Overhead, DL, curls, sbtnp

Overhead Work- Push Press and Press

Push Press
Worked up to 185x3 (PR)

Dynamic Effort Press
3x3x115# (beltless, explosion from the bottom after 2 second pause, hold at lockout)


Deadlift
5x225#
5x315#

Axle Curls
95# for 9, 8, 8

Seated Behind The Neck Press
75# for 10 (PR)
85# for 6, 5

1x30 Back Extensions

COMMENTS

• General: Good workout today but I forgot to do weighted pullups so I will make those up tomorrow even though I should be resting. First day back deadlifting, no pain at all and my back has felt great ever since which has me very pleased. Overhead felt weak so I decided to go for a push press PR instead of getting nowhere with my press. I can tell in general my upper body really needs rest.
• Nutrition: Really good chipotle for dinner
• Body: Chest sore. The arm program and having the flu seemed to really weaken my upper body but ~4 days rest from resistance training and lots of protein should help.
• Sleep: 8 hours. Shitty quality last night
• Reflections: Signed up for the TARC Spring Classic so now I just have to register for the Wapack when it finally opens. I'll probably do some variation of pullups and ring pullups tomorrow for a few sets, nothing strenuous and then rest until racetime on Saturday morning.

Gymnastics/Skill Development/ Run

Strict Ring Dips
11, 9, 8, 7, 7

 

Handstand Holds
28s, 27s, 31s

 

Modified L-Sit Holds
34s, 39s, 26s

 

Neck Work
3x40x10#
__________

 

Run 1:04 at Rayburn single track for 6 miles w/ Contois


Mobility in the lower body- couch stretch, glute stretch and hamstrings


COMMENTS

• General: Felt good to work on some weaknesses today and hopefully improve for when I start going to open gym back at  school in a few weeks. Run was good, felt a bit tired towards the end.. not sure why but it is what it is. Broke in the mountain masochists which felt good but I rolled my ankle a few times.
• Nutrition: Really good and enjoying eating the "Swole" style
• Body: Felt pretty good minus a little problem during my run where my male parts froze...
• Sleep: 8 hours?
• Reflections: Not too much. Check out my 6 month plan if you get a chance.

The 6 Month Plan Training Template

If you follow me regularly (or look in the right corner of my page) you might realize that my major goal for 2012 is to run 100m at the Viaduct Trail 100m in Lanesboro, PA. This post is going to be dedicated to the next 6 months of training and the plan that I have to accomplish my goal and will also be stickied on the side of my blog to reference throughout.

As stated before, I'm breaking 2012 into 2 different sections. Pre-race and post-race, which revolves around July 7. After the 100m attempt (seeing that I finish) I will figure out from there what I want to do with my training for the remainder of the year.


I started out making this plan by mapping out the races that I will run prior to July 7. I did this in order to peak my training and allow for adequate rest before and after these runs so my performance is better during these runs. The following races are the ones I plan to do between now and Viaduct; some of these may change due to dates, finances etc. but I'm about 90% sure these are the ones I will partake in. As I finish these races I will update this post with my time and a link to the write up. For now, the ones in red will be ones I have not officially signed up for but plan to ASAP.

1. G.A.C. Fat Ass 50k- January 7, 2012- FINISHED 34th out of 80 for a 52 minute PR

2. TARC Spring Thaw- March 18, 2012


3. TARC Spring Classic- April 28, 2012


4. Wapack and Back 50m- May 12, 2012


*Note- On top of those 4 races I also plan to do the Mothers Day 6 hour walk/run event on May 13, 2012. I am aware that this will be about 12 hours after I finish the Wapack race (knock on wood) but I convinced my mom to do this with me recently and if I bail she probably won't do it. I'll walk the 6 hours with her which will probably be pretty painful but doable and be a good final test for my 100.

With that plan in place that leaves me with 4 ultra distance runs in the span of about 17 weeks and then another 8-9 weeks until I'm off to Pennsylvania. The only big concern I have with this race plan is the big gap of long runs between Wapack and Viaduct but if I can find another race or plan some kind of fun run with Contois (who is doing VT100 2 weeks after my goal race so I'm sure he won't be opposed to doing a long training run) then I think I'll be in good shape. I also think a completion of 50m during the Wapack race is more than enough stimulus to the brain and body to get me through a finish at Viaduct because the course is no joke and has far more elevation than the 100 will. I'm being brutally honest in saying that the Wapack was my last option just because I saw how tough the course was when I volunteered there last year and I'm well aware it'll be a long 50 miles.

I think the most effective way of gameplanning is to decide my plans between races and try to keep it close as possible. Since the GAC 50k is this weekend I will begin with the space of time after that race through the TARC Thaw race


G.A.C. Fat Ass 50k-TARC Spring Thaw 6 Hour (January 7- March 18)

The span between these 2 runs is the furthest I will experience between races. Since both of them will be similar distances I think I just need to continue to improve my distance running by doing 5-15 mile runs mostly but focusing on improving my speed. I think a good way to test how much my running improves will be to see how long it takes me to do 50k at the GAC and then seeing how far I get during the 6 hours in March. Obviously there will be variables but it should be pretty solid. To make sure I don't lose my endurance I will absolutely get a long run in during the month of February. I have spikes to run in the snow therefore I have no excuse and I need to keep in mind that it may be very important.

I haven't talked about strength training yet but as it was last year strength training will still take priority during this time of my 6 month plan. I will continue to only strength train 3x a week with SC powerlifting while I run on either Tuesday or Thursday and always Saturday. The main focus will be to start working towards all my strength goals I made for the year. I had originally considered doing Smolov's 3 week squat program following the GAC and I still may but I have to decide if it's worth sacrificing 3 weeks of good runs to do. At this point I am not sure what I'll do.

TARC Spring Thaw 6 Hour-TARC Spring Classic 50k (March 18-April 28)

From previous experience I've had trouble running during the end of February through March because in New England trails start to thaw out and they tend to be an absolute mess. I think between these 2 races I'm going to need to get a pair of road shoes and spend some time running on the roads. I don't think a specific long run is necessary during this time because of the proximity between the two runs (both exceeding 30m which is plenty long) but I will still train somewhere between 10-15 miles to keep improving. Also during this time I should be able to start working in my secret weapon which will be Lithia Springs in South Hadley, MA. The trails here are amazing and the hills are going to make for a money spot to train for the Wapack race. I know for a fact I'm going to need to bust my ass to make a good time during that race and Lithia can do that for me if I commit to going there once a week.

Strength training will peak during this race as the semester will be coming to a close and I will begin the transition to training at home for the summer. Might as well be honest and say that I will probably spend a few extra sets each week during this time working on my body because I know summer is just around the corner and I want to look good. If I do this I'll have to keep in mind that I have a bigger goal at hand and that is the first thing to go if I begin to over train.


TARC Spring Classic 50k- Wapack and Back 50m (April 28-May 12)
Obviously this is only 2 weeks but I look at it as the turning point for this whole plan so it has value. At this point I should have 3 races completed, hopefully with PRs and good runs piled up as I'e gone. The Wapack will be the final test before Viaduct and I need to spend this 2 weeks getting mentally ready. 50 miles in the mountains is going to be a lot more grueling on my body than a 31m trail run.

I likely will not worry too much about strength training during these 2 weeks. I may just take 2 light weeks to help recover and prepare. I'll buy my 3 month summer pass at this point because my gym has a May discount special but may freeze it until after the Wapack.


Wapack and Back 50m To Viaduct 100m (May 12-July 7)
This is where my training will take a turn from what I'm used to. I am going to make a conscious effort for the first time in over 18 months at this point to focus primarily on running with strength training being on the back burner. My decision behind this is for a confidence boost. If I can hit 4 runs a week with a long one every Saturday and maintain my strength levels then I think I will set myself up to finish my biggest goal of the year in running 100m while not losing sight of my other ones. It's not like I'll stop strength training but I will definitely lower the volume and increase the number of runs I do each week from 2-3 to 4-5. At this point a Saturday long run will also be guaranteed. I think May 12 through somewhere around the 20th of July will be how long I implement this idea, and then will taper until raceday from there. I benefit from getting out of school on the 8th at the latest whereas my running partner is still there until the end of June. I will have more than enough opportunities to run during the school week while also improving my sleep deprivation ability (a good tool for running 24 hours straight I'd imagine) by getting up at 4:30 every morning to run with him. Some of them will be hard runs of 5-7 miles, some will be longer (~10ish), some will be lighter and slower. These will vary during the week with one really long run every Saturday being consistent.

In the gym my mission will be to not overtrain. If by then I'm squatting in the 400's I do not want to lose that, but if I do I need to remember it will come back after I've run 100 miles. I will also considering following a Texas Method style setup, which would still be 3 days a week in the gym but with 1 light day every week. This way I could do 2-3 hard runs in between heavy training days and therefore improve drastically the level that I can run at.
____

It appears I have all the equipment I need to do this. I'm loaded from Christmas with all the tools necessary for completing my goal. I will be working 3 days a week next semester between 2 jobs so I will need to make sure those days I get what I need done and plan accordingly. I'm ready to do this thing and I think writing this post was the first step.

I'd like very much to hear any advice or input anyone may have because clearly I am no expert. Thanks for reading!

Back Squat, Bench Press, Pullups, delts

Back Squat
Worked up to 3x335# (lifetime PR)
3 beltless doubles done at 295#

Bench Press
205# for 5, 5, 4

Pullups/Chinups- Did 5 sets with 60-90 sec rest between- first 3 chins last 2 pulls
14 (chinup PR), 9, 7, 6, 6

Lateral Deltoid Raises
3x10x15# with 3 second hold at top of the movement


3x30 Farmers Walk shrugs with 25#


COMMENTS

• General: Big back squat PR which I was somewhat concerned with after spending the last 4 days recovering from the flu. Last set of bench I lost because I wasn't keeping my shoulders tight and my form dipped on the drive off my chest. Weak bench today due to the arm program volume. Opting not to finish the arm program as it's completely eliminating any progress on my pressing movments and I'm trying to move towards strength over size being consistent in my mind.
• Nutrition: Really good. Started eating similar to how JP recommends in "Swole" which I really liked today.
• Body: Feeling pretty solid
• Sleep: 10 hours
• Reflections: Going to run in my new Montrail Mountain Masochist trail shoes tomorrow and also hit the gym. 2 more days of training and I'll rest Thursday and Friday in preparation for a 50k run on Saturday. Weather is looking really good which is making me very happy.

2012- New Year, New Beginnings

You can reference all my goals I speak of to the right of this post.

With one year's end, another begins and it's that time to pick what I want to do in the upcoming year. I will be taking a different approach with this year in that I'm only considering the next 7 months in the ideas I incorporate in this post. I want to focus on completing my first 100m run before I worry about what I'll do with the other 5 months, and therefore am only concerned with the task at hand right now.


CHANGES, CONCEPTS, AND NOTES FOR THE UPCOMING YEAR:

1. Train for strength first, then size: Yes, I want to look like a dude who can move some weight around. I spent way too much time in 2011 putting aesthetics in front of strength when I could be doing both at the same time. I will be focusing on less volume, more intensity and moving the weight on the barbell or whatever the device may be on every set in order to become as strong as I possibly can. The size gains will come with it and in order to get big I need to worry more about my diet than my training right now anyway. I'm not going to be doing curls until I feel like pooping myself anymore, and will instead be focusing on seeing how much I can curl (hence the goal of curling 135#)

2. Stop being a pig: I purchased the E-book "Swole" by Johnny Pain recently and have learned by thought of nutrition was completely wrong. There is a way for me to get big without being a pig half the time and I need to begin holding myself accountable for everything I eat or I will never meet the goals I want to meet, plain and simple. I'm going to fine tune my diet into something I'm proud of and hopefully reap the reward of finally looking like the person I want to look like.

3. Strength. Endurance..... and Aesthetics: I've always told people that I train for strength and endurance when in reality that isn't true. I also train to look good and therefore plan to make that part of my creed when referencing my training. I think it's important to look good when you train hard and since I still do not look the way I want to I'm going to put a near nazi like effort into changing that in this upcoming year, permanently.

4. Music: I fell in love with my guitar in 2011. I liked playing before that but I became addicted and plan to spend a lot of time in 2012 improving my music talent. I think it's very important to have something else in your life besides training and my thing is going to be music. I plan to learn the piano to accomplish my goal of learning a second instrument in this upcoming year and plan to record my first song within the next couple weeks. I spend a lot of my free time at school practicing and am declaring a music minor at Springfield College next year which should vastly improve my performance.




My training will not always be the same. I'm going to spend an hour or two doing a "7 month plan" write up in the next day or two which will follow these posts. This will indicate my overall layout leading up to my first 100m attempt. I'm not 100% sure what it will look like yet but I have some ideas so far.

2011 Year In Review

My review of 2011 is going to be long and may be somewhat boring. This is more for me to look back on years from now to see my opinions of where I went this year as athlete, whether it be a good or bad thing.

The year 2011 brought two new things into my life- ultrarunning and powerlifting or specific strength training. In previous years (08-10) I was a "CrossFitter" by trade, although I didn't follow a strict program for a long time which resulted in diminished results, poor body image and most notably the elbow injury that I was so afraid would affect the beginning of this year.

January-March

I moved home after I transferred from Springfield College, deciding at the time it was not where I wanted to be. I began commuting to a school close to home and joined a powerlifting gym in the area. I had first learned about powerlifting at SC where they have an amateur club team but was never able to participate the semester I was a freshman there because of my elbow. I started the year 2011 off finishing up a CrossFit strength bias cycle, fresh off completing the CrossFit Endurance Challenge with right before Christmas. Most notably in January I finished my first ever ultra distance, completing the GAC Fat Ass 50k. I spent the next couple months adjusting to life as a strength athlete and getting a few long runs in. I hit a 16 mile run on the roads with Contois as my longest run in preparation for my first 50 mile race. I remember the trails being messy and me not liking the roads being the main excuse for why I didn't train harder. March rolled around and I hit a 50 mile run at NJ Ultra Festival in my goal time of just under ten hours. Reflecting back on that portion of the year, I wish I knew my body could handle more strength stimulus but I'm just glad I didn't injure myself early on. I got lazy some days for sure and probably got lucky by not training as hard as I should've for my 50.

April-May

This part of the year is probably the most blurry to me. I spent a few weeks after NJ50 trying to lose weight doing the Paleo challenge but that failed. I hit a nunch of PRs during this time training my strength numbers with my homemade program. In retrospect I wish I was smart enough to not program for myself but I think I did an OK job. I'm a lot happier now following a different program that I did not design. I still have the freedom to add fun things into it now and then (20 rep squats anyone?). Anyway, about halfway through may I started doing the Madcow 5x5 program where I hit my squat and DL pr's that have yet to be surpassed due to injuries, etc. but I'll pass the squat within a few weeks. Madcow was a really good program. It's one that I would go back to if I wanted to focus solely on powerlifting for an 8-12 week period in the future, and it's likely that I will do that sometime later this year. My opinion is that I ate too shitty while on Madcow and blamed the actual program for getting fat and not my diet. It's a phenomenal program. I ended it halfway through June. Also, I must note that I got really depressed during this time. It was one of the roughest thing I've gone through in my life and my training definitely reflected it.

June-August

I wrote a midway through the year post at the end of June, saying that I wanted a 405# squat, 525# DL, 185# press and a 255# bench by year's end. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll hit any of those besides maybe the bench if I were to test that out. I basically gave up my dream of running during the summer because I got lazy. I think my Runningahead.com says I only ran like 18 miles over the course of 4 runs in nearly 2 months. I also ran Layne Norton's strength/BB hybrid program for a 4 week trial period over the summer. That may have been one of the most effective programs I've ever used. I do plan to run an 8 week cycle of this someday but this time with nutrition dialed in (300+ g's of protein a day) and no other training. This would have to be later on in 2012 after my 100 but it's something to consider. Even though I got lazy during the summer I ended up getting some good strength numbers and saw a definite increase in the size of my upper body. August rolled around and 2 of the most memorable things of the year took place. I placed 2nd in the TARC Summer Classic 6 hour race barely training the entire summer at all for it. Call me young, call me stupid, but I'm really proud of it. To date that was most likely the best run of my life. The second amazing thing was going to the Appalachian Trail with Contois to pace him for his first 100m attempt. I have to admit that was probably one of the most memorable things that have taken place in my life.... I've never seen an area of the world like that before and ever since we went I've been eager to go back. I guess I'm a nature virgin but it was really cool to me. I spent all of June and pretty much all of July depressed as well, but it got better as time went on.


September-October
This point in 2011 was spent with me being a lazy turd. To put it simply I had a long summer and by the end of August the only thing in the world I wanted to do was get back to Springfield College. I had been depressed, miserable and sick of living at home and spent a lot of this time being very lazy with my training. I attempted a half assed effort at running 100 miles, an attempt I rightly failed at the Ghost Train Trail Ultra. I developed a heart problem at this time because I was not managing the relationships in my life that I needed to be. As you grow in life, individual or athlete aside you can reflect on past periods of times where you see room for improvement. This was probably the sloppiest time of my year, and if nothing else my goal in 2012 is to not let my training take any more big dips like the one it took during these 2 months.

I don't have much blogged here, but I spent most of these 2 months doing the GSLP program. All in all a phenomenal program, one I will probably dabble with again. I think Jonny Pain has some really good opinions on how to get strong and big and I have continued to implement them into my training. I only changed the program up to give the PL club's program at my school a shot instead.

November-End Of the Year
I got my head straight after the Ghost Train and realized I needed to make changes. I started going to the powerlifting trainings at my school and lifting with some legit strong people and also changed up my program. I started busting out dips and pullups more consistently, which have always been big weaknesses with me. I also started running a lot more frequently. I signed up for the Viaduct Trail 100m race next July during this time, a race that I will put my heart and soul into leading up to it. I think personally I closed out 2011 with a big improvement and I'm proud of the turnaround I made in such a short amount of time.




OVERALL:

2011 was the first year where I began to think for myself and select a proper training program to implement my goals. CrossFit no longer was the only way to train and I trained with several different methods to see what I liked and what I didn't. I developed a love for barbell strength training and an immense fond sensation of ultra marathons. I ran 50 miles, something that if you had told me 3 years ago I would ever do in my lifetime I'd probably ask you where you got the weed you just smoked.
It was also a year where I wasn't consistent with my training or diet, something I need to vastly improve if I ever want to be the person I want to be. This year in general was a great jumping off point and learning experience, one that I can develop my training for 2012 off of with improvements and keeping the things that did work.


Highlights of the Year:

1. Running 50m at the NJ Ultra Festival in under 10 hours
2. Deadlifting 475#
3. Squatting 365# on 2 different occasions
4. Finding Baystate Gym and training there for 8 months out of the year
5. Returning to Springfield College
6. Writing my first song on guitar


Low Points of the Year:
1. The 3 month depression I went through
2. Injuring my back deadlifting in July (haven't deadlifted regularly since)
3. The other nagging injuries I got that were minor but added up to several changed training sessions.

I'd like to thank all my readers for joining me on the ride for 2011. I hope that I can become 10x the athlete I became in the 365 days I spent in this year in the upcoming one and can become an inspiration to others to accomplishing their goals as well.

Little training

Took basically 3 days off minus some arm resistance training (part of that arm program I'm trying) to rest. I'm still not 100% at this point but think I'll be good to go tomorrow. I have a really long year of 2011 review coming later tonight or tomorrow and then my 2012 outlook post will follow that. Happy holidays everyone