Thursdays practice was wild.
there were 6 of us this time. First, we arm-wrestled for around 2 hours. Then, I was all like, hey Eddie, I thought we were doing the chains today? He looked at me and said, oh, don't worry, we still are... Last time we did that we started with the chains first and then spent the rest of our energy on the table lol. That bugger.
So we went outside and first he had us doing carries. We had to carry two 25lbs hex head dumbbells by setting them on their ends vertically and sort of pinch gripping the other side with our hands so that our fingers went over the smooth sides. Gripping the number with any of our fingers was cheating. We had to carry them as far as we could down and back up his long gravel drive. Surprisingly I fell just short of Alex and Eddie on their left hands this time. Anyway...
The chains... Good LORD. I decided to go last because I'd done this before and none of the guys with us had but for Eddie. So that meant 3 miles of nonstop walking before my turn.
If you don't know what "the chains" are, Eddie takes two 20ft 3/8" chains which weigh 30 pounds each and attaches a 5 pound kettlebell to the ends of each of them. So that's 70lbs altogether. Then, we take them and drag curl them for a half mile down the country road where he lives only stopping at the halfway point to quickly switch from walking forwards to walking backwards. It's brutal. Especially if you hold the chains so that they are going over your knuckles from the top of your pointer finger instead of coming out toward the bottom of your hand. This way targets your wrists and top two fingers immensely as you try to keep your knuckle up. And especially since we aren't allowed to let them drag while we're just walking, we have to be curling or it's cheating. So you walk till there's tension and curl right then. For the first half we curl with both arms at the same time, fully, all the way up above our shoulders at the end of the curl, as we are walking forward with the chains dragging behind us. Then, we switch and start walking backwards, pulling the chains and the weights toward us as we go, curling them one at a time this time to our nose or ear, keeping our elbows in. If you wanna know if you're decently conditioned, that's the thing to try lol. But Eddie says he used to do it all the way up and down the road... with 15s on the ends!
Anyway, Eddie, Alex and I were the only ones to make it all the way without stopping. That last stretch was sheer willpower for me. But I was the only one to hold the chains like Eddie did, chain over knuckle, all the way. (only because Alex didn't notice that that's how Eddie was holding it till I told him halfway through his turn lol and I have no doubt he'd have done it since he wasn't nearly as shot as me due to his literal Olympic level conditioning from his wrestling days) My hands were all torn up and a little bloody but man it felt amazing at the end with everyone cheering (and drilling) me on.
And even though the others didn't make it all the way without stopping and no one else held the chains without cheating, and some not at all, they gave it their all and we were so proud of them. They left with a fire in their eyes, knowing that they have some work to do in terms of diet and total body conditioning. And knowing that they have so much room to grow, even with how strong they already are, must have been a great feeling.
Eddie says we're going to start working it in more often and also, "Oh, this is just the beginning. Wait till you see what's next!"
Anyway, next day I felt like I got hit by a car, in a good way, nothing injured.
Never give up, never surrender to monotony.
