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.