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The original was posted on /r/weightroom by /u/Frodozer on 2023-10-29 20:19:40.
Hello everyone. I'd like to start off by saying that chaos was not the plan. In fact, I would say chaos was the opposite of the plan.
Several months prior I had the Static Monsters world championships and I decided that if I wanted to be dialed in for the competition maybe it was time for me to hire a coach who had more experience than me in the sport.
I contacted CJ Pierce, a world record holder in the axle press and one of the most impressive athletes in the sport of strongman that I've ever witnessed. The cool thing was most of his accolades were in my weight class. (U90/U200)
CJ took me on as a client and we started prepping for Static Monsters. I knew I didn't have a chance on the overall rankings or on the deadlift event, but had a good chance of winning the log press. Since they were giving away gold medals/world titles for both of the events and overall I decided to aim to bring home gold in pressing event. Long story short, I did. It was a brutal water cut that involved me losing about 12 pounds in one day. About 2-3 pounds out I wanted to give up and almost did multiple times. I couldn't handle anymore time in the tub sweating. But somehow I did. My spouse carried me (literally) to weigh ins, I stepped on the scale and made weight. The next. day I earned a gold medal on the log, took last in the deadlift (and overall) and had a little vacation in Europe/came home.
The entire time I felt super down on myself. I felt like I hadn't earned anything. I didn't want to compete at Nationals and even told CJ a few times that I was thinking about dropping out. I have a lot of anxiety around competitions and while I speak some tough macho strongman stuff on the internet every now and then, I actually hate lifting and training, I feel like I don't belong. Like I've just won some local stuff and gotten lucky on the bigger stages because I just happened to be one of the better ones to show up this time.
Either way, I stuck with it and went to Nationals. 25 in the field this year (23 showed up) compared to 15 last year (I believe) where I took 11th in 2022. Top 7 took home Arnold invites this year.
(Note, not being bothered looking at exact placings or times right now so I could be off by a little bit on some of these things. Also, all videos are posted on my Instagram, which is also linked on my reddit profile)
Event 1:
Sandbag over 15 foot. 30 pounds ---> 70 pounds. Last man standing. Heaviest bags win, no tie breakers.
Results: Tied with the majority of the field with 45 pounds. I actually got 50 to sit on top of the wall for a second or two. (If it gets stuck on top it counts) Sadly it feel slowly forward and I couldn't get the bag over the top with the remaining 30 seconds.
How I trained: I threw a 55 pound bag into the air for the majority of the training. Within the last few weeks I got the bag down to 45 pounds and built a structure to 15 feet using some old greenhouse parts we had stacked up on a bench and a bunch of other stuff. I got about 8/10 throws over it before a throw came down on top and crushed the structure. I was pretty confident that 45 pounds was there for the competition and it was.
Event 2:
Log Press: 275 or 225 log for reps in 60 seconds. Any amount of reps with the 275 trumped any amount of reps on the 225. (1 rep of 275 was better than 1,000 reps of 225 for example)
Results: 4th with 3 reps of 275. I was a little upset with this showing. I had done 3 reps in 60 seconds in training a month prior while I was sick with Covid and after I had recovered I hit 2 in 20 seconds with very low RPE. During the event rep 1 went up with very little effort. Rep 2 was more difficult, but still moved very quickly. Attempt at rep 3 was slow to clean and I failed the rep. I also shit myself a bit on this rep. I knew that I would only have one more rep in me, but only if I could time it perfectly with the maximum amount of rest. I asked the judge to please update me with 15 seconds left to go, they gave me the update, and I got one more rep of 275. I would have thought 4-5 reps would have been there, but it wasn't.
I cleaned myself up in the bathroom, put on the spare pair of underwear and shorts, and relaxed until event 3.
How I trained: A TON of clean and presses. I got so sick of log presses and how taxing they were on my back. The majority of the pressing was plenty below 275, but the last month I pressed 270-285 every week.
Event 3:
Stone medley: 255, 270, 290, 325 for reps with remaining time (60 seconds). NO TACKY ALLOWED. Each stone (minus the 325) was picked and carried a distance before loaded to a platform.
Results: To my surprise I beat the majority of the field getting the 3rd stone in a decent amount of time. Couldn't lift the 4th stone. I say suprisingly because I could barely pick a 220 stone in training. In fact, a 250 stone is the heaviest stone I ever picked in competition with a BUNCH of tacky on. So that meant all 3 stones were a PR for me. Even the 325 left the ground. My grip held tight, I simply wasn't strong enough to lift it to my lap.
How I trained: A few weeks of failing to pick up light stones over and over again before I developed bicep pain in my left arm. I basically stopped training all together minus two sets of pick and carries the week before.
End of day one, in 6th place.
I assumed I'd be much lower at this point because of the stone event, but I was in a really good position to keep my top 10 placing throughout the 2nd day and improve on the year before.
Day 2:
Event 4:
Max trap bar deadlift (last man standing, starting approximately 505sh pounds with 44 pound jumps)
Results: Tied with the majority of the field at 683 pounds (A 28 pound PR for me)
How I trained: I did lots of trap bar deadlifts lol. In fact, I didn't deadlift from the ground other than an off script day that I felt like seeing where my conventional deadlift was at without training it for about 6 months. (I got about 15 pounds stronger at it without training it over that course of time)
Event 5:
700 pound yoke walk x 50 feet, turn around and push yoke back using wheelbarrow attachment.
Results: 3rd place. A lot of the guys who went on into the 800's in the trap bar deadlift did very poorly at this event in comparison. I got an extra 45 minute rest time and a much less taxing deadlift workout than them! Being weak has some advantages! Most either struggled with the yoke walk or fell/had to repick the wheelbarrow multiple times. I was decently fast with the walk, faster than most with the transition, and had a flawless run with the wheelbarrow. I was pumped at this point in the competition. One more event to go!
Event 6: Power stairs, 3 steps and 3 implements. 290 pounds, 330 pounds, and 375 pounds.
Results: Somewhere in the middle of the pack. I honestly couldn't have moved any faster on the day of. It wasn't that I was tired or that the weights were too heavy, in fact, I think they were too light as almost all of us needed 26 seconds or less to finish 9 total steps. With no ability to practice more than one step at a time I was simply slow on the transitions. I believe if I had powerstairs to practice on I would have been maybe a second faster, but not much. A very easy event in my opinion. I don't remember any of this event. It just started and then all of a sudden it was over.
Overall results: 6th place out of the 23 who showed, earning my Arnold's World Championship invite and making a huge improvement over last year's 11th place showing.
The coolest thing was, if I would have gotten 1 more rep or knocked off 1 more second on any ONE single event I would have been 3rd overall. As some would use that as a "I COULD HAVE BEEN ON THE PODIUM" I used it as motivation for next year. If I'm just a little faster. Just a little stronger. I can be on the podium!
I'm very happy with the results. CJ was is a great coach and since I have a world championship to prepare for I decided to keep him on. I'll probably try to find another local comp sometime before that to knock off any rust and to also try and knock out my next years nationals invite. Before this I had planned on getting chubby and retiring from strongman. Just training for fun and signing up if I found something local that seemed halfway decent. Looks like this old man has a few more years of fight in him though so I'll give it hell once again.