April 22, 2026 – Week 2, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up 

Trap Bar B Stance Romanian Deadlifts (5 second eccentrics)
145x3/3
235x3/3
285x6/6
285x7/6 (miscounted)
285x6/6
285x6/6

Dumbbell High Pulls/Alternating Reverse Lunges
40’sx3 – bwx3/3
70’sx8 – bw+25x10/10
70’sx8 – bw+25x10/10
70’sx8 – bw+25x10/10

Toes Elevated Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts
70’sx12
70’sx12
70’sx12
70’sx12

Band Face Pulls/Heel Elevated Goblet Squats (no lockouts)
sbx20/bw+40x20
sbx20/bw+40x20

Stretching

Comments: I feel like my coworkers are stressed but I’m kind of just used to everything being on fire. Walking felt good Tuesday. Nice to walk during my lunch break again. Still got some neck issue thing at this time. No changes really to Day 2 this week compared to last week, just heavier or more reps really. Day 3 is where things get more specific and interesting. No further things posted about either competition at this time. Kind of entertaining myself with comparing other aspects like travel and costs in the meantime. Felt like I might need nasal spray in the morning but it seemed to go away. Soft tissue foam rolling starting things and nothing really needed a ton this time around. Left calf at the top needed it the most today. Other stuff was about the normal. Upper back wasn’t anywhere near as sore or tight as Monday. Neck rehab stuff followed. Felt alright, some stuff felt needed and other stuff just kind of superfluous. Again, quite surprised nothing really sore from the upper body tempo work. Lower body stretching was good and so was dead hang after that. Then on to the workout. Like I mentioned earlier, this was essentially same workout as last week but either more weight or move volume. So starting things off with the same eccentric loaded trap bar deadlifts with a split stance. These had been pretty rough last week. Notes were try and push these to RPE 7.5-8 and do 4x6. I had miscounted on some sets last week. I figured I could do more weight this time around but that I should probably treat each side as its own set so that I wasn’t making things not so good on the other side as the grip doesn’t get a rest when switching sides. I didn’t realize until today that my smaller/denser 45’s will fit on this when flipped over and not be touching the ground. So I went with aggressive 90lbs jumps and lowered the reps I did warming up with intent to go a bit heavier and see if resting between sides improved things. I did liquid chalk and regular chalk here. First half of first set wasn’t bad. I was considering increasing the weight each set by like 10lbs but my balance wasn’t quite that good on the other half so had me reconsider that line of approach. And these were feeling pretty taxing between sides so rest was definitely needed. I might have done an extra rep on a set at some point. This was tough in that I was having hard time with stopping myself from yawning and my nose was starting to run. Breathing was hard too. But I made it through these eventually with 40lbs more than last time and an extra set. I took my time to recover from that as the next thing was also not a fun one to do and get through. I turned on the small oscillating fan to have better air flow for this one. A superset of dumbbell high pulls and alternating reverse lunges. Notes were to go a bit heavier on the high pulls and to add weight on the lunges holding in a goblet squat style. Reps were lowered here with the high pulls being 8-10 and 10 reps each side on the lunges. Knees didn’t feel as terrible doing lunges and warming up this time around. I figured I should be able to do my 70’s for 8 reps. I wasn’t going to push beyond that as I wanted to see how my body handled the lunges this time and the trap bar stuff was a lot more taxing this time around. Hard to guage things with many reps on explosive movements. Gives me room to grow with these weights for next time. The high pulls weren’t bad and the lunges were decent here. I was kind of thinking I should go heavier but save that for next time around assuming this coming week has similar stuff. I actually seemed to recover well from the first and then doing the second set but needed longer rest after the second set before doing the third set. Toe elevated dumbbell rdls was next. I took a slight break to walk to my folks house to check on things while they are away and then came back. Give me a chance to get my air back and distract me from wanting to drink anything as I can’t really keep things down safely after I start on this particular session. 4x12 on these. I asked if I should try to push things more as these were quite easy last week. Advised I can increase if I feel like I’ll be able to maintain the stretch and form. I figured that it was best to just do the 70’s again because it would be a hassle with the plateloaded dumbbells when these feel great as is but are light. The plateloaded handles would get cumbersome. These did feel a bit more challenging this time around but I think that is more due to having done 40lbs more on the trap bar stuff and 60lbs more on dumbbell high pulls. These felt and moved easy and good stretch but I was breathing a bit heavy compared to last time. Almost done with today. Another superset to finish things off. Again, band face pulls and heel elevated goblet squats. Change here in that only two sets but reps now 20. Also advised to not lockout my knees on the goblet squats to keep constant tension on the quads. I took a bit to kind of recover mentally before doing these. I think since last exercise and I was expecting this to be more challenging than it ended up being. My knees didn’t really ache on these goblet squats this week. I did sit in a deep squat position for a little bit before hand so maybe that helped. First set was pretty easy. Fatigue did become apparent on the second set but still fine. Could tell my right quad was getting fatigued. Still have little lingering of the hip flexor thing and still some bruising on that leg from Illinois but slowly getting better and forgetting about the aches and such. I put stuff away as well as put some equipment into my car for this weekend to transport. Ate dinner before stretching out.