October 28, 2022 – Week 1, Day 3

Chaos Band Push Ups
bwx15
bwx15
bwx15

Paused Birddog Dumbbell Rows (3 seconds)
10x5/5
40x10/10
40x10/10
40x10/10

B-Stance Romanian Deadlifts (3-1-3-0 tempo)
10x6/6
40x12/12
40x12/12
40x12/12

Sandbag Heel Elevated Goblet Squats (2”)
112x15
112x15

Sled Pushes to Backwards Drags (casual pace)
235x100’ push
235x100’ drag
235x100’ push
235x100’ drag

Stretching
 
Comments: Antsy to focus on something concrete and only 2 weeks after Nationals. So good in that the fire still burns. Or that I long for a distraction. Shorter workouts and less of them leads to some additional free/dead time that can’t be filled with eating or television. Ended up reading 4.5 books over this period. I know this recovery period is needed for mental, physical and emotional health. Other good thing was that left elbow didn’t swell up on me after training second session of this week. That had been a worry after it appeared to have happened after that first workout session. So hopefully this continues to be the case. Appears plan is to do three days a week at least another week with similar stuff as this week and then either stay at this or add a fourth day with stuff gradually. Will need to be reassessed after this coming week. So on to training. Starting things off with a non-tempo exercise. Chaos band push ups. Plan was 3x10-15 with plenty of RIR and lowish RPE. I had initially planned on doing them as I have been with feet elevated but realized that that wasn’t specified on here for training and that probably just doing them on the floor was suggested since this was a "prehab” phase. As being on the floor, less of my bodyweight would be put on these bands so I could use less bands to support myself which would make the stability harder. And that’s the thing I want with these as far as making the supporting structures irradiate. Left elbow/forearm tendon still has tension (golfer’s elbow) but that has been fairly consistent off and on since after March of this year. A little distracting but not anything that keeps me from doing what I need to. These felt good. I could tell that my right triceps was fatiguing faster than left. Similar to Monday session in noticing that. From there on to another exercise that wasn’t full on tempo (that was coming up). Birddog dumbbell rows were coming back. Balance being the main factor on these as well as fatigue in those structures made to hold the position beyond just the rowing aspect. I had initially felt like I could just jump into doing my planned weight but felt that it has been a while and that there could be a learning curve with the balance aspect from what I recall last time I did these for the first time. I hadn’t been required to do long holds either. For convenience sake, I just went with the 40lbs dumbbells as I felt those would be close to RPE 7 and 3RIR with 3 second holds each rep. Close but I probably could’ve gone heavier. One of those few times this training cycle so far where I maybe undersold vs oversold (tempo work just kicks my rear). Oddly enough, I felt like fatigue factor had been less as I went. I seemed to move better as I went. Perhaps I felt more comfortable with my balance and was able to not be so cautious with the concentric and eccentrics. Then it was time for tempo work. I’ve done b-stance rdls before and different variations of it with dumbbells but always it seemed as a warm up. So never really pushing it. I figured the weights I had done for warm up would be appropriate then for doing high rep tempo work. Certainly added a challenge here. It is really hard to know truly how many RIR I got on these tempo reps with how fatiguing each are with time under tension. I feel that I did a weight that I knew would be within the RIR or RPE, I’d probably need to use almost no weight at all or take much longer rests. Or use less weight each set as first set can be in the appropriate range but then end up outside of it by the end. I will say that of the exercises that had the 3-1-3-0 tempo that this was the one that stayed closest to those parameters (not counting the FFE split squats since that was my choice kind of and no weight was used and no pauses). Body awareness was certainly something I noticed on these with the reaching across body as far as feeling the outer edges of my feet grounding. Getting my feet/ankles more active is something being passively applied for health to keep competing. Next thing was an exercise I don’t particular care for. Mainly I think because I don’t like how it make me feel. Goblet squats. I think this is more to do with that my upper body holding the weight up fatigues more than lower body does so it feels like it isn’t really doing much to what I feel the intent should be. Also seems to make me winded more because of that. But I do a lot of exercises that may not be my favorites. There was an option on these to use either a dumbbell or sandbag. Boo dumbbell. Maybe I’d like sandbag? Sandbag was kind of strongman related. Plan was 2x15-20 with plenty of RIRs. Decent depth, no tempo and not really locking out fully so as to keep constant tension. Lightest sandbag I got is 112lbs. Not exactly bearhug style as I held it a little bit lower. Holding the bag was harder than the actual squatting but it was at least something different and potentially event specific. I went with lower end of the reps as crushing the sandbag against myself and breathing was harder and really fatiguing me. I felt better that second set but kept it at 15 reps so that I could progress next time assuming do them again. Also fun to just drop it at end of set and not have to worry about cracking floor like with a dumbbell. So that was it for the garage work and then into the street for the last of the workout, as has appeared to be the case for stuff so far. It wasn’t timed sets for a long bit or just going for a decent walk. Plan was 4x50-100’ of sled work at casual pace. Alternating between a push and then a backwards drag. Idea was to just work on knees and ankles. I decided to do 100’ as 50’ would be too short and if I was going to spend all the time setting things up, I’d prefer doing something worth it. Especially since it gets dark really early so I have to setup safety cones and get all lights and such to stand out. This was still to be a lower effort thing but I feel that my weight selection here was too light. This was really easy. I did get to focus on how and where my foot moved on the push and knee work on the drags but I needed I think at least 50lbs more here, maybe even 90lbs more. But it was kind of too late to really stop once I started as again, really getting dark. I’ll know better for next time. Put stuff away before eating dinner and then stretching. Didn’t feel the need to ice joints after this.