Last Monday was once again the sometimes dreaded, but always needed, squat day. If you’ll recall from a recent post, squat day didn’t exactly go as planned on the previous go around, so there was a little trepidation for this next round.

We went heavy again, but for triples rather than singles, and thankfully at 285# I hit a triple without incident, thus erasing my less than stellar squat the previous week and totally redeeming myself… Which prompted me to share this video clip, for no real reason other than the fact that it amuses me.

Ah yes, what a great movie.

Anyway, sorry for being a bit sporadic with the posting the past week. It’s been insane: bachelor/going-away party planning, pre-bachelor party cleaning, earthquake, pre-bachelor party drinking (need to flex the tolerance a bit to make sure I still got it), and then instead of the actual bachelor party, we had a hurricane induced practice bachelor party, since a lot of folks aren’t able to make the trip due to weather, but the bride-to-be was already on his way… so we just went with it.

Now my house is filled with trash, beer bottles, and dirt, and my yard is covered in debris, burned out tiki torches, and a cable line that got ripped off the side of my house.

So that being said, due to cleanup and recovery from hurricane of mass destruction (whether it be in natural or alcoholic form), and considering the fact that I’m still out of power, my posting may be a bit patchy over the next few days as well. But I’m hoping everything is back to normal here soon.

Hope everyone out there made it through okay!

Have you ever heard of the Crossfit WOD (Workout Of the Day) known as “Fight Gone Bad”? It sounds pretty terrible: round after round of wall balls, box jumps, push press, etc… with very short periods of rest in between. It sounds short, painful, and completely miserable.

Well I’ve never done the official Fight Gone Bad, though someday I may give it a shot, but I have been in a fight that’s gone pretty poorly for the home team, and so I can relate to the feeling: you sort of remember how it started, maybe a little bit in the middle if you’re lucky as you wildly sock somebody a few times square in the face, and then you wake up at the end and ask “what the hell happened?”

Well I had a similar workout last week, and I’d tell you everything that happened, but unfortunately it was so non-stop and bewildering that quite frankly I don’t clearly remember what happened: There was a med ball push-press ladder, immediately followed by an ascending med ball front raise ladder, plus a max effort dumbell shrug set immediately followed by a max effort dumbell curl set… I think there were some fat grip pull ups mixed in there too, superset with suspension push-ups…. I don’t remember, there wasn’t much rest and it’s all kind of hazy. Some parking lot dry heaving was involved afterwards.

This got me thinking…. What’s the most brutal workout I’ve ever had?

There are a few that come to mind:

• Birthday workout this past May – you know when you start a workout off with a single set of 28 squats with your bodyweight on your back, things will most likely end badly.
• My first (and only) calf tabata day… couldn’t walk right for a week
• and then there’s the workout last week

However, I have to say that no workout sticks out more in my mind than this caveman workout that I did with my buddy Graham several years back. It traumatized him so much, that he told me he’d never do it with me again. The beauty of it? All you need is:

Yes, that’s it: one decently sized medicine ball, and a field (horse farm not necessary).

In case you didn’t click on the link above, the idea behind it is this: 10 rounds of the following, in ascending ladder format starting with 10 reps (reps do no apply to sprint portion):

• Overhead ball squats
• Ball push-ups
• Ball sit-ups
• Ball push-ups
• Overhead ball squats
• 200-yard sprint

So just to spell it out for those of you who don’t understand how this would work: the first round you do 10 ball squats, then 10 push-ups, then 10 situps, then 10 push-ups, then 10 squats, then you sprint. When you get back you do 11 squats, 11 push-ups…. Until you do 20 of everything in the last round. You get the idea, right?… If not, leave a stupid comment for further explanation.

Anyway, having not trained like this… well pretty much ever, at the time, my buddy and I took a medicine ball out to a field and gave it a shot. We figured, hey, how hard can it be?

It. was. miserable…. I can’t even begin to describe to you how miserable this was. I even had to call in backup, and have a friend bring us some more Gatorade, protein shakes, and a loaf of bread to put directly in the face. Oh, and to make us feel good about almost putting ourselves through shock and complete kidney failure, they have a scoring system for this workout: with a “gold” medal being awarded for doing it in 18 minutes or less, a “silver” for doing it in 18 – 22 minutes, and a “bronze” for over 22 minutes.

My friend and I both were happy to escape with our lives, and a well earned “bronze medal: the Peter Jackson director’s extended uncut edition”…. For those of you who aren’t nerds, that means it took a really, really long effing time.

Anyway, that’s my story…. So what I want to know from you is….

What is the most brutal workout you’ve ever had?… Heck, if I’m feeling crazy enough, I may even try it.

I’m getting a bachelor party organized for next weekend, so it’s understandably on my mind. A friend sent this my way, and I think it appropriate….

Live and learn… As in, I’ll barely live, and you learn from my mistakes (that’s a little over dramatic, but there was definitely an oh sh*t moment).

A couple days ago was squat day. I was crushing weight pretty well, and we decided to give 330lbs a shot for the first time. Chalked up, and feeling confident from the previous sets, I get under the bar and lift off. I came out of the rack tight, felt steady and strong on the way down, and stable in the hole. I even came out of the hole a good 6-10 inches, and then…. stuck. I tried to grind it out for a few seconds, and then… I just started to drop. Coach tried to spot me and get me back out, but for some reason I had nothing left to give, and I quickly found myself deeper in the hole than I’ve ever been: ass practically touching the floor with 330lbs trying to push me into the floor and threatening to tip me forward and crush the hell out of me…. Finally, I actually heard what coach was yelling at me, and taking his advice just dumped it down my back.

Evidently, it could've ended up a lot worse.

…So let’s review what went wrong: I didn’t set the pins before going for a max squat. Nor had I ever thought about what I would do in the case of “missing” a squat completely.

So that’s the moral of the story: set your pins and/or get more comfortable with dumping the bar, because it was a foreign concept to me, and I didn’t even know what to do for a good second or two and that’s a legitimately scary/dangerous moment.

Only several blocks from the plasma-TV filled, Brittney Spears blasting, packed-to-the-gills-at-5pm Gold’s Gym that I’m currently a member of (and not to take away from Gold’s, because it definitely has its place), lies a little gem in the rough… uh, extreme, rough.

It’s fittingly named The Weight Room, and there are no frills, no polo’d personal trainers with clipboards meandering around rearranging stability balls for the 80th time, and if you tried to play Brittney Spears I’m pretty sure your iPod won’t make it out alive.

Believe me, this place isn’t for everyone, but then again I don’t think they want everyone working out here. It’s a small, serious gym, that attracts big, serious lifters… and me, evidently.

I went there this past Saturday to lift with my friend Chris, because they have all of the strongman implements (atlas stones, log, yoke, farmers, etc.) that a wannabe strongman could desire. According to Chris the gym was “packed” at a ungodly 5, that’s right five, other people there. Now granted, the gym isn’t very big, but believe me the 5 people in there weren’t a problem, and we didn’t wait for anything.

In fact, it’s kind of nice lifting in a small niche gym, because it forces you to get to know some people… Well, maybe not force, but you’d look like a real jerk if you didn’t at least say “hello” to the 1 or 2 other people that are in there with you… and the handful of people I’ve met there are 10x friendlier and more willing to help you out than anybody I’ve met in my years of lifting at a commercial gym. The owner, Chris Lawyer, is probably one of the nicest people you ever meet. I know that term is thrown around loosely by pretty much everyone, but seriously, sit down and talk with the guy for while and you’ll see what I mean.

Also, want to give a shout out and thanks to Joey Tedrow and Danny Clingenpool, a couple of stongman veterans that were kind enough to give Chris and myself some pointers on how to not kill ourselves while doing the different lifts.

Joey putting on a clinic... show off.

So how’d I do?

Well, not too bad, but there’s considerable room for improvement as well. I’m still stalling at 165 on the log press, but I’m fairly certain that it’s more of a technique issue than anything else.

This is how it's done

My yoke walk I maxed out around 445lbs, which I’m not unhappy with, but I almost lost a limb doing it. My right leg caved at one point and I had to drop the frame and regroup for a minute.

Chris raging on a 260lb atlas stone

On the Atlas stones… oh man, the atlas stones. I was all excited about the stones, and feeling pretty confident, but the platform at TWR is much higher than the one I used at Brute Strength, and boy did that make a difference. At 52” or so, getting the stone up on that sucker was more than a little bit of a struggle. I managed to do 215lbs 3 times, but it got uglier, and uglier every rep. No worries, just means I’ve got more work ahead of me.

After a solid 2 ½ hours at The Weight Room, we shot on over to another little ghettofabulous establishment, known as The Dairy Bar. As we were walking up, there was a guy out front chaining up the tables on the deck.

“Are you guys closed?”

“…Nope.”

I guess they were battening down the hatches in preparation for a flashmob robbery or something. Anyway, though in the ghetto, the food was awesome…. and a complete and utter Paleo fail, but after almost 3 hours in the gym I think I earned a few carbs.

Moral of the story? I think I may have found a new home for the near future (both gym and dairy barn).

I’m not one much for sampling my own wares very frequently, but today I took a look back and read through last weeks posts and realized… Nice job chief, you successfully wrote all week on your “personal fitness journey blog” without talking about what you’re doing as far as personal fitness.

Fear not, I haven’t fallen off the train. I’m going to make it up to you here by posting last weeks workouts. I’m not Rainman though, so I don’t remember all the sweaty details of each day, but I’ll do the best I can:

• Monday – squat and clean day. I kind of wussed out on this day, since I was having some hip issues (like an old man) from running on Saturday like an idiot.
• Tuesday –
  • Plank – for time, with a 45lb plate on my ass/low back:
  • Set 1 – 1:20
  • Set 2 – 0:50
  • Set 3 – 0:45
  • Side plank – with 45lb plate held to side:
  • 3 x 25 seconds per side, 1:00 rest periods
  • Half-peeing Dog:
  • 3 x 35 seconds per side, 25 second rest periods.

  I’ve kicked the “off day” core work up a little bit. I’ve got an 80lb sandbag that my buddy loaned me a long time ago. Pretty sure he’s forgotten about it (as did I), and since moved, so I hope he doesn’t want me to ship an 80lb sandbag to him… because if so, Poerstel, we’ll need to go halve-zees.

  • Sanbag rotational pick-ups – max reps in 5:00 with 80lb bag (hit 38 reps)
  • Sanbag get-ups – max reps in 5:00 with 80lb bag (hit 27 reps…embarrassed)

• Thursday – yoga at Yoga Source in Carytown. They’re no joke there, and Friday was the first time I’ve ever woken up sore from yoga.
• Friday – Cleans and rows.
• Saturday – Log presses, Yoke walk, and atlas stones at The Weight Room. I’ll write up a little guy on this, probably tomorrow, since this place is awesome and deserves a shout out.

See?… Still all about some personal fitness here at theyoking.com. Been a slow start to the exercise regimen this week, but last week was solid.

Yes, I am alive. I decided to give myself a few days off in celebration, if you will, of my 100th post and the fact that I successfully posted for 30 days straight (with the exception of my weekend adventure a couple weeks ago.) So have no fear, I’ll be back in business on Monday, and I think I’m going to try and stick with posting pretty much every day, with some exceptions here and there.

Oh in other news, I found an awesome Strongman gym in Richmond. Spent a good 2 and a half hours there this morning raging on some weights with some good people. More on that later… Have a good weekend peeps!

So this is my 100th post. My how time flies when you’re having fun.

Not to be a grump about it, but I had much bigger plans for this 100th post than posting a nudie montage. I was going to give myself and the world a present: the much ballyhooed redesign of the blog, however this very evening my PC had an aneurysm and died… Like dead, died. It does nothing when I hit the button that says “GO”.

BUT NO WORRIES. I thought it’d be kind of cool to look back roughly a yearish ago when I started this thing, and compare the then and now pictures. Luckily, I look and feel better now…. Man, wouldn’t that’ve been depressing if the old pics looked better.

Summer 2010 on the left, Summer 2011 on the right

From frumpy IT guy, to skeletor stunt double. From barefoot preacher to broken booted man. From psycho in the office who drinks a gallon of milk per day, to the man who won’t even touch dairy (or sugar, or grain) with a 10 foot pole. Then from cardio and tabata man, to powerlifting strongman wannabe…. I’ve been all over the place apparently, but in the end I’m much stronger, healthier, and motivated than I was back in July of 2010 when it all began.

There’ve been times where I’ve worried that I’d run out of stuff to write about, but the longer I do this, and the more I learn, and the more I understand how little I know, the more I realize…..I’m just getting warmed up here.

My list of fitness and health “to-do’s” isn’t getting shorter. It’s getting longer. So to those of you who’ve been reading, I give you a huge thanks, encourage you to keep coming back as things progress, and hope you’ll give your ideas, experiences, and support to myself and other readers.

Thanks peeps!

I haven’t done a foodish post in a while, or at least it feels like it’s been a while, so I thought I’d share something for peeps who are either doing Paleo and looking to try something new, or considering it and don’t know what to cook on day 1.

Anyway, you’ll be amazed to hear that I’ve come up with a recipe that actually tastes like food. Sure, I may have pulled a few ideas from other peeps, but the overall idea is mine and I feel pretty good about that whenever I eat it….Yeah, that’s right, I’m getting all domestic up in here. Mr. Mom 2 casting call, here I come (No but seriously, it’s called “being an adult and taking care of your own damn self”… I’m still working on it). Below is what the final product should look likeish:

Look awesome? Of course it does. It was awesome. I call it Luke’s egg and asparagus sandwich. So here’s what you’ll need…

Ingredients:

• 4 grass-fed beef hamburgers (sometimes I hand-roll these badboys, but often I buy them pre-hamburgerfied)
• Asparagus… we’ll say a pound, since I have no idea.
• Eggs
• Coconut Oil
• Olive Oil
• Sea salt
• Black pepper

OPTIONAL:

• Cumin
• Red Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Paprika
• Cayenne Pepper

I’d start with the asparagus:

Put a couple of tablespoonsish, I guess, of coconut oil into a skillet, and heat that sucka’ on medium. Break off the bottom of the asparagus (….stalks?) by hand, and then throw the good part into the skillet/pan/whatever with the coconut oil (if you’re unsure which part is “the good part”, then you’ve made a huge mistake in attempting this endeavor. Immediately abort mission and call your local Chinese restaurant or Papa John’s). At this point, I’d sprinkle on some salt and pepper. I heat them on medium for a good 5-10 minutes, and then I drop it down low like Beyonce and put a lid on it for about 10 minutes… When the 10 minutes is up, your asparagus is done. (depending on how you like your asparagus)

While that asparagus is doing it’s thing, the hamburgers are a piece of cake:
All the “optional” spices listed I like to sprinkle onto both sides of the burgers, but if you’ve only got salt and pepper, just give a generous dusting of that, and you can still pull this off. So yeah, put some olive oil into a cast iron skillet (if you’re a man about it) and set it on medium. Once this comes up to heat, throw the burgers in there, and cook them to your desired temperature. Pull the burgers out, but don’t turn off the oven or remove the skillet. Time for the magic….

Scrape up all the black crap that’s in the pan from the burgers and bring it to the middle of your pan. Now take 2 eggs, that’s right, one for every two burgers, and break them over the crispy black crap in the middle of the pan, and scramble them up… This shouldn’t take long at all, since the pan is already nice and hot.

Now, using the hamburgers as buns (I know, it’s genius and I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t) divide the scrambled eggs onto two burgers, split up the asparagus and put on top of the eggs, and then top all THAT off with the other 2 burgers and… Voila! Paleo-palooza 2011 just happened in your mouth. BOOM.

Thank me later. I’m hungry after writing that, time to go grub…. OH, and make sure you turn off the stove. That’s huge.