November 26, 2022 – Week 5, Day 4

Hip Airplanes (0-10-0-10 tempo)
bwx5/5
bwx5/5
bwx5/5

Safety Squat Bar Squats (beltless)
65x10
115x6
155x3
205x10
225x10
245x10

One Leg 15” Block Pulls (3-1-1-0 tempo)
75x3/3
105x3/3
135x3/3
165x8/8
165x8/8
165x8/8

Seated Safety Squat Bar Upper Back Goodmornings (5 seconds holds)
245x60 seconds
245x60 seconds

Backward Sled Drags (uphill)
505x100’
505x100’

Stretching
 
Comments: Thanksgiving has passed. For the past 9yrs, it kind of has been a period of time where I feel more depressed. Perhaps because less sunlight but I don’t think that is the case for me. There is a lot of pressure and social expectations that come with this time of year which I’d say goes from November to end of December. This was the first holiday season without any grandparents. Last year had been the first year that I hadn’t felt “loss” on the anniversary of Mike’s death and this year was similar to that. Probably helps that no traveling required so I get to rest from social excursions and eat good food with people I’m comfortable with. Feeling somewhat restless in the next upcoming contest. Again, maybe the Arnold. Entry for that won’t be posted for another week or so at the earliest and I’m only going if I get called up to it before the end of December. Going to wait a little longer to attempt to bug the promoter for PA Dutch again (would be the third time since October 31st) as need answers to some things for proper training approach and to find out if they are offering a certain division to see if my sister is able to compete. Also worried no one else has signed up and if not at least 3 people then there is no point in doing the show as it would only qualify for Regionals for 2023 which I already am and already signed up for. Need to continue to be patient as I can. Training for the day was a bit different from last week. Changes are coming with the gradual transition to competition season and Day 4 seems to be the most variable. Started things out setting up Christmas stuff inside. Provides some extra interior lighting. First thing was hip airplanes. This was the same as last week with it being 3x5. Similar to last week in that the lower leg stability issues weren’t so taxing that completely overshadowed the hip mobility component. Not trying to do these free standing with how much TUT there is on these as sets are taking over 2 minutes to do. There were some balance issues with the right leg anchoring on the second set (first and last rep that set). Walking at the creek is certainly a different feeling vs walking on the blacktop. Trying to keep watch on how things recover as I know from previous times where stuff was overstressed that it took a good bit of time for things to recover and feel better (over worked or over stretched). Order of exercise change had squats pop up next rather than the one legged pulls. Plan here was just to see how normal squats would feel being added back in and not to be super taxing. It has been 6 weeks since I’ve done a squat with the bar on my back in any way. Idea here was minimal support gear (so beltless) and do 3x8-10 with 3-5RIR. Further flavor text was that first set should be really easy and that by the third set it should start to feel like work. It was a little tricky to figure out what I was going to end up doing. I’ve not really pushed the beltless squatting and there is a noticeable difference between this ssb I have and the one at the strongman gym. Like this one is 10% harder. So doing some rough estimates came that 250ish would be about the range. So 2 plates on the bar really. So intent was warming up to that for the 3x8-10 depending on feel. But man are squats fatiguing. Not quite used to weight on the back just yet. I ended up reconsidering the plan with how things were feeling and electing to drop the weight to 205lbs and then increase 20lbs each set. Still some stiffness in the lower back on the left side from last week with the sandbag roll ups so my glute on that side was tense and I needed to make sure that was fine before continuing. Unrack of that first “work” set took me aback and I felt that maybe I needed to just use this weight for all the sets. But I know that sometimes the first set isn’t always the best set on things. So I stuck to that second plan of increasing 20lbs a set. This does seem to have been the fight approach as this was feeling better and still in the right effort range. 20lbs more to get the intended set weight and that went well enough too. Normally I put stuff away and move onto the next exercise but this setup was kind of needed for another exercise so I left it setup and got things ready for the next exercise, which was those single leg block pulls. This week had set weight planned here for 3x8. 10lbs more than last week’s top weight and same tempo. These were a good bit tougher after doing the squats first. Fatigue in the legs and possibly different spot in the garage floor might have had something to do with that. Only rep that I felt wasn’t up to par to standards was the last rep of the last set for the left side. It would appear another week of these and then I guess going from the floor. The next exercise I wasn’t expecting to see back, seated gms for the upper back. Timed sets and doing holds at extension. Suggested was 3-5ct. I’ve done 3ct before so went with the 5ct. So I could go lighter as again, not used to weight on my back just yet. I’ve gone decently heavy on these (360lbs) for twice the time as harder sets. 2 plates on the bar seemed about right here. I can definitely go heavier next time on these. Out into the street for the last thing; sled work. Plan here was 2 sets of 100’ at RPE 8. Little hard to gauge what would work here as I’ve been doing most of the sled work downhill to go with the uphill portion of the push for the past few weeks. And most sled work training has been at the strongman gym with turf or terrain that is equally uneven both ways. And since I know there is a marked gradient (like I can do double the distance with same weight downhill vs uphill with same time limit) that I’d need to reset the entire course between runs and try to be as efficient as I can with that. So warming up I did some backwards walking with the handtruck and empty sled. I’ve gone over 100’ with 555lbs uphill before but that was max effort for 75 seconds a few years ago. So I decided to take 50lbs off that and that should hopefully be the right effort needed. First set felt decent and second set felt better still. However, it took about 5 and half minutes to reset course, which was fine. I probably could’ve gone 20lbs heavier on these and still been in the right range. Maybe even 50lbs. Hard to tell with how long the set takes. Put stuff away and then did what should hopefully be the final leaf removal of the year. It made sense to do now as the tarp method would essentially require doing a drag to move the piles to the curb. I had intended to do it tomorrow but weather forecast would have it raining all day and that would’ve been no good. Stretched out before having family dinner. Iced my knees and left elbow before bed.