70's Big: A.C.

Rough weekend. Started to feel sickish on Friday. Tried to get some good sleep in, but had some friends wake me up at 2. Then Saturday we had a night on the town. It was pretty tiring. Probably wasn’t a good idea either. I only get like 1 time a month to party so I make it count. This always leads to a rougher training week, at least at the start. Woke up 2 hours past my alarm this morning and rolled over into the puddle of drool I was spewing out all night. Got up and trained. It wasn’t the best day, but I did hit some PR’s on Bench. I’ll hit some good numbers on Squat tomorrow too. My squat will finally be back up into PR range by tomorrow as long as my throat doesn’t get worse. Here is this mornings bench. Hit 420×2/425x2ish. My buddy Matt spotted me this morning and he did kinda touch the bar. Not is fault or anything. He was just being a good spotter.

Agnes didn’t lift this morning with me. Probably because she doesn’t feel good from all the drinking that occurred on Saturday. She is gonna lift tomorrow. And for Jstad7 I just moved my bench to descending sets. I had to increase the volume to shorten the gap between the intensity days. I’ll probably do a de-load on bench next week. I’ve gone about 5 weeks heavy without a real de-load week in there. In friend news, my buddy Taylor puked when he went for 455×3 on deadlift this past week. I wish I was there to watch that shit go down. Here is the video of it.

Here is Mitch hitting a PR on squats with 425×3. Mitch really works hard for this. That’s what separates guys like him and Taylor from the rest. They only weigh around 160 pounds, but they put in the hard work.

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Ha silly me. I almost forgot about this.

Well if isn’t a punch you in the fucking face with videos day. Two more guys want to do the challenge. I will make the full video after they do it toooooo.

4/10/12
Squat: 505×2/515×2
Rack-Pull: 475×5
Sledgehammer: 70 swings
Super-set (for time purposes) Neck machine/DB Curls

4/9/12
Bench: 420×2/425×2
Close-Grip: 315x5x3
Pull-Ups: BWx10x3

Agnes:
Squat: 80x5x3
Bench: 70x5x3
RDL’s: 85x5x3
Assisted Band Pull-Ups: 5×3

I don’t know if anyone has taken a peak at this video before

The “Gallon Challenge” will be revisited tonight or tomorrow. Trevor wants to try it again, this time with a partner. Our other good buddy/All-American/Socon Lineman of the year/Brent Rusell is gonna give it a shot. These fine gentleman weigh in at a combined 600 pounds. We will find out later tonight if they can crush a gallon of milk in one hour and hold it down. I seriously doubt it. If these big fuckers can’t do it, then no one can. The video will be posted sometime this week/weekend.

Training is solid. Was a little dehydrated today due to the diarrhea I’ve had for the past 2 days. My energy was kinda zapped for the volume day today. See how it feels for squats tomorrow. Trying to pound down some powerade and pedialyte. I should be good by tomorrow. If not I can just fucking complain about it some more and have a fiery asshole.

BTW, Shit gets real in Ironworks. Those guy train hard. Just take a look at this POV shot of Zach doing dumbbell sit-ups. You can’t say he isn’t intense, cause he’ll kill you.



Look into those eyes.

4/6/12
Squat: 435×5/420×5/405×3
Pendlay Rows: 230x5x3

4/5/12
Bench: 335×5/320×5/305×5
Press: 225×5
Dips: 90x5x3

Agnes:
4/5/12
Squat: 75x5x3
Press: 55x3x3
Pendlay Rows: 70x5x3

Had a really long weekend. Worked the stage room during our Gorilla Zoe concert on Saturday. It was about 85-90 degrees in that room because of all the people in their and the body heat coming from them. Long sweaty, sweaty, sweaty night. Felt like it took a little juice outta me. It will be fine. I could go cry about it or something, but I won’t write about it if I do. Every time Gorilla Zoe pulled a girl on stage 40 more behind her tried to run up too. I had to stop them EVERY TIME. They would bitch and yell at me saying “WHY CAN’T WE GO UP THERE!?!?!?!?!?”. I would just wave them away. Pretty much if Gorilla Zoe didn’t pull you up on stage you’re not getting on the fucking stage. I wanted to inform these girls to go ahead and fuck themselves and then inform them that they aren’t special. Stressful man. Stressful.

My bench is going great btw. I plan to hit at least 400 in competition now. The next one is is August. In Kileen, Texas. The crew will meet up again and the circle will be complete. Really looking forward to it. I also get to see my buddy Taylor when I go. Here is a recent video of my benching. It was today (4/2/12). The man behind the camera is Brandavious and the LARGE gentleman doing the intro is Maxwell. Both were former football players here at Southern. They had their last season and now they are just getting huge. Anyways, here is the benching

4/3/12
Deadlift: 495×2
Dynamic Effort Squat: 275×2/On the min/10 Min
Sledgehammer Swings: 70

4/2/12
Bench: 410×2/415×2
Close-Grip: 355×3/365×3/375×2
Pull-Ups: BWx10x3

Agnes:
Squat: 70x5x3
Bench: 60x5x3
RDL: 65x5x3

This is Mitch. Weighs 160 and hit 420×3. This is what hard work looks like. Perseverance and patience = Strength.



Been a good week. Benched 405×3 and Squatted 510×2. The rest of the week is lame volume day shit. No one really cares about that. Nobody ever says, “Hey man! What do you do for sets of 5? Lemme suck your dick cause you do 3×5 with XXXX weight”. Yeah that’s a real lame conversation. Agnes on the other hand, has been consistent this week. She squatted (high bar) 65x5x3. Looking sharp. Would have been better if she didn’t go out last night, but eh shit happens. Still proud of her.

Really looking forward to next weeks training. Get to hit 410 on bench and Deadlift again. DL is kinda low considering I couldn’t do it for about 2 months. Looking forward to getting that back up to the high 5′s and then hitting 6. Also I am looking forward to seeing Wraith of the titans. I fucking love that old mythology type stuff. I think it makes for an entertaining movie, but what the fuck does that matter. I am sure it will suck, but still be cool to watch.

I really only talk about movies and lifting. That’s what my life revolves around. I also plan on getting my belly waxed. My buddy will record it so that should be interesting. I’ll probably get that done this weekend. It’s beach season guys. Get on your tank-top game.

3/29/12
Bench: 325x5x3
Press: 245×2
Dips: 45lbsx5x3
Shoulders were so fucking tired.

Agnes:
Squat: 65x5x3
Press: 50×5/50x3x2
Pendlay Rows: 65x5x3

Update: Squatted today (3/27/12)

Had a good morning in the gymnasium today. Benched 395×2. It felt a little awkward. I stayed up late watching “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. The girl in the movie is mega hot as a pale weirdo. Pretty tight movie. Had a little too many sub-plots going on towards the end, but never the less tight. So after 395×2 I reached down into my limitless reserves of strength and put 405 on the bar. Now I hit this for a single back in early early December and I wanted revenge after my surgery. I put this song on over the loud-speakers and went to town. I hit that bitch for a triple. My first rep is always worse than the others because I tend to do it in a blind rage. After that, I always regain some focus while still being emotional. Got the second one real clean and proceeded for a third. Tits. Unfortunately I don’t have a video, but don’t worry. I’ll get one up of 410 next week.

I also saw John Carter over the weekend. All of it except for the last 20 minutes. Had to leave to take care of something at work. I was real fucking pissed. Go see it. It’s tight. Jake posted a good review of it in the last post here. In depth. I like it. You won’t be let down. There is a scene in there that I thought about when I benched. Got real emotional and it helped for the bench set. I really only saw it btw because my buddy looks like a yolked John Carter. Definitely his new nickname.

Carl weighed around 225 when this picture was taken. I can only assume Taylor Kitsch weighs are 180 pounds.


Carl should have been John Carter.

Somebody asked a while ago which MWODS do I use. Here are a few that I do before lifting.

There is a fuck ton of these that I use all within the little 5-10 min stretch warmup-up I do. These took my a hot-minute to find so if you have a specific area that you are curious about, ask.

3/27/12
Squat: 500×2/510×2
Rack-Pull: 455×5
BB Curls: 95x10x3
Neck Machine: All sidesx10x3
3/26/12
Bench: 395×2/405×3 (EZPZ)
Close-Grip: 350×3/360×3/370×2
Push/Pull-Downs: 70/80/90×10–50/60/70×10

Not much has gone on this week that has been interesting. We had an employee party on Wednesday. We all hop on a tricked out bus and go to savannah. Normally one would get plastered, but considering I care more about lifting than anything else I stayed sober. I had to do my volume work Thursday (usually around 315 for bench) and Friday (around the low 400′s for squat) so not a big desire to drink. Usually volume days are tough if you are pretty tired. I try to rest as much as possible before all lifting though.



I looked awesome as usual.

Training is going pretty well. Can’t wait for Nationals and the local Strongman competition Norman and I are doing. Standard protocol with Fingal Fingers and Atlas stones. It’s April 14th or something so I can’t wait to compete in it. I think it’s going to be a blast. In other news, some one was over my house and shit in my toilet and let a huge glob of tp sitting there with it. The handle is broken so you have to lift up the back to flush it. Not only did this person not say anything to anyone they didn’t even make an attempt to do anything. I fucking hate disrespectful people. They made a mess in the bathroom too. Fucking mother-fuckers.

Did anyone see John Carter?

3/23/12
Squat: 415×5/400×5/385×5
RDL’S: 155x5x3
Pendlay Rows: 210x5x3
Sledgehammer swings/50M Jogx6 rotations

3/22/12
Bench: 320x5x3
Press: 245×1 (Didn’t have a lot of juice. Agnes came home late and I didn’t get much sleep)
Dips: 135x5x3

Yeah man



J.T. my favorite ride is The Mummy

Spent most of my spring break down in Orlando at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. It was fucking badass. I went with my girlfriend and two other friends, Norman and Justin. Norman is the tall latino guy who I have posted about a few times here. My friend Justin is about 6″0 and 180 pounds. He used to lift with us until he switched colleges. He is really cockstrong for never really working out. He kinda just rock climbs all the time. Try to get out of his grip. It’s hard to. Moving on, We rode about 2+ hours down to Camden county on Saturday to kill some of the trip drive and chilled at a friends river house. It was tight. I was real tired from drinking the night before so I didn’t do much all day. We all wore really gay outfits out to the bar and got wasted. I wore a shirt that said “I (symbol of a palm tree) the islands!” and jean shorts. Sigh. Good thing I have a girlfriend or people might think I am gay . . . The next day we rode out to Orlando and checked into the hotel. The next morning we got up at 7 to eat and head to the park early. That’s the only way to do it. As the day goes on the crowd grows exponentially.

We went to The Hulk first and rode that bitch front row. Agnes had not been on a roller coaster for almost 10 years so she was a little nervous. The best part of The Hulk is the beginning where it accelerates. It’s sick. All of sudden an alarm starts to go off and you hear a generic “WARNING. WARNING.” then, Bruce Banner comes on the speaker and says “wait! I think, I think it’s going to work!”. The alarm sounds again. He says “O god no!! . . . NOOOOOOO!!!!“. My heart raced every time I heard him panic. It accelerates a lot faster in real life than in that video. I feel like if the ride were to crash I would be so jacked up on adrenaline from that dialogue that I’d be fine. After that we hit all the rides, Doom Free Fall, Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, then the other park.






I made it a point to be in all of Agnes’ scenery pictures.

We headed over to Universal and hit up The Mummy, Disaster Studios, Men in Black , Simpsons, and then to the Rock It. Unfortunately if you haven’t been to the park in a while the demolished the Jaws ride. It was all dirt and construction when we were there. They didn’t have a sign up for what they were building so who the fuck knows what’s going on. I was pissed because I had a lot of classic memories on that ride, as do I with others. One time when I was with my dad and bro we went on Jurassic park and the ride started awesome. This dude in front of us refused to give up his M&M’s to the ride guy. Hilarious. An angry bald black dude straight up told the guy no. So the kid took a big sigh and said whatever.

After that, about 3/4′s into the ride my dad is panicking. He “thinks” the ride is real. To go along with his joke he sees a lizard run by on the ground. The foliage is real around the ride so there is some wildlife. He starts screaming “O MY GOD!!! THE RIDE IS REAL!!!! THE RIDE IS REAL!!!!”. This is a 45 year old man yelling. My brother and I are pissing ourselves laughing. After that every time a raptor came out he lost it. Screaming frantically to get off the ride and grabbing the safety bar. Needless to say I had a good time on that ride. We all like to fuck around on rides. Here is an example:


I was on the phone the whole time.

Overall we had a badass time. Not a whole lot is cooler than being on a roller coaster with your buddies. I try to do this trip once a year. Mainly to people watch, but mainly to ride a fucking roller coaster.


Standard turkey leg pic


Harry Potter World wasn’t crowded at all


Lastly, I couldn’t let this guy be in a pic all by himself

3/20/12
Deadlift: 475×3
Dynamic Effort Squats: 275×2/On The Min/8 Minutes
Hammer Swings: 10xTwo-Hand Right-Left/Two Over/One Left-Right/Alternating

3/19/12
Bench: 385×2(EZ)/395×2
Close-Grip: 335×3/345×3/355×3
Push-Ups: BWx15x3 For the hell of it

The parks were real tits. Riding a rollercoaster is like nothing else. Still traveling around so I will post about the trip in a few days.

3/16/12
Squat: 415×5/400×5/385×5
RDL’S: 135x5x3
Pendlay Rows: 195x5x3

3/15/12
Bench: 315x5x3
Press: 205x3x2
Dips: 90lbsx5x3

I’ll be traveling over the next few days so I won’t be posting. Taking the old lady to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure for a few days. She has never been on a roller coaster so it should be interesting. I’m real pumped to be on the Hulk with her. Be back in a few days.

Brought ol Agnes to Ironworks today. She had her first Squat/Bench/RDL day today. She is really excited to lift. She mentioned that she has always wanted to learn how to lift and has always had some interest in it. I am having her high bar squat. She has a better body type for it and I will supplement the high bar with the RDL’s so she gets her hammstring work in. I won’t have her deadlift yet because she doesn’t have a grasp on keeping extension yet so a few weeks down the road from now she might be pulling. She squatted 55x5x3, benched 50x5x3, and did RDL’s for 45x5x3.

I just had my usual volume bench. Did 315x5x3 (easy today) and did some pressing. Came at 255×2 with a vengeance. I missed it the other week and I ass-fucked today. It felt nice. Agnes was a little concerned with the grunting, but she will get used to it.

J.T. says:

If she’s half as awesome as she sounds, she’ll take to it like a duck to water. My wife started lifting a few months ago and it really brought out her Scandi/Viking pride. It’s almost like northern European women have a genetic predispostion for awesomeness or something.

I really feel like you are correct. Glad the lady is lifting. Let me know about her progress. I’m sure Agnes will like to hear about another woman who has started and made progress.

Jay Says:

Any particular reason for the power cleans?
Explosion off the floor?
(your pictures made me explosion off the floor)
(… this is awkward, going to go now buh bye)

I have wanted to do them for some time now and I figured that PC’s are interchangeable with dynamic effort pulls. So I made some room for them.

Bench: 315x5x3
Press: 255×2
Totally forgot to do dips. Shit.