November 5, 2025 – Week 10, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
143x5
235x3
323x2
373x1
413x1
463x1
503x1
533x2
479x3
479x3
479x3

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (21”)
65x6
115x5
155x4
205x3
245x2
275x6
275x6
275x6
275x6
275x6
275x6

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
345x8/10’sx10+10/(2)mbx20
345x8/10’sx10+10/(2)mbx20
345x8/10’sx10+10/(2)mbx20

Sandbag Marches
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds
225x20 seconds

Stretching

Comments: Work wears me down as well as just the general unease of everything just being not great. There is joy in my training and being with family. But there feels like a gravity to everything that is wearing me down and I think a lot of people down. And not realizing such until taking a step back to escape from that and breath. The revert to telework is helping at least with giving me more time to sleep and not feel like a crunch to fit in life outside of work. Walking during lunch break also feels better too. Slight bruise on my right shoulder from I believe incline presses with dumbbell from having to clean the weights to shoulder and possibly from contact. Foam rolling was needed for my calves and quads. Rehab stuff for neck as planned to get things feeling good in the neck, shoulders and upper back. I did the tib raises/calf raises like I did last time going back and forth each rep. Seemed a little more sure of myself and what I was doing here. Also glute activation stuff. Some added time to some stretching after that and then it was on to the session. So surprise, no axle deadlifts. Moving to the last block of the off-season prep and bring back in the bendy bar. So plan here was work up to a top double with the as close as I can get to contest setup and then take 10% off to do 3x3. So power bar with the bar extenders. I’ve been fussing with these about each session trying to get things to feel and look like how the setup will be on a 10’ bar. Not spending over a grand on a bar that I can’t even store in my garage that is essentially a novelty. Got enough of those. The sleeves are longer than normal on top of the bar gripping section. I think I have about as close as I can get with what I got. Most I’ve worked up on this variation has been 415lbs and that has been for EMOM doubles for many sets. When things aren’t in the groove, this feels like a lot of back and when it gets it just right, it can feel almost weightless. So the new tweak to the setup was to have the 25lbs bumper plates and my super thin 45lbs steel plates on first and then the bar sleeve extenders. So whippy immediately still and not having the flex come into play until 323lbs (where I use a 45lbs bumper plates). So plate jumps to that point (which isn’t many jumps) and then going 40-50lbs jumps with quarter-plate. Worst case I was seeing 503lbs for my top double with my hope being that I did 553lbs. It is an odd pull and it feels like it is a long pull to get to lock out and just have to keep pulling and not let it stop. 503lbs didn’t feel like my limit so a single there but I didn’t feel 100% sure that I’d get a double if I tried 553lbs with how things felt. I was also having a hard time digging into the max hype aggression but I feel that is kind of the general vibe and this would be a first heavy session. I’ve not pulled more than 501lbs from the floor in any fashion since March 1st this year. Adding 30lbs felt like a gamble even. Told myself that I got to keep pulling on this setup. These felt slow with the second one taking even longer it felt to lock out. Ugh. Now video says it wasn’t that bad. Honestly, I probably had 553lbs in me for a double today but it would’ve been RPE 10 if it went. I got to and will get used to this. I meant to have 480lbs on for the triples but I forgot to put the one fractional plate on the one side so a little shy of that. Oh well. These triples didn’t feel much easier after the heavy double. These felt much the same. I’d say the first set felt the best of these and fatigue was present after that. My usual rest period of pacing my house for squats and pulls wasn’t really cutting it today. Second set felt a good bit tougher. Last set was an odd one. The first and last rep almost seemed to be like pause reps when the full weight broke the floor whereas the second rep went up fairly easy. I do wonder if in competition prep will have a bit more drastic of intensity peak and drop vs offseason. Deads seem to feel tougher grinding week to week compared to things like squats that seem to be fine with that and improve week to week. Speaking of which, after putting the setup away and getting fluids, it was time for more front box squats with the ssb. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve adding yet another set of 6 reps with these but here we are. Same weight as it has been for the past 3 proceeding weeks. Thankfully, my knees were feeling better so I was hopefully not going to have issues with these and be in doubt of getting the reps. I don’t know if these were moving better because I did less deadlift volume or if they just like to feel better every other week. I did feel a bit fatigued 3 sets in and did make my rests slightly longer from there. I was doing these a bit quicker compared to how gingerly I was moving with these last week. But I handled these like a champ with only the very last rep of the last set having me grunt out in exertion to finish things off. That’s a lot of front box squatting. More time putting stuff away and getting more fluids down. The triset followed. Again, some slight changes. The first part still being snatch grip rdls. Pauses were added last time so that still present and same weight suggested. But two more reps on these. I did want to try and make my pauses more in the two seconds range as I think I counted fast for my tastes last time. I think part of that was the worry I’d not get the reps and rushing as that combined effort here gets draining. I feel like I did improve on that this time around but more so in the second half of the set when I knew I was finishing. I need to try and get that consistency from the start. The second part was the newly added I and T raises. 10 reps for each and I stuck to the 10’s for weights for both of them. I’s easier than the T’s here still. As far as the fatigue went, more noticeable on the T style raises. The biggest change to the triple threat was the leg curls. Still lying style with bands but instead of pauses and not pauses, this was tempo style like the Spanish squats this week. I’ve done eccentric style tempo on these but I don’t think I’ve done tempo on concentric. Also for 20 rep sets. I lowered the band tension to make sure I survived these. I was walking like a newborn fawn after getting up from that first set and made the executive decision to increase the rest period between the completion of the set to make sure I didn’t stagger around trying to do the rdls. That was needed as those leg curls were taking about 2 minutes to finish. But I got them done without incident. Sandbag for the last thing. Now I don’t know if the change was made because of the darkness or if this is just the change being done as planned but these weren’t runs today. I was to do the sandbag for timed marches of 20 seconds. Which would be a bit over twice the time it takes me to go from a pick to 50’ run. So doing 4 sets of this would be pretty big increase in the time under tension if not the intensity of movement. I’m not going to put as much forward pressure on my knees/feet marching in place as fast as I can. This change actually was a good call as my luck with training outside in the dark after work was bound to hit a snag and I happened to miss the passing storms that were blowing branches and stuff down. So this was the safe option. Sand it was more fatiguing then I thought it would be. I got a little stich in my right side on the first set. Didn’t happen after that as I knew what to expect. Trying my best have this up high on my person and moving fast and holding tight. Kind of easy to put stuff away when done as well. Dinner, stretching and then clean up for bed.