At this moment in time I'm very behind on writing this. Christmas is coming and I spent the usual morning I'd use to write this buying Christmas gifts for my 3 children. There's always time for important things though and after a day of writing programs, moving book shelfs and coaching, I have around 30 minutes between coaching sessions so i'll see what I can get done.
Anyway... Lets get started!
Flo despite some back issues has had a nice month taking PBs in Log Push Press of 62.5kg x1, Barbell Push Press of 65kg x2 and Split Jerk of 65kg x1 & 67kg x1. There was also a cheeky Front Squat + Push Press PB of 60kg for 1+3.
A classic reminder
Flo is a classic reminder of how important technique is. Flo has all the strength in the world, but didn't know how to harness it overhead. Thats where I came in, I was hired to tech a split jerk, not just fundamentally, but in the context of strongman and given Flos specific needs, that started with the front rack and creating a more fundamentally sound and effective dip and drive. We've achieved that and the PBs are a testement to that.
Skill is... The ability to bring around a predetermined result, with maximum efficiency and maximum certainty.
If you can't consistently hit a weight and it's not a strength issue, then it's a skill issue and a gap in your skillset that needs closing.
Sam's making great progress, and while we're not at that stage in the program that allows new 1RMs yet we are hitting huge volume and rep PBs, one of them being in the Bench Press where Sam too 77.5kg for a set of 6.
Momentum
Momentum in training is important and there's nothing better to do that than taking some rep and volume PBs. Something I tell my guys, if I prescribe a certain rep scheme and load, and you see there's a rep PB close by, don't be scared to add a couple of kilos or a couple of reps (or both) to the last set. I'm quite happy for 5x5 at 100kg to become 4x5 at 100kg followed by 1x8 at 105kg if that hits a new rep PB and creates momentum to continue forward.
Taj has had a nice training cycle and continues to take his strength levels to all time highs, Tajs PBs include 80kg x2 (which matched his 1RM) and 86kg x1 in the Front Squat, Power Clean & Jerk 1RMs of 75kg & 78kg and Push Press 1RMs of 68kg and 70kg. These all time strength levels will manifest themselves as new classic lift PBs soon!
And thats when my next coaching session walked in!
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Annnnd... I'm back at it!
Chris has had a nice first two months and recently pulled his first 300kg Dinnie pin lift, allowing him to book his attempt at the real thing. Chris is hoping to lift the Dinnies sometime around September 2025 in aid of Parkinsons UK.
If you'd like to give a little, here's the link: https://justgiving.com/page/chris-lovegrove-1718437729861?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaaLbXZiQ2C5hLQUedElBbbMBU2UP1nXA2M2MGVv8tqhHln-UCwW99NvmaQ_aem_gSy-a4KV_JMginuxGml3kA
Here's a list of James’ PBs in November:
Front Squat - 170kg x3
Clean + Hang Clean & Jerk - 85kg x1 (Matched 1RM)
Block Jerk - 130kg x1
Front Squat - 175kg x3
Front Squat - 180kg x1
Axle Push Press - 130kg x1
Axle Push Press - 135kg x1
Front Squat - 185kg x1
Farmers - 122kg x10m in sub 7 secs
Yoke - 360kg x10m in sub 7 secs
Yoke - 400kg x10m
You know that momentum I talked about earlier? I wasn't joking, it's taking James to new heights and has done since October!
Big Jo finally started training again after Worlds and is gaining momentum to the tune of 140kg x10m+10m on Farmers and a Viper Press of 115kg x1 along with and AMRAP Log of 110kg x7. The Farmers is a distance and a pick up PB which is one of the weakness' we identified for Jo after worlds and Jos Log just keeps going up.
Moving Events
While the technique is often fairly straight forward compared to a log press, moving events in Strongman are one of the most complex things to program for due to the number of aspects you may look at outside of just getting strong in a certain area of the lift. Things like:
Am I strong enough to even pick it up?
How many times could I pick it up?
How long could I hold it for?
Am I moving fast enough?
Are my turns efficient enough?
Are all questions that need answering to identify the weakness in the chain and all have different remedies. With static events, if you're unsure what to work on, getting stronger will often see you through, but I find thats just not the case for moving events.
Jonny ended his Blast Press journey at 145kg x1 and while 145kg is huge for a 105kg natural, we would have loved 150kg but it just wasn't to be this training cycle. Jonny also hit a 350kg for x10m. Yoke was Jonnys kryptonite back at 2023 World Finals and through lots of hard work is starting to become a strength! He'salso been adding new strings to his bow and is gaining skills in Olympic Weightlifting hitting a 65kg double in the Snatch and currently has his Jerk up to 95kg with good technique.
Something about Jos Log
I want to talk about Jos log press. All of a sudden it's sky rocketed. Now, that might just be it catching up as his muscles mature, but Jo does something different to everyone else I coach. He performs every Push Press reactively. Thats not something I've ever told him to do outside of warm ups and at times it annoys be because it prevents him putting his head through for most of his reps... Something i'd like him to be doing because it's something he struggles with anyway, but maybe there's something to what he does naturally with his push pressing thats causing it to skyrocket.
Thats just a thought I put out there, there's not really a point to it, it's just something i've been mulling over because if that style is effective, it's probably something worth adopting and programming specifically in the right situations.
Unfortunately a sample size of one will never give you the most conclusive data, so if anyone would like to run it and feed back to me their experience, that would be grand!
Annnnnd... This is where I went to bed!
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It's now Thursday morning and I'm back at it so lets continue on with Liam who hit PBs in the Strict Overhead Press of 60kg x5 & 65kg x5. The interesting thing about Liam is, we've not trained overhead press for so long and 65kg x3 matched his 1RM.
Another classic reminder
I talked about skill gaps earlier and the importance of skill if you truly want to utilise your strength... But strength is strength and you're not going to Snatch 100kg if you can't squat 100kg. Strength and skill go hand in hand and the truly dominant have both.
As for not training something for a long time, but still making progress with it, some movements are closely linked and it's highly likely a Powerlifter who trains a lot of bench press (and makes decent progress in the movement) can also make progress on their strict overhead press without training it due to the strength acquired in the front delts and triceps from training bench.
A strong muscle is a strong muscle after all and with strict overhead press being a relatively low skill movement, there's not a great deal of skill drop off to hinder progress even without training it.
I will caveat that with, while you can make progress, to be truly elite at something, you must train it.
Olivia hit a comfortable PB in the Front Squat of 90kg adding around 7.5kg to her 1RM. More Front Squat = more potential in the Push Press!
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In our Savage Strength School sessions, Tuesdays have been a blast with triplets Teddy, Miles & Jacob all making progress in our Weightlifting focussed session while also having a blast. Pitting them against each other really works and they all take winning and losing brilliantly. They also picked up Deadpools head in our most recent session!
In our Friday session the focus is general S&C with a rotation of Upper and Lower sessions... with a Seesaw DB Sots Press being the thing thats ran through every session in November and Ella, Elbie, Penny and Megatron are making great progress with the movement!
Skill
Back onto Skill... If you ask Penny or any of the lifters in our friday session what they thought of the Seesaw DB Press, they'd have said week 1 was hard. If you ask them about week 4, I guarantee they'd say it has gotten much easier. Why? Skill. With any new movement there's an acclimatisation phase where your body and nervous system spend time working out what needs to fire and when. Those first couple of weeks are often frustrating, but after that learning phase things often click and progress starts being made.
The moral of the story, just because somethings hard at first don't sack it off, if it's worth doing stick with it...
So why was a Seesaw DB Press worth doing? Ask the kids and they'll tell you:
Warms the shoulders, mobilises the hip & spine, improves motor control and coordination and forces you to stabilise dynamically.
Our Kids sessions runs two nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce kids to lifting in a safe, supportive and educative environment.
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Good god Jack like to make me nervous when he lifts in Altrincham! This time he missed his first two Snatches and was in danger of bombing out with the first attempt not even being close! I always have faith in Jack though. Mentally he's strong and when the competition was on the line he pulled it out the bag. Jack went 3/6 and hit 88kg in the Snatch and 112kg in the C&J to take the win in the U81 category.
Our Weightlifting Club runs multiple nights per week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and it's focus is to introduce people to the sport of Olympic Weightlifting while giving them the opportunity to compete if they wish to do that.
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Our Strongman Club is ticking over nicely and we're going into the next part of the training cycle where we look to build out 5RM on the Axle Deadlift, Axle Push Press & Log Press. We'll also be looking to improve our moving event efficiency which is something I talked about earlier in regards to Big Jo Jersby.
Our Strongman Club runs multiple nights a week out of Stag Fitness Strength Centre and has a history of taking people from the level of complete beginner to British Finalist.
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In our Online Weightlifting Team Karen also competed at Altrincham. She's not as seasoned as Jack though and this was her first competition! Nerves were high but Karen hit highs of 48kg in the Snatch and 58kg in the C&J going 4/6 and winning the U59 category. Karen also hit a Snatch triple of 48kg and new 1RM C&J of 61kg in training.
Competition Nerves
So, if Karen hit 48kg in the Snatch for a triple, why did she only hit 48kg for a single in competition? Quite simply... Nerves.
Nerves can do two things in competition, it can fire you up to heights that aren't possible in training, or it can make things feel hard and heavy, the key is finding your own personal way to harness them positively, whether thats through self talk, visualisation, playing up the situation or playing it down. I'm sure a sport psychologist could write something much more useful than me in this segment, but what I do know is it has to be personal to you, so try different things, harness what works, refine it and make your nerves work for you.
A made lift is a made lift
I also want to talk about made lifts. Karen is a perfectionist, any lift thats chased forward, not locked out to the fullest or imperfect is a missed lift to her and it can effect her training. What would seemingly be a decent session with no misses can feel like a complete failure to Karen if the lifts aren't perfect and I think Karen learned something important in competition. While she was exiting the platform, beating herself up for leaving the bar forward and chasing it, I was going you got 3 white lights! In training it's important to strive for progress, for technical excellence and dare I say, for perfection, but it's important to remember this is an imperfect world, people aren't robots and there's a threshold for a good lift.
Was it imperfect? Maybe, and that signals there's something to look at if it happens persistently, but the real question should be 'would it pass in competition?' If the answer is yes, then a made lift is a made lift and it's important not to turn a good session into a bad one by focussing on the wrong thing.
Our Online Weightlifting Team follows the British Weightlifting competition calendar with a focus on the bigger national competitions and the regional ones in the North East of England and is perfect for those competing in that area and for those looking for guidance and a periodised and focussed program.
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It's all been happening in our Online Strongman Team where Stephen & Elliot have hit some great PBs to end a successful part 1 of our training cycle.
Stephen took new 1RMs in the Deadlid and Push Press of 240kg and 120kg while also taking a 300kg yoke for a 10m ride.
Elliot also took a new 1RM Deadlift of 212.5kg, a weight he should have taken two weeks prior and like Stephen also extended his best 10m Yoke to 240kg
Don't listen to the crowd!
Elliot also competed at the Units Log & Deadlift Championships on the 17th November and while he didn't hit any PBs, I would say it was a fairly successful day.
Why didn't Elliot hit any PBs though?
Well, honestly, on log we have some technical issues to iron out, the main one being a dip thats too fast that causes a loss of contact with the log and rack. Thats easy enough to fix, some slow eccentric dips to learn the pacing on his warm up push press and warm up logs should do the trick.
But why did he not hit a Deadlift PB?.. Put simply, he listened to the crowd.
212.5kg for a 2.5kg PB was the play after his second attempt flew putting him in a great position to hit a new 1RM, but greed got him, he booked in 216kg as a final attempt. Why 216kg? Because it would have him overtake his friends best Deadlift and the people with him egged him on to do that.
There's a moral to this story, play your own game and stick to his plan. Yes, it's would have been a smaller PB, but small PB after small PB adds up and then time does it's magic.
Lets also say hi to Gareth who has recently joined our Online Strongman Team! I first met Gareth earlier this year at the Units Strongest where he and George literally shared a podium... Seriously, I have a picture of them both (hugging) on the 3rd place plinth. Gareth was a great competitor and has the natural size to go far in the sport so I'm looking forward to him getting started. Great to have you with us dude!
Our Online Strongman Team follows the UK Natural Competition Calendar with room to stop off and compete through a few other competitions too. It’s perfect for those competing on the circuit and for beginners who don’t plan to compete yet but want a coaches guidance and a periodised plan.
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In our Get Big Get Strong Team Callum has been doing the business hitting PBs in the Squat of 70kg x5 to match his 3RM and 75kg x3 to match his 1RM. He also hit a DeadliftPB of 90kg x5 and 95kg x3 also beating his 3 & 1RMs. Callum now goes into the last week of our training cycle looking to hit some new 1RMs and to set the tone for the next training cycle.
Lastly, I'd like to say hello to Jamie, who after 3 months out of training, has decided to get back on the horse and use our Get Big Get Strong Team to do so! I'm excited to have you aboard!
Our Get Big Get Strong Online Team was created for those who class themselves as the average gym goer. For those that want to get stronger in the big barbell movements, who want world class coaching with a world class program, but who have no aspirations to compete in a strength sport and want a life outside of the gym.
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It took 3 stints to get that written and none of it on the day I was meant to. Falling behind doesn't mean you can't claw things back, even when you're busy and small steps can go a long way to success, but i'll be honest. When I fell behind I did think about just not writing a blog for November, but thats just not me and the biggest barrier to success is not doing what you said you would do in the first place.
And from what I can gather, people read this so whether it's my clients for their vanity or someone else who finds value in the contextualised stories and opinions I put out, it would be a shame not to put something out there if its of value to someone.
Until next time
Adam
