September 13, 2025 – Week 2, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Heel Elevated Safety Squat Bar Squats
65x10
115x7
165x4
215x8
215x8
215x8
215x8
215x8

Axle Push Presses (0-1-0-1 tempo)
45x5
75x3
105x3
135x2
165x2
195x3
195x3
195x3
195x3
195x3

Bulgarian Split Squats/Incline Dumbbell Squeeze Bench Presses
bwx30 seconds/30 seconds -- 50’sx30 seconds
bwx30 seconds/30 seconds -- 50’sx30 seconds
bwx30 seconds/30 seconds -- 50’sx30 seconds
bwx30 seconds/30 seconds -- 50’sx30 seconds

Lateral Lunges/Single Arm Dumbbell Triceps Extensions
bw+26.5x10/10 -- 25x12/12
bw+26.5x10/10 – 27.5x12/12
bw+26.5x10/10 -- 30x12/12

Stretching

Comments: As there wasn’t really anyone that would need assistance with training (they were at Nationals), I didn’t set my alarm and just figured I’d wake up when I felt like it and then get set. As not rush as this session for training isn’t that complicated. Which ended up being about an hour later than I’d need to get up for work (at least for this month). Drive out was fine for the most part. Congestion around the city and then anxiousness with slow traffic around the exit where I had the accident in May. It was kind of crisp weather out and I was kind of surprised it wasn’t heating up with the direct sunlight. There were a few people there and some newer faces. I wasn’t really expecting many people since the gym owners were hosting a competition off site today so some equipment was gone. But nothing that I needed. I was somewhat tempted to just do this workout at home when traffic had been a little slow but I figured it was best to keep this up since I will unfortunately need to be driving a lot more next month with the work plan shift. Foam rolling wasn’t too bad. Calves and ankles needed it the most today compared to everything else. Top of my quads (mostly right) had been the most sore this week and finally had recovered by today. I switched the order of some things by doing some of my knee and ankle stuff first and then moving on to the neck rehab stuff. Then doing stuff with stretches for the hips, ankles and knees and dead hang for decompression. Lower back has still been feeling fatigue from coming back to training after being in Ireland but maybe recover is improving a little with intense training. So first thing for training was squats. Same as last week in that ssb squats with heels elevated and atg style. The rack I used last time was in use and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to figure out the monolift so I used a different rack. Notes were indicating these to still be light with weight range 215-225lbs with 5x8 as the sets and reps. I figured that doing 50lbs jumps and enough reps would be fine and that since this is a good bit more volume on these kinds of squats that I should stick to the same weight for the sets just to make sure I was ok and handling things well. Sometimes take a bit for the knees (mainly right one) too feel good. The extra reps were noticed on these and while feeling good, it seemed like the best thing to not increase the weight as I could feel my right leg start to fatigue on the last set. This was a good start to the day and then moving on to axle overhead. I had misread my workout sheet last time and had done only 3x5 instead of 4x5. Some changes made for this time around. Ms. Funk indicated that my overhead may be a timing issue with my body firing at the right time so plan here was to slow down the movement at points to reinforce positioning. So 5x3 with suggested weight 175-195lbs with a 1 second pause at the bottom of the dip and one second pause at lockout for each rep. Even if I didn’t feel the most confident last weekend, I felt that 195lbs should be in my ability to do for this. 30lbs jumps working up with the hollow axle. I used 15lbs bumper plates I think so I could just keep adding weight and not worry about swapping out plates and because it then looked like a lot of weight. Just another novelty thing while off season training. I kept at least a double on each set working up so that I got the feel of the movement and that I didn’t just lower the weight to my shoulder all chaotic like. It is still an odd sensation having the weight feel really heavy out of the rack on the first set. It felt lighter as I did more sets thankfully and I kind of feel like my rack position and tightness/bracing in my upper body got better as I went. At least for the initial rep of each set. I’ve had to do longer pauses in these positions before. I felt like these went well and were explosive. I certainly felt less anxious compared to last week. Though I do still seem to thinking to myself this isn’t that much weight so still at some level talking myself down. Make progress where I can and realize that I need to keep working on things. Unlike last week, I wasn’t drenched in sweat and I didn’t end up needing to swap out a shirt for this session. This was the end of the what I’d call typical gym work and it was on to what appears to be to me odd/unrelated supersets. Though perhaps this is more of a way to get me doing stuff to improve stuff (it’s good for me) akin to giving bitter medicine to a pet or child wrapped in a treat. First one of these gruesome twosome being the Bulgarian split squats with those incline dumbbell squeeze presses. Same weights as last time but doing another set. These had been deceptively tough. The benching had been tough the whole time but the bss stuff snuck up on me and is what had me having DOMS in my upper quads all this week. I did look for other dumbbells that weren’t as thin so that there was more surface area to smoosh them together this time around. I was luckily able to find an older pair. I could tell my right leg was fatiguing a bit more on these compared to the left leg. Balance seemed better on my left side this week. Pressing was exhausting and adding another set wasn’t fun. But perhaps I am adapting to the increased demands. I didn’t realize the length of rest/recovery I was needing on these this session as well until later. I took a bit of time after that was done to just kind of relax. It was more that I was thirsty and drank a bit too much of my intraworkout drink and didn’t want to get an upset stomach doing later lunges haha. This was the last thing for the session and then I’d be done and it wasn’t too late in the day. Pairing of lateral lunges and triceps extensions with dumbbell. It looks like the ROM I did last week on the lunges was fine but that I should be doing more elbow tucked in for the triceps. Sets of 10 on the lunges with suggested 25lbs and sets of 12 reps on the triceps. I didn’t do any warming up for the previous superset as legs and upper body were already pretty toasty and I had another set on top of the previous week. The only thing I needed to really get prepped here was the lunge to the side so I did some Cossack stretches to get things feeling ok before going into this. I also used a little more weight. I didn’t want to bother with a plate so I used a kettlebell instead. The movement didn’t feel as crisp as last week but it was a pretty big jump up in weight. Left side is not a smooth as the right side with these.  I did take a bit of time after this to just cool off and keep my gorge from rising as I had one last superset. Triceps were a bit surprising. The plan here had been 35lbs for 3x12. But I could tell with my right arm that after getting this setup that I was not as strong with my elbow tucked in vs splayed out and that I wasn’t going to get my reps with this weight. I was kind of shocked at how much of difference this made in feeling I had strength/power there. So I dropped things down to 25lbs. My left side didn’t seem to have as much an issue so I figured I’d try to increase the weight each set to see what I could do. Added 2.5lbs per set. 30lbs was manageable on the last set but it was tough for the last reps for both sides. Drank my shake and cleaned up before heading out. Driving back for whatever reason was slow going with a lot of traffic at each major exit for what looked like no discernible reason. Stretched when I got back home finally.