January 3, 2026 – Week 18, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Cambered Squat Bar Squats
85x10
135x8
175x6
225x4
225x4
225x4
225x4

Seated DB Arnold Presses
40’sx8
40’sx8
40’sx8

Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Heels Elevated Goblet Squats
40x10/10 -- bw+40x10
40x10/10 -- bw+40x10
40x10/10 -- bw+40x10

Pendlay Rows
135x12
135x12
135x12

Stretching

Comments: It’s another year and it kind of feels like the same as it has been in that it feels like things in general aren’t getting better. It always feels like WW3 is going to happen in January each year for like the past 5yrs or so. But I guess we keep living. Maybe with not having “super serious” training sessions this week and not having a ton of family made things feel less stressful this week with work, even though it was similar circumstances with half day, a day off and a lot of people out this week so burden added to those that stuck around. I had actually gone to bed early Thursday night and felt somewhat rested. Mentally continuing to feel more like myself but still feels like my body is a step behind. Knee is feeling loads better but still some stiffness in right hip. Upper back seems to have mostly recovered but man were my pecs sore after doing the benching with just 40’s on Tuesday to give you an idea of things. But I don’t feel so far off pace compared to last week going into Saturday session. Distracting a little with actual trip planning stuff and I do have some things I need to put down into words to figure out these last few weeks of prep. I stayed up late Friday night and that lead me to sleeping close to noon today. Not ideal but I guess needed. This was fine as this Day 3 training session was one I could do from home and I was already planning on that being the case. Save a drive out to hopefully decompress some more and be able to take care of some stuff at home in the meantime. As well as be able to immediate eat something when I finish. Lower legs still needed a lot of foam rolling. About as much as Thursday but in the lower part more so compared to just upper part. Quads needed it too but not to the level I needed Thursday. Other stuff was fine. Neck rehab wasn’t too bad but man was my left shoulder tight at the start. Stretching for hips and such after that for the normal amount. From there on to training. I know body is still recovering as my cold tolerance is down from what I usually am good for. This training day I feel was the biggest departure from what I normally do on this session. If anything, this felt like mostly parts of what I’d usually do on Day 1 and Day 2 as far as accessory work. The start was about right in that it was squat based but even that was a bit different. Notes indicated light squats with cambered squat bar. No indication of box so these were free squats. These had me a bit nervous and honestly were probably going to be the most challenging thing for this deload week. I wanted to stick to no support gear for this deload week. No belts, no knee sleeves. So a little nervous with the right knee and right hip here. I’ve not done a full squat (besides goblet and those are front loaded) in 8 weeks so this was probably going to feel weird. And I was right. Balance going down that low with high bar position on the cambered squat bar and using my regular lifting shoes was definitely something but I did get used to it. Thankfully, the weight didn’t feel heavy on my shoulders/upper back but still feeling awkward. I was considering if I should do so many reps warming up but I felt it made the most sense with the cold and not really feeling comfortable with a full squat. The plan was 225lbs for 4x4 and every other set felt a little off. Even sets felt the best. But got these done and was able to move on from there. I did try to keep rests somewhat short since I was lifting later than I had planned for the day. For the rest of the workout, I tried to kind of keep things easy as far as weight loading. The next thing was dumbbell pressing. Arnold style with seated and rotating during the press. It has been a long while since I’ve done that kind of pressing. Notes were 3x8 and keep it flowy. I just went with my 40’s here as I didn’t want to deal with plateloaded dumbbells and I felt like 70’s would be a bit much considering. Left elbow is a bit inflamed/tense but these were smooth and easy for the most part. I think these got better as I went. From there it was back to lower body stuff. A superset of the single leg rdls I’ve been doing with the heel elevated goblet squats. No tempo on the goblet squats but notes were to pause in the hole and then explode up. I was initially thinking doing 70lbs on the rdls considering what I was doing before deload and then 40lbs on the goblet squats as that would be light with it not being tempo. But I think I felt that my balance wasn’t so good and that if the weight was lighter than expected, I’d increase the ROM. Which is what I ended up doing. This was similar feeling of exhaustion/effort to the pairing of kettlebell swings and gorilla rows. I think having this kind of deload lets me train other energy systems in a way that aren’t taxing but I’m putting in an effort still. I was getting a decent pump from this pairing in the lower body (which wasn’t the case with the swings and rows). Moving right along to the last thing which was pendlay rows. 3x12 with light weight. The dead stop style. I’ve done these with minimal warming up previously and I know I can do a decent bit on these. So 135lbs was fine here. Pulling explosively here so it was getting a bit fatiguing by the end with the number of reps. But it was good effort to end things on. Put stuff away and ate a decent bit of food before stretching. I don’t have much time left to compete so I really need to hunker down and get my mind right and affairs in order.

January 1, 2026 – Week 18, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
163x5
253x3
EMOM
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2
343x2

Seated Safety Squat Bar Goodmornings (21” box)
65x10
65x10
65x10

Kettlebell Swings/Gorilla Rows
55x30 seconds/40’sx30 seconds
55x30 seconds/40’sx30 seconds
55x30 seconds/40’sx30 seconds
55x30 seconds/40’sx30 seconds

Single Leg Glute Bridges (no rests)
bwx10/10
bwx10/10
bwx10/10

Stretching

Comments: Having a deload week and it also being a week where I have a half day and a day off work is what is needed to hopefully get me back on this horse. It has been cold and windy this week and I’m seeing branches from trees in my back yard in my front yard. I feel that my head space is recovering quicker than my body is at this point. But mind leads the body in most cases like this. So while not 100%, I’m liking that I’m at least not cannibalizing myself with negative thoughts and inaction. Perhaps coping mechanism but I’m planning and thinking about what I’m doing and what to be kind of categorizing to feel like I have things under control. Wednesday I walked after I was done with work and I could tell my joints and such are still recovering. Though my knees could be just feeling the jumping around I did Tuesday. Sleep was weird as I didn’t really fall asleep until close to 2AM and then was up about 10AM or so. Cold today but training could be done in the garage so not having the wind factor and also be able to kind of warm up the space with my body heat and house. I needed even more soft tissue work for my legs (calves and quads) then I did on Tuesday. Again, could be just recovery from what I put them through on Tuesday session with jumping around like a sugar high induced pre-teen at a trampoline park. But hopefully I’d get that feeling of heaviness out of my legs that was present Saturday. Neck rehab wasn’t too bad. Stretching for hips and such after that I did end up doing a little extra just with how my lower body was feeling. From there on to training. So the workout indicated working up to 325-345lbs for 10x2 done EMOM style on deadlifts. Didn’t specify if doing with long bar setup but I figured that I’d do that. I had it a slightly different setup here as usually I do my thin 45’s and then 25’s that are rubber inside the sleeve extenders but since this was a much lighter session, I did my rubber 10’s and 25’s which is about the same width for the inside plates and then did 45’s that are bumper plates and then undersized 45’s to have it be similar to what I was doing. This got me to 343lbs after doing plate jumps to get there. Only wearing straps, no other support gear. I figured that should be fine with what I have here and I’d like to see where things are with my body. My right knee and right hip are still a little wonky. These felt fine enough considering things. The EMOM did give me the opportunity to practice the setting up of straps a good bit as I will need to be cognizant of time with attempts at show. Worked up a decent sweat here. In order to keep myself warm and not cool down between stuff, I put my warm ups on when I was tearing down and setting stuff up and that seemed to work. After hydrating a little, it was on to the next thing. It has been a good while since I’ve done seated ssb gms. Told to be light and work for blood flow here at 8-10 reps for these sets. I figured I’d just do the empty bar and that seemed to be the right choice. I think I like these more than Jefferson curls honestly when it comes to ROM. The next pairing was a bit of new one for me. Kettlebell swings with gorilla rows. I’ve not really done a lot of kettlebell swings over my strength training career and I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally done gorilla rows. With the idea kind of being work as the pairings were for timed effort rather than reps, I had to make sure I didn’t over do it. I kept things relatively light here with the swings and the gorilla rows I opted for 40’s rather than 70’s. I didn’t doubt I had the strength but I wasn’t sure about the good form and such for sets of 30 seconds, especially since biceps had been a touchy one last week. Definitely felt like swings were easy and rhythmic almost. Like something that I could do for longer time like kettlebell sport is done. The gorilla rows were pretty easy. I may not have done this exercise before but I’ve consistently had to act like a great ape to chase my nieces and nephews over the past few years so I guess that helped with feeling comfortable in the setup. Last thing was just bodyweight stuff. Single leg glute bridges for 3x10 each side. I think besides it being something like that the main component was that I was to do these with no rest (at least how I read it) so only rest being the time the other leg wasn’t working and just one into the other. So about 1 minute and a half or so of just doing glute bridge lifts. This was pretty easy all things considered. My conditioning with things like this has improved with the lengthy offseason. I put stuff away and ate a decent bit (only did breakfast before training) before stretching. Another day of work and then the weekend to hopefully finish up recovering so I can finish strong.