Cam Clowser Training log

Hi everyone!

As the topic states, my name is Cam Clowser and this is my training log! I will provide a little background on myself to start and then start logging from there.

  1. Career Background- Full time chiropractor within a hospital system in Virginia for the past 3.5 years. I am also a Pain and Rehab team member, as well as a Performance Coach team member for the Barbell Medicine crew for the past 4 or so years as well.

  2. Lifting Background- I start lifting in 8th grade as a means to improve my athletic potential for football and track purposes. I gained more structure of sorts in my high school football weight room where I developed my love of strength and physical activity in general. This wa obviously more “athlete” focused activity which eventually grew into a bodybuilding type focus as I started to enjoy lifting more. After graduating high school in 2013, I decided not to pursue organized sports in college which pushed me further into the lifting realm. I continued with a heavy bodybuilding focus from 2013-2015 mostly and then started into some powerlifting type movements due to a powerlifting slant at my university. In this time, I met Austin while he was in medical school locally and lifted at my university gym. He became my coach for approximately 5-6 years and helped me develop a similar coaching style and my own personal progression with my best numbers powerlifting wise being:

Squat-585
Bench-395
Deadlift-725

These numbers are “gym numbers” but I have competed multiple times with a national competition appearance and medal while in my doctorate program early on.

  1. Injury History- swollen spinal cord w/nerve damage-2011 from football. Fractured left tibia plateau-2012 from football. 3-4 grade 2 adductor strains (both right and left legs) over the course lifting from 2018ish-2023 so far. 2 grade 1-2 pec strains (1 on each side). Suspected disc herniation w/radiculopathy in the left leg from the hip to the foot-2019 to current. Those are what I would consider my “major” issues over the years that have haulted training progress for a significant amount of time each occurrence.

  2. Coaching career thus far- coached 100+ athletes across both pain and rehab situations and performance based situations. Ranges from everyday recreational athletes to competitive collegiate and competitive national level powerlifters.

I hope you potentially find this interesting and informative about how I cope with day to day stress, performance ups and down, and potential injury situations (hopefully these are not often lol).

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10/27-Sunday

Week 61-Day 1

Power clean-1st movement

Medial wrist has been hurting for like 2 weeks since I failed that single like an idiot. Improved for sure but after 2 weeks, it’s not super keen on the position. Working with what I can for both this and front squat for now.

Did single first and then the 3,3,2

40kgx3,3
60kgx3
80kgx1
90kgx1
100kgx1
110kgx1@8-nice

85kgx3
93kgx3
97.5kgx2

Front squat-2nd movement

Did smaller breakup sets for the wrist. W/ 1 count pause

2@225#x6-8sets

2,2, 2, 2, 2,2, 2, 2

Ohhh I actually like this lol. Each of these sets felt great compared to normal and power stayed consistent throughout

Single leg leg extension-accessory to help with some patellar pain
15x20
30x20, 20

Standing calf raise-working on radiculopathy in left calf (weakness/endurance issues)
50x10, 10,10,8

Incline DB Arnold press
25x10
40x10,10,10

Overall solid day here since I hadn’t squat or done cleans in about 2 weeks due to travel for the ATL pain and rehab seminar paired with an overloaded schedule at the office due to missing time for travel as well.

10/28/2024-Monday

Week 61-Day 2

Bench press with chains-main movement

Chains are about 60# total when at full extension

Bar weight +~60#

135+chains
185+chains
225+chains
245+chainsx6@7,6@8

PEC FLY MACHINE

focusing on full stretch to expose the chest to a loaded stretch position
110x20@8, 16@8

VERTICAL ROW OF CHOICE: PULL-UPS
-I have been doing pull ups for a few weeks now as a personal mission more than anything.

Bodyweight w/straps-looking to total between 20-24 reps in the least amount of sets possible

8@9, 7@9, 5@9

LATERAL RAISE-DUMBBELL
30x15@8,15@9

REAR FLY MACHINE
150x15@9,14@9

BICEP OF CHOICE-Single arm preacher curl machine
50x12@8,12@9

TRICEP OF CHOICE-Rope cable w/ hard contraction at extension
35x12@8, 11@9

Bike for cardio-25 minutes steady state

10/29/2024-Tuesday

Week 61-day 3

Deadlift day (belted/competition)

I’m a conventional puller by a nature for reference. I’m also currently pulling with straps just because I can mostly. Could go either way basically but I’ve just been enjoying the straps more the past few months.

135x8
225x3
315x2
405x1
495x1
585x1- OHHHH MYY LETSSS GOOO, @5-6?
675x1- @8.

INCREDIBLY STOKED. I think it’s been almost a year since I’ve pulled this kind of weight. Huge mental win to build consistency over the last few weeks and finally have 7 plates on the bar again!

Back off sets: took way too long before starting backoff work. Was coming down off the adrenaline spike pretty hard

565x2@7
515x4@6, 4@7

HIP ADDUCTION-different gym than normal (my gym has 4 locations) so weight is different

150x15-warm up
210x15-warm up
290(machine max) x15@6, 15@8, 15@8

Decreased rest times due to ease of weight, so it helped to make it harder with less rest

HIP ABDUCTION
210x15-warm up
290x15,15,15, all @5-6. Maxed machine again

AB OF CHOICE
Hanging leg raise-2x20
KB side bend-2x15@53#

Huge day overall and extremely happy with it. Took much longer than a normal session but worth the extra time. Looking forward to the rest of the week!

Nice pulling today man!

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Week 61-day 4

Upper body day #2

Came in fairly tired from day (and overall clinic week, just some tough patients from a mental and physical perspective), but turned out pretty well all things considered.

Bench Warm up: Lateral raise/front raise/rear delt/upright row/shoulder external rotation 1x10 reps each, 2 minutes w/5# (left out cable face pulls because of how busy the gym was)

45x25
135x8
185x4
225x2
275x1
315x1
335x1

355x1@9 (because of lockout. This has always been my weak point over the years)

Backoffs: 4x3 sets, 15-20% (RPE7 cap)

295x4@7,4@7.5
285x4@6

Dropped for my last set since I went over cap intensity for backoffs.

ACCESSORIES BELOW :point_down:t3:

PULL UP-no straps today

-strict as always, full extension at the bottom with a big stretch and 1 second hold at chin/nose height based on fatigue
-grip limiting

5@8,5@8, 4@8,6@8

LATERAL RAISE
30x15@8,15@8

REAR DELT
160x15@8, 14@9

DB incline
30x10@8,10@9

Rope cable

30x10@8, 9@8

Ran out of time for cardio, will make up for it tomorrow or this weekend on my off day. Still need about 100 minutes total for my personal expectations.

Week 61-day 5

This day has only been done 1x since September 28th because of travel and schedule conflicts not allowing me on the gym.

15 minutes warm up on the bike-50rpm

-just came off a meeting so wanted to get things rolling a little more and I have time today, plus takes 15 minutes off the rest of the 100 minutes I need still.

LOW BAR SQUAT-
45x10,10
135x4
225x4
315x4-thumbless grip gave minimal pain
365x4@6

Needed @7 but considering it’s been a month and squats are not a huge priority, happy with this “start back” point.

I may have been avoiding this because of the wrist honestly. This feels not great lol. About the same discomfort throughout so just kept rolling, but ended up switching to thumbless grip to decrease wrist extension which helped a ton from 315-365….time to hang clean now :joy:.

HANG CLEAN-8 minute EMOM

W/ wraps, no pain except with 20kg (no wraps). This one is interesting.

20kgx15 for wrist purposes
60kgx2,2,2,2
80kgx1
90kgx1
100kgx1,1,1,1, 1,1,1,1

No pain with these, but catch position was really solid.

WRIST FLEXION W/DB
10#x15,15 w/3-0-3 tempo, minor discomfort

focused on pulling with the pinky to tax the ulnar side more.

ULNAR DEVIATION W/DB
1st set-5#x15painful up until rep #8, then settled
2nd set-5#x15,minimal discomfort, large improvement

Found a starting point for more specific work to incorporate into the plan next week :facepunch:t3:

60 minutes on the bike@4-5 LISS, 30-45 minute walk with the doggo still to come tonight as well.

Solid day across the board really. Solid week in general honestly.