After spending most of 2014 focusing on strength training, I'm taking my training and this blog in a new direction. First though, a quick recap of my progress over the past 12 months. I spent most of the year running my own modified version of the 5-3-1 program. I stuck pretty strictly to the program for my main lifts and fed my "mix things up" nature by constantly switching my accessory work. For a couple months I did exactly what the program called for and then I spent a couple months of accessorizing with Boring But Big (main lifts plus 5x10 with a complimentary lift). And yet another couple of months doing whatever the heck struck my fancy on the particular day. While I have no doubt I probably could have made even more progress if I’d just strictly followed any one program, being able to customize and switch up a small part of the program kept me from getting bored or burnt out any one thing in particular. As for the results, I’m pretty pleased with how my strength has progressed over the past 12 months. I’ve PR’d just about every lift containing a barbell and I’m most proud of a full 50 pound jump on my deadlift. I hit 450 at the beginning of November and that added strength carried over well to my power clean as well. Despite not working Olympic lifts in nearly 6 months, I cleaned 245 for a healthy 20 pound PR and felt like I had more in the tank (not to mention how awful my form from lack of practice).
On to the next shiny thing though….I’ve become enamored with mud and obstacle races over the past month and a half or so. I’ve set a goal to run several different races in 2015, culminating in the Spartan Beast in November. That will be a 12+ mile race, which would be considerably farther than I’ve ever run before in my entire life. I’ve already started tailoring my training to longer, more endurance based sessions. My strength portions, at least for now, will be Boring But Big for the main lifts which will hopefully keep me losing too much strength while at the same time help build some muscular endurance. I’m also adding in some longer metcons instead of accessory lifts and of course there will be a lot of running in my future. I’ve found some great trails relatively close to my home and running on softer surfaces seems to cut down on the stress of running on pavement.
All in all, I guess this was nothing more than a quick New Years, new me type of post….cliche I know, but it is what it is. I wanted to write something and that’s what came out. I’m going to try and post weekly training updates as well as track my progress as the year continues.
