Paul Savage Training Log

Bit of info regarding me - i started lifting several years back at age 15, didnt get the best of starts with a 35kg x 1 bench an 45kg x 8 deadlift, but have worked my way up in size and strength. My bodyweight has went from about 13 stones (with a belly) to 20 stone 1lb last saturday (still with a belly!). Strength wise im lifting 4-5 times what i was back then. Ive just came off a disapointing 2nd place at the british grip championships last saturday, losing out to european champion steve gardener.

My next contest is cheshires strongest man on july 5th, where i will be competing as a novice. This is one of 4 qualifiers for uk strongman north contest which i have competed in for the last 2 years, (barely) making it to the finals last year but placing low. Strongman has been a bit frustrating for me so far as the equipment has got the better of me more than once, an also i have suffered a lot of injuries. Another thing ive not figured out yet is how to peak for a contest, but i feel im thinking along the right lines now. Despite my lack of success in competition so far i actually feel it's possible for me to get to worlds strongest man someday, an i also feel like once i get there i can do well an maybe even win it a few years later. The only thing im not sure of is injury, i have a big frame but i am not naturally strong like the rest of the strongmen an dont feel my body was designed to be wsm, so injury is a big fear as i push further and further.

The events of the up coming comp are..

- Wagon or bus pull fastest time wins 20 meter course
- 100kg digger bucket carry 25meter course for max distance
- Wagon tyre dead lift on Olympic bar 220kg as many lifts in 90secs
- Log press 90kg as many presses as possible in 90 secs
- Atlas stone 110kg x 2 on to platform as many lifts in 90 secs
- Farmers walk 100kg in each hand 25meter course fastest time wins

The tyre deadlift is about 18 inches, the log used is very hard to balance, you have to run 10m before each stone load, an i think the farmers have 2" thick handles. One thing to note is being a novice contest you would think this was for people who are not all that strong but last year it was a pretty high standard, the guys who placed top 3 in the finals were 22-26 stone, an this year will most likely be even higher standard.

As far as my training goes, i feel this contest is all about being in great condition, having quick recovery an a lot of strength/power endurance. Due to the british grip championships being so close to this i dont have a lot of time but my idea is basically to out work everybody else, have more heart, more drive, an do what they are not willing to do. Also now i train a lot smarter than what i used to, i try to work off what i feel i can do, not what i do, so i pretty much never lift the most weight i can. Instead i focus on keeping my form good an to stay injury free for as long as possible. Loz once said 'i dont train to lift big weights in the gym, i train to get stronger' this is exactly how i would describe what i try to do.

Yesterdays training..

27/MAY/2009

hypoxia runs
- 4 x 100m change direction every 10m

stretching & rotor cuff work

>all but clean&press done with 30 seconds or less rest periods<

log bar raises 12.5kg 3 x 10

log bar clean & (strict) press
- bar only for 60 seconds straight
- 47.5kg x 12 in 50 seconds, 12 in 45 seconds, 13 in 90 seconds

crunches 2 sets no weight

ice bath

( The hypoxia training is something i seen wanderlei silva doing a while back, basically your limiting the air you can get in so you fatigue much quicker - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMoQwOqqzYw )

This workout looks easy but it totally wasn't, it's not just from the restricted breathing when running, but also because of the short rest periods im doing, i aim for 20 seconds between sets - half way into the workout theres so much lactic acid built up you want to lay down an cry, but thats the difference between a winner and a loser, being able to push through the pain barrier.

Paul, good to see you logging.

From what I know and what Steve has said, you have perhaps tended to try and do a bit too much at times, I don't know if this has contributed to your injuries, but my advice, for what it's worth (not a lot ) would be to focus on what you need rather than an 'every exercise under the sun' approach and outwork people in intensity, not duration. Don't forget the warm ups and rehab / prehab work - looks like you're doing this with the rotator stuff.

Good luck and hope to see you in action in Northwich later in the year

Paul,
Good to see your Log here.

Don't be dissapointed with that 2nd, maybe 1st next year

Loz once said 'i dont train to lift big weights in the gym, i train to get stronger'

Good advice!

Paul Wood wrote:Paul, good to see you logging.

From what I know and what Steve has said, you have perhaps tended to try and do a bit too much at times, I don't know if this has contributed to your injuries, but my advice, for what it's worth (not a lot ) would be to focus on what you need rather than an 'every exercise under the sun' approach and outwork people in intensity, not duration. Don't forget the warm ups and rehab / prehab work - looks like you're doing this with the rotator stuff.

Good luck and hope to see you in action in Northwich later in the year

your advice (along with anybody elses) is always welcome - same the other way around also, anybody has any questions feel free to ask an i will try answer

Yeh a lot of the times ive tried to do too much on the one day i think, ive actually trained as much as 10 hours a day, sometimes i have sessions when i focus on only one aspect of training, but usually i will try to put all the work most people put into a week, into one day, an try to do this 4 times a week (sometimes i can only manage 2 but 4 is aim). I think this is too much as even though i eat during training i am often completely exausted by the end of the workout. The reasons i had a lot of injuries in previous years (lower back, upper back, knees, arms, wrists, shoulder) was partly due to too many hours training an a lot to do with lifting too heavy too often, but also due to lifting heavy in work 8-9 hours a day 3-7 days a week (now ive been cut right back to 1, which im not happy with but is much easier to train).

Right now my aim is to train as often as my body will let me, aiming to do at least some work for every muscle group each session, but with much less time in the gym due to short rest periods..i wont nessercarily be cutting my work load down a whole lot, just having less rest inbetween sets/exercises, and less rest days between training.

oh an i always warm up, sometimes with several sets each exercise, but wont always list the warm up as too much to type when im spent after training

David Horne wrote:Paul,
Good to see your Log here.

Don't be dissapointed with that 2nd, maybe 1st next year

Loz once said 'i dont train to lift big weights in the gym, i train to get stronger'

Good advice!

good to be here - Ive been competing in sports since i was about 6 years old so i am a competitive person, i hate to lose. It was not the placing that bothered me the most though, it was doing much worse on the day than in training e.g i ended up getting 182.5kg one hand deadlift left handed when the first time i ever did this (after 6 hours training) i did 185kg - i made a lot of mistakes, took things for granted an peaked all over the place. The only event i was happy with was vulcan gripper, because i felt like i could have done more than my aim of 40 (if it was needed). In the future i will do better!

I'm gonna see if I can write up a few 100 words on peaking for a competition. It's pretty straight forward so...

Done. See the strongman section.

Maybe do the hypnoxia runs after training - i wouldn't fancy lifting after being deprived of oxygen! Good luck for the comp - the events looks like they will be easy for you mate.

Steve Gardener wrote:Done. See the strongman section.

Some of that makes perfect sense to me an i definately have learnt from the brits, but also still a bunch of things i need to figure out. I think everybody may be different with it an it's just lack of experience - i dont think peaking is a simple thing, you have to remember you have had many years an many contests to figure things out, ive only had a few.

My thoughts for this next comp is that my strength is pretty much fine for these weights, so i dont really need to get much stronger, all i need to do is bring my conditioning up, which is a new situation for me as ive always been looking to add strength before. One thing i think im doing right this time is the short rest periods. If i can get my body to adjust to 20 second rest periods, that should give me 3 sets instead of 1 in a 90 second time limit.

As far as 'taking out the fluff' that both yourself and paul have touched upon, i have been figuring some of those things out over the past several months an have narrowed things down. I now dont train my muscles per say, i train exercises for 'assistence' to an event, or to balance my body out (to save injury). For example doing front raises with the log bar before doing the clean an press yesterday - this is not because i have front raises as an event, but because the log in the contest is very large an hard to keep up on the chest. Also i now do this type of exercise before the main exercise, it may sound strange but i want to preexaust myself almost like a body builer will, so the weight im using is not so much. This is not because i dont like lifting heavy but actually because this prevents me lifting heavy, so saving me from injury an cns damage.

sam solomi wrote:Maybe do the hypnoxia runs after training - i wouldn't fancy lifting after being deprived of oxygen! Good luck for the comp - the events looks like they will be easy for you mate.

Im actually gonna be doing it with event training as much as i can, it's definately not gonna be easy but i know this will push my conditioning beyond the others. Thanks an i hope!

A different approach on the log and one we've used here is to take our biggest and wrap it in foam. That adds 2-4inches. See my comments elsewhere about using the same log to exhaustion.

Oh and in your intro... baring in mind your own comments but for those reading: time in the gym means nowt. I've told Paul this in person because he's been in the gym for 4, 6 and even more hours... even if he was constantly moving weights time means nothing in and of itself. If there is no purpose to 6 hours gym work then the only thing getting something from the time is a clock on the wall. Work load is it - whether that takes 1 hour or 6 and then it's its effect on you the individual. If an hour makes you wanna puke then an hour is enough. I suspect Paul will have seen, as can you all, of great strong men from history spending half the day training.

But these guys were genetic freaks and drank beer, smoked and more. If 6+ hours works for Paul then that's all that matters. Right now his best work is done on grippers and so that's an area worthy of observation - what does he do, how many sets and reps, how long and so on.

Steve Gardener wrote:A different approach on the log and one we've used here is to take our biggest and wrap it in foam. That adds 2-4inches. See my comments elsewhere about using the same log to exhaustion.

Oh and in your intro... baring in mind your own comments but for those reading: time in the gym means nowt. I've told Paul this in person because he's been in the gym for 4, 6 and even more hours... even if he was constantly moving weights time means nothing in and of itself. If there is no purpose to 6 hours gym work then the only thing getting something from the time is a clock on the wall. Work load is it - whether that takes 1 hour or 6 and then it's its effect on you the individual. If an hour makes you wanna puke then an hour is enough. I suspect Paul will have seen, as can you all, of great strong men from history spending half the day training.

But these guys were genetic freaks and drank beer, smoked and more. If 6+ hours works for Paul then that's all that matters. Right now his best work is done on grippers and so that's an area worthy of observation - what does he do, how many sets and reps, how long and so on.

It's just aiming to do more more than anybody else, of course mariusz spends nearly the whole day training an can do a comp every weekend but yes he also eats a 1kg of chocolate each day! you do have to compare to these people if you want to compete against them though. i think with me i maybe cant do quite as much an my training does have to be different but i hope in time my recovery an work load can increase beyond others. One thing i will be changing is not doing assistence work with event training, before i would put this on the same day but now it will be done on different days.

As far as grippers go my training for the british went like this - for the first month i was doing vulcan one week then thick handle grippers every second week, closing the HG500 twice during this time, then after this up until 5 weeks out i did virtually only choked grippers for my working sets (vulcan on warm ups), which was set to 22mm. I would every now an then do vulcan or regular grippers 20mm set as a 'test day'. I would do either 3-4 or 6-7 singles depending on the gripper chosen e.g at first one week i would do 3-4 attempts on medium #4, an then next time 6-7 solid singles on easy #4.

Following the choked grippers, or on a seperate day if i was doing a test, i would do set holds at 20mm, with an aim of level 21 on my gripper (about 23 on davids), so i started at 16, then in time worked upto 21 for 4 sets of 10 seconds each hand. I worked upto 7 solid choked singles on my medium #4 (think this is about 4.1) right hand with 3 attempts to 1/16th left hand. Then i did regular grippers the next week and got 10 solid singles on easy #4 left hand, 3 solid singles on RB330 block insert right hand, then 6 singles on BBSE, followed by 4.01 #4 for 2 closes an one near miss. After that it was just vulcan with block insert each time. I only got to train vulcan properly once with right hand after this because the 4.01 had bruised my palm (it's still bruised now), so hence left hand being stronger on the day (the 19 was very easy when i set it right).

I think one of the reasons my training on this worked was because of what david talked to me about - i had a number of goals an it wasn't just a bunch of singles on the vulcan up until the contest e.g early on it was HG500 close, then it was medium #4 in choker, then 4.01 #4 out of choker, then vulcan with paused block insert in the contest.

It's nice to see you logging your training here, Paul! That snorkel thing is really interesting too.

I don't know much about strongman training but I wish you all the best! I'm guessing this log will help you reach your goals much faster!

By the way your crushing grip seems to be totally off the charts! Really amazing! Keep up the good work! Do you have a account on youtube? I'd like to invite you to join the gripboard group, also I'm curious about your videos - if you have any.

when i say 'the next week' i should have said next session as i will train grippers 1-3 times a week, it's not always once a week

Klesen wrote:It's nice to see you logging your training here, Paul! That snorkel thing is really interesting too.

I don't know much about strongman training but I wish you all the best! I'm guessing this log will help you reach your goals much faster!

By the way your crushing grip seems to be totally off the charts! Really amazing! Keep up the good work! Do you have a account on youtube? I'd like to invite you to join the gripboard group, also I'm curious about your videos - if you have any.

I used to have videos but took them down as not the best quality, but then before i could get the new videos i wanted the fbbc 2" v-bar droped on my new camera an smashed the screen - i will be trying to get some videos up with my camera phone if the quality turns out ok, but will just be normal training.

Thanks for your comments regarding crush grip, i feel when im at my best nobody can beat me on grippers.

I have the brusing on the palm aswell Paul. Dexterity balls (0.6kg each) seem to be helping slowly. Have you had this problem in the past aswell and recovered mate? It's bene bothering me for 2-3 weeks now.

yeh ive had it a bunch of times now - if it's pretty bad you wont be able to work through it, you do need to rest it an it will take a while to get better. The problem is that it's very hard to give a bruise on your hand complete rest because even if your not doing grip training your still puting weight on it with general weights training. What i do is stop doing grippers for a couple weeks an then if i feel like doing grippers (i dont do em year round) i will start back with thick handle grippers, an make sure to use wide set or no set so the handle is away from the bruised area.

29th MAY 2009

again rest periods very short, aiming for 20 seconds

double crunch machine 3 sets upto 100kg stack x 10 + one drop (set)
crunch machine 3 sets upto 100kg stack x 10
side bends 15,20,25kg each side x 8-10

exercise bike - level 15 hill sprints at speed for 6 minutes
front squat 62,102,122kg x 5
leg extensions 3 sets of reps working up in weight
leg press high reps 100kg and 150kg

incline dumbbell press 20,25kg x reps
cable cross over 15,20kg x reps
close grip smith bench 40,60kg x 5

hammer strength row 2,3 plates each side x 10-12
plate row 25,50kg x 12

side delt machine 3 sets reps
hammer grip press machine 10,15,20kg each side x 6-8

hammer strength shrugs 2,3 plates a side x 10, 5 plates a side x 25

barbell curls 15,25kg x 8-10
reverse pushdowns 5,10kg x reps each arm

took me about an hour an a half

(ive seperated some things for me, it's easier to look back on what ive done)

On paper this looks like a light easy workout, but it was very hard as it was really hot in the gym an 20 seconds is less than you would think, from start to finish lactic acid was killer. I was pretty happy with how easy the front squat was as the bike was on a hard setting for me so legs were really pumped >i think i might try for a 500lb belt only front squat before the years end.

tomorrow is rest day then work on sunday an events monday

Very impressive at the Brits Paul - keep up the good work.