So, it was a decent month for Savage Strength this with PB’s in the Weightlifting Club, The Strongman Club and some placings at Tyne & Wears Strongest.
So lets get onto the run down:
Jack hit a nice 1kg PB in the C&J at 113kg. In all honesty Jack kind of missed the boat on his peak in the Snatch and Clean & Jerk 3 weeks prior due to a mad work schedule so this was making the best of a bad situation and to sneak a PB was nice.
Lucy also hit some PB’s, taking a 2kg PB in the Snatch at 47kg and while she missed the Jerk on her C&J PB, we continued up to take a 3kg PB in the clean at 70kg. Lucy was in the same situation as Jack in that she missed the boat on the peak 3 weeks prior because of work, but again we salvaged the training cycle and took some PB’s!
George had a great month in the Strongman Club taking a very convincing 1st place in Tyne and Wears Strongest (Inters) while taking a 10kg PB on the Deadlift at 280kg (Narrowly missing 300kg for a 30kg PB) and putting the 160kg stone to 2nd highest platform during the competition which frankly, for me, was the highlight of the competition while also being a PB Stone.
Sean had a good competition too taking 3rd at Tyne & Wears Strongest (Inters) narrowly missing on 2nd via countback. Countbacks can be a shitter and I think there are better ways to do it for podium places if its planned correctly, but as I explained to Sean, thats the way it is and you enter the comp knowing the rules. Sean Took a 10kg PB Deadlift for 260kg and put the 145kg stone to Middle Platform for a PB Stone too.
David Wilde has only been with us for 3 weeks and has already hit a PB Log at 90kg, its amazing what giving someone a little confidence and some decent technical coaching can do.
One to One client Jen had a great month hitting rep PB’s in the Snatch and the C&J which are as follows… +1kg PB Snatch, 3RM at 30kg, +1kg PB Snatch 2RM at 31kg, +3kg PB C&J 1+3 at 45kg, +2kg PB C&J 1+2 at 46kg. Jen also hit a huge PB in the Squat (off program) of +6kg to take her max to 90kg! I never mind people going off program as long as it A, doesn’t have a knock on effect to other sessions, and B, doesn’t cause injury… I stopped writing this after the PB’s section as I had Jen to coach and se only went and hit a 68kg Front Squat in the session for a 3kg PB. So you can add that to her list of PB’s this month too!
And One to One client Paul hit a PB Squat of 110kg adding 5kg to his 1RM Squat and also took 102.5kg for a double for his first Squat for reps over 100kg.
So yea, it’s been a pretty successful month for all my guys and after the PB’s, the Weightlifting Club are straight back into another training cycle focussing on the Front Squat and the Strongmen are into a nice offseason conditioning block… Which is what I’m going to talk about next.
So conditioning for Strongman… It should be so obvious that strongmen need to be conditioned. In a competition of 5 or 6 events you might get one 1RM event. Couple that with the fact that if you look at alot of the top guys now, gone are the days of Glen Ross and huge fat monsters and in are the more athletic strongmen like Novikov and the Stoltmans.
So how should you do it?..
Well, I’m not going to give you a free program via a blog, I am going to give you a framework though.
To be simple, 4 weeks should be enough to see significant improvements and its as simple as this:
Apply these rules every week:
Main Barbell are anywhere between 5x5 & 7x7 with 45 to 60 seconds rest.
Competition lifts are Emoms for 10 to 15 mins and for between 2 to 3 reps.
Moving Events should be focussed on longer durations 40m plus. while keeping the foot speed fast.
Assistance keep it bodybuilding that focuses on weakness’
Then progress the weight through the weeks like this.
Week 1: 40 to 50%
Week 2: 45 to 55%
Week 3: 50 to 60%
Week 4: 55 to 65%
And thats easy really, it doesn’t have to be complex. Once you finish week 4, you could extend it to a 5th week to hit the top range of 65% if you have room to keep going, but mostly i’d get stuck into your usual training block style and feel the improvements in recovery between sets, sessions and in your moving events.
Yes there are caveats to this where you could bend the rules, but thats hard to portray in a short blog, it is a good frame work that works well though.
There will be a conditioning block available in the Online Strongman Club that you can download and run available in a couple of weeks (Probably from November 4th).
Just click here to sign up: https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/savage-strength-strongman-club-online
Until next time
Adam
