BEYOND STRONG: RISE AND FALL

Abscent

Rise and Fall has lately been very not up to date. You'll have to excuse me for this, because even though there are no excuses to be made not to train, I think I do have a valid reason for not being so bloggerish at the moment.

My wife and I are expecting our very first baby, and end of the pregnancy is very near. She is nearly 9 months, and just about to deliver any moment now. She gained a nearly a whopping 30kg's, so she will be so happy once this pregnancy is over and the baby will be finally in our hands..  We have seen on various scans that the baby is healthy, already weighs around 3kg, and will be a beautiful little girl! I can't wait, and it will be a wonderful and exciting time for us.

So you will have to excuse for a bit, although I am still training and doing my body weight routines I am a bit preoccupied...

Cheers,

Theo

Jimmy Laureys

There will be a new DVD release on the strongman scene, which covers footage and other stuff about the Strongest Man Competition of Vlaanderen. My friend Jimmy participated and once again, came out victorious!
Congratulations Jimmy (a bit late though) and here is a preview of the DVD..

Click here for an earlier interview I had with Jimmy.. To purchase this dvd, please email JIMMY LAUREYS

   

The eagle has landed

Well, actually the eagle has landed nearly two weeks now, but anyway.. I am happily here in Bali, and been busy scouting for a nice job. Things are looking good, and I have two job offers/ internships (cause I am still a student) at international schools. Now I am sorting out the details concerning a work visa, and I am all set. Hopefully within a year I can get a full salary as an expat, and with an income like that I can live ' generously'  in here. Just for example, we went out with our scooter a few days ago, and got a flat tire. We got it fixed at a local shop, and paid less than a dollar for that! I try to train a little, in the morning.

Sometimes a small walk, run, and at home her dad has some home made barbells with concrete and pipe. I do a lot of reps circuit wise, so military presses for 20 reps, upright row, ab wheel, db curl, pushups, one leg deads etc.. Gets a sweat going, but to say I put in a lot of effort at the moment, no. Next month my KB's will be arriving, and we are trying to get up a pull up bar in the garage so then I am all set. Since we live as one big family here in Bali, but the house is ours, I did some cleaning with her dad. They still take out the garbage in here the old fasion way, and here you can see how ;)

Theo

And here i go again..

Right, not a lot of blogging. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I don't really had the time these last weeks to do a righteous blog entry. But soon I will. Tomorrow is the big day, and all is packed. Looking forward to airplane food, boring transits and a lot of movies during the flight. It will be around 12 hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. From there another 3 hours, to Denpasar, Bali.

Have been doing a lot of kettlebell stuff, and since I bring two 24k's to Bali, that will be pretty much what I will be doing. I have found a very interesting site about kettlebells, one that really stood out. Here it is.

My stuff, including the bells, won't be arriving until end of june, so my plan is to do some bodyweight workouts, and runs up and down the biatch.. That will be nice, but like I said, it's a plan. But I do hope to stick with it. Food in Bali, tends to be a bit greasy sometimes, and also everything is very sweet and that will stick so easy to the side of mi tummy that lovehandles will start to grow faster than I can ever sweat it off. So I must feed myself with caution over there.

Downloaded and searched the web for a lot of practical info about bodyweight workouts, and those aren't easy either. Pistols, I can finally do now, but handstand pushups, one arm push ups for reps, and a good hard set of burpees are things I can't do yet. And I should.

Anyway, I lied when I said all is packed. All isn't packed yet. I still have to do my suitcase, cancel some subscriptions and check check double check everything. Not wise one might say. Well I say that already I am starting to adapt to the cultural differences.. What can't be done today, we can see tomorrow ;)

Theo

My new home :)

Update

I don't like to post a lot of my training here, because I feel that I don't have a lot to brag about. I will though, once I can put up some decent numbers that are worth posting.

I can however, tell that I am working hard on the deadlifts, the olympic lifts, presses and squats. Things are going well. Also a lot more stretching and kettlebell work, where I am thinking about entering a comp maybe in the near future to test myself in the snatch with a 24kg kettlebell.

Being a bit lighter in bodyweight, and still getting stronger feels much better. I think I can honestly say now that I was a fatty, or at least too heavy, and that I do not want size for just the sake of being bigger than the next guy.. That is an arrogant approach, and unrealistic.

You can however, strive to be the strongest YOU can be, at your bodyweight. Have an insane strenght/weight ratio is much more appealing in my opinion. Nick McKinless was one of the persons who was responsible for this change of mind. He can do it all, backflips, jumps, probably splits as well, and still get freaky strong at under -105kg. I don't know if he would mind saying it, but on the surface you would not consider him to be as strong as he is.. But I can tell you, he is!

The latest book I read, was Pratical Programming. There was a strength table you could go by to see at what level you are. I have already talked about the strength table Nick put together, but here are the numbers you should be putting up as an Advanced and Elite athlete at 220lbs (around 99,8kg):

Press
Advanced: 183lbs
Elite:            255lbs

Bench Press
Advanced: 306lbs
Elite:            381lbs

Squat
Advanced: 409lbs
Elite:            532lbs

Deadlift
Advanced: 479lbs
Elite:            586lbs

Power clean (this could take a while.. If ever..)
Advanced: 294lbs
Elite:            345lbs

 

I am not there yet, but I will let you know when I reach elite!
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See how you stack up!

Tomorrow I will be attending a deadlift exhibition. A children's Museum called NEMO is celebrating their anniversary, and Wout Zijlstra built an apparatus weighing 1000kg where he will be putting in children and 10 strongmen will try to deadlift them. I am one of the guys who will be putting the straps on the bar, and try to hoist those kids. We will start out with 50 kids, and work our way up.
I will report how it went tomorrow.

-Theo

Quick note

After a lot of serious stuff, I think it's time for a laugh. I have some good stuff lined up for the near future as well. If you have stuff you would like to see in here, I gladly welcome any input here, and I see if I can get it done.

-Theo B.

 

For laughs:

On a more serious note, I got word from a certain somebody that there will be an interview coming next week. That certain somebody is nobody less than Kevin Nee. Yes si-re, that's right! I got a hold of him, so keep watching this blog because things just got more interesting ;)

                                                                            

courtesy of Kevin Nee

Kevin at the World's Strongest Man in China