November 29, 2025 – Week 13, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
175x6
225x4
265x2
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x4
72x3
94x2
108x2
125x1
137x1
150x1
162x4 (3 misses)
162x4 (1 miss)
162x4 (1 miss)
162x4 (2 misses)

Yoke
180x50’
270x50’
360x50’
450x50’
540xpick (5 seconds)
540x50’ in 8.09 seconds
540x50’ in 8.57 seconds
540x50’ in 7.90 seconds
540x50’ in 8.12 seconds
540x50’ in 8.03 seconds
540x50’ in 7.94 seconds

ATG Split Squats (12”)/V-Ups
bwx12/12 – bwx10
bwx12/12 – bwx10
bwx12/12 – bwx10

Sandbag Husafell Carries
290x50’
290x50’
290x50’
290x50’

Echo Bike
10 minutes

Stretching

Comments: I apparently needed the days off work. Sleep cycle off and need to get that back on track for this upcoming month of in office work shift. I’ve not really been having it where I’ve been sleeping a lot lately besides Friday night and even that wasn’t so bad until recently. It had been a bit short of what I have been able to do before I went to Ireland but definitely seems like I’m back to being able to just sleep the day away if I wanted to. I slept for 10hrs Wednesday and Thursday night and I might have been close to that for last night as well. That coupled with going to bed late pretty much meant I got just breakfast and dinner and a shake before bed for Thursday and Friday. But big meals for dinner so maybe evens out. So I guess eating schedule also off but it is going to be off with work shift starting next week. Plan not to have that today. I wasn’t sure who would be at the gym with it being a holiday weekend and such. Drive out wasn’t bad. It has been below freezing or close to it the past few days so I wore my warm ups. Soft tissue work started things off and wasn’t too bad. Maybe all the sleep. Quads still needed it a fair amount. Neck rehab stuff was ok. Felt I needed it to get my shoulders and chest not to feel tight. This was followed by stretching of the hips, hamstrings, knees and ankles and then a dead hang. On to the weights. Cambered squat bar box squats for the first thing. Higher volume session, comparable to the first week of these. Plan being 315-325lbs for 6x6. Considering how the past two weeks went, this shouldn’t be an issue other than just getting used to the reps I think. Comparatively, these felt tougher than the ssb front box squats did earlier this week. These just felt a little off today I guess. Knees had felt stiff and the right one a little achy so not ideal. Trying to keep the upper back rigid but I don’t think that really clicked until the last 2 sets for me. I definitely did some touch and go reps on the second set at the start but corrected. With more reps here, I took longer rests than the 90 seconds last time but not quite as long as I did my first week of these. I got these done with no real issues and put stuff away and swapped in a fresh shirt for circus dumbbell. I did take a bit to cool off and I walked outside a little. The heat is now on in the gym and I needed to not be so darn sweaty for what came next. Now I’ve done circus dumbbell prep with it every other week for a majority of my time with dumbbell but that isn’t to say that I’ve not also done it every week as well. The last time I tried it every week didn’t go well and had to have the one week intensity dropped a ton to have it work and while end result in training was good, did not materialize as good on the day of competition. Up until this point, it has been every other week with offseason but it would appear the plan is increased frequency with contest prep with Ms. Funk. The plan was 160-165lbs for 4x4 and I knew that was going to be a big ask as about 90% of my new training max found last week. I was also asked to hold the lockouts a little longer to insure that I got the down call as well. My plan was only if I was feeling really good was I going to try doing any attempts at tap and go with the clean. I was fully expecting this to be where I did a rep and set it down and took a few breathes and went again. By virtue of the fact that I had to do this working weight twice last week as I missed the first rep attempt. I was also hoping I didn’t have an off day going into this. My initial plan had been to use the end caps but I didn’t bring my own bolt on collars so I didn’t trust that the hand tighten ones I found would be secure the entire time so did like last week with no caps. A lot of nerves. First rep went up fine and I took a step back and breath or two and went for the next rep. Just wasn’t there and I set it down and took a bit longer of a break and went for it again. That rep went up so explosively I almost lost it trying to get stable under it. Went for a third rep and it was similar results to the first missed attempt (just a bit better I guess) and I attempted to restabilize and go again but put it down. I guess it was going to be one of those days. After another short break I went for it again and it got up there but couldn’t stabilize it. After two misses in a row, I had to walk off the platform and collect my thoughts. Came back and got it finally. So that seemed to work so I walked off the platform again and came back and got that last rep convincingly. This took about 3 minutes to get these reps done. So obviously not a great start but I knew these were form issues and I’m getting more time with the dumbbell and working on my clean which is what I feel is also having me anxious and worried about fatiguing. Since this set of four took 5 times longer than I’d have liked to finish, I took a rest that was needed to calm down and get myself ready. Or so I thought. Got ready for the second set and I miss the first rep. Ok, walking it off. Come back to it and I get it this time but did need to walk a little to stabilize under it. Give myself a little rest with walking away to the monolift and coming back for the next rep and that goes up better than the first rep. I do the walk away and come back again and that one goes up even better. So I stay on the platform for this last rep and I get it just as well as the third rep. So four gets in a row. About 2.5 minutes this time (1.75 minutes if don’t count the first missed rep). Still not great but better than the first set for sure. So hope was that I could improve on that with the third set. First rep went up fine and when the second set had a little bit of struggle with stabilizing at lockout, I took a slightly longer rest before going for the third rep which went up easy again. Almost had the fourth rep (would’ve been 70 seconds mark) but I lost tightness in my upper body and it was going inward instead of outward and I had to bail or dislocate my shoulder. It had me a little shaken so I did walk away to get my head right and get myself back into. Got the last rep here with a little dancing under to get it. Ok, under 2 minutes to get all the reps and same percentage of gets to misses for that set. Final set and it started off similar to the third set. First rep comfortable and then the second rep ended up being just as explosive as that one rep in the first set. So I took the same short rest to go for the third and I just couldn’t stabilize it and missed it. Just two more reps. Went for the third rep again and I got it with a little shimmy needed to stabilize under it. One more. Going for it and it just seems that I’ve hit a wall here as I just don’t feel comfortable with it and I stay in the hold position too long and have to redip as I didn’t feel stable the first time and it just goes nowhere. Ugh. I take a longer rest here as I just have to get this last rep and I’m done. I think this ends up being the longest break between reps at 35 seconds. I get it and I hold it for a beat longer before setting it down. Ugh, that was a lot. But I’m proud with myself for not getting frustrated and rage quitting here. I know that this one is a very technical lift and I think part of it is that I know I’m 10 weeks out still and I’ve already hit above contest weight three sessions in row here. From there it was on to yoke. Same as last week with the aim being speed. Plan being same weight as last time but 6 runs of 50’. Aim still being to get below 8 seconds on as many sets as I can. I did what I did last week for the most part as far as warming up as circus bell took up a lot of time and I knew I’d be at the gym late due to what I still had planned. So did 90lbs jumps and gradually adding equipment and speed. Knees were feeling a bit stiff today. I didn’t want what happened last time with the first set and my blood pressure spiking so I did a pick and hold with the working weight to hopefully mitigate that as things had felt good weight wise on my back after that first run last week. This was also the point I decided to be sneaky and just add 10lbs more so that I did 90lbs jumps from the empty yoke to this weight. I think my upper back and knees were just beat this week from stuff as the weight never felt as easy light on my back as it did last week. I had felt that with the cambered squat stuff too today. Oh well. Had Brian doing commands and he does them a bit more the traditional way and actually stands at the end line unlike the other person that did them the past two weeks so I guess take consistency with a grain of salt. I was at least off to a better start compared to last time with the first run. Second run felt like it was going well and then I noticed tightness issue and that’s when I noticed my belt had come undone and was dangling around my hips before falling to the ground. Not happy about that with it being just over 8.5 seconds. But I made up for it on the next run finally getting sub 8 seconds here. This ended up being my fastest run of the day. The next two runs were just over 8 seconds like my first run. Usually I get my best time on the last run of the day and it probably would’ve if I didn’t stumble in the midway to beginning for some reason. This did end up as my second run sub 8 seconds. Besides the second run with the wardrobe malfunction, they were all pretty close together and within human error. I put stuff away from there as I had something that was going to be a time vampire planned at the end so rather have clean up be quick. Nex thing being a superset. Slight adjustment to this. Still the knees over toes progression on the split squats but the abdominal exercise was changed. For the split squats, same box height and aim for 12 reps. My left knee had been fine with the box height last week but my right was feeling a little irritated. As my knees had been feeling a bit stiff all this session, this height and these reps felt challenging enough today. The abdominals was a new one for me with a v-up. I’ve done something similar before but not really with movement involved. I’m not terribly coordinated when it comes to new things so I had an awkward time with the first set finding balance point but seemed to get it fine the second set and then get a bit of balance issue again on the third set. I’m sure I’ll get these better next time. Then it was time for the time vampire; filling up a new sandbag. I didn’t “need” to do this now. The notes had been to do husafell carry working up to RPE 8 for 4x50’. But I felt it was important for me to see how a sandbag one was compared to a metal one. I’m good at the metal ones for the most part but I had a feeling my style of hold that I usually go for wasn’t going to work here for the competition and I needed to see where I was. Now, the gym has a 270lbs one that is from a cheaper brand and it isn’t really shaped like the contest one as well as being 38lbs too light. I had bought one that I assumed was the contest size a few months back and had 300lbs of sandbags to make contest event. I had waited until I was done with everything besides this to mess with the sandbag stuff as it can be time consuming and frustrating and I get a little annoying when I got dirt/dust on my hands for an extended period of time. This took probably and hour and I’ve come to the conclusion I was sent 120kgs bag instead of 140kgs bag in error as I packed this thing to the rafters and it won’t even close like it is supposed to and it comes out to 290lbs. There is no way that I can fit 18lbs of sand into this thing. I’m frustrated and I’m not going to be asking for refund or whatever as I’m not going to spend another hour filing up a sandbag for one competition. So some sore hands, fingers and forearms and finally ready to do this. Would feel pretty stupid if I couldn’t do this for the RPE 8 after all that. I do think this was a good idea to do as it does feel different grip wise compared to a metal implement. I definitely have to crush it more. I generally only where a soft belt for this but seeing as how I’m doing this as part of a medley after yoke, I wore what I’m wearing for that. That first set my knees were stiff and I was trying to see what purchase I could get as far as getting it up my body to move with it. It did not feel comfortable with it resting on my knees like that. Thankfully, I was able to pick it up and adjust without doing that on the following reps. Moving well enough but I feel like I got to be quicker here. If needed, I think I can toss a weight vest on top of this to get closer to contest weight but there is no way I can get more sand in there. The true last thing was some “recovery” bike time. Advised to hit level 2 HR on bike for 5-10 minutes. Thankfully, the gym did get a new exercise bike that actually fits me but it doesn’t have heartrate monitor so I just went with steady pace. Felt fine but my hamstrings and glutes were sore from other stuff so sitting on bike seat wasn’t enjoyable. This ended up being a much later night than I had expected so I saved the shake for before I go to bed and got myself home to start dinner and then stretched. Hopefully I recover well enough before training again as I feel that competition prep is soon and will be brutal.

November 26, 2025 – Week 13, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
143x5
235x3
323x2
Add Holds at Lockout (2 seconds)
373x1
423x1
473x2
473x2
473x2
473x2
473x2
473x2

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (21”)
65x8
115x6
155x4
205x2
255x7
255x7
255x7
255x7

Paused Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (straps, 2 seconds)/Chest Supported I Flys and T Flys/Paused Lying Band Leg Curls (3 seconds)
265x3/10’sx3+3
355x8/21’sx10+10/(2)mmbx10
355x8/21’sx10+10/(2)mmbx10
355x8/21’sx10+10/(2)mmbx10

Sandbag Marches
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds

Stretching

Comments: So if it wasn’t apparent I had checked out for the month on Monday in regards to work, yesterday and today made that abundantly clear. Honestly, I just want this year to be done at this point. I do feel like I’m on the tail end of this cold as I didn’t need any meds yesterday or today. It is good that I did stick to doing the workouts as planned on Monday and today rather than space them out as weather on Tuesday wasn’t great (hard rain in November ugh) and I’d have been out of it going certain days and then having to have things be quite rigid for the next month. Trying to not let things going on in the world (close to home and at large) stress me out but it is good that I have a close and supportive place and it is affirmative to see that things I put my faith and trust in are what they say they are if that makes sense. I was looking forward to work ending so I could get to training and get it done and then make the most of the time off to get things in order. I tend to forget I kind of get down mentally around this time of year because of my friend passing away at this time and that this was my mom’s parent’s favorite holiday and they are no longer with us. So busy lately that it sneaks up on me subconsciously and then I don’t understand feeling this way and tired until I get a break and kind go “oh right” and then I seem to understand and not feel so off. Work done and don’t got to worry about it until next month. Foam rolling was ok. Calves were alright and then my quads were really tight. I was wondering why and then I remembered the tempo goblet squats and the new quad dominant movement as well. That makes sense. Neck rehab followed and that was needed. My upper body (especially shoulders) were feeling Monday session. Went into the stretching for hips, ankles, hamstrings and knees after that followed by a dead hang to decompress. Then I did the tib raises/calf raises, treating these as the first exercise of the lifting session. I do like that it feels I’m getting better control of my ankles and feet with training. Then time for garage work. Bendy long bar pulls again. Volume adjusted a good bit. Still a lot of sets but now doubles with 20lbs added. Last time these had started off quite rough and then I somehow got into a zone where deadlifts felt great for most of the rest of it. I don’t know if it was a combination of Dayquil and mindset and form or what. I tried my best to replicate that but didn’t quite get there. These didn’t feel awful but I didn’t quite get these reps to feel like the solid reps I was getting last week with 20lbs less. I did same warming up with plate jumps and then 50lbs but did 50lbs all the way up once going to those jumps to get to what I wanted for the working weight. I was to do the 1 second holds but I ended up going longer with more like 2-3 seconds as I was fully exhaling and then taking a breath before going. I think I did this for consistency sake and not end up rushing and I did used to do this style in the past when coming back from back injury and working on bracing. Even with this weight, I was able to keep my rests between doubles to about 90 seconds like the box squats on Saturday. Which felt good to know I could do the repeat that quickly and having things be consistent. I got a little silly near the end with singing to the music playing. From there, I got a little bit of a drink and put stuff away for what comes next. The consistent second thing of ssb front box squats. Drop in weight and increase in reps with 4x7 as the proposed work today. The suggested weight was 245-255lbs. Initially, I put down as by feel but aim being the 255lbs. Then with how I was feeling the blahs this week and maybe just thinking about the more event specific things being fun and maybe just that the squats would take more out of me from the other stuff that was tougher, I contemplated using the lighter weight range. But I felt that that wasn’t me and aimed for the top end range even if the weight jumps were weird. I did alter my warming up on these slightly to have more reps at the lighter weights at first just to have the knees awake as not as much deadlifting and then lower reps as getting to there so that I got bracing right and see how knees were doing. I figured I should be fine here as I’ve done 20lbs more for 6x6 not long ago. These felt comfortable and easy for the most part. I did put on a fan in the garage as I was getting a little heated doing these for the reps. Only reason rests were longer than the deadlifts was that I was having issues with belching. These only started to feel like something on the last rep of the last rep and that was more from keeping the rests shorter and trying to bang these out like the deadlifts so that I could move on with the evening. The time of the workouts will matter more next month with the work shift change. Another break to get fluids in me as I put stuff away and got ready for the draining triset. This past week had been the toughest it has been with the current iteration of snatch grip rdls, upper back dumbbell raises and band leg curls. It had been the first time I missed a rep on the rdls. Granted, I think we’ve added 60lbs to them since the start of off-season prep. So slight tweaks again. Weight increasing 10lbs on the rdls and reps being dropped to 6-8. That was expected and needed change. The dumbbell raises I was a little surprised that notes were to increase the weight more rather than reps. With how the weight felt last week, it seemed to be a good idea just with the torque on my joints from leverages to add a warm up set to this like I do the snatch rdls. The band leg curls were changed from tempo to pause style. 3 second holds at contraction and only 10 reps. Notes said same band tension but I knew from past experience that it would be way too easy so I went up a band tension. That first set of the rdls felt tougher than I’d have liked. Made me wonder how I did 10lbs less for 12 reps last week while congested. I also seem to be quick on my second counts on these for some reason. The dumbbell raises pairing was the toughest thing for me this week. A 5lbs increase on these feels monstrous and the I raises were going to be the easier one for sure. Until this point, I rested a beat before doing the T raises but I knew that I needed to rest a little bit longer between them with how taxing these were going to be. So I did about 15 seconds rest before doing the other half of the raises and that was still very challenging. The band leg curls were still quite easy even with increasing the band tension but they felt good. I think I was ready to use the longer rests like the past two weeks or so with the tempo leg curls fatiguing me so but that wasn’t the case with the paused style sapping me so I was able to do just a regular rest period before doing the next set. That is still a long rest than other stuff with getting my air and stopping belching and getting setup. Second set of the rdls felt like they should and was feeling comfortable with the third set feeling about in the middle to the first and second set. So about par the course on these. The raises got tougher each set and the leg curls felt fine and comfortable. The anxiety was still on finishing the rdls no issue and then not having to rest too long between the dumbbell raises as the leg curls were the easy on this time around. Put stuff away again before getting ready for sandbag marches. I had not wanted to really do them last week with how I was feeling but didn’t feel like that this time around. Same weight and time but another set. Advised I got another week of these so probably another set is going to be added to finish off the off season prep (assuming here). I am noticing that increased frequency with touches of this is having me getting more comfortable quicker with getting the bag up high. I’m kind of intentionally pausing in the lap to then adjust my momentum and how I’m squeezing the bag and not rushing it and that seems to be working. Old dog and new tricks so to speak. These felt fine, it was more of again getting myself to not be belching before I went for the next set. I wasn’t quite done here as after the last set, I had to load 300lbs of sandbags into my car to take to the gym this Saturday in the event I need to fill and use my new husafell sandbag. Moving 50lbs bags is really easy after lifting 225lbs after all this. Finished with that and started cooking dinner. Stretched afterwards and pretty sure going to sleep until noon tomorrow.

November 24, 2025 – Week 13, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
46x8
76x5
106x3
136x2
166x2
196x2
226x5
226x5
226x5
226x5

Neutral Grip Incline Dumbbell Bench Presses
40’sx8
70’sx6
97’sx4
97’sx4 (missed 4th right side)
97’sx4
97’sx4
97’sx4
97’sx4

Dumbbell Push Presses (5 second eccentrics)
70’sx4
70’sx4
70’sx4
70’sx4
70’sx4

Barbell Z Presses/Heels Elevated Goblet Squats (4-0-4-0 tempo)
85x3/bwx5
125x12/bw+40x12
125x12/bw+40x12
125x12/bw+40x12

Supinated Bent Over Dumbbell Drag Rows/Supported No Touch Single Leg Reverse Lunges
80’sx10 -- bwx10/10
80’sx10 -- bwx10/10
80’sx10 -- bwx10/10

Stretching

Comments: Just needed Sunday to get some things figured out. Get my sleep back on track and figure out groceries for this week to plan meals and then worry about the switch in shift next week for the next month. Ugh. Don’t like that. Weight is down again. Not the lightest I’ve been but under 257lbs now. I had gotten concerned when I was 255ish when I started tracking. But I think I understand what is going on with things so it isn’t like I’ve dropped 10lbs in 3 months type of deal consistently the entire year. I really felt the blahs at work. I think my mind has checked out for the rest of this month with three work days, people out and not wanting to get involved with stuff. Just get workouts done and hopefully beat this cold this week. Or tolerate it better. Soft tissue foam rolling was fine. Not much in the lower legs this time around. Hamstrings fine. Quads needed it a decent amount and so did upper back. Neck rehab stuff followed and that was good. No weirdness with shoulders like last week thankfully. From there stretches for hips, knees, ankles and hamstrings. Did a dead hang as well before going on to train (as well as try to get things setup for the first two things). Axle out of the rack again. Lighter session but still going to be challenging. I did get some notes that has me mentally not beating myself up as much in that more of a coordination issue for the misses. Understandable. I have issues with that at times and when I’m stressed, it can be harder to do that. Potentially part of the autism thing. The plan was to do 220-225lbs for 4x5. So more reps than two weeks ago but less weight. I went with the odd number because of the axle weight and keeping things simple. Notes were to try and dip a little deeper to have things synch up better and to not do rebound reps. Try to not use the rebound to make reps easier as I go and get more warmed up and to try and get my body to be firing as one. Overhead continues to be the thing that gets me the most anxious/nervous with training. I’ve done 220x5x5 earlier in this prep out of the rack and I had some misses recently with 230x4x3 and 256x6x1 so I wasn’t sure how these would go. But hoping that I take the tips and cues to heart and try and learn. I think for the most part, these felt powerful but there is still some inconsistency. I will say I had no missed reps this time around so that is a plus. I know I tend to do a more shallow dip at the start so tried to not do that. I feel like the fourth rep that set felt the most powerful but that lead to the not best rep of the set to finish off. That told me right there to double the rest break from my usual. I like to go with shorter rests but I’m finding I’m not recovering with that kind of rest to actually put in a good effort on things that are difficult for me. Obviously I need to keep working on my work capacity and conditioning to be able to recover better and I’m certainly noticing that for my lower body being faster responder vs upper body. Second set felt better but still some instability on the last two reps. First three reps on the third set felt like the second but definitely getting some fatigue/timing issues on the last two reps. The weight moves fast when the timing is right and I keep it together. Last set didn’t feel the best. The first rep didn’t go up as crisp as it had for the previous three sets. Second rep flew up but a little loose in the shoulders catching for the third rep so that resulted in a challenging fourth rep. I had to take a breath with it overhead to regain stability and control before lowering back to the shoulders. I then had to take another breath before putting it on the line to get that last rep up to lockout. Got it done. No missed reps. I’d be lying if I said that the recent bruhaha in strongman wasn’t weighing on my mind during this session and having to redirect my attention back to my training. So then officially into the garage for dumbbell stuff. Incline dumbbell pressing again with the neutral grip. These hadn’t felt great last week. The noted plan was to do same weight or 5lbs more than last time for 6x4. I didn’t have confidence in myself on getting that done considering how these went last week but apparently Ms. Funk does so I’ll believe in that for now. Even warming up for these didn’t feel like I was going to have a good time. I added 2lbs just for the sake of ease here with plates and collars. I was kind of surprised I got through that first set. Hey one down, 5 more to go. Second set was when I got into the situation I was at last time near the end of the sets with my more unstable shoulder having issues and not staying strong to lockout the weight. This was not pretty. That third rep I ended up locking out my left side after the right caught and went down and then pressed that one up. Same thing on the fourth rep but this time the right couldn’t lock out. Ugh. But I decided I wasn’t going to try and do the reclean the weight like last week. That had been a bit much and don’t need more stress with the rest of the workout. But I took to heart that like the push pressing where I needed longer rests to insure quality of reps and sets, I increased the rests here. And that apparently did the trick. That is not to say that this made them easy or that I didn’t still have issues with my unstable shoulder making lockout and movement crisp on the right side. But I had no more missed reps. So that is something. At the start of the session, I had setup the axle stuff outside and the incline dumbbell inside so that I could use tear down as my rest but then have the next thing ready. So outside for the next thing which was the dumbbell push pressing with the 5 seconds eccentrics. Same weight as last week (which was nice as keeps the same, solid dumbbells) but an extra set. I tried to make the dip deeper for this as well and try to have these be in synch and explosive. These felt powerful and man do the accentuated negatives burn up the shoulders fast. I was however, able to stick to the shorter rests on these with recovery. Already taking a good, long while with the other two preceding exercises. These feel good and only the getting them into position is tricky. From there it was on to the supersets. Same exercises as last week but now sets of 12 reps. For the z presses, I knew this was going to be a bear to do with the same weight as last week. There was more volume with pressing and that extra set of eccentric emphasis dumbbell stuff was really cooking my recovery. I knew I was likely going to have to rest pause to get the 12 reps on these sets here. The goblet squats would be interesting as the plan here was to use the top weight I worked up to over the sets for the sets of 12 reps with tempo. I elected to use my regular style shoes that I used for overhead instead of the lifters as I feel like the hard sole makes it feel like I can’t feel where I put pressure and move with my feet and toes. I wanted to have that so I knew where I was putting the weight as goal is to do these for my joints/tendons and get mobility and posture right. I was also not sure with the little knee aches from Saturday as I was doing these without knee sleeves. The first run through the pressing was tougher than I’d have liked. I could’ve done them as a single set I feel but I knew if I did, it would be to failure and I’d drastically impact my ability to get the reps on the subsequent rounds. So got about 9-10 in a clip and then singles with a few seconds rest between them. The goblet squats weren’t too taxing on my lower body. Some knee aches but that dissipated as I did more. The real stress was on my upper body holding the dumbbell for the set. Which in turn led to more fatigue in the upper body when it came time to do the pressing again. I knew this would be the case and again, did double the rest. Second set the pressing felt ok at the start but then felt like I was about to hit a wall if I tried for another rep after I got 8. Which wasn’t ideal to be doing the singles with breathes that far away from the goal. And this wasn’t like my 1-2 breathes like the first set. These were 3-5. But I got them done but it did not inspire confidence for that last set. The goblet squats were fine and felt good on the legs and my body felt like it was moving how it was and closer to how it should. But man holding that weight like that eats up the reserves in the shoulders and chest. Last set of z presses was just survival. Got 7 reps before it started to feel like the second set. Took a few breathes and got another 2. Some more breathes and I went for another rep and got that well enough but then went too quickly after that for what ended up being a mega grinder of a rep. Not ideal. But one more to go. Get it. After bit more breathes, I went for it and it went up easy like. These are not a fun one to do when prefatigued I tell you what. Last thing for the session was another superset. Another change to this one. The row variation still the same with same weight but now sets of 10 reps. The other half of the pairing was changed. Gone are the tempo band leg extensions (hurray) which were taking like 4.5 minutes to complete sets. What I’m doing this time is being described as a reverse lunge but holding onto something for support and trying to keep constant tension on the quads by having the back foot floating. I think I’m doing these right based off the video. I feel like these are something I’d have worn my knee sleeves to do previously but trying to not wear them on these quad based exercises on Day 1 since focus is on getting knees to be healthy and strong. The rows continue to feel awkward but not that difficult. I feel like my body felt better with the movement on these reverse lunges as I did them and where to put emphasis and how my body was moving in space. I hope I did them right and kind of curious about the progression. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching.

November 22, 2025 – Week 12, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
175x6
225x4
265x2
315x1
365x2
365x2
365x2
365x2
365x2
365x2
365x2
365x2

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x4
72x3
94x2
108x1
122x1
135x1
150x1
162x1
172x1
180x1
144x3
144x3
144x3

Yoke
180x50’
270x50’
360x50’
450x50’
530x50’ in 8.30 seconds
530x50’ in 8.29 seconds
530x50’ in 7.80 seconds
530x50’ in 7.90 seconds
530x50’ in 7.60 seconds

ATG Split Squats (12”)/Ab Walkouts (kneeling)
bwx10/10 – bwx10
bwx10/10 – bwx10
bwx10/10 – bwx10

Concept 2 Rower Power Pulls (10 pulls, 45 seconds rest)
1 – 118m
2 – 122m
3 – 119m
4 – 121m
5 – 119m
6 – 121m
7 – 122m
8 – 125m

Stretching

Comments: I was straight up not having a good time this week. Thursday it was apparent this was a cold and not just bad allergies. But I still did my lunch time walking to get out of the house and break from work. Friday I didn’t walk not just because I wanted to rest more and get caught up on some things (since next week is short work week but stressful) but my right heel had some cracked skin and bled a little in my sleep so got to start doing that treatment again. But I caught it early so hopefully not too painful and heals up. Both days I could feel my focus/attention having difficulty with the tasks at hand in the late afternoon. As I didn’t have to worry about an alarm and signing in late on a Saturday morning, I took Nyquil for sleep. And I was out for I want to say another 12hr or so sleep like last weekend. So being around strangers for a few hours is the same level of stress to me a cold lol. I once again was debating going to train and seeing if it made sense to rest another day. Not ideal but it could work with being off Thursday and Friday next week. But rather not since I got to revert to the in office schedule the following week. And this was going to be a heavier workout. So stick to the plan and play it by ear and ended up doing what I did last Saturday with going out to train late and hoping there will be some people there to assist as needed. But with taking Dayquil and nasal spray. Again, a bit surprised how smooth the drive out was for the most part. It really does seem that I either need to leave really early or really late to avoid the congestion near Harrisburg. There were people training but not strongman stuff initially. Two people were competing at OSG in Texas and I’m sure too late to see the others (though one might be having a baby shortly). I was surprised though that friends did trickle in during the session which was nice. I didn’t get as derailed as last week with talking people’s ears off. Soft tissue work started things off and wasn’t too bad for anything really. Both calves needed it but more so the top on the right and the bottom on the left. Neck rehab stuff was ok. I didn’t do the knee and ankle warming up I usually do this day again. Like I said, I’m not really noticing any difference in how I feel warming up or the session in general. This was followed by stretching of the hips, hamstrings, knees and ankles and then a dead hang. On to the weights. Cambered squat bar box squats for the first thing. I had a feeling that the suggested weight for these was going to be 355-365lbs after how last time went but I wasn’t too sure which way the reps/sets would go. I was glad these went the higher set and low rep route as this meant I didn’t have to worry about the congestion so much and could practice my setup more frequently with less fatigue. Knees felt better compared to last time with the start of the workout with the empty bar. Notes were to stay more rigid in the upper back as the weight is swaying. Honestly, compared to the last time I did these back at the beginning of the year, this is a lot less wobble so I know my upper back is getting stronger with the off season focus. However, I think that me doing a high bar position (low bar feels terrible on this) that makes it hard to stop the swaying. Warming up felt decent so I went with the heavier option for the 8x2. I did strip the weights down to put the smaller plates on the inside so that I didn’t inadvertently bang the sides of the rack while taking the weight out. I guess I didn’t take the weight that seriously the first set as I got off balance going for the second rep. I went up a little bit and then ended up sitting down on the box and having to squat it up from there from a dead stop which was not fun. I knew it was a fluke so I kept the weight the same and stuck to about 90 seconds rests with these doubles as I knew I could do it with how things had felt and with how these were last week. I feel like the sixth double was the best feeling of the bunch. I worked up a good sweat on these with this pace. Put stuff away and swapped in a fresh shirt for circus dumbbell. This was a bit of change with the plan here. It has been kind of set weight ranges and reps after the first session and last time it was a bit Jekyll and Hyde with the reps and sets 5lbs over contest. The plan for today was work up to a top single and then take 20% off for 3x3. I asked for clarification at the beginning of the week of how tough a single I should be aiming for and I was told for a max. I had been looking forward to that for the most part but not while sick for obvious reasons. My stretch goal was 180lbs but at minimum willing to accept low 160ish considering the circumstances. I took my time with these and had a more relaxed feel to things with my friend Brian there. Plan was same warm ups as last time until I got to the actual circus bell I’d be using for the working sets. I elected to not bother with the 20lbs caps being added as that would take more time to adjust weight between sets of singles and the contest dumbbell won’t have them. Warming up I was feeling pretty crisp. Usually the switch from the smaller circus bell (8”) to the bigger (12”) can throw me off but it didn’t this time around. I wasn’t too sure about doing 15lbs jumps so I went with 122lbs for the first lift on the big bell. It was not the best so I went with 13lbs more for 135lbs for my last “warm up” before I was going to be doing contest or heavier weight. That one I guess I took seriously as it rocketed up. So I went with 15lbs jump then to do 150lbs which was contest weight. That also went up easy. However, I wanted to make sure that I was adapting to the increasing weight as usually the issue becomes getting used to the clean of heavier weight to shoulders and then getting things to settle for the press. So 12lbs jump for 162lbs. I had to reattempt this as I misgrooved on the first attempt at the press and rather than fight it back into rack position to try again, I figured I just reclean it and do it again. It went up fine that time but it was a bit frustrating to have a miss at that weight. But I know that can happen above 150lbs. I’ve not done circus dumbbell since March of 2023 before starting again middle of this off season prep. So the next jump would match the top weight I hit in training back then at 172lbs. I like that number since it is the weight of the Inch Dumbbell and I’ve had the opportunity to lift it one hand and press it overhead for reps. This weight the clean was definitely feeling like more effort and it took a moment to get things settled in the rack. But up it went as well. Not as convincing as I’d have liked it to be but hey, I’m not so far off where I have been. So just 8lbs shy of my true hope for the day so might as well shoot for the moon. I knew the clean would be harder and I didn’t panic with the weight sitting on my traps as long as it did as I got a big brace and went for it. And it went up almost perfectly. I was kind of shocked how well it went up. I’ve not hit this weight on circus dumbbell since 2017 and I’m 7lbs off my best post 2016 back injury. And this isn’t peaked. I shut it down there even though that felt like the best and easiest press as I could tell that I dug deep into the reserves as my hands couldn’t stop shaking for several minutes afterwards and my hamstrings were spasming just walking over to turn off my camera. I felt elated I could hit this weight again, especially considering the circumstances. And knowing there is more there. It took a bit for me to come down from the high and get myself ready for the down sets with 80% of that weight. I took shorter rests between the sets then I’ve been doing with the clean and presses. Like 2.5 minutes vs like 5-6 minutes. I didn’t feel so stressed and worried about missing weights. There was some slop in the first two sets due to I think just not doing reps earlier but I got that sorted out by the last set and those were like mechanical precision and just over 15 seconds to get the reps done. From there it was on to yoke. Same as last week with the aim being speed. 10lbs more than last time for the 5 runs of 50’ with the aim getting below 8 seconds. With how I was feeling, I wasn’t sure how this would go. Max strength doesn’t seem affected by the cold but I know endurance takes a hit and my blood pressure is a bit elevated with the meds. Also the heel being sore in my right foot wasn’t going to help. As luck would have it, the same person that did commands and times for me last week came in late so I had consistency from the previous week rather than have someone else or rely on the camera frames on my own. As it was late and I wasn’t sure if doing double warm up was wise, I did just one set at each weight warming up and not really at 100% speed even for my last run. The notes had been to not have the runs be sloppy. I hadn’t thought they were but I tried to tighten them up. First run didn’t feel great. Weight felt heavy and blood pressure definitely spiked. Over 8 seconds here. So going to be like that huh? Second set the weight felt a lot lighter but I think I tripped up at the start and then getting my feet under me as it was essentially the same time. Still over 8 seconds. Not being hard on myself as only one run with 10lbs less last week had been under 8 seconds. But I think with having the weight feeling lighter after the first set that I got into a better mindset and proceeded to hit the next three under 8 seconds with my last run being faster than my fastest run last week. So hitting all the expected numbers I wanted when not feeling sick. I went from there into the superset of split squats and ab walk. Save putting stuff away until after this before doing rowing stuff so I can get some more fluids down and not have it come back up on me. Sets reduced to 3 with the intent being that I lower the box height for the split squats and aim for 8-10 reps. I went with 12” as that is the lowest of the plyo boxes at the moment. I have other options besides that but I did want to see how these went. Left side handles these fine but there is some patella tendon aches/irritation for the right side at this height. I did sets of 10 reps. The ab walk was fine with 10 reps there. Feeling more natural to do. I did these back to back with very little rest. I put the stuff away from that and yoke before doing the rowing stuff. Same as last week with it being the power based thing. 8 rounds of this where I’d do 10 pulls and then rest 45 seconds and record the distance. I think I had a better understanding this time around of the aim and this resulted in greater distance average each set vs last time. Really surprised how sore these got my hamstrings and glutes. Cleaned up and drove home late again and stretched before eating dinner and cleaning up.

November 19, 2025 – Week 12, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
143x5
235x3
323x2
Add Holds at Lockout (1 second)
373x1
413x1
453x6
453x6
453x6
453x6
453x6

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (21”)
65x6
115x5
155x4
205x3
250x2
300x3
300x3
300x3
300x3

Paused Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (straps, 2 seconds)/Chest Supported I Flys and T Flys/Lying Band Leg Curls (3-0-3-0 tempo)
255x3
345x12/16’sx10+10/(2)mb+(2)µbx25
345x12/16’sx10+10/(2)mb+(2)µbx25
345x10 (couldn’t get last two)/16’sx10+10/(2)mb+(2)µbx25

Sandbag Marches
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I was feeling beat Monday and Tuesday about the same. Just feeling tired. Tuesday actually didn’t start off great because the high winds caused my power to go out at like 2:30AM just long enough that my clocks and alarms reset to 12:00AM. I woke up feeling something wasn’t right and seeing the clock flashing 6:00AM and managed to get up and ready for work just before I’d be late. So not a great start to the day when feeling worn down. I was hoping it was just allergies when I woke up Wednesday but I could tell as the day went on that it wasn’t exactly going away. This is probably a cold. Ugh. So I had to make a choice. Either take a rest day and hope I was feeling better tomorrow and do training with less rest between days or plow through and hope that the two days off will be enough plus the working through it to have me feeling better. I decided to just push through it. Started out with nasal spray and then allergy pill a few hours into the day and then Dayquil after lunch. I was a little slow going getting ready but I did get to things quicker than I did Monday. I wasn’t going to be outside so there wasn’t that setup issue either. Foam rolling was ok. Calves needed it and more so the right side with quads. The usual. Neck rehab after that. Some shoulder aches still present. As my back wasn’t really acting up, I didn’t do any bracing or glute activation drills. Went into the stretching for hips, ankles, hamstrings and knees. Then I did the tib raises/calf raises. Like last time, I did these after the other stuff to treat as the start of the lifting session. Then garage time for the real lifting. Bendy long bar pulls again. Lot of volume for this time. It had been a top double the first week with actually pushing weight on the setup and then it was singles with about 30lbs less last week and those had felt pretty tough too. This week was to do 4-5 sets of 6 reps with 450lbs with the holds at lockout like last week. This was seeming like a lot considering that doubles on axle with 441lbs had felt pretty hard a few weeks back. I wasn’t sick then. Trying to have things feel better here. Same warming up until getting to singles. From there, I added in the holds. I went a little heavier because it was easier than dealing with the fractional plates and it was close enough. That first set was rough. I first rep or two were fine but I just felt gassed out and fatigued almost immediately and it was feeling like a near max effort to lockout the last rep. I was kind of dumbstruck that I had at least three more sets of this when this felt like when I did my top set of 5 on axle. I’m not sure what I did besides mentally prepare myself and get myself into it but I made the second set feel easy. Maybe focusing on getting a breath at the top for the brace during the pause worked and perhaps visualizing that I’m locking out weight on the elephant bar like Hafthor got me in the right frame. Third set felt a little tougher than the second set but wasn’t like the first set at all. I think I made the fourth set easier because I told myself it was the last set but really I had put the optional fifth set back on the table depending on how the fourth went. It went about as well as the second set did so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and get in more quality deadlift work. This felt more like my first set difficulty wise but I felt in control rather than like I was struggling if that makes sense. I felt like I was doing proper deadlift work here finally. This did take a bit longer with the rests and recovery. I put stuff away and got ready for front box squats with the ssb. It had been 4x4 last week and this week it was 4x3 with 5-10lbs more than last time. I set things up so that either weight option would be doable. See how things are as congested and that was a lot of deadlifting. My knees weren’t bothering me much here and I felt decently strong. The lower reps also meant my air wasn’t that much an issue. So as long as I felt strong, I should be good. So I went with 300lbs here after the warming up. These potentially about the same as 290lbs feeling last week. Not feeling the best but putting in great work. These squats were less taxing than I expected as I pretty much just stuck to my usual rest period time. I knew the slog for the session (outside of the deadlifts) was going to be the triset. That was tough last week and it seems to never get easier. Always little tweaks. Adding reps to the snatch grip rdls and the band leg curls and indication to add weight to the dumbbell raises. With the tempo work on the band leg curls, I already was taking longer rests to recover to do the increasingly challenging rdls. Adding congestion to that, I already knew I’d need to increase the rests more here to have a chance of finishing. The first set of the snatch grip stuff was fine. I may have been a little fast on the count with the pauses. Those added 2 reps were noticed. Second set was even tougher and felt like could break down in bracing. The third set (event with quadruple rest) I was not able to finish and I couldn’t come back up with the weight going for the 11th rep so down it stayed. If I was going to miss the rep, it was best that it was the last set of these. With the weight selection with dumbbells, it is only a small increase but since going from 10lbs to 16lbs, that is a big jump percentage wise. And it was noticed in my upper back and shoulders with that bump up in weight. I had to do a bit of the bit by bit stuff on the later sets to mentally break down the reps so I didn’t get in my head where I actually was. I know these exercises are important to getting  my upper back stronger for this upcoming season. I’m glad I was able to handle the increase in weight so well here. Leg curls were tortuous again. Reps increased from 20 to 25 so with the slow tempo it takes what feels like forever. Honestly, I may have lost count of reps at times like with band leg extensions with the tempo and such. Used same bands as last week. Last set I was definitely on fumes and having to take a little breaths between reps near the end to finish things off here. Put stuff away from that nightmare for one last thing with the sandbags. All this work before these really has me not wanting to do them but then I do them anyway and everything is fine. Same as last week with the marches but added another set. Hesitation before sets making sure I don’t upchuck bending over. Legs were feeling fatigued at this point. First set maybe not the best as not quite as high on body as it could be and breathing a little erratic. But I feel like I corrected that with holding and getting it high and breathing afterwards. Finally done with the session and hopefully I can eat, stretch and take some more Dayquil and may start to feel better not doing much but work the next two days.

November 17, 2025 – Week 12, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
46x8
76x5
106x3
136x2
166x1
196x1
226x1
256x1
256x1
256x1
256x0,0,0
256x1
256x1
256x1

Neutral Grip Incline Dumbbell Bench Presses
40’sx8
70’sx5
95’sx5
95’sx5
95’sx5
95’sx5 (missed 5th rep twice)
95’sx4 (missed 4th rep had to reclean, right never fully locked last rep)

Dumbbell Push Presses (5 second eccentrics)
70’sx4
70’sx4
70’sx4
70’sx4

Barbell Z Presses/Heels Elevated Goblet Squats (4-0-4-0 tempo)
45x5
95x3/bwx3
125x10/bw+15x10
125x10/bw+30x10
125x10/bw+40x10

Supinated Bent Over Dumbbell Drag Rows/Band Seated Leg Extensions (4-0-4-0 tempo)
80’sx8/ab+(2)µbx25
80’sx8/ab+(2)µbx25
80’sx8/ab+(2)µbx25

Stretching

Comments: I guess thankfully the sciatica stuff has calmed down a good bit at this point so it is hardly noticeable. Which is good. Just lingering now I guess. Apparently the system wasn’t working like all day on Monday so essentially nothing got done so Monday ended up having stuff for Friday to do even though I was out of office that day. Had me feeling a bit drained with that and I did get to working out about 30-40 minutes later than usual while at home figuring out training for the week as I pretty much went through my breaks. Weight back up a little so just under 260lbs again. Also had to put in leave selection for the year and that is annoying when I don’t know details for all the possible competitions I’d like to do next year. So had to cull those that didn’t make sense or lacked information and coming up soon. Or I just didn’t like them and hopefully better options. But I know I’ll end up having stuff that I didn’t plan for that will probably be a plan to get coverage. But hey, I managed to move stuff this year to go to world’s when I was off by a week on my guess. It does stink it is cold and dark before I even get to training. Some new stuff this session and I was anxious/hopefully for the training. Then my right and left shoulder decided to feel like complete crap and be achy right as I was about to start my soft tissue work. Really just hoping being temperamental here. Soft tissue foam rolling was fine. Nothing really stood out here. Did notice my hips were tight and that my glutes/hamstring sore from the box squats. Hips probably with the fast yoke runs too. Neck rehab stuff followed and that was good. Seemed to get shoulders feeling a little better. From there stretches for hips, knees, ankles and hamstrings. Did a dead hang as well before going on to train. Axle out of the rack again. I had a feeling this would be what this workout was if not a deload session. And I was kind of hoping on some pull back with how up and down axle had been last session with missing reps and having to extend sets and having some rough reps in there. But sometimes I feel like crap and the right call ends up being the switch in the programming and I move forward. So this session was to do 250-255lbs for 6 singles. I’ve done this workout with cleans and I did have a miss on that. It was cold and dark already. Since the last time I did this weight with the clean and presses that seemed to work out for me well enough that I felt ready for the top weight I repeated that here. I wasn’t too sure with things but I was hoping that my last warm up single would give me a taste of what I had in me today. That rep went up smooth and I felt like maybe I just needed a little adjustment here. As last time about this weight hit a sticking point hard that first rep. Working weight actually didn’t feel that bad as far as getting that power up to lockout. But I didn’t feel like I had the power to rep this weight. Which was about the same feeling when I did these with clean and press. I felt things were going well here as I was taking about my usual rest I do between sets with my house pacing and that worked out well for the first three sets. The fourth set was trouble. Now unracking the weight it actually felt the best so far so I don’t know what I did to screw up this that I lost all the power upward. I felt like maybe it was a misgroove and tried again before racking the weight and stepping back for a beat and a breath. I definitely was panicking a bit here and rushed that and this final attempt at the rep in “set” went nowhere. I didn’t feel like it couldn’t move in the rack position and I got frustrated a let a little too much aggression out and chucked the axle into the rack. I’ve had worse temper tantrums with the axle but it has been like over 3yrs since I’ve chucked it into the rack. I had to adjust my rack later as it was off kilter. I went into the garage to calm down and recover and increased my rest time for the remaining singles. The successful fourth and fifth were rough. I’m actually surprised I got them with how hard I hit the sticking point on those. Which made the ease of the last single all the more baffling. I held it and did little stomps in balance and cursed with how that went so well compared to the previous issues. Overhead (and namely axle right now) confuses me. I’m trying to not watch other people’s pressing videos with axle as doesn’t feel good for the mental state with how it has been. It isn’t the competition event at this time but I need to keep it and log in the mix so not so rough coming back to it. So then officially into the garage for dumbbell stuff. Incline dumbbell pressing again with the neutral grip. Plan being 5x5 with 95lbs. I wasn’t too sure about these with my shoulders feeling achy. But trusting the plan here. These had felt tough and somewhat rough last time. I really couldn’t get the feel for these today for the most part. Too tucked and it felt like no triceps or shoulder strength and trying to not having my hands rotating back to more standard grip. These can get confusing as there will be times it feels like a struggle and other’s where it clicks. This was not one of my better sessions of these. This was on that showed the discrepancy between the left and right side. Left doesn’t seem to have an issue with locking out stuff by the right side does and when I can’t get stable and press through, that side is the one that lags and falls apart. I wasted energy on pride on these. The fourth set, I missed the fourth rep initially (the left side could get it, the right was a nope) and decided I’d reclean the dumbbells to my shoulders to try it again. I did and I rushed it so that I couldn’t get into the right position for my right side (left pressed it easy) and failed again so of course I recleaned it to try once more and finally got it. I took a longer rest since that took a bit out of me and I was hopeful I could get through the last set without incident. Nope. Initially felt strong but then missed the fourth rep and had to reclean. Got one more rep and I just hit a wall with the right side going for that last rep. I locked out the left side and valiantly struggled but couldn’t get my elbow to lockout on the right and called it there. Already wasted enough energy here. Pressing having a rough time with recovery. At least that is what I think but then I will have performances that suggest otherwise. So the next thing was still dumbbells but finally a switch from the floor presses. Overhead stuff with push press. Clean dumbbells to shoulders and push press with 5 seconds eccentrics. Told to be explosive. I asked for clarification if weight or speed of press more the focus as I’ve done some pretty ballistic style dumbbell pressing with 40’s. And I’d prefer to have the solid dumbbells at least for the start as didn’t want to dick around with plateloaded dumbbells, especially after how incline ended (incline is another wascally wabbit for me). Clean to shoulders a little different and dismount could use some fine tuning but these felt strong and how I’d like them to. Didn’t feel like I was struggling with feeling myself here. I didn’t need to take more than my normal rest despite the accentuated eccentrics. From there it was on to the supersets. Another adjustment to the first one. So the change from last time with it being now z presses carried over but the second half no longer the Spanish squats. I guess trying out something else with doing heel elevated goblet squats. With the z presses, I wanted to see if I could use the sawhorses since I didn’t need a rack weighted down to do the goblet squats. Rather have in one place than outside and inside. Rather stay somewhat warm since the goblet squats won’t keep me as warm as the Spanish squats did with the reps. So the z presses did work out of the sawhorses. Plan for them was 3x10 with 125-135lbs. Now I’d like to be doing 135lbs here but I felt considering how most of the pressing today went and the floor pressing was swapped to more overhead with increased fatigue with slow negatives, that it was wiser to go with 125lbs to get 3x10. This was a good call on my part as this was enough and I think 135lbs would’ve been a bridge too far by the end. The goblet squats were a learning session as I wasn’t sure how they would feel. Plan was 3x10 with 4-0-4-0 tempo on them. So less reps than Spanish squats but slower pace on the reps. I did these without my knee sleeves. I know the aim was to try and stay upright but that is a major struggle for me even without a weight or counterbalance. I’ll just have to see what next time brings. But I added weight each set as trying to find an ideal working weight. I used my adjustable kettlebell handle to fine tune as well. Not adverse to dumbbell but wanted options. The last pairing for the evening remained the same as last time with just adjustments to reps and weights. The rowing exercise is still an odd one for me and I needed to use the plateloaded handles this week due to the weight increase. I tried to put small plates on the inside to increase the width so that the larger plates weren’t hitting my thighs. These feel a bit awkward and I wonder if I’m doing these right. I also wonder if perhaps the same thing could be accomplished using an EZ curl bar. But these were done. The other part still the double band leg extensions with tempo. I knew I was going to be using more band tension than last time for these even if the reps increased. I made a mistake here and looked at the reps for the leg curls on Day 2 and got them confused with the reps for Day 1 for the leg extensions. So I did sets of 25 reps instead of 20 reps (up from 15 reps) with the increased band tension. I don’t think it would’ve mattered much really, other than not be like 4.5 minute sets of leg extensions. I’ve done straight set of 100 reps a few times on leg extensions so they will just keep going. Put stuff away and got my dinner before stretching. Noticing my outer quads have some definition now so obviously the work is going somewhere.

November 15, 2025 – Week 11, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
175x6
225x4
265x2
300x1
331x5
331x5
336x5
341x5
346x5

Log Clean and Push Presses
12” Pitbull 
86x5
116x4
146x3
13” Beast Metals
176.5x2
201.5x1
226.5x4
226.5x4
226.5x4
226.5x4

Yoke
180x50’
180x50’
270x50’
270x50’
360x50’
360x50’
460x50’ in 7.18 seconds
520x50’ in 8.10 seconds
520x50’ in 8.04 seconds
520x50’ in 8.17 seconds
520x50’ in 8.10 seconds
520x50’ in 7.79 seconds

ATG Split Squats (14”)/Ab Walkouts (kneeling)
bwx12/12 – bwx8
bwx12/12 – bwx8
bwx12/12 – bwx8
bwx12/12 – bwx8

Concept 2 Rower Power Pulls (10 pulls, 45 seconds rest)
1 – 99m
2 – 101m
3 – 105m
4 – 105m
5 – 111m
6 – 112m

Stretching

Comments: It has been an odd second half of the week. Sciatica stuff still present but seems to be tolerable and improving for the most part. It has not hampered me in any lifting stuff but can feel tension if sitting or standing too long in one spot. A little reminiscent of things back around this time in 2019 when I withdrew from a contest the night before as being at a charity event was just too taxing. It had been the right call but it hurt back then. Thursday was last day for work this week as funeral/celebration of life for my uncle who passed last month was Friday. I didn’t expect that I wouldn’t know most of the people there and Thursday night was a preview of that. I had not expected to have this be so draining on me as I ended up sleeping until close to 12:30 on Saturday. I got up briefly at 9:30ish and just felt like nope, not yet. I felt that the rest was important and I’d figure out the plan once I had my fill of Z’s. There were somethings I had to consider and figure out upon waking to see if it made sense to still train today. Most of the workout could be done at home besides the row stuff but not sure on figuring out that part of things. At issue was potential traffic issues going out to training anywhere beyond immediate vicinity because there were demolition plans for a bridge in route to the two gyms I’d use. However, that wasn’t scheduled until 11:00PM with lane closures starting at 7:00PM so I figured I’d go out to train and not screw up the schedule for the rest of the month to try and get back on track. Driving out was surprisingly smooth considering it was early afternoon. There were people training but not strongman stuff. It would appear other usual suspects that don’t do strongman stuff also trickled in later than expected too. Soft tissue work started things off and wasn’t too bad for anything really. I guess getting over 12hrs of sleep will do that. Neck rehab stuff was ok, was feeling tight in shoulders but seemed to feel better by the end. I didn’t do the knee and ankle warming up I usually do this day. I’ve not been doing it on Day 1 sessions and I’m not really noticing any difference in how I feel warming up or the session in general. So just did the stretching part and then dead hang. From there, on to the weights. Some changes to the session this week. The first time this prep where not doing ssb squats. Notes were to use the cambered squat bar for box squats (parallel) and work up to 5x5 with something that felt like RPE 7.5/8. It has almost been a year since I last did a cambered squat bar box squat and I knew from the last time it can be a little tricky figuring out what I had in the tank as it could wobble back and forth quite a bit. I had to figure I at least maintained what I could do since then as been squatting twice a week and a good bit more volume on various things for the legs but just not sure how things would go with the sciatica stuff and just really doing a typical box squat in so long. I did have to figure out box height. 18” seemed a little under parallel and 20” was too high so went with 19”. The first set with just the bar did not inspire any confidence. It felt ugly and rough. I had only intended to do 5 reps and move on but decided I needed more reps here to get used to things again so do my higher rep plan with dropping 2 reps per set. I was going with the warm ups with the plan of using 315-320lbs here which is about what I had done for sets of 5 reps (3-4x5) last time. Putting on a hard belt for 265lbs felt pretty darn good. But I didn’t feel like a whole other plate added was going to be in that range (would be 10lbs under what had been my top set of 5 from then with 2-3RIR). So I decided I’d do 300lbs for a single and then do 331lbs/150kgs for my working sets and hope I didn’t go too heavy. First set felt fine but I did want to make sure that I could gauge things correctly here so I did keep weigh the same for the second set. After that set felt better, I decided I’d add 5lbs per set. These felt pretty decent and unlike with the ssb squats, there wasn’t a rep where I felt like I’d get lightheaded thankfully. I may have very well been ok with doing 355lbs for the working weight this time around. Just have to see what the plan going forward is going to be. From there, moved on to log. I swapped out a fresh shirt with some decals on it. Plan was to do 4x4 with 215-220lbs this week. So 5lbs more than last week. I had gone a little off script last time with initially doing 211lbs and then adding 5lbs to the last two sets getting it to 221lbs by the end. There had not been much difference really after getting the first rough set out of the way and I think this one is more coming down to confidence and getting used to multiple cleans. Especially with the adjustment to my clean style building back up. So my goal was to do 226lbs for my sets if I felt up to it. I did decide to throw in a wrinkle to this as well for no reason other than I wanted to. Essentially, I wanted to use the big log. The gym has a 176.5lbs Beast Metal log that is about 13” diameter. It is slightly longer than the other logs as well and it is unbalanced due to the distribution of material from front to back. This is equipment by someone who didn’t do strongman essentially. But it makes for a good training apparatus to get used to competition logs at bigger shows that tend to be heavier weight empty. Granted, local shows are usually not going to use this kind of log (the 85lbs empty logs work fine). I think I wanted to just to do a tougher implement and be thinking about lifting this a bigger level show and that it will get me to not panic when the weight is feeling tough and not smooth. But I had to work up to it. So the first three warm up sets were with the usual log and 30lbs jumps. Then the big log. Knees were feeling fine and pleased no issues with my back on these. The big red log was a bear to move and I was maybe reconsidering this choice. The large openings means I didn’t get contact bruises on my forearms but also means more torque needed to roll the log up. I wasn’t feeling 100% confident going for the working weight but I knew from the previous two log sessions that that doesn’t mean I won’t do it. I told myself to get ready for it to not feel great that first clean and just press it anyway. Don’t waste the effort. And I did just that. I took my time with the reps here as I didn’t want to screw up and get my timing down. The issue isn’t the pick or the pressing but making sure that I don’t drain myself on the clean and get out of position. Second press went up better than the first. Just over 60 seconds to get these done. My hope would be that I’d feel better as I go on these and cut that time down. I was not planning to add weights to these sets since this was where I should be and it wasn’t feeling super easy. Second set started out good with the first two reps. I didn’t feel quite comfortable enough to try and do these with my hands on the log and following the weight down. My pace got a little disrupted after the second rep as I was a little off balance on the release. The press on the third rep wasn’t as strong so I was a little concerned going for the fourth rep. The weight rolled out on me on the dip there so that was a tougher rep too. But half way through these. Third set I could tell I was getting fatigued with this style of clean. First rep presses were good, the last one rolled out a little on me even with a slight pause to try and get things stable so that was a tougher rep. Going into the last set, my hope was to get a good three and then know I can press through the last one even if it was a little rough. And if feeling good, try and string them all together. So first rep felt really good and easy on the press so I decided to follow it down to go right into the next one. That was a mistake. This apparently caused my glasses to escape my face. I had to figure out if they were in a somewhat safe spot before continuing. Going from 20/20 to colorful blurs is a bit disorientating so I had to take a second attempt at the dip on the second rep before I felt stable enough to press. I decided I needed to slow down to compensate for the visual impairment. I reflexively went to my face to adjust my nonexistent glasses before going for the third rep. Pick wasn’t the best as got caught on my knee sleeves. Press was just ok. But only one more to go and then done. Had to let it settle before I could feel confident to press. And it didn’t end up being the toughest last rep of the day either so I guess that is good. From there it was on to yoke. A change in intent this time around. Still doing multiple runs at 50’. The change up being that focus was time based effort. So it has been doing many runs with increasing weight on EMOM timer. And that has been good with building back repeatable endurance and strength. But trying to get faster. I’m not very fast and getting older is going to do that. I know that I’m off my times when I used to be obsessive with it. But I think I stopped really tracking it since often I was alone and it was more trying to get in the distance and then I fell out of love with yoke when I kept hitting a wall above 800lbs on it and just felt frustrated. But I’ve been enjoying yoke since I’ve been working with Ms. Funk and I can tell that my mechanics are better. Anyways, the plan here was to work up to a weight that about 8 seconds to complete the 50’ run and then do that 4 more times. I wasn’t too sure what that would be as I was about 10 seconds on my runs at times with the 580lbs last week. I figured 500lbs is what I’d be capable of. Been noticing my last few sets tend to be faster so I figured I should do more sets warming up to get ready as I may be using less weight for the working sets this time around and didn’t want to go too light get my speed focus just because I wasn’t ready for it. I did not do full speed on any of the plate jump warm ups. Just making sure back was good and stuff was moving fluid. I was initially planning on doing 450lbs as my testing set to actually see what I was doing today but decided to go with 460lbs so that it was balanced. I was thankfully able to have someone time these. My back up plan was to use my own EMOM timer to gauge if I was under 9 seconds (which as the slowest I could be). A little bit of hiccup with communicating commands but I adapted to it. I was not expecting to be so far under 8 seconds with this weight. So I decided to add 60lbs to it and see if that slowed be down to be in the time range. This may have actually still been on the lighter end with the times plan as just over 8 seconds here. Could conceivably say with how close times were for the 3 of the 5 runs that within human error of being the same time. Outliers were the third set and then the darn last set. I’ve no idea how I was able to make that one sub 8 seconds by a decent bit. Had me feel like I was sandbagging the entire time. This still a good bit off what my best times speed wise have been but these feel about where I’m at lately and sustainable if that makes sense. After putting that away, I had the superset left (besides rowing). The plan was to do 4 sets of 12 on the split squats with same height as last time (as seemed to be my toleration limits) and then 4 sets of 8 on the new ab walk exercise. But the setup I had got adjusted as the boxes I was planning to use were being used. I had already thought of trying 15” instead of 16” but that was already being used. So 14” was available and I really didn’t want to try and mess with adding mats to it and such that could make things unstable. So just had to hope it was good. And thankfully, it was. No real issues here. I feel I got better with the ab walk too with the ROM. I did these all with essentially no rest back to back because I could and because it was getting late. The rowing stuff was changed up a good bit from what had felt like conditioning. This was more a power based thing. 6 rounds of this where I’d do 10 pulls and then rest 45 seconds and record the distance. This is a lot easier than the conditioning such haha. I figured I’d probably get around 100m per set just based off how it felt doing the longer sets. That ended up being the case here with only my first set being under that. Meant to leave quickly after that as it was after 7PM at this point but a friend walked in and he has been dealing with similar back issues I’ve had so talked a good bit about that before leaving. Dark out but uneventful. Not much traffic so no issues with the lane closures coming home. Started cooking up dinner once home and stretched afterwards.

November 12, 2025 – Week 11, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
143x5
235x3
323x2
373x1
413x1
463x1
Add Holds at Lockout (1 second)
505x1
505x1
505x1
505x1
505x1
505x1
505x1

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (21”)
65x6
115x5
155x4
205x3
245x2
290x4
290x4
290x4
290x4

Paused Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (straps, 2 seconds)/Chest Supported I Flys and T Flys/Lying Band Leg Curls (3-0-3-0 tempo)
255x3
345x10/10’sx12+12/(2)mb+(2)µbx20
345x10/10’sx12+12/(2)mb+(2)µbx20
345x10/10’sx12+12/(2)mb+(2)µbx20

Sandbag Marches
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I did my best to take advantage of the day off Tuesday to get sleep and see about anything I could do for recovery for the sciatica issues. I had not been hampered during training Monday but I know how the symptoms can add stress. Sleep and I did take some antiflammatories to see if that did anything. It did not so not going to push that part of things as rather not have any liver or GI bleed issues if not abating anything. I try to not use that stuff. I did activities such as walking and raking leaves and again tried to see if dip stand decompression helped. It would appear that this is a new flavor of the disc bulge issues and the dip stand isn’t “curing” it like usual. I’ll just have to see if things calm down enough that I can get things to feel good and shift back to how they were. I have to remember that there were other aches and pains that I was worried would be chronic at different points in this off season that has yet to reach third month. But the stuff I’m trying definitely added some tension/stress to body as my upper back, neck and back were feeling tense. More lower body focused day this time and I was a little leery about things with the symptoms but do what I can and modify as needed. Foam rolling was needed for my calves as expected. Quads didn’t need it as much as I was expecting considering the Spanish squats and such. Not much else to say here. Rehab stuff for neck as planned to get things feeling good in the neck, shoulders and upper back. I did alter things slightly here. I did glute activation and some core bracing before moving on to the stretching for hips, ankles, hamstrings and knees. Then I did the tib raises/calf raises. I felt it was best to treat these more like the last warm up and first exercise rather than just toss in the middle of my mobility prep. On to lifting from there. First up being pulls with the bendy bar setup. These had been pretty rough last week. The suggestion this time around was to try and build tension on the pull rather than try and rip it up as that can get me out of position. Slow start seemed a better idea with my back anyways at this point. So plan for the day was to work up to 505lbs for 7 singles, holding lockout for a second before putting it down. As I do these, I feel like I slightly modify the setup each time to try and get closer to how I feel things will be. I know that the pull will feel different enough that I shouldn’t just do straight barbell pull as these feel a good bit longer of a pull to complete with the tension and flex. Warming up wasn’t feeling so bad. Again, I was suffering from the delusion that 505lbs would be “too easy” or something and I’d get it figured out and be needing to do heavier. That obviously didn’t happen and I was going to listen to the plan here. My slight adjustment to things this time around was that after I got to 323lbs that I didn’t use the normal sized 45’s on the bar. The bumper plate and then the smaller 45’s so that the flex point stayed about the same for the pulls after getting to 323lbs. I feel like the weight I’m using with the plates out where they are is going to be about what it is so figured I’d not artificially make it more so until we get to doing stuff in the suit for this one where I will be going a bit heavier. But honestly, I can probably go up to what I expect as max in training using the smaller 45’s and the 35’s or 25’s with suit so things can stay consistent. I was not brimming with confidence for these working singles after my last warm up. I didn’t want to dig into the max hype on these as that felt like it would be a whole thing but I was kind of worried this would be welded to the floor. Thankfully it was not. These felt slow and grindy. Video says they weren’t so bad. I took about 2 minutes rests for these so that is good with the quick repeatability on what kind of feels like RPE 9 at times. The 5th and 6th single the lockout felt more laborious to get to. I took a little longer rest for the last single and that went up more like the first four singles. This is a tricky one to figure out as far as what I can do based on feel vs video. I do feel like 550ish is there now for a single but not sure after that. I’m also not sure if these should be reps with how this bar behaves or if getting more pulls as singles makes the most sense to get used to building up tension to break the inertia. See how this plays out. Put stuff away and got ready for the continuing saga of front box squats with the ssb. Finally and end to the increasing sets of 6 reps with 275lbs. But that meant going up in weight. So the plan was to do 4x4 with 285-295lbs. I wasn’t too sure with jumping up to 20lbs more as knees been a bit rough until recently and not sure how the anterior loading would feel on the lower back. I had been quite surprised no issues on the deadlifts honestly. I did the same warming up as I have been doing on these which would leave how I felt after the last double to determine what I did for the working sets. Working up is always interesting with squat exercises as some sets feel fine and others garbage but it is just to get myself ready for the top set with the last double being the true indicator. Some days all sets feel fine and some days all feel like I’m damaging my body lol. I didn’t feel terrible but I didn’t feel amazing coming into the working weight so I decided I’d split the difference and do 290lbs here. As has been the case, usually that first set is the roughest one and I get better as I got with my breathing and how my body is feeling. I probably could’ve done 295lbs today but I think this was a safe bet considering things. I’m also not sure which way progression will be next week so I think that might also be why I settled where I did. Last set I got a little too ahead of myself with the first rep and I almost lost my balance and had to humble myself a bit after that to make sure I didn’t have any issues. So that was done and then on to the triset after getting another thirsty break. Same as last week but added reps to the rdls and the dumbbell raises and indication to increase the band tension some on the leg curls. These take a bit longer to do with needing to recover from the leg curls before doing the snatch grip rdls. I wasn’t worried about the dumbbells as those felt good and were feeling more like active rest on my body compared to the rdls and the leg curls. I was worried with the snatch grip stuff as far as my back and the increased reps as these are getting challenging and trying to get a solid 2 seconds pauses on these. I feel that went better this week with that intent and focus. I did forget to adjust my camera for the last set so almost 99% out of frame on these. The added reps on the dumbbell raises was noticed. I had been thinking about using two sets of dumbbells this week because the one felt easier but I figured it was too much of a hassle and it was close enough. Honestly, with the increased reps, they were closer to the same difficult compared to previous sessions. Leg curls were tortuous. I felt like I probably couldn’t really move the bands out further in any way that was quantifiable or mattered so I added some band resistance to them. In hindsight, I probably could’ve gotten away with just one micro band added vs two for the training effect. Oh well. I put stuff away but no drinking as I didn’t want to upchuck on the sandbag stuff to finish up. Same as last week with the marches but and added set. I was advised to try and get the bag up higher. I had felt like it was higher on my person than video was indicating. It certainly is higher up than how I’ve usually carried in the past. I biffed my first attempt as I was trying to get it up high but it just didn’t seem to feel right and slid on me and I dropped it to reset and just do what I felt I could do. Of all the things with the sciatica this week, this was the one that it was most noticeable. Mostly because of the extension and lean back as I felt the affected area that is sore/inflamed. Not pain per se but it was noticeable. Feeling like these are fine but I definitely feel like my feet get tired and sloppy by the end of each set. As with last time, put the sandbag away on the last set so I could get to eating dinner sooner rather than later with clean up. Ate dinner and stretched.

November 10, 2025 – Week 11, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
50x8
80x5
110x3
140x2
170x2
200x2
230x3
230x3
230x3
230x3 (2 misses)

Neutral Grip Incline Dumbbell Bench Presses
40’sx8
56’sx6
70’sx4
90’sx6
90’sx6
90’sx6
90’sx6

Alternating + Together Dumbbell Floor Presses
80’sx8(1/1/1) I forgot what I was doing
80’sx8(1/1/1)
80’sx8(1/1/1)

Barbell Z Presses/Assisted Spanish Squats (3-0-3-0 tempo)
65x3
95x3
125x8 – bwx25
130x8 – bwx25
135x8 – bwx25

Supinated Bent Over Dumbbell Drag Rows/Band Seated Leg Extensions (4-0-4-0 tempo)
40’sx3
70’sx10 – abx15
70’sx10 – abx15
70’sx10 – abx15

Stretching

Comments: Not feeling the best at the moment. Appears something from Saturday has me feeling the disc compression issues/sciatica stuff. It didn’t pop up until I got home really. Usually I’ve been able to mitigate it when it pops up with dip stand decompression and rest but that at this moment hasn’t yielded the results I’d hope. I’ve not had this pop up since middle of July and it did take a few days for things to calm down (being on vacation maybe helped there). I can tell when it is flaring up that I feel a bit more stressed (and that seems to compound it) so it is best to get it to calm down sooner rather than later. But it also seems that sometimes whatever is inflamed needs to calm down enough for decompression actually help. I did that on Sunday and plan was to do that twice on Monday (during lunch break and then during warm ups). Walking felt good on Sunday. Weight is still down a good bit like last week weigh-in. It decided to finally get cold here as temperature dropped 20 degrees from what it was Sunday and windy. Foam rolling to start things off. Left calf needed it more than the right one this time. Probably because the disc issues. Right quad needed it a good bit more than the left one. Upper back and such was fine. Neck rehab stuff followed and that was good. Kind of hoping stuff I was doing warming up would help with the back issue as I went but not to the level of “curing it” as I’d hoped. From there stretches for hips, knees, ankles and hamstrings. Did a dead hang then some dip stand decompression to try and see if this was the one that would get things back on track. Not yet. I’ll keep at it. It was then time to train. Axle again. Rack work. I was a bit surprised that it was only going to be 4x3 with 230lbs. I was fully expecting like sets of 4-5 reps. Indication was to be confident from the start and try to not have the weight go out in front. The temperature drop did have joints feeling achy but thankfully no issues in the knees. I didn’t feel like anything was off working up. I did have to wear my warm up bottoms due to it being close to freezing but was able to warm up enough to shed the top. I got set for what I thought would be comfortable reps. Boy was I wrong. First rep I went to press and it seemed to hit a wall hard. Almost threw me for a loop and then the second rep I stalled even harder and had me really wondering what just happened. I think I wasn’t using as much hip drive initially as I was trying to have the weight on the press not go out in front of me. I reverted to how I was and not over thinking it and that rep went up a lot better. But this was not a good start. I had to double check I didn’t accidentally put 20-30lbs more on there than I thought I did. I took a little longer rest than I was planning to so as to recover from that effort. The second and third set moved a good bit better and had me thinking that first set must have been a fluke. Then I had the last set which played out a lot like how the third set of circus dumbbell went on Saturday. So first rep flew up but I think it went up too fast as I lost my brace and I think that laxity in my core had me worried about my back. I just seemed to have no power in my arms after that first rep as I couldn’t even seem to put in an effort to get a push into that sticking point. After 2 misses, I racked the weight and took a step back. Don’t freak out, this has happened before. You can do this. This is the last set, just space these last two reps out. Went for the second rep again and that was a tough one with a struggle to lockout. As soon as that weight came back down to my shoulders, I knew that I had to rack the bar as I had nothing in the tank to go again. Another rest before mustering up the gumption to go for the last rep. Thankfully, that went up better than the second one had. I checked the weights again after racking the weight to just make sure I wasn’t wrong on the math. Really not sure what the deal was today. Looking at video, even the ones at the start that I thought were not pressing out and away appeared to still be pressing out. I’m really not sure on how to fix that at this point. And I worry that doing so is going to be more apparent with the sticking point with the triceps and work on those in a different way perhaps. So this was not a great start to a late session in darkness and cold. But thankfully off work tomorrow for holiday so I can recover. Into the garage for dumbbell stuff. Incline dumbbell pressing again with the neutral grip. Plan being 4x6 with 90-100lbs. Seeing as how my pressing was not having me feel confident, I elected to just aim for 90lbs this time around as that could be dicey. Notes were to try and keep grip more neutral. I think part of the hand rotation thing happening was trying to get more ROM and kind of doing more of a fly style to engage chest as I feel that with neutral grip I have to tuck my shoulders and the bigger plates do cut the ROM some. So I went with that style of press this time around. I can definitely feel that my arms do want to rotate the handles as I press and for the most part I can control that but as the reps get tougher, the rotation is harder to fight. The good news is that I didn’t have much issues with clean to shoulder. Shoulders were feeling beat up though. With how I was feeling today, 100’s wouldn’t have been doable but I probably could’ve snuck a few lbs here. Hopefully I will be fresher next time or something will be adjusted so I keep going forward. From there more dumbbell pressing with the odd style of floor pressing that I’ve been doing. Same weight as the past two weeks but back to 3 sets but now 8 reps. I don’t know where my head was at on the first set as I seemed to remember about 4 reps in that I was to be doing right, left and then together and I had been doing just right and left. I think my thought process on realizing that was ok, maybe I start over and ignore the reps I just did. Or maybe do another set. That had me lose count. I ended up doing some reps together and then reps as intended and hoped that equaled the total reps per set. I might have done a few extra reps. I got it right for the other two sets. The first set I hadn’t really felt that fatigued but I was feeling it on the two sets I did right. These sets didn’t have me feeling like I had struggled on the other two pressing exercises beforehand. From there it was on to the supersets. A bigger change with the first pairing. Second half still the assisted tempo Spanish squats. The first part was a change in the pressing. Doing barbell z presses. Ms. Funk wants to see about my hips and core when it comes to pressing. I’ve not done any z press variations in 2.5yrs and last time I did a barbell one was 5.5yrs and it had been 5yrs prior to that when I was doing these regularly. I used to do these with log, axle and barbell a good bit when I first started out with strongman stuff. I feel that my long legs tend to help me balance on these a good bit. Plan was to do 3x8 at RPE .5-8. I wasn’t sure what I could do and what things would feel like today so I did start light warming up. I didn’t feel confident with doing 135lbs like I was hoping with how warm ups went. But things did feel better when it came time to working weight. First set was fine and second set I felt like I was not quite leaving enough RIR on the set but that might have been from me not staying focused. I didn’t want to drop weight and I decided I’d add pressure and put 135lbs. I did rush the first rep a tad but otherwise the other reps felt solid and I felt better here vs the 130lbs set. The Spanish squats took up a good chunk of time. It felt like this took longer to get my knees to cooperate with me to finally attempt sets. While only 3 sets this week, it was 25 reps per set with the tempo. So getting close to 3 minutes of effort each set. The setup was a bit unique with doing both exercises so some break between with setup and tear down. The effort on the squats kept me warm. Back into the garage for the final pairing. Again, a bigger change. The rowing exercise changed again. I did ask for clarification on this one and I think I did them right. But essentially a bent over row with dumbbells and keeping a supinated grip and dragging my knuckles up my legs to the hips, maintaining contact. A bit odd. I’m not sure about adding weight for these as I’d have to mess around with the plateloaded handles and find a way that not having the weights of bigger plates hitting thighs and keeping from the close contact. The other half was the new double leg band extensions but now with all the reps being tempo reps. I started with the band tension I ended on last week and tried to have it be a little more tension with setup. These are tricky with getting the feeling right. I may need to add some more band tension as it is hard to get the setup on the feet if I’m further away as well as making sure the bench is secure. I cooked up dinner and while it was cooling I put stuff away. Stretched after eating. Late night but I think I didn’t rush myself knowing I had off tomorrow and could sleep in.