September 16, 2026 – Week 3, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up 

Seated Band Hamstring Curls (3-3-0-0 tempo)
lb’sx20
lb’sx20
lb’sx20

Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (beltless, straps, 3-1-3-0 tempo)
65x5
115x5
155x5
205x10
205x10
205x11 (miscounted)

Dumbbell Walking Lunges
10’sx12/12
10’sx12/12
10’sx12/12

Paused Copenhagen Plank Lifts (2 seconds)
bwx10/10
bwx10/10
bwx10/10

Nordic Curls Negatives (4 seconds)
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6

Standing Band Hip Adductions/Hanging L-Sits
(2)µbx15/15 – bwx30 seconds
(2)µbx15/15 – bwx30 seconds
(2)µbx15/15 – bwx30 seconds

Stretching

Comments: First workout session had gone well enough. My elbows were feeling a little achy in an odd way and I think that was more from the bench dips since haven’t done them in forever. No real walking to be done this week as stupid work issue with the parking lot being repaved so have to park a third of a mile further in a different parking lot. But hopefully only for this week and two days only. But already sleep gets disrupted with the commuting vs teleworking. Make it to the weekend for home base safe and recover. Again, a little late with getting myself up and going with training. Foam roller stuff to per usual and not much was needed. Only a little more than Monday session on the quads and then upper back. Otherwise, moving right along. Neck rehabbing exercises felt good. No knee crack issues on the lower body stuff with glute activation or mobility. I eventually got to the dead hang as I was trying to figure out what I was doing with the training session. I may very well have left my converse sneakers in Scotland. I guess good thing I’ve found no shoes works better for me on deadlifts. With the offseason in this phase with barbell lifts and volume, I’m finding best to start things off with priming exercises that also add a muscle prefatgiue part of the workout. I had found hamstring stuff lacking the past few cycles and I think that is important for me to feel strong picking stuff up off the floor and for knee health. So brought back banded leg curls with tempo applied to the contraction and eccentric. Plan here was to do 3x20 with light bands. It has been a while and I had a feeling things might start off fine and then get tough and toasty pretty quick. And I was right. I did start to worry my hamstrings would be too dead for what was to come but I should know better that. Then more tempo modified stuff with snatch grip rdls. Plan being 3x10 at RPE 6-7 with these being beltless. Not just wide grip but collar to collar grip. I also wanted to treat these as full ROM in that not just stopping at midshin or slightly below that as I’ve done with rdls in the past but going to the floor. Work the ROM and mobility. I wasn’t too sure how these would feel with the tempo. I was planning on only doing 185lbs but decided to add 20lbs as I wanted to also go light at the start but know what the depth/ROM would be with a plate on there so used the 10lbs bumper plates. The metronome has been helping with keeping the timing but not entirely fool proofing things here as I accidentally did an extra rep on the last set. But that also bodes well for improving with more next time. Video says my form and bracing were really good so also a plus. After that, it was lighter fare but by no means easy stuff. Just that nothing was going to be needing much weight (if any) to do. Walking lunges for decent reps. Listed for bw but I figured my knees have been feeling better lately and I could probably handle some dumbbell weight added. In the past, I’d do these outside but I figured I’d just do them in the garage and turn around when needed to get the reps in. I just knew from usual circumstances that my knees tend to be cranky going into these variations and usually need my knee sleeves. So was fully prepared for that. But thankfully I didn’t need my knee sleeves and my knees were tolerable of the demands. So also a good sign. Copenhagen stuff is back again. I’ve done just holds in the end of last prep and this was to be plank lifts. And those can get nasty quick too. Slight movement and then hold at lockout for the reps. I’m definitely undertrained here and I know this will be good for my knees and hips. These were a bit challenging. Speaking of challenging, the next thing was also going to be tough with just bodyweight. Nordic curl eccentrics. I’ve done them the past two weeks after not doing them for a while and I need to build back up the strength here. I’m nowhere close to doing a normal rep on these and the negatives are hard enough. I did do them on Saturday for 3x5 with 5 seconds so doing them again after doing a lot of hamstring stuff first for 3x6 was going to be a bit tougher. I was aiming for 5 seconds but found that I could only handle/tolerate 4 seconds here. Last rep of the second set I actually banged my chin on the concrete not catching myself quite right in time. I know to do what I can and take my time as pushing too hard on things can irritate stuff and set me back. I know from experience with pushing these. Last item of the day was a superset. I actually was up in the air on how to finish the session. I had mentioned about the conditioning aspect and was looking at either having the planned superset and then conditioning (power swing EMOMs) or drop one of those. I figured I’d see how the superset went. I was debating if there was duplication and redundancy in some of the movements with things I did earlier but figured it was best to do what I had. Standing band hip adductions combined with hanging l-sits. Sets of 15 reps for the bands and then 30 seconds holds for the hanging abs. The band stuff was fine and I think the little setup I had was neat and good use of the previous equipment setup (the Nordic curls) as I could balance and get more band tension. The hanging raises were the death of me. My upper quads wanted to seize up immediately and it was a struggle to hold out for the full time by the end of the sets. I knew immediately with how that first set felt and the time it was already that this was a good end to the session. The power pin swings will work on the weekend when I got all the time. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching.