November 24, 2024 - November 30, 2024 - Week 25

 November 25, 2024 – Week 25, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

12” Log Strict Presses w/ Bands (+14lbs/+22llbs)
No Bands
87x5
Add Bands
90x3
120x2
150x2
175x2

Paused Chest Supported Barbell Rows
75x5
125x5
175x5
2 seconds holds
225x5
225x5

Paused Spoto Presses w/ Chains (+22lbs)
No Chains
45x15
Add Chains
45x5
95x5
135x3
185x5
185x5

Band Face Pulls
abx20
abx20

Stretching
 
Comments: Last week really kicked my ass. I only went for a walk one day as weather was bad or just not able to with stuff going on. Down another pound in weight. That may be a moot thing with this week coming up but sometimes eating differently has me not gaining much of anything. Not actually trying to lose weight. I did yard work and house maintenance on Sunday instead of walking. I had taken Nyquil to make sure I slept solidly. Today didn’t start out great. I awoke to a cold house as my heat wasn’t working properly. The monoxide detector and one of my smoke detectors had dead batteries so that chirping was annoying until I could locate the culprits. I also in my rush in the morning with getting things resolved almost forgot to take my meds. So I could’ve had withdrawal issues if I didn’t realize a few hours into my day. Mr. Westerling asked me how I was feeling after last week and I told him that while my joints feel fine, my body and mind are telling me to chill out. I want to do some stuff but I’m anxious thinking about doing axle, front squats and farmer’s next week with how I’m feeling and I guess same with deadlifts this week. My neck is tense on both sides and been having slight cramps/twitches in my hamstrings, biceps and triceps. So I was instructed to drop the working weights for everything this week by 20% but keep the reps and sets the same. I don’t like having to modify from the plan as I feel like that means I failed but I know that isn’t the case. Things happen in practice that can’t be prepared for with theory alone. What is important is to not despair and continue pursuit of the goal. At least the system was working for me today with work so got work done but also got a lot of work to do. Just have to keep working at everything I guess. I kind of spaced out for a little bit after work because I knew the training would be easier than I was originally expecting and because dinner would need to cook a little longer. Warming up for training was fine. Stuff was feeling achy and stiff and not just joints. Some soreness and twitches. I guess a good thing that nothing too complex and just upper body today. Moving around does at least seem to feel good. Starting things off with log strict press style with bands. Originally the plan was to aim for 5lbs over last time. I was conflicted as I wanted to go for it but I was told to cut by 20% because I was feeling like ass. Sometimes I actually feel worse when I’m told to drop the effort. Sometimes perhaps it is needed and the cumulative effect of the training cycle has lead to the need and just anything would cause stuff to be achy. But it could also be that when told it isn’t my full effort that I don’t dig deep into that reserve and it feels bad because this would be how it feels if I wasn’t ready for it and acting casual. I’m still not sure which it is in all the years training. My right shoulder and pec were feeling tight on these from my neck on that side being sore and tight. I decided to go beltless here and not worry about anything here. This was fine and had me still thinking I could’ve gone with the original plan. From there moving on to chest supported barbell rows with pauses. Unchanged with it still being 2x5 after warming up. No sense in thinking of there needing to be a drop from the first set considering dropping down 20% was going to have the working weight be lighter than what 30lbs drop would be. I decided that I’d do the working sets without straps so that I felt like I was doing something I guess similar to beltless on the log pressing. This felt fine too. No straps didn’t have me feeling like I missed out on doing the heavier original plan with straps. So next was benching. Chains and 2x5. Again, 20% less than what was planned. I wasn’t too miffed about that for these as right shoulder was tended to ache with benching at times so having less weight was probably going to be feeling good on the shoulder. I do think the pausing and hold above the chest is requiring me to be tighter and have my shoulders be more stable on the movement. First set felt really good, second set was just ok in comparison. I went back outside for the face pulls. I just kept these the same as these are already pretty easy as it is with the band tension and reps. My hope being that these will feel good on my shoulders and that will in turn help with the neck tension/tightness. I’m finding these feel like they hit stuff a little differently with how I grip the band. Anyways, that was done and got stuff away and stretched before eating dinner. Hopefully this deloading has me feeling better soon.

November 27, 2024 – Week 25, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

13” Wagon Wheel Deadlifts (straps, touch and go)
135x5
225x3
315x2
405x1
445x5

Step Ups (18”)
bwx10 L
bwx10 R
bw+20’sx10 L
bw+20’sx10 R

Wall Sits
bwx60 seconds

Crunches
bw+40x35

Paused Hanging Knee Raises (1 second)
bw+16x22

Stretching
 
Comments: Maybe it was the week or I was just not feeling good in general. Around this time of year I do get a bit bummed out despite the family time. Mike Jenkins died 9yrs ago Thanksgiving time and I guess that is still something that affects me. Tuesday going for my walk my joints were killing me. Knees didn’t even do anything on Monday with how training was setup. And work was stressful and I was kind of just hoping to get through this short week and rest up with fresh start for December. I was not feeling great Tuesday and I was kind of worried I had a cold or something just with how I was feeling. Wednesday I took both allergy meds (minus Dayquil) to get through the day. Warming up my joints and such were still feeling achy, more so than they were on Monday. Then on to the session. Wagon wheel pulls. The original plan had been to warm up to a new 5rm on these. So instead this was going to just be a top set of 5 reps at 80% of what I was expecting to do. I was expecting to do 5lbs more than what I had done to be on the conservative side of things (550lbs) so about 440lbs would be 80% of that. I did the same warming up as if I were to be doing the heavier weight. Maybe it being colder out or something but my joints were aching. Knees and lower back joints. I don’t like it when it just feels like I have joints and no muscles around them. I decided it made sense to add support gear earlier than I would normally do. While I can entertain that with the upper body stuff, the lower body stuff is what is feeling the most garbage right now so anything helps. My last single didn’t feel terrible and it was just 40lbs more. The video says otherwise but that set of 5 reps felt horrible. Like the aches and slowness in breaking the weight that first rep had me consider stopping right there and calling it a day. Just cussing myself out in my head the entire set. This weight should never feel this tough. I did it but at what cost? I was very much thinking of just shutting things down and even reconsidering doing the competition in January. But I told myself that I shouldn’t end the session on this note as it will have my already poor outlook stay that way and the rest of the workout was much lighter and easier stuff. Step ups followed. 20% reduction is weight used being 20lbs rather than 25lbs. Not exactly as much a drop on things like the day before since this was a bodyweight style exercise. I knew just from how the pulls were these would be rougher than I’d like considering the knee extension aspect of them. I really had to tell myself to take this seriously as these with no weight were feeling rough. Once I got that point through and accepted these were tough and got myself to start sweating did these start to feel somewhat like they should. Left side was definitely struggling more than the right on these. Wall sits were next. Bodyweight and deeper squat style then I was doing when single leg. Can’t really reduce this weight since it is my bodyweight and this isn’t too bad taxing wise. Muscles feeling fine on these but knees were a bit achier than I’d like. Core work after that. Weighted crunches. Similar to the step ups in that not much weight change. Though this was quite noticeable in the weight drop as these felt really easy. I just stopped at 35 reps on these but could’ve kept going. The hanging knee raises was a bit tougher. I was initially just going to keep it as the same weight but figured I’d try to do 80% of that. This required using a kettlebell and bungee cord. With how the weight was positioned, I think this was actually tougher than with things as the weight being the ankle weights. So I wasn’t too miffed with things in having it be less reps than I normally get here. Put stuff away and went to have dinner with family before coming back home to stretch out. I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing as far as training right now as I’m not enjoying how I’m feeling since I got back from Arizona.

November 30, 2024 – Week 25, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Yoke
160x60’
260x60’
360x60’
460x60’
560x60’

Sled Pushes (60 seconds rest)
235x100’
235x100’
235x100’
235x100’
235x100’

Stretching
 
Comments: I’m glad that I didn’t have to work Thursday or Friday this week. As well as not train. Just eat a lot of food in one sitting and have time with family for holidays. My sleeping and stress was off as for some reason I didn’t fall asleep until like 1:30AM and then woke up at 11:45AM Wednesday. But I wasn’t feeling like I had a cold at least but I didn’t feel like I had much appetite. Managed to get to bed before 1AM that night and work up about 11AM. Nothing that day as one of the kiddos got pneumonia so felt it best to isolate. Just walk and try to work things out in my head. Figured out if I want to still do this. Because I was serious reconsidering after how I felt Wednesday deadlifting. I felt with the reduced weight that it didn’t make sense for me to go out to train in Lancaster, especially if I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish out this week of training. 12:30AM and up at 10:00AM so getting better I guess. But it took me a good while to feel like even training. I was finding it more entertaining and calming to try and figure out training plans on my own. It was close to freezing and windy so I knew that my joints were going to be aching and I did my best to keep warm with wearing my warm ups to warm up. Before that, I did get the yoke setup in the street. While my muscles were feeling good warming up, my right knee was a different story. Felt sore and stiff. What wasn’t even the one that was super achy on Wednesday. I was considering just not training but figured I’d give it what I could here. So the original plan before forced deload had been to do 500lbs, 600lbs and 700lbs on yoke for 60’ on the turf and get my times for each. Didn’t feel it made sense to do that if I was doing 80% of that and considering how I was feeling. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be moving super fast today and I didn’t want to bother my dad to assist with timing in the cold (not even sure he was home anyways). This yoke is really wobbly and has some sharp edges. I ended up cutting my left hand a little so I put on a band-aid and wore my gloves for the remainder of the runs. The breathing and air situation felt about the same but maybe I worked through it and managed to keep going. I had gotten concerned about it tested my blood pressure when I was over on Thanksgiving at my parents and it seemed to be about what it is when I get it checked at the doctor. It was feeling like a lot on my back and knees and I was not going very fast. It was not helping that my right knee was feeling sore and I didn’t really understand why it would be acting up when it wasn’t really taxed this week. It was also not helping I was irritated and depressed and that my neighbor decided to give their kid a very loud whistle that they were playing with outside. I should be having 150lbs more on here to be having it feel like it was and that should be on a bad day. I was considering just ending the session (hell, I was thinking that after every set but here we are) but felt I should do the speed/conditioning with the sled. I had not done this last yoke session because I felt so down about how I did and just felt all motivation leave me. And this could possibly irritate the knee but maybe it would actually “unscrew” the knee in some odd way. It wasn’t just a slog where I was fatigued by the end but would be trying to go really fast like with the sled drags. Plan being 5 sets of 100’ with a minute rest. Here at home I can do as long as I want so 100’ straight shot no problem instead of 50’/50’. I was thinking about using the yoke to do these but it felt like it made more sense to use the push sled since I actually have an idea what I can do with it on this street. So about 100lbs less than what I did the last time I was home to do these. I went from initially trying to go low like with a truck pull or heavy push and elected to go more upright like I’m doing a walker assisted sprint. Which I think felt better for me then going lower. This at least seemed to go well for me. I immediately put down a protein shake before putting stuff away and stretching. I’m anxious about next week’s training. I feel angry when I see other people putting up their training right now. I feel like I’ve aged 5yrs in these past two weeks.