The Saturday Session

AKA the Wife/Husband carrying competition.

Today we did this session:

Farmers walks/runs
Basically, there are pairs of plates ranging from 5kgs to 20kgs for a total of 120kgs at one end of the mat and you have to bring them all the way up to the top of the room, and then all the way back. The rub is that you can’t just run up and back with them you have to leave them there and then bring them back when all the plates are at the top. Each time up and back with all the plates is one point for your team.

Fireman’s Carry
You have to fireman carry all of your team up the mats and then back. Each time you bring ALL of your team up and back is one point for your team.

Rower
In shifts you have to get the maximum distance you can in the 12 minute time period. You can achieve this any way you like, in a relay with a change every minute, or just until one guy gasses or any other way your imagination allows. Your team score is the amount of metres the machine clocks after the last pull.

For each segment, the clock is set for 12 minutes and the guys had to score as high as possible in that time frame. Only completed reps counted so if you were halfway back with a set of plates tough shit, it didn’t count.

I really like these sessions as they’re a bit different from the usual circuit that group training tends towards. Here we have two groups of people, with similar if not the same goals, and they get to compete and push each other on. If I put the same people on their own or even in partners and told them to do the same work the intensity would be nowhere near as high and I would guarantee that the actual work done would be lower too.

As an example, I’d like to pick on Amanda. (sorry Amanda) If I asked Amanda to carry 615kgs in shifts up and down the floor today in weights she would have told me in no uncertain terms what to do with myself. And she would be right because it would be boring as hell. Yet, in a team that’s just what she did. Her team was 70kg (Darragh) + 65kgs (Stephen) + 75kgs (Colin)= 205kgs. She carried those guys three times up and down the mat so 3×205= 615kgs. Then there was the distance, so we have 14 metres in length of mat and for each carry you traversed that twice so that’s 28 metres. Done 3 times that’s 3×28= 84metres.

Bear with me now.

So 615kgs carried on your shoulders for 84 metres. Hmmm, what else is 615kgs, lets have a look. A quick google for “weight 615kgs” gives me:

Quite a large speedboat. Hmmm. Not quite what I’m looking for. Let’s try again:
More like it. A small, 1940s helicopter. A bit old skool though so lets have one more click at it:
BINGO! I think this sums it up nicely. So now I can put it in one coherent sentence- Today, Amanda carried a mini excavator for 84 metres.

Some more quick mathematics. H, aged 15 but training with the seniors today because he’s competing next week and because he shaves more often than me carried 90kgs (Shayn) + 80kgs (Keith) = 170kgs and did it a whopping 7 times so 170×7= 1190kgs. Hmmm, that seems like a lot. He is only 15 after all and I’ve heard that kids under 18 aren’t supposed to lift weights because their muscles will explode. I’d better be careful as after all today Hugh lifted the equivalent of this in shifts:Yup, it’s a Citroen Berlingo. The shining light of the small businessman on a budget. I’m going to rent H out as a delivery boy and the catch phrase will be “Can he carry more then your van? He can carry your van mate”.

I’ve posted about kids and weight training about twice or three times now and every time I do I get a few emails from people “concerned” about kids. I mean, as though I’m an irresponsible idiot. I am an irresponsible idiot, but only with my own safety (see my physio report below, broken bones not healed etc. etc.) and not with others and especially not with kids. I have 15 teens and 3 of them trained with the seniors today and only one other is capable of it. So that’s 4 out of 15, and the other 11 are working up from mastering their bodyweight and light weights towards doing what the guys did today. So what I’m going to do in future is when you mail me (quite a few people mail me you know) about this subject I will post it on the blog and address it. That’s not a name and shame thing or anything, it’s just putting it out there for all to see. What I would like to do in future is get some parental permission to post up some vids of the two age groups doing some training and I think some people might be pleasantly surprised by the work they do. Firstly how good they are, and secondly how easily they do it and how safe it is.