March 2, 2026 – Week 3, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Dumbbell Push Presses (4-1-0-1 tempo)
40’sx4
80’sx4
80’sx4
80’sx4
80’sx4

Paused Axle Floor Presses (2 seconds at lockout)
86x6
136x4
186x2
236x6
236x6
236x6
236x6
236x6

Internal Rotation Dumbbell Flyes/Single Arm Dumbbell Triceps Extensions (1 second at lockout)
10’sx12 – 10x6/6
40’sx8 – 40x8/8
40’sx8 – 40x8/8
40’sx8 – 40x8/8

Banded Close Grip Push Ups/Band Face Pulls
bw+mbx20/abx25
bw+mbx18/abx25
bw+mbx15/abx25

Stretching

Comments: Saturday seemed to get most of the mental funk out of the way with how training went. Joints were quite sore so it was hard to fall asleep and stay asleep so Sunday was pretty lowkey besides getting the usual weekend things done and getting in a walk. Weight was surprisingly up a little from last week so still holding a bit above 258lbs. As I mentioned it was up to like 64 Saturday and it was now about 27 today (didn’t get above freezing) so a bit of whiplash with the temperature. Apparently freezing rain tonight into the morning causing delay for work tomorrow (not me). This is the quicker of the sessions at this point. Soft tissue work to start. I was expected a lot being needed for my calves after how they were feeling Saturday. But not as much as I was expecting. Still a decent amount. Normal amount for everything else. Neck rehab stuff felt fine. Feels good to get things to loosen up and then blood flow. Lower body stretching was ok. I again, almost forgot to do a dead hang as thinking about starting. Felt good. Wearing my warm ups to start things off. So once again, starting off with dumbbell push presses with tempo. The working weight was increased by 10lbs and the sets and reps dropped to 4x4. Fine with moving on up but it brings its own hassle. I only have the one solid 80lbs dumbbell and I saw how different things are with the plateloaded ones and trying to do one plateloaded and one solid doesn’t work out so good. I don’t have enough smaller plates to get much about 70lbs on the handles so I need to use 25’s. Not that much of an issue but it does become one with having to now do these outside since the diameter of the plates are too much to fit in the recessed lighting fixture in the garage. That first set was a little rough. The size of the plates, how it felt shouldering the weight and just how the weight sat/felt in the dip/rack position. Didn’t feel comfortable and the weight felt alive. Could also be because I didn’t wear my hard belt this session. I don’t know why, I guess I felt like I didn’t really need it for these. So that first set had me a little concerned but then the second set felt like it has been and I was ok with that. Got a little more challenging again on the third and fourth set but never felt as difficult as that first set did. Shouldering the solid dumbbells that are smaller diameter is definitely “smoother.” Got that mess inside and was able to continue the rest of the workout in the garage like I have been doing the past two weeks. More floor presses with the axle and holding lockouts for 2 seconds each rep. I had done better with keeping my head down last week and there seemed to be more of a consistency with my movement. My hope was to repeat and improve on that. For today, indication was same weight as last time but add another set. Unlike last week, I didn’t feel like my triceps were twitching like crazy on the warm ups. It didn’t feel so bad in my hands with warming up either. The working sets were a little odd in that sometimes the weight felt heavy on the unrack for the first rep and other times it wasn’t. Regardless of how the weight felt, I usually blasted up that first rep like it was speed rep and I tried really hard to mimic that on the following reps but it seemed like at best I could keep that for the second and maybe the third rep and then it was bit more labored. It doesn’t feel however like that first week when I’d have it feel like a little bit of a hiccup at lockout on the later reps and sets. I was tempted to increase the weight a little here but stuck to the plan. As I was going to be a little greedy with the next thing in the session. With the bigger movers for the session done, it was one to the supersets. The first one again being chest flyes with internal rotation and single arm triceps with lockout holds. The notes had the reps and sets decreased on these movements. 3x8 for flyes and 3x8-10 on the triceps. Suggested weight was 35lbs on the flyes and 35-40lbs on the triceps. Notes indicated that for flyes that hopefully this was fine and wouldn’t irritate anything. This is where I made an executive decision. I was going to warm up with reps on 10’s and then do the working sets with 40’s. I’d rather use my solid 40’s then use plateloaded handles for this stuff. They are solid and it generally feels better with the movements. The more compact dumbbell would actually increase the ROM on these things as well. No issues on the flyes. Felt stable. Left triceps takes a moment to get ready at the start with the rotation aspect. Triceps was tough. I knew going back up to 40lbs here that I was aiming for just 8 reps with the holds and that was pretty challenging. This was the most challenging thing of the session besides that first set of dumbbell push presses. Slight change to the last superset. Still close grip push ups for the first part but adding band tension to that. The second half was untouched (band face pulls). Push ups still indicated as 10-20 reps per set with no changes to the reps or band tension for face pulls. I wasn’t too sure on what band tension setup to use so just went with a mini band across my back by default. I was not expecting those first two sets to be like the no band sets last week. Last set was more like I was expecting. Banded face pulls were fine. It is a fair bit of band tension as it feels similar in my lower body to brace in the same way I have to for standing arm over arm pulls. Put stuff away and finished cooking dinner. Stretched afterwards.