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Seeking advice on training

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The only thing I'd add as consideration, if part of your long term goal is to lose weight then strongman style training may or may not align with reduced calorie diet.

IDK, I'm of the opinion just about any resistance training strategy can be used to change body comp as long as the dietary aspect is kept in line.
 
@North Coast Miller
Yes, I'm just not that motivated to loose weight right now, even though my bodyfat goes down my weight doesn't, it's been so frustrating. Two months strongman training at least sounds like fun. And I'll try not to over-eat and continue to eat healthy. Working on the long term lifestyle changes.
And I have the suspicion that if I try to put on more muscles instead of loosing weight I'll end up doing the opposite. Like I've done this past 6 months with trying to loose weight and just gotten stronger. Have the paradox work in my favor... :confused:
 
Have actually reduced 1cm at my waist and added 1cm around my neck. I'm now at 30,5% body fat according to the online calculator, down from 34,3% at beginning of april.

A 4% drop in about 2 months is something to celebrate!

I think you'd be a natural at strongman with the weights you lift so easily. I hear strongman is alot of back strength and technique. All the good strongman have incompatible deadlift strength. If you have the equipment to incorporate deadlifts in your training it would be beneficial.
 
I think you'd be a natural at strongman with the weights you lift so easily.
...
If you have the equipment to incorporate deadlifts in your training it would be beneficial.
Thanks, but all the weights I've lifted these last 6 months feels like baby weights now I've gotten some heavy weights to play with.
I can't afford a proper barbell and the weights I got are "school weights", meaning they're made with a 25mm hole, not the standard 50mm hole for olympic weights. But planning on deadlift with the farmers walk implements I made.
...
Tried today before breakfast to find my 1 rep max on farmers deadlift, just lifting weights with my farmers walk implements. And... 102kg in each hand isn't happening. Could lift 97kg, barely.... took three steps, made a short whimpering noise and put the weights back down. :confused:
Was really hoping to lift over 200kg total today but a lot of work to be done before that's happening. I'm going to train with about 80-90kg for farmers and deadlift for reps and greasing the groove the coming week. No use going for max every day, and hopefully I get used to it and my technique improves.

This evening i did a light cardio session with my girl. Took the 32kg, put it in the car and drove to her place.
We took turns doing farmers walk with the 32kg and a 24kg to a small local park about 200m from her house.
Did 80 snatches with the 24kg, 20 swings with 32kg, 20 snatches with 32kg, 20 presses and 30 rows with the 32kg and farmers walk back.
Also did two get-ups with a 20kg to check my right foot but it still hurt a little.
 
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It's been hot and a lot of mosquitoes lately, couldn't sleep properly but invested this week in an heat pump. Expensive, but I put it on my "training expense-account" not my "building material-account"... (yes, it's all just my bank account but...)
Just press a button and it's 19 degrees Celsius in 5min when it's 28 degrees in the shade and 44 degrees in the sun. Slept 13 hours the day after I installed the heat pump. :cool:

It's midsummers eve, the biggest holiday in Sweden. So I'll be brief. Strongman training is coming along, I feel a little bit stronger and I'm down to 29,9% body fat. No sugar or white flour/pasta and lots of protein this past week and will be continuing that until 1st of July and then decide how I'm going to eat up until the strongman event in august.
Been focusing on presses lately since I tore off my calluses while doing farmers walk last week. Have bought skin cream and nail files, seems to help.

Pressing the 40kg in sets of 5 and have the ambition to start "proper" press/jerk training with the 48kg next week. 2 hand swings, squats, rows and single leg deadlifts are all with the 48kg and increasing the reps.
...
Midsummer in Sweden is really special. It's one of few holidays I know of that's isn't religious or is grounded in some form of nationalism, and goes back thousands of years, solstice.
Everyone can celebrate and are welcome. Doesn't matter where you're from, your political views, your beliefs etc. as long as you like the sun and summer time and feel like that is something to celebrate with friends and family. :)
And the food is wonderful in it's minimalistic simplicity... Gravlax, pickled herring, boiled new (fresh from the ground) potatoes with butter and dill, toast Skagen (prawns on toast with sour cream, chives, caviar and red onions) served with cold beer and seven kinds of spirits, and strawberries and cream for dessert. :rolleyes:
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This picture is a bit posh, but captures the essence of the food well...

Glad Midsommar!
 
Great job! Do you know where you started at?
No, not really. I'm guessing around 36%, or possibly a little higher even.
And like I've said, don't know how accurate the measuring method is, but I'm trying to use the same amount of tightness on the measuring tape and "flex" the same amount. So I've lost 6cm around my waist since april by using the same measuring method, don't know how wide I were before... but wider... :oops:

And I'm being careful about not "crashing" but doing it slowly.
 
And I'm being careful about not "crashing" but doing it slowly.

Great progress and good idea on not crashing! I've heard you want to do some maintenance in between if you are doing some long term weight loss. So lose for 3 months, maintenance for a month, then back to losing. If you try to operate on a calorie deficit for 6 months+ your metabolism slows down cause your body is trying to prevent starvation.
 
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Pressed the 48kg with left and right arms yesterday. Did 10 presses with 32kg, 10 presses with 40kg, rested and pressed the 48kg once with the left... rested... and pressed it with my right. Tried to do one more per arm but could only make it about 80% up. Looking forward to be able to press it anytime I want. But happy I managed to press it before the end of June. Strongman event in August... Hurry up!!!

Down to 28,8% bodyfat. I've decided to go whole food plant based (WFPB) + whey protein powder the whole of July. But eating meat on cheat days... No dairy besides proteinpowder. Had just bought 100$/100€ worth of whey and casein-powder, so going to eat that and then decide if I'm going to buy more when I run out.

I'm training every other day. Swings, presses, farmers walk, rows, squats, snatches and single leg deadlifts. I usually don't do swings and farmers on the same day, but otherwise I mix it up as I feel like. Doing walks on my rest days.

I've also started with my old "no internet after 18:00"-thing... makes me sleep and relax better... and leaves more time for training, movies, eating, women, video games and reading. :)
 
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I got myself a tire yesterday and today I flipped it 55 times.
It's a 23.5R25 weighing about 300kg. Surprisingly it's not that heavy but more of a cardio exercise. Did one set of 10 flips, then sets of 5 making sure to focus on technique.
From here on out until 10th of August it's only presses, farmers, tire flips and kettlebell swings (as a finisher) for me.

Have been hanging around in a swedish strongman-group on facebook for a while, have gotten a lot of good tips for my first strongman competition like:
  • Only train the specific events
  • Rest the whole week before the competition
  • Use lighter weights with proper technique
  • don't try heavy yoke for the first time days before competition
  • eat food
  • sleep
It's a bit funny, last year there were only 2 people from this town competing in the strongman event, it was about 10 people competing all together but only people that live in this small town gets the "title". This small town I l live in has a very generic sounding name in Swedish, meaning "grassy smallholding", it's like in america where there are places called Springfield or Greenville ... anyway... the title is for "the Worlds Strongest Springfielder". But if it's only two people competing for it that would by default make the runner up "the Worlds Weakest Springfielder". :eek: But if you're the worlds weakest you can only get stronger...

I've found out what the events and weights were last year. They were:
Tireflip 270kg
Farmers Walk 90kg
Yoke 180kg
Deadlift. 3 lifts with weight of your choice, min 100kg...
Pressmedley 40kg-70kg

If it's 70kg log press it will be "easy"... if it's a 70kg circus dumbbell I don't think I could pushpress it yet... :confused:
As for the Deadlifts I'll just have to hope the farmers walk and swings has enough carry over to deadlifts I don't make an absolut fool of myself. Hopefully I get a chance soon to try the yoke, otherwise I'll take the advice and just use light weights before competition.
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Some hummus, vegetables and stupid salsa. So difficult to make food look good on camera...

My vegan+wheyprotein diet is going well. Looking forward to go 100% vegan after the strongman event. I usually eat 100g of oatmeal+proteinpowder+apple or banana for breakfast and casein+peanutbutter+banana for an evening meal and one "proper" vegan-meal with nuts and fruits as snacks if I'm hungry.
My two go-to recipes are:
Hummus+raw vegetables and "Stupid Salsa".
Brown Rice+Green Lentils+carrots+onions+leeks+garlic+kebab spice+Sriracha (and "Stupid Salsa")

I call it "Stupid Salsa" because it's so easy to make it's stupid. It's diced tomatoes, diced cucumber, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, sriracha and dried pizza herbs (basil, oregano, marjoram). Goes well with almost everything. Just put it all in a bowl and let it sit while you cook your lentils, vegetables and rice .
I still eat a lot of potatoes, but haven't found a good protein rich whole food plant based-recipe I like yet. Falafel and potatoes, or cottage cheese and potatoes or soy/wheat-imitation meat and potatoes work fine but are not whole food plant based. I usually just boil potatoes and vegetables and have a protein shake after the meal.
 
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How long were the farmer and yoke walks?

Have you tried the yoke beforehands much? It's a wild ride and I think it needs much more training than the farmers.
Don't know. I'm guessing 20 meters each. Or perhaps 10m farmers to 10m yoke. It's a small lighthearted event...

I've never tried yoke before, just watched a few youtube videos. The advice I got from a guy who competes at a national level was if I only had the opportunity to try the yoke a day or two before the event to not go heavy because it could "f you up for days" the first time you try heavy yoke, so better to go light and just wing it on the day in that case according to him.
Hopefully I get an opportunity the coming weeks to go back to the local strongwoman at her gym and then it's Yoke all the way.
 
Don't know. I'm guessing 20 meters each. Or perhaps 10m farmers to 10m yoke. It's a small lighthearted event...

I've never tried yoke before, just watched a few youtube videos. The advice I got from a guy who competes at a national level was if I only had the opportunity to try the yoke a day or two before the event to not go heavy because it could "f you up for days" the first time you try heavy yoke, so better to go light and just wing it on the day in that case according to him.
Hopefully I get an opportunity the coming weeks to go back to the local strongwoman at her gym and then it's Yoke all the way.

I too understand that the yoke can be a bit unforgiving, so to say, hard on you.

The farmer walks are simple, just pick the weights up, hold your grip, walk. With the yoke, if you don't account for the swing you will drop the yoke or worse, hurt yourself.

But sure, from those options, the yoke sounds like the one to practice if you get the chance.
 
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Technique training today.
30 presses 32kg
30 presses 40kg
2 presses 48kg
50 tire flips
20 rows 48kg

Flipping in sets of 5, resting 2-4min or walking 250m between sets to not drop form while flipping. Making a mistake or not being explosive enough while tire flipping can.... hurt. :D
 
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Damn it!
Found out the events for this years strongman competition. They are:

Car deadlift (usually a quad-bike), max reps 1min
Loading Medley. 4 objects, 20m run for time (I'm guessing sandbags and kegs)
Yoke press. Max reps 1min
Tire flips. 4 flips for time
Atlas stones up to platform. Max reps 1min.
Cut
Arm over arm-final

Weights to be announced later.

Feeling a bit bummbed out. Can't train any of the events at home beside tire flips and my deadlift is (probably) really weak. And I need at least 6-7 sessions with the atlas stones to get comfortable. The one time I tried it hurt a lot and was really awkward finding a grip. But can't really afford to buy one...
I guess I can throw some weights in a bag and run with it. And running with kettlebells without using the handles. Don't really feel like making some contraption so I can yoke press my farmers walk implements.
I'm gonna find the biggest stone I can lift and lifting it over my saw horses for reps and deadlift with the farmers walk cases.
Was really hoping for different events.:(
 
I wouldn't worry about the deadlift. You're strong, and the deadlift is the strong event, where natural strength gets to shine. If nothing else, you'll see how good you are.

The medley sounds good for you, yes? You have something similar? I suppose the implements don't get that heavy so you could use your kettlebells?

How different do you think the yoke press will be from your typical press? I don't have any experience with the yoke press, but a press is a press, right...

You have the tire flips covered so that's good.

The Atlas stones may be the biggest obstacle. The hardest one to train without them? Hard and untypical in general, I'd say. I'm not sure if I would want to have the exercise as a staple, as it seems precarious. But for you, it's just one out of seven? So don't worry too much about one exercise, take a holistic approach.

Cut? What is that?

The arm over arm should also play well into your general strength.

To me it seems you're well covered so far. Just keep doing the basics, getting stronger. You will do well.
 
@Antti
Thank you for those calming words. I really don't want to embarrass myself.
Yes, it will be a nice measurement of my strength. And I checked, most large quadbikes only weighs about 400kg, can't be that heavy doing a "car deadlift" with that.
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The medley should be okay, I haven't really trained running with heavy objects, just farmers, but I got time I guess.

Yes, a yoke press seems "easier" than other presses, like log is a bit of a technique in the clean or circus dumbbell with placement on the shoulder. I found a video with Eddie Hall doing yoke press. I think I'll try to copy him... with half the weight. :D


"Cut" is when the two people with the most points from the previous events go to the final, in this case arm over arm, the rest of the contestants gets "cut".

Yes, Atlas stones. :confused: It's a bit of a weird choice because as far as I know there's only one set of Atlas stones in this county. So no one from "Springfield" can train with them.
And... there are at this moment only three people, including me, that's signed up.
Man, I really hope it rains come contest day.

Easy session with my girl today, my right wrist hurt a little...
15 goblet squats 48kg
50 tire flips
10 2HS 48kg (wrist hurt a little)
110 2HS 32kg in sets of 25 (felt nothing in the wrists)

My girl flipped the tire 7 times and did 100 2-hand swings with the 32kg. She's getting strong. :)
 
I second @Antti . You've been doing heavy swings, picking heavy stuff off the ground and press heavy K-bells overhead. You may experience some grand WTH effects! And remember...HAVE FUN!
 
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