Venison Grillsteaks

I’m short of time and currently cooking Venison Grillsteaks for dinner so its going to be a lazy blog this month… So here are the PB's

Jacks smashed this month and hit a 115kg Block Jerk, 94kg Snatch Double (4kg over his 1rm at the time), 96kg Snatch for a new 1RM, 145kg Front Squat for an all time PB & a 160kg Back Squat for an all time PB and for his first double bodyweight squat!

Lucy hit a 44kg Snatch Double

Wor big 17 year old Jo hit a 95kg Push Press in training and went on to hit PB’s in competition at newcastles strongest of 100kg Axle FTOH, 3 reps Car Deadlift and a full stones taking the event win and also finishing him in a surprise 4th place.

George hit a 270kg Deadlift for a 5kg PB that looked easy, it also got him on the FSI leaders board.

Dan T - 275kg Deadlift (were creeping closer to that magical 300kg). He also competed in the Inters category at Newcastles Strongest and hit PB’s in 4 of 5 events getting 4 Reps Car Deadlift, 105kg Axle FTOH, 130kg Farmers Distance PB, 20kg Front Hold PB. He finished 7th but when you hit PB’s like that its not about the placing.

Dan L hit a 220kg Deadlift for a PB and from out of nowhere came 1st at Newcastles Strongest Novice with a huge PB in the Car Deadlift, a 5kg PB with 110kg Axle FTOH and also took an event win on the farmers carry.

Adam B did awesome at Newcastles strongest hitting 19 Reps Car Deadlift a 120kg Axle FTOH both for PB’s and event wins (Joint 1st on the axle) and ended up 2nd overall at Newcastles Strongest Novice.

Sean W was also phenomenal hitting a PB on the Car and a 5 kg PB of 120kg on the Axle FTOH taking joint 1st in that event and 3rd overall at Newcastles Strongest Novice

Phil Wotner Smith on the same day as Newcastles smashed the UK truck pull in the under 110kg category to take 3rd overall.

And finally Jen Barnes hit a lifetime PB back squat of 84kg a lifetime snatch PB of 31kg and a front squat PB of 65kg.

Phwew! Got through that!

Basically it was a good month for Savage Strength and our clients with august 8th being a particular highlight with Savage Strength athletes doing a 1, 2, 3, 4 at Newcastles strongest novice and Phil taking a podium place at the UK truck pull championships.

4 podiums across 2 competitions is alright I guess.

There’s a lot more I could talk about in terms of each athlete and their comp prep, but those grill steaks are pretty much done.

So I’ll end it there!..

Until next time!

Adam

Context Is Everything!

So…

Its been a hot January…

A very hot January in fact…

And training’s been harder because of it…

But that hasn’t stopped my guys hitting PB’s…

So onto the usual start!

Jack had a fantastic month finishing one mesocycle with some PB triples and starting another with some PB doubles that just happened to match his 1RM’s

84kg Snatch x3, 90kg x2

105kg C&J 3+1, 110kg x2+1

Jacks going to hit new 1RM’s for doubles before he hits actual new 1RM’s… So i’ll probably talk about that and how that affects training when it happens!


Lucy mirrored Jack…

It makes sense…

They’re part of the same Weightlifting Club so are largely on the same training cycle with a few subtle personalised differences.

42kg Snatch x3, 43kg x2

50kg C&J 1+3, 54kg x1+2

Sean of the strongman club hit a new PB on the Axle of 115kg then hit it for a double a week later, this all bodes very well for a PB at Newcastles Strongest on August 8th.

Online Athlete and once a week Strongman Club members Jo’s pressing is flying hitting a 93kg Push Press for a PB and a 90kg Axle FTOH for another PB. He also hit a 170kg Squat for a double followed by a 172.5kg Squat double a week later. We just need to pull that car now and we’re set up well for Newcastles!


Lastly Dan Liddle (Our second Dan) hit a 210kg Deadlift for a 5kg PB while warming up to pull the car for reps. This went out as a post not long ago… Today actually if you take it as the time i’m writing this… The text from that post is below… It’s why the title of this months blog is ‘Context is everything’ which seems to be the story of my month.

‘It's mentally and physically hard going from competition to competition with minimal down time but Dan's doing it brilliantly and hitting PB's on the way.
Here's a 210kg Deadlift for a PB with more in the tank!
The focus is firmly on the car deadlift but we took this because it was there and would cause minimal excess fatigue while not effecting the Car Deadlift.
Dan's very early into his weight training and strongman career (only around 12 weeks) and is making excellent progress so we're able to do things like this and take impromptu easy PB's...
But as he gets stronger and more experienced we'll be able to take PB's in this manor less and less.’

We also had two of our guys get on the FSI top dogs board:

Lucy - 93kg Squat

George - 242.5kg Deadlift

George has pulled 265kg before and will pull more than this to bump his deadlift higher on the board… We’ve just not needed to pull that weight yet and Lucy’s squat takes her only 2kg away from her all time best… all while in the middle of a volume filled training block…

It’s all very encouraging.


I talked a little about competitions last month in terms of delaying gratification but as results go…

Dan Tonge came 14th at UKs Strongest Novice, he was originally disappointed at the placing (I wasn’t) which is fine, you have to hold yourself to high standards and always want more, but when you hit PB’s in every event it’s hard to be disappointed in terms of placing for much longer than the initial results.

George came 7th at UKs Novice taking home an event win and hitting PB’s on the way again… Another big win.

Dan Liddle came 2nd in a First Timers again hitting PB’s in basically every event and after only 8 weeks training.

The PB’s are kind of my point to this title…

At the time of writing…

Unless you are Lasha Talakhadze, hope I spelt that correct, or Tom Stoltman or anyone who is number one in their field, you have no reason to think you’re going to walk in and win and even then you can’t take it for granted.

What I say to my athletes is that your placing is irrelevant as long as you’ve made progress, hit PB’s and performed well. Yes it’s nice to place, but if you hit PB’s and perform well for long enough, the podiums and placings will come.

Ultimately, placings are contextual unless you are at the top of your field as you can’t control who else enters a competition.

I was going to get into the context of coaching and why it matters for technique cueing, exercise selection, goal setting and basically everything else to do with how you would coach…

But i’m tired and i’ll save it for next time or a different post.

Thats the end of this months ramblings.

Until next time!

Adam

Delaying Gratification

So we’ll start with this months PB’s as usual!

It’s been a great month at the weightlifting club with Lucy smashing multiple 1RM PB’s at the end of the last training cycle and some rep PB’s to start this one!

Snatch 46kg (+3kg)

C&J 64 (+2kg)

Clean 67kg (+1kg)

Snatch Triple 38kg

C&J 3+1 48kg


Jack did the same adding to his 1RM at the end of the last training cycle and to his rep based max at the start of the new cycle:

C&J 110 (+1kg)

Snatch Triple 80kg

C&J 3+1 100kg

Lise also did great getting back to full lifting after a dodger shoulder limited what she could do for a while.

In the strongman club Dan Tonge loaded a 140kg Sandbag to 52inches and hit some big PB’s while coming 14th overall in UK’s strongest novice.

140kg Sandbag (Used to train kegs in Lou of having kegs heavy enough)

100kg Log x4 - UK Novice

220kg Axle Deadlift x8 - UK Novice


George also competed and came 7th at UK’s strongest novice and hit some pb’s along the way…

Log - 120kg (+7.5kg)

Log 100kg x7 - UK Novice

Axle Deadlift 220kg x7 - UK Novice

Event Win - UK Novice

Our other Dan (Liddle) in the Strongman Club has been flying with too many PB’s to list he has however hit a notable 205kg Deadlift and 105kg Log on only 7 or 8 weeks strongman training.

Callum is brand new to lifting so he’s still on newbie gains and everything is a PB right now, the thing i’m most proud of is the progression of his movement patterns and his application when he’s here!


Sean been going from strength to strength while prepping for Newcastles too with a rep PB on Axle press and hitting some new weights on stones!

Axle 110kg x3

145kg Stone x2


And lastly, some PB’s from 17 year old Jo who is also prepping for Newcastles. His big task in the run up is to get some reps in on the Car and the Trap Bar & Squat progress will be a big step towards that.

145kg Stone to second platform

230kg Trap Bar

170kg Squat

A lot of my guys are in comp prep right now so the FSI Top Dogs board hasn’t been a priority, however Lucy still got on beating her own score while creeping her Squat back up to 4 kg below all time levels.

Lucy - Squat - 91kg

Last thing I want to talk about is delaying gratification. I’ve had this on my mind a while and didn’t know how to write it until now… Or at least I think I know how to write it now.

Anyway…

Delaying gratifications an important part of training, in my opinion, and especially in the run up to competition.

Too many people hit that PB a week or two out from competition.

The PB they’ve been gunning for over the training cycle.

The PB they were hoping for when they signed up for the competition.

And all too often I see people hit that PB in training and they don’t hit the same weight on the day…

Or worse… It’s not there on the day.

Sometimes its because they max out to close to comp…

Most of the time its because they lose that fire in their belly for that sense of relief.

Take Dan for example.

Dan signed up for UK’s strongest novice with a log for reps that was basically at his max.

He’d hit over that weight once… Ever… By a kilo or two.

So, obviously we trained for it like you would to increase your 1RM.

However, while everyone else was hitting Log PB’s in training, I told him not to go over 95% even if it felt good.

And it was a source of stress that nearly caused him to pull out at one point close to the comp for fear of no repping.

It was all part of the gameplay though.

While I allowed George to hit PB’s (He was doing the same competition) to help with confidence with the reps, I didn’t allow Dan.

And this is where context comes into the game.

George at the time had a 112.5kg log and was hitting comp weight for 3 or 4 reps in training. It would have been non sensical to hold him back. He knew he could rep it, he just didn’t know how many times.

So it was about relaxing him into the event ready for comp to take the stress off.

For Dan it was the opposite…

Even though he was ready for a PB 2 or 3 weeks prior.

I knew it… He didn’t… But we needed that hunger.

Anyway, to cut a long story short Dan repped his max for 4 reps on the day.

I don’t think he would have done it if i’d let him PB in training and hadn’t delayed his gratification on the event.

To put it simply…

Once you get what you want, you’ll often lose that drive.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Until next time.

Adam

Leg Strength & Snatch Botches...

Its a busy time at Savage Strength, especially for the clubs…

The weightlifting club is at the business end of their training cycle and in the strongman club we’re prepping for 3 different competitions across 5 members.

I always say that while the strongman club runs as a group, the programming is individualised to the member and theres no better example than prepping multiple people in a group for different competitions and using the club program structure, but swapping movements in and out depending on what each athlete needs and when for!

Anyway, I always use the first part of this blog as a bit of a showcase for my athletes… and this one will be no different… So…

Jack hit a 143kg Front Squat for an all time pb.

He also hit a 109kg C&J for a 9kg PB

Doubled his Max Snatch then doubled it at 4kg extra…

He also hit a single a week later at 90kg which took his Max Snatch to 90kg for a 7kg PB at 79kg Bodyweight.

Lucy hit a PB Front Squat, a PB 1+2 C&J and a PB Snatch Double and also got on the board at FSI in the back squat…

Frankly she’s dominating the u57 women!!!

And wor Lou did the same as Lucy with a PB Front Squat, a PB Snatch Double and a PB 2+1 C&J.

So I guess the focus on the Front Squat worked for the weightlifting club!

In the strongman club we had new member Dan hit a 95kg Log for a PB…

Probably means he’ll be fine at 75kg for reps at his first timers competition. It also means we’re almost at the point where we can start focussing on getting better at the rep based stuff rather than just looking to get stronger.

If you didn’t know, there’s a great way to determine how to approach strongman rep events…

I also wrote an article on it…

Link here: https://www.savagestrengthcoaching.co.uk/when-is-a-rep-event-not-a-rep-event

But if you want the short version…

If you have a rep event that is above 80% of your max… just getting stronger will serve you best…

If you have one that is below 80% of your max… look to improve your work capacity and your rep based performance.

Lastly i’ve just finished a training cycle… Not an easy one given me and the wife had a baby right at the business end, but even so…

I added 2kg onto my max Snatch…

4kg onto my max C&J…

And 20kg onto my max squat while also matching my Front Squat max beltless.

Going forward i’m going to rinse the squat gainzzz and run the squatting cycle again…

I might even release it to the public at some point…

I’m also going to focus on fixing some of the technical aspects of my weightlifting…

Including the early arm bend i’ve developed in the snatch.

I’ll leave you there, but if you want a laugh, here’s me taking a 107kg Snatch attempt on my back… Should have left it at 105!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPJbGkGjFoy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Stay Strong

Adam

'Happy Ingrid Day'

I’m sitting at home writing this around 4 and a half hours after the birth of second daughter.

Seems a weird thing to be doing right now, but now that the wife is out of recovery, due to covid I’m only allowed 2 hours visiting per day until they get discharged…

So yea, may as well do something and doing this along with telling the world about the birth of my child seems as good as anything…

Although I might keep it short.

Anyway, at the time of writing, gyms have been open for 2 weeks now and we’ve had a plethora of PB’s at Savage Strength…

As follows…

Dan - Log 102.5kg, Front Squat 160kg, Deadlift 270kg

George - Front Squat 150kg

Dean - Strict OHP 67.5kg

Lou - C&J 50kg

So yea, one every other day.

It’s a fantastic start back to the gym and a real testament to the hard work the guys put in during their home sessions.

Oh and Jen got heavier through lockdown but improved her body composition while doing so… So that’s a nice little PB too.

There’s a lesson there too.

Don’t just look at scale weight, if we had Jen would have probably just stress about weight gain and want to lose. I doubt any of you have access to a DEXA scan but the primitive techniques of taking measurements and progress pictures can be invaluable in building a more complete picture.

We also have a new Top Dogs board (or so I call it) at FSI and my guys have been getting on there in their various weight classes.

So again, as follows…

Lucy (u57kg) - Pullups x12, Push-ups x35, 1RM Deadlift 105kg

Dan (u120kg) - Pullups x4, 1RM Deadlift x270kg

George (120kg+) - Pullups x4

Lou (u63kg) - Pullups x6, Push-ups x22

Paul (u105kg) - Pull-ups x10

Notice all the pull-ups on there?

Aside from the obvious that i’ve had my guys hammer pull-ups through lockdown it tells you something…

That I value the pull-up.

Whether you’re a 57kg female or a 125kg male, you should be able to do them and if you can’t you should start learning.

They’re a huge bang for your buck exercise that requires minimal equipment. And ontop of the obvious benefits in back strength and size, they’re also a great indicator of general fitness, great for your posture and will hugely improve your grip strength!

They’re also a nice way to decompress the spine after a big barbell session.

So do them and do them often as they’re pretty hard to overtrain.

I’ve got other notes written down that I wanted to speak about…

Mainly on the early arm bend i’ve managed to develop in the snatch as a by product of my movement selection to correct another error… Along with notes on how I plan to get rid of it…

But childbirths got me ready for bed so that’ll have to wait.

The title of this post is what my first daughter Astrid said when she woke up this morning and knew she’d have a little sister by the end of the day.

Until next time

Adam