October 25, 2025 – Week 8, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Heel Elevated Safety Squat Bar Squats
65x10
115x8
155x6
205x4
245x2
285x1
315x4
315x4
315x4
315x4
315x4
315x4

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x4
72x3
94x2
108x1
120x1
135x1
145x4
145x4
145x4
145x4

Yoke
225x50’
325x50’
425x50’
EMOM
525x50’
525x50’
525x50’
525x50’
525x50’
525x50’

ATG Split Squats (24”)/Ab Wheel
bwx8/8 – bwx12
bwx8/8 – bwx12
bwx8/8 – bwx12

Rower
1500m in 5 minutes 27.80 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I was still feeling pretty rough Thursday and ended up just taking the day off after work from doing anything and trying to get some things from the week sorted out. As well as try to get to bed early and see if getting some more sleep helps shake it off. Maybe that helped but I certainly was desiring more sleep. But I felt like actually doing stuff Friday so I’d say a positive. Just trying to get through another week of this in office stuff and then back home for a month. Assuming things stay the same. Who knows these days. Lots of crazy stuff. So much so I forgot to mention that Midwest qualifier for Natural Strongman posted and I like these events the most of the qualifiers. Still waiting to see if/what the West Coast looks like. I woke up for Saturday about the same time as last weekend which is a bit helpful with getting training out of the way at a somewhat reasonable time to have time to do things later. So the getting up an hour early for work thing has benefitted in that regard.  I was pleasantly surprised that driving out to train was fine. It did look like there was construction for the way back but it was late enough at that time that it was resolved on the return trip. There weren’t a ton of people when I got there but people did start coming in while I was there and I did end up helping with some training/strongman stuff this time around. I had thought I was good today with allergies but I was wrong and regretted not taking a Claritin before heading out (only did nasal spray). Foam rolling was needed for my lower legs but not really much elsewhere again and then moved on to the neck rehab stuff. Did some stuff for my ankles and knees (and my hips/abs) before doing stuff with stretches for the hips, ankles and knees and dead hang for decompression. I did make some slight adjustments to the one exercise for my knees and maybe that actually helped some. It was cool enough that I didn’t feel I needed to turn on the fans and I’m sure if I did, I’d have some people complain about it as it had been quite chill in the gym before I got warmed up. Heel elevated ssb squats to start things off as per usual with this offseason. Plan was to do 6x4 with about the same weight as last week (305-315lbs). A slight improvement on how the knees were feeling warming up. Which is a lot better than how they felt two weeks prior. The notes were that I was getting the depth but I was tending to have hips come up first and the rest following so forward lean putting more stress on back and such. So advised to try and keep hips under me and to think of the little muscles in the knee. I may need to ask for some clarification on the visualization on that but I did try to focus on the hips thing and I think I did get that to be a little better this time around. My first set didn’t feel like it has with feeling super rough and needing to breath pause each rep that first set. The allergies were making things a little tough with breathing but I knew I could handle this as not as bad as it was Wednesday. I had a little hiccup on the fourth set with the third rep getting a little too forward at the top of the lift and I had to pause to get myself balanced again with foot pressure before doing the last rep there. Other than that, went decently well with squatting. Pressing from there. Back to circus dumbbell. Still just using my strong side and do it as I would competition style. These had gone about as well as I had hoped last time so I had expectations here but I also knew that I was feeling a bit rough with stress and allergies this week so to also temper those expectations. The plan for the session was to do 4x4 with 5-10lbs more than last time. I had a better idea of things with warming up and figured that I’d make plans to adjust as needed to see what working weight would be. Figured I’d skip the lightest bell and go to the next heaviest and then bigger jumps until I got to the heavier bells. So the good is that I didn’t seem to have an issue with the weight on my upper back and traps initially like the first session, but my knees were quite achy initially. I was also a little worried that my triceps wouldn’t be firing as well as they should as the little muscles around my elbows were feeling Monday sessions still (especially those bottoms up presses). I felt that it didn’t make sense to use a real dumbbell with a fatgripz to warm up and just put weight in the second lightest dumbbell with clamps and that seemed to work fine. The 94lbs dumbbell feels awkward compared to the 108lbs and the 120lbs empty bells. But I need a bridge to make the gap there as the 49lbs one can’t really hold much weight in it to get to that weight. I was feeling iffy with things up to this point but 120lbs did fly up for me again so I was hopeful that 150lbs would be what was good today. But 135lbs as my in between jump didn’t feel solid or great and it grazed my ear on the way down on the lip so that was not fun. Thankfully, it didn’t cut my ear so no bleeding but it smarts. So I went with just 5lbs over last time. First set wasn’t a great one. Not as crisp as some reps were last time. I got two reps and got a little off balance on the clean for the third rep and took a step back to reset and collect myself before going for the fourth rep. That rep did end up being the best rep of the set and how I want the reps to feel. It is a fine line to thread here with getting reps fast in the time limit vs getting the solid reps so that sloppiness doesn’t cost me reps and energy. That last rep going like that did give me a little confidence boost. But I also appeared to have nicked my right thumb (non pressing hand) on one of the bolts on the dumbbell. It didn’t bleed profusely and it was such that just wiping or licking away did the trick. Second set first rep was fine but I just seemed to get off balance in the dip for the second rep and had to catch myself. That rep went out away from me so not ideal on the press. The other two reps were just so so. I think I got a little more aggressive after that set as the third set the reps were better and more crisp and essentially going right from receiving the dumbbell on the shoulder into the press. Only a slight hesitation going for the last rep here as the third rep I had to walk a little to catch. Fourth and last set was interesting. The first three reps were just bang on effortless and just how I want the reps to be feeling here. But the fourth rep was garbage. I got too loose and it got out of position and I had to strain to get close to lockout before I lost control. I’d not give myself the rep at competition. But it was the last rep of the last set and I figured it was best not to push things here and strain something out of frustration. I know that I can get these weights moving. From there it was on to yoke. These have been quite exhausting with the many sets of 50’ with EMOM style rest. Continuing that but with a drop in the sets to go with increase in weight. 25lbs added and taking away 4 sets. Notes here were to try and push the yoke forward and to get drive off the back foot as I tend to be very flat footed on these. I did 100lbs jumps warming up as I’ve been doing and did try to go fast off the start even with the warming up to see how pushing forward rather than pushing out goes as well as trying to push off back foot. The new cues did initially have me at odds with things and my first working set I could tell that I wasn’t quite getting things to go together. Trying to put all together but had me a little unfocused with my bracing so that was my slowest run. However, I think I got things clicking a little better after that and runs were more consistent with how I have been doing. I may need to think on what I can do to actually have my back leg drive be a thing on these. That was the last of the really intense stuff this session as yet another change to the superset. Trying to get my knees to feel good and dropping the previous exercise for some regression of split squat with working on hip, knee and ankle mobility. So second half was still the ab wheel for 3x12 but the first half was modified atg split squats. Just bodyweight for 3x8 and advised to use a really high box to start. No knee sleeves to try and see what we got here and try to make progress. These were not taxing for me with 24” box height so I was able to just go from one thing to the next without any rest between sets. The ab wheel was the intense part of it and was getting sore in the lower abs. I’ve done the atg split squats before with elevation and from the floor. It is usually strain in the knee on the back leg that hampers things until warmed up. The is a pretty obvious mobility difference between my left side and my right with the knee over toe ROM. Left side tends to move freely but there can be some instability issues. Right side tends to ache and not as good ROM. This is the knee that has given me issues for over 4yrs now anyways. Forcing the stretch on that side has not been helpful in the past either. But we have a place to start. Rowing to once again finish up the session. Same distance as last time but aim to beat my time. This had felt better last week compared to the first week, even with the 500m distance increase. The notes for this was to not just think “go fast” but powerful strokes and consistency. I felt a lot less drained doing this even with my allergies. I ended up doing a good deal better than last week with beating my previous 1000m time by about 20 seconds and then the 1500m time by just under 30 seconds. I felt like I did work when I stopped but recovery seems to be better. Downed my shake and got in the car for home and then stretching there. Need to get some quality sleep to tolerate another week in office. But hey, back to telework after that for a month.