August 8, 2026 – Week 17, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Yoke (drop and turn halfway, turf)
235x40’/40’
375x20’/20’
505x20’/20’ 
595x20’/20’ 
685xpick 
685x40’/40’ in 22.34 seconds
735x40’/40’ in 25.77 seconds
660x40’/40’ in 21.73 seconds

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
70x4
100x3
137x2
160x1
178x1,0
178x0
178x0
137x1/160x0
137x1/160x1
137x1/160x1
137x1/160x0,1
137x1/160x1
137x1/160x1
3 point pauses (2 seconds in dip, catch and lockout)
EMOM
137x0,1
137x1
137x1
137x1
137x1
137x1

Sled Push, Sprint, Sandbag Carry and Pulls (turf)
266x15’/220x15’/296x15’
266x33’/280x33’/576x33’ in 59.30 seconds
266x33’/300x33’/596x33’ in 57.03 seconds

Stretching

Comments: I really wanted another day rest but I knew I had to kind of push through here so that I can deload to recover in time. I could tell there were some compression symptoms that were back that had arisen after the log session that had me take the rest of the week off that I think kind of went away and I hadn’t noticed until now that I felt they were back. Digestion issues popped up after the last training session and I’m not sure what this all about. Hopefully with having me back on telework option next week and through this last bit of prep will have me feeling better and recovering better. I didn’t walk after work as I felt that sleep and soft tissue work was higher priority to feel good for this last heavy event session. That did seem to be the right call. I woke early enough on my own accord to take care of some things before I took the drive up to the one gym. Ty had indicated he would be there but I guess family had other plans. I’m getting used to the drive but I don’t really see myself making the drive up this frequently unless it is for specialty equipment and if temperature is like it has been this summer. Foam rolling was ok. Back of my knees and calves/hamstring inserts felt odd but thankfully chilled out by the time I was done with warming up. The calves themselves didn’t seem to need much but quads did. Neck rehab stuff was ok as well. Lower body stuff was ok and felt decent. Dead hang after that and as good to go as I was going to be. Starting off with yoke. Yoke and dumbbell had been separate at the start of prep and then merged together for 3 weeks with 2 of those sessions being up here to train. And seeing how different these dumbbells are compared to what is usually contested has made simple linear progressive not as feasible. So this session was to get in the last heavy touches for both and I felt that in order to get that being close to contest weight for both without worrying about one or the other’s performance was to break them up again to focus on the parts. My proficiency with yoke has improved so that is less a worry. The initial plan under coaching had been to do 3 runs of contest setup with 685lbs on the yoke and 160lbs on dumbbell for 1-2 reps. But things changing with going to master’s as well as splitting things up. But it sounded like a good idea to get 2-3 runs of yoke with this being the last session since the previous session had been like a month ago and had not felt good with my knees and such and stress at the time. It showed as hamstring felt tight and my one working up set I started to black out on the first half of the run. I thankfully didn’t have that issue with the first working set though. My hope was even if not necessarily getting contest weight, the turf would be what was making things tougher and it would be less taxing at the show. 685lbs didn’t feel that bad. The notes I had was to actually do 685-725lbs here for the 3 sets with aim of going up 20lbs a set. But I guess I felt that I should just go up and maybe only do 2 sets instead of 3 sets. Like I did with farmer’s walk. I put what I thought was 725lbs but turned out to be 735lbs so accidentally a little over contest weight here. It felt heavy but fine, with only issue being coming back and bumping into one of the many objects I had to move out of the way to even do yoke runs today. I did elect to do another run here but dropped it down to 660lbs which would be 90% of contest weight to just get a little bit faster run. I had some issues with the initial leg of the run but it did move better once I got that sorted. I happy for the most part with how these went as I’d not tried this with the new belt, didn’t feel that far off what I was doing for the AZ show 6 months prior despite lighter weights. The turf definitely makes things harder to move. I’m giving myself at least 30 seconds to get through the dumbbells. Which was next. This went through some changes as initially I was looking at just getting more work on the 160lbs dumbbell to drill heavy technique with 6-10 reps done EMOM style. But then I thought better of it just based on how the event will be doing 2 dumbbells and with master’s, I actually have a shot at both lifts rather than just one. But I figured I’d see how things went and kind of be on the fly with it. Working up had me realize it has been over a month since I’ve done a circus dumbbell. I don’t count those javelin presses as such. Form was off once I got to the inch style dumbbells but I corrected quick enough. I decided to go for the 80kgs dumbbell again and got it on the first try this time. I felt good enough that I did try for a double that was close but not there yet. I imagine if I hadn’t taken 5 weeks away that I’d be better here. I did give it two more shots after that to try and get another rep in some capacity but called it there as I was burning myself out and taking away from the obtainable for the show. Something like reining in my worse impulses here would be helpful with coaching/instruction. So what came next was the intent to do doubles with a rep on the 137lbs dumbbell, followed by the 160lbs dumbbell. And start out from under the yoke to work transitions. Initially wanting to do these as an EMOM but with the first attempt not going great (missing the 160lbs twice), I scrapped that and went with just rest as needed and try to get 5 good sets. I need more work on the 160lbs dumbbell as I was having about an even ratio of misses/bad/good reps and want that to not be the case. This is definitely something that needs more work in the future if this comes up as an event for me as some reps the clean feels effortless and others if feels like it saps my arms and back. I then decided I still wanted to do EMOM singles to ingrain things in and went with the 137lbs dumbbell to do iso-holds at 3 points vs 2 points like I had been doing. Reason being that these dumbbells are really unwieldy at lockout compared to other circus dumbbells. I must have misremembered how heavy I had done paused reps like this as I initially missed the first rep attempt on the catch. But I did manage to clean things up and it was going quite sold by the end and feeling automatic. I could tell that I had pushed it here today as my forearms were sore and so was my right elbow (in a musculature way, not joint pain). I swapped in a fresh shirt as I was covered in rust and sweat and ate a rice Krispie treat. This break between things wasn’t going to take nearly as long as last week having make an implement first but I did want to try and recover before finishing out the day. Last thing was the push and pull medley. Like circus bell, it has been over a month since I did this and last time had been the first time doing it with any sandbag weight. Hope I think with prep had been that doing the pick and carries of keg and sandbag would build for this until closer than then worry about. For master’s the weight is a good bit lighter on the push and pull but sandbag is the same weight. Plan was to do 2-3 runs here since no longer doing the 1st medley right before this to kind of warm up things. With heavier sandbag but lighter weights, I had to get creative for the drag by putting a plastic plyo box on it so that the loading pin didn’t puncture the bag. I was definitely feeling everything I did on Thursday and the session by this point. I did half the course or so to warm up as I didn’t want to do a full run as I was having a nagging feeling that the sandbag portion was going to suck. Aim was to do 280-300lbs for the sets here and I was honestly not feeling super confident in this today after how tough the 300lbs sandbag was last week to pick up. So went with 280lbs the first set for the sandbag, which meant. I had meant to add another 10lbs on the sled for the push portion but it feels like busy work rather than an actual implement at this weight. The 280lbs sandbag wasn’t too bad but where I screwed up was the drag. I fumbled big time with getting the handles and the other blunder was I forgot to tighten my shoe laces so my feet were loose in my shoes with pulling this weight on the turf like that. Barely under a minute here. I felt I had to do 300lbs and hopefully not make those unforced errors this run. Better but man was the pick up of the sandbag rough. Similar to last week with how I was on my second run with the sandbag to finish the medley. This may end up being how it goes at the show. I did manage to be a little faster despite that. I’ve made a note of how this has felt on sandbags this prep to address it during offseason. Put stuff away after I downed my shake and made it home well enough. I kind of needed to just chill for a bit when I got home and finally get something to eat and stretched out afterwards. I knew I’d be tired but have issues actually getting myself to settle down for bed. One more week.