Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses
Plate Loaded Dumbbell with Fat Gripz Extreme
70x1 L
70x1 R
80x1 L
80x1 R
90x1 L
90x1 R
100x1 L
100x1 R
110x1 L
110x1 R
120x1 L
120x1 R
Circus Bell
130x1 L
140x1 L
150x1 L
160x1 L
170x1 L
177x0 L
5 Seconds in Rack
137x2 L
137x2 L
137x2 L
Circus Bell
130x1 R
137x1 R
144x1 R
152x1 R
157x0 R
5 Seconds in Rack
121x2 R
121x2 R
121x2 R
Plate Loaded Dumbbell with Fat Gripz Extreme
70x1 L
70x1 R
80x1 L
80x1 R
90x1 L
90x1 R
100x1 L
100x1 R
110x1 L
110x1 R
120x1 L
120x1 R
Circus Bell
130x1 L
140x1 L
150x1 L
160x1 L
170x1 L
177x0 L
5 Seconds in Rack
137x2 L
137x2 L
137x2 L
Circus Bell
130x1 R
137x1 R
144x1 R
152x1 R
157x0 R
5 Seconds in Rack
121x2 R
121x2 R
121x2 R
Yoke Strict Presses (forehead height)
90x3
130x3
165x3
195x4
215x4
235x4
215x11
90x3
130x3
165x3
195x4
215x4
235x4
215x11
Chaos Band Push-ups (5 seconds negatives, feet elevated 8”)/ Paused Inverted Ring Rows (2 second holds)
bwx15/bw+20x10
bwx12/bw+20x10
bwx12/bw+20x10
bwx15/bw+20x10
bwx12/bw+20x10
bwx12/bw+20x10
Paused Dumbbell Lateral Raises (2 second holds)/Paused Incline Bench Dumbbell Rear Delt Flyes (2 second holds)
15’sx12/10’sx12
15’sx12/10’sx12
15’sx12/10’sx12
15’sx12/10’sx12
Stretching
Comments: I was again a bit surprised that this workout called for pushing things a bit this close to contest. Last contest things worked out near perfect so continuing to trust the process. I am feeling a bit beat from this cycle of training. Things had to be adjust a lot from the original plan with the arm issues and then compensating for it elsewhere added new stresses that didn’t really have before. But I’m getting older and recovery will continue to wane and while I’m relatively young, not so young with competing. Been doing some form of hard weight training for over two decades and specifically competing in strongman for the past 13yrs. Coming up on my 40th career competition. Just have to continue to adapt. So for today, the workout started off with the circus dumbbell. Plan being work up to a smooth single and then do supplemental exercises after that based off percentage of that lift. Advised to work up in smaller to moderate jumps. I was hoping things were clicking this week after last week seemed to be a return to form after a lot of issues getting back into the groove I had at the start. I have to remember that I broke shit and injured shit and it’s not normal to be putting this kind of strain on the body at the best of times. I’m never satisfied with my best. It needs to be better. A lot better. Pride in my achievements is fleeting and short lived. Which is good to motivate but terrible for lasting happiness in the moment. So find joy in the progress and the process. As long as that happens. As long as it makes sense. So for the dumbbell, I figured I’d stick to just the dumbbell handle with weights added rather than swap out different dumbbells until I got heavy enough for the empty circus bell. Keep things consistent. 70lbs felt tougher than I would’ve liked as the first weight so instead of taking 20lbs jumps up to the big dumbbell, I stuck with 10lbs jumps. Left side seemed to be feel good after that change and was feeling on point. Right side just didn’t feel too comfortable this session. Maybe the knee issue still on the right knee with how I press. But it didn’t feel like that, it was more the positioning just felt stiff and tight. Immobile. Not too concerned at the start as there is like 0% chance I will use that side at the competition. After 120lbs, went to focus on just the left side to start. Cleans were feeling good and elbow felt packed. Trying to settle and brace and not just go. I know I can’t do that for the heavy stuff. I tend to like to keep in motion as it makes it feel lighter. You stop when you die. I was really hoping that I felt like 190lbs or so would go up but I knew not to push that. I just knew if I could do that weight, I had an exceedingly good shot at 205lbs at contest. It already was a slim chance with the 6 weeks of direct training lost and then coming back with changes in form. 170lbs the weight went up well enough but I knew that I wasn’t doing anything over 180lbs and having it be smooth with how the lockout wasn’t one single movement like it was with the other reps working up. But I still thought I had 7lbs more in me today. But I didn’t. First attempt dip was too shallow and I readjusted. I should’ve stopped there as it wasn’t going to be a “smooth single” with a missed attempt. Refocused and went for bigger lower body drive and I got the height but it went out and away and trying to stabilize it caused my right oblique and lat to “shift” and I put it down. I get that in that side only sometimes when I push it on overhead and get off center. It’s not painful but it scares me. I think it has to do from scar tissue related to an oblique tear from about a decade ago. Could also be related to potential inflexibility in that area as it has only been acting up on me since 2018 to present and nothing before then so it could be something different. Even if I tell myself it isn’t a big deal, it still annoys me to miss a weight. Especially one I’ve done before. My best since the hard reset of 2016 is 187lbs but I did 180lbs for 5 in competition when that was my best. Circus dumbbell just seems tricky now. It is one of those lifts where I can miss it and come back and get it. I think part of it with overhead is from my younger days reading about giving it more than one try if miss because it can be form issues and not a strength issue. A mixture of a good and bad habit. I have to remember that 170lbs is the most I’ve been able to do this training cycle and it is the most I’ve done on circus dumbbell since 2018. So dropped 20% for the supplemental stuff. Clean and holds but adding in presses. Hold in the rack position for 5 seconds, bracing and then press. I didn’t think much of it at first but man was I wrong as that first rep was almost not even a good rep. Definitely found a weak point that is glaring here. The hold isn’t tough but my ability to press and stabilize from that is greatly hampered. I did try after that first set without the elbow sleeve to see if that changed anything as I fear that it is still pushing the dumbbell away from my body. Honestly, not sure if it did much of anything to change how I did. If anything, it may have made it easier to keep in line slightly but my lockout wasn’t as crisp. Could just be from not working without the sleeve up to this weight or just that it is a thing I have from the elbow injury. On to the right side. I knew this wasn’t going to go well for me on this side. Part of it being not using this side to compete and partly from not lifting as heavy as I wanted to be successful with on the left. But the form just felt all off today. I went with smaller jumps as I felt that getting even slightly above what I did last week was going to be a challenge. I’m really not sure what was up with this today. I was shocked that 157lbs didn’t happen. I cleaned it and it just felt off and put it down. Tried again and just felt the entire shoulder girdle and socket just shift as I had it on my shoulders and couldn’t really get anything into it. I don’t get it as I did 160lbs no problem for seven singles last week. This is 30lbs under my lifetime best with this side I just missed. I was super annoyed that I had to use the plateloaded dumbbell for the hold and presses because 20% off made the weight to use less than my empty circus dumbbell. I kept the elbow sleeve on just to keep the joints warm as feeling like crap. I had missed rep attempt on the second set and had to retake it. Not my day for the right side. I think I need to be better with expectations and adjust plans accordingly when it comes to exercises I haven’t done in a while or at least not pushed to the high points within the last 6 months or so. First week in with 160lbs on my left side felt just right and I assumed it was around 80% when that may not be accurate. I had made a new PR list after my injury in 2016 that kept me out of doing stuff for 7 months so that I wasn’t so focused on coming back to my best from before. So I should perhaps think of these as my bests and use percentages of them for training maxes based off the situation. That would hopefully lead to less heartache and better progress. The other thing is that maybe weekly hard stuff on circus dumbbell might be too much for me. At least it seems like it could be an issue with both sides being able to recover from it fast enough and efforts made. Every other week hard in the past seemed to work well enough for me but this has been a very unique situation with fracturing and spraining stuff and then coming back. And again, could be not basing working weights off what I can actually do and not what I used to do as well. I do think the form work stuff has been helpful though. Anyways, back to training. It was so dark out at this point. Circus dumbbell is a time vampire for sure, especially when working both sides. So the rack press situation again, using my yoke on the tables on the patio. This time it was do 3x4 with the same weights as last time with 5lbs added and then do a max rep set with the second weight. I wasn’t sure how these would go seeing how the circus dumbbell stuff on the one side seemed to be very poor. I could feel the oblique thing as well doing these so I was cautious about overdoing it here. I was paranoid that this was feeling too easy warming up. Turns out I had it one setting higher than last time so I lowered it down for the work sets. That made a difference. These do feel good. Down set I was hoping to get like 8 reps. Goal was leave 1RIR. Ended up getting 11 reps. So that was at least a positive. Again, I just left that stuff outside on the patio for the next day so I could move on to the rest of the workout. Into the garage. Push-ups and inverted rows again. Same as last time. I decided on the rows that I’d do 20lbs for all three sets. The push-ups started off easy enough. But second set felt a lot harder and I came up 1 rep short of what I did the week before. Third set was slightly easier and I was able to match what I did the week before. This might be a first with not getting at least an extra rep overall added with the push-ups when I’ve done them for volume. It could be that this was my first time this cycle not using the wrist wrap for the left hand so maybe that affected things a little. The rows were tough but good. I felt I had better control this week with the holds and contractions. Final item of the night was dumbbells for the shoulders. Laterals and rear delts. Same as last time. But not really. I wanted to try a little more weight on these as no band stuff afterwards and I was annoyed with not getting more reps on the push-ups and the circus dumbbell stuff still. So I used 15lbs kettlebells for the laterals and the 10lbs dumbbells for the rear delts. Really tough. The kettlebell stuff was at least decent but I need to get stronger at the rear delts as this was absolute limits of what I can do on those with holds. So many things that need work. So little time. It was dark and late and I wanted to eat so the stuff stayed out in the garage overnight for future Craig to take care of.
Comments: I was again a bit surprised that this workout called for pushing things a bit this close to contest. Last contest things worked out near perfect so continuing to trust the process. I am feeling a bit beat from this cycle of training. Things had to be adjust a lot from the original plan with the arm issues and then compensating for it elsewhere added new stresses that didn’t really have before. But I’m getting older and recovery will continue to wane and while I’m relatively young, not so young with competing. Been doing some form of hard weight training for over two decades and specifically competing in strongman for the past 13yrs. Coming up on my 40th career competition. Just have to continue to adapt. So for today, the workout started off with the circus dumbbell. Plan being work up to a smooth single and then do supplemental exercises after that based off percentage of that lift. Advised to work up in smaller to moderate jumps. I was hoping things were clicking this week after last week seemed to be a return to form after a lot of issues getting back into the groove I had at the start. I have to remember that I broke shit and injured shit and it’s not normal to be putting this kind of strain on the body at the best of times. I’m never satisfied with my best. It needs to be better. A lot better. Pride in my achievements is fleeting and short lived. Which is good to motivate but terrible for lasting happiness in the moment. So find joy in the progress and the process. As long as that happens. As long as it makes sense. So for the dumbbell, I figured I’d stick to just the dumbbell handle with weights added rather than swap out different dumbbells until I got heavy enough for the empty circus bell. Keep things consistent. 70lbs felt tougher than I would’ve liked as the first weight so instead of taking 20lbs jumps up to the big dumbbell, I stuck with 10lbs jumps. Left side seemed to be feel good after that change and was feeling on point. Right side just didn’t feel too comfortable this session. Maybe the knee issue still on the right knee with how I press. But it didn’t feel like that, it was more the positioning just felt stiff and tight. Immobile. Not too concerned at the start as there is like 0% chance I will use that side at the competition. After 120lbs, went to focus on just the left side to start. Cleans were feeling good and elbow felt packed. Trying to settle and brace and not just go. I know I can’t do that for the heavy stuff. I tend to like to keep in motion as it makes it feel lighter. You stop when you die. I was really hoping that I felt like 190lbs or so would go up but I knew not to push that. I just knew if I could do that weight, I had an exceedingly good shot at 205lbs at contest. It already was a slim chance with the 6 weeks of direct training lost and then coming back with changes in form. 170lbs the weight went up well enough but I knew that I wasn’t doing anything over 180lbs and having it be smooth with how the lockout wasn’t one single movement like it was with the other reps working up. But I still thought I had 7lbs more in me today. But I didn’t. First attempt dip was too shallow and I readjusted. I should’ve stopped there as it wasn’t going to be a “smooth single” with a missed attempt. Refocused and went for bigger lower body drive and I got the height but it went out and away and trying to stabilize it caused my right oblique and lat to “shift” and I put it down. I get that in that side only sometimes when I push it on overhead and get off center. It’s not painful but it scares me. I think it has to do from scar tissue related to an oblique tear from about a decade ago. Could also be related to potential inflexibility in that area as it has only been acting up on me since 2018 to present and nothing before then so it could be something different. Even if I tell myself it isn’t a big deal, it still annoys me to miss a weight. Especially one I’ve done before. My best since the hard reset of 2016 is 187lbs but I did 180lbs for 5 in competition when that was my best. Circus dumbbell just seems tricky now. It is one of those lifts where I can miss it and come back and get it. I think part of it with overhead is from my younger days reading about giving it more than one try if miss because it can be form issues and not a strength issue. A mixture of a good and bad habit. I have to remember that 170lbs is the most I’ve been able to do this training cycle and it is the most I’ve done on circus dumbbell since 2018. So dropped 20% for the supplemental stuff. Clean and holds but adding in presses. Hold in the rack position for 5 seconds, bracing and then press. I didn’t think much of it at first but man was I wrong as that first rep was almost not even a good rep. Definitely found a weak point that is glaring here. The hold isn’t tough but my ability to press and stabilize from that is greatly hampered. I did try after that first set without the elbow sleeve to see if that changed anything as I fear that it is still pushing the dumbbell away from my body. Honestly, not sure if it did much of anything to change how I did. If anything, it may have made it easier to keep in line slightly but my lockout wasn’t as crisp. Could just be from not working without the sleeve up to this weight or just that it is a thing I have from the elbow injury. On to the right side. I knew this wasn’t going to go well for me on this side. Part of it being not using this side to compete and partly from not lifting as heavy as I wanted to be successful with on the left. But the form just felt all off today. I went with smaller jumps as I felt that getting even slightly above what I did last week was going to be a challenge. I’m really not sure what was up with this today. I was shocked that 157lbs didn’t happen. I cleaned it and it just felt off and put it down. Tried again and just felt the entire shoulder girdle and socket just shift as I had it on my shoulders and couldn’t really get anything into it. I don’t get it as I did 160lbs no problem for seven singles last week. This is 30lbs under my lifetime best with this side I just missed. I was super annoyed that I had to use the plateloaded dumbbell for the hold and presses because 20% off made the weight to use less than my empty circus dumbbell. I kept the elbow sleeve on just to keep the joints warm as feeling like crap. I had missed rep attempt on the second set and had to retake it. Not my day for the right side. I think I need to be better with expectations and adjust plans accordingly when it comes to exercises I haven’t done in a while or at least not pushed to the high points within the last 6 months or so. First week in with 160lbs on my left side felt just right and I assumed it was around 80% when that may not be accurate. I had made a new PR list after my injury in 2016 that kept me out of doing stuff for 7 months so that I wasn’t so focused on coming back to my best from before. So I should perhaps think of these as my bests and use percentages of them for training maxes based off the situation. That would hopefully lead to less heartache and better progress. The other thing is that maybe weekly hard stuff on circus dumbbell might be too much for me. At least it seems like it could be an issue with both sides being able to recover from it fast enough and efforts made. Every other week hard in the past seemed to work well enough for me but this has been a very unique situation with fracturing and spraining stuff and then coming back. And again, could be not basing working weights off what I can actually do and not what I used to do as well. I do think the form work stuff has been helpful though. Anyways, back to training. It was so dark out at this point. Circus dumbbell is a time vampire for sure, especially when working both sides. So the rack press situation again, using my yoke on the tables on the patio. This time it was do 3x4 with the same weights as last time with 5lbs added and then do a max rep set with the second weight. I wasn’t sure how these would go seeing how the circus dumbbell stuff on the one side seemed to be very poor. I could feel the oblique thing as well doing these so I was cautious about overdoing it here. I was paranoid that this was feeling too easy warming up. Turns out I had it one setting higher than last time so I lowered it down for the work sets. That made a difference. These do feel good. Down set I was hoping to get like 8 reps. Goal was leave 1RIR. Ended up getting 11 reps. So that was at least a positive. Again, I just left that stuff outside on the patio for the next day so I could move on to the rest of the workout. Into the garage. Push-ups and inverted rows again. Same as last time. I decided on the rows that I’d do 20lbs for all three sets. The push-ups started off easy enough. But second set felt a lot harder and I came up 1 rep short of what I did the week before. Third set was slightly easier and I was able to match what I did the week before. This might be a first with not getting at least an extra rep overall added with the push-ups when I’ve done them for volume. It could be that this was my first time this cycle not using the wrist wrap for the left hand so maybe that affected things a little. The rows were tough but good. I felt I had better control this week with the holds and contractions. Final item of the night was dumbbells for the shoulders. Laterals and rear delts. Same as last time. But not really. I wanted to try a little more weight on these as no band stuff afterwards and I was annoyed with not getting more reps on the push-ups and the circus dumbbell stuff still. So I used 15lbs kettlebells for the laterals and the 10lbs dumbbells for the rear delts. Really tough. The kettlebell stuff was at least decent but I need to get stronger at the rear delts as this was absolute limits of what I can do on those with holds. So many things that need work. So little time. It was dark and late and I wanted to eat so the stuff stayed out in the garage overnight for future Craig to take care of.
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