October 26, 2022 – Week 1, Day 2

Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (beltless, straps, 3-1-3-0 tempo)
45x5
95x5
135x5
185x10
185x10
185x10

Inverted Ring Rows
bwx12
bwx12
bwx12

Kettlebell Windmills (3-1-3-0 tempo)
10x6/6
15x6/6
20x6/6

Paused Dumbbell Lateral Lunges (3 seconds)
10’sx8/8
10’sx8/8
10’sx8/8

Walk
15 minutes

Stretching
 
Comments: So I had a little scare the day before in that it looked like my left elbow was swelling up again. The injury clinic had told me that I might have to have it drained once a month or so as a thing I’ll have to do from now on but if it swelled up back to what it was in less time (like a week) then I’d need surgery to remove the bursa in the elbow and that would take a lot longer to recover from since it would require cutting me open. Last resort for me. I hadn’t felt I did that much of anything on Monday workout and it hadn’t felt like it was swelling after that but the day after. It seemed to be down when I woke up the next day (I had iced it and ACE bandage that evening as I was kind of paranoid) so hopefully this stays at this level as this is manageable. There isn’t pain. As far as things from last workout that I noticed beyond that was that my glutes were feeling DOMS from the training. And likely not getting any respite for this session or next with how things are setup. So like Day 1, starting off with tempo work. But not upper body exactly. RDLs with snatch grip. Been a while. I used the sawhorses for these today. I had been planning to go heavier but it was mentioned to do same tempo as the one arm presses for 3x10 and leave 4-5RIR. Felt fine with 45lbs (needed a bit more warming/working up) but adding 50lbs was noticed immediately and had me thinking I will need to use less weight then planned (I had put down 225lbs thinking I was doing tempo work before with like 335lbs but that wasn’t with concentric tempo). 135lbs felt better but figured I’d probably be doing 185lbs for the working sets. I was right and honestly I probably could’ve stuck with 135lbs with how these felt. The upper body part was what was taxing here. Keeping the upper back tight as well as my hands and forearms fatiguing (even with straps). Those factors were making it challenging but lower body and such seemed ok. Definitely not RPE 6 and maybe RPE 7 but feeling like RPE 8 by that last set. This was probably going to be the toughest thing of the session. Similar to the overhead tempo work, I felt like I had gotten in a good amount of quality work and effort in just three working sets. That is what this will do moving with control. Weighted Tai Chi. Next up was inverted ring rows. Just bodyweight for three sets of 10-15 (3-5RIR). No pauses or nothing to make them tougher. Just moving. Left forearm has sensation of golfer’s elbow but been managing as not even rest seems to help that really. Just another ache to monitor and tolerate. It’s one of those things that seems to be less noticeable when I’m working hard and warmed up. So plan was to just move through these fast and get things feeling good. Ended up doing 3x12 on these. From there it was more tempo work in the form of windmills. Same tempo as the rdls. I wasn’t too sure what to expect here. Not done these really with much weight and I kind of moved slow with purpose because of the balancing and mobility aspect. But also mindful that tempo work I got to drop weight drastically to keep from gassing out. Option was dumbbell or kettlebell. Kettlebell feels more comfortable (and less likely to hit ceiling) so I went with 10lbs expecting that to be challenging for all sets. Nope. After that first set, I felt that maybe I could go up in weight but I have only 2 sets of kettlebells so options limited for now. But my 10lbs set is smaller and thinner handles so I figured I could go up 5lbs each set and just hold both to do 20lbs set. My left shoulder was tight that first set but felt better as I went up in weight. These weren’t too bad so I probably will need more weight so investing in a handle to add weight beyond my light kettlebells. This movement was almost peaceful to do. I will probably need to do these if circus dumbbell comes up as an event to get me back into that mobility range. Not quite done yet. Next was the last thing with weights for the evening and it was dumbbell lateral lunges with pauses. I’ve done these before and they felt awkward and caused knee stress but I felt they were necessary in the Battle at the Bridge prep for me getting that lateral movement and not fatigue when shuffling around the yoke to load the sandbags (and also preparing in case I had to go to nondominant side for some reason at show). I made the effort to review video on this as notes indicated not to do them just to one side and then the other like I did last time; this was alternating sides each rep during the set. 3x8 with good bit of reps left over with 3 second pauses. I wore knee sleeves just to be careful. Been trying to go with no support gear but I know the knees need that extra support to keep me going and being lax on that just because they feel decentish at the moment is a false sense of security for when things get rougher. So trying to focus on sitting back while doing these and not just quads. Purposeful and being aware of what everything was doing and why in the moment and movement. Knees didn’t feel too bad here. Put stuff away and got the reflective stuff on for the last bit which was just walking. Indication was 15-25 minutes depending on time. I do over 30 minutes on my days off but figured with how dark it was getting that I’d just see how much time went doing a big loop that I was hoping was close to a mile. About halfway or so in my shins felt like shin splints. Odd since didn’t have that at all while walking the day before. Just means I’ll need to ice my knees. The lap was about a mile and 15 minutes so good enough. Got dinner ready and stretched after eating. Iced knees before bed.