October 1, 2025 – Week 5, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Deadlifts (straps)
136x5
226x3
316x2
366x1
406x1
456x1
496x5

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (24”)
65x6
115x5
165x4
215x3
265x2
315x4
315x4
315x4
315x4

Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (straps)/Pull Ups/Paused Lying Band Leg Curls (2 seconds)
225x3/bwx3
315x10/bw+10x11/(2)mmbx15
315x10/bw+10x11/(2)mmbx15
315x10/bw+10x9/(2)mmbx15

Sandbag Over Shoulders
225x1/1
225x40 seconds
225x40 seconds
225x40 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I’m leaning more toward something tore in my leg with there feeling like there is strand of knots in it and it feels a lot like how my other leg feels where the muscle had a slight tear. There is more discomfort with my having pressure put on it than actually doing stuff like lifting so it is odd. It isn’t like where with the oblique, hamstring and biceps were it feels like a cramp, there is a weakness and just seems to fatigue faster type deal. Like I said, just keep monitoring things. I’m not in pain and I’m still doing everything and not feeling like I’ve missed a step. I’ve been making sure to do the soft tissue stuff on the non-training days. Work is busy. Foam rolling to start things off and not a lot of was needed besides the tops of my calves here. Neck rehab stuff fine as well. This has been a good warming up for the upper body in what tends to get stiff/tight for me. Not explicitly indicated this time but I did the calf and tib raises again with some glute activation work as well before doing the stretching for lower body. I feel like that makes a better warming up for this kind of session vs what I do for the other days at this time. Deadlifts to start but a change from what I’ve been doing. It has been bendy bar EMOM stuff but not today. Indication what to see where I’m at strength wise so work up to a 5rm on axle. Advised to have it be tough but not a max. So RPE 8.5-9. I was hopeful of what this would be here but I also knew that sometimes just not always on point with deadlifts. I took bigger jumps to start out before going to 40-50lbs jumps with plate quarter plate once I got to using my belts. First two warming up sets felt good but the third it started to feel darn heavy. The thickness of the bar was having me place pressure on the spot on my thigh where it has whatever is going on so not terribly pleasant that. I did feel like my lower back was more involved with taking the stress than I’d have liked but a bit tricky to say if going from flexi bar to deadest possible bar and disadvantaged position had anything to do with that. I used my regular sized plates rather than use the fun stuff like the big wheels and standing on platform as I felt those would probably obscure form on video and I’m really trying to take these cues to heart and get myself to move and feel well. I did not hit max arousal here and I was pretty ho hum for the last single. That isn’t to say I didn’t get amped up for the top set. I really wanted to add a little more to get it to 500lbs or more but I knew it wasn’t wise if I was to not have this be a max set of 5 reps. I do feel like the work with having lockout adjustments to change the stroke here has been helpful with me keeping the pull going. Last rep was a bit slow to lockout and I’d say it was more like 9.5 RPE here as I can’t say 100% that I was good for another rep here. But this is the first time since July that I’ve pulled close to 500lbs from the floor for reps. The time before that I think was February. It has been low 400’s or high 300’s most of the time now. It is the starting point. I know that this can improve as last time I had this as my starting point on barbell, I was able to get to 585lbs for a triple as a PR in contest about 8 weeks later. So now I know and no estimations. Not a lot of volume obviously here but I did need to make sure that I was a recovered from that and that the discomfort was not from pulling weights rather than just the compression of the weight against my thigh. Cleaned up stuff and put stuff together while getting a little fluid in me. On to the ssb front box squats. I was not sure how these would go after heavy pulls. I was also not sure on how the loading on the legs would feel. I was also not sure how the knees would feel too after doing push pressing back to back sessions. So plan for this session was also reduced volume with it being 4x4 and suggested 10-20lbs more than last time. I set things up here so that it was 50lbs jumps working up and then if I wasn’t feeling great, do just 40lbs for the last jump to working weight. I was not sure until I did 265lbs what I was going to do. While nervous about everything besides breathing here, I was feeling strong. Like, wondering why this felt better than last week. I could go to the box under control faster, I wasn’t feeling aches. I don’t know if some of the stuff I’ve been doing has got my ankles not to be so restricted. Just really surprised that 315lbs was feeling and moving as well as it did. Maybe not being so fatigued from many deadlifts vs just doing one tough set. A little longer a break here to setup things for the triset. At this point with how time was going, I elected to scrap my initial dinner plan for something that would be quicker as odds are I’d be eating after 9:00PM on the soonest side of things. Again, slight change here, but only on the leg curl portion. The snatch grip Romanian deadlifts started things off. 315lbs for 3x10. I was advised to try and rotate my hands while strapped in so as to get my lats engaged more. It did seem like I was better with having my glutes engaged. These felt strong but was really feeling my hamstrings (especially the left one). Third set something “shifted” in that hamstring and I started hearing something that sounded like Velcro. Because it was as my stupid fabric belt started coming undone again on the last few reps. Which was annoying. It seems to be only with bracing and bending over so I may need to retire it from being used for deadlifts. Pull ups were next. Same as last week with doing 3 sets of max reps with 10lbs added and goal to increase reps from last time. I feel like I was able to have better control on these this week It probably helped that not raining and it was a little cooler and drier out. Added one rep to the first two sets but no change on the third. The leg curl setup from last time had not been what I was supposed to do so with clarification I got it setup how it should. But of course changing to pauses at contraction each rep. I had initially thought of using what I’ve done in the past on these when treated as their own thing for sets but figured it was probably best to do something I knew I could do as these could be rough with everything else. I probably can do the other band tension I had in mind next time. But this was definitely making my hamstrings tight and pulling on my lower back and hip on the left side. I had to do a little adjustment to get things to crack before I finished up the evening with the sandbag over shoulder. 225lbs had been pretty rough going from the 175lbs bag. Doing it again but now for 40 seconds instead of 30 seconds. I figured I could do another rep in that added time. I made sure I didn’t have too much in my stomach so I didn’t end up barfing a little like last week. Successful there. I also made sure that I taped my wrists a little differently so my wrists didn’t get as sore. Also success. Ms. Funk indicated that I should try to not collapse things when in the lap to keep it higher so as I don’t have to move it as far to do the movement. I don’t think I got that right as I was rushing and overthinking. I think because it is a timed thing that I tend to rush. I didn’t do a warm up last time and I didn’t intend to this week either as the stuff leading up is enough as it stands and trying to not be so drained. The two reps were my first attempt and things were going well but the bag landed weird on after the second rep and I panicked to grab it and it got in my lap oddly and I just couldn’t get it go to one side or the other when extending and it just was stuck there. I eventually just stopped and cursed a little before resetting things and telling myself to calm down. Treat that as warming up. I didn’t have that issue after that with these. Since I figured I’d get odd number of reps, I started with my right side over the first set and then left side over for the second set to start with these alternating sets. I could tell fatigue was hitting me by the last set as I was a bit slow here and I didn’t have enough time to do a fifth rep. I was fine with that since I’d already done an extra and a half before these. Put away the sandbag and got my dinner ready before eating and cleaning up. I’m not looking forward to doing these sessions the next four weeks with having to be commuting.