December 20, 2025 – Week 16, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
185x6
235x4
285x2
335x6
340x6
345x6

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x5
72x4
94x3
108x2
125x2
140x2
155x2
170x0
170x3
170x3
30 Second Sets (with run up)
120x7
120x6 (1 miss)

Yoke and Sandbag Carries (50’ run back)
Y - 240x50’
Y - 330x50’
Y - 420x50’
Y - 510x25’
Y - 510x25’
600xpick (3 seconds)/225xpick (3 seconds)
600x50’/225x50’ in 28.46 seconds
600x50’/225x50’ in 28.63 seconds
600x50’/225x50’ in 28.30 seconds

Atlas Stones
55”
285x1
285x1
330x0
330x1 (1 miss)
51”
330x5
330x5
330x5 (1 miss)

ATG Split Squats (8”)/V-Ups
bwx12/12 – bwx15
bwx12/12 – bwx15
bwx12/12 – bwx15

Stretching

Comments: This whole week I’ve not felt like I got enough sleep. I mean, I felt rested enough but I seemed to be zonked out enough that I wasn’t waking up early and seeing I had time left and going back to sleep. I was pretty much sleeping right through and then waking up angry the alarm was going off. Like swearing as soon as I got up. Feeling like I don’t have enough hours in the day. My parents saw me Monday and Friday for dinner and commented how I looked a lot less tired Friday compared to Monday at least. Family starting to trickle in for holidays. I initially woke up Saturday at 9:30AM but said no thank you as I knew that this was going to be a very taxing session and I was feeling sore still in the left shoulder and I needed a bit more rest. So about 90 minutes more sleep before I got up. I had to prep a few things to travel today and take care of some upkeep as well before heading out. Lot of bad driving just getting to the part of highway where it was mostly smooth sailing. Had me wishing I could just train at home today. But besides that, I made good time. I did show up after 1PM so I missed a decent bit of the strongman crew. I got a little distracted after warming up talking to some people. Acting like I didn’t have things to do. But I think it was just I was nervous to do what was asked today. As I’ve been noticing that rarely is the next week easier than the first. I’m constantly surprised I’m surviving the workload. It was a bit cold but I knew I’d warm up pretty quick. Soft tissue work started things off. Calves needed a decent amount but not a ton again on the tops. Quads weren’t so bad compared to Day 2 session. Upper back didn’t really need it despite still feeling much like it did Thursday. Neck rehab stuff was ok. Feeling a little better with the aches and tightness compared to the past week. So that is something I guess. I then did stretches hips, hamstrings, knees and ankles and then a dead hang. On to weights. Cambered squat bar box squats. Plan was same weight as last week but 3x6. I think I had the box an inch high last time. Still felt better at the gym vs at home though. It really is shocking how stiff my knees feel initially and then start to feel better with more weight and support gear added to my midsection. More reps on squats meant more strain on body. I didn’t think these would feel more taxing than last week with one less set but more reps but my rest did seem to be longer. My right knee never felt 100% with sitting on the box but it handled what I was asking well enough I guess. I did 5lbs added per set again just for my own amusement as it probably makes little difference if it was the same weight all three sets here. I want to keep working squats as they went by the way side for a good bit and I think they are good for building strength. Just they can be a pain if someone else isn’t dictating what to do as I can sometimes get in my own head if stuff feels heavy or my knees/back act up on me. From there, it was on to circus dumbbell. The first thing I was nervous about today. Last two weeks it has been 150-155lbs recommended for sets of 5 reps. This was to be working up to 170lbs for 2x3. So thankful it was just two sets but worrying about getting three good reps here. This is just 10lbs under that top single I hit about a month back to end the off season prep. Granted it went up easy after the effort to clean it but I was really digging deep in my CNS as I was twitching and shaking for a good bit after that one. So heavy dumbbell, one day short of a week from the previous time. I’m not yet comfortable with the run up and toppling the dumbbell to start at least with contest weight so I did the topple part to start the sets working up to 170lbs. I was kind of going by feel with the reps. Initially I was thinking just singles after I worked up to the heavy bell but I guess I kept it to doubles just so I felt the movement and fatigue from rep to rep. I didn’t exactly instill confidence in myself as 94lbs felt off initially and my last work up set with 155lbs the second rep almost went squirrelly on me. For 170lbs, I had already decided I was going to treat these lifts as singles and not attempt touch and go. Do a rep and take about 10 seconds and do another rep and be done. My first attempt at 170lbs didn’t go great. I didn’t panic as I knew it was a form issue but I had to walk it off and not treat that as my working set or I knew I’d get frustrated and rush reps. I came back to it and got my first rep solidly. Took about 10 seconds and went for the second. That one was not quite as smooth. I wouldn’t give myself that in competition but I wasn’t going to get pissed off. I took about 5 seconds longer to regroup then for the third rep and that one went up like it should. I think I have to get used to how the clean feels on me and the weight in my hand vs how I want it on my upper back and when I know it is secured. Second set was much better and I was able to execute how I wanted it with keeping to about 10 seconds between the reps. I was happy with that result. This wasn’t the end of dumbbell though. I was to do two more sets but with 120lbs. Essentially, AMRAPs with 30 seconds. This should feel light after those sets. For these, I did set things more like competition in that I had the dumbbell standing up right and I was coming from the edge of the platform once the timer went. First set was great and I executed how I wanted. Not fatigued, just out of time with getting 7 reps in the 30 seconds. Second set not so much. I rushed it and got off balance on the attempt at the seventh rep and it went up off and I couldn’t stabilize it. Not the end I wanted here but the main thing was I had two great sets. Took my time with getting ready for the next thing since someone was in the lanes at the time. It was definitely later than I’d like and I still had a time vampire of an event still to go. This next one wasn’t it though. Again doing yoke and sandbag medley. Plan being work up to three top sets. Yoke increased to 600lbs, which is the first time since world’s that I’ve done 600lbs or more. Sandbag weight staying the same this week. I’m fine with that considering the stuff I did before and still had to do. Thankfully, my lower back wasn’t as tense as it was last week. With it being later in the day than I wanted, I didn’t do as many warm up sets. 600lbs for my pick to acclimate didn’t feel great. Probably because I was doing the starts where I wasn’t under the yoke like contest. Trying to drill that in. The yoke wasn’t going to be the tough one here. I was dealing with some indigestion during these so that wasn’t fun. I felt like I was slow on the run back from the yoke besides the yoke feeling a little slow at the start. I didn’t feel like I was slowing up at the end of the run on yoke like last week. Sandbag is sandbag and felt fine. I did try to bump it up slightly on the second and final run. My runs were surprisingly close to what I did last time minus the last run that was over a second faster than the previous runs. The indigestion seemed to stop after these. I had only been slightly nervous with this as more seeing how 600lbs affected the speed. The next thing was really a stressor as it would take time. At that would be atlas stones. They are one of my favorite events in strongman but they really suck when you’ve not done them in years and especially with tacky clean up. Stones haven’t really been in shows lately so not many people have really been putting in work on stones in that way. Once or twice someone will do something but it is like months apart. The area is a bit cluttered now and some of the lighter stones it is hard to tell what the weights are since the numbers are so tackied over. Only the big and heavy stones are obvious (or the really light ones no one uses tacky on). So the plan here was to do 3x5 with a decently heavy stone. RPE 8. Now I’ve not done stones in over 2yrs so quite the layoff. I’ve done sandbags up to 325lbs and I picked up that one stone in Ireland during that time but that’s it. I had to figure out what setup was going to make sense training by myself and figure out what stones I had access to work up. Contest is 280lbs or 355lbs over 52”. I’ll be damned if I’m doing 280lbs stone for reps. It is a warm up weight. I had meant to use the 235lbs stone but I couldn’t figure out which one it was and I thought it might be a stone in the walk way and wanted to weigh it but after getting locked out of the gym and having to walk all the way around the industrial complex to get back in with is freezing and me without a shirt on, I wasn’t going to humor that nonsense again. So just went right at 285lbs to 55” platform (over bar seemed risky). Honestly, with so much dried tacky on it, there was 50/50 chance this was the 235lbs but I knew it wasn’t when I picked it up. I wasn’t too happy with how that rep went so I did another and that felt better. I was using the Spider Tack I had with me as that seemed to warm up quickest. I then rolled out the 330lbs. I had options but the 310lbs was in the walk way and the 315lbs was on the other platform which was occupied with all the gym’s logs. Not touching that while tackied up. I definitely bit off more than I could chew today here. The pick was fine and felt like it should but my extension was garbage today. I guess not really trained that in a good while. It slid down on me going for the load and I missed it. Not nice and easy Happy. I applied tacky to my midsection (going to smart later) and I did get a rep here but I got the same issue on the second. Damn it. I didn’t want to drop down to 285lbs for my 3x5 so I moved to the next platform at 51”, so roughly contest. I try to train higher than contest just because of fatigue factor. But perhaps I can do that for now since usually I don’t do the entire contest in training several times lol. I applied my STAB Tack and that is so much better compared to the Spider Tack but it is imported now and tariffs really make it pricey to get more. Somehow, I made it through this. I got 3 reps and the had to take some rest to recoup and get the last two reps. The issue was more on my extension ability and not feeling confident that the stone will stick to me on the pick to lap as it was feeling quite gritty/dirty on the one side. I had not misses on the pick. I think I was also worried with doing all these biceps stressing exercises back to back. I had a close miss on the last set and I contemplated stopping there but took about 45 seconds to recover and get it. Every set I felt like I was telling myself I can stop or go lighter next time and I think that false bargaining let me keep going. Hell, I was considering not doing stones after the yoke stuff due to the indigestion. Video shows I’m looking quite lean and I can see where muscles has been added this off season. Then came time to clean up and that took a lot of time and effort to be somewhat decent. I do not miss this part of stone training. And the first session is always the worst one. Showering later was also going to suck. I changed out of my stone stuff and put on my tacky soft shirt to finish up with the last thing. The split squats progressions and v-ups. Advised to lower the block height some more. 3x12 for the split squats and 3x15 for the v-ups. My right knee was feeling a little stiff from stones so I did a little mobility and stretching to make sure everything was good. Everything was fine here besides the right knee being a tad achy. But understandable. I just took a little more rest between exercises and sets here as I was really drained at this point. Late night driving home (still some bad drivers but not as many as the early afternoon) and got dinner ready and stretched before cleaning off.