Mike and Paula's Newbie Training Log

[gman]

My girlfriend Paula, and I competed for the first time in any type of strength meet last weekend. It was a NAHA sanctioned 4 event meet...meaning 2 highland game events and 2 strongman events. We enjoyed ourselves so much, and we are hooked on it now! We attended a clinic about a month before the meet where Gene Flynn taught us the basics of caber tossing and weight over bar (the 2 highland events in our meet), and he was a tremendous help. I got the chance to compete against Tim Stallings and Heath Thiel from Wisconsin, both were way better than me, and I really enjoyed the experience. I met my goal of getting the weight over the bar (could only get 10'), and turning the caber (managed an 11:00). I am 49 years young, and didn't lift a weight until the age of 44, so I have young joints and tendons in a sense! Anyway, we are going to do our best to train effectively this summer and do Gene Flynn's games in November down in NC. I am not sure how to train, but since neither of us is really strong, I think it best to concentrate on brute strength first, then go to more technical training later.

We are both pretty busy, especially Paula, but we will strive to do 3 strength days and 1 event day per week, along with some hiking, biking etc, on Sundays. Somehow we have to fit interval training in too to get our cardio capacity up. Our problem is that the days we can train are not perfect for doing events on Saturday....we can only train M, Th, Fr, and Sat for the next 6 weeks or so, then we can go to M,T, Th, and Sat. I welcome any suggestions to improve on the following schedule, and any other suggestions for getting into highland games!

Monday: Back, one week deads, the next all other back stuff
Thursday: Pressing, including mostly overhead and incline
Friday: Legs (mainly squats, leg press, stiff leg deads)
Saturday: events
Sunday: hike or bike ride

[gman]

One disadvantage I have is I am only 5'8" and 217lbs...in masters, that is pretty tiny from what I can see! Already tested at 24% bf on a dexascan so I am afraid to put on any more weight!

[robert monroe]

where are you guys out of?im in front royal virginia.i kick myself in the butt for not doing the naha games but i sadly had a lot of things going on.if i remember correctly brute strength does 2 a year.maybe i will see you there.good luck.
rob

[gman]

We live down in Va Beach. As far as I know, there is not another NAHA contest at Brute this year.

Last night we did a back workout. I did pullups: 10 9 9 7...then bentover bb rows: 10/185, 8/205, 5/225, 5/225....finished with close grip seated cable rows: 10/228 6/264 5/276 6/276.

[gman]

Friday night we did shoulders...just the basics...Push presses, 5 sets, face pulls 4 sets. I maxed at 175 on push press, which is down since the winter when I last worked on them.

Saturday early morning, we did a quick leg workout as we had a lot of other things planned...squats, 4 sets (I did last set at 245, which is good considering I haven't squatted in a long time. We also did leg extensions and leg curls, both seated.

Monday night we did chest. Bench, incline bench and dips. Managed to get 225 for 4 and 3 reps on my last two sets of flat...on incline I got a set of 3 at 185 on my 4th set. We just started doing chest again about 3 weeks ago, so I am pretty happy, but I told you guys I was pretty weak. I know a lot of you warm up with the weights I max on in squats, push press and bench, but I will get stronger, I promise!

Paula continues to set personal bests every session...last night she did 100 lb bench press with no help, and 85 incline with no help