Phase 2 and Blue October

Phase 2 of my Tough Mudder training goes a little like this:

Mondays-Zercher Deadlifts + 20 Min conditioning circuit
Tuesdays-40 minute run
Wednesdays-FAT Bar Bench + 20 minute run
Thursdays-40 minute run
Fridays-Stone lift + 20 min conditioning circuit
Saturday-Long distance run

Zercher deads are considerably hard and awkward. I thought I'd be able to do a lot more weight than I have done in the last two weeks. Although the weight is close to the lifters COM the lifters hip height needs to be low in order to get into position. This position, along with the bar placement, make the lift difficult. I am using the Zercher deadlift, with a fat bar, to help develop grip strength, pulling strength, and "functional" (I hate using that word here) strength. When moving anything in life your not going to be able to get into a perfect deadlifting position, the Zercher, along with the Atlas Stones, has a little carry over into that world. Now, just because you train in unorthodox positions doesn't mean your any less susceptible towards injury. When you change an angle of lift you change the way a muscles effected. Fat Bars to Texas bars: stones to trap bar: 4in. lift to a 2in lift or different heights in a rack are all different exercises and are going to work the grip or posterior chain in different ways: more erector/low back less hamstring more hamstring more glute less glute some lat.activation and trap or none...So in point the Zercher changes the angles, provides a more challenging obstacle, and takes a lifter out of an ideal ROM - same thing with Stones.

40 minutes are getting very easy - I am pushing 3.5+mi in 40minutes and now that the weather is getting better I am definitely loving running again.

Upper Body days are going well, I hit 250 for a solid single on the fat bar plus 230 for 3. My overall strength is definitely diminishing but considering the fact I am running 4 days a week plus doing a lot more conditioning I dont think its been to huge of a loss. This is where I need to really keep up on my nutrition and supplementation. Its really hard on a budget but whats harder is the discipline. I am constantly having to re-focus myself.

Strongman days suck - I've been doing stones for the last two weeks and I hate it. It just pisses me off. ...Now I hate it for two reasons - 1.Its just hard 2.I end up whining about how much I hate it, which only makes me hate it more. All I can do is suck it up and keep trying to get better at it.

Long distance runs - not so bad. As long as I warm up properly the long distance runs are easy but recently I totally have been preoccupied with something else and randomly decided that I need to go run...therefore I put my shoes on and took off-bad idea for the first 1.5miles. Otherwise, I think the runs are going well.

Overall Phase 2 is rapidly closing and I think its gone well but I re-assess in 2 weeks so we'll see what that says.

Blue October came to the Pabst Theater on May 5th. They are currently on tour called Ugly Side-An acoustic evening with Blue October. I've seen these guys about 5-7x and this was THE best show I had ever seen. The music sounded awesome, we had great seats for the price and time we got to the event, and the vocals were studio quality. It was really an awesome experience and the Pabst theater is a sick venue. The best part wasn't even the show - it was the hour after the show were we were able to get Hillary's ticket signed by Ryan (the violinist), Matt (the bassist), and Justin (the lead signer.) On top of those signatures Ryan saw and signed my recent tattoos and was very impressed by them. Justin also saw my tattoos .... signed them AND THEN TOOK HIS OWN PICTURE OF THEM! That's right! I had a band member take a picture of me - as he took his pictures of my tattoos he said, and I quote, "this is the type of thing that would be cool to have in the next album."


Whaaaaa?

I'd like to think I gave my best poker face at the time but inside was jumping up and down after hearing that so I do not know what my actual reaction was...all I can say is I will be lined up at the door to buy the next album!

I will get those pictures up asap...but will leave you with a Blue October Video