Today was my first organized exercise since my grueling workout with Lou at the venerable Stone Park, outside of NYC.  We did a 3-4 hour strongman workout that consisted of dead lifts, farmer carry, atlas stones, tire flipping and log press.  It was honestly the toughest workout of my life.  I was sure I tore something in my abdomen during one of the atlas stone lifts but thus far I have not seen anything poking out of my pelvic wall.

I had some personal bests during the workout.  I somehow managed to lift and walk a short distance with 460 pounds total in the farmer carry, holding 230 pounds in each hand.  I have never been able to get 400 pounds off the ground in any lift so to get 460 was very, very surprising.

I also had a proud moment when I successfully flipped the nearly 600 pound tire.  In my early attempts I didn’t even budge the tire.  I then managed to get it an inch or two off the ground later.  Then towards the end of the workout using some form tips from Lou backed up by the screaming encouragement of others in the group I got the tire up and over, twice.

I am used to my workouts following a pyramid shape where you work up to a big weight and then immediately scale back down.  Lou gets to big weight and then stays there, for hours on end.  It was crazy.  By the time we finished my body literally felt like I was run over by a truck.

As expected there have been some serious consequences from such extreme punishment.  My traps were too sore to touch up until a couple days ago.  My lower body, specifically my knees are still swollen.  My range of motion when I stretched today was way below normal. Although I did no other formal exercise since then Cindy and I logged a lot of miles on foot during our four day visit to the city.  I wish I had a pedometer on me to give an idea of just how many steps we took.

Today I jumped into my normal chest day although my bench press buddy wasn’t there.  I was a little conservative with no spotter but still pushed up 235 pounds pretty clean.

Today’s Workout

5 minutes cardio/stret5ching

Barbell bench press – 135lbs x 10, 185lbs x 5, 225lbs x 1, 235lbs x 1, 225lbs x 2, 205lbs x 5, 185lbs x 8, 135lbs x 15

Pec dec – 115lbs x 10, 175lbs x 8, 205lbs x 5

30 push ups