December 24, 2023 - December 30, 2023 - Week 2

December 25, 2023 – Week 2, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

12” Log Incline Bench Presses
90x5
120x5
150x5
180x5
210x5
240x5

Band Assisted Pull-ups
sbx5 at pin 12
sbx5 at pin 15
sbx5 at pin 18
sbx5 at pin 21
sbx5 at pin 24

Axle Strict Presses
90x2
120x2
150x2
150x2
150x2
150x2
150x12

Standing Axle Lockouts
150x3 seconds
170x3 seconds
190x3 seconds
210x3 seconds
230x3 seconds
250x3 seconds
270x3 seconds
290x3 seconds
310x3 seconds
330x3 seconds
350x20 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: The winter and fall with lots of people around. Risk of catching something increases dramatically. Especially with small children. Immune system already seems a little frayed just with how I seem to handle stress. Took allergy meds the day before as well as today. Lower legs were really sore walking yesterday. I was debating doing anything because they were feeling quite sore walking. I thought perhaps replacing the insoles would solve that but it did not. I had also thought I had either dropped or stayed the same as far as weight. Nope, broke the latest stagnation with getting just above 275lbs after several weeks at 272ish. Allergies have been bad as lot of pollen this week which would normally be not a thing with the colder weather having it be snow rather than rain. I know that I’ll be paying for it taking allergy meds and the like to keep up and about and doing what I want to do. Upper back was quite sore from frame carry. Over for a little bit in the morning for Christmas and then plan to be back for dinner. So training in the sunlight for once as far as an upper body session since the longer workouts and the DLS ending. I’ll be off work similarly next week which is probably a good thing for the first go around with this particular workout. See what I’m doing. I ended up taking some Airborne with allergy meds before starting the session. So I wasn’t too sure what I’d actually be doing with medication. Mobility stuff per usual was fine. Some times knees and shoulders ached but this is pretty standard at this point. I was a bit surprised just how warm out it was. Then time for the weight training. Starting off with log incline benching. It would seem that focus for the moment is benching variations followed up with strict pressing. Competition has alternating axle and log for the press event so I need to get both of those to be on point. Can handle more weight on the benching so makes sense to start off training with them at the moment and then adjust things as stuff starts to come together. Plan for the session was work up in 5’s to a top set of 5. But not a max. Make sure to leave something in the tank so that over the course of the next workouts to be able to hit a 5rm next time and then improve on that next time. So plan accordingly. I had wanted to do 240lbs. 220lbs was what was listed/suggested. I had done this exact workout the week before the deload for the last show. I had thought I’d have the shot at 240lbs at that time as well. Going lighter was the right call at that time. But I want to try and get myself into the frame of pressing heavier stuff again. I wasn’t treating it like I’m back at my max anyways. More like a little over 90% of what I can do. So this would be like 30lbs under my 5rm weight, give or take, for my lifetime best. Warming up was just feeling ok. Again, I had taken stuff so it was hard to tell what I was actually feeling like at this point. 30lbs jumps seemed fine. Just feeling the weight on my wrists and shoulders. I was second guessing myself for that top set. Wondering if the set before was too hard to really add weight on (after I had made a mental note to record a work up set or two on overhead based pressing going forward when challenging). I put 230lbs on but then I convinced myself to do 240lbs like I had planned. It did move quite well but not as well as it should be if I’m expecting to add 15lbs a session. May have to see how things go and perhaps just do something like 10lbs. From there it was band assisted pull-ups. Sets of 5 reps, like the incline log pressing. This was also suggested as a repeat of last session I did these with it being 3 pin jumps to the essentially the bottom of the rack for the last set. I didn’t make sense for this one to jump up a notch in difficulty. This can be temperamental and I’d rather save it for next time. Especially since this would be the first of these since the competition. Upper back is sore from frame and hopefully my arms don’t react negatively. I feel it has been enough of a rest from the competition at this point. I was moving through these sets fairly quick until I got to the last one where I rested a little bit (mostly to setup and testing out something as an option). Left shoulder was feeling slightly achy on these today but I know that is more from not doing stuff rather than irritation from doing these. I can look back through earlier sessions from the previous cycle where I mention similar. I think next time I will reduce the band assistance from the strong band to the average band. Axle strict pressing was up next. This will be alternating with log weekly at this point. Warm up as needed and do 5x2 at 60%. Which I’m treating my max for both log and axle as the same at this point. So 150lbs. Did 30lbs jumps from 90lbs (as that will be where I start with log). I was allowed to wear all gear but I wore just my wrist wraps loose and just soft belt combo. I didn’t feel like this was heavy enough to really be needing the belt and rather not constrict things if not needed with the allergy and other breathing related stuff. I was trying my best here to stand up fully and not use the momentum of the lifting off the rack to cheat the first rep. Or use the rebound of the first rep for the second rep. Trying to just anchor myself and use my hips and shoulders as far as being a fast movement. Left shoulder a little achy on these initially. I’ve been doing mostly log press and the axle pressing I was doing for the last cycle was at chin level so a bit of ROM that wasn’t really hit for a bit. But it will come back to me and feel fine shortly. I was pleased with how powerful these were feeling. I recall sessions last year where a strict press felt so heavy and terrible in my hands that I chucked the weight out of the rack when I was done. Don’t wish to have that feeling again. I took maybe 90 seconds rests here. On the last set, I was allowed to rep it out if I was feeling good. I don’t know if necessarily feeling good, but I was feeling better than I did at the start of the workout and it was probably a good idea to get in some higher reps on strict pressing since been a lot of singles and doubles lately. I made it a point to keep the reps like I was doing and stop when I felt like I was slowing down a lot from the start. Notes were to leave 1 rep in the tank. I feel I left more than that. So happy with the comfortable 12 reps here. Last thing was lockout workout. Leaving right where the strict pressing left off. Goal was to work up to a top weight that I could do a 6” ROM lockout and hold that weight for 20-30 seconds. Lot of TUT for upper back structure for this off season is planned. The long term goal being well over my press max for a minute. Which might be tricky with the training plan being to add time and/or weight to this each time. I did 3 second holds going up 20lbs. I was hoping to use over my life time bests in push press here. I wasn’t too sure what I’ve done on these really as I think it has been short holds in the past. I did have to raise up the rack a bit so that the ROM wasn’t too large pressing right off the top of the rack (I’ll have to stand on something for log though haha). I was planning on 330lbs as the absolute top weight but it felt fine enough so I said screw it, do 350lbs. I usually face the house on these but due to the sun, I was facing the other way. It might be better to do this going forward as well as I think that I use the reflection when facing the house when I won’t have that visual guide at a competition. I think I got a little more nervous or excited for this set as 350lbs felt a lot tougher as far as balancing. The lockout was easy. Really working on rooting myself and bracing and segments before putting in the effort to lockout with the arms. I almost dropped it like 3 seconds in but recovered. I forgot how tough this can be with heavy enough weight. I feel like I can hold weights I normally can press out for a long time. I imagine my upper back feeling sore from Saturday probably planned a factor here. But I managed to eek out a little over 20 seconds before I put it down. I wasn’t to go to failure here. I ended up having to put away weights while also eating four of my meals to make up for time. Stretched after that.

December 27, 2023 – Week 2, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Wide Grip Deadlifts w/ Hip Circle (straps)
135x5
185x3
225x3
275x3
315x3
365x3
405x5

Hyper Extensions
bwx10

Hyper Extension Holds (Neck Harness & Plate)
10+45x38 seconds

Planks
bw+40x60 seconds

Side Planks
bwx60/60 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: Still feeling under the weather from how I was feeling beginning of the week. It has been a while since I’ve not felt fine and dandy. Trying my best to boost the immune system by not staying up as late as I’d normally do and taking several meds in a cocktail (Nasonex, Claritin, Dayquil, Airborne). I should hopefully feel better as I won’t need to really be socializing until next week. But it is still annoying. Work will be dumb this week as well. Lower legs felt better walking this time around and didn’t get shin splints so I guess the issue had to do with the park fun from Saturday. Neck feels tense as well as shoulders. Left shoulder more so and right side of neck. Neck I think is more to do with the overhead support based stuff. There is a lot more neck based stuff with the harness thing as well. Shoulders I think just from not doing full ROM strict pressing with this kind of bar in a while. Feeling some tendons being sore in the shoulders. Also was feeling some golfer’s elbow stuff but worked that out with some mobility stuff I learned to deal with that from before. Rainy today and I’d probably prefer if I wasn’t needing to take meds to do this kind of workout. But here we are. Mobility stuff to start things off. I got the order for some of these wrong as I was focused on the one floor to overhead drill that I do. Apparently I can do that one inside the garage and not hit the ceiling. So that’s good to know. Also did ankle/knee/hip stuff on top of that as I was to be doing some floor based pulling today. The start of the lifting part of the workout was a variation on something I’ve done before. Written as “snatch grip deadlifts” I indicate them as wide grip deadlifts. I can go much wider for a “snatch grip” but I like to differentiate these as well because these deadlifts aren’t just a wide grip. They are also a wider stance. So I kind of like to keep a normal stance with the snatch grip to keep track of what I’m doing. As they feel quite different. I’ve done snatch grip in the last year but it has been likely three years or so since I did the wide grip. And these weren’t just going to be that unfortunately. Added flavor of a hip circle, which is just a stretchy material that provides resistance when you try and spread your legs apart. So I’d need to be working hard to keep my legs in the wider stance as well as not having them bend in with the hip circle. And then finally, I was to do these with control after the first rep to keep the arch and sit back and pause briefly on the floor. Take a breath at the top. I’ve done this before with regular deadlifts and sometimes with these but there was more of a pronounced stop to reset rather than hold it for the duration. So this was probably going to be terrible. Which is kind of how off season deadlift training needs to be. There was some troubleshooting on my part with the hip circle, especially as I added more core support gear. Hard to get it on after putting on hard belt. So ended up putting it on but keeping narrow stance until I put on the belts and then got setup. I guess I should be glad things didn’t feel awkward to get down to the bar and strap in for the wide grip. 135lbs didn’t feel great. It was a bit awkward feeling doing the movement. Luckily for me, 135lbs doesn’t generally mean that is how things are going to be for the day. The plan after that was 40-50lbs doing triples to a top set of 5 reps, which was suggested as 405lbs. I figured that should work and maybe I could do more if feeling good as I’ve done 495lbs on these for a single before with some in the tank. It was hard to say working up in weight as things were feeling pretty good up to 315lbs. Then it started to feel tough and I knew after 365lbs that 405lbs was going to be it for the day. Glutes were feeling sore and my lower back too. Knees were feeling a little achy I think from fighting against the hip circle as well. I got this done but it was tough. Got a bit of the stanky legs going on the last two reps. Could feel my left knee wanting to go inward rather than stay out/inline. I think I did well as keeping the brace here. Hopefully this is what I was to be doing. Looking at my notes, I’ve apparently not really done these for reps like this beyond warming up, usually has been singles and doubles. So not just me on this. From there it was time for the hyper bench hold with the neck harness and plate. Warming up for it with hyper extensions. I could tell this wasn’t going to be a time to try and add weight to the neck harness with how I was feeling. My lower back was feeling pretty fatigued from the pulls already. I had been pretty darn fresh last week when I did these. Bunch of high rep stuff. So my hope was to just beat the time from last week. This could be tough going forward with this as weekly thing as these sessions are going to get tougher as I go. I was advised that what I did last time was correct so that is good. I got set and I could tell that this was going to be a tougher time than last week to get to the time I did. I did manage to hold and stopped when I felt like I was going to start failing on this. My posterior chain was twitching like crazy on this. Last thing then being abdominal work. On to the carpeted area for the planks. Regular weighted plank to start things off. Last time I had done 40lbs added and it had felt a good bit tougher than I was expecting compared to 20lbs the session before. So I think I knew this could be sucky. It was but not in the way I was expecting. I had a bit too much liquid in my stomach so I felt like I was going to belch or spew at the start but then that subsided after a bit and this was tolerable. No problem with it for 60 seconds. Then side planks. No weight added for these. Felt easy enough that I was tempted to just swap from one side to the next without rest. Left elbow (the one with the bursitis) was feeling a little sore perhaps from how I was positioning the pillow. But tolerable. Doesn’t look like anything inflamed from that (I’d hate to have to worry about drainage stuff again after last time). Put stuff away before cooking up dinner and then stretching.

December 30, 2023 – Week 2, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Yoke
200x50’
300x50’
400x50’
500x50’
550x50’/50’

Sandbag to Shoulders
150x1/1
175x1/1
200x1/1
EMOM
225x1 R
225x1 L
225x1 R
225x1 L
225x1 R
225x1 L
225x1 R
225x1 L
225x1 R
225x1 L

Stretching
 
Comments: So at this point, safe to say I got a cold. Nothing I’m doing seems to be kicking it. So quite annoying. I guess thankful that only had a half day of work Friday as I was losing my voice and I doubt my patience would’ve tolerated being on the clock for another second. It has been a mixture of nasal spray, Dayquil, Airborne and Claritin. Slight shin splints near the end of the walk Friday after no issues Thursday. Ended up taking Nyquil before bed as I needed to sleep and be rested. This helped a little bit. I did end up sleeping in like a half hour from the planned time. Skipped the Dayquil for the meds since I had taken Nyquil but brought some with me to take afterwards (which I decided against as I couldn’t tell if it was truly nondrowsy as not brand name). So a bit muted driving out. Drive was fine but I wasn’t really in the singing mood with my throat as it was. Gym day didn’t start off great as I picked up my bag and saw there was a damp spot in my trunk and I could feel dampness in my bag. Which meant my jug full of intraworkout had leaked. I could feel it dripping hitting the back of my legs as I walked to the gym. It got everywhere so I had to completely empty the bag out to air things out. The must not get wet stuff remained dry thankfully. Likely saved because I had towels in my bag that were just soaked up with liquid. There was at least enough liquid for me to be able to drink. So despite there being people there that I enjoy being around, I was understandably miffed. I also didn’t want to get too close to anyone with how I was feeling. Warming up felt fine. I had to take it a little slow as the stuff I wanted to use were in use by people so I had to wait a bit. No real issues warming up. Ended up doing that mobility drill for the knees, hips and ankles while waiting. Yoke was the first of the two things to do on this day (which seems to be how these Saturday workouts will be for now). Similar to the farmer’s walk/frame in that work up in 50’ runs to a top set that will be 50’ with drop and turn for the 100’ course. Weight should feel almost too easy. What was written was 500lbs, so 50lbs more than the frame carry last week. 100lbs jumps here. I already had it in my head to do 550lbs so that it was similar to the frame and that this would be more the “overload” week compared to the frame with the lower pick. I also feel like yoke tends to be something I need to really build up whereas frame and farmer’s kind of comes pretty quick and convenient to me. Just loading 25’s on the yoke for the 100lbs jumps. Would allow me a little more clearance with the running space compared to 45’s or 100’s. With the cold and such, I knew that it would be harder with breathing, especially with the antihistamines from the meds likely raising blood pressure as well. Knees weren’t bothering me on the picks today so happy with that. I wasn’t too sure after the wide deadlifts with how much those were working things. I think that if I wasn’t already annoyed with the cold and the jug spilling all over my workout bag that I’d have been content with 500lbs as a start. 550lbs felt a little unbalanced with the loading initially but it was pretty easy. I did rush things on the repick and had the yoke a bit higher up than I’d normally have it. But this is a start. Next was sandbag shouldering. Contest is going to be allegedly 6 bags shouldered with the last one being repped out. If 60 seconds, seems like a tall order. I should have most the event details by Monday if the promoter sticks to their timeline so I’ll have a better idea what I’m in for. So plan here was work up to a light to moderate bag for form work. 5 singles each side, alternating them EMOM style. So 10 minutes total. 200lbs was what was suggested. My original thought was to do 150lbs for a single each side and then go right into it. I’ve not done sandbag to shoulder in some fashion in over a year and it has been since early 2021 that I’ve done any shouldering to the right side after I found the left side was the more efficient and stronger side. The gym has also procured a good amount of sandbags since this was a last a thing I was doing so there are sometimes doubles of weights and 25lbs jumps to 350lbs from 50lbs. Though I’m not a fan of some of the bags that have straps on them. Thankfully most of them have had them cut off. So I got ready with 150lbs and it felt like nothing. So I did 175lbs and much the same. Ok, I guess that 200lbs might be so light as to be meaningless. Yep, it was about the same. So I decided to do 225lbs for the EMOM. Chalked myself up. I felt no support gear this time around. Only place I had any issue was the right side with completion of the movement at the start. I mean, I’ve not done it in close to 4yrs at this point for that side and I never tried more than 250lbs for it. Left side it was clicking for me almost immediately. I guess doing the stone of steel stuff helped with keeping the pick up strong as well as working with no to little tacky keeping the needed stuff strong. I think that the training prep for the stone to shoulder earlier this year also helped me with getting better all-round with this kind of movement. It was quite easy for both sides by the end. Put stuff away and downed what remained of the jug before pitching it and then eating a yogurt and a protein shake before driving home. Stretched after eating some more when I got back.

December 16, 2023 - December 23, 2023 - Week 1

December 17, 2023 – Week 1, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Bench Presses
45x25
45x25

Band Rows
lb’sx25
lb’sx25

Band Triceps Pushdowns
lbx25
lbx25

Stretching
 
Comments:  Wasn’t exactly expecting to get right back in the swing of things. I needed the day after the contest to decompress for sure and with the weather as it was by the time I felt I had emptied my thoughts on the page (and took care of household stuff), I ended up not doing anything physical. It would probably be easier to say what wasn’t feeling the competition then what was feeling sore. Hamstrings were twitching, entire back was feeling soreness in the way that said I had done something. Glutes feeling like they were used as well as my calves. Shoulders were feeling tense from I feel mostly the heavy conan’s wheel but also all the upper body stress of the particular set of contested events. Bruising just above the crook of my arms and inside of my knees. I had kind of figured that I was taking off this week as that ended up being the case for Nationals. Honestly, I was worried about committing to the plan of off season and giving myself 6 months until the next competition. Just from seeing how difficult things are and was looking at a maybe show to try and make sure I got qualified for Nationals. But I put that idea to rest as I need to take the time, even if the result at the end of it doesn’t lead to Nationals again. It’s not supposed to be an easy thing. Almost nuts how after a competition if I was feeling like I was “sick”, the feelings go away the day after. So I know that the stress weighs on me. I went for a walk and came back and seeing messages about how I was feeling and I said I felt pretty good all things considered and was fine with doing light work with increasing intensity. So it would look like off season is in full swing already but with event focus on the stuff I know will mostly likely be at Regionals (won’t have I guess 99% confirmation until January). Some familiar things and some new things. This first workout was listed as “optional” but I felt it was important to do some moving around as even taking an off week from Nationals makes even the mobility warming up feel like I’ll get DOMS from it haha. Did the warming up that has been the “wake up” routine since the reup with Mr. Westerling. Feeling fine. First thing was just regular benching. Barbell for 2 sets of 25 reps. Everything today was just light and for 2x25. I usually just stop at 10 reps when I do the bar with stuff anyways. Not usually these high of reps. Not that this is going to be a regular thing. This was to just get blood flow and feel the motion as it will be something that is going to be worked on. I remember one time doing the bar for 100 reps in a set in I want to say high school for gym. Chest was sore for a while after that. Was thinking about that a little with how this was feeling. Trying to treat each rep with control. Get the shoulders feeling good with it. Working on the brace. Second set I feel I had a bit more control with my lats and upper back as well as being able to actively tuck the elbows. So for that alone, this was beneficial. The remaining two exercises were band exercises. Band rows are a part of the warming up I do and have been a staple for me to do as bigger player exercises in training as well as just keeping warm at competitions. So I had already done these with the mini bands and that is easy stuff. So I used light bands as I figured that would still be “light” effort. Due to the higher reps on these, I like to adjust every few reps to a different point of pull to kind of get all the different intricacies of the rowing motion and everything involved with it. Loosen up the back and shoulders. I was a little worried I cut my rep count too early the first set as I got to 25 reps quicker than I was anticipating. A little more deliberate for the second set. Really trying to get that “3D” sensation on the last few reps with a stretch as well as the rowing. Triceps push downs to end things. I was thinking more band tension but went with a light band just because sometimes the triceps fatigue fast at times and can sneak up on me. Well turns out it was way too light to start. Rather than change the band, I gripped higher up on the band and that worked to make things acceptable as far as what I was looking for. At least evening things out between the first and second set for overall effect. Upper body was certainly feeling less sore after that. So that was good. Stretched before making dinner.

December 20, 2023 – Week 1, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Calf Raises
bwx25
bwx25

Box Touches (12”)
bwx25 (sumo stance)
bwx25 (conventional stance)

Squats to Box (18”)
bwx25
bwx25

Band Seated Leg Curls
ab’sx25
ab’sx25

Band Hip Circle Side Monster Walks
mbx25/25

Romanian Deadlifts (straps)
95x25

Hyper Extensions
bwx10

Hyper Extension Holds (Neck Harness & Plate)
10+45x34 seconds

Crunches
bwx25

Lying Leg Raises
bwx25

Stretching
 
Comments: So bit more but not quite a normal training session. This week of work and the next are going to be weird with holidays and such. As in off early Fridays and off on Mondays. Dentist Tuesday was thankfully uneventful but didn’t prevent from having weird things said at me. Like “god must love you best” in reference to my teeth. I swear, I can’t go anywhere and have not weird things said. I understand myself thinking or saying them. I hadn’t intended to be training really this week as I had mentioned but I think it is good to get myself moving. And that is essentially what this workout was going to be. But not expecting to be training meant there were family dinner plans that I had to be aware of. This workout was going to have some things that are more just to keep moving and fluff up the program but has some of the actual planned things going forward in some capacity. But that was like half the workout. Half lots of reps of moving body through space and the other half being somewhat stuff that will be progressing on. Mobility stuff was fine. This was probably a good idea to do this and not full stop on training with not feeling so sore or having movement feel like it is taxing. First thing was calf raises. Bodyweight to just work the range of motion. This first half was going to be like the first workout this week with it being 2x25 for everything before switching over to light version of what I’ll be doing going forward. I don’t consistently do reps of 25 in most cases. And I know that my calves can struggle with balance wise. Using the setup of my dip station and a wooden platform. Trying to get as much out of it as I could. And hopefully not having really sore calves later. Got done with that and then it was box touches. These have been something that have been part of the Westerling toolbox since 2016 with rehabbing my back so they have sentimental place for me as far as a mobility exercise goes. I’ve been good with not having my doo-rag come off on them but can’t trust with my glasses. I’ve mostly done them when at home with couch cushions so some squish to it but now I have a hard box from Nats prep to use. Deadlift stances for these with first set sumo and then second set conventional. I feel the wide is more hips and the conventional hamstrings. Then squats to box. I’ve just been treating these as box squats really. Trying to keep shins vertical and sitting back. These are part of the warming up I do but not for this many reps. This was likely going to be the most taxing of these 2x25 exercises I was going to be doing. I’d almost prefer having some weight on these just so that I have a “valid” reason for feeling like I did something or when I get DOMS in my thighs later. From there on to seated band leg curls. Done these a good bit over the years either as warm up or as some assistance work. I had a general idea of what I could be doing to have these get the reps and be light. I was debating between light and average bands. I went with average bands as I would likely not need to setup too far back. Maybe I could’ve done the lighter tension but just further back. But not too picky here with things as they go as this is just to get my joints and muscles flushed. The last of these kinds of exercises was something I’ve done a variation of before. Lateral monster walks. Which I guess is walking as if joints are stiff in the knees. I was to use a hip circle for resistance but don’t have that (yet). So used a mini band doubled up around my knees. The hip circle will apparently be a part of my lower body sessions for this offseason it would appear. I’ve done what is called “x band walks” which I think is probably similar in the outer thigh stuff and hips as well as “glute activation”. Whether it is actually that or not (I’ve seen debate on it). But if gets you to notice those muscles firing, then I’d say it is worth doing for mind muscle connection. 50 total steps with it being 25 each side. The suggested way being to do one way however much space I had and then the same reps the other. So that ended up being like 5-6 steps each side in the garage. This was quite easy. And that was that for the 2x25 stuff and on to I guess what will be a taste of things to come with this session. Romanian deadlifts were next. This will be one of two primary exercises for the deadlift. Just 95lbs for a set of 25 reps. No support gear other than straps. It’s a lot of reps and I have frame carry later this week and figure not overly tax the arms here as I just competed and my forearms were what was fatiguing on the no tacky stone lifting. This was quite easy. As it should. Next thing was a new one for me. Warming up for it was just some back extensions with bodyweight. The actual exercise being a hyper bench hold with weight. The weight being in the form of weight held in a row position (45lbs plate or light dumbbells) and weight attached to a neck harness (that came very quick surprisingly). I wasn’t sure what to expect with this. Hold for time until I felt like it was good enough. Not kill myself as this was the first session (and it seems like this is going to be a weekly thing). I guess this is being done to work on my bracing more with deadlifts and add more time under tension to the entire back structure without a ton of compression. I went a little over 30 seconds and called it there. Hopefully I did these to specifications. Last thing then being abdominal work. A set of crunches and a set of lying leg lifts. Both with bodyweight this time and for 25 reps. It has been a bit since I’ve done abdominal work that was higher reps as usually been lower reps with tempo involved or plank type stuff. I think I was a little worried that these would be tougher considering not doing these as well as having the abdominal cramp at the competition. These actually went well. Just midsection feels full and sturdy at the moment. Put stuff away and stretched before joining family for dinner.

December 23, 2023 – Week 1, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Sandbag Tosses (16’)
EMOM
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1
30x1

Frame Carries (16” pick)
140x50’
220x50’
320x50’
400x50’
450x50’/50’

Stretching
 
Comments: I guess I’ve been carrying some stress with me that I wasn’t noticing with feeling irritated about minor inconveniences. Thankfully, this is one of those things where I can recognize this is happening and I’m able to take steps to mitigate it. Almost like a scenario where having a bad dream and something happens that lets me know it is a dream and it ends and I go on about my night or day. Even though this is a holiday with time off from work at times, I have to remember that constant social interactions do tire me out in a way and even if I’m willing to continue, I need to know my limits so that I don’t burn out. I wish that wasn’t the case but it is a reality for me. I think I understand the reason why my father’s mother’s cats would flee when we came to visit haha. Planning out meals around other people’s schedules was tricky enough during holiday times or when visiting but with the added meals I’ve had to put in to try and bump up my weight has been a new puzzle. Been mostly managing. Saturday was going to be the first “normal” session back. As in that this was not high rep things and this was going to be how it would be for the next month at least. I could technically do this workout at home but not quite the same and while still more than 5 months out from the competition, I want to be taking things seriously and not treating this as a “break” from the training. Need to use this time wisely. Build up the press and pulls with concentrated gym work and keeping the “events” fresh. I had every intention of getting up at my normal work time to get out to train early. Mostly because I was to be back in the early afternoon for babysitting duties for a few hours so that sisters could have a “girls’ day”. But I found that I was not able to get up at that time. I did but I was too tired. I ended up staying later than I had planned with doing family games as well as expended a bit of energy chasing children around the house while I acted like a large, deranged primate. So I hit snooze 9-10 times before getting up. So like 90 minutes behind schedule. Should still be fine as this was not a lot of stuff to do training wise. With my time after the gym to myself being limited, I had to pack some food so I could eat immediately afterwards. So had to clean out the little cooler I had as it has been sitting in the garage for many months. Had to evict some spiders from it. Drive out was ok besides the usual spot heading out. Not a lot of cars on the road. Even though it was fairly cold, I had a feeling that I’d be pretty warm so just wore regular clothes. A lot of people in the gym for strongman stuff. I kind of wish I was in there early like I had planned. Warmed up for the day. Knees slightly achy. Shoulders weren’t exactly achy but had been twitching on me the past two days. Starting things off was bag toss. Light bag for 10 tosses done EMOM style. One of the events for Regionals is going to be max bag toss over 15’. This style of training done for Nationals to 16’ had been very good for me and I ended up matching my lifetime PR at contest without going above 45lbs. So felt no reason to change that and just go for 16’ the whole time. Warming up for this being some swings with emphasis on getting stretch as well as some upright rows with the bag and then two high pull tosses. Even though there is a 30lbs bag at the gym, I brought my own. I will need to adjust it bit by bit as I progress here. No support gear here as just trying to get loose. Knees I knew would be a little achy at the start because this is essentially a bounding exercise when I leave the ground. These felt good. First being a little off as expected and mostly good from there. Put stuff away and got some fluids in me before moving on to the next thing. Pretty much everyone had left at this point. The last thing for the session was frame carry. Well, it was listed as farmer’s walk but I figured it was better to do frame carry as the event for the show will be this. Event is going to be yoke into frame. So to train that this far out, the plan is to alternate while the effort isn’t that taxing between yoke and frame carries doing down and back for the top set to build up tolerance. Then have them be both together at some point down the line. There is certainly some increased mobility stuff with farmer’s walk with being to have the shoulders moving independently as well as stride changes and using the body and angle. But I feel the way the handles are in the hand with the wider grip stresses the hands a different way and controlling the balance is trickier. So those reasons being why I went with frame. Plan was to work up with the “empty” handles and do 40-50lbs jumps most of the way. Really plan was to do 450lbs total weight. There are several different farmer’s handles at the gym. The highest pick (18”) had one of the pins break off and needs to be welded so all the others are 16”. The contest frame is a 19” pick. I might stick with 16” pick for this prep because the start is tougher and likely better to get used to fatigue as the contest goes on considering two of the other events will be quite lower back taxing for me. The big frame is 568lbs empty at 20” pick with slightly thicker handles but that is an “outside” implement and I don’t know I can get it moved at the moment or if the gym owners will let me use the large door as usually they put insulation up on it at this time of year until Spring. But not a concern at this time as I got bit before I get into that territory as far as weights. So using the thin handled farmer’s that were light (50lbs empty) and very long (frame for show is like 8’) got me 140lbs for my makeshift frame using the metal attachments. After that, I worked up in the proposed jumps as written for farmer’s walk. Made sure to try and balance out the sides as I know that off loading like say with a solid piece like a yoke that it isn’t that bad but something like this it can become askew. I hadn’t intended to chalk up for the final set but it seemed warranted. I didn’t bother with timing it at this point in the training cycle. I didn’t have anyone there really. I feel like this went well. I felt I had quick starts but not quite the best speed. This is probably partly due to not exactly going super-fast with the only moving event for Puller Express and the weights for the medley at Nationals kind of being a bit heavy for me and not really being able to accelerate. I got in the meals I packed and put stuff away before driving home. Ate some more before being spirited away for babysitting which was a bit over 2hrs at playgrounds (yes, multiple). Ended up stretching late in the evening when I had felt worn out from the day.

December 16, 2023 – Puller Express

In all this time I’ve been doing this, I’ve not done a December competition. Apparently the only month I’ve not done. Not adverse to training in cold weather, I tend to prefer it since don’t have to deal with so much sweat. Some of the first shows I did had been in January in upstate New York. I think usually December was avoided as far as competitions and usually only Christmas themed stuff. Which is what this contest was going to be. I’m not sure if this was me trying to get an early start on the 2024 season or trying to get in some extra innings for 2023 season. Maybe it’s both. I generally like to have more of a break between competitions after my first 2 years of competing, with 2018 being the year I planned it out to do a bunch of shows in short succession (and that almost didn’t happen when I pulled a biceps late 2017). My plans for doing this was because at the time I signed up, I needed to requalify to be able to compete in a Regional show for 2024. But that appears to have been dropped (though I don’t recall seeing anything official posted to that effect). So try to get qualification out of the way early. That seems unnecessary now but I don’t drop out of shows unless it is injury related. And even then it has to be pretty serve as I’m reluctant to quit. But this was a show being put on by a good group of people that ran smooth competitions (to the point where I give their shows priority over even the local shows).

Another first for me was in regards to prepping. I’ve never done a competition where I was actively trying to gain weight. At least since I decided I was just going to do HW (back when it was just over and under 231lbs). Way back then I was doing that intermittent fasting style stuff and was staying around 228lbs and then started eating like a normal person with weight gainer added and got up to 250lbs pretty quick. Heaviest being 290lbs when I came back from a hamstring injury. But diet had remained about the same and I just kind of went with the ebb and flow of my weight with sometimes being about 265lbs to 280lbs. I had to switch to a new PCP beginning of this year as my doctor since I was a child moved his practice to an inconvenient place. The new PCP gave me a bit of a health scare over liver levels (which appear to be nothing after testing) and one change to my diet was to not have beef almost every dinner. Swap in chicken (which I was already eating once day to begin with). I never tracked the scale except when I’d go to the doctor and that rarely (like once a year for physical). I’ve mentioned before that this change lead me to dropping down to under 255lbs when I was just under 275lbs at the March competition and I only noticed that halfway into my Nationals prep. I made some dietary changes (namely more small meals and carbs) and got up to close to 265lbs the week after Nationals. Stagnated there for a few weeks and added another meal and that seemed to be the push needed to get the scale moving again. Week before the competition was 272.2lbs. Keeping track along the way as far as how I was handling things as far as fitness with walking and exercising. Seemed to be handling it ok.

This would be the third time out to this particular venue in the same amount of years and it made sense to rest up by driving up the day before and getting a good meal and sleeping in a hotel bed rather than wake up before like 3hrs prior to the crack of dawn. So took a day off work for that for peace of mind even though didn’t exactly need the whole day to get out there. Honestly, this might be the most stressed out I’ve felt for a competition this year. Maybe because I know this is going to be a hard fought affair and due to the short prep. No real rhyme or reason sometimes for what feels like the most pressure. Spent the drive out talking with my dad as well as trying to hurry through the most recent book I had so that I could lend it back to my brother so he could lend it to a friend visiting for Christmas. Talk about pressure haha. Drive out wasn’t bad, made sure to avoid the route guidance that in June had us drive through Pittsburgh due to road work. Never again. Saw a man putting a diaper on a Bichon Frisé at the one rest area. So I guess I’ve now seen that. Even with avoiding Pittsburgh, the route guidance didn’t help. A closed road is not a “traffic incident”. Checked in at the venue first before going to the hotel this time around. No weigh in for me. Got contest shirt and a placard and tested out the arm over arm setup and touched the stones before heading out to check in at the hotel. Different hotel this time around. After the last year with losing my Tempur-Pedic pillow and encounter with the woman trying to get me to pay for a hotel room because her teenage daughter locked her out and just the fact a lot of the “amenities” didn’t work, it was the right call. It was the largest hotel room I’ve ever had. Could live in it if necessary. Went to the same place my dad and I had gone to after the first day of Regionals for dinner and it was amazing again. They had a wagyu beef steak and I can see what the hype is about. Had a hard time falling asleep due to nerves and stayed up to finish the book. Woke up at 7:00AM to get ready for the day. I felt ok but stiff. Not great but not terrible. But worried I’d suck and feeling like I was going to puke from nerves. I didn’t puke but I did end up using the restroom three times before the rules meeting. This was the “smaller” show that they run with it capped at 60 people this year. Seven in the HW open class and I only really knew of two to three of the competitors from past competitions and competing with them.

The first event was log clean and press, for max. Starting weight of 200lbs with 20lbs jumps. No grip shirts allowed (not allowed on anything this show). Three attempts and number of attempts mattered. So say I get just an opener and someone else matches that weight on their second attempt and then neither of us get anything after that. I’d place higher for being successful at that weight with less attempts to reach it. So it would probably be in my best interest with the people I know are here to get a high opener if feeling good. I knew that this was likely going to be something where I was going to be 4th at best. And this was before coming to the realization that my overhead pressing is still not at 100%. This is something that is going to require an offseason rebuild for sure to get that back to where it was and be smart about it. I’ve not used the Bartos style logs since they were first introduced in 2017. I don’t recall any issues I had (beyond failing to lift the 320lbs weight at Nationals that year) other than the cut out depth was quite shallow and I had ended up jamming my wrist following the log down. Will need to be mindful of that I guess. With the 265lbs and under class going with the SHW class in the same lane, it can be difficult to figure out who all is there competing with me considering I look like I could be in either really. I got in the warm ups I was planning to get mostly (I had to make a 40lbs jump near the end) to see how I was feeling. The Bartos log feels really dense on the pick and the clean but then feels comfortable for the press. So I had to keep that in mind. My last warm up was 240lbs and my hope here was to get 280lbs if not for points, to at least get better than what I did in training the last two cycles and know an actual number where my pressing was at to use to figure out for next season. I decided to gamble for 260lbs as the opener. It went up well enough but not with 100% confidence in 280lbs as the next jump. At this point, I knew I wasn’t in last place as one of the SHW had missed a second attempt at 220lbs. Apparently another missed their opener at 280lbs. So getting this would get me at least 5th place. This went up much the same. Less balance issues at lockout with the way I pressed this one. It actually felt good enough that I figured I’d give 300lbs a shot to see how that felt and went. One of the issues with not being able to press as much as your contemporaries is often having to do close to your max really fast succession. So not a ton of rest between my attempts here. Even at 300lbs there were some who had not yet done their openers. This weight did feel like something but I managed the clean well enough without expending a lot of energy. But did stumble a bit with it in the rack. It was not there today and I got it a few inches off the chest and bailed on it. My opener here would’ve gotten me the same points. Needed to do 300lbs to get a half point more. 5th place on this one.

The next event for the day was a deadlift event. Dubbed the “naughty or nice” deadlift. Two weights, a heavy (675lbs) and a light (585lbs) bar loaded. 60 seconds, strap in own time, with most reps winning. Of course, a single lift at the heavy beats any number at the light. No suits allowed. And on power bars, which didn’t really affect me since that’s how I train all the time. Deadlift is not a strong suit for me, especially without a suit. 675lbs is my PR on a deadlift bar with a suit so expecting to get to that on a stiff bar without a suit was not a realistic goal. Especially seeing as 8 weeks prior I had pulled 683bs on a slightly elevated trap bar. Training had to be a bit aggressive considering the time frame. Eye opening how difficult standard height pulls are for me as inadvertently been doing slightly elevated stuff for a good bit now and that does feel better for me positioning wise. It is something that needs to be in training a good part of the training year going forward. I hit the numbers that I needed to get to where I felt a single at the light weight was there with hopefully the ability to do up to a triple if needed. Again, this was going to be like log in that the best I could hope for was likely 4th. They would be doing the heavy weight so maybe I could save myself if it wasn’t needed here for my best possible placing. At least this is what I was thinking but apparently it was going to be reverse order of entry all day besides the last event. So since I was the second to last to sign up for this, I was going to be second all day. So I’d need to be going all in all day. Warming up on deadlifts went exactly how I needed it to. Like training, doing plate jumps with low reps since I’d be doing low reps. 585lbs is my best on a deadlift bar no suit in competition from 2018. It was very likely that I’d be the only one doing the mercy weigh here (or I guess the naughty weight). I took my time here as this was going to be a maximum effort. Got my grip set and pulled. Abs cramped up on me immediately. Very rarely has this happened on a deadlift. Or at all. I got the down call and I took a bit longer than I’d have wanted to initiate the second lift as I was making sure that my abs weren’t going to spasm further. I think I braced a bit too hard and held my breath a bit too long on this second rep as I got lightheaded and had to let go of the bar to stand up for a second to get my vision to return to normal. Judges and handlers were a little concerned and cautious. This is one of the reasons I prefer the regular style straps is the ability to bail if needed (other being I feel less lat engagement with figure 8’s). I again took my time as I felt I had just one more good shot at another rep with the ab cramp and what not so I paced out the timing so that I had a little over 10 seconds left in the event that I got stuck and had to hitch and ramp it. I ended up not needing to do that to get my third lift. A little smack talk to myself out loud saying “I got this”. This ends up being a PR for me and ties my deadlift bar reps in training from over 12 years ago. I got notifications on Instagram and text messages from people that were watching the livestream indicating they saw the deadlifts and the commentary so that was a pleasant surprise. That third rep was crucial for not getting tied for last place here. 6th on the deadlift as everybody but one pulled 675lbs.

Up next was conan’s wheel. 680lbs added to the implement. No drops and a 60 seconds time limit. I’m not a fan of this event. Just about every competition where I’ve done this event, I’ve essentially blacked out doing it almost immediately after the pick up. And it is infuriating. Such much so that I’ve said I’d be fine if every conan’s wheel was tossed into a burning pile like they did in Sleeping Beauty with all those spindles. But never shying away from doing this event if things lined up. But it was definitely not in the “pro” column when picking out a show. Most shows that ended up having this in it also had like another 1-2 events that I didn’t like (either just bad or boring) so it didn’t really work out. Not going to avoid it. Get back up and give it another try. Training for this had been pretty brutal. Log and deadlift is pretty standard stuff. Conan’s wheel is one of those embrace the suck events. Most of the training ended up being zercher yoke carries with working up to a 50’ top set and then dropping 100lbs and doing max distance in 2 minutes. I did end up setting up a conan’s wheel for one session just to see how things were and while it took forever to setup and put away, it was valuable in what I needed to be aware of for the actual time. This event left me with the most bruises and scars for this. My hope is my training paid off but this could really be something where I could get first or last one. I could tell this was not going to be one of the better times I had with this implement. The lightheadedness on deadlift (which is rare for me) not a good sign when this event I’ve pretty much also go to sleep on it very early on. There was only about 450lbs added to the thing and it was already feeling tremendously heavy for the weight in hand. The pick up height was not as adjustable as a yoke would be so my options were to either have it really low or too high that I’d be likely touching the ground if I took a step. My hope was that I could at least move with it if I could recover from the brutal start. I got about as much warm up as I could expect on this apparatus. It was a tough pick up with 540lbs added I still had another 140lbs to go. I did setup a yoke with 300lbs added to do some walking in place, which felt a good bit better with a much higher pick up. But all the preparation fell to the wayside as history repeated itself. I struggle mightily to pick it up. I try and zercher shrug it up to try and give myself a chance to fight the feeling of passing out and I feel like I’ve done so but I start walking and it is apparent I don’t got it. Even with a repick allowed, I don’t think I have the strength to repeat the effort a second time. I get 17’ before I bail. Maybe I could’ve gone a few more feet but I’d have been unconscious. I was seeing how this was catching and digging into the rubber flooring so I didn’t want to increase the risk of injury as I knew I was going down. I catch myself but I am convulsing and a bunch of people surround me to steady me and get my belt off. If I had gotten 4 more feet I’d have not gotten last place here. But even if the pick height situation could have been in my favor, I’d still at best have gotten 5th place likely with how heavy this was feeling in my arms compared to what I was doing in training. Likely need to adjust training if this comes up again and just generally avoid it most of the time. 7th place here and any shot of Nationals qualifying was completely gone. A little girl did make me a sign of support so that did lessen the sting a little.

The fourth event was arm-over-arm pull. This was TBD as the promoter felt like a weight listing wouldn’t really make sense as far as people training for it. Going to be based on surface and other factors. The apparatus was a Rogue Dog Sled outfitted to look like a sleigh with Christmas lights on it. 651lbs of weight was added to it. The sled schematics without the added material on it is 103lbs so over 754lbs and likely about 800lbs considering the construction. 50’ course with a run up and 60 second time limit. Sled on turf but the section that would be where the athlete positioned would be smooth floor. This was an event I was very confident on. I’ve only gotten second on this kind of event my very first show and the rest I’ve won by a good bit. Granted that is only a total of four times but one of those times was Nationals last year. So I was the best rope tugger in the nation at time. It feels weird to have something where I feel really confident about but then don’t want to have a big head about it. But my notes the past two times this has come up as far as a game plan has just been “win”. Very low volume training for this. Which seems to work well for me on this and let me give priority to other things in training. This was something I had tested out the day before the contest empty. My thinking with how the sled seemed to be moving on the turf was go with the short arm strokes and use the slick floor with warm up pants to slide and use mostly lower body drive. Keep the momentum going. Warm ups were done with a bit over half the weight and I did only a few pulls to see if that added weight would change my approach and to see what running up option and grabbing the rope made the most sense time wise and keeping tension. I decided to stick to my plan. I wasn’t too sure the time that went before me because I was focused on myself. I got set and was off to what I felt was a good start. I tend not like the thinner ropes as they tend to bite into my ring and pinky fingers with how I grip ropes. This was a thinner rope then what I was training on (I guess I have 2” and 1.75”). I had sense that this was taking longer than I was expecting but got the notification I was close (the sandbags obstructed view of the finish mark) and pulled a long pull to finish. Just over 30 seconds. I felt that was good enough. The person that had gone ahead of me was about 5 seconds slower and the person that went after me 3 seconds. Then the guy in fourth place was 10 seconds. So it seemed like an ok run. Then the guy in second ended up being just 2 seconds slower and I got worried that I had screwed up with my plan as far as technique on this setup. The guy in first who is not known for his grip ended up beating me by less than a second. I was not expecting that. He has obviously put in the work. So a second place here.

Final event for the first day was a stone event. The stone off that was popularized as the elimination determination for the second seed out of the groups at WSM. At least the early iteration of it. Also seems to be a thing for the paid light weight shows going on as far as an event. 277lbs stone over 52” bar. No sticky stuff allowed, only chalk. 30 seconds to get a lift. Back and forth until someone fails and then the next person comes in and it continues. Time period to reduce to 15 seconds once the athlete reaches 10 reps. Assuming the last person standing is still feeling themselves, they can keep lifting the stone under those interval times as the most reps total wins it. I’m good with stones but if there is a weakness I have, it is that I get a lot out of tacky and no tacky stones require a good bit of upper body strength. So this definitely puts me at level that would have other people that wouldn’t be that close with tackied stones be able to beat me. Training had to be both tough but limited. As I felt this would definitely be something where the winning reps would be at least 20 reps. So ended up doing two sessions with a stone of steel to slightly higher load height and slightly heavier weight for prepping. My biceps cramped up bad two days later after that first session and then no issues at all after the second time. Maybe it would’ve have been a good idea to try contest conditions with the rests but have to hope that my overall conditioning will prevail there. But I knew this was going to be a tough one and this was going to be a long day. Like grab a Snickers long time. I elected to tape up for this as while it could cause an issue with my hands later on if too tight, I was sweating a good bit in the crowded gym. Warming up I got a chance to touch the stones and see if I could pick up the contest one regardless of how it landed as that would be helpful. Obviously one position was much easier than the others. I was in 5th place overall after getting out of 7th by my placing on the penultimate event. I had a feeling that with the two athletes starting that I would be in really quick so I was ready. One of them couldn’t lift the stone and I was in. I put my chalk by the side of the yoke. My plan wasn’t necessarily to win as winning this I was still way too far out of podium. Best I could get would be 4th place overall and I just would need to beat the guy in fourth place on this event to do that. So my plan was to not pace myself initially and just pick the stone as it lay to put pressure on the competitor I was going against while showing no emotion. First guy got two reps before failing. Fourth place guy out next and is out after one rep. So at this point, I could go no higher and the guy in third would need the win to get second place. He was also the guy I expected would push me on the stones with this setup. It got difficult with the time limit then dropping after 10 reps was reached. The stone landing weird each time with the mats moving made things challenging too as it became more important to have the stone the right way for me to pick it up as my arms were fatiguing. There were times I did grab the stone at a not advantaged position because I felt it would break the momentum and that would take more energy out of me. Going for a 15th rep the stone slid on me as I was about to lap it. I called it there at that point as I had my fill and didn’t want to potentially strain my biceps at this point as it is when stones start sliding that that happens with me. However, I don’t think I’d have beaten him on the day with the conditions and format as they were. Guy in 2nd place tapped out a 5 reps and 1st place stopped after getting 3 reps to secure the win. So another second place here.

So in the end (which ended up being done by 3PM with 10AM start), I got 4th out of 7 at the competition. This not the outcome I’d have liked but it is the outcome. I knew it would be this tough with the level of competition these days that go to this shows. The top three are people that have beaten me before and put in great performances overall. I perhaps didn’t go all in on those last two events after the bombing I did on the conan’s wheel that nuked my chances. But it was always a possibility with my track record on that event. But I like doing well run shows, even if not best events and I won’t shy away from trying out stuff again and again until I get it right. Even if say everything had gone my way within expectations, I’d still be out of contention with how well they did. No injuries and I have numbers for my overhead and deadlift to build from for the 2024 competitive season. Really sore on the drive back home after eating at seafood restaurant on the way and ended up taking a nap. Plan at this point is to take a few months for an offseason prep and hopefully bring in an improved athlete for summer.

December 3, 2023 - December 9, 2023 - Week 6

 December 4, 2023 – Week 6, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

12” Log Clean and Push Presses (one clean)
90x5
120x3
150x2
180x2
210x1
240x1
260x1
275x0
275x0
275x0

Stretching
 
Comments: I was fully expecting weight to decrease or stagnate this week considering that last week with the “eating” holiday and that was feeling full and ended up missing a meal the day before. But I’m probably at my heaviest I’ve been this year that I know of. I say that as weighing myself wasn’t a thing until middle of last cycle when I noticed I was dropping weight. I had weighed in at 275lbs with my shoes and contest wear back in middle of March and starting this week off at 272.2lbs without wearing my shoes (which are substantial at size 17). This is not the heaviest I’ve been since the 2016 back injury or the heaviest I’ve ever been. I think I was actually like 10lbs heavier March of last year. I was hoping that this progress would be reflected in what I was aiming for with more mass to fill out and improve leverages for pressing. But I guess not. Too soon to tell. I’ll get to it. Perhaps work and the last workout session was more stressful than I had thought. Warming up stuff felt fine. Felt no worse for wear. Just cold outside and I had some bruises on my forearms from the zercher yoke stuff. Darkness for the log lifting. Again, the plan for this was 5x1. And that was it with it being the deload week. 275lbs being the plan so 10lbs more than last time I did log and would be 5lbs more than what I ended the previous cycle on. 5 minutes rests between singles. I was honestly thinking maybe this should be 280lbs with the progression but I knew I should stick to what was written. After last time with the bad choice of shirt, I picked out a shirt that had a large decal on it and I’ve done sets of log clean and press with it in the past with similar conditions of no grip shirt. Warming up was feeling fine until I got to 240lbs. Up to that point, stuff was feeling easy. This felt hard. Like it was heavy on the pick and then it rolled slow from the clean to the shoulders. I had elected to use metal plates at this point instead of all bumper plates so I figured it was due to having both big metal plates and bumpers on it. It felt similar to how the log was moving when I did 250lbs the first week and also how 270lbs had felt end of last cycle. So it took a moment for me to feel comfortable to press it and it seemed to go up good despite feeling heavy on the shoulders. That hasn’t always been a bad thing. It sometimes just means not used to it. So 20lbs more added and it felt similar but still pressing felt good. I wasn’t liking how the clean was getting into position as I was rotating under it to the shoulders so I did make the weights all bumper plates for the planned working sets. This did not go well. I was not expecting to be missing here. First attempt it felt ok but I just seemed to not want to immediately go off the lap and paused momentarily before I went. Maybe that through me off but when I went for the press it went out in front and as it got the point I’d usually be able to press it through, it wouldn’t and I dropped it. The workout was already ruined at this point. I shouldn’t be missing lifts at all, let alone at this point in the training cycle. I wondered if the elbow sleeves were causing an issue for me and came back about 2 minutes later (I was treating this missed attempt more like a partial attempt) and gave it another shot. The clean was smoother and I went for the press and it seemed to be much like the previous attempt but it started to go up and I assumed a done deal. But apparently the elbow sleeves have been helping at that point as it was not just going up and I was fighting and the log started to go forward. I just let it go at this point as while I could probably have truly locked out this weight, I was at a risk of injury and this wasn’t helping matters. Again, the planned session was ruined and at this point I was trying to test other things. I had questions about footwear as I’ve always just done lifters for overhead in strongman. I swapped out a new shirt and put on my regular moving event shoes and gave that a shot. The balance was very different and I just ended up lapping it and then put it down as it was too weird and I was not balanced in a good way. Put back on the lifters and elbow sleeves for one more test to see if it was really the case. I was spent as the clean sucked and the attempt at the press did as well. Really hard to keep motivated to put down the food when it seems to not be helping things that are the reason for trying to actively put on the weight. But I stuck to the meals and put the weights away. Stretched afterwards (I usually don’t after I screw up a workout) and then made dinner. Frustrated but I know I need to sleep on it and figure out what I learned.

December 6, 2023 – Week 6, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Front Squats
45x10
95x8
135x5
185x3
225x2
275x2
300x2

Stretching
 
Comments: Body was feeling this training cycle. So I was nervous about every ache and sensation. Because I know this will be a tough contest. It will require a lot of grit. Sleep and walking as well as talking with my dad about things did seem to help with perspective. And I also have to adjust things mentally and accept where I’m at right now. 275lbs was the most I’ve actually tried to press this year. The most recent overhead press that was successful at or above was the 286lbs axle press at Nationals last year which was already a low. Objectively, I’m at 90% of my best as far as overhead post 2016 back injury. I was hoping I was back at 100% already with Nationals but even looking at the numbers I hit, the 275lbs max roughly does seem to fit. Additionally, this competition has been very upper body taxing with the zercher yoke (I think that was rougher to recover from then conan’s wheel) as well as arm over arm and no tacky stone lifting (and for a lot of reps) probably taxed my arms and shoulders a good bit more than I was used to from the previous cycle (as well as adding in new exercises). Also my dad reminded me I had a similar thing with a short prep and missing weights at the end and ending up hitting well above at the competition. So just have to plan accordingly after this one with concrete numbers and build from there. I also don’t think I’ve ever done Nationals and then done contest so soon afterwards. But on to the actual training. I was tempted to do this one during my lunch break (I was tempted with log Monday too) but stuck to the after work because it gave me the freedom to take longer rests if needed and I could keep my work focus flow going as I have to consider that I’m taking off Friday next week as well as work around back to back holidays coming up too. Warming up seemed to go well. I didn’t bother with the ankle/shin mobility stuff as Wasn’t feeling like I needed it. Shins/ankles had felt a little stiff on Monday with the pick and lap. Anyways, this was to be front squats and with it being a bit of deviation in that this wasn’t exactly light or speed work. Granted, last training cycle had me do singles with the first implement weight of the power stairs for the lower body session so I guess that tracks. Plan was top double on front squats. The notes initially said 300-315lbs for the double but after mentioning what I had actually done as far as the front squats, it was lowered to 275-300lbs. Idea was this was to be powerful double that would help with priming for lower body drive on overhead. Same warming up as it has been for front squats. I elected to use bumper plates for all of it. Because. Maybe it will look like one of those Olympic hall training sessions. Maybe it will make the weight feel more alive with the flex. It wasn’t necessary but It was something I wanted to do. 40-50lbs jumps in weight. It has been those kind of bumps up in weight each week with this short cycle. Front squats have been feeling somewhat decent. There is less knee aches compared to when I have a bar on my back. I was fully prepared for 275lbs to be it for the session and those reps did go up quite powerfully. The 40-50lbs jumps can start to feel like a big jump once above 135lbs. So it was a little bit of shock with 275lbs considering 225lbs most in many months. The thoughts in my head said do 300lbs. At least feel what that feels like so that it isn’t a shock. Since likely log will top out at 280lbs at show and with the number of attempts mattering, 300lbs would be a third attempt really with 20lbs jumps. So took my time with setting up. Yep, this felt like something. Still pretty powerful but not quite as easy. Talking hundredths of a second difference in finishing. This is 65lbs off my best lifetime double on this exercise. I do hope that I can push assistance gym lift stuff up for this planned offseason I have in mind. Chest, upper back and neck were feeling a bit tense after these. I’ve not had this kind of weight on the body in that position in a long time. Too long really. Got some more thoughts I need to put down at some point about the plan for next year. One more training session left.

December 9, 2023 – Week 6, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Tank M4 Sled Pushes/Sled Drags (minute rests)
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’
+100 (L1)x50’/50’

Stretching
 
Comments: It hasn’t quite sunk in I guess that I won’t be doing weight lifting workouts next week and I have to keep reminding myself of that. And also that the year is almost up as well. And that next week isn’t Christmas. Just trying to relax and not let things stress me out. Thinking of what to work on and resolve for the next season, rather than focus so much on the now. The now is just rest and thinking on things and putting words down seems to help with that. Next week is when I have to actually do stuff and put into action. Some of the aches and such seem to migrate. My lower legs were feeling quite heavy Friday while out walking. It isn’t like I did a ton at all. At least I didn’t feel that I had. But usually I do seem to feel not the best during a deload. Like catching up on what I’ve been doing to myself the past few weeks and letting the consequences reach me. The reward usually being that I perform well when it matters. The finishing off for this prep was to again be sled work. That seems in my experience to be a hallmark of the Westerling trainings. So initially the plan here was the same as the end of the last cycle minus bag toss at the start. Also not moving things a day early due to weather. I was going to just do the same weight on my sled at home in the street but I had a change of mind. Kind of two things. One was that my father had come over Tuesday and blew a lot of leaves from my yard and my roof (I have a tree that holds out dropping leaves until the last minute) while I was working. But the leave collection wasn’t going to come for these in time. I had not enjoyed it last time (my knees that is) when I did the sled work with all the acorns. So I’d rather not deal with that. But I wasn’t going to drive all the way out to Lancaster to do about 15 minutes of a workout that I could do at home. Which was the second reason. The powerlifting gym with some strongman stuff that I went to last week has a resistance sled (among other novelties) and I had been planning to try that out last week under the assumption that I was to do sled work after the zercher yoke carries. That was dropped however to save my legs for log (which didn’t really matter in the end). It is a pricey piece of equipment ($1600 no attachments) and I was curious how it would feel. So this meant I could sleep in as needed and drive out to the gym a little bit away and get in a quick workout and then back home to eat and stretch out. I could make sense of going a little ways for this kind of workout to test a new piece of exercise equipment. There were several powerlifters training. Found out from the owner that the account for the drop-in fees got hacked so this week and last week’s monies didn’t get to the gym. A little annoyed with that but it’s only $20. There was a all-around lifter (strongman, highlands games, powerlifting) who had moved to PA from UT and noticed my shirt for Nationals. Stung a little when the assumption was it was Master’s Nationals. I’m close to 40 but not yet. That is the first where I’ve had it assumed that was my age or more. Usually I get younger haha. But despite that initial introduction, he indicated he had found that PA had “famous” stones to lift. I have lived here over 30yrs and didn’t know. Upon review after the fact, it seems more like some guys have found some stones and trying to have them be “lifting stones” like they have in Scotland. Still interesting and maybe I will go and try my hand at them as some are within 30 minutes of where I live. Back to what I was doing. Mobility warming up felt fine. The wheeled sled was a bit of a pain to move around to where I wanted it (198lbs empty) but rolls smooth forward and backward. Tested and inflated the tires to 30PSI. There is option to add weight to it (website states no more than 270lbs) as well as adjust the resistance 3 levels from neutral. Website states that the resistance increases as you go faster. I’m not sure I buy that but I don’t really understand the magnetic resistance the device claims. I didn’t want to take off all the weight already on it (200lbs) so I took half of it off and put it on the 1st level of resistance as that seemed to be moving in a way that it would be fast and light. As the plan here was 10 sets of 50’/50’ with a minute rest. This was definitely an interesting stimulus. Knees didn’t ache as much as they had compared to when I did this workout with my sled like 8 weeks ago. But my knees have been feeling better in generally really and having some kind of resistance and drag from friction seemed to be good for my knees on sled work. With how this was feeling, it made more sense to not have my arms out straight like I’d been doing with the prowler type sleds. Arms bent and getting more of a fast foot sprint turnover. The backwards drag was about what I’d expect. I messed up grabbing the handles on the third set but even with that, wasn’t the slowest. The time of runs varied from just under 22 seconds to just under 25 seconds. I was breathing heavy in the cold air and my legs were definitely feeling the fatigue and getting full of lactic acid. Good sweat too. I liked it but I don’t see it as $1600 worth for a purchase for things. More needing to have it available for easy use and a wide range of people working at the same time to be worth it I think. Put stuff away before driving home to get some food and then stretch.

November 26, 2023 - December 2, 2023 - Week 5

 November 27, 2023 – Week 5, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Seated Reverse Band Axle Presses (back support, chin height, 110lbs assistance)
131x5
161x3
191x2
221x1
251x1
281x1
311x1

Band Assisted Pull-ups
sbx5 at pin 12
sbx5 at pin 15
sbx5 at pin 18
sbx5 at pin 21
sbx5 at pin 24

12” Log Incline Bench Presses
90x10
130x5
160x5
190x5
220x5

Stretching
 
Comments: Winding down. Saturday had been the last touches for two of the events and with the remaining three to come. It appears that finally found a caloric intake that is pushing the scale up now. But perhaps this is a outlier considering it was Thanksgiving. If anything, that made it harder to get my usual meals in. But not the usual foods. Back above 270lbs so I’m about the weight I was in March. And all it took was adding 800 calories to my daily intake. Kind of frightening to think that I was losing weight on over 4200 calories a day (on a lower day). But apparently that 4oz of yogurt a day got me over the 3 week plateau. Keep monitoring and make sure that I’m adapting to the changes. Work was surprisingly not as stressful as I was expecting it to be. It was weighing on me with stress stuff because of the stress related dreams. Either from eating foods I usually don’t allowing me to remember them or just enough stress that those particular dreams happen. Felt full most of the day (I also been feeling full since Saturday evening haha). Cold outside but not so much I needed to wear warm ups to warm up. Movement stuff to start things off. Joints felt surprisingly ok with warming up. I knew there would be some soreness in biceps, quads and hamstrings. Wore the warm ups setting things up because it was a little windy and I didn’t want my hands numb. Starting things off with reverse band work with the axle again. As expected, to a single. But a little different. 30lbs jumps as expected but indication was to only go up 5lbs more than my top double and stop there. There was even notes that if I didn’t feel like that would go to call it at 281lbs (the last jump). I was feeling pretty good but again, hard to gauge on this particular lift since dead stop and the 30lbs jumps can be a bit rough. Had to keep myself from wanting to deviate and do 316lbs and line things up for that. It was odd in that it like every other set my right shoulder felt achy. Noticing the power belly is in effect now with the belt and bracing. I had to make myself take a little more rest with it just being singles after a few sets. Especially because these get tough quick and misgrooving the lift is costly. 281lbs was almost that. It didn’t feel like I had a lot of power when I was setup to press but then something clicked and it just went up easy. Last time, my first rep with 306lbs went up fine but then I got stuck for forever at the sticking point on the second. This should be no problem for a single if it is like that first rep. I got set and gave it a push. And it stalled before it could event get above my head. I was shocked but I didn’t let it get to me. Something had felt off. I decided I’d try again immediately (like 15 seconds rest) and this time I had it a little more forward and actively compressed my shoulder girdle. And voilà, goes up with not that much effort. Felt similar to the first rep with 306lbs last time. I kind of was dumbstruck with the result (a complete miss and then an easy lift). I really need to be more consistent with my overhead. But I will make sure for next time (assuming this continues as an assistance lift after this competition) to do this going forward. So that I feel tight and don’t feel like I have no power. So again, not the most ideal way for things to go but I hadn’t put in a full effort on that first miss so more just a partial attempt warming up for the real thing moments later. A little bit of rest putting that setup away before moving on to band assisted pull-ups. Sets of five reps this time and indication was to start up higher (pin 12) but take bigger jumps (3 pins vs 2 pins). This would have me doing the last set at the bottom pin I can use for this setup (pin 24). Really the next step from there is no band assistance really but can still play around with different band tensions up and down the rack. As there seems to be more control as not swaying as much and can lower my bodyweight to get in more reps in this plane as well as work on the full ROM. My only concern really was the biceps. I didn’t want to strain/pull them at all this time around. It had happened near the beginning last time and perhaps that had to do with having to pull myself up slightly to get my legs on to the band. So I stood on a 6” pad for the first few sets to help get on to the band and then removed it as the band was lowered. No issues. At least not for the biceps. Left shoulder was feeling pretty tight and tense. Similar to how it had felt the very first week. Not something to be concerned about. Moved through this fairly quickly but made myself rest for the last two sets. I’m always surprised when the top set I aim for on these ends up feeling really easy. This happened for this as well. Definitely good for more but calling it because this is what I was to do for the day and let my arms recover. Log on incline to finish up the session. I had expected these to be like 6rm with the same progression but it was listed for 5rm and it only indicated to go up 10lbs from last time. Maybe that was the right call as things were feeling a little heavier than I would’ve liked. That could also be from me seeing that it was a slight increase and was perhaps not attacking things if it was closer to what my abilities would be. I was also letting the log linger for a bit longer on the chest with the lower reps (besides the first set) and knowing not pushing the limit here. But this could also be the reason for the taper. I need to keep that in mind that the competition is where things are going to matter in the scheme of things. This is to get things peaked for a big log press and the idea should be that this be the heaviest these exercises should be so far but also be with the least volume and fatigue. To stimulate and not annihilate. Put stuff away before stretching and then cooking up dinner.

November 29, 2023 – Week 5, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Deadlifts (straps)
135x5
225x3
315x2
405x2
495x2
565x2

Sandbag Squats (to 18” box)
112x7
175x7
225x7

Planks
bw+40x60 seconds

Side Planks
bwx60/60 seconds

Stretching
 
Comments: Really seems like the temperature and weather really doesn’t care about an easing in period. It’s like for fall it was decently warm and then uncomfortably warm and the appropriate for like two weeks and then busting down the doors and saying “it’s winter now!” as it has been windy and below freezing this week. Enough of a squall that got some snow flurries while out walking yesterday. Moisture on face was freezing while out walking and spots you wouldn’t think would get cold (like bottoms of feet) were. If there was maybe a week to break into this, but it is like a switch. I was a bit nervous for the session. Last deadlift before competition and it was going to be tough, despite how it was written. Expectation had been that it would be work up to a “conservative single” with that being 585lbs for what was likely going to be a challenging single. It make senses with how the trap bar pulls went with it being 5’s then a triple and a single. But this is to be a rep event and I’m expecting like 1-3 here. So doing a top single probably not the best thing so that meant it was going to be a top double. Suggested was 565-585lbs for a conservative double. Seeing as how my best double post 2016 injury is 585lbs and that was for essentially a touch and go double (with the second rep being a real fight), 565lbs was where my head and plan was at. Especially because more reps were being asked working up compared to the past few times. Anyways, warming up felt fine as far as the mobility stuff. Besides the stuff I had to do outside in the freezing cold. It was colder than it was Monday evening. Did the mobility ankle/hip stuff. Had been watching deadlift videos and trying to get things to be better for me to initiate the lift. 135lbs felt ok. No knee aches like last time. Trying to start with the weight a little bit away from me rather than right on my shin. See if that lets me get better drive and not be so far forward. So far so good. 225lbs felt fast as per usual. Maybe not the fastest it has felt. But that isn’t always indicative of how things will go. Same as aches and such during mobility work. 315lbs felt ok. I was feeling somewhat better about the odds in my favor on this. Maybe this will feel amazing. This is where the workout deviated from the past two standard pull sessions. At this point, it switches to singles. This time nope, sticking with doubles all the way up. This isn’t that unusual as something I’ve done before (2018) but it is a way to add more volume and fatigue prior to the top set. I know, sounds a bit ridiculous to say “fatigue” with a total of 16 lifts total for the deadlifts with only 6 of them requiring a hard belt. 405lbs felt pretty good for that first rep but felt not so much the second. I was a little concerned about my lower back on the left side feeling a little achy, coupled with my left calf being twitchy all day. Sometimes that is symptoms of disc compression stuff. Also left side lower abdominals were feeling tense. But can’t imagine what I’d have done to cause that in the past 3 days. Push thoughts that I’m fragile out of my head. 495lbs didn’t feel great. Maybe it moved well but I didn’t record it. It was not having me feel confident for the top set. 565lbs it was then. Used bumper plates for the remaining weight to be added so the bar was full. Again, more for my own amusement and make it look like more weight on the bar so not in my own head about things. I could tell as the weight was getting added I was feeling more comfortable with having the bar closer. I think worry that too far away would strain my lower back as I’ve done that before trying to get the right position. I had this I told myself. Only way I didn’t is if I screwed up something. And I did have it. First rep went up as fine as I can manage it at this point. The second rep seemed to come up good speed wise off the floor but did slow down a good bit. I’d give myself 50/50 for another rep here. Survived the deadlift for this prep. 585lbs should happen for at least a single unless I screw up. Peak, rest and excitement hopefully will mean reps. After being done with deadlifts, I took a break for oatmeal and to collect myself. I had skipped my last meal of the work day as I was nervous that I’d end up throwing up if I ate so close to training when max effort pulls and I’ve been feeling a bit full in general since Thanksgiving holiday as well. Get some food and drink in me before finishing up the session. Ended up taking longer than I was expecting to but the rest of the workout moves pretty quickly once deads are done and the weights are put away. Sandbag squats to a parallel box. Plan same as last time with it being three sets of 5 progressively getting heavier but this time sets of 7 reps. I had been expecting to have this go up to the next weight sandbag (265lbs) but I wasn’t too bummed about this staying the same. Front squats were pushed more last week and I had been stressed last time with my right biceps after the cramp and such last time these came up. Thankfully my biceps were much better at dealing with the strain I put upon them this go around so there was not issues with Monday session that lingered over to this session. But I was feeling fatigue. Quads were feeling stiff/sore which would be a bit surprisingly looking at how I deadlift. You’d think it was all lower back haha. Knees were a bit achy. Not as comfy feeling as last time but a ton better compared to that very first session on these. There is never issues with the small light bag on these with keeping it high and off my legs. It gets tricky with the bigger and floppier bags. These added reps also add up too. 175lbs bag I went a little different in how I held it compared to last time. I felt I was fiddling around with it too much before I got to the meat and potatoes. Just tried my best to pull it into myself and keep it off my thighs as much as I could. At least make sure it was off them when I started the lift. 225lbs is firmer so I can do that one a bit better as far as keeping it upright and off my thighs. I could tell my biceps were getting a little worked here (especially the right one). Just slow and methodical with these. Not rushing and controlling the lift. It isn’t like this is the limit for me but it is good work and tough work with not a lot of weight and using the leverage to make it tough. That was pretty much it for the garage training. The planks work better on the soft carpet as opposed to the hard concrete as far as the stress on my elbows. I feel like I can also “feel” my feet and toes more with a substrate with give to it. As the idea is not just to hold but to be tense. 20lbs on the regular planks last time had felt easy. I don’t think I considered what scaling wise would be with weight but I figured 20lbs was an easy adjustment so another 20lbs wouldn’t be that bad. It was a lot tougher than I was expecting it to be. Could also be from the heavier pulls and the sandbag reps and from having a belly full of oatmeal as well (ok, not full but not an empty stomach). Could also be because the dumbbells I added are more centered in one spot vs the ankle/leg weights. But it was fine, just harder than I was expecting. 60 seconds fine. I had already put all the sandbags away so that I could just go into the side planks after putting away the backpack and the weights. Side planks no weight added again. Felt comfortable really. No sweating really this time because of how cold it was. These were needed to balance out how stiff my midsection was feeling after the previous exercises. Cooked up dinner and ate before stretching out. Not many sessions left. I have a general idea of where I am at but not sure where I stack up at the competition.

December 2, 2023 – Week 5, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Zercher Yoke Carries
150x50’
250x50’
300x50’
350x50’
400x50’
450x50’
500x50’
550x50’
450x207’2” (2 minutes, 85’ course)

Stretching
 
Comments: Weather and temperature is now seeming to be bouncing around. Thursday fine enough that I was feeling warm wearing the long sleeves walking. Too dicey to do stuff Friday as it was raining but the rain was freezing as it fell. Don’t want to be slipping and it got even more rain as the day went on. Got some slight aches here and there. Looking forward to the deload it seems. That’s the issue with shorter training cycles is that they get to the point quick but also means the build up is less gradual and gets taxing. After Wednesday, the remaining workouts until competition are just one main exercise after warming up. The strongman gym was closed for a powerlifting meet so my options were to either train at home or go to the powerlifting gym. It wasn’t really up for debate. I was going to the powerlifting gym. This had been planned out and I had scoped things when I was going there during Nats prep to see what was there depending on when this workout would fall during the training cycle. Ended up on the conan’s wheel week. I have yokes at home but one is bolted and currently an eyesore in the backyard for when I want to do tosses or viking press. The other is light and it could work but the thin crossbar didn’t prepare me well for this kind of event in the past when I was prepping for it. The powerlifting gym had a yoke and that would work for me. I had every intention of waking up as if I was going to work but I felt tired and turned it off and hoped for the best as far as when I’d rouse from my slumber. About 90 minutes later appeared to be the answer. The gym is like 15 minutes away and I had just one thing to do so it wasn’t really an issue. Just meant that I’d have to wait a little later in the evening to eat my dinner with the pot roast. I had already gotten most everything ready the night before. Fog because it was cold yesterday and now warmer and evaporating all the icy rain. The owner wasn’t there at the gym as he was competing. Some people there. No music and it smelled a little funky. Before I started warming up, I had to figure out where I was going to be doing stuff. There wasn’t enough space inside to do 50’ runs and it wasn’t exactly clutter free. I know I can become wobbly and uncoordinated on this. Thankfully, I don’t need nearly as much weight as I would for regular yoke on this so I didn’t need a pallet to move things or have to keep the sliding door open for very long. Mobility stuff inside. Stuff had been moved around so I did have to get creative with some of the things (like the bar hang). I do prefer the environment at the Lancaster gym. Reminds me why I tend to not be with the powerlifting people all the time (granted some of them were previously doing strongman). I can blend in if I want to but I’d rather not. Just focus on what I’m doing and move on. Zercher yoke carries were the only thing on the docket. No sled work afterwards as indication was to save legs for the last long workout on Monday. Last time, I had done a modified workout with blessing from Mr. Westerling with testing out the actual conan’s wheel. What I was originally supposed to do was this workout which had been same as week one; work up to a top set of 50’ and then take off 100lbs for more fun. The blacktop seemed to be more even where I had done the yoke and wheelbarrow stuff last time but the gate seemed to be stuck so could only really move my body through it so that left me with the spot I had done it the first time which was uneven. Which was fine. I knew this would be a tougher session with the unstable yoke and the footing. Yoke is lighter empty but felt fine to start. It might have a slightly thicker crossbar from the one at the gym. No tape on the crossbar so plan was to wrap my arms partially for this. The longer “feet” and with how they weren’t exactly secured did have me wonder if I should lower the pick height more but it seemed to work out. I seem to have gotten over the wanting to pass out feeling on this but really going to be on the day to see if that is truly the case. Because I’ve not actually gone night night in training. Always at the competition. But it does seem to be not go right away. Pick it up and then try to shrug it up again and brace and then go. Like mentally grit my teeth for the gut punch. I honestly think this lightbulb moment actually came from PA’s Strongest last year when I felt like I was going to black out when I picked up the keg for the max carry and willed myself to stay awake. So goal for the top weight was to be 20-50lbs more than what I did last time. First week I did 500lbs (goal had been like 450lbs) but then did the conan’s wheel workout instead the next time when that was to be the same workout at that time. So really, I was thinking about maybe doing a set after the 550lbs I had planned. It was going to depend on how things went. And it was a little tough to figure out how I was feeling as the slant of the course. It’s a good thing that I slowed down and thought about what I was doing when adjusting weight as I almost misloaded 100lbs warming up. 500lbs felt pretty good so I knew 550lbs should happen here. The pick felt a bit more labored than I would’ve liked. I felt I was going well but near the end it was definitely lower in my arms and I was moving quite slow to finish out the run. Well, that’s the answer there; this be where we stop. So took off 100lbs for the last part of this. The options being to do 2 minutes of back and forth with whatever space I had available or to do 2 max distance sets (second set matching distance with however many drops needed). I just don’t have the space like I used to in the past for the max distance stuff straight shots. So it was going to be the 2 minutes of it. I had learned from the conan’s wheel session that I am missing something with doing only 50’ runs in that I let my upper body recover. Longer runs weight was sliding down as I went and I need to work on that. The revolution on the setup at the gym was about 80’ so I wanted to try and have a length of at least that and I was able to get things setup with moving stuff around to get a little bit longer than that. I had to temper my expectations because this was not as stable a setup as the other gym nor was the footing stable. This would be like at my house with mix of uphill and downhill. First run went fine if a little slow. I think that I rushed my start once I got around to do the second pick up and I ended up having the weight low in my arms way too early. I ended up having to drop short as I was dragging it. I had hoped to not have drops except in the 85’ drop zones. So a short walk to the finished spot. Better pick third time but I was definitely feeling the fatigue and ended up dropping again. I knew I had one more in me and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t drop again before time went. This was tough and my legs and glutes were just as shot as the upper body. I knew that I had gotten over 200’ on this so that was the goal (the low end of it). Again, I have high expectations of myself. Slammed a protein shake before putting all the stuff away before getting back home to eat some more and then stretch out. A week left to go.