[fennway4414]

Buying molds or making molds would seem easier and more cost efficient probably. I have to look in to this.

[niagareven]

Mold's are pretty expensive too. But you can obviously reuse them. I just never felt like dealing with making the stones so when we got ours we just bought them from my friend Elliot who lives in Maine. If/when we do get more stones I'm sure we'll end up buying a mold though.

[fennway4414]

Can't you make molds though? I'm assuming it would be tough but I'm pretty broke as of late so every dollar counts

[niagareven]

I'm sure you could, but I have no idea how too as I am probably the least handy person ever.



Monday 7/14

Yesterday I was absolutely wrecked. Entire body was sore to the point where it hurt to move. I guess that's what happens when every event I did because a rep fest because I dropped everything so much.

Still very sore today (especially my mid/upper back.) My shoulders are sore too which surprised me a bit because they never get sore.

Stretched, band traction, and used the pvc for a while. Hurt a LOT to use the pvc today.

Then I used my bands and went through basically every single movement I could think of for high reps to get blood flowing everywhere.

I was thinking of starting to lift heavy again on wednesday, but now I'll probably just do a light workout tomorrow to get moving and then do a little on thursday (sled work) depending on how I feel, then start lifting normally again on saturday.


For the next month until the contest, I'm thinking my schedule will probably look something like
Saturday: deadlifts + events (emphasis on conditioning and grip work)
Sunday: cardio
Monday: Log, other pressing
Tuesday: squats or front squats (not gonna go nuts on them), rows, shrugs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: burpees, sprints/sled/or car pushes, pull ups, abs
Friday: cardio

[niagareven]

Tuesday 7/15

Still feeling beat up. I passed out for 2 hours when I got home from work today... had to fight myself to do anything after that.

Warm up

Bent over rows
95 x 10 x 3 sets
145 x 10 x 4 sets

Log technique work
95 x 5 x 3 sets
145 x 5 x 4 sets
-supersetted every set with light band face pulls x 12-15

Log clean and strict press each rep from lap
145 x 5
165 x 5
185 x 3

Log strict press (1 clean)
145 x 8
145 x 8
95 x 15

barbell curls (rest pause)
95 x 15...12...7


I may skip whatever I was gonna do on thursday depending on how I feel. We'll see though. Hopefully I'll be 100% ready to go on saturday.

[niagareven]

Thursday 7/17

Feeling much better finally.


Warm up--focused a lot on my calves/ankles

Chin ups
bw x 10 (happy with this)
bw x 7
bw x 6

Car pushes
5 sets of ~180 feet -- holy lactic acid!

Then walked like a half a mile.


Was planning on doing burpees after this, but my legs felt like jello. Next week I will do them first.


Going to start writing down what I eat every day to hold myself accountable. I've actually eaten good every day since the contest (besides 2 pop tarts with my breakfast on sunday morning.)

5:15am: probiotics, 1tspn of cissus, 2,000mg of vit c

5:45am: 3/4 cup of oatmeal, 30g of protein, 1 banana, 1 spoon of peanut butter, 5g beta alanine (blended into a shake)

9:00am: homemade chicken jerky (equivalent to about 6oz of grilled chicken), 1 green pepper, 1 serving of cheddar cheese, 1 larabar (only ingredients in the bar are dates and cashews..thats it)

12:00pm: 6oz of grilled chicken, serving of cashews, large salad with mixed greens, a cucumber, brocoli and carrots with a little oil/vinegar mixed in

3:00pm: 6oz lean ground beef, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup of peas, homemade tomato sauce, serving of ricotta cheese

6:00pm: 1 serving of surge, 3g creatine, multi vitamins (immediately when i finished working out)

7:00pm: 6oz of grilled chicken, 1 cup of green beans, black olives (~10g of fat worth) small bowl of watermelon

10:00pm: will be 20g protein, 10g pasturized egg whites, a cucmber or some celery and 1tspn fish oil

[niagareven]

Friday 7/18

Woke up this morning and my back was hurting again..... great. It has been bothering me all day. I'm hoping I didn't rotate my spine out of place again while I was sleeping and that it'll feel fine tomorrow.

Food log:

6:45am: serving of muscle milk collegiate + 5g beta alanaine (woke up late for work and didn't have time to make my normal shake)

9:15am: homemade chicken jerky, organic clif nectar bar (similar to what I had yesterday, no bad ingredients), serving of cheddar cheese, green pepper

1:00pm: 6oz grilled chicken, 2 cups of broccoli, lara bar

--had a few handfulls of popcorn and some sips (gulps) of soda while watching batman. It wasn't a lot, but still too much.

4:00pm: 20g protein, 10g pasturized egg whites, big spoon of natty peanut butter. green pepper

7:00pm: 6oz grilled chicken, handfull of homemade trailmix, large salad with romaine lettuce, spinach, cucumber, and red onion. a little oil and vinegar mixed in

9:30pm: 2 eggs, 6 egg whites, 2 slices turkey bacon, 3/4 cup of peas.

If I'm still awake around 12:30 I may have another shake.


Really hoping my back feels fine for events tomorrow. I wanna deadlift, long distance farmers with a hold (or just farmers holds), and do some medleys with tire and sled added in.

[niagareven]

Saturday 7/19

Well, woke up today and my back was still bothering me. I was extremely stiff as well...

Extra long warm up...

Deadlifts even though I shouldn't have.
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 5
405 x 1
455 x nope... pulled it like two inches off the floor and just felt too uncomfortable and too much in my back and dropped it. Every single set, even 135, didn't feel right. Ugh...

Sat around while everyone else kept working out and then decided to just try the log since they were doing it. I just went by feel and it went ok. I'll skip log on monday since I did it today....

12" log
95 x 1.. uncomfortable. Then did some more back traction and hung upside down from the pull up bar
95 x 5
145 x 5
165 x 3
185 x 3
Was gonna stop there because the clean was bothering me, but decided to do 1 more heavier set and put the belt on
205 x 5... not so bad. (5lbs more than next contest weight)
145 x 15
-Picking it up to my lap was uncomfortable and bothered me a bit, the clean was kinda crappy but then once I had it to my shoulder's i felt ok.

Attempted to flip the tire because I'm an asshole and didn't budge it (I've flipped this tire like 35 times before)

Then just held 135 per hand farmers for a while and called it.

I guess I am gonna make an appointment with my ART doctor for hopefully monday and go from there. I'm in pain just walking right now like I was a few months ago.... ugh


Food:
10:30am: 4 slices roast beef (no antibiotics or hormones added), 2 sunnyside eggs, 1 slice of cheese on two slices of toasted eziekiel bread -- this is basically the greatest sandwich ever. Also had a pear and a glass of orange juice with 5g of beta alanine

--I would have normally had a PWO shake before the next meal but we decided to go straight to get food and plus I barely did anything today anyway.

3:30pm: Ice pop (lol), and a grilled chicken platter from the gyro place (with rice, some pita bread, tomatos, lettuce, and red onions)

Around 5:30: Gonna have a 30ish gram of protein shake with some pasturized egg whites, peanut butter and a banana.

Around 7:30: bbqing with some friends, bought chicken to make and gonna have a lot of veggies with it.

Then will have one or two more shakes after that, depending on if we go out to eat or not after the fights tonight.

-Saturdays I am gonna still go out to eat with friends to have a cheat meal (usually gonna be something like wings) and not eat as good the rest of the week because I usually sleep in like 6 hours later than I do during the week and then end up hitting events for at least 3 hours so it's hard for me to get enough meals/calories in. Once a week is a lot better than 7 times a week with eating like this.

[fennway4414]

What part of your back is hurting? The right part of my upper back has been hurting quite a bit lately, I'm not sure WTF it is?

[niagareven]

It's my lower back (spine) I injured it a little over a year ago while deadlifting and after going to a few doctors, taking lots of time off and being in random pain every few months for a couple of weeks, I finally found a doctor who figured out my spine was rotated out of place. After a few sessions with him (he's an ortho/chiro who does ART) I felt like I was past it. Then I wake up randomly yesterday and it's hurting the same as it was and now it hurts to just walk. Probably not a good idea that I trained today.


Maybe try foam rolling your upper back. I get pains in my upper back but after rolling on my pvc it goes away for at least a little while. When I gain weight, I get really bad posture which I think the problem is. I slouch forward constantly and it hurts, so I roll on the pvc and my upper back cracks a few times and then I feel better.