Brian Carroll

I went to the elitefts™ UGSS for the XPC Coalition Meet. I had a great time with a lot of awesome people this past weekend. There was a lot of great lifting in a great atmosphere, just what you need before a big meet.

I will give a brief recap, as I’m still feeling like crap from a 24-hour stomach bug from Thursday – Friday, and then the long weekend. The plan was to squat Saturday and bench Sunday, as usual. Thursday afternoon I started feeling bad, and it progressed through the night. Luckily, my wife grabbed some anti-nausea medication from the store, and I was able to avoid any puking and any more diarrhea for the rest of the evening. I woke up Friday knowing that I was not going to be ready to squat on Saturday, but if I could get some food in me by that evening, I could try to lift on Sunday. I stuck with that plan, and it worked out ok. I fasted Friday, and started eating lightly Friday evening…once my stomach felt settled.

Saturday I woke up and was ready to start eating to put some weight back on. To make matters worse, I just missed Chuck Vogelpohl at Bob Evans, and found out he was heading to squat at elitefts™. I was prepared (I left my gear bag at the hotel) for any kind of dumb ideas I had about lifting, and I’m glad I did since Chuck was going to be squatting on Saturday, and getting suckered into squatting due to my ego could have been a disaster.

There were a lot of good squats going on, and I did my best to spot, load, coach and wrap, but I could tell that I was getting winded just wrapping knees and loading. Even though this was pretty much what I was expected, it still sucked. Once squats ended, we went to eat, so I tried to really pour on the food and bloat since I was down around 10 pounds. I ate all day, and felt pretty good going to bed.

On Sunday, I was still down around seven pounds from where my weight usually is on squat day, but I had to take weight. Everything felt pretty good, and aside from my legs not firing like they should, I was happy and did what I needed to do. I ended up with 1150 pounds, which was my goal, but skipped the 1250 reverse band set and decided to bench.

Benching sucked. This was a bad idea, as I didn’t have much to offer and worked up to my last warm-up and then opener, which I couldn’t quite touch due to not being tight or stable on the bench. I then shut it down, and called it a day. I was not happy, but it could have been worse.

I had a great time this weekend, and I’m very thankful for everyone who helped me squat, even though it was a pain in the ass for those who were benching. I appreciate it. Thanks to Dave, Traci and everyone at elitefts™ for having us out, and taking care of us. I’m very thankful. It’s now time to rest up, and knock out a last couple of heavy days on the deadlift and bench, and get them dialed in! Lots of good things to take away from this weekend, and I will take it as such.

Zane Geeting

Friday night, three of my training partners and I headed down to elitefts™ for a mini Underground Strength Session. It turned out great, even despite the usual 4.5 hour drive taking about 6.5 hours due to the worst winter storm I’ve ever driven in. We actually passed a 60 car pile-up on I-75…pretty wild stuff.

Saturday morning we got to the compound at about 10AM to get in our last heavy squat session of the training cycle. We had a great group of guys consisting of Jeremy Frey, Adam Driggers, Clint Smith, Mike Szudarek, Dirk DeBoer, Justin Winder, Justin Healy, and the legend himself, Chuck Vogelpohl. We also had some top notch coaching from Brian Carroll and Mike Cartinian. The guys from Lexen had come over to get in on the action and help out. It was great to shoot the breeze with Dan Dague and the always hooge, Brandon Lilly.

Here’s how training went:

Warmup

Sissy box squat
Sissy box squat touching toes
High knees
Butt kicks
Fat man push-ups and rows on rack

Stretching

Pecs
Hams
Hips
Groin
Glutes

Squat (Mastodon bar)

150 x 6
260 x 3
350 x 2

add 44 Metal Jack Pro Briefs and belt

460 x 1
550 x 1

add 54 Metal Jack Pro Squat Suit, straps down

660 x 1

straps up loose

750 x 1
810 x 1

full battle gear

880 x 1
930 x 1

add reverse EFS Pro Average Bands

1000 x 1

My lower back was jammed up from all the time in the car the day before and the fact that I only got about five hours of sleep, but it all came together. Here’s a pic of my ride with 1000. I’m sure there will be more videos and pictures in the next couple of days.

Julia Ladewski

This weekend was amazing. It always is when you’re around people who are strong, smart, helpful, nice…and just plain ol’ fun to be around.

Several teammates were there this weekend including Adam Driggers, Clint Smith (first time meeting them), Brian Carroll, Molly Edwards, Ted Toalston, Jeremy Frey…shoot, I know I’m missing some folks.

Saturday morning started off with a squat session. It was perfect timing, as it was my third week of my squat cycle and time to put my suit on.

Warmups

275 x 1

with briefs

315 x 1

with briefs and suit straps down

360 x 1

straps up

360 x 1

This was done with straps up. My squat was about an inch high, but it felt good. I could probably tighten the straps up a little bit.

Reverse Hypers

4 x 10

Single Leg Leg Curls

4 x 12

Abs

4 x 15

There was a ton of other strong squatting going on, too.

Sunday was bench day…oh, and “Brian Carroll squats 1150″ day. Amazing. After he stood up with it, we all looked at each other in amazement. He sunk it in there pretty good.

Warmups

We had a new bar, which was funky and apparently weighed 55 instead of 45 pounds. I worked up to 195 raw bench, which was a HUGE lift for me. I missed 200 pounds with some technical issues, but I’ll get it!

Shirt work to 1-board