December 24, 2025 – Week 17, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Suited Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
No Suit
143x5
233x3
Added Suit (multi-ply)
323x2
413x1
503x1
573x1
573x1
573x1
573x1
573x1
573x1

Sandbag Box Squats (18”)
175x30 seconds
175x30 seconds
175x30 seconds
175x30 seconds

Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Chest Supported I Flys and T Flys
65x10/10 – 23.5’sx5+5
115x10/10 -- 31’sx10+10
115x10/10 -- 31’sx10+10
115x10/10 -- 31’sx10+10

Jefferson Curls
105x10
105x10
105x10

Stretching

Comments: Half day for work due to Christmas tomorrow. What is supposed to be not a busy day ended up being one with getting notified by the one supervisor about overdue work that another coworker hadn’t done all month and needing it to be done today (with only an hour left in shift) so that was a mad dash. Plan was to not have lunch and get right into training so that I could have my evening free for family. I had no idea how long some of this stuff was going to take as this would be my first session with the suit for deadlifts and I’ve not used one since June of 2024 so 18 months and some change. I also had to bring home my work stuff as notified right before closing that office would be closed Friday due to impending inclement weather so I needed to get that setup to resume work Friday after Christmas from home. I got home and trying to get things started and then my family thought it would be funny to stop by to “carol” so a little bit of a delay. But once that was handled, I started off with foam rolling, which was ok. Calves were a little tight (right at the tops). Quads were really tight on both sides this time around as well. Upper back was needing the foam rolling but not so much. My biceps weren’t feeling like they were cramping this time around but still nervous about that. Neck rehab followed and that was needed. Went into the stretching for hips, ankles, hamstrings and knees after that followed by a dead hang to decompress. Into the garage to start things off. I did the tib raises/calf raises and these felt fine, could feel a little fatigue in them. Bendy long bar pulls again. Heavy session with the suit. I’m not too sure what I’m doing here with the suit as I bought this multi-ply suit when I was bulking and I wasn’t expecting to be lighter than 265lbs again. I was about 280lbs when I last competed with this suit and now I’m under 255lbs by a hair. I have this suit and my single ply suit which I was about 5lbs lighter (275lbs I think) when I last used that one and it fit well enough. I can get into both suits easy right now which is good in that not a hassle but bad in that not fitting so I can get a lot of rebound out of them. For today, I decided I’d use the multi-ply suit as that is the easiest to adjust once in with the cinches and the fabric doesn’t irritate my skin like my single ply that is rough/coarse and the Velcro more intense. So the plan here was to work up to 6 singles at RPE 8-9. I wasn’t sure what I’d feel like here but my hope was at minimum that I was doing 553lbs for the sets. It would depend on energy and how the suit was feeling. I usually do plate jumps and then smaller jumps with raw but the suit can make it that a lot of sets is exhausting. So did the first two weights raw as normal and then the suit the third set going forward. I felt like plate jumps to 503lbs made sense here with how the suit was feeling and effort getting to the bar and the pressure. Ideally, I was hoping that 603lbs would be what I did today but I could tell that was perhaps a bridge too far for the first session back. I’m not sure if this is going to be every week with suit or not. I feel recovery is best for me every other week (same with circus dumbbell and stones) but coaching plans seem to be looking at increased frequency and progression. I was having some issues with the left suit strap (the one I was undoing between sets to breath) so that did screw me up with setting up and it popping off at times. Lockouts felt really tough. This might be just how this suit is for me as this felt like something using it last time in that my body wasn’t in synch here and legs locked out first and then it was back and hips. Which is why I may need to look at using my single ply suit with my weight change and such. I felt like the first three sets I felt better as I went. Still hard lockout. These were definitely not RPE 8 and probably not RPE 9 with the difficulty. But I was recovering enough with about 5-6 minutes rest to keep hitting these singles. Fourth pull was terrible but fifth pull seemed to be better and then sixth was about in between those as I tried a little different setup. These were exhausting and I had not expected it to take so much time to do these. But I knew I’d be sore after these with the suit pressure and strain on the body. I could already see burst capillaries in my thighs and chest area. I’m definitely not feeling like I’m getting as much out of the suit as I felt last time but again, I’m about 25lbs lighter. I will have to see next time if I can manipulate things to have my single ply work in a pinch here with wearing stuff to keep it riding up my thighs or see if I can do some tailoring on it. As it stands, I may need to aim lower if things are this way come competition time and see this event as more damage control vs the others. But we got time to figure this out. But I was feeling quite beat and I was a little worried the strain would affect the rest of the session. After recovering a bit, the next thing was the timed sandbag box squats. Same weight and time but an extra set this week. Notes were to not fully lockout my reps on these and to try and not collapse on the box the last few inches. I had been inadvertently doing that last part as I tend to focus on going fast and getting reps when it is a timed thing vs just doing reps. I didn’t do any extra warming up here like I was planned as the suit work had been quite brutal and I wasn’t keen on doing anything extra with my worries about my biceps with picking up the sandbag. Thankfully, only issue was just my knees feeling achy on these (suit puts a lot of pressure on them setting up) and I think these went well enough considering things. Another break to get stuff setup for the next thing and get some more fluids in me. Superset of the single leg dumbbell rdls and the dumbbell raises. My balance is not great on the rdls and I forget which side is the side that struggles more until I’m into the working sets. I believe I went with starting with the side that would have me holding the dumbbell in my right hand as that tends to be the side where my balance in the upper body isn’t as good as I wanted to not do that side under fatigue as that seems to be the side that got the “most” cramped in my biceps on Monday session. Other sides apparently was the tougher side. Warming up I did more reps than last time here as the reps were increased. I took a slightly longer rest between sides as well. Thankfully no issues (besides balance) here. The raises were really tough. Notes were to try and keep the arms straight. I think the angle of video makes it look like I’m not doing that on the t raise variation. I think I didn’t notice the note I could go a little lighter until it was already working set. Especially since I accidentally put a little more weight than planned on the warming up set. Which might have been helpful as that first set with working weight didn’t feel so drastic a shift. I took double the rest (30 instead of 15) between variations to allow recovery. Even with that, t raise variation still struggling a bit there. But I survived. Last thing being the Jefferson curls. With the increased weight, I was finding that starting off the sawhorse was actually a bit taxing before the reps started at this weight so I used my rack instead and started from the top. Notes had been that me keeping my head up was limiting the ROM. I think I was doing that to keep the weight steady but also so as not to lose my glasses with the movement trying to put my head through my legs. So I took them off for this to not have that be a concern. I had also noticed last time that the increased weight did lead to some bruising on my left forearm so I put on my elbow sleeves to provide some protection. Especially considering I’m doing stones now so trying to keep things from needing more time to recover week to week. First set was a little jolting going right into it but movement was fine. Second set I seemed to have the weight sit on my forearm in a way that it pressed on a nerve so had some numbing sensation there for a bit. I managed to not do that on the last set. Put stuff away and stretched out before heading over to spend the evening with family.