February 15, 2023 – Week 17, Day 2

Warm Up Circuit

Iso Deadlifts Against Pins (16”, straps)
65x5 seconds
65x5 seconds
65x5 seconds

Trap Bar Deadlifts w/ bands (15”, straps, +48lbs/+112lbs)
140x2
240x2
340x2
430x2
430x2
430x2
430x2
430x2

Safety Squat Bar Step Ups (12” box, 3 second eccentrics)
65x3/3
100x3/3
135x12/12
135x12/12
135x12/12

Single Leg Seated Band Hamstring Curls (explosive reps, full ROM)
sbx12/12
sbx12/12

Paused Ab Wheel w/bands (4 seconds)
bw+µb’sx8
bw+µb’sx6

Stretching
 
Comments: Left hip (I guess more hip flexor) is feeling tight. Not painful, just doesn’t feel “smooth” I guess is the how it feels. Did soft tissue work yesterday evening. Maybe it is because of the resting on that side for lapping and adjusting the husafell. I got a big bruise on that leg where it was. I have mobility and nothing seems hampered by it. I just like to feel unimpeded in everything. Got into the high 60’s today, so weather has been fluctuating a good bit. It was sunny and no precipitation so it was beneficial for me this time to get things setup in advanced. As in the first exercise of the day and also the band platform. Besides the band warm up (just one set of each) there was something else besides trap bar pulls to start off the session. I had seen it mentioned two weeks ago about Iso pulls but had assumed it would be like I did at start of trap bar stuff with doing barbell deadlifts with pauses at mid shin or something. Nope, this was actually doing isometrics into unmovable objects. Now nothing I have for training is bolted down. I like and need to be able to rearrange things to fit stuff in the garage as well as use it to park my car. While that is convenient, it doesn’t help when you got to have something anchored where a bolted down setup would be quick and easy. So this meant loading up weights onto my power rack outside. Not including the power rack, I had 720lbs added. Plan here was to use a barbell and pull into pins about the same height as stat for the trap bar pulls. Do a 3-5ct pull, rest 60 seconds do another and rest 90 seconds and do a last set. Strapping into the empty barbell didn’t feel like I’d be in the best position to initiate the pull so I added 10lbs bumper plates. I also stood on 2” of wood so that the pin height I was pulling into was just about 16” rather than 18’. These were to be an advanced form of “peaking” and warming up for the trap bar pulls. I elected to not wear my belts so as to work bracing without one. These felt pretty intense. I feel like I was able to pull into it harder each time. Lots of weight for a very short time haha. Into the garage for the trap bar work. So speed pulls against bands. No pauses. The suggested was percentage based but didn’t match with what I was doing and also had weights listed so I went with those instead. 430x5x2 with 90 seconds rest it was. I was going to do a warm up set with no bands added but realized I was probably pretty primed from the iso pulls and just started with the bands added to start off. I feel the right call there. These didn’t feel super duper fast but they look like it on video. Step ups again with it being 3x10-12 with 3 second eccentrics and keep it RPE 6-7. Notes were to repeat last week and not go up in weight and focus on intent and improving quality of motion. I decided to increase the box height to 12” just because. Have slightly more ROM. Wasn’t really that noticeable really. If anything, the setup I was using here was more stable than what I was using the past two weeks. I work up quite a sweat on these with the reps and focus and control here. But still seem to be good. Left side is the side that it is slightly harder to do. Next up was single leg curls with bands. Drop to 2 sets instead of 3 sets. Same plan as it has been with the reps (12-20) and RPE (7-8). Since I was doing average band for 3x20 for two workouts in a row, I felt that I should try the strong band. That was quite the jump compared to the light to average band (always seems to be). Right side tougher than the left side for these. Really just getting the minimum here to insure that rep quality and movement was on par with what I had been doing for these explosive full ROM reps. May just be here for a bit. Last thing was ab wheels. Back again with the bands attached. But thankfully only 2 sets here. But the hold times were doubled. Range for RPE 8 was 5-10 reps. And I know that the soreness doesn’t hit hard until after the first set. But those longer pauses were definitely testing that theory. Lower reps here with those holds. I had put away most of the stuff after the firs two exercises and kind of piecemeal after that to facilitate rest and allowing me to get some fluids in so there really wasn’t much to move away by this point. Got dinner ready and stretched after eating. Iced knees before bed.