11/9/12 - snatch/bsquat & stone/wfd

Training#1 @ 430a

Power snatch up to ugly 205x3
Bsquat 430x5x2, 430x6
12" box step ups 135x8, 225x8x2


Training#2 @ 640a

15.5# stone
*stand x6
*south African x6
*full spin x8

Just getting the reps in here. Spoke with MattV for a while and came to the conclusion I'm driving too hard with my right leg and that's why I'm over-reaching.. need to focus more on driving/sprinting with my left leg. Focus on "walking through" the spin. Going to try to fall onto my right and bring my left around fast, similar to Jacko Gill. From there I can progress a bit more. Definitely need to get this reaching issue under control.

56# wfd
*one turn x6
*full x6
28# wfd x4

One turns felt good, need faster feet to get into a position sooner for a big finish. Faster feet -> more push to zero -> faster implement -> bigger finish. Drifting 6 or so inches forward on my first spin. Need to fix this as I'm stepping over the trig by about 6" at the front. Also focused leaning over my right side and getting a real long pull/push on the weight. I definitely like this. 28 was good, feeling tired so the throws weren't great.

11/8/12 - ppress/deads & hammer

Training#1 @ 440a

Push press 250x5x2, 250x8
Deads 520x5x2, 520x8
Db rows x2

Great day. Not much accessory stuff but meh, whatevs. Push press felt really solid. Deads started out feeling heavy but got lighter with each set and rep. The rep out for both was pretty fun. Conditioning is shit. Need to get on this.

Training#2 @ 630a

16# hammer
*5 winds no release x 8-10
*3 wind throws x16

Spending a lot of time watching Larry Brock's hammer videos. His tech is flawless. Working on catching high, driving the ball down then pushing it with my right hip before pulling it back up. Need to focus more on sinking my hips on the down stroke so I can get more hip behind the ball to drive it faster. Slow reps today and for the next couple sessions, just drilling the movement pattern in then I can start getting after it. Changing focal point to dead I front of me helped a lot. Not twisting my hips to the right so much is letting me drive the ball better. Need to work on staying long on the left side though without sacrificing orbit angle by leaning back too far. Good practice.

Haven't been paying attention to calories, but I was about 276 last night after dinner. Workouts and throws are both up. I'd really like to maintain here so I'll have to start paying attention to calories again soon. Blegh, sick of counting.

11/7/12 - fsquat/cgbench & hammer

Training#1 @ 445a

Fsquat 350x5x2, 350x8
Cgbench 300x5x2, 300x3
Pull-ups bwx5x3

Good sesh, very happy with the front squats, looks like I'm making progress here again. Cut the accessory as I'll be training 3 days in a row this week. Will add back in next week. Cg bench was ok, bummed about the last set.



Training#2 @ 630a

16# hammer
*5 winds no release x 12-15
*3 wind throws x6-8

Working various things here:

fixing focal point
sinking hips to drive the ball down
pushing right knee in to drive the right hip to drive the ball left
getting under the ball quickly so I can stay long

Every rep was iffy, hard to put it all together, but I'm getting rid of bad habits and forming new good ones so I'm happy with the practice.

Beard pic - 36 days

11/4/12 - Tucson Games

Tucson Highland Games A Class

Bs – 33+ (2^nd)

Os – 47+ (1^st)

Hwd – 41’7 PR (1^st)

Lwd – 78+ (1^st)

20# Sheaf – 27’

Hham – 94+ (1^st)

Lham – 114+ (2^nd)

Caber – 2:30ish (3^rd)

WOB- 16 spin (1^st)

Overall 1^st

Well, that was a fun games. Haven’t had that much fun in a while. Lots of talent moving into the As as of late and it keeps you on your heels. It was great seeing the guys and hanging out.

Bs- ugly piece of shit 24.5# AZ stone (which I thought we got rid of and replaced with a decent 22 pounder). Couldn’t get a good handle on this thing. I went 35+ with it in Phoenix the first game of the season. Just lacking explosion here today. Good enough for 2^nd which is fine because there’s no way I wanted to take extras with that piece of crap.

Os- meh, the trouble ensues. Went 46+ for the W and then took extras and went 47+. No PRs here. Was just focusing on getting my right foot down, staying low then bringing my left foot down very quickly. I tend to progress pretty quickly and with all the recent changes I just didn’t have enough time. I will have some very big ostone numbers next season though.

Hwfd – went 39+ on my first attempt, just walking through the positions. Fouled my second at 43+ and I can’t remember my third. Took the extras and finished with 41’7 which is a PR. I should be happy but there is much more in the tank here as I wasn’t really able to crush the finish on any of these. I had a decent sprint and just blew by the push on the finish.

Lwfd – blegh 78+. Was getting great speed on the sprint but again missing the finish. Not unhappy with this but not happy with it either.

20# sheaf – Cleared 27ft without much of an issue. Went to 30ft afterwards and had missed on accuracy. Was either peaking in front or behind the bar. Only spent about 3 weeks practicing sheaf so it’s time to invest time time and get good at it for phoenix next year.

Hhammer – playing with a new grip so not really focused on the normal stuff. Just trying to get longer on my left side for a smoother pull and I think I’ve taken that step forward. Watched a video of the Celtic Giants in Norther Ireland from 2005 and noticed that Vierra only has 2 fingers of his right hand touching the hammer and the other two fingers are wrapped around his left hand. Gave this a shot and was getting very long. Felt great. Didn’t put anything on it but still dropped my first one at 91ft and second at 94ft, good enough for 1^st so I passed my 3^rd since I knew Adam would give me a run for my money on Lhammer.

Lhammer – Just worked on hitting positions and really only increasing speed on 3. I think I went 109, 112, 114 and Adam hit 115 on his last one so he took the cake. Going to be working hammer a lot this off season too. Now that I’m getting more comfortable with the positions, it’s time to take A LOT of throws and work on getting them fast.

Caber – 18ft 100#s, by now we were all pretty tired and this caber def felt more like 150#s than 100, lol. It had gotten windy all of a sudden so we were chasing a hell of a headwind when running. I think only 4 of us turned the caber. Neither Adam nor myself turned the 1^st attempts so we took a deep breath and figured we had to actually try on our 2^nd and 3^rd attempts. I think I got a 2:30 or something on both 2^nd and 3^rd. Both attempts I had a great pick and really good run, then I put the caber into position on my hip, stopped and pulled… both times the headwind slowed the top of the caber down so much, haha.. oh well..

Wob – 16ft spinning. First time ever spinning. I attempted a spin in phoenix 2011 and that was just silly. I cleared 12 and 13 standing. It was a long day, 9^th event and we were all tired so I decided to just have some fun. Chalked the shit out of my thumb and went for it with the spin. Cleared 14 and 15 easy. Then Adam wanted 15’6 to go for a PR and he crushed it. Then I spun 15’6 and 16’ again pretty easy. Jumped to 17 and just couldn’t get it. I would have it the bar on one of the attempts but my peak was off. This was pretty fun so I’m going to play around with this learning the accuracy. It’ll be a nice tool to have in my box.

Overall had a great time on a great field. Thanks to Rich Wells for putting on a great and fun games like he always does. Thanks to my teammates Adam Brezina and Jake Nicol for pushing me and having a great time. Thanks to Stewart and Torgersen Injury Law (1800ourlawyer.com) for continuing to support us and allow us to keep having fun at all these games. We’re very proud to and grateful to have the chances to represent the company the way we do. Props out to Ed Brown, my training partner, for putting together a solid performance. Tech is looking much improved. Had you not DFL’d hwd by fouling completely out, I think you would have gotten a pretty good placing. Thanks to my family for coming out and supporting me and taking care of my little boy while he runs all over the place. Big big big thanks to my always supportive wife, hauling our (almost) 2 year old 2 hours away from home and out on the field while being 6.5 months preggers and still looking so damn fine while doing it. Love you always sweetheart.

Now, it’s go time. Off season is going to be big this year. Contemplating increasing calories to maintenance now and making some real progress. I’ll take a week to decide for sure if that’s what I want to do or not. First games of the year will be Phoenix in March 2013. I’m going to label that a “Game of PRs” for me. Haha..

11/2/12 - sheaf/ostone/Lwd

Am weight = ?

Training @ 545a

20# sheaf x15-18

15.5# full spin ostone x18

28# wfd x12-15

Sheaf = moar legzzz. Cutting my explosion really short by not getting a lot of leg drive. Tried pushing the bag away from me in the pendulum rather than straight down, though still not getting enough leg drive. Was trying to throw over a light post and was about a foot under it for the majority of the throws. I’m assuming the post is 30ft, but I dunno. Def need more legs though.

Ostone = need a faster left leg. Watching the video over and over again and I’m just blowing right over top of my left block. Instead of using my left leg to stop my left hip, I’m just jumping up and everything is falling to pieces. Just need more reps, lots and lots more reps.

28# wfd = I’ve been asking a few of the high caliber wfd throwers (approx the same height as me) what their strength and deadlift numbers were when throwing huge hwfd and lwfd numbers. I asked big Dan Williams how much he was squatting when he went 48’10” with the hwd in Tucson 2010. His reply: 715… Holy shit. Chatted with Francis Brebner beifly yesterday and he said he just did 400-500 for reps and topped out around 600 on the deadlift. This gives me hope. He said I’ve got a lot of potential on the weights, I just need to get over on my right side more to create a longer pull. This got me thinking. I wasn’t even going to throw wfd this morning but I wanted to try what he was suggesting. A longer pull, so more of an oval/ellipses shaped orbit, rather than circular. Score. First couple reps I hit it after the first spin and had a huge sprint forward, right over the trig, haha. Had to dial that back a bit but tried to get a super long pull on the finish and the results were great. I’m day 5 in a row training and squatted yesterday. My back is crushed and I’ve got no energy. Was dropping these at 78-79ft pretty consistently and moving much much slower than I am used to. I felt like the weight was moving so slow. Looking forward to spending more time with this and hopefully taking my wfd to the next level.

Tucson games on sunday. Time to stretch/foam roll/ice bath and get some solid end-season marks.

For your enjoyment (or mine, meh):

11/1/12 - snatch/bsquat & ostone

Am weight = ?

Training#1 @ 430a

Hang power snatch up to 185x3x3
Bsquat 405x5x2, 405x6
18" step ups 135x8

Snatches felt solid, good warmup for squats. Going to start hitting these much more often. Squats felt good.

Training#2 @ 630a

15.5# stone
*stand x 8
*full spin x 18-20

Standing throws are a wash, going to need to dedicate some serious time to them if I want to get up over 40 next season. Spins are getting better, well, the transition is at least. The front is absolutely terrible, but I'm piecing it together. I'm trying to think of the sprint/drive phase as less of a sprint/drive and more of a very fast step. So, slow out of the back, a very wide right foot sweet, then kick my right foot to the right and pull it in some and JUST before I touch down, start moving my left foot. If I try to "jump" onto my right foot, my right leg has to absorb that impact and the foot stops turning. By being more patient on the sprint and staying on my left longer, I'm able to keep it turning. Now things to work on: be more patient before finishing and separate better. Positive stone session. I hate stones a little less now.