September 16, 2021 – Week 9, Day 3

 I’m late in putting up this training session as I wasn’t sure where I was going with things. Was this sport just not for me? I love it but it doesn’t seem to love me back most of the time. Do I only got enough in the tank to do one competition a year before I need to start over again. Talked with a friend about how I was feeling and while meaning well, the suggestion that I can still do this but not as hard is like suggesting I can still eat but I’m not allowed to swallow anything. It’s not enjoyable. But I guess that is a me problem. What to do after strength when it has been a big part of the identity? I was feeling depressed and didn’t feel like eating on Friday and went to the injury clinic after work. It ended up taking almost 2.5hrs to get seen and have stuff reviewed (got there at 5:45PM, left at 8:05PM). So good news it seems that I don’t have anything that is torn and nothing wrong with my bones. But the diagnosis is that I have tendonitis in my knees and elbows. How do I get golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow in the same elbow and never play those sports lol? I’m not entirely sure how to adjust things as I don’t feel like I’m overworking stuff. I’m doing the work. I also have new respect for others that are dealing with this as it quite distracting and painful. I think the only time I’ve had tendonitis issues was my biceps back when I was prepping for the Amateur Arnold for 2019 and it felt so bad (not biceps but in my shoulders) that I couldn’t do a lot of pressing exercises like I used to. Knowing that isn’t something that requires surgery and they feel I can still compete in October is encouraging. But it still hard to take that I’m overdoing it when I feel I’m never doing enough. I did finally decide to drop down from the pro level option at the upcoming show to the open level to hopefully lessen the burden some. 

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses
Plate Loaded Dumbbell with Fat Gripz Extreme
40x1 L
40x1 R
70x1 L
70x1 R
95x1 L
95x1 R
115x1 L
115x1 R
Circus Bell
130x1 L
142x1 L
152x1 L
162x2 L
142x2 L
142x2 L
142x2 L
130x1 R
142x1 R
152x2 R
132x2 R
132x2 R
132x2 R

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Holds
172x10 seconds L
182x10 seconds L
162x10 seconds R
172x10 seconds R

Axle Push Presses w/ bands (+25lbs bottom/+40lbs top)
No Bands
35x3
Added Bands
35x3
65x3
105x3
135x3
165x3
195x1

Comments:  As you can tell from how it abruptly ends, it wasn’t a good workout for me. I wanted it to be. I was looking forward to it as a chance to correct the errors from last week with the circus dumbbell. I was worried about my right knee with how it had been feeling since after Tuesday’s workout. I had iced it several times the day before and did soft tissue work on the entire leg. So the plan for today with circus dumbbell was to work up to a tough double each side and then drop down to do cluster doubles (rest 15-20 seconds between reps). Also going to try a different approach to how I was doing sides to work up seeing as there is a discrepancy between them. I was also advised to do full gear for this so I was hoping I’d get some time to see how the elbow sleeve and knee sleeves together would work. I also wanted to try and do warm-ups with actual dumbbells until I got above weight of dumbbells I had and needed to do plateloaded. Save the elbow sleeve for the actual circus bell. I realized picking up the 40lbs dumbbell for the first warm up rep that this wasn’t the day for PRs. All my joints ached and it felt like twice the weight. With how things felt with warming up, the empty circus bell could be the weight I ended up doing for the double. I didn’t want that. It wasn’t a pain thing, just felt weak and low energy. So I decided that I’d start filming lifts at the circus dumbbell and if a single didn’t feel comfortable, I was going to go for the double at that weight, rather than leave things up to chance. Thankfully, I was able to keep things together and get up to the minimum weight I was hoping for here with 162lbs. 2lbs was because I didn’t want to bother with the fractional plates as they were on the plateloaded dumbbell. It was a tough double. The clean to the shoulder felt harder than I was expecting with these. Possibly the resistance of the elbow sleeve contributed to that. I do feel that I’m starting to remember placement on the shoulder and traps for the left side again. Took off 20lbs for the cluster reps. First rep was not that great but I feel I got my shit together after that. Last rep of the last set went up the fastest but it went up almost too fast for me and it felt like my left shoulder was about to dislocate and put it down quickly after that. So that wasn’t something I liked to see or feel. Back down to the empty bell and worked back up on the right side. Knee wasn’t too thrilled with this. I can put less weight on it from my left side. The positioning I need on this side due to mobility and whatnot makes this not comfortable at all. With how last week went, I figured that unless I was feeling good, 150ish was what would be a safer bet so that was the plan here. Got them and then did the cluster reps. Sweat in my hands started to finally effect me at this point in the workout as had been good up until this point. Not the best reps here. So next up was clean and holds with the dumbbell. Kind of looking forward to these again, kind of not. I feel like these overloads are necessary to get used to heavier weights again with how long I’ve been away from circus dumbbell stuff and the expectations. But that was before the knee issues I was having. So last time these came up, it was 2 sets at 90% of proposed max (with how I was feeling) but this time it was to be up to 115% of the double I did for each side as long as it wasn’t more than 5% over my current max. I elected to do 10lbs jumps. These are tough and I could really feel the pressure and strain on the muscles and joints. Didn’t miss the clean like I had on that first week haha. Finished up the left side and on to the right side. It was at this time I was realizing my head wasn’t with me. I was having to fight the intrusive negative thoughts and worries I was having to get down to the dumbbell to pick it up and heft it to my shoulder. I was combating this fear that my right knee would just give out on me or explode once it got to my shoulder. That didn’t happen but it was draining on me. I think it was a combination of just realizing that I wasn’t at the pro level strength for this upcoming show and the knee pain and worry that it was something serious and I could be out from competing and needing surgery. Worst case scenario. Depression really does creep up on you unexpectedly like that as I was having a pretty darn good day. Tried to push on. Axle push pressing with bands was next. Plan was to do 5x3 with 70% and add 10-15% on top of that with bands. It was getting so dark outside. Trying to not think that I was going to injure myself or that I was injured. No shoulder issues (I was a bit concerned about the shoulder on the left side with that last rep on the dumbbell press) so that was good. But I did notice I was subconsciously taking a shorter dip on the leg drive than I usually do on these as I was worried about my right knee just “exploding”. There was hesitancy unracking the weight as I got heavier. I could feel my knee “shifting” and “clicking” but not really any pain. Then with 195lbs on the bar (30lbs under the goal weight), I felt some pain and I just had enough and called it there. I hate bailing on a workout. Yes, I could’ve probably done the rest of it as not knee related but I just felt defeated and depressed. My knees hurt, my elbows hurt. It has been about 8 months since I thought that what I was doing was pointless. Trying to keep from spiraling. Too late at night to go to OIP injury clinic so I decided I’d eat dinner and go to bed and go after my work the next day. I messaged Drew to let him know I didn’t finish the workout, what I was doing and how I was feeling.