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.