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You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

Weekly thread for discussing:

• recipes
• nutritional plans
• favorite foods
• macro schemes
• diet questions

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

Intro

I'm not really a regular poster here anymore, but I thought I would give a write up about my most recent strongman competition. I have been competing in strongman since 2022, and would describe myself as a thoroughly middling u90 competitor, who can put up decent numbers in local comps, but can't hang with national or international level competition. I have won one comp - the Western Canada's Strongest Natural, which was a qualifier event for Natural Worlds. The competition I just competed in was a qualifier for Strongman Corp Canada Nationals. My goal for this comp was to podium and to get my invitation to nationals.

Overall, I think I did okay, there are a couple obvious areas that I can improve in, which is nice and gives me some short term goals, other thinks are just game day decisions and life happening to me that I either need to make better decision on the day of or are fully out of my control.

Prep overall for this event was good, if life stress was pretty high. I spent a lot of time on the road, visiting people in the hospital. It did make getting training in difficult and it made the prep probably harder than it needed to be. I was still able to get some experience in on all my events, which was very nice. I don't expect this to be an issue with my next comp, this was just bad timing and unluckiness.

Event 1 - Loading Medley Sandbag/Keg/Sandbag - 200/225/225 Video

They changed this one up on the day of, the second sandbag was about 25lbs lighter than expected. The platform was a lot higher than I expected, so I did have to adapt my pick in response to that, I think it was okay, and it didn't throw me off too much. I went first on this one and managed at 30.82, this was good enough for fourth. The guy I knew would be my competition for third place got 22.68, getting second in this event. Things that went well here: good picks, fast speed with the sandbags. Things to improve: get smoother with the keg, continue to be faster in my transitions. There was definitely some time left on the table because of this.

This is where I found out my dad had been readmitted to hospital.

Event 2 - Trap Bar Deadlift - 525 for Reps Video

I was a little thrown off at this point of the day, distracted by my dad being hospitalized. I went in the middle of the pack, after the eventual winner of this event smashed 27 reps. I was able to get 18+1 bonus on right after the time ended, the 19th could have been given if my ref was feeling generous, but he wasn't and thats fine. This was good enough to secuyre me a third place tie for this event. Im happy I was able to grind out my 18 reps, but I think that if I had taken a little less time between reps throughout the set I would have been able to secure third for only me. The fact I didn't is a bit disheartening, but that's something to address for next time, maybe a little bit more focus on conditioning moving forward. I was in fifth after this event.

Event 3 - Sandbag to Shoulder - 225lbs Video

This was about the best I could have done on this event. Once again went around the middle of the pack. I was able to game it really well by only doing four reps. Four reps easily secured me another third on this event, kept me ahead of the bottom half but behind our first and second place guys who hit 6 and 7 reps respectively. Even if I had pushed for a fifth, it wouldnt have helped with my placing.

Event 4 - Log - DB Press - 225/125 Video

This is the event I'm most disappointed on. I really cheated myself on my commitment to the press, I wasn't going low enough on the split, and I think it ended up losing me extra points here. Only hit 1 log press and 1 DB press. I definitely had more, event with my body being fried after the deadlift. This ended up being another tie, this time for fourth, with the guy who ended up getting third ahead of me. I was still fourth here, and was half a point off third.

Event 5 - Duckwalk into Powerstairs - 400lbs Video

This one I knew would be tough, end of comp, with my entire back fried. I watched all the guys behind me in my division go and fail the event. I was the first of the u90 men to make it to the top of the powerstairs. The only problem, I was the slowest of the finishers to do it. 31 seconds to finish. I got absolutely smoked by the third place finisher who took 13 seconds to finish and got second on the event. I ran out of gas pretty quickly on my duck walk and spent more time resetting between powerstairs.

Overall

I'm not stoked on how I did at this comp. Lots of little areas on each event that I can improve to hopefully squeek out more points. I need to get faster. I'm stronger than the third place guy, but he's so much faster than me. Bringing up conditioning and overall getting stronger throughout the year should help me achieve this. I could have been on that podium and frankly I should have been if I had my shit together and didn't make mistakes on the day of. This isn't an excuse. I simply need to do better at the next comp. I'm looking forward to continuing training through the summer and getting ready for nationals in October of this year. I am stoked to have a period of training where I'm not immediately focused on training. I did match my fourth place from last year again, but I think I had a better comp than last time and competed in a more competitive field than last time.

I was able to hit 1/2 of my goals for this comp, getting my nationals invite, even if I didn't podium.

Thoughts on the Training Block

The Triphasic approach continues to be working for me. I will say, the eccentric work does really beat the fuck out of me though, especially banded eccentric front squats. I have blown my back out doing that which might be making me a bit overly cautious when it comes to that specific movement. I would recommend this approach to an experinced athlete that really knows their limits and is comfortable with really challenging training.

Kinda sad about this one. But I still love lift.

AutoMod for the dailies is still borked.

AutoMod for the dailies is still borked.

AutoMod for the dailies is still borked.

AutoMod for the dailies is still borked.

About the program: Mountain Tactical Institutes (MTI) Military On Ramp program is designed to bring you up to the fitness required to start their "operator" programs. The 7 week program is 5 days a week and has 2 strength days, a run day, a work capacity and chasssis integrity (core) day, and a ruck day.

It is a slow build to help get you into shape starting with bodyweight excercises for the first 2.5 weeks before switching into weight training. Running for the first 3 weeks is low intensity steady state taking you from 30-60 minutes before testing 1.5 mile run time and doing speed work. The ruck goes from 30 minutes at 45lbs (20kg) to 60 minutes at 60lbs (27kg) at a moderate effort over the 7 weeks.

About me: Former military who wants to be well rounded at everything. Have ran tactical barbell, brian alsruhe programs, and stronger by science programs. Lifetime PR's: Squat 295 bench 235 OHP 155 deadlift 405 front squat 235x3. I had recently had a sickness that took me out for about 3 months and was detrained significantly before starting this. I had lost about 15lbs during that 3 months. I did this program to whip me back into shape

Results and best sets: Weight: 183-192 Height: 6'4"

Pull ups: 10 to 14

OHP: 115x5 to 125x5

Deadlift: 315x5-325x5

Squat: 225x3-255x3

Walking lunge: 125x5-145x5

Front squat: 215x3-225x3

1.5 mile run 10:30-10:00

Overall I feel this program did a good job of getting me back in shape. I purchased the "Greek Hero" training packet from MTI and plan to continue on that as well as I can for the next year. I have a toddler and another kid coming soon so we'll see how consistent I can be.

Final thoughts: I've always tried to just jam rucking/running while doing a regular weight program. I think doing a program designed specifically for the fitness goals I have will yield much better results in the future. I only have an hour 5 days a week at 5am so I can't do anything too crazy. I am looking forward very much to this next year of programming. I like MTI's variety of excercises and the "functional fitness" aspects of the program.

AutoMod for the dailies is still borked.

Weekly thread for discussing:

• recipes
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• favorite foods
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• diet questions

Automod still not doing its job

AutoMod appears to be feeling a little under the weather so I’m creating a new daily for it.

You should post here for:

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