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.