August 14, 2023 – Week 8, Day 1 & August 16, 2023 – Week 8, Day 2

 So I was hoping that I wouldn’t be in the situation where I had to stop and take a look at things. But here we are. Again. In short, bad session beginning of the week and got depressed. I generally don’t have bad workouts. At least not ones where I just give up on the workout. Happened last year leading up to Nationals and had one leading up to Regionals. Not enjoying that kind of frequency. Feeling like quitting this if I can’t get myself out of this funk and get the issue I feel I have resolved. I don’t like the feeling of regression. Is this all I got? It’s kind of a culmination of things. Ignoring the discomfort of some things because the overall result is still improvement. I’ve been dealing with knee joint issues for a bit now potentially from overuse and tendonitis things. Could be the same for other joints. The repeating story of putting a ton of effort in things like overhead press and deadlifts and seeing either regression, stagnation or slight changes. Feeling like pushing things too hard up to competitions and not really getting the deload I need. I didn’t use to need to take off season stuff like I’ve been doing. Of two minds that either I need to reduce weights and build mass with volume or go back to much less volume and just the essentials. Trim the fat to the bare minimum things to promote recovery. Stress sneaks up on you and you think you can just handle it and then when you can’t, you see what it was doing. I was dealing with stress from a tax related clerical error this week (which appears to be resolved). My bodyweight is under 260lbs most days now. Only change had been not using Door Dash and cooking my own meals all the time. Going to still give Nationals a shot here but having to make changes. Try to get myself feeling like myself again. I will say that I feel like I rebounded a bit better than most times this stuff happens. Already formulating a plan (even if it wasn’t a good one) and self-care stuff like shaving and putting dishes away. Feeling a bit better but still anxious. My mood is much like a game of keep up with a balloon and impediment will like have me shutdown briefly while I process and rebuild my shield. If I’m not feeling right for Nationals, I do have another competition for December. And If I’m just not feeling it in general, then maybe I just stop. As Drew had mentioned to me; the progress will end at some point with physical training. What will keep you going at that point?

August 14, 2023 – Week 8, Day 1

Sandbag Tosses (15’7”, stay on toes)
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1
33x1

12” Log Clean and Push Presses (one clean)
87x3
110x3
135x3
160x3
185x3
210x3
235x3
235x3
235x1
235x2

Comments: Felt some anxiety for the log portion of workout. Probably telling. Biceps had been still kind of sore from Saturday with the sweatiness and the slippery stone. I got a little distracted Sunday as far as getting stuff taken care of. I think I was trying to get things to be the best with the new changes. I’ve had the stressful sleep stuff stressing about stuff before. Usually it has been about overhead press when previous sessions weren’t great or deadlift where I don’t feel I can do the progression from the last workout. The overhead stuff has been a somewhat recent thing as in the last 18 months. Last time with deadlift it was 2019 or 2020. Weather was not shaping up to be good after work but it seemed like I’d still be able to get the sandbag and log stuff finished before that happened. These workouts would take too long to try and do stuff during my lunch break. Especially with very little staff available. I did try and get things setup for the rest of the workout for after that and get things figured out. Starting things off was again sandbag toss. Same as last week with it being 10 tosses and trying to stay on the toes. I had gotten a new throw bag for at home for this workout so that I wasn’t taking away bags for the one guy training for Nationals out of the gym in Lancaster. I had fixed the toss tower on Sunday. I was told I could add 2-6lbs to the bag if I got all the tosses last time at 30lbs. I went with 3lbs even though technically I didn’t. I blame that more on being rusty and the rain last week. These went a lot better. No misses. Only had one where the arc was a little too far in front that grazed the upright on the way back down. I was also able to stay on my toes a bit better after the tosses. Some tosses better than others. I can even see myself getting a little air on these too. I’ve been bad with being flatfooted on this event. Then log. This didn’t go very well at all. Plan was to work up to 5x3 with 225-235lbs. Now log hadn’t felt that great last time but I figured that like usually is the case; I feel better the second touch on stuff after I’d been away a bit. That was not the case. This felt tougher than last week, even warming up. I did the sit with the log to get my knees and ankles mobile. I’m not sure if it is because I was overworked or if it was the humidity and temperature or the grip shirt not being a breathable fabric (really probably a combo of it all) but I was sweating I think even worse than when I was on stones Saturday. First set wasn’t that great. Second set the log was flying up but my balance was sucking so I had to catch my balance and resettle each rep. I had been watching video of my pressing the week before to try and get it so that I wasn’t moving out of groove. So much for that. Then it started raining. I didn’t think it would be that bad but it was enough that my grip sucked on the handles and I couldn’t grip it well in the rack after the first press and it went out in front. Yes, I had just missed something less than 80% of my 1rm. I put hand towels on the handles and took a few breathes before going back outside to give it another shot. This time I got two reps and then the third just couldn’t generate enough power to really get to where I could press it. I felt I had no power there. No strength. I briefly thought about dropping the weight down to 225lbs. Then to 210lbs. And then just stopping and moving on to the next thing. Which was to be rack support and holds on the chest. It was raining harder and I had things setup and then I just said screw it and stopped the session. I didn’t see a point in continuing. I’m missing a weight that I consistently hit for reps as under 231lbs athlete. I’ve done this weight for a set of 10 reps in the last 5yrs as part of a workout. The rationale with this being tough was haven’t touched this in about 18mos but my counter was it was 4yrs since I did a block press and I was doing more weight than this on that the first session back. It just was the last piece of confirmation I needed that my overhead pressing was really down at this point. I’d never have thought that 285lbs would be a long shot for me and now it could very well be out of reach for Nationals. No stretching but I did make myself eat a big dinner before bed. Got to make some difficult decisions this week.



August 16, 2023 – Week 8, Day 2

Dynamic Warm ups

18” Front Box Squats (beltless)
45x3
75x3
105x3
135x3
165x3
165x3
165x3

Band Assisted Nordic Curls
abx10
lbx8
lbx8
lbx8

Power Pin Swings w/ band
120+lbx15
120+lbx15

Banded Lying Knee Tucks (2 second holds)
µb’sx30

Stretching
 
Comments: This wasn’t a planned workout. I was still ambivalent at this point. This was a mixture of doing something out of guilt and testing things to try and keep moving forward. The workout planned was more intense and was similar to what was programmed for last week. Putting a halt to training with Drew because I need a break. I need to try and get back to enjoying things again. And I feel terrible putting an end to that. I shared my heartfelt feelings and thanks for the past 2.5yrs as I had felt at the beginning that I was done with this sport. Even if I don’t get back to feeling the way I was, I at least got to put in good showings and extend my competitive life 3 more years. And spank everyone in the country on an event at Nationals. I was spending time trying to figure out my own thing as well as reaching out to previous mentors about assistance. See if I had any other options besides myself. And to see if I was really in any potential shape to go at Nationals this year. The first thing for this workout was a bit of a departure from what I’ve been doing. The dynamic warm up was a but of different exercises that I used to do before workouts in the past that worked knees, hips, ankles and back. Also a little cardio to get the heartrate up. That actually seemed like a good idea considering I was feeling tired/sluggish. Because when you let the guards down, you just feel all that fatigue and stress you were unintentionally holding. That the stronger version of you was holding no problem. I wanted to try to have things be incorporating stuff from older workouts with newer workout ideas. I think I was also under the delusion that I would be training this weekend like nothing happened too. Plan was no support gear. First thing was front squats. To a box. Work up in 30lbs jumps in triples to 50% of what I feel I could hit at this point. I know my squatting is down in general. Overhead is like 85%. Front squats not quite that far down I think (about 88%). I also wanted to see if my usual moving event shoes would work as I think I was concerned that I’m not really getting anything out of the oly shoes with log pressing as far as getting drive. No knee sleeves and different shoes and stopping on a box did not make the knees happy. I will say that I did feel like I could actually move my foot as needed but it took until the last set where I got everything to kind of feel good and function how I wanted it to. So not exactly thrilled with my knees here. So next thing was Nordic curls with band assistance. Trying to do these with more band assistance so that more RIR situation and I could get better quality of movement. I think I was surprised that the average band assistance didn’t really feel that easy for a warm up. I wanted some warm up as usually the first set is rough on these and I tend to be slow on the descent. Plan was to just do 3x8 with no tempo. These felt ok. Next was something that I was to do in the original workout. I got this power pin for swings, might as well use it. Since I’m pretty much maxing out the weight with smaller diameter plates, this was to be 5x8 with band tension added. I wanted to see how the band tension felt but I wasn’t going to do that many sets. 120lbs and a light band as I figured I’d be good for it. It felt a little awkward at first but then I got it. It felt easy so I went for higher reps. Yep, that was the ticket. The glutes and hips were really feeling that fatigue after double digits. Limited myself to two sets and that was enough honestly. Last thing was those knee tuck things that I figured out last week. I like those and figured I’d do one max rep set but leaving plenty of reps in the tank. The added reps did make things a bit tougher but there is just a threshold I think where it sucks and then it doesn’t get more sucky. A sustained suck. And then you get used to that suck and it isn’t so bad. That’s how these feel. So as far as the workout; the first two things were meh and the last two things were interesting. So maybe there is hope for me. Already been advised to take off the rest of the week and deload. Attack this again in the next week. Stretched after eating dinner.