November 29, 2025 – Week 13, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
175x6
225x4
265x2
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6
325x6

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x4
72x3
94x2
108x2
125x1
137x1
150x1
162x4 (3 misses)
162x4 (1 miss)
162x4 (1 miss)
162x4 (2 misses)

Yoke
180x50’
270x50’
360x50’
450x50’
540xpick (5 seconds)
540x50’ in 8.09 seconds
540x50’ in 8.57 seconds
540x50’ in 7.90 seconds
540x50’ in 8.12 seconds
540x50’ in 8.03 seconds
540x50’ in 7.94 seconds

ATG Split Squats (12”)/V-Ups
bwx12/12 – bwx10
bwx12/12 – bwx10
bwx12/12 – bwx10

Sandbag Husafell Carries
290x50’
290x50’
290x50’
290x50’

Echo Bike
10 minutes

Stretching

Comments: I apparently needed the days off work. Sleep cycle off and need to get that back on track for this upcoming month of in office work shift. I’ve not really been having it where I’ve been sleeping a lot lately besides Friday night and even that wasn’t so bad until recently. It had been a bit short of what I have been able to do before I went to Ireland but definitely seems like I’m back to being able to just sleep the day away if I wanted to. I slept for 10hrs Wednesday and Thursday night and I might have been close to that for last night as well. That coupled with going to bed late pretty much meant I got just breakfast and dinner and a shake before bed for Thursday and Friday. But big meals for dinner so maybe evens out. So I guess eating schedule also off but it is going to be off with work shift starting next week. Plan not to have that today. I wasn’t sure who would be at the gym with it being a holiday weekend and such. Drive out wasn’t bad. It has been below freezing or close to it the past few days so I wore my warm ups. Soft tissue work started things off and wasn’t too bad. Maybe all the sleep. Quads still needed it a fair amount. Neck rehab stuff was ok. Felt I needed it to get my shoulders and chest not to feel tight. 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. Higher volume session, comparable to the first week of these. Plan being 315-325lbs for 6x6. Considering how the past two weeks went, this shouldn’t be an issue other than just getting used to the reps I think. Comparatively, these felt tougher than the ssb front box squats did earlier this week. These just felt a little off today I guess. Knees had felt stiff and the right one a little achy so not ideal. Trying to keep the upper back rigid but I don’t think that really clicked until the last 2 sets for me. I definitely did some touch and go reps on the second set at the start but corrected. With more reps here, I took longer rests than the 90 seconds last time but not quite as long as I did my first week of these. I got these done with no real issues and put stuff away and swapped in a fresh shirt for circus dumbbell. I did take a bit to cool off and I walked outside a little. The heat is now on in the gym and I needed to not be so darn sweaty for what came next. Now I’ve done circus dumbbell prep with it every other week for a majority of my time with dumbbell but that isn’t to say that I’ve not also done it every week as well. The last time I tried it every week didn’t go well and had to have the one week intensity dropped a ton to have it work and while end result in training was good, did not materialize as good on the day of competition. Up until this point, it has been every other week with offseason but it would appear the plan is increased frequency with contest prep with Ms. Funk. The plan was 160-165lbs for 4x4 and I knew that was going to be a big ask as about 90% of my new training max found last week. I was also asked to hold the lockouts a little longer to insure that I got the down call as well. My plan was only if I was feeling really good was I going to try doing any attempts at tap and go with the clean. I was fully expecting this to be where I did a rep and set it down and took a few breathes and went again. By virtue of the fact that I had to do this working weight twice last week as I missed the first rep attempt. I was also hoping I didn’t have an off day going into this. My initial plan had been to use the end caps but I didn’t bring my own bolt on collars so I didn’t trust that the hand tighten ones I found would be secure the entire time so did like last week with no caps. A lot of nerves. First rep went up fine and I took a step back and breath or two and went for the next rep. Just wasn’t there and I set it down and took a bit longer of a break and went for it again. That rep went up so explosively I almost lost it trying to get stable under it. Went for a third rep and it was similar results to the first missed attempt (just a bit better I guess) and I attempted to restabilize and go again but put it down. I guess it was going to be one of those days. After another short break I went for it again and it got up there but couldn’t stabilize it. After two misses in a row, I had to walk off the platform and collect my thoughts. Came back and got it finally. So that seemed to work so I walked off the platform again and came back and got that last rep convincingly. This took about 3 minutes to get these reps done. So obviously not a great start but I knew these were form issues and I’m getting more time with the dumbbell and working on my clean which is what I feel is also having me anxious and worried about fatiguing. Since this set of four took 5 times longer than I’d have liked to finish, I took a rest that was needed to calm down and get myself ready. Or so I thought. Got ready for the second set and I miss the first rep. Ok, walking it off. Come back to it and I get it this time but did need to walk a little to stabilize under it. Give myself a little rest with walking away to the monolift and coming back for the next rep and that goes up better than the first rep. I do the walk away and come back again and that one goes up even better. So I stay on the platform for this last rep and I get it just as well as the third rep. So four gets in a row. About 2.5 minutes this time (1.75 minutes if don’t count the first missed rep). Still not great but better than the first set for sure. So hope was that I could improve on that with the third set. First rep went up fine and when the second set had a little bit of struggle with stabilizing at lockout, I took a slightly longer rest before going for the third rep which went up easy again. Almost had the fourth rep (would’ve been 70 seconds mark) but I lost tightness in my upper body and it was going inward instead of outward and I had to bail or dislocate my shoulder. It had me a little shaken so I did walk away to get my head right and get myself back into. Got the last rep here with a little dancing under to get it. Ok, under 2 minutes to get all the reps and same percentage of gets to misses for that set. Final set and it started off similar to the third set. First rep comfortable and then the second rep ended up being just as explosive as that one rep in the first set. So I took the same short rest to go for the third and I just couldn’t stabilize it and missed it. Just two more reps. Went for the third rep again and I got it with a little shimmy needed to stabilize under it. One more. Going for it and it just seems that I’ve hit a wall here as I just don’t feel comfortable with it and I stay in the hold position too long and have to redip as I didn’t feel stable the first time and it just goes nowhere. Ugh. I take a longer rest here as I just have to get this last rep and I’m done. I think this ends up being the longest break between reps at 35 seconds. I get it and I hold it for a beat longer before setting it down. Ugh, that was a lot. But I’m proud with myself for not getting frustrated and rage quitting here. I know that this one is a very technical lift and I think part of it is that I know I’m 10 weeks out still and I’ve already hit above contest weight three sessions in row here. From there it was on to yoke. Same as last week with the aim being speed. Plan being same weight as last time but 6 runs of 50’. Aim still being to get below 8 seconds on as many sets as I can. I did what I did last week for the most part as far as warming up as circus bell took up a lot of time and I knew I’d be at the gym late due to what I still had planned. So did 90lbs jumps and gradually adding equipment and speed. Knees were feeling a bit stiff today. I didn’t want what happened last time with the first set and my blood pressure spiking so I did a pick and hold with the working weight to hopefully mitigate that as things had felt good weight wise on my back after that first run last week. This was also the point I decided to be sneaky and just add 10lbs more so that I did 90lbs jumps from the empty yoke to this weight. I think my upper back and knees were just beat this week from stuff as the weight never felt as easy light on my back as it did last week. I had felt that with the cambered squat stuff too today. Oh well. Had Brian doing commands and he does them a bit more the traditional way and actually stands at the end line unlike the other person that did them the past two weeks so I guess take consistency with a grain of salt. I was at least off to a better start compared to last time with the first run. Second run felt like it was going well and then I noticed tightness issue and that’s when I noticed my belt had come undone and was dangling around my hips before falling to the ground. Not happy about that with it being just over 8.5 seconds. But I made up for it on the next run finally getting sub 8 seconds here. This ended up being my fastest run of the day. The next two runs were just over 8 seconds like my first run. Usually I get my best time on the last run of the day and it probably would’ve if I didn’t stumble in the midway to beginning for some reason. This did end up as my second run sub 8 seconds. Besides the second run with the wardrobe malfunction, they were all pretty close together and within human error. I put stuff away from there as I had something that was going to be a time vampire planned at the end so rather have clean up be quick. Nex thing being a superset. Slight adjustment to this. Still the knees over toes progression on the split squats but the abdominal exercise was changed. For the split squats, same box height and aim for 12 reps. My left knee had been fine with the box height last week but my right was feeling a little irritated. As my knees had been feeling a bit stiff all this session, this height and these reps felt challenging enough today. The abdominals was a new one for me with a v-up. I’ve done something similar before but not really with movement involved. I’m not terribly coordinated when it comes to new things so I had an awkward time with the first set finding balance point but seemed to get it fine the second set and then get a bit of balance issue again on the third set. I’m sure I’ll get these better next time. Then it was time for the time vampire; filling up a new sandbag. I didn’t “need” to do this now. The notes had been to do husafell carry working up to RPE 8 for 4x50’. But I felt it was important for me to see how a sandbag one was compared to a metal one. I’m good at the metal ones for the most part but I had a feeling my style of hold that I usually go for wasn’t going to work here for the competition and I needed to see where I was. Now, the gym has a 270lbs one that is from a cheaper brand and it isn’t really shaped like the contest one as well as being 38lbs too light. I had bought one that I assumed was the contest size a few months back and had 300lbs of sandbags to make contest event. I had waited until I was done with everything besides this to mess with the sandbag stuff as it can be time consuming and frustrating and I get a little annoying when I got dirt/dust on my hands for an extended period of time. This took probably and hour and I’ve come to the conclusion I was sent 120kgs bag instead of 140kgs bag in error as I packed this thing to the rafters and it won’t even close like it is supposed to and it comes out to 290lbs. There is no way that I can fit 18lbs of sand into this thing. I’m frustrated and I’m not going to be asking for refund or whatever as I’m not going to spend another hour filing up a sandbag for one competition. So some sore hands, fingers and forearms and finally ready to do this. Would feel pretty stupid if I couldn’t do this for the RPE 8 after all that. I do think this was a good idea to do as it does feel different grip wise compared to a metal implement. I definitely have to crush it more. I generally only where a soft belt for this but seeing as how I’m doing this as part of a medley after yoke, I wore what I’m wearing for that. That first set my knees were stiff and I was trying to see what purchase I could get as far as getting it up my body to move with it. It did not feel comfortable with it resting on my knees like that. Thankfully, I was able to pick it up and adjust without doing that on the following reps. Moving well enough but I feel like I got to be quicker here. If needed, I think I can toss a weight vest on top of this to get closer to contest weight but there is no way I can get more sand in there. The true last thing was some “recovery” bike time. Advised to hit level 2 HR on bike for 5-10 minutes. Thankfully, the gym did get a new exercise bike that actually fits me but it doesn’t have heartrate monitor so I just went with steady pace. Felt fine but my hamstrings and glutes were sore from other stuff so sitting on bike seat wasn’t enjoyable. This ended up being a much later night than I had expected so I saved the shake for before I go to bed and got myself home to start dinner and then stretched. Hopefully I recover well enough before training again as I feel that competition prep is soon and will be brutal.