Its been a busy month for me at Savage Strength, not just in terms of this blog and the amount of PBs I have to write about, but because I’ve also have UKNS World Championships and the Venus Weightlifting Workshop to navigate too.
More about both of those later, but lets start with the usual.
Joe just finished a training cycle and is now going into a little GPP or ‘Metcon’ block where we look to improve his lifting specific fitness. At the end of his last training cycle he hit PBs in the Front Squat of 205kg and excitingly And Axle FTOH PB of 147.5kg which is only 7.5kg off the Natural world record!
Paul finished a nice training cycle by hitting a 125kg Bench press, adding another 2.5kg to the movement and 5kg this training cycle.
Taj has had a great month making progress in almost everything competition lift related… So lets take a look.
Taj hit PBs in the Front Squat of 78kg x3, 80kg x1 & 88kg x1 along with some in the Below the Knee Block Snatch of 51kg x2 & 53kg x1. These are movements i’ve been using to drive up Tajs competition lifts. The Front Squat is in to improve his strength in the rack position which will cross over into both the Clean & the Jerk and the Below the Knee Block Snatch is there to treat technical issues as the bar passes the knee in the transition phase of the snatch. This lead to PBs in the competition lifts of 50kg, 55kg in the Snatch & 60kg, 62kg in the C&J.
A Pitstop…
No matter the strength sport, picking the correct variations of the competition lifts for the athlete can have a profound effect on technique, strength in a specific position or both and the importance of that shouldn’t be underestimated and is why staying on top of strength deficits and technical errors is important.
Jenesis hit 27kg in the Snatch for a PB and has now hit it multiple times. For Jenesis the Snatch is a confidence game and her confidence is growing!
Marie has been going from strength to strength in her ‘Slow’ lifts hitting PBs i the Front Squat of 61kg x5, 62kg x5, 70kg x3 & 72kg x3 and in the Push Press of 46kg x5 & 48kg x3 and is starting to have some carryover into her competition lifts as she hit a PB Power Jerk + Jerk at 58kg for 1+1 & a 2 PB C&Js, one at 55kg for 2+1 & one at 56kg for 1+2.
A Nugget…
I find the Front Squat has massive carryover to the dip and drive and frankly anything that uses the legs to move things overhead. If your Front Squat goes up, good things generally happen.
Xena has had a quiet moth but still managed to hit a PB Front Squat of 72kg while managing a troublesome right leg.
Onto the online faction of our athletes…
Little Jo been flying hitting PBS in almost all of our body lifts. She's hit. PBS in the seated overhead press of 26.5kg, 27g and 28kg, she’s hit a PB of 28kg in the standing strict press and a PB bench press of 43 kg. Jos currently looking to lose weight and is more on the health side of things. But that hasn't stopped her hitting pressing pbs
Looking at the PBS, it looks like Olivia's had a fairly quiet month of training, hitting only a front squat 3RM of 80kg. However, that's not the case as she’s also been prepping for the start of the rugby season while also running the great north run, which she did in an amazing time. Now the great north run is finished, we'll be turning our sights fully towards the rugby season and transitioning and all that new strength she's acquired over the preseason into usable strength on the rugby field.
Wil had a nice end to his training cycle hitting an SBD PB with a 160kg Squat, 95kg Bench Press & a hughe 175kg Deadlift. This signals the end of the training cycle for will who, after two weeks spent in a field, will be hitting a Metcon phase to up his lifting specific energy systems and lay some foundations for the subsequent blocks of work.
In the weightlifting club Jen has had a great month hitting PBs in all of the strength movements we’ve focussed on over the past few blocks. She took 107kg for a ride in the back squat for a new 1RM while hitting new 1RMs in the Front Squat of 82kg and Push Press of 52kg. She also hit a 38kg Snatch for a new 1RM. That 40kg Snatch is on the horizon!
Karen is new to our Weightlifting Club sessions but is already making progress through a mixture of drop ins and following our Online Teams Program (shameless link below) and has hit PBs in the Snatch of 40kg & 42kg, Power Snatch of 40kg & Clean of 54kg. The PB that meant the most to Karen though was her PB Squat of 76kg. In her own words, she’d been stuck at 70kg for around a year and you could see how much it meant to her when she hit it in our session.
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/weightlifting-online-team
Another Quick Pit Stop…
One of the things that struck me about Karens lifting when I first met her was she moved really quite well, but when asked about the lifts and positions had no knowledge of what the key points were or what we were looking for. This made her inconsistent when it came to top weights. So in Karens second session with me I dialled things right back to basics and ran her through a full beginners progression with the aim of teaching the key points and focus of each phase of the lift. I threw a lot of information at Karen that session and mentally it won’t have been an easy session… 6 weeks down the line though and Karen is hitting PBs and is lifting more consistently than ever rarely missing at top weights. The takeaway from this is not to discount or bypass a phase of learning or the importance of understanding things on a theoretical level, even if you generally lift well without it.
It’s been a great month for the Strongman Club so let's start withCori who hit lots of PBs in Press related activities. So much of pressing events in strongman come down to and efficient Dip & Drive and Cori has been honing in on that. To end this training cycle Cori Hit PBs in the Log CTOH at 65kg for 1+3 and Axle Push Press at 70kg x3 & 75kg x1. He also hit a Bench Press PB of 75kg x3 which tells me his raw strength is on the up too. In activities that don’t involve the press Cori hit an Axle Squat PB of 100kg x3, a PB stone load of 100kg and a Stiff Bar Deadlift PB of 160kg.
A thought…
Cori has hit 170kg in the deadlift before so technically 160kg is not a PB, however it was on a bar that had way more flex and just like tracking PBs at different heights, I feel it’s important to track PBs on different bars. Now, the difference between power bars is often negligible and probably not worth tracking (however I find the cerberus or ohio bar much stiffer than a texas power bar which will have an effect), but you should definitley be tracking PBs on Stiff / Power Bars, a bog standard olympic bar / multipurpose bar thats probably not as stiff and a deadlift bar as your numbers will vary for all of these. Some people may disagree, but you’d track you max on an Elephant Bar or Axle so why wouldn’t you do it with bars that flex much differently just because you’re taking them all off the floor?
George C hit a nice PB in the Deadlift taking his max to 212.5kg and hit a nice stone load of 130kg.
George F rounded out his post baby training cycle by hitting a Raw Log PB of 110kg. With no comps on the horizon I haven’t had George working too hard post baby while he adjusts to life as a new day. We kick it back into gear come October though!
Our Strongman Team rounded out a great season with Dean hitting a PB Deadlift of 242.5kg followed by Gillian hitting 180kg and Mark hitting a Log Press PB of 110kg.
Deadlift - 180kg x1
I’ll finish with Jonny!
Jonny is part of our online strongman team and qualified for two world finals this year. One in Finland for WHEA through BNSF and the other that took place in Edinburgh for UKNS. Anyway, Jonny didn’t go to the one in Finland. It’s an expense and he wanted to focus on UKNS which was two weeks afterwards, and what a great decision that was. After 8 events across two days Jonny took 3rd place at a World Championships in the U105 category after an exciting final event that saw the whole pack shuffle and Jonny climb the board.
What an achievement this season to go from an also ran in a qualifier in 2022 to a podium spot at a world championships just 17 months later.
Jonny also hit a PB of 285kg x3 in the deadlift en route to Worlds, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It’s now the offseason and we’ll be looking to plug some gaps in Jonnys game where we’ll be looking at heavy Yoke runs, continuing to increase his throwing while finally ticking off that 300kg deadlift.
Final Thoughts…
Too many strongmen get caught up in hitting 1RMs in training and we could have realistically ticked off that 300kg deadlift before now, however in a sport that has many disciplines, that 1RM attempt can really screw up your competition or training cycle if done at the wrong time… Just something too keep in mind.
If you’d like to join Jonny in our Online Strongman Team, here’s another shameless link:
https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/strongman-online-team
Thats it… I’ve tried something new and tried to create pitstops along the way to give context to the stories and PBs I write about while adding value to the blog for the reader… I quite like it and will keep writing this way and hopefully you do too and took some value from it?
Until Next Time
Adam
