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.