Results From the Bay Area Rennaissance Festival

I did okay at best.  I can't bitch too much, but performed poorly on a few throws where I thought I would do well.  Here is how it broke down:

Braemar Stone:  Threw a PR here and it actually felt pretty good.  I had plenty of pop, I drove well and I feel like I did an alright job of keeping my high and throwing up.

Open Stone:  Threw another PR here.  I didn't hit 40' like I wanted, but I had some good pushes and had 38'+ throw.  Special thanks to Dan Jessop and Dave Robinson for helping out with my form.

56# Weight For Distance:  I don't even want to write about this one.  It seems that every other Games I forget how to throw it.  The only PR I threw in Jax was the 56 and it felt like a crappy throw.  I have to make it down to Ocala to practice with another A Division competitor to get this one down.  I'm taking up about 1/2 of the box on the first spin, when the guys who are good at this are almost staying in place on their first spin.

28# Weight for Distance:  I needed to get my head clear, so my first throw was my old school single spin.  It went something like 47', but it was a throw away attempt, so I didn't care too much.  I concentrated on keeping my first spin tight on the next throw and it went 55'+, a PR.  Final throw I kept it tight and got a better pull and I threw 56'+ which is a huge PR and one of my goals for this Games.

Hammer:  This was frustrating.  I threw 69' in Orlando but only hit 64' in these Games.  I keep releasing after 2 spins because I feel like I'll lose it after the third.  In practice I keep my hips on a good rotation and stay stable, but the last two Games I've just screwed up.  Again I need to practice with someone who has technique.

Caber:  I usually am in the top 4 or 5 with this, but I had no pop after lunch.  It was too damned hot and I did not have the energy.  I need to start doing my workouts outside from Noon-2 to get used to the heat, so I don't suffer after our lunch break.

Sheaf:  To be honest I don't even want to talk about it.  Too many people trying to tell me too many different things and I just got screwed up.  Just like the caber, no pop.

56# Weight For Height:  I made it to 11' and barely hit the bar at 12'.  No excuse here, just no gas left in the tank.

I had a great time with some great people and I got to spend some time with my Uncle Bobby and Aunt Marty.  I need to spend less time in the gym and more time on the field.

Goals for This Weekend

Goal setting is here again on "From the Mouth of Mallard".  This weekend I am throwing at the Bay Area Renaissance Festival.  Throwing in a Highland Games with chicks in corsets and wench dresses galavanting around- I'm all for it.

Here are my goals for the weekend:

1.  I really want to hot 40' in the Open Stone.  This has eluded me in the past and I feel I've got it this time.
2.  12'+ in the Weight Over Bar.  12' is my PR, so as long as I tie it I'm happy. I haven't had as much single arm Snatch work as I have in the past, so I'm not banking on much improvement.
3.  Caber:  I want to do away with all the 2:00 I've been getting.  Hopefully my form work will have helped correct it.
4.  Sheaf:  I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE SHEAF
5.  56# Weight For Distance:  27'+
6.  28# Weight For Distance:  Still looking for 55'+.  I've thrown over 57' in practice, but I seem to not be able to carry it over to the competition.
7.  Hammer:  I'm not wearing spikes this time as I need more practice with them.  I'm looking to break 70'
8.  Overall I want to see at least 3 PRs in these Games

That is what I expect out of myself for these Games.  I'm gonna drive down to Tampa today and spend some time with my Dad's side of the family before I throw tomorrow.  Should be fun...

Deloading for the Games

Now is deload time.  Yesterday I had my last training session before the Highland Games this weekend.  I am starting to get nervous because I am really hard on myself about achieving results.  I have completely changed my training regiment and concentrated a lot more on my throws, so I'm hoping it will pay off.  Only time will tell if the change has paid off.  Today I only did:

Shot Put Drills:  10mins
Hammer Drills:  5mins
Weight for Distance Drills:  10mins

I really concentrated on foot speed on the shot put and weights for distance.  I also changed my spins a little to make the first one shorter and the socond more of a sprint.  Lets hope it all pays off...

The Weekend Bloat(Experimenting on Myself)

Over the past few weeks I dropped weight that I was not planning on dropping.  Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of fat loss will not hurt anyone, however I did not want to be 295 until April 10th.  With all the work capacity training I had been doing I dropped 10lbs like it was nothing.  Hell, I wasn't even trying.  So, I took the opportunity to see how well I could bloat.  Wednesday I weighed in at 293 and was the first time I had seen the other side of 300 since September or August.  I used this experiment to benefit not only myself, but the readers of my blog, so here is how it went.

What I used for the bloat:
Simple and highly refined carbohydrates
Salt and lots of it
Liquid calories
Gatorade and Water

  I started off Wednesday night by taking in a ton of highly refined carbs and simple sugars, finished off with salt and 64oz of water on top of the 1.5 gallons I had already ingested that day.  Thursday I already had some swelling going on.  So I woke up and had 1.5 cups of rice 6 eggs and doused it in soy sauce and continued the trend throughout the day.  Friday was a screwy day, but I managed to down a gallon of 1/2 water 1/2 Gatorade before I ate some smoked turkey(like real smoked turkey, not that Oscar Meyer "turkey") and drove to Jacksonville.  From there I spent some time with my brother and ate some more salty, highly refined carbs.  Saturday and Sunday was more of the same but with more coffee, NOS, and Rockstar thrown in there. 

I weighed in this morning at 305 on the nose.  What information could be gleaned from this "experiment"?  I ate a diet that was pretty typical of your average American and I gained 12lbs in a matter of days.  There is no way in hell I ingested enough calories to elicit that amount of weight gain.  That means I would have had to eat 42,000 kCals over my maintenance levels over, roughly, four days.  So why did I gain it?  Mostly water retention.  For every gram of glycogen you store in your body you store 2-3 grams of water.  By filling up those glycogen stores I effectively gained the ability to hold onto more water.  Combine that with the salt and there is the 12lbs I gained.

  How can this help you?  Don't eat this shit, plain and simple.  Imagine how much lighter you could be walking around just by cutting this garbage out of your nutritional profile.  Try it for a month and you'll never go back.

How Is the New Training Going?

Quite well, actually.  I have an easier time recovering and the work capacity work (yes, that is right) makes me feel healthier, even through the higher intensities.  Today's training broke down like this

FRONT SQUAT
Bar x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
270x3
285x3
300x3
These felt good, but I always have to rerack the last rep on my highest % set.  Probably form breaking down.

DEADLIFT
5x10 with 315(60% of 1RM).
 I switched up stances with each set, so I did 2 sumo and 3 conventional.  These sets showed me how low my work capacity is.  These took too long to recover from and I ended up pulling 5 or 6 reps in a row and the rest were doubles and singles with 3-5 breaths between to finish the sets.

JUMP PULLUPS
I was supposed to do 5x10 here, but my grip was so fried from the deads that I only made it through one sets and had to call it quits.

BLAST STRAPS ROWS
4x12
Nothing special here

EXPLOSIVE WOODCHOPS
8x3 unidirectional to compliments throwing

THROWING DRILLS
Line Drills
Shot Put Drills and Throws

All in all it was a great day of training.  I have been going M, T, R, F, but I missed Monday because I felt like garbage.  The night before I was a little too sore for my liking so I took a contrast shower, and did some SMR while in there.  I think that it released a lot of toxins, much like a too deep massage, so I had to listen to my body and call it quits.  Now I'm rested up and back.  Tomorrow is conditioning day, so I'll push Dynamic Bench and Hang Cleans back to Friday and Saturday.

Why Your Certification Doesn't Mean Sh*t

  What Personal Training certification do you hold?  NSCA?  NASM?  ISSA?  ACE?  ACSM?  In my opinion, no matter how you cut it, it doesn't mean jack squat.  I know that certifications are a vital part of the industry and they help to develop some sort of standards, but holding one certification over another does not make you a better strength coach or trainer.

  Sure there are some certifications that hold higher esteem than others, but let me put this in perspective for you.  Are there any regulatory bodies that govern what each individual certifying organization puts in their tests?  No.  I could go out today and form the Sports, Hypertrophy, Integrative Trainer certification and people would pay me money to have S.H.I.T. put behind their name on their business cards as their certification.  Likewise, there are organizations out there where you do a weekend workshop, pay them "x" amount of dollars and you are magically competent enough to train a client.  Does that make a lick of sense?

  So what should you look for in a strength coach or trainer? 



  First look for certification because at least you know that the person know enough not to kill you.  This is the least important thing to look for.  If you didn't get the point from the previous paragraphs you are too dense and proably deserve to have a crappy strength coach/trainer.

  Next, look for education.  In this case more is not always better.  Look for a relevant field of study such as  Physiology, Kinesiology, Biomechanics, Fitness, Wellness, Human Performance, Athletic Training.  A Master's trumps a Bachelor's, but a Bachelor's is probably on the same level as a Ph.D..  All three of those will trump a H.S. diploma for obvious reasons.  Why rag on the Ph.D. Matt?  If you have ever spent any time in college, aside from hanging out in your frat house, you would realize what Ph.D. students actually do.  THEY SPEND ALL DAY IN A FRIGGIN' LABORATORY.  They have probably forgotten all of the things they learned that practically apply to exercise and retained all the stuff they needed to chop rats up in the name of science.  At UF I had plenty of professors teach me how to resistance train that looked like they had NEVER picked up a weight themselves, much less coached anyone else in their life.

  The most important thing is to look for experience.  Nothing, in my opinion, trumps experience.  I would rather have an ACT certified (free cert) Personal Trainer with 15 years of competition and "under the bar" experience than a pencil-necked geek right out of college with his NSCA-CSCS, along with his NASM-PES.  I'm sure that the 6'2" 155lb college kid had to learn more to earn his certification, but he has no idea what it is actually like to train.  You have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the one you work with.

  Has the person been training for a while and can they carry clients?  If you are a strength coach or trainer and do not have the ability to carry 15 clients at a time, you are just an enthusiast.  Make a living and support yourself and possibly your family off of this industry and maybe I'll start to listen to you.  Experience is king.
 
  You can read all day long on how to do a Snatch, but until you walk up to that bar, put your hands on the iron and yank that sumbitch over your head, you have no idea what you are talking about.  You see this all the time on the internet.  They are the keyboard experts that carry about 4 clients at a time, but will try to sell you on their "secrets" of training leaving you with buyers remorse and a sour taste in your mouth about the whole industry.

  I get asked a lot, "Matt, why don't you start writing articles?".  I feel as though I have not fully earned the "experienced" title.  Sure, I've been lifting since I was 15 years old and have competed in strength sports since I was 19.  Hell, I've even come back from an accident that was supposed to kill me.  However, I have only been earning a living off of this industry for 3 years now.  I have been coaching people on lifting for the past 6 years, but not making a living off of it.  While I have been successful in what I do 3 years does not make me "experienced" in my own eyes.  Until that time when I deem myself "experienced" I will continue to educate myself, I will continue to grow, and I will continue to share my passion with new up-and-coming trainers.  So, until that time, my thoughts and experiences will be published here.

New Breakdown of My Training

Here is the new training, now that I have had to re-plan EVERYTHING.

Day 1: 
Close Grip Power Snatch from Hang
Push Press
Lateral Raise
Upright Row
Russian Twist
  EXPLANATION:  Close Grip Speed Snatch is for speed in the WOB.  There is no drop involved in this snatch and the grip mimics the motion of the WOB.  Push Press is there because I suck at OH Press and I need to get better at them.  Lateral Raise is there to help with my sheaf.  Upright Row is for my weak traps and the Russian Twist is more for range of motion (ROM) through my core.


Day 2:
Front Squat
Barbell Row
Jump Pullups
Blast Strap Rows
Pulling Woodchops
EXPLANATION:  Front Squat to build up the Quadriceps, but also help me work on my Squat form as a whole.  All the back work is thrown in to build up my upper back which has become weaker than I want it to.  I am incorporating both horizontal and vertical pulling to get the best gains.  The pulling woodchops are put in to help built rotational speed, which I seem to be lacking lately.

Day 3:
Conditioning
High rep Kettlebell work (Snatches, Cleans, Swings)
Weighted walks at an incline (40-135lbs added)
Throws work
EXPLANATION:  To increase work capacity and endurance

Day 4:
Dynamic press:  Specific lift changes every week
Dumbbell press:  Specific lift changes every week
Triceps work
Caber Curls
Speed Ladder work
EXPLANATION:  No big secret here, just trying to build up my shot put and caber.  My upper body is seriously lagging behind my lower, so I need as much work as I can get.  Speed ladder is included so foot speed will increase.

Day 5:
Power Cleans
Explosive Good Mornings
Depth Jumps/Reactive Jumps
Single-Leg Romanian Deadlifts
Standing abs
EXPLANATION:  General speed day, really keying in on the hips.  Standing abs... you almost never use your abs when you are lying on the floor, so why train them in the gym that way?

Day 6:
Meathead Conditioning and Throwing
Throwing will come first, then the Meathead Conditioning.  Tire flips, truck pushes, sled drags, caber carries for distance, etc...  If it is heavy and I can move it, it is fair game

Day 7:
Rest

  Three main lifts (Snatch, Squat, and Clean) are all done on a percentage based periodization determined by my one rep max on each lift.  I'm going to re-try an older % based method from Bigger, Faster, Stronger.  It is what I used when I first started lifting seriously and I got strong quick and stayed very healthy.  The Press will be done at 40-60% of my one rep max and will change between incline, overhead, and flat.  Every program will work, you just have to work the program.
  All the accessory work is done between 3-5 sets and 8-15 reps and vary week to week.  This will allow me to accumulate as much lean mass as possible while, hopefully, keeping my work capacity high.  This is a representation of only one microcycle and it will change over time depending on where my competitions lay in a specific time frame. 
  During this time my conditioning will change, and most days will have some sort of weighted walking or sprints/sled drags.  The goal here is to lose some fat mass, but I am not going to really focus on that until I have my next cut.  I do not like a lukewarm approach when it comes to losing weight, either you are or you are not.  It is as simple as that, so when I go on the next cut my goal will be to lose about 20lbs in 28 or so days.  When I start the cut I want to be around 295, so I only need to drop 8lbs until then.  This is where the conditioning work and portion size changes come into play.
  Well, here is the plan and here is to setting goals and making them. 

Highland Games Report and Revamping EVERYTHING

To sum it up, this was one of the most disappointing experiences I have had so far competing in a Highland Games.  Not only did I not achieve a single goal I set for myself, I can't say anything too positive came out of the experience.  I'll give you the run-down by events.

STONE:  They had us throw one of the worst stone in the history of man, Herman's Head.  This is really a Breamar Stone, but they use it as their Open Stone at the NEFL Games.  It is a 22lb pain in the ass with a funky shape and no sweet spot.  I had no "pop" on the throw and I felt as if I could not get any rotational force going on the throw.  I only threw it 28'

56 lb Weight For Distance(WFD):  My first throw looked like absolute garbage.  The cast was too low, the first spin took up 3/4 of the box and I was falling backwards with the throw.  It went 21' something.  Second throw went a little bit better, but I had no pull on the throw.  Third throw was the best, I got my first spin around quick enough and I got a small amount of pull out of it.  It went 26' 9" which is a PR, but still 3" short of my goal.

28 lb WFD:  I'd rather not talk about this one, but I'll go ahead and do it anyway.  All three throws sucked.  My feet were too slow, the mechanics felt poor and I threw almost 10' shorter than I threw in practice.  I didn't even break 50' which in my eyes is pathetic and inexcusable.

HAMMER:  This one was all poor practice methods.  This was the first Games using spikes.  I practiced the spins with spikes, but never the release.  I fouled my first two throws, which felt really powerful, because I lost control and hit the ground on the first two throws.  I ditched the spikes and went on for my third attempt.  I got good speed, but on the fourth rotation I hit the ground and lost all power and the Hammer only went mid-50s.

CABER:  This one went fairly well.  I consider myself an average Caber thrower, but I seem to do really well.  I placed fourth overall with a 2:00, 1:00 and a 12:00.  At least I corrected some of my form errors.

56 lb Weight Over Bar:  This one I tied my previous PR, but I was so defeated mentally and worn out physically, I could only touch the bar at 13'.

Sheaf:  I suck at it and that is all there is to it.  Tied my previous PR.  I REALLY need coaching and form work on this one.


REVIEW:  I am too slow.  Too much Powerlifting and not enough Olympic and Speed training makes Matt a slow boy.  So, this weekend I went back and totally revamped my training protocols.  I plan to cut out a lot of my Max Effort work and work on a percentage based system.  I am going to include speed ladder work and footwork drills.  I am also going to change all my main lifts to include more speed/throws-based lifting.  They will include Dynamic Incline and Overhead Pressing, Hang Power Snatch, Hang Power Cleans, and Front Squats.  Two days a week will include throwing drills and the other two speed and footwork drills.  One day on the weekend I am going to try to get a day of real throwing in.  I am going to video record each session and only concentrate on two throws at a time. 

As you saw I went 0 for 7 on my goals for this Games.  I have VERY high expectations of myself because I know that I am better than this.  I just need a way to transfer my "out of competition strength" to my "in-competition strength".

I tested Training Maxes for Front Squat and Close-Grip Power Snatch yesterday and man, am I ever slow. 

Front Squat: 335.  I feel like I had more in the tank, but I ran out of time and had already performed too many sets to work up to 335

Close-Grip Power Snatch:  185.  WTF?!  This is how slow I've become.  This is a pathetic number for me, but a max is a max and I'm going to be smart and stick with the percentages for each given lift.
I am also debating on whether or not to drop weight, but that is another post for another time.  My feet have been bothering me way too much for weight to not be a factor.  I just need to decide how much I want to lose and how it will affect my throwing.  Oh well, I guess that is how the iron game goes...