July 29, 2023 – Week 5, Day 4

11” Floating Kabuki Trap Bar Deadlifts (Versa Gripps, 5-1-0-0 tempo)
85x3
135x3
195x3
245x3
305x3
355x6
355x6
355x6
355x6

B-Stance Romanian Dumbbell Deadlifts (same side)
60x5/5
100x3/3
130x12/12
130x12/12

Monster Mondo Leg Presses
300x5
400x5
20 Second Sets
500x9
550x9
600x9

Band Assisted Quad Fallbacks (5-1-0-0 tempo)
lbx8
lbx8
lbx8

Stretching
 
Comments: This week was a bit more relaxing compared to the week before. But a different kind of stress. It still had to deal with the routine disruption of going into the office which kind of made stuff outside of work get behind slightly. I did want to catch up on sleep but knew I needed to do other things. Temperature and humidity were brutal on Friday and I went for a lunch break walk since it would be 5 degrees hotter if I waited until after work to do it. I was also wanting the time to think as the last details for Nats were posted at Midnight on Thursday so my mind was going a mile a minute thinking about that. I knew I needed to take care of chores as well as do stuff for physical and mental health (walking and soft tissue work and write ups). The planned training for this week wasn’t really much different from what I would probably do with no events. Nothing requiring assistance so I could’ve slept in. But I wanted to get out there and see if I could talk with the owners about setting up stuff for the stone event for Nats (carry and load). Also give myself some time to get measurements and test some things. Drive out was fine. I took time to see if there was enough space for the stone carry in different spots as well as testing platform heights. I also checked some things in regards to the wheelbarrow options. Still have ton of thoughts I need to pin down. Unfortunately the owners weren’t there to ask stuff. I’ll need to figure out what exactly to say. Really humid today, I probably should’ve brought another shirt just to wear something dry afterwards. Starting things off with the trap bar floats. 5 second eccentric with brief pause about 1-2” off the ground and adjusting the pick height with a platform. Been liking these. It would appear I got another week of these before switching gears. Same as it has been but increased RPE. I had initially read this as 3x6 and had gone for a 20lbs jump for that. Only realizing it was 4x6 again when I was ready to go for the first working set. It is hard to gauge the RIR and such on these because of the long eccentrics and how fatiguing those are. I started lighter just to get in an extra set. I brought the belt I’d use for these this time around. I’m not entirely sure why but it feels like because it ends on the pause that I feel like I can do more. The yielding stuff does seem to be good for me on pulls. Still had slightly shorter rests than planned besides the last set where I took a moment to wipe down all the sweat I had on my face, arms and legs. Again, getting that second wind on the last set where I felt I left too much in the tank. Felt like I was perfectly fine with the first few sets. Similar to how ssb squats have felt too. Might just be a thing for me. In either case it is good that I’m using more than 50% of the minimum I’m willing to accept from myself at the show. And that setup will be much easier than what this is. Took time to recover with all the sweat to rehydrate and put away weights as the next thing was the b-stance rdls. No acceleration reps. Slightly higher RPE and still 2 sets. Rep range 10-12. I figured I’d go the heavier route. See how things felt and determine which side felt behind to start with. Right side seemed to be the one to start with. Warming up I took bigger jumps as plan was to just use the heaviest dumbbell at the gym. With the sweat issue and knowing how things felt last time with my grip, I went for the liquid and dry chalk combo. Made a bit difference. This felt easier than last week with more weight. The second set was obviously tougher than the first and there is fatigue from one side to the other. Not sure what to do with this being the heaviest dumbbell that isn’t a circus dumbbell if this exercise continues. Probably need to adjust things to allow continue progression. Then it was time for leg press. Haven’t had leg press pop up very often but it might be the best thing for the moment as far as building up the legs with my levers. With how the days are set for Nats, the second day is going to be really lower body intense. Need to get wheels to match. This was more a testing week I guess. Last week wasn’t really expected but it was good for me to get some idea of things. The knee sleeves were going to be needed to ease comfort. So the plan here was to do 3 sets of no acceleration reps and keeping my body in the face and hands as relaxed as possible. And just do 20 seconds of reps. The most I’ve done on this leg press has been 500lbs for paused reps. This is a very beefy leg press at 300lbs empty sled weight. The initial bench setup was for a much shorter person so I had to adjust it after the first set. I tend to use my arms to assist with getting the weight up to lockout and I don’t count that as a rep because of how low the start position is for me. Essentially the bottom of the movement. Which would be fine I guess to do some starting strength and increase rate of force development. But I don’t think that was the plan here with the focus on time of work. I think part of this is me not really used to leg press for many years as the weight feels like a lot but moves smooth and I need to adapt to that a bit. I think my making sure I took appropriate rest here (said to do 3 minutes) lead me to resting a little too long. I just kept adding 50lbs and was hitting 9 reps in the time limit each time. Last set felt like one where there was some strain at times to hold composure. Last thing was quad fallbacks using band assistance. Last time had been to warm up with more bands and do pauses. This time was more reps and indication to do slight pause but accentuated eccentrics (3-5ct). I just jumped right in to these. Made sure I put down some foam padding as last time I got a bit of friction burn on my knees. My ROM seemed to be better this time around as far as getting all the way down. Of course taking the longer eccentrics. I was thinking of using less tension for the next set but I wasn’t too sure how fatigue would be between sets as I’ve never done these tempo style. I figured best thing would be to adjust the location I held the band to increase the weight I was moving and reduce the assistance so I could make the reps and sets harder as I went. Only did that for a few the second set and for all of them the last set. This, like the Nordic curls, I feel best when there is some slight band assistance involved. I took time kind of putting stuff away as it was a bit early in the day. Contemplating if I was staying to stretch or going home. I decided to go home so that I could potentially get another meal in and stretch at my leisure.

July 27, 2023 – Week 5, Day 3

Alternating Dumbbell Bench Presses/Bird Dog Dumbbell Rows (2 second holds)
40’sx6/6 – 40x6/6
70’sx3/3 – 80x3/3
97’sx7/7 – 122x6/6
97’sx6/6 – 122x6/6
97’sx10/10 – 122x8/8

Seated Log Pin Presses (no back support)
87x2
117x2
147x2
177x2
157x2
157x2
157x2
157x2
157x2

Iso Seated Log Pin Presses (7 seconds)/Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Band Y Raises to Hold (10 seconds)
87x3/32’sx10/mb’sx10
87x3/32’sx10/mb’sx10

Overhead Band Triceps Extensions
mbx25
mbx25

Stretching
 
Comments: Just going to be hot and humid for a bit to end out July I guess. Feeling a bit of yesterday and  I was starting to think maybe that this workout might be tougher because I had bumped up the weights last time. Fans on for this session. I didn’t try to move things along that much as I knew that it would be taking a bit for setup of certain things. Starting off with alternating dumbbell bench presses supersetted with bird dog rows. Less sets but to be more weight. Last time doing this pairing. Plan was to do 2x6 and then max reps leaving 2-3RIR on the last set. Considering how well 90’s had felt on the press, I wasn’t sure what I could really load up with the weights I had and still have the weight for the row. Working up was easy enough. I made bigger jump with the rows since I knew what I was actually going to be lifting and not misload by 20lbs. I actually had to double check the weight after Drew was mentioning it as being impressive and more than he had done for the exercise. The most I could load up the dumbbells and still have the same weight for the row (no sense going heavier) was 97lbs. Felt a little unwieldy the first set. I definitely miscounted and did an extra rep. The damaged 2.5lbs plate came apart and I had to use my rest to fix it with athletic tape for the second set. Row was challenging but not quite as daunting as last week getting it started. As I knew it could be done and wasn’t thinking it was only 102lbs. Second set the pressing felt really easy. I was worried I miscounted that set. Rows felt about the same here. Last set was max reps but leaving 2-3RIR. I was not expecting to be doing double digits on the pressing. Left side was feeling a lot stronger compared to right side. It was more the right side that was struggling/slowing down that stopped the set. Left side felt like it could do a lot more. Reviewing video, it does seem like there are some differences in how each side carries the weight. Such as flexibility of joints and rigidity. Rowing was challenging but got through it. Took a bit to tear things down inside but I needed to to get ready for other stuff but also to recover a bit in this heat. Left shoulder was feeling a bit achy from the last bit of effort from this first part of the workout. But I knew it would be ok for the rest of the workout and would feel better with some food and sleep. And time. I had setup some things outside partially because it wasn’t business as usual. I was to do some log pressing first. Seated pressing off of pins for doubles. Low RPE (4-5). I think my hope here was that stuff was going well and that I’d be using no less than about 147lbs for this. This was more to see where I was and for building forward. It sounds like this will be the secondary day for pressing with the log focus. I was trying to figure it out with these workouts where the main pressing would be as sometimes it has been the beginning of the week and other times the middle. I felt for this lower effort that I should use no support gear at the moment and potentially reset each rep on the rack and roll it up to mimic the catch of racking the log from a successful clean. I was debating between 20-30lbs jumps. I decided to go with 30lbs jumps so that I could potentially do the log plus a pair of 45’s. I was just feeling so-so and was feeling like I’d do the 5x2 with 147lbs but that flew up. So I was fully prepared to do 177lbs for these 60-75 second rest sets. Bu it didn’t feel like it should here. Power off the chest was great that first rep but then it got all funky on me passing the point where I’ve been doing these iso presses at and balance wasn’t great and locking out wasn’t feeling that crisp. The second rep was even worse. Yes, I could’ve kept going but it wouldn’t have been the crisp reps at the lower end of effort to do so. I was a bit annoyed that it felt like the disconnect between the 147lbs and 177lbs was so vast. But it does seem like there needs to be work done to get into log pressing shape besides just some iso voodoo stuff and strange mobility emphasis pressing. Dropped the weight down 20lbs and essentially went about doing these as EMOM really. Maybe shorter than that rest as it was like 40 seconds between sets. I’m still not comfortable/confident with the pressing abilities after the past few contests. Not starting at zero at least. The triplet pairing outside was next. Dropped down to just two sets this time. Log iso work, dumbbells and bands. Some modifications, mostly for the log. Advised to lower the pin height another notch so it would be 2” lower. Also having the effort time be increased from 5ct to 7ct if I wanted to (I did). As far as the other parts, the RPE was increased a good bit. Enough that I felt I had to increase things a bit more than I was (or wasn’t) and this was especially the case since one less set to build fatigue over. The log stuff at least felt comfortable again. I guess it should with how these have been. Though the wasps were making me a little anxious. Increased the dumbbells for the laterals up to a nice 32lbs. I was feeling good that first set, like I could do the 40lbs but I knew there was a steep drop off from this triset with how each thing hit the shoulders. Namely the pair of the laterals followed by the band y raises into hold. I think if no hold these wouldn’t be that bad. I’ve kept those the same because adding weight to the laterals and shortening rest has been enough to keep the difficulty up. But wouldn’t cut it this time so I had to increase the bands. And lord did increasing bands to the next band thickness was a trip. I was aware of how tough this kind of thing can be from past holds with bands and bumping up the tension for shoulders so that was thankfully not an issue. I was kind of looking forward to how this would feel with my achy shoulder. This was a lot of tension to hold the position. As expected, the second go through was tougher for the dumbbell and band portion (log felt about the same). Last thing was triceps. Same as it was for last week. Again, trying to make things tougher sticking with the mini band for tension and the rep range and effort. Stepping forward more, taking shorter rest. I actually hadn’t intended to take as short of rest as I did this time as I thought what I was doing would take more time (putting away some weights). I was definitely feeling fatigue in the triceps by the end. Put stuff away before cooking dinner and stretching.

July 26, 2023 – Week 5, Day 2

Paused Hatfield Bulgarian FFE Split Squat (3”, 2 seconds)
65x3/3
95x3/3
125x3/3
155x3/3
185x10/10
185x10/10

Front Squats (3-1-0-0 tempo)
65x3
95x3
125x3
155x3
185x8
185x8
185x8

Nordic Curl Negatives
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5

Kettlebell Power Pin Swings
125x7
125x7
125x7
125x7
125x7
125x7

Hollow Rocks
bwx31/19

Stretching
 
Comments: So the monthly come into the office for the day came and went. Wasn’t nearly as bad as last time. I was under a lot of stress/pressure at the time last time. It still is incredibly dumb and I knew it would be a very unproductive day but I had resigned myself to that and just accepted that and did more low intensity cardiovascular stuff on Sunday to make up for not getting to do it Tuesday. Just eat a hearty dinner when back home and realize I probably won’t have time to do soft tissue work until the end of the week. I didn’t need the fans on Monday but boy did I need them for today. Going to be hotter and muggier as the week progresses. From the sound of things, this workout will get some adjustments going forward as far as exercise priority. Namely swapping the first exercise and second exercise (unilateral quad dominant exercise and front squat exercise). But for this time still as it has been. Paused hatfield ffe Bulgarians. No set weight given this time, indicating RPE 6-7 (4RIR) and for 2 sets of 8-10 reps. Last time with the set weight, the weight was definitely a lower effort for me. But probably needed due to the beach break and just how my hips were feeling. My ROM had improved on these so that was some extra there. I did keep in mind to not have this weight I ended up doing be more than the weight I would do for the tempo front squats next. I’m glad my hip/inner thigh weren’t feeling anything like last week. I was expecting to be in the lower rep range here but I just seem to push things on these. Even when I know how exhausting these become with more reps and having another set of these. No cramping this time around. Legs were definitely feeling a little more worked over compared to last week. Also breathing a bit harder. Then it was on to front squats. Still tempo work. Really the same as last time (though reps weren’t posted) with it being a linear progression. I felt I had to bump these up to match with what I did on the hatfields. Last week had been getting used to these after the slight break and the volume. That had been easy and I could afford for these to get a little tougher. So I did go for this to be the same weight. I made sure to take longer rests compared to last week. These were getting challenging as I went. Like the first four reps would be easy and then it would just feel tougher each rep after that. Trying my best to not short change the tempo. But I am glad I got through it with the appropriate RPE. Lower body training has been feeling good. Granted it could just be the lower weights with the tempo work that is giving the joints a break which is often the case with my offseason based training protocols. Starting to enjoy the squats again. Nordic curls were up next. Same as last time. And the time before that. Slightly anxious that lower legs would be not happy again but that didn’t materialize. No cramping and felt fine after the first set as per usual. It does look like some changes for next time to finish out before swapping exercise. Then swings. Same as last time of shorter rests and 6x7. I decided to add more weight and go from there as I couldn’t really make the rest shorter with the same weight as last time without just doing all the reps together. I feel I’m getting better at initiating the swing so I don’t have to do and building up motion. Did use the 35’s so slightly bigger diameter but didn’t seem to be a steep a learning curve compared to the first time. Last thing was the hollow rocks. Last week of this oddity. Same rep goal. My hope was to finish out on two sets with less than 90 seconds rest to get the 50 reps. Managed to get that done. Ate a roast before stretching. Joints have felt good so I’ve not felt compelled to ice stuff in a few weeks now.

July 24, 2023 – Week 5, Day 1

One Arm Half Kneeling Dumbbell Strict Presses w/ Band Rows (3 second eccentrics)
10x4/4 (µb)
40x4/4 (mb)
70x10/10 (mmb)
70x10/10 (mmb)
70x10/10 (mmb)

Feet Up Swiss Bar Bench Presses/Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows
90x3/40’sx3
130x3/70’sx3
180x12/95’sx12
180x12/95’sx12
180x12/95’sx12

Landmine Bar Twists/Dumbbell Windmills
63x6/6 – 40x6/6
63x6/6 – 40x6/6
63x6/6 – 40x6/6

Stretching
 
Comments: Weekend was somewhat productive to recoup. I knew that I’d not have the ideal week having to come into the office for the day on Tuesday (disrupts meals, work and exercise schedule) so I made sure to not only do light yard work on Sunday but also fit in a walk to make up for Tuesday likely not having anything besides job. But was feeling pretty good besides just general soreness from training last week. This may very well be the last “off season” week before Nats prep goes into a higher gear. Starting things off with tempo and band row overhead pressing. Plan was slightly higher RPE (3x8-10 with 3RIR) and my hope was my shoulders and elbows feeling less out of it. My thinking was to try and do the 70lbs again and make them feel easier and get more reps. Another thought was to scale the band row part of things so that I was actually doing something with that beyond distraction. So equivalent band tension related to the weight being pressed. Also a few more reps warming up. This seemed to go much better compared to last week. I started to notice that sensation I get deep in the shoulders and elbows on tempo work where it feels really warm and I feel like I’m producing a lot of body heat. Like slow cooking those joints. I don’t recall this sensation when doing lower body stuff with tempo, I think only overhead pressing. But I know that I’m getting good work on this style of work when I feel that. Or at least I tell myself. I felt comfortable enough to go for 3x10 here. And that seemed doable and keeping it at the right RPE. I will say that I was definitely not leaving 3RIR guaranteed on that last set as fatigue set in. More that fatigue in the stability and when that happens, locking out the arm becomes a lot tougher too. But I don’t think it was too much. I had reps left at least and I didn’t miss any reps. Supersets after that. Feet up swiss bar bench press paired with chest supported dumbbell rows with no acceleration reps. I was initially thinking based off how things felt last time to do 10lbs more for the pressing and try to do 3x10-12 and same weight for the rows. Mostly because I felt the pressing I had room to improve and the rows had been a bit tougher than I would’ve liked and I had pushed the grip/rowing a bit this past week with the b-stance rdls and the misload on the bird dogs. With the benching, I also felt since I was increasing the weight each set last time that I should see how I felt with the same weight all sets with more weight, similar to how I did things with the trap bar stuff Saturday. But I guess I decided to go up in weight on the rows and if felt like a bit much, just do 3x10. So benching to start it felt ok, but not so easy I wanted to do increase each set. Rows surprisingly felt easier than 7lbs less last week. Second set of bench had me regretting I didn’t increase weight as it felt so easy but by the third set fatigue was starting to hit and it was about where it needed to be at that point. Rows were about as they were overall compared to last week just slightly easier.  The landmine bar twists to start and then into windmills to finish out the session. Same guidelines as last time but I felt I needed to increase the weight so that I wasn’t having stuff feel too easy on the bar twists. I also didn’t want to keep things the same weight on the windmills. But it was either use a dumbbell or go outside to safely use the kettlebell handle for overhead stuff. I figured I’d just use dumbbell. I feel I picked appropriately for both this time around. Dumbbell is definitely tougher than kettlebell on windmills. Even though I had this feeling tougher compared to last week, I was still feeling pretty good and was getting into the music so the last set actually was moving pretty darn easily. Put stuff away and cooked dinner before stretching. Have to get to bed early because of stupid reasons of going into the office for another unproductive day.

July 22, 2023 – Week 4, Day 4

11” Floating Kabuki Trap Bar Deadlifts (Versa Gripps, 5-1-0-0 tempo)
115x3
175x3
225x3
285x3
335x6
335x6
335x6
335x6

B-Stance Romanian Dumbbell Deadlifts (same side)
60x5/5
90x3/3
120x12/12
120x12/12

Yoke (beltless)
210x125’
270x50’
330x50’
Run Ups
400x100’ in 17.03 seconds
400x100’ in 15.96 seconds
400x100’ in 16.19 seconds

Hip Belt Backward Tire Drags/Monster Mondo Leg Presses
50x200’/300x25
50x200’/300x25

Stretching
 
Comments: This work week had been mentally exhausting. And I had to pretty much resign myself to having to still do stuff from this week on Monday first thing. Which wasn’t a great feeling considering that I still have overdue stuff (despite assurances from my supervisor that I’m good). Especially with getting back my usual workload and having to come into the office for the monthly dumb all day meetings/trainings. Deferring those feelings until later. But feel them impeding me when I’m off the clock even as it felt like it took a lot of time to just decompress from the day. No soft tissue work Friday as I had a lot of things to do and it was way to late by the time I got my act together. For training, I was debating going out to train as I could do the workout at home and likely the gym hours next week won’t be ideal with some kind of powerlifting meet. However, I decided it was worth going out to train to get out of the house and test things on competition style equipment, even though like 13-14 weeks out from Nats. Nothing requiring timeliness so I just accepted that I’d sleep in and hopefully it wouldn’t be too late in the day. I needed the rest. I allowed myself to relax with the weather being the same all day so no rush. Drive out was fine. Not many people there considering I was about 2hrs later than I usually show up. Which was fine by me. I didn’t feel the need for mobility work to warm up here. I guess that I didn’t feel I needed to do that for my knees this day or Wednesday is a good sign. Starting things off with the trap bar floats. 5 second eccentric with brief pause about 1-2” off the ground and adjusting the pick height with a platform. These had gone surprisingly well last time. It was to be the same RPE but now for 4x6. I figured I’d stick to just a slight increase and try and keep that for all the sets unlike last time where I went up each set because the weight was too light at the start. Things were feeling a little tougher than I would’ve liked. Perhaps soreness from Wednesday and Thursday sessions. I think I stuck to this weight as well because it was like the front squats where I was to indicate the RIR on the last set. It was feeling tougher each set. But then it was time for the last set and then it decided to be easy. Perhaps because it was the set that mattered. Like it felt easier than the last warm up triple. I don’t get it. After the fact, I realized that I accidentally took shorter rests than I had planned (2 vs 3mins) This taking shorter rests than intended would be a theme for this day it would seem. I also had forgotten why last time I had worn my thinner belt vs ratchet belt and that was because I wouldn’t be able to fit the ratchet belt over the briefs when those end up being used. But not a bit deal, I didn’t notice much difference between the ratchet belt without briefs and normal belt with them as far as how I felt breathing or bracing. Next was b-stance rdls. No acceleration reps. I wasn’t feeling so uncertain about things compared to the first week considering I did that time and with the vacation stuff doing banded variations of this movement. Same as last time these came up with lower RPE for 2x10-15. I was thinking potentially of pushing these a bit more to the lower end of the rep range as likely doing this workout at home next weekend so rather get something that would be good to setup at home on the handles I have. I didn’t feel like I needed to do as much warm up as last time. Probably because I knew that I was doing more and wasn’t second guessing. I started with the left side since that felt tougher by a good margin last time. Turns out my right side wanted to be the tougher side this time. Could also be fatigue from the overly heavy unilateral rows. I took longer breaks here compared to last time but even then it was shorter rests than what I was trying to do. Guess I’m moving better between sets when pacing even with feeling DOMS in my legs. Grip actually ended up being the thing that was fatiguing first here. In the finger tips on the last few reps of the last set for my right side. I may need to chalk up my hands next time and treat things more seriously. It is difficult to meet the trade off in keeping the RPE on the lower side and not applying the stuff for the heavier weights. Yoke was up next. I think this was the main reason I came out to train (that and seeing if anything mentioned on the chalkboard about gym hours next week, which wasn’t shown). I have yokes at home but they aren’t the thick crossbar type usually at these bigger shows. Trying those little things that are contest stuff for contest events. Like wearing a shirt from last year’s nationals to get used to the fabric (sensory stuff, I got to prepare myself to wear clothes I don’t usually wear). I wanted to test the grip shirt I got last year that is allowed at Nationals. I’ve not used it for yoke and I’ve had issues with using my older shirt on yoke with it sliding. As well as seeing if my hair in a tie would affect things as well. Might as well figure things out now rather than when it matters. The plan here was to do 3x100’ with 2 minutes rest and beltless. Preferably straight shot runs. That last bit was the part that was going to be a pain. 50’ runs are easy inside. Fine with drop and turn for 100’. But need to take the yoke outside for the longer runs. So that requires moving a lot of benches out of the way to clear a path and then walking with 210lbs implement. So setting up was a chore and counting as a warm up set. The weight of the yoke didn’t inspire confidence. Additionally, with it being an odd number of runs, if I started at the shortest distance from putting stuff back for the 100’ runs, I’d have to carry the empty yoke essentially twice the distance I did setting it up. So I did warm up runs after that. Which was probably a good idea even if doing light weight. I was considering adding knee sleeves as knees felt a little achy. The short runs got me feeling better under the yoke as well as making sure I had the pick height right. It has been over a year since I last touched yoke. George was there so I was able to have him time and give commands. Odds are that this will have a run up rather than getting set under the yoke and I noticed a little late in prep for Battle at the Bridge last year how much it cost me in bracing tightness not practicing that more. Goal here was to do 315-405lbs really just to get used to things again. Things went about as well as I could’ve hope here. I didn’t have to put everything away as other people were going to be using the yoke outside that George was coaching/training. Last thing was light sled work. Well it was to be. Same as last time I was out at the gym but there were notes mentioned based off discussions with Drew about plans for competition cycle about potentially doing leg press machines for same RPE range for 2 sets of 20-25 reps. This was to be 2x150-200’ at RPE 3-5. My plan was to do the tire sled again empty but on a tougher setup and see if that was tough enough and if not then I’d superset with leg presses. The tripod to my camera broke about 15 seconds into the first run and I ended up having to hold my phone after that point. The drag felt way too light even going up a steep uphill. Like, easier than last time. Curse getting my legs conditioned. So I reset the tire by carrying it back down the hill and got into the leg press. Slight aches in the knees (I usually wear different shoes and knee sleeves here) but felt fine and honestly got more blood pump in the quads compared to the drags. I decided no rest between these as the drag was so darn easy (I also didn’t want to stand around with the camera for 2 minutes rest). Drag felt same level of ease second set, leg press was feeling tougher but less knee aches. Ordered a new tripod but might take a few days. Stretched out before driving home.

July 20, 2023 – Week 4, Day 3

Alternating Dumbbell Bench Presses/Bird Dog Dumbbell Rows (2 second holds)
40’sx5/5 – 40x5/5
70’sx3/3 – 70x3/3
90’sx6/6 – 122x6/6
90’sx6/6 – 122x6/6
90’sx6/6 – 122x6/6
90’sx6/6 – 122x6/6

Iso Seated Log Pin Presses (5 seconds)/Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Band Y Raises to Hold (10 seconds)
87x3/28’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/28’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/28’sx10/µb’sx10

Overhead Band Triceps Extensions
mbx25
mbx25

Stretching
 
Comments: The work week has been exhausting and draining. And I had just had a break from it. Ugh. Too many things require my attention and I care too much about stuff. Aching for the weekend at this point. I’m not looking forward to next week as I will get absolutely bodied by work once the restrictions are lifted and also have to into the office for the day Tuesday for the monthly thing that is pointless. Just got to block that out for a bit. My nieces were visiting for a moment and I took the brief time I could afford right after work to play with them for about an hour. This was a session I could afford to push later since it was usually a quicker session. I didn’t set things up like I usually do as I wanted to give myself some rest to recover between stuff and set things up as my intent was to the stuff in the beginning a bit more. And I was also feeling a bit of the day before. Starting off with alternating dumbbell bench presses supersetted with bird dog rows. This got changed with increasing the RPE and going to 4x6. Seesaw was the correct way for these and notes were to do them with no acceleration like I’ve done for some of the dumbbell exercises. So I knew that I couldn’t do solid dumbbells this time around (at least not for benching) to have things be of appropriate difficulty. I’d see how initial stuff felt and then go from there. I did think that 90’s might be a gamble but considering that I did extra reps by mistake on the warming up, I felt pretty good. As far as the bird dog rows, I was initially going to do 95lbs with solid dumbbell but figured that I might as well use a plateloaded handle for that too and not worry about moving those dumbbells around. So that first pressing set felt pretty good. I was kind  of surprised by how a 20lbs jump didn’t seem to be that much. But then the row didn’t feel like that at all. It was a bear to move it around. Trying it initially my balance just wasn’t there and it was really annoying me. Eventually I seemed to get it together and get the reps. The other side was slightly better. It was then that I looked at the dumbbell and realized my mistake. I had intended to do 102lbs and I had put 122lbs on there. I’ve never tried more than 80lbs on bird dog rows. So that was a big whoopsie. But I still felt that even with that blunder that I could handle this weight for the sets. I did seem to feel better as I went with the rows other than it being tough. Pressing I could feel that I was getting tired over the sets but still felt strong. My mid section was quite worked from these (especially the rows). The problem for next time is figuring out how to progress here as this pretty much used up all the small plates I had. I could see maybe adding up to 6lbs more on the dumbbells. I think I’d be cool with the dumbbell weight being the same (or less haha). As mentioned, I didn’t attempt setting things up for the other part of the workout before starting so that I had a little break in the session. Which was a good idea. However, I did at some point taking apart the dumbbells have the weights pinch my left pinkie finger so that wasn’t great. The triplet pairing outside was next. Log iso work, dumbbells and bands. Same as last time, essentially. The RPE was increased on the dumbbells and band portion but with these kind of exercises, very minimal adjustments needed to really impact that. One of the things suggested was potentially lowering the height I was pressing into on the log iso work if I felt off the chest was more an issue for me as far as the midrange. So I did lower it by one so about 2” lower. I am pleased that log is feeling comfortable when pressing. There does appear to be a hive of wasps in my outdoor rack on the back left side and they do not enjoy it when I do the iso log work. I wouldn’t mind this exercise sticking around. But not sure on how it is improving the press other than I like it and it feel comfortable. Increased the dumbbells by 2lbs as I figured that would be enough to make it difficult by the end and that being harder would make the fatigue in the shoulders make the band work feel tougher as well. So no need to increase the band tension. Shoulders feeling pretty good considering. I was expecting some tension or things feeling impinged coming back after not doing much direct shoulder stuff and from the tense shoulders and neck (similar to how Monday session had felt). But it seems recovery and being in my own bed is helping that. Last thing was triceps. Band stuff for overhead. Thankfully the rep range was increase (15-25 reps) for the two sets. There was also indication for short rests. So that suited me just fine. Sticking to the mini band as suggested and stepping forward to increase the tension. Neutral grip because log. I tired to make a conscious effort to not just let the band whip around when ending the set as far as my shoulders.  Put stuff away as I started cooking dinner and stretched before bed.

July 19, 2023 – Week 4, Day 2

Paused Hatfield Bulgarian FFE Split Squat (3”, 2 seconds)
65x5/5
115x5/5
155x8/8
155x8/8
155x8/8

Front Squats (3-1-0-0 tempo)
65x3
95x3
125x3
155x8
155x8
155x8

Nordic Curl Negatives
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5

Kettlebell Power Pin Swings
113x7
113x7
113x7
113x7
113x7
113x7

Hollow Rocks
bwx30/16/4

Stretching
 
Comments: Yeah, so work was a bear coming back to it. I had 83 missed calls alone. I’d say the bare minimum of things while I was out was done and done late (like a week late). I actually logged in Monday at Midnight just to prune the e-mails down as I knew it would take hours to resolve things while I was out and I had a full plate with work as I was trying to not have a lot of things to be covered while I was out. No breaks besides restroom (I did have meals). I have a feeling I’m going to do this all week and maybe even Monday as well to get things caught up before I start getting additional work (which I still was getting due to interoffice politics). For training, I did bring out the fans after not using them Monday. It was getting muggier and I think the brutal pace with work had drained any tolerance (or tan) I had built over the past week to heat. This session had suggested weights for stuff this time around. Drew had not necessarily been available to review beyond numbers initially due to his own trip situation but commented that ideally I shouldn’t be doing more on the single leg variation of choice than the front squats so as not to over tax the CNS of the core. Still using the same exercise of paused hatfield ffe Bulgarians. RPE was lowered slightly from last time with the plan being 3x8. But weight was suggested to be 155lbs so I went with that as I didn’t expect to be using more than that for the front squats with the modifications. I was initially worried when I started to feel the same sensation I had in the left side inner thigh/hip when it got aggravated doing the bigger diameter stone deep laps in prep for PA Dutch this year. I’m not too sure what would be the cause of it as didn’t feel this at all during vacation training. My thinking was maybe too much stress on the hip flexors/abs from the hollow rocks and the paused dead bugs but it might have just been going up 30lbs on the half kneeling presses Monday. Who knows with my body these days (years). Also not helpful when my left glute/ham cramped up when I was doing the lift on my right side for the first set. But thankfully none of this seemed to be an issue or get worse. This was certainly easier compared to last time and I didn’t feel like I had to undo my soft belts to breath and recover. Probably because less weight and less reps. I definitely could’ve done more weight to be in the RPE range. But I guess this is fine for a first true session after the deload vacation break. I should also note that ROM and ease of it getting the deep stretch felt a lot easier than normal. Then it was on to front squats. Still tempo work. Slight increase in the RPE and some changes. Increase in sets (3x8) but decrease in the eccentric (3 vs 5). But I do feel that last time I did push things a bit too close on the RPE range so I did stick with 155lbs to be on the safe side. Again, coming back. Wanted to make sure stuff was feeling good. There are aches in the left knee but manageable and I feel like not as bad as would feel if bar was on my back. Plan was to take 3 mins rest and report back RIR on the last set. I was a little paranoid that I would take too long rest (kind of happened last time sucking wind) but I ended up doing closer to 2 mins. I felt good on these. Nordic curls were up next. Same as last time. It does seem like these are starting to hit the point where a change up is needed (and it looks like from reviewing the next thing that that is already known and planned for). Lower legs were feeling a little more agitated than usual because I had been doing different exercises while on vacation as well as doing 3 miles walks in sand so things had been feeling a little more worked. Such as my left lower leg (tib and sometimes the soleus) cramping slightly. Well decided to cramp up on the first set so I had to take a brief break to shake out the leg before resuming. There was some slightly concern in the back of my head because of what had happened that one time when doing these and my lower leg strained. I have to keep telling myself I can keep going and that these get better as the sets go. Then swings. It seems the focus is less on the weight and more of increasing the volume and power while decreasing the time it takes to do so. As in, shorter rests being the suggested method of progression and then adding weight once that is at minimal. Since this was 6x7 and the suggested was 112lbs, I decided to just see how this went with all the 25’s I could fit on the handle I have and aim for the shorter side of the rests. The smaller plate diameter certainly makes the setup and go quicker without worrying about clearance. The weight wasn’t feeling heavy but I could feel some fatigue accumulating from the repeated effort. I inadvertently took shorter rests than anticipated. I had meant for it to be 75 seconds and ended up being more like 50 seconds. I guess the timing I had from pacing previously was from when my legs were fatigued more from the previous exercises. I’m not too sure how to proceed as I’m not sure if this is just an off-season thing or if this will be something that will continue into the contest prep. Last thing was the hollow rocks. So I did get confirmation that back and forth is one. I’ve gone a bit more used to them from being every other session on vacation. I can do them on hard floor. I wasn’t too sure if I maintained for higher reps but I guess I did here. Almost to the point where I can do all the reps in two sets. I guess I got one more session of these before something changes. Cooked dinner and stretched before bed.

July 17, 2023 – Week 4, Day 1

Well back from the longest vacation I’ve taken in about 2 decades. I tend to not take vacations unless they are holidays really and even then it is short and with minimal travel if I can help it. I don’t find the vacation relaxing. I don’t like abrupt change as I find comfort in the familiar and my routines. But I want to do things. Beach stuff I hadn’t gone in a long while before I went for a few days in 2021. Plan was to do the same for 2022 but I got myself stressed out and sick and cancelled. It had worked last time as it was right after a competition and was resting. That had been the plan last year but I wanted to push for Nats after not qualifying earlier in the year and I think that added to the stress. So to make up for it this time around, I took off a week and a day from work for 9 days (10 days for a day back to get back on track). Wanted to see how that was. As this was off season, I was able to justify to myself that I didn’t have to do serious training while away. It was probably a good thing I didn’t force anything as it would’ve been way too stressful to keep up the schedule. Especially with how much effort it took to unload everything that first day. I had to move the band/bodyweight workouts a day because of that. Those were under 40 minutes (alternated with 3 mile walks on the beach). It took about 2 days before I started to feel normal there and I was about overwhelmed after another 2 days and adjusted my output accordingly (less time outside, sleeping in). The addition of more people with different dynamics with the other people I think upped my stress. I justified to myself that this was a training camp as far as the beach walks, ocean swimming and band/bodyweight workouts. If I have to treat things in those parameters to do this stuff, so be it.

One Arm Half Kneeling Dumbbell Strict Presses w/ Band Rows (mb, 3 second eccentrics)
10x3/3
40x3/3
70x8/8
70x8/8
70x8/8

Feet Up Swiss Bar Bench Presses/Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows
60x3/40’sx3
110x3/70’sx3
150x12/88’sx12
160x12/88’sx12
170x12/88’sx12

Landmine Bar Twists/Kettlebell Windmills
50x6/6 – 30x6/6
53x6/6 – 30x6/6
56x6/6 – 30x6/6

Stretching
 
Comments: Good to be back home. Stuff fits like a glove here. As I took off work today as I figured I’d need a day back to adapt (especially with how booked this week back is going to be as well as all the work while I was out) so I ended up starting training earlier than I usually would. My left side neck and shoulder were still achy. It had flared up initially at the start of the vacation with the different bed and all the moving of things from vehicles up stairs that first day. It had seemed to calm down but I got tossed around a good bit the day before I left by the rough surf and had to plant myself at least twice to keep from being crushed. So that was probably why that was feeling a little off. While it was a bit warm/humid, it felt comfortable compared to the climate at the beach so I felt no need for the fans. One arm pressing in the half kneeling position to start things off. Tempo and band row as part of it as well. 3x8 with 3-4RIR. I took 30lbs jumps as was hoping that I’d be able to handle 70lbs here this time around. That was a bit of a rough start. Overhead pressing wasn’t really something that was hit in the workouts on vacation. I do think when I’ve pushed these more that I’ve worn wrist wraps but trying to avoid that for the moment. That first set on the left side with how that first rep felt, I was feeling defeated. It felt like a 1rm. But thankfully it was not and I kept pushing. Elbows and shoulders were a tad achy coming back. I took rests between sides and sets on these with the big jump up in weight. Right side had a better go of it. Second set felt better for the left side. Started to have balance issues on some reps with the left side the last set. Right side no issues and got better as I went. I would’ve been devastated if I had only got a single with 70lbs. Just having a bit of a rude waking up for my shoulders. May need to move back a bit for the bands. Supersets after that. Change to the first one. Had been push ups but with how the vacation sessions were, I was doing push ups a fair bit so this was changed to a feet up swiss bar bench press instead. Still doing chest supported dumbbell rows with no acceleration reps. I wasn’t too sure about the pressing. I’ve only done the feet up for a few sessions one cycle and that was with a very close grip and barbell. And can’t say where I am. Said to do 3x12 and keep it RPE 5-6 to start. Might not even do this again depending. I was initially thinking 180lbs but then dropped that back to 130lbs and then adjusted to 150lbs. I was a bit hung up on transitioning between the benching and rowing since both needed the bench. It wasn’t that bad after practice. Pressing I was setup a little too close as I kept hitting the uprights the first set. I adjusted after that. I was too light to start and added weight every set. The rows was about where I’d need them to be so no need to change weights there. ROM was shorter as I had to use the 25’s for the loadable handles. This pairing wasn’t that bad. As I had to setup stuff for that pairing, that meant I didn’t need to do much for setting up for the last pairing. The landmine bar twists to start and then into windmills. Lower RPE but changed to 3x6. I was initially thinking of the same weights I did last time because of the week off from them as well as it being a slight volume increase. But I could tell the RPE was too low that first set of twists and decided to add weight each set. Only need a little bit for that exercise. The windmills I was curious to see how my shoulders and core would feel. Good but it wasn’t so easy that I felt I was under the RPE like with that first set of bar twists so I kept weight the same for those. Ate lunch and put stuff away before stretching.

July 6, 2023 – Week 2, Day 3

Alternating Dumbbell Bench Presses/Bird Dog Dumbbell Rows (2 second holds)
40’sx5/5 – 40x5/5
70’sx8/8 – 80x8/8
70’sx8/8 – 80x8/8
70’sx8/8 – 80x8/8

Iso Seated Log Pin Presses (5 seconds)/Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Band Y Raises to Hold (10 seconds)
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10

Overhead Band Triceps Extensions
mbx20
mbx20

Stretching
 
Comments: I wasn’t feeling nearly as sore in the lower body compared to how I was last week. To be expected with how things feel. This workout had been pretty quick last time and that was with still figuring some things out. I made sure stuff was setup as best I could so that I could move between stuff quickly but still be able to rest as needed and get water down in the heat. Hot but not as hot as the day before. But since outside for part of it, I kept the fans on. This was essentially the same workout as last week. Starting off with alternating dumbbell bench presses supersetted with bird dog rows. I didn’t get any updates from Drew on things but I already had summarized as much as he was on vacation last week and this week. I went with the seesaw style for all the reps and sets this time around. Maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. I didn’t increase this weight mostly because it would’ve meant to use the plateloaded handles and I had those already setup for the next thing. Also had done tempo push ups on Monday so chest was still feeling some of that. Solid dumbbells are easier as far as not worrying about stuff coming apart during the lift or after setting the weights down. Coupled with the secondary exercise pairing and shorter rests, it made sense at least for this workout for a repeat. Next few workouts are going to be band and body sessions as well. As is usually the case with pressing like this, left shoulder a little achy/crunchy but felt better as I went and got warmed up. Pressing these was quite easy but not sure how much more easy. The bird dog rows changed a little in that it wasn’t the same weight as the pressing. I only have the one 80lbs dumbbell otherwise I’d have tried to bump that up. Since it was a change in weight, I had to move the pressing weight out of the way and then the rowing weight so slightly more rest between exercises compared to last week. I did expect that these would feel easier but not this easier. I probably could’ve done my 95lbs dumbbell here. I was thinking that if my chest was sore from the push up volume the row volume would also be a thing. My back recovers much quicker it seems. Again, as long as I was doing more and form and intent were there, this was fine. This is just offseason work and kind of coasting things to work around the vacation schedule and feel fresh and healthy for when contest prep starts. We know that I can do light weight on things like rows and come back with big PRs. The triplet pairing outsides was next. Log iso work, dumbbells and bands. Same as last time. I could’ve gone up in weight on these maybe. At least it was noted for higher RPE on the laterals. It was damn hot outside. 3x3, 3x10 and 3x10. But I stuck to the empty log as I don’t think this would matter much. I felt the same weights and such would still be good for the higher RPE namely because last time I messed up on the rest. I had read it as 2-3mins rest when it was actually 90-120sec. So to make up for that I did these with the 90 seconds rest rather than the erroneous 180 seconds I did last time. The isos actually seemed to click quicker compared to last time. No awkward feelings here. The dumbbell laterals was really where things would get spicy. First run through fine and expected. The isos didn’t feel like that much different but I could tell fatigue was building. The laterals felt it the most with the y band raises with end hold were right behind. But I knew I could finish things with what I started with. So log and the band work were easier, dumbbell harder. It is a positive that log is feeling more natural again. Last thing was triceps. Band stuff for overhead. 2x12-20 reps here. Same as last time but indicating leaving less RIR by a tiny bit. Mini band and anchored. My thinking was to step forward more so that more tension and in a different aspect. That did seem to help make things tougher. I stuck to neutral grip for both sets thinking of log press grip. A little less than a minute rest and that seemed to make the second set tougher as far as the fatigue building. Just a bit over 32 minutes to finish things here. Put stuff away and stretched before cooking dinner.

July 5, 2023 – Week 2, Day 2

Paused Hatfield Bulgarian FFE Split Squat (3”, 2 seconds)
65x5/5
105x4/4
140x3/3
170x10/10
170x10/10
170x10/10

Front Squats (5-1-0-0 tempo)
65x3
95x3
125x3
155x8
155x8

Nordic Curl Negatives
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5

Kettlebell Power Pin Swings
122x8
122x8
122x8
122x8
122x8

Hollow Rocks
bwx28/14/8

Stretching
 
Comments: Tuesday was nice to have time to get things in order for the trip as well as catch up on some things as well. Also time with family. Granted going to have a lot of time with them coming up shortly. Work has been less stressful due to the pull back in responsibilities and this has allowed me to focus on certain things rather than every fire that pops up during the day. Almost feels like how it was before the change from specialized tasks to caseloads. Almost. This had been the toughest workout last week and would be the case this week as well but I knew I’d handle it better. It is always the first session when it is quad or lot of rep focused stuff with tempo for lower body especially. Not to say I wasn’t feeling some soreness from Monday’s session. Last time the air quality had been poor and this week it was in the 90’s so I decided to bust out the fans for air flow and circulation. I had been a pretty darn sweaty mess last time. Starting things off was my choice of unilateral quad dominant exercise with some tempo involved. Not specified but assumed that this was to be the same as last week to have something to build from.  So same thing again with the convoluted paused hatfield ffe Bulgarians. Higher RPE and more sets but rep range reduced to 8-10. I felt that I should still attempt to aim for the top end reps at this time during this off-season period. I didn’t have to do as many reps to work up if I didn’t want to. I settled on a 15lbs jump as being sufficient here. See how it felt as sometimes I feel better on these kind of things as I go. I also took my belts off completely between sides and sets to see if that helped with my breathing and recovery between sets. If it did, it was negligible. I was a little worried at the start as the ssb kept wanting to tip off my shoulders. Maybe the shirt I was wearing was too loose. Things seemed to be fine for the working sets. I got through the first two sets feeling fresher compared to last time but definitely got the fatigue in me for that third set. Then it was on to front squats. Same as last week with 2x8 but higher RPE allowed. Feeling here was that I should still be having pre-exhaustion/fatigue from the first exercise but be better adapted compared to last time. I went for a fairly big gamble/jump with 20lbs increase. Probably was cutting it close at the end on these with the 5 second eccentrics and pause. Core and upper back were fatiguing hard by the end of these, especially the second set. Trying to be cognizant of my body position on these with that long down time I have doing the rep. See how my knees are feeling and think where I want things to be moving and what is probably too tight. I was taking breaks tearing down and putting stuff away and setting things up so that I could get a breather as well as keep hydrated with fluids. Not treating these lower body sessions like the upper body where I’m trying to keep those moving quickly and be short and sweet. Nordic curls were up next. Same as last time. Slightly nervous as my lower legs and hamstrings were feeling tight from Saturday stuff still. That potentially meaning I’ll strain the small muscles in the back of the knee. That has only happened to me once but once bitten, twice shy. Trying to get just the barest touches on these to continue to improve. Power pin swings up next. I had contemplating taking one of the power pins from the gym while I was out there (I’m fairly certain they are mine) but reconsidered as I figured that these weren’t specifically for power stairs and more for building up endurance in this motion for not just power stairs but bag toss. I also felt like those handles would rub skin raw with how the setup was. So sticking to my kettlebell setup. Not a ton of space on it for weight but I feel I got enough space to not worry about for the moment. Plan was again to do 5x8 and try to keep to same effort as last time with a linear bump in weight. I felt that maybe I had not used enough weight last time. All 25’s on the pin was only slightly more than last time and I’d have to swap out weight next time anyways so I went with 25’s and then one 35lbs plate. Felt I had a better idea of what I was doing and control. Noticing with the increased weight the dynamic stress on the grip. Again, hopefully I’m doing this right. I can fit another 27lbs on there before having to swap back to the 45’s. Last thing was the hollow rocks. I’m not 100% sure on these but figured I’d treat the back and forth as one rep just in case. I changed my orientation in the room which lead to me hitting the wall some reps and trying to scooch back. Managed a few more reps before my first break. Tried to take less than a minute rest compared to last time. Got the 50 reps and attempted to cool down as I cooked up dinner and then stretched.

July 3, 2023 – Week 2, Day 1

One Arm Half Kneeling Dumbbell Strict Presses w/ Band Rows (mb, 3 second eccentrics)
10x3/3
40x10/10
40x10/10
40x10/10

Paused Push Ups on Kettlebells (2 seconds)/Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows
bwx15/70’sx15
bwx15/70’sx15
bwx12/70’sx15

Landmine Bar Twists/Kettlebell Windmills
50x8/8 – 30x8/8
50x8/8 – 30x8/8

Stretching
 
Comments: Maybe things are during around. Or it won’t be my problem in a few days and won’t be my problem for over a week. Despite my power going out for 3hrs on Sunday, I did finally get to sit down and put my thoughts in order and reflect on the competition and going forward. Also coinciding with the air quality improving as well. As far as the work stuff, it is good that there is a holiday so that I can have a day to get stuff mostly ready for vacation and kind of catch up on postings and such. Muscles in my neck and upper traps were quite sore after Saturday due to the tempo work for the trap bar stuff. Been a bit since I felt this sensation there, even when I was doing the heavy frame work leading up to the last show it was sparse. Work stuff dumb but it has been less stressful with not being required to do all the things I had to as of last week leading up to my time off and I will have a slight reprieve of that when I get back. Because just about everyone took off Monday rather than come in and then be off Tuesday, I did end up having to do more things. But I did want to make the most of the next day for resting so plan with the session was to try and keep it as quick/minimal as possible. As in not get overly complicated with setups. First thing was a return of an exercise that has been absent for a bit. One arm pressing in the half kneeling position. These had been a thing in the off season I recall. Sometime normal and other times with tempo. This was the variation where I also rowed a band with the non pressing side. Maybe as a distraction, maybe as something for thoracic mobility. Plan was a bit higher RPE range but with 3x8-10 and 3 second eccentrics. I wasn’t too sure how these would be feeling really with those eccentrics and not really sure where my pressing is truly at. I want to stick to the higher rep ranges on things if I can to take a mental break and build in ranges I don’t normally do in a contest peak. I didn’t think that 70lbs would be there for sure on the higher end of effort for the lower range of reps. There were some aches in the shoulders and elbows but those did seem to go away. I tried to step back a little more to not have the tension in the band go slack at extension but hard to get things into position. In retrospect, I might have been able to do the 70lbs here but rather start off lighter than too heavy and I’m not sure if this is more just a volume and stability thing with the next planned workout being interchangeable stuff for a vacation as to what the progression will be. But probably too easy if I didn’t need to take rest between sides. It did feel easier as I went. Right side felt more comfortable. From there, the rest of the workout was supersets. First pairing was my choice of push ups (3x12-15) and chest supported dumbbell rows (3x15) with a no accelerated reps protocol. Keep things with like 4RIR. Lot of choices with push ups. I was initially thinking of chaos band stuff for the stability work but I figured that the setup would take up time and went with an easier setup that would be able to open the shoulders up and hit the chest muscle. That being the push ups on kettlebells with pauses. I feel this will be important to get things good for log pressing again. Plan was to do 3x15 but fatigue hits hard and I had to stop at 12 reps to keep from getting too close to failure. I knew my shoulders and chest would be sore later. The rows was interesting in that I’ve done this weight at my own pace for a set of 50 reps one time. But this was to be done with the utmost control. Coupled with the push ups, this did get quite fatiguing and was challenging by the end of the series. Last pairing did require some setup. The landmine bar twists to start and then into windmills. Both lower RPE for 2x8. 50lbs or so seemed to have been fine for the bar twists previously. Maybe a little anxious with these as I usually wore knee sleeves out of habit with how these were programmed in the previous off season stuff. First set for the turn to the left was fine. Right I just straight up forgot what I was doing as far as position and form. I did correct it for the second set. Windmills I just do the plastic sand filled kettlebells like I did last week. I’ve been kind of surprised these have been feeling as good as they have been. I wasn’t too sure how higher reps would go but I’ve done more weight with tempo based stuff previously so maybe not that big an issue. Bends to the left feel easier on these. The left shoulder is the one that feels tense. Managed to finish this workout in under 40 minutes. I’m not too sure what the plan will be with the pressing workouts as go from this brief summer off season to Nationals prep as either day could become the “lighter” session and potentially the later session in the week could be the event focused day. Not sure and that will be something for later. Put stuff away and stretched before cooking dinner. Trying to avoid the icing at the moment to let myself have the inflammation based recovery at this point with the DOMS.

June 26, 2023 – Week 1, Day 1 to July 1, 2023 – Week 1, Day 4

With how things went after the competition, it became too much to try and stick to getting things posted up timely so I pretty much sidelined things until I had a moment to breathe and get the competition write-up done. Was still training and uploading the videos as scheduled but just held on to write-ups and figured to just post all of the previous week's training as one post. I will likely be back to the individual day posts going forward.

June 26, 2023 – Week 1, Day 1

Single Band Arm Archer Rows/Kettlebell Windmills
lbx10/10 – 30x5/5
lbx10/10 – 30x5/5
lbx10/10 – 30x5/5

Wall Sits/Banded Seated Leg Curls
bwx30 seconds/mbx30
bwx30 seconds/mbx30
bwx30 seconds/mbx30

Deadbugs (5 second holds)
bwx10/10
bwx10/10

Walking – 17 minutes

Stretching
 
Comments: It was dumb of me to come back to work on Monday after the competition. I was so tired when I got home that I didn’t have time to really decompress and debrief myself. And coming into work with expectations that anything I had asked for help with the week prior or to be covered for the one day I was out was also dumb of me to expect. But it lead to quite a high spike in my stress coming back to that and still not being resolved by the end of the day when I had to come in for an all day meeting/training day and likely get nothing done as well. So feeling that stress wasn’t helpful. But I guess the fact I didn’t need to take any ibuprofen this day was a good sign. Right knee is achy but hopefully that goes away with doing some lighter off season stuff for these next few weeks to correct things and recover. This workout was optional and I could’ve just gone for a walk but I felt that I needed to do some moving around as I did some walking during the weekend (and I didn’t get sore calves) and I wasn’t going to be able to do my usual walk during lunch or after work because I’d need to commute and wear work clothes. I was very surprised I wasn’t feeling incredibly stiff and sore doing the initial mobility stuff for the session that started with those archer rows and windmills. I kind of forgot that I was to do them with a split stance that first set. I was fully expecting my shoulders to be pissed off about the windmills as they had felt that way just doing the motion the day before when I was trying to warm up for Day 2 of Regionals. I also had thought maybe I was using too much weight as it was to be more a low RPE of 3-5 and flow state. But it seems that I was on the low end of effort here with that. Remembered to do the split stance the second set. Got a little too excited with the kettlebells and hit the ceiling the second set getting them into position. From there it was a combo for the knees. Wall sit isometrics followed by band leg curls. Ridiculously light band tension (micro to mini) for high reps. Tendon health and muscle stuff. Isos were an idea I was thinking of looking at for the legs with the knee stress. Among some other ideas. But I’ve been so swamped and not had time to really put things into more articulated thoughts. And I need to find the time to do that to. Felt like my legs need to be bigger and stronger. Even with this low effort hold, my quads were twitching like the Thing being found out during the blood test scene. Last “exercise” was dead bugs. I’m good on these when the motion is constant. But put in holds and the lower abs are just screwed. These were thankfully without the band resistance like last training session. But the hold time was longer. And I was to do these with 60-90 seconds rest. I was fatiguing quite hard and had to take a brief rest most of the way through the second set and then resume to finish up the set. These are tough. But likely showing an issue/weakness. Feeling like I have a lot of those lately. Last thing was some cardio. Options being walking or sled drag. Since it had been raining hard (and I wouldn’t need to worry about weights or clear streets), I went with walking. I ended up taking a little longer than the suggested 10-15 minutes but I felt that was fine since I knew I wouldn’t get time tomorrow to do anything. Stretched and iced my knees after and I made and ate dinner. Went to bed really frustrated with just my current situation.

 

 June 28, 2023 – Week 1, Day 2

Paused Hatfield Bulgarian FFE Split Squat (3”, 2 seconds)
65x5/5
95x5/5
125x5/5
155x12/12
155x12/12

Front Squats (5-1-0-0 tempo)
45x3
75x3
105x3
135x8
135x8

Nordic Curl Negatives
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5

Kettlebell Power Pin Swings
104x8
104x8
104x8
104x8
104x8

Hollow Rocks
bwx25/15/10

Stretching
 
Comments: In a surprise to nobody, Tuesday also didn’t go great. At least for the first half of it. Stress from work and not getting the assistance I’ve been asking for in some cases for 2 weeks and feeling the crunch of having stuff be do while I will be out and not having a workable plan. And having to come in for day for manufactured reasons. But also because I haven’t had the chance to really decompress from competing. Really seeing how important that is for my continued mental health. I’m irritable. Didn’t get the chance to do anything exercise related Tuesday because of having to go into the office all day. Doesn’t help feeling envious of other competitors that also competed that are hitting life-time PRs while I’m nursing things and trying to figure out where the bruises on my upper arms came from. This was going to be a much harder workout compared to Monday. That was more for moving around. This was going to be a session where I get bad DOMS because these things haven’t been at the forefront. I should note that I was distracted from things outside myself and wasn’t aware that there was more air quality alerts due to more fires in Canada. I probably should’ve noticed but didn’t figure out until after training. But it wasn’t as poor as it was the last time. Starting things off was my choice of unilateral quad dominant exercise with some tempo involved. Tempo on lower body stuff (especially quad dominant) was going to really put a hurting on me. I had a few ideas in mind and I was having a hard time deciding what was the medicine I needed. Eventually settled on the convoluted hatfield Bulgarian split squats with the front foot elevated. Supposed to be lower RPE and do 2x10-12 with 1-2ct pauses. I felt having the back leg elevated like this would take the “assistance” of that leg out of the equation and work the inner thighs/hips but adding the holding the rack to provide stability and assist in more weight to load eccentrically and be able to complete the sets. I think free standing stuff can be lighter stuff and come later so as not to put so much side to side stability strain on the knees just at the moment. As still feeling the competition. These were needed but lord were they terrible. Feeling almost immediate soreness and breathing hard. But I managed to get through these. Then it was on to front squats. Tempo here too but much longer eccentric. This was actually something that I was going to suggest to Drew as an idea to do (part of it anyways) but we appear to have been of the same mind with the unilateral tempo stuff and now front squats. Front squats seem to feel fine for my knees even when they feel quite crappy vs spinal loading of say the ssb. But I still need to work out my thoughts and articulate it as far as the overall plan of approach. This was also to be lower RPE and for 2x8. With the long eccentrics and how my quads were already feeling, I knew I wasn’t going to get very heavy here and that was fine. These were getting challenging near the end. Nordic curls were up next. Just 3x5 and indication to control the eccentric. I wasn’t too sure how the hamstrings would feel after competing but things were good. I do like doing these kind of exercises as I’ve seen the positive effects for the tendons and the hamstrings but they are not an always exercise as they are quite hard to recover from if done successively. At least for the small muscles in the lower leg that connect. The rest of the session was newish things to me. Power pin swings. Initially I was reading this as training for power stairs but now seeing it might just be to work on the motion of loading the hips for a sandbag toss. To build that up. I don’t have a power pin at home (3 at the gym that I think might be mine but not 100%) but have a loadable kettlebell handle that should work for this. Little different from the usual loading as it was 5x8 and I don’t think I’ve had anything programmed for that many sets on an exercise for those kind of reps. Not complaining, I’ve done this kind of stuff before. Just interesting. I’m not 100% certain I did these as expected. RPE was to be higher than the other stuff but maybe I cut it light as unfamiliar with the movement. I do feel I got better as I went besides the last set. Last thing was a variation of the hollow hold pose. But adding some dynamics to it. Rocking back and forth for core work. Looked silly and something I’ve probably done before out of boredom in some variation. But likely it was going to be tough. Plan was 50 total reps with breaks as needed to keep the RPE 7. I did what I thought was 50 in one clip and took a rest but thought about it and realized that maybe this was only 25 reps as the back and forth might just count as one rep. Better to be safe than sorry. So I did the rest over 2 sets. These lower abdominal exercises just seem to be really tough for me. And likely something that needs improvement. But seem to be tough to recover from. Cooked up dinner and stretched. No icing, letting the inflammation in the legs run its course.

 

 June 29, 2023 – Week 1, Day 3

Alternating Dumbbell Bench Presses/Bird Dog Dumbbell Rows (2 second holds)
10’sx10/10 – 20x10/10
40’sx5/5 – 40x5/5
70’sx8/8 – 70x8/8
70’sx8/8 – 70x8/8
70’sx8/8 – 70x8/8

Iso Seated Log Pin Presses (5 seconds)/Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Band Y Raises to Hold (10 seconds)
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10
87x3/26’sx10/µb’sx10

Overhead Band Triceps Extensions
mbx20
mbx20

Stretching
 
Comments: As expected, I was feeling sore today in the lower body. And likely would be even more so the next day. Just the way things are when it comes to this particular brand of soreness for these muscles and when they are worked in a way they haven’t been used to for a good bit. Some of the stress has been alleviated with having a plan. May not be a good plan but telling myself there is a plan at least lets me afford the option to differ the burden to another time. Essentially working on getting stuff done at work (I’ve been given some break in workload due to time out of office) and waiting until this weekend to finally get some thoughts and ideas down on the proverbial paper. So potentially holding on to these workout session write ups (but posting videos ASAP) until the end of the week so that I don’t feel like I have to get them done. Especially with the upcoming vacation break and those being just band and bodyweight sessions, not really a need to post them while away. But back to the training session. So air still not great. Same as the day before. I think paying attention and being aware of it makes me notice it more. But it isn’t as bad a level as it was the one day when this first happened. This workout was a fair number of exercises but all clustered together. First was a pairing of antagonistic muscle groups. Alternating dumbbell bench presses supersetted with bird dog rows. I’ve not done alternating style pressing before but I have done the bird dog rows. I’ve liked those as something to get back into the swing of things. But I was also thinking more chest/pectorals were probably needed to be built up for log pressing. No tempo related things for the pressing but holds for the rows. I set things up so that I could drop the dumbbells for both exercises. I wasn’t too sure on the style of pressing here really as it said alternating and notes indicated to “seesaw”. I warmed up seesawing the weights and then did alternating (holding the weights at lockout of the non-pressing side) for the first two working sets. I wasn’t sure if this was a time under tension thing (the former) or a mobility thing (the later). I felt more chest effort in the holding at the top and needing to stabilize vs the more mobility based one. Honestly didn’t feel like that much. I was a little concerned that the left side wouldn’t feel that great on these. It was good that the 70’s were the right call for weight. Not much ado for the bird dog rows. Those have been something I’ve done before. Just took a bit at times to figure out which leg corresponded with which arm for the balance. Balance on these is tough at the start but I know it will improve. Forearms near the elbows were feeling the competition at this point. So the next part was more stuff sandwiched together but not any antagonistic groups. More of several different aspects with some priming followed by exhaustion tactics. This took a bit to setup because while some of it wasn’t new (the dumbbell and band stuff), I hadn’t done log iso pressing into pins before. I was to do them seated for triples with the empty log for 5 second efforts at the midway point. I wasn’t sure if my rack setup would be the right one to get the right ROM. I will say it was easier to setup things for anchoring the weight down for an overhead press vs a deadlift. I was initially not feeling the log getting things setup so I was a little concerned that the hill to climb here was going to be more than I wanted to get to an appropriate level. I can’t really make sense of what the numbers for viking press really meant in the grand scheme of things since estimates and I bombed it at competition. But once I got to it I was feeling pretty good. The triset was to be those into dumbbell lateral raises. 10 reps here at RPE 6. I knew that these would fatigue hard with doing isometrics and pairing with static holds and reps of the next exercise. I still went a little heavier just to have it be not too easy if I guessed wrong. The last bit being the y band raises into hold. 10 reps here and then a hold for 10 seconds on the last rep. I misread the rest time so I did go longer than planned for this triset. The isos felt better each set but the fatigue on the reps for the other stuff was noticeably getting tougher. How it does seem to go when I’ve done this kind of thing. Last thing was triceps. Band stuff for overhead. 2x12-20 reps here. Notes said to use micro or mini band and anchor to rack or dumbbell. I was a little confused with things as mini band is quite light tension and it would be difficult to have this setup where I’d feel I had 3-5 reps left for a set of 20 reps. So I did try and get as much tension as I could out of it and really controlled the movement. Also went with the shorter rest period range. Did neutral grip the first set and pronated the second to just get different angles worked. Put stuff mostly away (I left the setup for pin pressing for next week) before stretching and then eating dinner.

 

 July 1, 2023 – Week 1, Day 4

11” Floating Kabuki Trap Bar Deadlifts (Versa Gripps, 5-1-0-0 tempo)
65x3
65x3
115x3
175x3
225x3
285x8
307.5x8
329.5x8

B-Stance Romanian Dumbbell Deadlifts (same side)
40x5/5
80x5/5
110x15/15
110x15/15

GHD Back Extension Holds
bwx37 seconds
bwx37 seconds

Paused Band Assisted Quad Fallbacks (3 seconds)
abx3
abx3
lbx5
lbx5
lbx5

Hip Belt Backward Tire Drags
50x200’
50x200’

Stretching
 
Comments: Finally got the chance to go for a walk on Friday. Air was still bad. Been bad longer than it was last time. Supposedly will be out of the red tomorrow (it was purple the last time). I felt that I needed to walk to help with the soreness in my legs. Doing soft tissue work would help but not nearly as much as also walking around and moving. I had to wait until after work as I couldn’t guarantee I’d walk my usual 2 miles and be back before my lunch break was over. I was feel that stiff. I had initially not planned to go out to train at Lancaster since this was offseason training and the idea with the sessions had been to allow for them to be done at home if necessary since I’d be spending 9 days away from home. The gym also is having events happening this month that could affect gym hours (I wasn’t sure about middle of the month but won’t be here but there is end of the month). However, with the release of event details for Nationals of the deadlift being a trap bar I’ve not used before (kabuki) and the gym having that bar by chance, it made sense to go to the gym. Especially since I could do some of these planned exercises better there then at home and maybe I needed to get out of the house. I had intended to sleep in more but my body said up and I got out there early enough to see people training other stuff for upcoming shows. There had been a partial downed power line on the way so that was something too. I could tell I was still on edge as I was feeling irritated if someone got into my peripheral at the start of things (feeling like they were too close to me). Didn’t really do much mobility work here. I got things setup for the deadlift. Contest will allow the briefs I wore for Nationals last year but didn’t bother with them at this point. So plan was to do 3x6-8 on floating trap bar pull. 3-5 second eccentric with brief pause about 1-2” off the ground. Pick height being 10-12”. This trap bar did look very different with the opening on the one side. It provides its own stand to make loading and unloading weight easy. The knurling is very harsh. Tested out Versa Gripps and my long straps here and decided no really difference in feel other than it taking longer to get the normal straps locked. Competition will be using kilo plates so another reason to test things out and see how they feel. I was initially thinking 285lbs but then thought might be too much after the weights I had to use for front squats with the same tempo so maybe low 200’s instead of high 200’s. I got set and felt like 285lbs was going to be too light and that I could do more. Unlike say the front squats or the complicated single leg work from Wednesday, this wasn’t something I had every day access to or had done all the time. So I added 10kgs a set with making sure the RPE didn’t go above the top end of RPE 6. I took a bit of a break to kind of talk with people and get the sweat to stop for a bit as I put the stuff away. This was helpful and I don’t think I have to use this exact bar to train for the show if I have to. Next was unilateral work. Kind of. I say kind of as there is an emphasis but not truly one side doing the work. Just more so one side with the stance and weight placement. This was b-stance rdls. Didn’t say dumbbell but notes were to do weight on the side the at forward so that left dumbbell or kettlebell. And dumbbell would allow greater ROM. I’ve done these with dumbbells in both hands and dumbbell in opposite side so this was a little different. It is probably a good thing I did these at this gym as I wasn’t expecting 80lbs to feel that easy and need to do 110lbs. Plan as low RPE for 2x10-15. Even this weight had felt lighter than expected. No acceleration reps. So I did these full ROM rather than just mid shin to get a good stretch and kiss the ground. I took short rest and switched sides. Maybe I should’ve rested between sides as the left side felt a lot tougher. Rested before the second set. That set was harder compared to the first for obvious fatigue related reasons. So that was done. Next was back work. Well lower back and glutes. Plan being to hold the lockout of a back extension on the ghd for 2 sets of 30-60 seconds. Add weight if needed. I felt that I’d probably fatigue quick here but tested and immediately saw that no weight was going to be fine for me. Managed to get 37 seconds both times. This is definitely something that will need to be brought up considering the demands for nationals and just seeing how my body was from Day 1 to Day 2 of regionals. The last bit was for the quad/knee health. It was up to me on the order but I felt the order as written was how I was going to go about it. First part being those quad fallbacks. But using band assistance to keep RPE low and reinforce good form with pauses. I’ve done these without bands and with band resistance but it was more of me having the flexibility to get into the final position but not really moving through the full ROM and putting the stress where it needed to be. So I think these with band assistance are a better thing for me to work on this aspect. Ankles can be temperamental on these over time as well. I could probably use less band assistance, more that I needed to get comfortable with the ROM and not have things so tight to get my head touching the ground again. Last thing was light sled work. Lowest RPE thing here. I figured that I’d do 2x200’ with the essentially empty tire sled as that would meet the criteria and get blood pumping. This was probably barely the low end but it checked the box. Put stuff away and stretched before heading home. Need to use my Sunday wisely to get my thoughts in order finally. Or I’m going to miss it.

June 24-25, 2023 – Northeast Regional Championship

Normally, I compete and then do a write-up the next day. I’ve done that about 40 times now without fail. Train, compete, reflect and repeat. This time things didn’t quite work out in that way and I’ve been left with the having my thoughts be stuck for about a week longer than usual. And finding that a disruption to the routine is not good for me. Seems better that I let it be quick and pass through me rather than have it not be able to escape and ricochet around, causing more damage. Still chasing this goal I have. And with how I treat things, it may as well be an addiction. Rarely satisfied with what I’ve done, any joy in the performance fleeting, evaporating almost instantly when exposed to any self-reflection. Ephemeral. Like I willingly want my joy stolen from comparison. Never enough. And I feel that want I’m doing is only the bare minimum for me to not go insane at the what feels like a snails pace. But slowly going somewhere. Perhaps nowhere. But a destination. I was still thinking on the things that I wasn’t happy about with the last show. Worries that I’m really only able to keep up with my good events and those will be surpassed at any time. When I feel I put in so much work but my body can’t keep up. Trying to keep those doubts in check but it becomes hard when I’m a pressure cooker of anxiety and stress of my own doing. Medical issues added to it on top of work related things. But there were some good things.

As luck would have it this year, all the shows I did last year lined up and were available. Local, Regional and National. All being able to be done in the state I live in without driving more than 6hrs one way. It was convenient (and the only way things worked for me with stress last year) and odds of things lining up again like this with my showing at Nationals last year had me eager to hit those same beats. While my overall placing at this show wasn’t what I was hoping to show, it had been a large class of competitors and it was well run. But things did seem to be different this year. Not in the quality of the show or the heart put into it. But kind of noticing that across the shows I’ve done. PA Dutch last year had about double the competitors this year. And this show had about same situation. When I initially signed up for this show, it was a one day show. That was also when I had put in my leave requests (my job requires all approved leave to be guaranteed to be approved before 12/15 of the previous year). But that ended up changing into a 2 day show with an additional event added. This had been a show to do in the event that I didn’t qualify for Nationals at PA Dutch but it also served the purpose of testing some things out in a two day show to see if I can work on recovery from Day 1 to Day 2 for better prep for Nats this year. But also to compete at a higher level. When I was seeing the people that were signing up for this, I was making it my goal to not get last place overall. That was the minimum.

Taking the day before off had been a good call this year. I woke up at my usual work time and made the concentrated effort of packing what was needed. I only ended up forgetting my toothbrush this time around. Drive out was mostly uneventful until the GPS told us to drive through Pittsburgh rather than go around like usual. That was a slog. With the show running as earlier session (another show in the afternoon on the first day), I figured it made sense to check-in the day before. I didn’t need to weigh-in going for HW but figured I’d do so anyway and I ended up being 264.6lbs so I could’ve done the under 265lbs class. Maybe. I’m not sure on the rules as I didn’t qualify for this show as that weight class. But I don’t see a point with my goals. This only recently got made it’s own class and who is to say it won’t be removed later. Be in the same boat as the 175lbs and 200lbs class athletes. Champions but no cards. Josh, the promoter, was happy to see me. He has an enthusiasm for this as a promoter that makes it very difficult to deal with just about anyone else with how spoiled I feel. Two shirts, athlete bag of stuff and instructions for the event sent ahead of time and responses to questions in like less than an hour after asking. I know there will be adequate time for warming up and safety precautions taken. I checked the equipment and then head to the hotel to unpack and get something to eat. The restaurant we picked was overpriced for the quality of the food. Best thing was the soup. Read some before finally getting myself to fall into some kind of sleep stupor.

Early morning rise and I thankfully didn’t have trouble stomaching my breakfast. I didn’t feel like I slept the best. I tend to not sleep well in a strange bed. Or with anything that isn’t normally part of my bed. I recall that Hugo Girard had similar issues that caused him to not be able to really sleep at all and suffered for it in multiple day shows. Something I was trying to mitigate this weekend. While I did improve placing on the second day at Nationals, it was more that the last event was my best event and I gobbled up a lot of points while feeling like underperforming on the other events compared to what I felt I could do. I spent time doing mobility stuff and then paced things out with getting warm and staying warm. It wouldn’t be hard with the humidity to stay warm I guess but it was a tepid balancing act. As the dust settled and things were to be underway, there were 9 competitors in the hefty boy class. Several had dropped out as the day got closer. Some I knew and others I didn’t really but I assumed there were no slouches here. I did my best to be comfortable and warm up. Know the first event wasn’t a good one for me and just get on the board and move on with the day.

The first event of the day was max axle deadlift from 13”. No suits allowed, starting weight at 405lbs with planned 40-50lbs jumps. Three attempts with 30 seconds to lift, fight, kick, scream to get it done. I had worked hard on this to try and bring up the deadlift. It is a constant uphill battle. Really feels like that with things like this and overhead. Very rarely do I not hit my expected goals or performances on other events. Training for this had been mostly heavy weeks and then banded pull weeks with eventually morphed into a combo of that and isometric pulls to peak. Even with what I was aiming for here, I was still expecting bottom place here due to the quality of deadlifting pullers in the class. Going into this, bare minimum was 635lbs, which would be a PR without any kind of assistance (suit or briefs) but really I’d like to hit 675lbs. Training that had felt like a possibility with the contest peak as stuck was feeling like I was in the halfway point of 635lbs and 675lbs. Last session I didn’t feel great and called it early (before rage quitting, it was a very stressful day). I will say that while my deadlift wasn’t feeling great at the show, I had every opportunity to warm up as I wanted. I did about plate jumps and felt that I needed to lower my opener from 585lbs to 545lbs just to be on the safe side. There was strategy for placing with number attempts with same weight but I wasn’t feeling confident that I could open with the planned opener with how things were feeling. The under 265lbs were lumped in with the HW so I wasn’t too sure who all was competition at this point. But I definitely was one of the first to go out to lift. 545lbs did go up better than my last heavy warm up but I wasn’t feeling like 635lbs was going to be there honestly. But I was going to do 585lbs. If that was loaded. The HWs had bent one of the bars warming up and ran out of room with regular plates so there were kilo plates added instead. So it was going to be 595lbs for the second attempt. I was kind of almost following myself as far as rest between attempts but it worked for me in that I generally don’t take super long rests in training, even with the heavy singles. Final pull of 635lbs. Kind of surprised it went up without a hitch. I feel that if I got to pick my attempts that 655lbs was probably there. But definitely not 675lbs. My first lift got me the same points as my last lift. Only way would’ve been to stick to the original plan and do 635lbs as my second attempt to gain half a point. But I look at things with kind of three levels of goals; micro (the event), meso (the contest) and macro (career). I felt it was best even though likely no additional points to push the pulls to find where I am for training purposes to assess things for next time as well as get a better idea of recovery for the Day 2 which was a big part of doing this show (my back was absolutely knackered after the double down farmer’s at Nats last year). Not unexpected 9th place here.

Up next was a stone event. Something I’m usually good at. But this was an unknown for me. Stone to shoulder with an atlas stone. 300lbs for reps in 60 seconds. No sticky stuff. Just chalk or nothing allowed. This was originally going to be on Day 2 but got moved up due to weather. And I was fine with that considering how this would hopefully not make Day 2 so rough. As mentioned before in posts and contest write-ups, shouldering implements beyond a circus dumbbell has been relatively new to me. My height as allowed me the luxury of not needing to shoulder stuff to be successful. But there has been an increase in this kind of event so I’ve had to kind of start from scratch and it can be hit or miss. All the other times it has been sandbag. Same principle with a stone but not exactly. Like the stone will stay the same shape unless you break it. Sandbags can be crushed a little and move. Have places to grip. I found that as opposed to getting my head out of the way for the sandbag that leaning my head and jaw into the stone helped stabilize things. I also got wrestling headgear to protect my ear. I had seen a MW pro (James Deffinbaugh) where that on a circus dumbbell event years ago and I did use to wrestle when I was younger so I was aware of this as a lightweight option for protection and had this in case I did end up doing a stone to shoulder event at some point. I made sure it was approved for use by the promoter of course. 300lbs might sound light compared to the 440lbs stone I was lifting in my last contest prep but that extra bit to shoulder and not having tacky was going to be a difference maker. Training for this was fairly unique. Yes, could do stones and did every other week. But there were things that needed to be worked beyond that and with it being no tack, doing stones more frequently could lead to biceps tendonitis issues popping up (not fun). Also had some hip issues from the last show’s prep so it was probably wise to find alternatives. This ended up being zercher goodmornings with a safety squat bar while holding a swiss exercise ball. And against band tension. Just doing these explosively and violently for doubles and triples. A way to build up for the movement and get the triple extension work in as well without worrying about balance. So alternating these two things (the stones and gms) was my bread and butter. I didn’t work up to contest weight on this in training but I felt that what I was doing was close enough as every stone is different. I was aiming for 1-5 here because of that variance. But I’d be really pissed off if I got less than 3 reps. I got ready way too early for this one as I felt the pace of the show was moving a certain way with how the deadlifts wrapped up. So I was already decked to death in athletic tape and an obscene amount of chalk. This would’ve been an issue if I didn’t know how to keep my body from sweating so much. I like liquid chalk as a base coat to use the alcohol content to dry out the skin before applying tape or regular chalk (antiseptic spray works too). Some of the deadlift stuff was still setup so I did some zercher lifts to prime things (like 160lbs only). Warming up with actual stones, I did singles up to about 250lbs and then just lapped the 277lbs stone. I was first up having gotten last on the first event. They had someone checking to make sure everyone was clear of sticky substances. I was the only athlete with headgear and it does seem like a smart choice considering all the blood that was showing up on the stones after competitors were done. Plan was to try and keep a quick pace and not let myself feel tired. That tended to be an issue for me in training getting over nerves and just pushing through as fatigue feels like a lot with the arc of the movement. Made sure the judge was aware I was left-handed to be on that side. Got the first rep quick and proceeded with a second. I hesitated a bit after that one as I got a warning from the judge for not holding it long enough. That did slow the momentum down. Going for the third the stone slipped and I stopped and repositioned it to how it was at the start as that seemed to be the way to get the best grip on it. Need to take time and be aware of things even in the fast pace. Got a third rep securely but it was a bit more a fight to stabilize it. I felt I had one last rep in me with how the stone was feeling. Almost lost it picking it up as it wanted to slip on me. Got it lapped and went for it but I apparently was a bit too mobile in my lower back and it got me off balance and had to bail as I crashed into the backdrop. No injuries but I knew I didn’t have time to reattempt it. Still, credit for 3 reps which managed to tie me for second here.

Final event for the first day was the Hercules hold. Same rules and setup as last year’s show with it being 150lbs listed per hand and no hook grip. Including myself, about half the field had done this last year. I knew what to expect as far as how things would go and feel and of athletes there for the most part. The person that beat me last year wasn’t here and neither were the other grip monsters so I did feel confident that this could be an event win. But never know with things. Unlike last year where this was the last event, this was just the half way point and grip would be a factor later in the competition so have to see what I can muster and hopefully it doesn’t hamper things after that. Training for this was literally nothing to write home about. Similar to how arm over arm and Nationals went, it is almost infuriating how little effort was needed to train this. I had key information from last year to apply for this year. I had planned to do training on the Hercules hold setup at the gym 2-3 times but ended up being just once to test. I knew if I could improve my time without hook grip with 320lbs that I’d be in a good spot. My concern has that even though I had just done a training cycle with Hercules hold, it had been with hook grip and wasn’t working the hands as they would for this style. But it seems even that had a positive effect in the ability to handle time under tension in the forearms, shoulders and upper back muscles. Ended up adding like 13 seconds to my PR with that weight so I was convinced one touch at it was enough. So training had been alternating some rolling bar hangs and axle seated wrist curls while braced. As well as the training for all the other event work that required grip. Before this event, I did have some competitors ask me about tips for this as it seemed to be known I was good at this. It does always surprise me when I’m recognized or someone knows me. I don’t feel like I’m anybody or done anything. But there were people telling me not to hold it all night (reminiscent of some jokes from the r/strongman subreddit with Mark Felix and this event). I had joked with the promoter that if I got over 45 seconds he’d need to increase the weight next time (apparently the plan is to have this event at this show every year and keep a record for each class). I did end up going near the end here due to the second place tie. But it was a three way tie and since I was lowest on the first event, I was going first of that group. I was sweating a bit watching people go. While the same number of people got over 30 seconds compared to last year, there were about half the people this year so it felt like more people. Just have to do it and hold on. Did some doorway stretches to loosen up my shoulders and chest after the stones. As I got ready, I asked the judge if they could read of 10 second intervals. This had been something that I hadn’t been able to get last year as they said they’d read off if hit 40 seconds. Couldn’t hurt to ask and it would be helpful to me (and probably those that are to go). So this request was granted. I got set and knew the release would be uneven and kind of violent. And it was. Almost enough so that I considered dropping immediately to redo it. But I knew this would’ve been unfruitful and this was consistent to everyone describing how this felt upon release of the weight. And I can handle it. I knew I had it when I got to 20 seconds. I was going to break 40 seconds for sure. 42.11 seconds by the time it slipped out of my fingers on the left side. Not quite enough to beat last year’s best time but I did improve my time by almost 4 seconds. Ahead of second place by over 5 seconds. So first place here.

After the first day, I was in 3rd place overall. This was unexpected. I was feeling pretty darn good after this and joked around with some of the fellas. I apparently had chalk on my nose so looked like I had taken some “forbidden pre-workout” and didn’t realize what was being referenced until I got back to the hotel room. Also unexpected was being done at like 1pm competing. The show was still going on with the non-regional show starting in the early afternoon. My dad and I weren’t sure what to do with all this free-time. Stretched out back at the hotel room and cleaned up and went to see a movie. It has been a long time since I’ve gone to a movie theatre or felt the need to go to one to see a movie. There was still time to kill after that as the restaurant wouldn’t take anything earlier than 8pm reservation. Spoiler; it was worth the wait for that food. There was one of those grifter people that tell a sob story to get something outside the hotel and felt it was best to wait until they left but that meant about an hour or so in the city. And then it rained. I don’t think I’ve actually had the opportunity to really walk around the host city of a competition since 2015 in Davenport, IA. It felt very similar. I don’t count 2017 in Las Vegas because that was less a city and more a bunch of malls with no roof on it. Had a good day and hopefully I could ride that momentum into the next day. Iced my left knee and took some Motrin to help with the aches and such. While sleep wasn’t the best, again, I did seem to feel like it was the day before. And that had been a good day so maybe the same thing this time. Tried to keep things as similar to the first day as I could.

First event of the day was what was likely going to be my worst; viking press. Not too sure the weight in hand but it was going to be with 490lbs added to the apparatus. 60 seconds for maximum number of reps. Jerks were allowed if able (the foot print was small). Facing away with neutral grip. This was a piece of equipment that cost several thousand dollars so this wasn’t something that was going to be easy to get a hold of. I’ve done ok at viking press like one time out of the three times I’ve had this event in competition. Those had been facing the weight and sometime with neutral grip and other times with pronated grip. I did seem to figure out finally a good setup for that in training. It took a lot of time but it seemed to work and feel about right when it was time to compete. This was a bit different in that the setup I had been using wasn’t going to work for this facing away style. Not enough clearance for the important parts above the shoulders. So got a rough model made with my dad that I could setup in the backyard (much to the delight of my neighbors I’m sure). It did seem to hold up well with minor issues and adjustments. I actually like training with it and how it felt. But I couldn’t really tell if what I was doing was “good”. I had the calculations to determine what weight in hand was but I didn’t have anything to really compare it to. And I’ve been a bit down on myself when it comes to pressing as it feels like it has been in decline since about a year ago. There will be moments where I hit stuff that is good and like PRs but then it will feel heavy and crap. Changes had to be made with pressing frequency to get things on track as far as recover and this will be something for everything as I keep doing this and get older I’m sure. Alternating strict press weeks and push press weeks and different styles. Trying to work around knee stress and keep on point. I do feel like my pressing got stronger. But I wasn’t sure what I was working towards or if I was even close. Or if this was improving from where I was as this was all imaginary numbers to me. The heaviest I got up to was about 265lbs weight in hand for some reps. My hope was that this was 90% of contest and I could make up the difference in the implement being solid and not the janky thing I was using. I had the opportunity to test it out empty the day before the contest at weigh-ins. It felt a little snug to get into and maybe a little heavy even empty. Thankfully it felt lighter the day of. One of the things I was worried about was making sure I had enough clearance. I was apparently good on that part even at the highest setting. So I didn’t have to half squat the weight up to keep from bottoming out the lift. Last warm up was a single at 400lbs added. So 90lbs away. It felt heavy but not in a way that said I had no shot. Just that like 1-3 reps at most. My left knee wasn’t feeling 100%. This is something that has been popping up after doing the stone to shoulder stuff. Trained around it by not having push press the following week but can’t really mitigate or avoid when all in one show. Also not helpful seeing someone’s knee go and being in the front row. I was going to be the third to last to go and I just say press after to press. Every body besides one person ahead of me got double digits here. The other person got two reps. I felt that maybe I could try for three reps. I got set and went to unrack and it felt godawful heavy. Ok, change of plans, survive. No illusions of multiple reps here, it was going to be an effort to get a single rep. I regrouped and got it up and into position and it went up about halfway and I set it down. Damn it. Knee aching. One more shot. Got it higher but that was more knee flexion and no sir. I stopped there and walked off. It really sucks when you put in so much effort and get a big old goose egg and see every one of your peers just rep the crap out of it. A zero for ninth place.

Moving on to the next event, sandbag toss. 5 bags over 15’ bar from 10’. 40lbs to 60lbs in 5lbs jumps. 60 seconds time limit. This had been an event that gave me stress this prep. Initially thought this would be 30lbs to 50lbs and then come to find out it was 10lbs heavier. The same bag toss series as OSG in 2021 in the finals where only 4 of them finished it. Tosses can be one of those hit or miss deals where you have good days and bad days. And that can mean all the difference between not even getting close to just launching into low orbit. I panicked a bit to get myself feeling like I could do anything above 50lbs here and probably went too heavy with the plan of increased frequency. I didn’t start to feel like things were clicking really until I dropped the weight down considerably on the secondary day and really just try to get my form and triple extension on point. So I was feeling better about it by the end. But I knew that likely a fast 2-3 bags was realistically what I was looking at here. After being sequester inside the day before and for the beginning of today, it was blinding being outside. Thankfully there was a tent to get some shade as well. I had done some exercises to make sure my knee was ok to continue but I was feeling really stiff, even after trying to loosen up. Watching and trying to keep track of people here. My bomb on the viking press sunk me in the placings so I was going near the beginning. I took off my glasses as I knew they’d just get knocked off. My plan was to do a hop back and toss for the first bag and then a shuffle back on the second bag and go from there. First bag I felt slow and stiff but executed as planned. On to the second bag. Walk back and toss. But then I hear a sound and the crowd and see that the bag has gotten stuck on top of the apparatus. Which is ok if it stays there as per the rules. But that meant two things 1) that I wasn’t hitting my normal peaks in toss today and 2) that I likely had more time added since it had to settle before split time as given. I could hear people shouting to me to pick up the pace but I knew I needed to really get things on point to get 50lbs over the height. I’ve been able to get this over this height by itself consistently but not in a series ever. In an exercise in futility, I gave it three attempts whereas my first attempt was my closest and it was close there. After watching the video later on the drive home, I could see I was not getting any ankle extension. Possibly also from the sore left knee. I potentially gave my best effort with the stone event to the determent of this event and viking press. 10.77 seconds to get two bags. No one did end up finishing the series but 3 got 4 and another 3 got 3. Only me beating the athlete that wasn’t able to get one bag over. So eighth place here.

The final event was hopefully one I could make up points on redeem things; the bridge race. Essentially this was a frame carry with a drop and turn. The frames resembling the bridges in the Pittsburgh area with one being yellow and the other black. This was to be a head to head with 720lbs down 50’ and back. Unlimited drops allowed. The pick height on these was high so that was a blessing for me. With how things were, I had no shot of getting back on podium but could get fourth at best. Training for this had been good. For me. I have a high pick frame with thick handles that is 568lbs empty that used to be Mike Jenkins’. I’ve done more weight than competition but with straps for PA Dutch last year. The most I’d done for any distance was 620lbs so really anything above that was PR territory. There hadn’t been really any heavy moving events since October with the one leg of the farmer’s being 330lbs. So I wasn’t sure how quickly I could get this up to par after not doing more than 330lbs in any form of carrying and object, let alone going fast. Progress was good and some heavy unilateral work seemed to help a ton. Worked on transitions and did 700lbs for the contest run twice leading up to this. Goal was sub 25 seconds at contest and hopefully that would be a good time. I wasn’t expecting to win this mind you. I got good grip but I’m not the fastest mover. I try to make up for that with quick transitions. This I feel was the only event I didn’t really get to warm up how I wanted to. It didn’t seem like anyone was going to take the weight down from the group that had just finished and my back was feeling quite stiff. Did a turn around and pick and some steps in place and set it down. I had to see if the knee was going to be ok with this and it was. Turns out it was like 640lbs. I usually like to work up gradually but it was the last thing and I only had so much strikes left on this matchstick. I was in eighth place so I got to go with the guy in seventh. I got set and time started and we were off. Well, he was. I was still standing up with it as he shot off like a from a cannon. The pick up felt excruciatingly long and I felt like I was walking in slow motion. I had some concerns with the grip holding up from having to push things on the hercules hold. I did manage to catch up as he spent more time resecuring his grip after the transition but he was up and away before I was standing up with the weight again. This pick felt harder than the first. Legs were heavy, I wasn’t beating that guy. Pride told me to finish this out and don’t drop it. Started to list to the right side a bit. But I kept going and I went all the way across the line before setting down (only the front had to cross). The helpers were appreciative of me resetting the course for them. I felt like I was the slowest I’ve ever been on this and my time had to be over 30 seconds. My time ended up being 23.71 seconds which was a PR from my times in training and beat my goal. But this ended up not being that good with everyone else. I ended up in fifth as just about everyone else finished in a fast time. I was expecting more people to have issues with holding onto this weight for this distance. Winning time was over 10 seconds faster. The level continues to improve I see.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it stung to plummet from the high of third overall to eighth at the end of the day. To only earn a third of the points I had gotten the first day. I think the viking press most frustrating in that I don’t know if I improved in a reasonably way whereas the other things I can quantify and see that even if not the best performances I wanted, there was improvement. This was certainly up a level from last year. As in feeling like the Plat Plus shows of old where I got my rear handed to me on the regular. So I guess that hasn’t really changed. Despite my dour musing, I did enjoy this competition with how things were run and being able to hang out with people. I didn’t feel like I could do that at the last local show. I was genuinely happy with other people’s progress from last year on things as well as giving tips on things. I do wish this was closer to where I lived. The drive home was much smoother compared to the drive here making sure to not listen to the GPS and avoid Pittsburgh. I got a lot to think on and formulate going forward for Nationals. Sticking to the plan of taking the last week of June and month of July to do off-season training and come back refreshed and better. I seem to do best when I take this kind of break as opposed to just competition after competition. Especially how serious I take it. But for the moment, just got a sore knee and regretting not taking another day off from work.