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.