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.