Over the Edge

Back in Columbus. Trying to get my shit together.

SQUAT DAY

Sunday is squat day for the Columbus MMA crew at Lexen Extreme. CMMA is located in the same low rent, small warehouse lot as Lexen, close enough to hit with a baseball. But for some reason the only people from CMMA who lift at Lexen, despite being offered a discount, are my brother, former powerlifter Joe Riddle, and one other fighter. I guess most kids into MMA these days are convinced that strength isn't really necessary for BJJ / MT / MMA. Whatever, they'll just get beat up.

So I jumped on board with what Ben was doing for the day, and I'm likely going to try and keep that going. With that, I'll likely be off 5/3/1 for a while, and on whatever Joe tells us to do. I'm more than fine with that for now.

Warm Up:

Walking sled drags:

3 plates, 5 trips back and forth across the parking lot.

Cambered Bar Box Squat:

(I asked Joe what the bar weighed, he said "I don't know, 55? 60?" I'm just going to write the weight as if it were 45 just to make it simple to digest.)

45 x 8

45 x 8

95 x 5

135 x 2

135 x 2

185 x 2

185 x 2

185 x 2

185 x 2

225 x 2

225 x 2

This was my first time doing just about all of these things. First time box squatting in about a year. First time box squatting on a box, and not a bench or some other DIY bullshit, since high school. First time on a monolift. First time on a cambered bar.

The monolift was cake. Obviously its not difficult to figure out, you just set up, stand up, and go. Although I've only used it this once, I prefer it to walking the weight out of a standard rack.

The cambered bar was a bit wild. At first I thought the box was messing me up, as I was used to free squatting and tended to slam into the box pretty hard. As it turns out, it was the bar. Since the bar sits high, while the weight is low, it felt like it was pulling me forward. Additionally, when I came to a stop on the box the weight would literally swing forward, pulling me along with it. This took some getting used to. Joe reminded me over and over again to put my hands lower on the bar and push slightly, in order to stabilize the weight.

Overall it was a fun experience, though I was understandably frustrated with my inability to "get" it on the first shot.

Kettle Bell Work.

Though it seemed to take an hour to get through the warm up and squat, we had plenty more to do in the day. Mike Johnston, a former Q&A contributor on EFS, came in to show us how to properly work the KBs. Mike is a current strongman competitor who has worked KBs and powerlifting with Donnie Thompson and Marc Bartley down in South Carolina. I'm not sure what he was doing up here, but I was more than willing to listen.

For what its worth, I attempted to fill in my KB weight from Riddle's blog entry, but I really am not sure what KBs I was using. I just did what Mike told me to do.

Alternating 1 Hand Swing:

3 x 12 @ 44lb

2 Handed Swing:

3 x 10 @ 44lb

2 Handed Swing Snatches:

3 x 6 @ 44lb

Alternating 1 Hand Snatch:

3 x 10 @ 44lb

1 Handed Clean and Press (Bottoms Up):

3 x 6 @ 44lb

One Hand Static Snatch:

@ 88lbs

This was basically a "try to do this" challenge.

I failed to snatch it. But I cleaned it twice, each time failing to press.

He also demonstrated Windmills, Armbars, and Turkish Get Ups, though we were pretty well torched at this point and didn't attempt them.

Rolled at CMMA:

45 minutes or so. I fared well against a completely worn out Riddle, but I got pretty well thrashed by some other big dude. To be expected. Felt good to be back, though.

Running:

1.5 - 2 miles, somewhere in there, to Grove City High School.

Ran stairs. 4 or 5 sets of 2x up and down the bleachers, and then one set of up and down 8 times straight.

Then we walked home, lungs burning and legs like Jell-0.

And Clayton "Fat Belly" Morris says I don't train.