Battle of the Badass 2011

Well hello there fine men and women of the internet. I've got some time on my hands, school doesn't start until Tuesday and Rob demanded I make a long write up so here goes. Grab your butts.

Just got back from an excellent competition, Battle of the Baddass hosted by Joe Farino out in Wallkill NY. Here's how it all went down.

I woke up Thursday morning at 177.5lbs on my mom's scale at home. I always thought this bad boy was a little bit off and I thought my weight was a little high. Anyway I did some stretching outside, came back inside and weighed 175. Nice. I wanted to compete at 175lbs so this was good. Get the car all packed up with all the important stuff, tacky, weight belt, G-string etc. Pumped for a weekend filled with weights, sticky hands, low back pain and lots of bromance.

I'm still scared the scale was light so I do the whole car sauna thing on the ride over to Joe's place to get weighed. Ya the danger of heat exhaustion is high but I didn't weigh the pros and cons before I made the decision.

I pull up at Joe's driveway confused and dehydrated(I actually had to call Joe from next door because I was lost) and I head directly to the scale. I keep my clothes on and bam, 173.5lbs with all my clothes on. New PR. My calculations were right on. (Not) My car may permanently smell like body odor now but it was all worth it. I thanked Joe and Jon and went back for some rest.

I show up the day of the competition and see lots of old friends. I haven't competed in about a year so it was great to see everyone there and to see how much progress everyone has made in strength. The 200lb class is stacked with about 12 very strong competitors. The 175lb class only has a few competitors but I'm glad to see that more people are competing at this class.

My stomach is feeling terrible. I tried to jam into my stomach a bunch of whole milk mixed in with a can of coconut milk in the morning. Everytime I tighten my belt I'm scared I'm going to be shooting coconut milk out of my butt. Bad idea.

I get super excited to see we have sponsored sexy Brett Somerville to be featured on each of our T-shirts for the contest. I think the picture would have been more tasteful if Brett were wearing a mesh tank top but maybe we'll get that for the next shirt design. Now I'm ready to roll! I'm also excited that my camera is not working so I didn't get any footage.

First Event: 180lb log - 200lb axle - 220lb log medley.

First log I rip the log up, its feeling light, I go for the viper press and I blast myself in the face. After I realized the weight didn't make it overhead I viper it again and this time no face blast. The axle was nice and easy. The third log was 13" and I wasn't prepared for it. I press it too far in front of me at first and miss it. I regroup and go again. This time I get it. Real sloppy but good enough to take the event. Man that was sloppy.

Second Event:

Yoke carry 600lbs x 60"

Yoke was real wide so I couldn't grab the sides well. Made the whole thing rock a bit but otherwise everything was fine. Finished in 13ish seconds.

Keg Deadlift apparatus:
I forget the weight on this but the machine had an axle in front and it started around 18" We didn't get any time to warmup for this which is always a good thing. I figured the first few reps would have to be good enough warmup. Reps 1-3 were very easy. Rep 4 was way harder then the previous reps. I gathered myself for the last keg and it ended up being a lot easier then I thought it would be. This was lots of fun.

Yoke Zercher carry 400lbs x 60'
This one was fast. I don't remember how fast, somewhere under 10 seconds. Probably should have made this one heavier.

Stone over bar 240lbs over 48" 60 seconds:
I got 9. Not super happy with this but it isn't bad. I probably should have gathered up and gotten 10 but my setup wasn't great and I was being a baby.

As usual the guys put on a great show today. Thanks to Joe, Jon, Steve, Jeff, Nick and everyone else I forgot who helped out at the show. You guys always have interesting events and really run the competitions professionally. Looking forward to Hudson Valley in the Fall.

I finished first in the 175lb class. They gave me a giant samurai sword that made me extremely nervous. I can't wait to throw some melons in the air and slice them in half midair. Everyone had a great showing, and seemed to bring their A games as well. I didn't poop myself during any events which is always a win in my book. I can't wait for some more competition in the future, I think next competition I'm going to try the 200 or 231lb class. Seeing everyone today really motivated me to get cracking on the weights again!

Woop there it is

Gearing up for Battle of the Badass this weekend in Wallkill NY. I'm pretty pumped. First competition in about 8 months so I'm siked. Going to be competing at 175 because I'm happy they are making a lighter weight class more prominent. Also, I'd like to qualify for nationals and I'm not sure when I'll be able to compete again next. Taking it easy this week.

5/23/2011

Dynamic warmup

Deadlifts
Lots of singles between 275 and 365 for speed.

Zercher Carry
270 x 50'
360 x 50'
450 x 50'
540 x 50' - felt good. By good I meant it didn't feel too heavy but the exercise is God awful in general.

Reverse to Forward sled drag 50' both ways
320lbs
520lbs

Ab Saws 3 x 10-15

Diet: Man I've been forgetting about writing this

10:00am - shake
2 bananas
strawberries
1 can of coconut milk
Lots of shredded coconut

2:00
eggs
Green beans and mushrooms with lots of butter and olive oil

6:00 - 20g BCAA and water

8:00pm
Lamb and beef tomato sauce
Roasted Lamb
Salad
Asparagus
Potatoes

11:00 - more of the same earlier.

Stack that cheese

Missed a post or two here. Had a good lift today so I thought I'd post a bit. Did a little log jamming today. Turning a weakness into a strength. Man I used to hate log press so much.

Bicep is still a little tweaked as well. Think I had a very small strain/muscle pull. Will keep my eye on it.

I did have a big new best today but didn't have the same motivation and pop as usual I thought I had 280 in me. Not today.

Dynamic warmup
Log Clean and Jerk
90 x 5
140 x 3
180 x 3
210 x 1
230 x 1
250 x 1
260 x 1
270 x 1 - PR, been some time since getting a new best here.


You're welcome for the view.

Viper Press - finally getting a bit better at these.
140 x 5
160 x 5
180 x 5
200 x 4

Barbell 1 - arm row / Cable face pull / Band no money / Axle curl

I'm gettin fat!

Well, past week has been a whole bunch of lounging and eating poorly! Exactly what you expect to see from me I know. Today I spent quite a bit of time rearming myself with good foods to be eaten greedily soon.

5/16/2011 - Mike Baturin is back in the mix training at the llama barn. Pretty amped he pretty much lost no strength after not training for the entire winter.

Dynamic Warmup

Axle Bench Press
35 x 10
125 x 5
175 x 5
215 x 3
235 x 2
265 x 2
285 x 2
305 x 2
320 x 2 - New best



Clothing optional gym, and you thought they didn't exist.

Bench vs chains - +60lbs at top
175 x 6
215 x 6
245 x 4

SS w/pullups
45lbs x 6
90lbs x 6
70lbs x 4

Rope Climbs / Cable Curl / Farmer's Shrug


My fork is my weapon of choice... and ya I ate the calculator too.


10:00am
raw milk
Eggs w/beef lard

2:00pm
Plantains
Salad w/olive oil and veggies
Raw cheese

6:00 - BCAA and water

8:00 - shake
2 bananas
2 cups raw milk
strawberries
shredded coconut

11:00 pm
Plantains
Salad w/dressing and cheese
Chicken drums sticks

What I'm eating

People ask me all of the time what I eat. My eating is based on my own goals which are:

1. Health: This is my priority. I used to have other agendas higher then this in the past but that has changed. I used to eat for strength and muscularity completely. Fortunately Goals 1 and 3 overlap fairly well.

2. Strength goals: Generally, the more food you eat, the stronger you get. Its pretty simple. All top strength athletes out there are pounding food as a job(Unless they are competing within a restrictive weight class). The two are very closely connected. I'm sure food quality is important here as well but if you look at the diets of the strongest people in the world the key is quantity, not quality. Unfortunately, eating in this way is not always conducive to goal number 3.

3. Physique Goals: I am a huge believer in talking the talking and walking it too, both in the way I train, my success as an athlete and the way it reflects my health. With all the work I'm putting in with eating, nutrition recovery etc. a lot of my energy is going towards having a more appealing physique.

I titled this what I'm eating because what I eat changes frequently based on new things I'm learning and as my goals shift slightly. However, I'm not making radical swings from one diet to another and that's key. We have all heard that changing your diet must be a lifestyle change and that's incredibly true.

Now, there are a billion diets out there and each good one is followed by twice as many bad ones. Each person is different and each person has different goals. Your eating should reflect this completely. I can't stress this enough so I'll say it again, each individual has different metabolic needs, physiology and goals and this must reflect the way they go about a dietary program!

I like the Weston A. price Foundation. I like paleo style diets. I like hunter gatherer diets that were followed from people such as the Inuit, Kitavi, Kuni, and Masai. I Like the idea that more traditional diets were more nutritious than current diets. I also feel that we may have gone too far in our recommendations to avoid and limit animal products. Plug those things into google if you want some more information.

Now before you go and try any of this yourself please consult your doctor. I do like the quote used by Stephan Guyenet over at his blog whole health source, "Your health is in your own hands."

Here's a list of the foods I eat on a daily basis:

Animal products: organic, wild caught, grass fed/pastured, cage free. Basically the animals need to be eating what nature intended them to eat in order for them to be healthy for you to eat. I get pastured animal products at www.grasslandbeef.com I also get local organic and grassfed beef from eatwild.com You can find your own local farmer!

Eggs

Beef

Fish

Chicken

Venison

Bone broth

Organ Meats - usually in the form of liverwurst, these must be pastured/organic

Dairy - organic, grass fed and raw. I get my milk from an Amish farm. You can find local high quality products at www.realmilk.com

Milk - whole

Cheese

Heavy Cream

Oils and fats - Unrefined, organic, pastured

Beef Lard

Pork Lard

Coconut Oil

Olive Oil

Red Palm Oil

Coconut and coconut products of all types.

Vegetables - I end up cooking half of my vegetables. I can't tolerate too much raw vegetable. Organic as much as possible. I follow the Dirty dozen for fruits and vegetables If I can't do organic.

Leafy Greens (romaine, spinach, swiss chard, arugula etc.)

Broccoli

Onions

Mushrooms

Asparagus

Tomato

Garlic

carrots

celery

I'm missing a ton of stuff here but here is the bulk what I buy weekly.

Tubers/starchy foods

Sweet Potato

White Potato (Mostly after training)

Plantains

Yucca

Fruits - organic as much as possible. I follow the Dirty dozen for fruits and vegetables

Oranges

Grapefruit

Avocado

Berries of all types

Bananas

Lemons

Limes

Nuts and Seeds - organic when possible and raw

Almonds

Walnuts

Pecans

Sesame

Cashews

I eat the vegetables, animal products, fats and oils with the most frequency. Nuts and seeds are in moderation due to a very high content of omega 6 fatty acids. The starches and fruits vary in amounts depending on whether or not I'm trying to gain or lose weight and again this reflects back upon whether I have a competition coming up or not. Dairy intake fluctuates too. Milk is great for weight gain I try to get some high quality dairy when I'm trying to gain weight but its tough to get your hands on raw dairy in NJ.

I eat about 3 to 6 times per day and I have recently noticed that the number of times I eat per day is not as important as I once thought. I just need to make sure I'm eating enough food.

As you guys know I train 3-4 times per week with 1 to 2 walks thrown in there for 30-60 minutes.

I supplement with Fish oil, branched chain amino acids, vitamin D, and ZMA. I'm also taking a pro-biotic and I play around with digestive enzymes from time to time.

I've always had moderately elevated blood pressure and a heart arrhythmia (PVC) that I monitor closely. It runs rampant in my family (Come on mom and Dad!). Trying to maintain my weight and all of the extreme weight lifting doesn't help I'm sure.

Bottom line, eat for your on goals! If my way of eating isn't work for you, you may want to switch things up because everyone is different! I wanted to give everyone an idea of what I eat and why and hopefully this can give you a basis for what you need to eat and why also!

*****A closing note: Yes eating well WILL require you to go out of your way to find good food. It WILL require you to learn how to cook and prepare food. It IS more expensive (although if you are a smart shopper it can be very reasonable, I'm a full time student who can only work so many hours and I make it all happen).

Americans put very little value in their food and health. Change your mindset about where your time and money should be spent. Value yourself and your health and feed yourself and your family accordingly.

riding solo today training. Matt and Greg were MIA (they have real jobs). Blogger.com was down the past day so I'm posting my training from today and yesterday. So here it went...

5/12/2011

Dynamic Warmup

Log clean once and press for reps
90 x 5
140 x 5
180 x 3
210 x 1
230 x 6 New best, starting to not hate this lift.

Viper Press
180lbs 2 x 5 man I suck at these

Well, pretty much dead after these two

DB Bench
110lbs 2 x 10

Axle Curls / Band No Money / Cable face pulls

5/13/2011

Dynamic warmup

Deadlifts - warmups felt heavy, Body is feeling the log press from yesterday. Suck it up body.
135 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 3
325 x 3
375 x 1
425 x 1
455 x 1 - belt on
475 x 6 - new best. Got a video, probably should have stopped at 5. Na!

Yoke zercher carry
360lbs x 50'
450 x 50'
500 x 50' - felt like death, feet were moving pretty quick though.

Sled reverse drag
2 x 100' @ 440lbs

Sled Forward Drag
2 x 100' @ 440lbs

eating
7:00am
Glass raw milk

10:00am
Made these sweet potato pancakes, turned out more like a pile of potato dump, I'm sorry that was gross.

2:00pm
My grandfaughter treated my sister and I to PF chang's I had a rice and beef dish. Healthy day so far.

5:00 - I'm out of BCAA!

7:30
Raw Milk
Sweet potato from earlier

10:00 - your guess is as good as mine. My eating has been off since I finished school. I'm so lazy!

We got racks on racks on racks

Sleep tight.

Switching up my training these next few weeks. Planning on doing 3 times per week instead of 4. I've been feeling pretty gassed and unproductive by the end of the week. So I'm going to keep the 4 day split, but only do 3 sessions per week. The 4th workout will continue the next week and so on. I also kind of feel like having another day of the week to do something at night besides training. Not that there is anything more important to do anyway.

5/9/11

Dynamic warmup

Box Jumps - all types, single and double leg

Stone over bar 45"
200 x 3
280 x 3
311 x 3
260 x pick and top end of lift x 8 (picked it and pretended to load it without a platform)

Missed the 4th load on the 311. New best there. I almost always do better on stones when I'm at a competition. I usually stink in training.

Thats it!

Food - I can't remember what I ate two days ago(my memory is awesome). However I did eat a pretty terrific breakfast this morning so without further ado...

1 glass raw grass fed milk
Yerba Mate and raw heavy cream (not pictured)
Fried Yucca - fried in olive oil and pork lard of course.
3 eggs - from popesgardens
asparagus + pork lard

Living in an Amish paradise

Been relaxing hard these past few days. Had a road trip with Steph out to Lancaster PA to pick up some raw dairy. At first Steph was getting pissed because we drove all the way out here and haven't seen any Amish yet. Then we almost crashed into an Amish gentlman driving his coach cart in the middle of the road. From that point on in the trip it was Amish paradise! (literally the name of the town was paradise).

Every street was covered in horse manure. It was great. These are some hard working people. We were there until about 8pm and everyone; men, women and children were all doing manual labor outside the entire time. There homes were perfectly landscaped and taken care of.

We met up with Big Alvin my bro from another mo at his Amish farm in the middle of nowhere PA. This guy was legit. He had a beard for days and fingers like jumbo hotdogs. Really cool guy and his farm was awesome. We spent over a hundred bucks on food (great prices for the quality) and he was pumped to show us his cows and chickens. Sadly, our visit with Alvin had to end and he rode off into the sunset with his scooter(Amish people don't use automobiles) back to his home. First time I've ever seen a full grown man use a scooter with a purpose.

Here's what we bought:
Pork Leaf Lard $5
4lbs of ground beef $4.75/lb
2 quartz heavy cream $10 each
5 gallons milk $6 a gallon
20oz cheddar and smoked cheese $7/lb
Raw honey
Cultured butter $11/lb

All dairy products were raw and 100% grass-fed. Amish people really know how to party.
Check out Alvin's farm. He has drop points in Williamstown and Palmyra NJ if you're interested in his stuff but don't want to travel too far.

Lancaster County - Paradise: Spring Water Farm (Alvin Stoltzfus). 694 Country Lane, Paradise PA 17562. springwaterfarminparadise@gmail.com or (717) 442-9208. Licensed raw milk from 100% grass-fed Dutch Belted (heritage breed) cows. Certified organic by PCO. Sold in stores as Dutch Meadows Organic Dairy. Sold at Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op (717-786-5424). Bottling license to sell raw milk off-premises. Kefir, yogurt, cheddar and colby cheeses. Pork from Tamworth (heritage-breed) pigs living outdoors on pasture. Pastured turkey, chicken, eggs. 100% grass-fed beef. No Sunday sales. Several weeky/bi-weekly "buying clubs" in Philadelphia area.

I'm going to go eat myself into a dairy induced coma.

You know they mad because I'm hood rich

Back from the dead.

Apparently in physical therapy school they frown upon extracurricular activities of all types. The past week I had 7 exams. Needless to say I spent my time getting a knowledge beat down at the library at school. I did not train for 5 things. I'm spent man. It hasn't hit me that I have 3 weeks off from school yet.

Man, not training for a while had 3 effects on me.

1. I was not tired in the morning even with less sleep. hmm. i guess this crap takes a lot out of you. Go figure.

2. I was not hungry. This sucked. I stuffed myself anyway. Everytime I deload and don't eat enough I get weaker so I didn't want this to happen.

3. I now have super powers like allow me to communicate with animals. You would not believe what the llamas had to say.

5/6/11
Dynamic warmup

Axle Bench Press - (didn't feel like doing anything else)
35 x 10
85 x 5
125 x 5
175 x 3
215 x 3
235 x 3
255 x 3
275 x 3
295 x 3
305 x 4 - PR. The power of beef lard!

Weighted Pullups(strict) SS w/Bench Press w/chains (60lbs at top)
45 x 4 / 205 x 4
90 x 4 / 225 x 4
105 x 4 / 245 x 4 - getting better. I wanted to do a bit more low volume work with my benching

Barbell 1 arm row 2 x 10 @100, 85lbs
Db Curl 2 x 10
Farmers Implements Shrugs 2 x 25-40 @ 105/hand

Food - I made myself a crap ton of food on sunday so I wouldn't have to cook all week. I was so tired of ground meat, spinach, onions and sweet potato.

8:00am
1 can coconut milk
strawberries
banana

12:00
Above meat mix + sweet potato

4:00
applesauce + cinnamon (real man's meal)

5:00 - BCAA and water

6:00 - bananas and fruits + said meat mixture (barf)

10:00 - whatever Steph makes. Maybe some tequila to celebrate the end of my first year of physical therapy school.

Wild buffalo attacks man

7 exams tomorrow so you guys aren't getting much out of me.

No warmup - no time for silly games

Log Press - 1 one and press for reps
90 x 10
140 x 5
160 x 3
180 x 2
200 x 1
230 x 1
250 x 1
220 x 6 pick up sticks, think thats a new best

15" rack pull - this exercise blows
225 x 5
405 x 3
475 x 1
525 x 1
575 x 1 - scared of blowing out an artery in my brain. That was great!

I haven't been eating anything but twizzlers, pixie sticks and cake icing.