two months of the season and then drop off for the rest of the year. I would have made my goals, but my overall performance would be terrible.

I felt that I matched up pretty well this year to some of the top guys and am encouraged that I feel I haven't put together my best games yet with some throws being "there" on some days on gone on others. Estes was probably my best all together games ever and I ended up winning that with 3 personal bests. Overall, I ended up 3rd at the Classic and I believe 2nd overall on the NASGA board.

My offseason training between '15 and '16 really went well and I feel I put together my best offseason of training by just going back to the basics that I know how to do. This is for another post, but it bears repeating. I know my body. I've been at this whole strength sport thing for a while now and have a lot of years in the gym, and hours in the books, understanding how everything goes together. I've tried other people's programs with limited results. I can say with nearly 100% confidence that autoregulatory training, or any variant on that, is really what I progress the best with. Sub-maximal, Autoregulatory with a continual focus on the real goal is really what I believe is my best training methodology.

The 2016-17 offseason is progressing well and I really didn't lose a lot during the season, which is very encouraging. The only thing that fell off was my full clean because, surprise, I didn't do them at all during the season. Instead, I elected to move to the hang clean for all my clean work as I feel it has a better carryover to my throws.

Hopefully I can update with 1-2 posts per week on training, life, throws, or geeky PT/Biomechanics things that may help anybody who stumbles across this mess of a training log.

Stone

25+# braemar
20 reps

Bench
+ave band
135x3x2
225x3x2
315x3

Blast strap
Ts +2 chains
Pushups
x10x3

Plate twists
Plate winds

Weight

56# WFD

10 1 turn, 15 full

Tried to stay smooth with all throws, very fatigued by the end, still managed 40'

Rack Pull

worked up to 405x5x3 with speed

Side bend

Farmers handle 200x10x3

Good day, legs are dead but a few of the HW throws felt decent. Need to remember some key points and finish strong. Hopefully, on good legs, it will fly. I have to keep remembering that I'm not training for games now, but in July-Sept

Stone

Open stone
Wheel x10
MSA x10
Full x15

Snatch high pull
to stick set a shoulder height
225x5
315x3x2 (missed all 6)
275x3x3

Bar OH twists

Weight

28# WFD x15 1 turn, 15 full
56 WOB x10

Log Press
Worked up to 240 for a few sets of 5 then 270 for a single, then a miss at 290 followed by a few more sets of 5 at 240

floor press with quick response up to 275

Core
Russian Twists 35#

Squat

Still pretty sore from Sunday...just wanted to see what I could handle today.

16 Hammer
1 winds x20
Full x3

Clean
315x3x3
335x3x2
355x3x1

Squat
405x3
495x2
515x2
535x2

KB swing
106x10x2

SB
115x10x2

Decent day, good intensity and I was happy the body was able to handle the load.

Bench

Day after the first games of the season, so I'm pretty beat up. I managed to pull out the win, but some events didn't go as well as I would have liked. I did throw better in a few events for this part of the season, so that felt good.

Braemar stone
25# x20

Bench
225x10
275x5
315+Ave x3x3

Blast Straps
T,Y,W
Pushups x10x3

14# hammer winds

Not a bad day, knee is jacked up as per usual so I didn't do too much explosive work. I felt as good as I ever have after a games, so I'm pretty happy with my conditioning except for feeling pretty gassed after the caber. Will do some intervals to build that.

Squat

So...supposed to squat today, really windy and my knee feels like shit. So I just threw and did some core work.

56# WFD 8 throws to get to 42'

LH 15 throws. Used the nitrile gloves, great grip, really felt like I could rip it with my one winds. Did 3 full throws and felt good balance at about 85% effort. Hopefully, I can keep the one winds going and add some speed to them as the season progresses. Staying balanced on the hammer throws is really the most important thing for me, especially when it comes to the heavy hammer.

Bench

Hit open stone first

Took me 11 throws to get to 50'. This is actually pretty good for me at this point as I develop more consistency in the full spin.

Bench
275x5
305x3
335x1

Blast straps

Core

Taking it easy this week. The body is feeling like crap, not sleeping well due to the little one and with the additional throwing volume, I want to stay healthy as main priority. I like keeping track of how many throws it takes to get to a minimal acceptable distance for me. It's a good mind game to really let it out and try to get that number down. I won't do it all the time as it is not a disciplined way to structure practice, but it is a good way to gauge where I am in terms of being more automatic with the throws.

Last week

Not a bad week in the books. Started my new program with the autoregulation on the number of sets. It went well. I downgraded my volume so that I could get more work in the throws. Can't remember the numbers, but got open stone x30, HW x20, Braemar x30, and 56 for height a few days

Log

28wfd x30

Quick feet ladder

Side jumps

Log Press
160x5
180x5
210x5

Floor press
225x15x2

Core
Rainbow
Physioball supine arcs

Squat

So...took last week off to let my elbow recover. I wanted to be a badass and train anyway but infections are nothing to mess with. Last thing I need is to end up in the hospital with MRSA. So I swallowed pride and rested.

Doc gave the all clear so I hit it hard today.

O stone
x30
56 wfd
x20

Vertical jumps
x10

Clean
225x3
255x3
295x3x3

Squat
375x5
425x5
485x5x2

Side bends
120x10x2

I adjusted my training back to 531 with a twist. The focus is speed, so I dropped my "max" down about 20# and based everything off of 90% of that. Instead of max reps for the final set, I will stop at the prescribed reps, and auto regulate on the number of sets performed. This will be based on how fast I feel. A tendo would be perfect here, but thats lots of $$$. Clean and jump squats will be based on Prilepin's as per usual.

My elbow!!!

Ok...trained tuesday and felt pretty good. Tuesday night, my elbow started hurting but I assumed that I just irritated it during training. About 1:00am I woke up to it just screaming at me. I thought I might have really screwed it up. I was thinking a tendon avulsion or olecranon fracture (I was still mostly asleep!) After a fitful night of sleep, I got up and actually looked at it and there was my elbow, the size of a baseball and very red/angry. I knew it was infected and after kindly persuading my doctor to see me ASAP, got on some antibiotics and am finally starting to feel better. I rowed tonight to avoid strain on the triceps but still get blood moving and hit 3200m in 13'.

Weight

28# x20

Jumps
Lateral shuffle

32" box x3x5

Clean
315x3x5

Squat
405x3x5

PhysioBall plate twists
35x10x2

Side bends
110 x10x2

Stone

Open stone
15 x30

Jumps
5' to 24" x3x3

Bench
285x3x5

Blast straps
Pushups x20x3
Ts Ys x15 each

Plate twists
45x10x4
Russian Twists
35x20x2

Shake out

Sunday afternoon shake out

Throga

Foam Rolling

Dynamic recovery

Open stone
30 reps, best of 47
   not great, but got better as the session progressed. Still needs a ton of work on the full spin, but            there is a lot of potential there I believe. I took some video and will try to link to it.

Clean

Heavy weight and O stone

Clean
325x2x5 hang

Core

Squat

Jumps
24" with 35# on R

Clean
325x2x5

Squat
535x2x5

70# weight winds

Bench

Jumps
5' to a 24" box x3x5

Bench
325x2x5

Blast Straps
T, Y, W
Pushups +1 monster mini per set x10x4

Plate twists

Hammer

First hammer session, took the 14 wire, 16 scot, and 20 wire to the middle of nowhere

Only one winds for the day
Best of 111 (snuck a two wind for 120)

Good to feel the movement and finish with the hips and legs

Log press

Quick feet ladder drills

Lateral jumps
x5x5

Log press
220x3x5

Floor press
135x10x5 QR

Core
Sidebends

Squat

HW x15
Best of 42

Jumps
36" box x3x5

Clean
Hang 315x3x5

Squat
505x3x5

Good Morning
315x10x3

Heavy core
106# weight swings

Bench

Jumps
5' broad to a 24" box
3x5

Quick feet
Power position

Bench-pad
225x5
245x5
295x3
335x3x5

Blast straps
Pushups x10x3
T, Y, W

Plate twists
45x10x6

Starting to get excited to get out and throw! I was able to do a little this weekend and hit 50' in the stone, 42+ HW, 78+ LW. All really good for the first throws of the year. Light weight felt pretty slow and really just off.

Squat and Bench

I took Monday night off as my wife was sick and I was starting to feel a bit run down. I sat down on the bed to get ready to train and woke up a half hour later and decided that that was probably a good sign to hold off for the night.

Tuesday I felt a lot better and felt like I could really push it, so I did.

Squat worked up to 605x1 for a PR
Bench worked up to 405x1 off the airex pad for a PR

Did some light accessory and core and called it a day

Thursday started with ladder drills for quick feet and lateral jumps followed by 280x1 on the log to tie my PR with a miss at 300, and then dropped to 240x7
then I did:

Floor press
225x10x3

Rotational core
   Hammer winds 30# short, 20# normal
   Overhead bar twists
   Standing bar twists

Pullups

Update

Missed posting for a week there, but training went well. High points were squat at 525x7 bench at 325x9 and clean at 355x1x5. Log press was good at 240x7. I also was able to get 280 for a single which is a post ACL surgery PR. I know I should be good for a 300# press but just need to progress to that and build back up to that level. I have been feeling a little sluggish and am playing with the idea of increasing the volume a bit more on the accessory work to get prepared for the higher volume throwing that I will begin in early March. In order to condition in the most specific way, I like to really ramp up the throwing volume in preseason but I want to handle that without issue.

Log Press

Quick Feet
Ladder drills

Lateral jumps
x5x5

Log Press
170x5
200x5
230x6

Floor press
225+40, 80, 120# chain
x10x4

Hammer winds
20#x5x5

56# swings

Good day, the Log press was a little disappointing, but I know I need more work there. I was still a bit beat up from press on monday.

Squat

Shovel 3' drift

Shot Turns

Clean
335x3x5

Squat
385x5
445x5
495x7

Good Mornings
315x5x3

Pullups

Plate Side bends

Shoveling absolutely killed my back. I felt that I was good for 10 on the squat, but after the shoveling of very wet snow, then the higher volume on the cleans, I was only able to get 7 before shutting it down.

Bench

Shot turns

QR 24" box jump
x3x5

Bench
235x5
265x5
305x11

Blast Straps
all sets started BW, then +20, 40, 60, 80# chain
Pushups x15
T's x15

Pullups

Rotational Core
plate twists

Deload Week

Deload week went well. I was able to get some good work in but really unload the joints. My good friend Nathan Burchett and his family came out at the end of the week and we hit some fun numbers. He was able to get 250 up on the log which was awesome. I worked up to a quick 500 on the squat. I really tried to work on my mobility this week with a lot of throga and band release on the elbow, knee and calf. All in all, it was a good week of training and I feel a lot better after.

Squat

Clean
worked up to 365 but couldn't get the catch

Squat
Strong Band
245x5
315x5

Pullups

HW swings

Deload week, so I don't want to push hard. I did some yoga and mobility work afterwards but I'm really just trying to get my head back into the next block and build the body back up. I have been dealing with some plantar pain, some R calf irritation, and some R bicep pain. This is in addition to the normal knee pain that is kind of always there. The first priority as always is to stay healthy. You can't throw far if you aren't healthy. Everything else is secondary.

Bench

Shot Turns

Bench
225x10
Rev Band Ave
315x10
365x5
405x5

Blast Straps
T Y W
Pushups
x20 each

Plate winds

Band Rotator Cuff work

Shake Out

Shot Turns

Heavy Weight Turns

Throga

Mobility

Rower

Log Press

Shot Turns

Log Press
190x5
210x3
240x6

Floor Press
315x3
275x8, 6, 5

Bent Row
275x10x3

Hammer winds
20#x10x3

Squat

Clean
345x1x4

Squat
445x5
485x5
545x6

Good Morning
315x10x3

Side bending

Pullups

Bench

shot footwork

Bench
255x5
295x3
325x7 pad

blast straps
Ts Ys Ws
pushups x15x3

hammer winds
20x10x3

russian twists
35x20x3

Bench is feeling good. I looked back at my best off the pad and it is somewhere around 365 with just the pad. I hit 405 off a board plus pad but not since about this time last season. I don't know if my bench is better or not but my calculated max is around 400 with just the pad and my shoulders feel 1000x better at this point. I will start to push the weight a bit and see how it goes but as it stands now, I'm hitting only the last set with the pad and feeling good with the body. I like this and don't want to push it too hard to begin to have a lot of shoulder pain like last season. Calf is feeling funky so I won't do a lot of plyo this week or next for deload and work it back in as tolerated.

Shake out

Something I always do on Sundays to get ready for the next week of training either inseason or offseason. I clean the gym, and then go through some light exercise and yoga/mobility/prehab/rehab. Both calves are really weirdly sore right now. I think it's from the ladder drills and plyos. Hopefully this will calm down but I'm decreasing plyos this week to be on the safe side. Big week of intensity this week so need to be up for it.

Deadlift

Jump squat
135x3x5

Rack pull hole 20
Worked up to 515 x5x2

Power wheel bear crawl

Log press

Ladder drills

Lateral jumps

Log press
180x3
210x3
230x8

Floor press
225x5 +40,80,120

Pullups

Bar OH twists

Plate winds

Squat

Clean
345x3x5

Squat
405x3
455x3
515x5

Good morning
225+lots of chain x8x5

Side bends
235x10x2
100# x10x2

Pullups
Sweet new monkey bar

Bench

Shot turns

QR box jumps
3x5

Bench
245x3
275x3
305x10 pad

Blast straps
Pushups x20x3
Ts Ys Ws x15 ea

Plate winds
45x10x5 ea

Deadlift

Jump Squat
135x5x5

Rack Pull
hole 18
worked up to 605x5x3

Front Squat
245x10x3

Plate swings/Winds
25, 35, 45, 50 x5 each

Side Bend
245x10x3

Log press

Warm up
Shot turns

Ladder drills

Lateral jumps

Log press
160x5
190x5
220x9

Floor press
275x5x4

Power Wheel core work

Squat

Shot 16#x10
All felt awful but the full spin is coming along

Clean
325x3x5

Squat
385x5
435x5
485x9

Good morning
315x8x3

Rainbow

Pulley twist

Bench

Shotput turns

24" QR jumps
x3x8

Twist-swings and winds
50# x5x5

Bench
225x5
255x5
295x10

Blast straps
Ts Ys Ws x15
Pushups
20x20
40x15
60x10

Bar overhead twists
45x5
65x5x3

Plate twists

Rowups

Deadlift

Footwork
Stick shotput turns

Jump Squats
135x5x5

Rack Pull
245x5
335x5
425x5
515x5x2
515x10

Front Squat
245x5
245+40x5
245+80x5
245+120x5

KB Snatch jump turns
70x3x5

Windmills
70x10x2

100# plate twists

100# plate side bends

Log Press

Footwork/Agility ladder

Side plyos

Log Press
180x5
200x3
220x8

Floor Press
245x10x3

50# plate chain swings
50# plate chain winds

Bar Overhead arcs 45x10

Update / New Years

So it's probably been about 1 month since my last post...I know that because our little tiny baby girl is almost one month old! It has definitely been quite a transition between just my wife and I and training whenever I want and this new noisy eating and pooping machine dictating our lives. Sleep has also taken a hit but I think we are starting to level out a bit. I took a week off when she was born and then picked up the next week. Then I took another week off for christmas vacation as we were traveling the whole time so there really wasn't any way to get the real work in. However, I have been able to get good effort when I do get into the gym, which really helps.

I was able to get some good squat and bench work in and managed 535 x6 in the squat which is an all time best for 5 (plus one but it still counts as 5) over my previous best of 525 for 6. Best bench of the cycle was 325 for 6 off the pad which is also very good. Floor press is getting easier which I know is from all the tricep work I've been doing. I have also been getting decent log press numbers for not doing it for 5 years. I have had to eliminate the jerk as my R bicep was absolutely pissed and the log press has fixed that for now. The last thing I need is bicep problems and with all the plyos and cleans that I do, I don't really feel like I'll take a big hit. I think log press is maybe even better as it puts me in the "backwards C" position that is all the rage in the shot while getting leg drive and arm extension. It also adds more core work that I really think will help.

Speaking of core work, I have really put a premium on heavier core work which I think is really going to pay off this season when I start to grind out all the throwing and training reps. I have been studying up on the training exercises and special exercises for high level hammer throwers and really picked up some good exercises that I think will help push my core work to a higher level.

                                                                        ~888~                                                                                

On to the new year look back! I have done a few of these over the years and this one should be fun! I have had this log since 2007. I just realized that is almost 9 years of training condensed into one log. I missed some pretty good chunks of time where I didn't really post, but all told, I really probably only have missed about 3 weeks of training in a chunk the whole time. I think that may have been after my ACL surgery in 2012.

This last season was a great one for me, I was able to put together a decent offseason but was still looking for programming that other people wrote instead of trusting myself to put together a good one, as such, I left out some important things in my offseason training. Preseason went well with a change to higher volume throwing and changing implement weights. I had a much fuller season scheduled and started out in phoenix with not a great day but I hit the marks I wanted to for the most part. I was then all over the place with steady progression in everything except the hammer. I hit a peak with that in Texas and pretty much plateaued at that point. I was very competitive with the hammers this season, but I know there is a lot more there. I was fortunate enough to qualify for worlds in Pleasanton, CA and ended up in a tie for 5th with Matt Daugherty from Canada. Dan McKim and Matt Vincent were 1 and 2 followed by Sebastian Wenta, a former WSM from Poland. Scott Rider from the UK, a former olympic bobsledder and commonwealth games shotputter came in 4th. I feel like that is pretty good company! I really started to hit some good numbers late in the season which is what I want and was able to do. I set PR's in both weights at Estes with 86' LW and I think 45+ in the HW. I qualified for the US championship in Bethleham, PA and after a two day battle back and forth with Spencer Tyler, I ended up 4th. I had some good throws and some not so good throws but it was an awesome experience and I can't wait to go back next year! Here's to a great new year!