Day 5

       To conclude the work week, I like to do something fun, so I end with strongman training. Good strongman training makes your whole body stronger, gives you endurance, provides muscle coordination, and burns fat. It works on functionality and "farmboy" strength that can be used outside of the weight room - for us the field. I got three friends to join in and we began, starting with farmers walks and tire flips. To do farmers walks, just find big buckets and fill them with water; you can also throw in some bricks or stones to make it heavier. These really help your grip strength, condition and strengthen your whole upper body (especially the lats), and work the legs as well, stabilizing your joints. The water is a good variable because it sloshes, forcing your lower body and core to stabilize the enter time. We split into pairs and would switch exercises, doing a total of 4 sets each and then ended with a tire flipping contest to see who could flip it the most times in 2 minutes.
       After that we did sledge hammer hits on the tire and worked on grip strength by holding heavy metal plates in each hand for as long as possible. The sledge hits provide a very functional exercise and offer a motion that is completely different from any exercise in the gym. It is very good for conditioning the shoulders and arms and helps flexibility and core strength. Moving to the other exercise, the grip holds are great for increasing grip strength, a very important aspect to overall strength. Having a strong grip helps your lifting in many ways and could make weight increases happen much easier. I cannot tell you how many times my hands have given out in the gym and prevented me from continuing my workout, so get your grip strong and it will help strengthen the rest of your body as well.
       Lastly, we finished up with the deck of cards game for pushups. We went through the whole deck using the number on the card to tell us how many pushups to do. Every face card is also ten pushups and diamonds are diamond pushups. If you are not tired after a workout, I beg you to try this. YOUR UPPER BODY WILL BE DEAD, I promise. It is the day after and my chest is still blown out, I cannot open a bottle of water, and my triceps hurt if I straighten my arms. I think it was effective.