Long Overdue Update!

I've been meaning to post up an update of my progress for a long time now, but never managed due to a ton of assignments for school. So now with all my work done, I've finally got a free night to get a progress report thrown up!

The last time I posted I had just hit a 155kg axle from the floor. Since then progress has been coming pretty nicely from Westside.

Off the top of my head here's what I've done recently:

- 250kg belt only box squat
- 280kg sumo deadlift
- 300kg hitchfree convo deadlift
- 145kg axle for a triple from the floor
- 140kg triple on floor press
- 170kg BTN Jerk
- 330kg trapbar deadlift

Been neglecting filming my training too, but from now on I'll be filming a lot more stuff, and posting videos every so often then before the Arnold Am contest in March I think I'm going to do a little montage to show off my winter training.

My next show is on the 12th Dec, called the Winter Giants and has me pitted against 19 of the top strongmen in Britian. Looking to place top 8 at it so full steam ahead!!

That's things for now, and I'll be updating this a lot sooner next time!!

Ken

PS.

Here is the highlights from day 1 of UK's Strongest Man broadcast a few weeks ago:

Kristyn's Turkey Day workout, 11.25.10

Well, of course I had to hit the gym before eating a ton of food.  It's been a while since I've been in the gym, so I was feeling pretty good!  Well rested and super motivated!  It was a very fun workout with John, Laurion and Arlene.  Can't be slacking when your training partners are at the gym with you!

(Everything I did today was without my knee brace, sweet)

Squats
5x45
5x65
5x95
5x135
3x185
3x205
2x225
1x255
20x135

18" Deadlifts
5x45
5x95
3x135
3x185
3x225
3x275
2x305
1x335
1x385
1x405
1x435
1x455
I'm not sure what I was expecting to hit here, but 455 was pretty freaking awesome.  Definitely feeling good for the contest on the 11th!  Arlene got video, will post it up when it's available :-)

Pull-ups
3x5xBW

HIGA MONSTER squat workout at Big Gym (Hood River, Oregon)

I drove 4.5 hours from Washington to Hood River, Oregon and stopped at Big Gym for a workout.  Pretty damn good squat workout after all that driving!  I was stoked!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

Brian Shaw wins the 1st "Jon Pall Sigmarsson Classic" (Iceland)

Congratulations to our strongman team member Brian Shaw! 
Here is a link with further details: 

http://www.ironmind.com/ironmind/opencms/Articles/2010/Nov/Brian_Shaw_Wins_the_Inaugural_Jon_Pall_Sigmarsson_Classic_Strongman_Contest.html

Bulky Boy

No Black Friday, It's ALOHA Saturday!

Yes it's that time again, the Holiday's are here already!  Time to get in gear and start thinking about gifts for friends & family.

At Bulky Boy we don't believe in Black Friday Sales so we are having an ALOHA SATURDAY SALE!

Come on down Saturday December 4th  from 10am-2pm  and start you Holiday shopping at the Bulky Boy Warehouse Sale.

4677 Cass St. (between Diamond & Emerald)
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 272-6172

Look for the Black Bulky Boy Flag!

Huge savings for the Brotherhood!!!

"HIGA MONSTER" gets a workout at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR)



A big "Mahalo" to assistant Strength Coach Brendon Ziegler for always giving me great instruction during our workouts.  He is so helpful and dissects my lifting mistakes that I don't even see.

Always a pleasure to workout at that beautiful facility!

Go Beavs!

Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

Kristyn's 11.20.10 workout

Back to the warehouse to get some work on some events I haven't hit in a while.  Portland on December 11 for a charity show!!!

Farmers
2x80'x105
2x80'x125
2x80'x155
80'x175
80'x195
These actually felt pretty good.  I was surprised.

Tire Flip
5x450
7x450
10x450
I hate the tire...  probably always will.


Yoke
2x50'x246
2x50'x336
2x50'x426
Felt heavy, not really surprised though.


Did entire workout today without my knee brace.  It's time to be done with that thing for good.  All it does is keep me from moving as I normally would.  Feeling pretty good about this workout on the whole, especially a week after Nats.  The plan is to just rest and recover as much as I can, but hit strongman events just so I don't look silly in Portland.  So far, so good.

Kristyn's Nationals Write-up

Well, now that a full week has passed since Nationals, I have had plenty of time to analyze my performance at Nationals.  I am still extremely disappointed in myself even though all in all, a 3rd place finish after coming back from ACL repair, all while getting married and buying a house, is really pretty good.

We started the competition at 4:30 pm on Friday, November 12.  It was cold in Reno!!!  Super cold...  I had been sick the week leading up to Nats, but I was feeling pretty good when we got started.

Axle C&P
I got 6 reps on the axle...  I was definitely expecting to be much closer to 10, but the 130 lbs just felt so heavy and I'm not sure why.  The high altitude definitely made it tough to breath and the cold made it even more difficult.  2nd place in this event.

Truck Pull
49ish seconds.  I really didn't have the opportunity to train this much, so I couldn't complain about my 2nd place finish in this event.  By the time we got half-way through the truck pull, it was dark outside and starting to get even colder.

Yoke
400 lbs, 60 feet, 12ish seconds.  Felt pretty quick on this one, but I'm beginning to realize that wearing my knee brace is slowing me down.  It makes it difficult to move normally...  time to get rid of this thing.  Once again, 2nd place.

Keg Carry/Chain Drag
Ugh, this event was my undoing...  Got the keg down, slowly, and then halfway back with the chain, I just had to stop.  I could not breath!!!  Not even a little bit.  It was so awful, I felt ready to pass out.  I actually needed assistance to get off the course once time was up.  I felt like I barely had time to recover before it was time to get up and do the stones.  I think the only thing that made me ready for the stones was the fact that I was so angry after this event.  3rd place.

Stone Over Bar
Hit 3 reps...  had the 4th one up on the bar and heard...  "Time!"  So I dropped the stone...  Well, stupid NEWB mistake, it must've been the MC saying "She's still got time!" because once I dropped the stone, I heard "10 seconds left."  Had I gotten that 4th rep, there wouldn't have been a 3 way tie on that event, which would've left me in 2nd place overall, rather than 3rd...  you can imagine how frustrated I was with myself...



I have realized that I definitely need to work on my cardio ability, that is for sure, and getting a lot faster! I am more than capable of picking up ridiculously heavy things, but I can only move so fast, so I need to work on that.  Overall, I'd say this Nationals was my least favorite for a number of reasons.  Though I was glad that we finally got the opportunity to pair up with the men, it was clear that the women were an afterthought at this contest.  Everyone was saying this throughout the weekend, why we couldn't compete between the men's events is beyond me.  I felt so bad for my friends and family who had to watch me compete in below 30 degree temperatures, in the dark.  I'm pretty sure they would've preferred watching all the ladies during the day when it was at least a few degrees warmer.  The fact that we had very little time to recover and re-prepare between each event was extremely discouraging.  When you don't even have enough time to pee between events, well, that's just no fun.  After talking with one of my training partners about the whole event, I've realized that my focus should be the contests I can do and actually have fun at.  Winning, or even not winning, Nationals, especially for a woman in this sport, is not life-changing.  I do this sport because I love it, but the longer I do it, the more I see why some women have gotten out of it.  Now don't misunderstand me, I have no intention of quitting, but I'm realizing that sometimes in life, there are much more important things than strongman, and when strongman isn't fun anymore, well I just shouldn't be doing it.

I am very much looking forward to competing in Portland on December 11.  This show's proceeds will be going to Doernbecher's Children's Hospital.  Who could say no to such an event.  In the meantime, I will be doing as much resting as I can and doing strongman on the weekends to just get some training on the events I haven't hit in a long time.

Brian Shaw competes in Iceland this weekend!



Bulky Boy team member Brian Shaw.

Good luck to our strongman team member, Brian Shaw!  He is competing in the "Jon Pall Sigmarsson Classic" in Reykjavik, Iceland.

This contest is part of the "Icelandic Fitness & Health Expo" that takes place on November 19-21st.



For more details, check out the website:  http://icelandicfitnessandhealthexpo.com/

Bulky Boy

Grant Higa log press exhibition (Olympia, WA)



I had a great time last night!  Even though I was wearing an ANIMAL PAK t-shirt, I was rocking the Bulky Boy shorts & high-top socks to "bring the ruckus" to Olympia, WA.

Aloha,

Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

HIGA MONSTER guest lifting at the "2010 NPC Fit Stop 24 Northwest Bodybuilding, Figure, Fitness & Bikini Championships"

I will be doing a Log Press exhibition in the middle of the evening show tomorrow night.  If any of you live near the Olympia, WA area and want to check it out, click on the link below for details:

 

http://www.fitstop24.com/fitstop24/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=17

Have a great weekend!

Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

Seattle-Times article about yesterday's seminar w/Grant Higa

This came out in the Sunday newspaper today!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013366603_strongman07m.html

Aloha,
Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

Grant Higa's workout/seminar at SW Community Center (West Seattle, WA)

Here is a link to some photos from today's workout!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=996864222903%3A1676947084&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee

Check out this video of the Polynesian kids from the "SW Youth & Familiy Services".  They did a Samoan "slap dance" and 2 different "hakas" for us today.  Very empowering.



"Mahalo nui loa" to Bulky Boy for donating some t-shirts, stickers and air fresheners to this community event!  The kids loved the products and especially the stickers!

A big "thank you" to my nutritonal sponsor Animal Pak for donating t-shirts and sample envelopes of protein that I gave away to these teenagers.

Hopefully I was able to make a postive impact on these kids and keep them on the right path of their young lives.  It was a great time working with these kids and hope to do this again some day.

Aloha,

Grant Higa Bulky Boy strongman team

Zach Gallmann training at the Team BOSS warehouse in Columbus, OH

With Nationals only 2 weeks away, we did some heavy training at the warehouse this weekend!

The Axle for Nationals is a 300lb axle, clean and press each rep.  We decided to work up to a set of 6 with 290...  10lbs won't matter when it comes down to game time!



Next up, we did some side handle deadlifts.  We had to use a frame because we've all been busy and never got around to setting up our side handle equipment.  We decided to go pretty heavy, topping off at 750lbs.  Both of these sets were with 750, but I thought the second one was with 800.. oh well!





Hopefully this link works, but this is what happens when we get bored and decide to liven things up a bit... plus, I'm from Jersey, so I can't help myself when techno starts to play!


http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/video/video.php?v=115406755190914

I wish I got more video of the rest of the event training, but we moved pretty quickly.

We wound up doing yoke picks and holds, but the yoke height was set at about below parallel for squat depth and we worked up to 420 full pick with a 50 foot run, 510 for a 50 foot run and then a solid 600lbs followed by a hold... it was brutal

After that, we did some keg and sled medley training, followed by atlas stones.  I worked on a 4 stone series starting at 230lbs up to 370lbs, followed by a series with the same stones, but descending in weights.. it was brutal!

I'll get a full write up of Nationals when its over.  I can't wait to bring it!