Monday, March 2, 2009

Beast Challenge Progress and Recovery

Here's the current stats on my Beast Challenge Progress.
Pistol- 40 kg.
Press- 36 kg.
Pull Up- 28 kg.

My Pistols and Pull Ups keep building, but I've momentarily stalled on my presses. No big deal, this is just the ebb and flow of the training cycle. I'm going back to school on my TGU, dropping to the 24 kg. bell and going for more continuous reps and ironing out movement pattern and ROM issues I'm having from right to left. I think this will contribute to my pressing. I'm also doing a lot of bent pressing on the 32 and 40 kg., and really emphasizing the negative at the finish of the movement. I'll also be going back to work more strictly on pressing ladders and working GTG with pistols and pull ups. I think I can do this in 2009. That being said, I probably won't actually do the challenge until 2010. Can i pistol the 40? Yeah, but the rules say I have to go calf to hamstring. I am below parallel, but not that low. My chin is over the bar with the 28 kg., but not throat to the bar. When I walk out on that field I have to be able to kill all three events. None of this guessing game BS. "Can I pistol the Beast? Gee, might as well find out in front of 70 strangers."

On another note, recovery is good. Right now I'm probably at an hour or more of recovery work everyday. Stretching, Rolling, Z-Health. I'd have a hobo hit me in the head with a bag of dead cats if I thought it would help.
Already I can see a big difference. My hips are finally unlocking, my right hamstring is un-strung, my right shoulder is behaving, and my left knee has stopped popping and the stiffness is gone. I figured out (with Tara's help) that my left quad and IT band were just insanely tight. Tomorrow I'm going to try my first full pistol on my left leg in a while. I'm looking forward to killing it with one-legged squats again. It's amazing I basically worked my way up from the 24 kg. to the 40 kg. barely doing any pistols.

7 comments:

  1. It will be so awesome when you get this. I really hope I'm there for it. :)

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  2. Let me know how it goes with your practice. I want to help you stay on top of the knee issue.

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  3. Thanks Nikki. Don't you worry, I'll be taking out a full page ad when I finally do it.
    Tara, the knee is still effed. Something's up in there I think. I've started doing airborne lunges from a dead stop to work that side while doing Pistols on my right. Should stay even.

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  4. ASLR and single leg deadlifts have helped me a lot lately.

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  5. Thanks for checking in Max. What is ASLR?

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  6. I wish that they had a "Beast Challenge" for skinny old men.:) I'm 47 and work with Will Williams so I can do RKC II next Summer.Can Pistol the 16, Press the 36KG and Pull Up 16kg. Is there a current list of folks who have done it? Didn't someone else just pull it off?

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  7. Well, bear in mind I'm 5'8" and 165. Not old yet. :)
    They haven't done an awesome job of updating the list on the DD site. The names are supposed to be updated here: http://www.dragondoor.com/beastchallenge.html

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