November 4, 2022 – Week 2, Day 3

Chaos Band Push Ups
bwx15
bwx15

Push Ups on Kettlebells (3-1-1-0 tempo)
bw+20x10
bw+20x10

Paused Birddog Dumbbell Rows (2 seconds)
60x10/10
70x10/10
80x10/10

B-Stance Romanian Deadlifts (5-1-1-0 tempo)
60x12/12
65x12/12
70x12/12

Sandbag Heel Elevated Goblet Squats (2”)
112x20
112x20

Sled Pushes to Backwards Drags (casual pace)
345x100’ push
345x100’ drag
345x100’ push
345x100’ drag
345x100’ push
345x100’ drag

Stretching
 
Comments: Woke up Thursday with very stiff and sore QLs from the windmills. Also lower back stiff from the tempo work on the rdls with snatch grip. Slight panic as it felt like disc compression symptoms but I knew it wasn’t that, just that my muscles were worked hard and slightly inflamed, adding pressure to stuff. Tempted to take antiflammatories but I knew it would go away with movement and sleep. Work got a bit more stressful this week compared to last week. Deviation from my usual meals for what I thought would be good meal ended up not being as good as I was expecting. Odd stress related dreams too. Oh well, need to be aware of that and take steps to not have it become a big thing like it was earlier this year with competing at Nats or going on vacation. Nothing is really up yet until March and probably not switching to competition style stuff until next month anyways. But thinking about contest stuff already. Somewhat concerned that I’m not immediately my strongest at everything at all times and I know that is irrational. I get where I need to be in time most cases. Training does appear to be switching back to four days a week after this week. On to training and that meant starting things off with chaos band push ups. Plan was 2x10-15 with plenty of RIR and lowish RPE. Somewhat like last week but these were to be treated more as a warm-up for the next exercise. Same setup as last time with bands and feet on the ground. Left shoulder was feeling stiff and tight compared to the right one. Been feeling a little like that since Wednesday workout with the increased weight on the windmills. Positives here was that there didn’t seem to be a discrepancy in fatigue in between sides with the triceps like last week. Golfer’s elbow stuff is still very much present on the left side. Not sure if it is directly the forearm or from somewhere higher up (don’t think overly tight lats per testing). So next was a push up exercise of my choice. Something that was still challenging but more stability. So weighted stuff, bands or close grip. Plan was 2x10-15 with 2-3RIR and a 3-1-1-0 tempo. I wanted to use something besides bodyweight but knew that tempo on push ups would bring that down a good bit. Probably be pushing the lower rep range. I went with the one that I liked for opening up the shoulders which was the on kettlebell ones. First set was decently tough and I knew with fatigue on these with the tempo and stretch that I’d be having a tough time getting the matching reps on the second set. Almost miscounted that set. Definitely pushing these with 2RIR being like an absolute max for me. Pressing stuff was done for this part of the workout. Paused birddog rows were next. Same as last time but hold time dropped to 2ct instead of 3ct and RPE increased. I had figured that I’d improve on these and need to go up a bit, especially since last week I felt I may have gone too light on these. So 20lbs increase felt about right. I was wrong. It was too easy. Adding weight did add to the difficulty but less as far as the actual rowing and more the balance and bracing difficulty increasing with the heavier weights. I was not expecting to be matching my weight I used on these with no pauses last time these were cycled in. So that is something. Then it was time for tempo work again. The b-stance rdls. Mercy given in that the concentric tempo wasn’t accentuated like last time. Adjustments to that tend to be the hardest for me. Same tempo situation as the push ups but given option to increase the eccentric to up to 5ct. I went with that of course. I felt that I could do 60lbs for these compared to 40lbs from last week. The 40lbs had felt tougher compared to how they felt with rows last week and considering I did 20lbs easy with that add then this should be within the ballpark. I could adjust as needed like I did with the rows. That first set with these felt really easy but I figured I’d just go up 5lbs because fatigue hit hard on these last time. That seems to have been the right call as these got pretty darn tough as I went. So 5lbs jumps each set. Grip was getting fatigued with time under tension as well with this weight. Hopefully my QLs don’t get overworked on these with the increased weight and rotation aspect. Then it was time for the “goblet” squats. Same as last week with it being dumbbell or sandbag and heels elevated. Soft lockouts with knees and 2x15-20 with plenty of RIR. I wasn’t looking too forward to these with how these had felt exhausting last time. Grip felt better on the sandbag despite my knees felt achy and making a lot of noise on that first set. Got 20 reps comfortably. Second set my lower body was definitely feeling the fatigue, which I often don’t get to with this exercise because upper body gets too fatigued first. Felt better on knees second set. So 10 rep improvement over the two sets from last week and managing to cut my rest period down by 30 seconds so that is definitely progress here. So that was it for the garage work and then into the street for the last of the workout. I don’t like how dark it gets outside right now. Plan was same as last week with alternating push and drags with the sled. Push 100’ and then rest and do 100’ backwards drag. Casual pace on these. Plan was to do either 5 sets with pushing the weight for the last set (push) or same weight and do 3 pairs. With it being dark out, I had to setup a good bit of stuff for the course and lights. I also didn’t feel like changing weights on sets. RPE on these was to be higher. I went with 110lbs more than last week with hope this would get me in the right range. I’m kind of surprised that this is feeling as easy as it is considering all the debris in the street. I didn’t want to add more weight as there were tons of acorns that had me get stuck twice during the sets. I’d probably need another 50lbs I think to truly have it be RPE 7 on these, which would be kind of surprising considering that would be just 90lbs shy of the most I’ve attempted to push uphill with this sled. Put stuff away and ate pot roast before stretching.