February 8, 2023 – Week 16, Day 2

Warm Up Circuit

Suited Trap Bar Deadlifts (15”, straps)
No Suit
140x2
230x2
320x2
Added Suit
410x2
500x2
590x2
680x6
612x3+3 (cluster reps 20 seconds)

Safety Squat Bar Step Ups (11” box, 3 second eccentrics)
65x3/3
100x3/3
135x12/12
135x12/12
135x12/12

Single Leg Seated Band Hamstring Curls (explosive reps, full ROM)
abx20/20
abx20/20
abx20/20

Kettlebell Tibialis Anterior Raises (3 second holds)/Single Leg Calf Raises (0-5-0-5 tempo)
15x10/10 – bwx10/10
15x10/10 – bwx10/10

Stretching
 
Comments: Feeling better compared to how I felt on Monday. Feeling less sore and like allergies were running my life. As well as not feeling like my mind was hazy. This was going to be a heavy day. Big goals here. Warming up was the pairing of modified side plank lying band clams shells (cause elbow) and the lat band pulls. But just one set of each. Reducing as a month out from show at this point. Trap bar pulls with plan being to work up to a top set of 4-6 with 1-2RIR. Now after reviewing video from the last year they did this show with the car deadlift, I noticed that I forgot to take into consideration that they may be putting a 2x4 under the one section. So pick height could be 17” after all. But sticking with what I’ve been doing as with last year for PA Dutch and then Battle at the Bridge, I had been training for 3” lower than what contest conditions actually ended up being and I ended up lifting like 100lbs more than my best lift in training. Warm up in doubles. Suit wasn’t bad last time after getting used to it. Not as much a learning curve for side handle or elevated either. Both things make it much more user friendly. My plan that was what I felt ambitious was to do 90lbs jumps so that my top set would be 680lbs. I did the math (assuming the same car) and common plate combos (100’s, 45’s, 25’s) and this weight would be within 2% of the top end of my predictions. I did think it might be a bit much, especially with it being a fairly big jump from last session. More a worry that support structures might not be ready for a 25kgs jump. But stuff was feeling good and I got set for it. Here I was thinking this would be a hard 4 reps but really this felt like I could do a possible 8 reps here. I feel that I’m ready for it to be near 800lbs or under 600lbs in hand at this point. Immediately afterwards I feel like crap after heavy suited work. Just because I can move it, doesn’t mean it was easy on my body. The down set was to be 10% less and match the reps of the top set via clusters. So for this, I’d do a triple, rest 15-20 seconds, and then do another triple. Practice work in the event I have to regroup on the pull. Depending on the circumstances, might have to be stuck to the bar. With elevated pull height and my suit not being ridiculously tight (like having to side shuffle to bring feet in), standing up and restrapping in makes the most sense to get air and recover. Notes were that these should move a lot faster than top set weight. With how these felt though, I thought this felt harder than the top set and was moving the same or slower. I took 20 seconds for the rest after how those first three reps felt. But video says these were pretty much speed reps. The suit doesn’t get tired but the user does. So felt good about the top set but not the cluster set (until after I watched it lol). Thankfully that was all for the heavy stuff today. Unilateral leg work to pretty much finish up the session. Step ups again with it being 3x10-12 with 3 second eccentrics and keep it RPE 6-7. Notes were to stick to around 135lbs and just focus on improving quality of movement and intent. Fine by me. It turns out last week I miscounted about every set. So needed to not do that this time around. The added reps did make these a little bit more exhausting but still felt fine. Shorter rests between sides really as well. Worked up a good sweat here. Left side I feel it more loading the glute muscle and the right side the movement just feels easier on the concentric. Eccentric feels about the same both sides. I was slightly worried these would irritate the inner thighs but thankfully they didn’t act up at all today. I guess my hip adjustment got that back in order. Next up was single leg curls with bands. Same as last week with notes indicating dropping a set next week. As I mentioned last time, I stuck with the average band rather than going up despite hitting 3x20. That last set had been a good bit tougher compared to the other two sets. Something about doing reps explosively with full ROM and intent makes them quite exhausting after a few sets. I had thought maybe it was a mistake with how easy the first set was but fatigue built up quick over the sets that the last set was close to last week as far as difficulty. Last thing was a change up. Something new and something old. Usually this is abdominals or grip but it looks like cutting back on the grip more to focus on the events as contest gets closer. Super set to work the ankles and lower legs. So first part of it was the new thing with doing AT raises with kettlebells. In the past, I’ve just tried doing them with feet just off the ground with both legs but a demo video showed using them one leg at a time with foot on the bench and figured that would work better and break things up. RPE 6-7 for 2x10 with 3ct holds. I may have chosen too light here with 15lbs kettlebells. I’ll adjust for next time (assuming these pop up again). These were quite easy (again, erred on light side) compared to the other half of the super set, inverted tempo single leg calf raises. These have been done before but it has been a while and these have been quite tough in the past. 5 seconds at contraction and 5 seconds in stretch for 2x10. I’ve done variations of these but I don’t think I’ve done this particular tempo scheme before. Because of how long it takes to do a set on these, I didn’t feel like I needed to really rest between sides or exercises or sets so I just did them all in one go. Put stuff away and stretched before eating a very rich pot roast. Iced my knees and wrapped arm for a bit before bed.