Paused Lying Band Leg Curls/Paused Band Seated Leg Extensions (2)mbx15/abx15 (2)mbx15/abx15
Walking 19 minutes
Stretching
Comments: Work wasn’t as rough as Monday but it was still trying. It is possible that I’m feeling irritated with things due to the competition coming up. Usually there is some decrease in the intake part of things with time off as I won’t be here and shit won’t be getting done while I’m out and then having to do that when I get back and catch up while already having things scheduled. I could tell I was stressed yesterday as stuff was sounding louder than it usually does. Similar today but I was handling it better. Neck seemed less stiff but I guess that was a psych out as it is now localized to the left side and it feels somewhat like I tweaked it now. No clue what this is about. But I’ve been here before and I’ve managed. Soft tissue foam rolling to start things off. Right quad needing it a lot again. Other stuff about the usual. Neck rehab stuff followed. Not sure if this helped or aggravated my neck. Hard to say as some stuff I was feeling really good with but some stuff (like chest doorway stretch) was also feeling tense in the neck. Oh well. Lower body stretching and dead hang after that. Kind of seeing if anything maybe gets the neck to just “click” and feel better. Probably not but staying positive. Then on to the workout. Axle deadlift with the wagon wheels. Notes were to keep this light and suggested was 325-345lbs for 3x4. This was only thing I was leery about. Not because this could hurt (I’ve done deadlift with the tense neck no problem) but wanting to make sure I don’t take anything away from what I need for the show on deadlift. Worrying that I won’t be peaked like I want to be here. If something felt off, I’d call it. But hopefully not as even calling it might have me doubting myself. I did 40-50lbs jumps and this was feeling pretty good and easy. I went with 30lbs jump for the last one just to hit the minimum. These felt comfortable and easy. No hard belt and took short rests like yesterday (under a minute). So this was a good sign. Tear down and setup took a little longer this session vs yesterday with the equipment. Next was Pendlay rows. Just 135lbs here for 2x5. Only thing that could be an issue is if pulling while bent over (bent over seems to put most stress on the neck I noticed) would irritate my neck. It did not. This was piss easy. Like not even a warm up. Felt like I could do 50 reps here. The last weight related thing was the same superset I did last week on Day 2. Banded lying leg curls and banded seated leg extensions for 2x15 with pauses at peak contraction and controlled movement. I was initially going to use same band tension as last week but figured it was probably best to use less so that I wasn’t rushing the movement and insure quality of the movements as well while not stressing about it. No rest between sets and exercises but that still took me about 40 seconds to switch with getting out of one setup and getting the other ready. Walking afterwards as part of the deload. I took a different route and that ended up being within the 15-20 minutes range this time. Nice to walk some areas in the neighborhood I don’t usually go. The workouts are done, just got to make it through another day of work, drive across five states and put it out there once again.
Seated Dumbbell Overhead Presses (3 second eccentrics) 40’sx5 40’sx5 40’sx5
Heel Elevated Goblet Squats bw+40x10 bw+40x10
Close Grip Push Ups/Band Pull Aparts bwx10/mbx15 bwx10/mbx15
Walking 23 minutes
Stretching
Comments: The week of, trying to decompress and at the same time not become so detrained by movement. I will be in a car for a day and a half and different hotels each way out there and back. Easter with family was nice. Trying to distract myself with planning out meals during the trip. Bodyweight same as last week. Work just fucking dragged on as half the people in the unit were there and that meant getting more work on top of the many things I scheduled to try and get done before I’m out. I need to get stuff resolved this week that can as I’m not going to recall shit the following week with competition and travel. Neck feeling tense today. Not like how it does when I tweak something randomly. Just tense. Plan is just two workouts for this week. I’m thankful that the hip issue is nearly gone at this point. Right on time. Soft tissue stuff with foam rolling. Didn’t really need much besides tops of my right calf and my upper back. Neck rehab stuff felt fine. Some stuff felt like more effort than usual, but assuming that has to do with my neck feeling tense. Lower body stretching and then a dead hang. Then on to the very quick training session. Starting off the lifting with the same seated presses with somewhat short rests and 3 second eccentrics. This time just 3x5. Light and explosive. I had definitely undershot these last week so I knew that my 40’s would fit the bill here. Didn’t need any warming up sets. Just get in and get out time thing here. This did feel like some effort but easy. From there into goblet squats. Notes being “light AF” for 2 sets of 8-10 reps. Heels elevated as well but no tempo stuff. Seeing as how I did 106lbs for sets with pauses no issues Saturday, I figured just using the 40lbs dumbbell here would fit the bill. I kind of gifted some lighter stuff to my sister. Knees a little achy but not as bad coming into it Saturday. Still felt like things moved well. I kept these similar rest to the pressing. Squats are a little more taxing compared to pressing as even when bodyweight, it is a lot of range of motion. Last lifting related thing was a superset of push ups and band pull aparts. Similar to last week but just bodyweight on the push ups (no tempo or bands). I did my best to make these look robotic in motion and to keep myself braced. Make it look good and like it was no effort at the same time. Do it all day. Band pull aparts didn’t feel as taxing this week. Perhaps because didn’t do so much before hand and less intense push up variation. I made sure I took a slight break between the sets. And as usually is the case on the deload week, some walking after the session. Was to be 15-20 minutes but the route a picked ended up taking longer to complete than I thought. I was worried about undershooting here. Got dinner ready and then stretched. One more to go.
Comments: Been so busy with work that I’ve been pretty distracted from even thinking about the upcoming competition with only the occasional aches and such from my right hip flexor area really having me notice that. It has been good that the workouts this week haven’t been too taxing so I can just get in and get out. I think the only thing that really required any prep work had been just the logistics with the banded exercises on Wednesday. Weekend sessions I can have a bit more time to mess around and play around. Usually that is the case. So distracted with work stuff that keep forgetting that it is a holiday weekend. No walking Thursday more to try and get some rest and just do soft tissue work and walked Friday after work since no immediate rush to get up early. I was hoping to get up early but felt myself taking too long to get ready for bed that I decided I’d not set and alarm and see how I feel. This is the longer session to do with setup and there was an expectation to be back and ready for family stuff at a certain time. But I felt that was going to be fine. I couldn’t be out there too early for it to really matter since the stuff needing longer setup would be in the wind tunnel area and there is that youth football group that is often there for hours until noon. I wasn’t sure if they’d be there Easter weekend but they were. I had delayed putting gas in the car just seeing if anything changed. It didn’t so just half a tank to make it through today and the rest of the week up until I head out. Not many people here but still some of the dedicated. Besides all the children. Surprisingly, my quads didn’t need a ton to warm up today with foam rolling. My calves did which is more what I expect. So maybe the hip thing is healing up. Neck rehab stuff was fine, didn’t feel as tense as earlier in the week had. Still doing a modification on the lower body stretches at this time to avoid the hip flexor issue. Dead hang felt nice and relaxing. During my warming up I was advised family stuff was going to start an hour earlier that I was told so that unfortunately now added a time crunch to what I was doing. On to squats to start things off like usual. But unlike usual, this wasn’t the box squats with eccentric emphasis that I’ve been doing. Notes were to work up to 3x6 at RPE 8 on heel elevated goblet squats with 3 second pauses. And being explosive on the way up. I wasn’t sure how things would feel and generally it is higher reps on these. I find the upper body tends to be the limiting factor. I stubbornly wanted to use kettlebells here. Kettlebells just seem to feel better for me wrist wise even though dumbbell I can brace my body against it better. Not to my advantage as the kettlebells only go up to 32kgs whereas the dumbbells I believe I could’ve gone up to 130lbs with solid dumbbells. I figured I’d nerf myself on these by wearing no support gear so that hopefully I could find an effort range with what was available. Knees were achy at the start and I took 8kgs jumps (since that was the jumps in the kettlebells) and I was unfortunately finding these too easy. I ran out of kettlebell weight so I took two 24kgs bells and had them more of a front squat hold style but purposely having them out front more to have it be like the goblet squat. This finally got them to feel somewhat tough. Getting the kettlebells up was actually the trickier thing here. I guess going forward if these come up like this, I should use the solid dumbbells. Moved on from there to the event work, starting with circus dumbbell. I was somewhat tempted to do no equipment for the session after the squats but thought better on it that I should make sure these events are performed with how I will be equipped at the show for these last touches. The initial plan had been to do contest weight for 4-5x2 with 60-90 seconds rest. Despite how well contest weight had been moving the past two weeks, I suggested that I use a lot less weight here. Just past history in that I’ve seemed to really be dragging ass the week before competition that past two preps with both times having me bail on the sessions feeling frustrated and tired. I had indicated that end of last prep I didn’t feel like I had peaked/recovered deadlift and overhead like the other events that were pulled back earlier (or I didn’t do). Last prep I did contest weight for a contest set and that had not gone well and I matched that at contest. So hope here was doing 140lbs would feel crisp and I’d not be worried about not being recovered and super-compensating at the show. I was not feeling my best going into these. My knees were feeling quite achy just at the start with the lightest weight which hasn’t been the case in a while. Perhaps no knee sleeves on the squats contributed to that. Also a larger ROM. Didn’t feel as stable in the rack position. Could be from the goblet squats putting more stress on the shoulders/upper back. Working weight just felt ok. Of the things I did today, this put the most strain on the hip flexor area. It was good that I didn’t do or try for contest weight this week as that would’ve stressed me out with the effort needed. From there on to training on the turf. Next thing being sandbag carries. Plan was to do 250lbs for 4x60’ and working on speed. Specifically, Ms. Funk wanted me to work on aggression with the pick and use my bodyweight to move the bag into position. This prep I’ve been really setting the pick and grip for the sandbag carries. I’m not sure if we will be allowed to do this at the show or if hands off and run or such. But I’ve been treating the picks for sandbag to shoulder like that and doing these this way just so I’m covering my bases. Also because I’m worried about straining biceps doing that much aggressive style picks week to week. But the snag here was that apparently the 250lbs was not to be used. I had wrapped it in athletic tape when I started using it since there was a puncture in it. The tape was gone and I’m not sure if there was another puncture but it was in pile with two other sandbags with a sign saying “do not use”. So I ended up using the 225lbs bag. I don’t like the bags with straps on them. I biffed the pick up on the first one as I got ahead of myself and went with it in a lower carry position then what I’ve been training for. I did correct that on the subsequent runs. My right biceps felt a little tight after the third run but no issues on the last one. Arm over arm next. Just two sets again with 10lbs more than last time with indication on speed. I had learned about the bodyweight distribution last time so I had some idea of that. The bigger issue was getting sure footing as whatever I had been using the first few weeks was no longer viable due to issues with the turf meeting the rubber flooring. So I tried moving over to the right further to see if that was a bit better footing wise. I was still having issues with that on the first set and that ended up being a decent energy drain on me. I took a bit of rest to recover and the second set was much better with figuring out right from the start what the best footing to have and it showed in the about 10 seconds faster time. Still not perfect here. Going forward if I have this event again, it may behoove me to switch around where I’m pulling from for more consistent footing. But this is only the second time this has come up in a show with doing this sport. Finishing up with the gym stuff. Reverse hypers again with tempo. Same weight and tempo as last week but now for 2x15. The extra reps were taxing but overall I felt I was better prepared for this as the holds didn’t feel as jarring. Then last thing being pulldowns. No drop sets, but tempo added like on the reverse hypers. 2 sets with aim being RPE 8 with 10 reps. I wasn’t sure how light or heavy as pauses can really add up on higher rep sets. I took a guess at 140lbs and that was about right but it felt just a little to easy so added 10lbs for the second set and that was right on the money. I didn’t bring as much food for after training as family having a much earlier dinner than I usually have on the weekends so just a sandwich for post workout. Put stuff away and drove home to clean up (not going to be enough time to stretch) before heading over to visit family. Stretched when I got home in the evening. I’ve essentially survived another prep. Just got to decompress and make it to the venue in one piece.
Paused Lying Band Leg Curls /Paused Band Seated Leg Extensions (2)mmbx5/sbx5 (2)mmbx15/sbx15 (2)mmbx15/sbx15
Stretching
Comments: No walking Tuesday as playing some catch up on sleep and also cashing in a gift card for dinner. Also my hip thing was acting up Tuesday so I didn’t want to bother it. I was very shocked with how well it was feeling right before going to bed Tuesday and then waking up Wednesday. Kind of a knock on wood that it stays like this or gets better from here. Work was damn busy as well. Hoping that my energy levels didn’t tank. Especially since it was 80 degrees again. I preemptively put on the small oscillating fan in the garage for some air flow. Soft tissue foam rolling surprisingly not much was needed elsewhere but really needed it for my right quad. A little more for the calves compared to Monday though. Neck rehab stuff followed. Chest needed this. My right arm (biceps) was feeling tense for some reason. Lower body stretching and dead hang after that. Didn’t have the weird “disconnect” issue like I had last time. Then on to the workout. Axle deadlift with the wagon wheels. Essentially the same workout as last week minus working up to a heavy double/single. Just doing the 405lbs for doubles but EMOM rest this time and two extra ones. Make these speedy. I knew that could be a tall order to make them feel speed but they should move fast. I tend to feel like stuff moves fast and feels light if it is after doing something darn heavy. Like last week. I took plate jumps just because I worry that I’ll have limited warming up at the show. Not received any e-mail updates or nothing the entire time. So yeah, 90lbs jumps are rough but I’ve done them before with warming up and for similar things. These felt heavy and straining but I know they weren’t. It wasn’t until the last three or so that the weight actually started to feel light. I’m glad this wasn’t a heavy session so I can recover and not feel like grinding things down to a nub so close to show time. Similar to day one, there were modifications to this day with the hip. Ms. Funk took out sandbag to shoulder stuff due to how that felt and it would likely get in my head to do it this week. I’m going to be doing sandbag stuff on Saturday anyways. So the change was bent over dead stop rows or Pendlay rows. I was somewhat tempted to still use a sandbag instead but thought better of it as Ms. Funk put barbell rows for a reason. Plan being strict and on these with 3x6-8 and RPE 7. I made a point to wear what I’ll wear for my midsection doing sandbag stuff. I overestimated what I could do here as my first “working” set was sloppy. I should’ve taken how 225lbs had felt warming up to have that be my working weight. I dropped the weight down to 225lbs for much better quality reps. Just moving on along here. There was a change with the ssb gms. Still doing dead stop style starting from the top but adding in 1.5 reps. So down and then up halfway, back down and the up all the way. So even the “5” rep set was going to feel like a lot. I misloaded these at the start as I was planning to use the same weight as last week. I didn’t notice until I was at the working sets so I added 5lbs to be in the suggested weight range. These were tougher than last week but felt better on my body if that made sense. This workout initially had these followed up with the sandbag zercher lunges with tempo pauses as I guess I hadn’t made it clear that these were potentially the cause of the hip flexor issue and that these were causing some anxiety. So they were dropped and I was advised to some wall sit variations instead. I figured that I’d do the one that had the least amount of moving around. Knees were pretty achy in the position and it has been over half a year since I’ve done any wall sits so legs were a bit detrained to this. Bodyweight only here and a minute was challenging. Essentially I did a set and then took about 90 seconds and then did the next set. Knees felt better as I did these but they did get tougher. A superset to end the night. Not having all the heavy stuff was moving things along at a decent clip. I had to do some logistics here with the last thing as it was banded lying leg curls and banded seated leg extensions. I’ve done them but not together. Had to do some testing to figure out how to setup both and make it work. I did find a way that was pretty quick. My testing set had the band tensions I picked feel quite challenging but they weren’t so bad during the actual sets. These actually felt pretty good on my joints and muscles at the end of the session. Did these back to back with rest being however long it took to get into one contraption and out of the other. Put stuff away and got to eating dinner before stretching.
Comments: The last true week of training before a competition. Really does come up too quickly. At first I feel like it is far away and then doing the events so many times but then get closer and there is a mixture of anxiousness and also wanting to be done with it so I can do other stuff. Still dealing with whatever is going on with the right hip flexor. I think it is getting better with reduction in training load, resting and not aggressively stretching. Weight was down about 3lbs from last week. No really rhyme or reason but could be just I get stressed as I get closer to competition. It is good the week before to have things pulled back so that I’m not stressing over everything and can focus my nervous energy on work. Not be chasing two rabbits when there is just one day where the stress needs to be there. I did go for a walk on Sunday to see if walking did help with blood flow since I didn’t really get any chance to walk last week really. The hip issues is there but besides that, my upper back and shoulders did feel a bit tense after training Saturday. Soft tissue work to start off the day. Pretty much a constant these past 2-3 weeks with the right quad needing it the most. My lower back is feeling a little looser so maybe that will ease pressure elsewhere. Neck rehab stuff felt fine. Lower body stretching still modified in not doing stuff that was stressing my hip flexors. Felt a little off after stretching so that wasn’t ideal. Dead hang felt fine. Some things changed with the session from last week to hopefully let my hips recover more for the show. So instead of the usual tempo dumbbell push pressing I was to do tempo seated pressing. Plan being 3 seconds eccentrics with 3x8 for 60-90 seconds rest. I wasn’t too sure how intense these should be. I figured solid dumbbells would be quicker. I was hoping that short rests with the reps and eccentrics would have the 40’s feel like it was tough enough but I undershot the effort range here. Shoulders did feel a bit achy/tense. I don’t think I’d been able to keep 70’s here with as short a rest as I did but I definitely could’ve gone heavier here for the planned effort range. But it was a nice start to the session. My shoulders had felt really achy the last time I did seated presses as part of an emergency deload week session. Seated also let me stick to the garage for the day. Axle floor pressing again with the paused lockouts. 3x4 again but with 20lbs less than last time I did them. Which shouldn’t be an issue with how these have felt the past three weeks. Weight was feeling a little heavy on my wrists but this was moving well. I noticed after the first set that I was bleeding from my one finger. I apparently cut it on a jagged shard of metal on my cheap plateloadable dumbbell handles while setting stuff up. It was a thin slice in my finger and no further issues after that. This pressing felt fine. I do hope that I can be more consistent with this kind of pressing after this competition. Supersets to start the second half. Slight changes to both. With the first one chest flyes with internal rotation and single arm triceps. The flyes were adjusted to indicate lower reps (6-8) and doing 3 second holds at lockout (when dumbbells together). I wasn’t sure how that would feel. Plan was initially to do 25-30lbs here. That would require the plateloaded handles. I got a little finicky with the weight distribution having it be the same for both the flyes and triceps extensions. Then wondering with the dumbbells how they’d work with the hold with the longer handles. I then decided I’d just not bother with the them and use the 40lbs dumbbells instead after I had cut my finger on the plateloaded ones. I was very suprised when I lay on the bench to start that my right hip flexor flared up something fierce. It didn't do that last week. So that was a bit unexpected and unpleasant. Especially since trying to avoid the usual suspects. But whatever. Can grin and bear it going forward. It wasn't a shock with working weights. This was fine on the flyes as far as weight went. I wasn’t feeling aches in the chest like last two weeks. But it was a mighty ask for my triceps upping the weight so much with the pauses. I stuck with the pauses but I know the form wasn’t as solid as it was with lighter weight. Cut the difference between under effort for the seated presses and over effort for the extensions. Last pairing session also a slight change. Still banded push ups but now pauses at both the top and bottom of the movement. Indication was to do 2x10 here. This worked out with the band tension from last time. The pauses at both spots was tougher but helped with not being confused what I was doing during the movement. The other part of this was band pull aparts. I do a variation with a theraband and underhand grip for my neck rehab so I’m familiar with these. Just been a bit since I’ve done them. 2x10-20 but I knew I was doing 20 reps here. These were feeling a deep burn in my shoulders/upper back. It has been a while since I’ve done this version and I guess there was fatigue from the push ups as well having tempo. But it was a pleasant burn effort. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching.
Comments: With only having one day of rest before this session, I wasn’t going to be pushing myself to get up at a set time. Also with the hip flexor thing being a bit irritated as well. Not as bad as it was going into training last week where the anxiety had me paralyzed. I knew what this was and what I could do with it so perhaps that helped some. No walking after work Friday, I had too much that needed to be done that kind of piled up during the week and I wanted to give the hip a rest as not sure if walking was helping or not. I did have plans with training in regards to the hip. I slept in about an hour from my usual worktime when I’m offsite and I felt decently rested. I still had things I needed to do before getting ready to train so it was a bit later when I finally was on the road to train. Driving out wasn’t smooth at the start. Lot of people out driving and not driving well at least locally. I did see as I got closer to the gym that the way back was blocked up with dumb construction so I made a mental note to find an alternate route if that was still happening hours later when I would finally leave. I was kind of surprised there were people there when I got there and there for most of my session really. As has been the case with the foam rolling, only my right quad really needed it and needed it a lot. Not to say other stuff didn’t have some soreness that benefited from foam rolling. But it was quite one-sided on what needed it. Neck rehab stuff was fine. I modified the lower body stretching to not stretch out my hip flexors aggressively like I tend to do. See if that helps any. Dead hang felt nice. As has been the case this prep, starting things off with eccentric focus box squats. Suggested was 10-20lbs more than last week for 3x2. Since I’ve been on a kilo plate kick with these, I went with 140kgs vs 130kgs from last week and the week before. Knees were not feeling as good as last week on these. This could be from not walking the day before or having on less day rest or not doing all the stretches or not taking ibuprofen the night before. I also lent my one hard belt to a friend’s daughter doing a powerlifting meet (her first one) in two weeks time so I wasn’t using my usual hard belt here. Despite all that, camera says these moved fine if they didn’t feel super amazing. They did feel better as I went as well. From there it was on to circus dumbbell. These had been anxiety inducing last week but had gone a ton better than expected. The plan for this week was to work up to contest weight for 6-10 singles done EMOM style with judging on when to stop being if they feel “sloppy”. Compared to last week, I was finding the cleans a bit more labored and lockout wasn’t feeling so crisp even on the light weights. I was worried I’d miss the contest weight outright with how things were feeling. I’d feel pretty dumb if that happened considering last week and that this had been a suggested session for a contest deload for priming I had brough up. There was hesitancy at first but I got confident as I went with each press feeling strong. My only concern I was having was that clean was fatigued and not feeling so crisp. But I was feeling pretty relaxed and having a chat between sets while still focused. I like when EMOMs go like this where I feel powerful and can keep going. Hit a slight snag on the eighth set where I misgrooved and didn’t get the weight locked out. But I was able to just bat it back into place and then launch it up to get the rep easy. I don’t recall being able to do that as of late with a missed rep like that and get it like nothing without having to reclean the dumbbell and take a breather. It felt like it took nothing out of me. I think it was more that the clean had been the toughest of them so far and it through me off a little. I didn’t think twice before going for the second attempt at the rep. If that hadn’t been so smooth, I’d have stopped there for the day. I think the clean being tough got me a little fired up as I launch the next one up there for what might be my best rep of the day. Last one I paused a bit in the rack to let it settle and then went. My belt popped off as I set it down. A first on it happening with an overhead lift. So getting these reps had me in good spirits. I hadn’t been sure how things would be as still feeling the lower back and hamstring fatigue. Right hip flexor issue and feeling some disc compression stuff with left glute feeling like it wasn’t firing at the start of the day. From there on to sandbag carries. Warm up as needed and do two runs at contest weight for contest distance. The hip flexor issue isn’t really hampering me on these. The fatigue in my pick up is more so the case. Warming up with the 250lbs is rough still, at least for the first run I do. Ms. Funk indicated that she wanted me to try just pivoting at the line rather than slowing down to make a few steps and then turn. I’m actually not sure 100% if it will be around something or touching a line for the contest. Pick is a bit labored (I knew that would be the case with how shouldering felt) but moving with it well. Definitely didn’t get the timing right for the pivot on the first set and did a bunch of tiny steps. I got it somewhat right on the second set. Arm over arm next. Just two sets again but advised to go light and make these fast. So a little lighter than the first week I did these. I’d hopefully not need so much rest between sets. Well, having these this much lighter after adapting my style to something in excess of my bodyweight definitely added a new element to this. Yes, I was faster but I also was finding that I didn’t have the same balance point with my strokes as I felt like I was going to fall on my ass a few times and had to adjust my center of gravity. It was good that I did do a lighter session for speed (even though I messed up timing on the second set) as this lets me feel how I may need to adjust on the file day of depending on how the setup is and feels. This is the biggest unknown for the contest. Finishing up with the gym stuff. Reverse hypers again but adding tempo. Same weight but lowering the reps to 12 as adding 2 second pauses at the top and bottom of motion. The pauses at the bottom of the movement were nothing really but my goodness was the hold at the top a struggle. Really had to fight those as I couldn’t real hold at the top of the movement when I get the swing. So this was quite challenging here. I had been feeling some tension in glutes and lower back so I was hoping some of these would help with that. Then last thing being pulldown drop set. Stil 2 sets but some changes. Same starting weight with the 40lbs drop (both for 8 reps) and then only a 20lbs drop after that for the repping it out. These felt easier this week at least at the start. I guess not as fatigued with having only done two light runs of arm over arm. The fatigue became more apparent in the second set which has always been case with these. Put stuff away as I put in some food. Still construction so took a scenic route around it so drive home took a bit longer. Did some dip stand decompression when I got home before stretching. I nixed some of my usual stretches to my hip flexors to see if that also helps here with recovery.
Deadstop Supported Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Pull Ups 67x5/5 – bwx1 117x5/5 – bwx11 117x5/5 – bwx7
Stretching
Comments: No walking Wednesday after work since spending time with family and for some reason traffic was backed up a lot so took quite a bit of time to get home from work. I did have to take some allergy meds at night with the pollen and high winds as well blowing in crap. With training for this session, there were nerves with some things but I think the main one was this workout tends to eat up time and that trying to get through it and have time to eat and get ready for bed. The hip thing is off and on. Soft tissue foam rolling surprisingly not much was needed elsewhere but really needed it for my right quad. Neck rehab stuff followed and thankfully not as tense as I was expecting things. Lower body stretching and dead hang after that. Then on to the workout. Last week’s session had been a lot and it took a good bit out of me. The deadlift session with the axle this week wasn’t in the same realm of hellacious as last week. Notes indicated that I was to work up to contest weight for 1-2 reps (depending on how things feel) and then I’d drop it down to 405lbs for short rest doubles for “speed” work. I decided that I might go heavier on the top set just because with doing 40-50lbs jumps (quarter and plate). I’d see how I feel warming up. I could tell my lower back and hamstrings were still not fully recovered and then there was the hip thing, which thankfully wasn’t flaring up on deadlifts. I did my usual plate jumps and then after 315lbs I went to 40-50lbs jumps. My hope with doing more singles working up was that I’d hopefully get used to the belt sooner and not be feeling like I’m going to pass out on the first working set for reps and make things tougher than they need to be. Also give me an idea of what plan of approach (if able) to take warming up at the contest. This did seem to help with acclimating to the pressure. I had used my Velcro ply belt for the first two singles and the damn thing popped off the first attempt at 405lbs when I braced. Funny I bought this thing specifically for deadlifting and it pops off like 10% of the time. A lot less issues with other things using it though. I felt good enough to get hyped up to do a 50lbs jump so that I was doing 11lbs over contest for my last heavy touch on this event. These went up pretty well but I could tell my hamstrings were feeling it. I took a little rest to adjust for the speed sets. Plan being 60 seconds rest rather than EMOM. I didn’t rest 60 seconds but it was close to that (always under that). I was facing the other direction for these so that I could just walk back in from pacing in the house to come and pull it. These were easy and moving fast. Actually felt like speed work. Warming up this weight hadn’t feel like this so this was nice to see. Feeling like how this weight should be moving. So I nice feeling deadlift session. I guess I needed the very uncomfortable session last week to appreciate this one. Sandbag to shoulder following up. Less volume than last week but it was going to be tougher than last week with how it was setup. Confidence took a little hit here last week with how rough I was feeling doing these after the deadlifts and missing 305lbs on my second set. I was hoping that I’d not be as fatigued this week. This week the plan was to do my four sandbags I can shoulder with 5 seconds rest between them with aim to get them all done in under 60 seconds. Work fatigue factor and pacing with aim to give myself opportunity to get four attempts in 60 seconds if need be. I mean, I will likely only make 2 attempts really but not sure what weights are going to be available at show. But I’m apparently still feeling beat from last week. First run through was not great. I seemed to have an issue with getting the pick right and fumbled a bit on each bag. 225lbs I pretty much had go right over shoulder as I didn’t control it to set it back down. I knew 305lbs was going to be a rough go with how 265lbs felt. I also was feeling the hip flexor issue at extension. I didn’t feel as “loose” and mobile like I do when this feels strong. I felt stiff and inflexible. I had to adjust in the lap the 305lbs and I got it into position but just got stuck and struggling through and bumping it up had it go off to the side a bit and it came back down. I was feeling a bit drained there but didn’t let it discourage me. I’d rest and try again. I applied chalk for this second run. I wasn’t sure if it helped or hindered on this at this point in training. Like it helps with the pick and lap but not sure if it makes the shouldering harder from chest or not. 175lbs and 225lbs did seem better second round. 265lbs the pick was a tougher but the shouldering was easier. So I thought that 305lbs might happen. It did not. The pick was rough and I had to adjust in the lap again. I was closer this time to shouldering it though but same result. I was tempted to try the 305lbs bag by itself as a single but I figured it was best that I let this be and move on. I don’t have the time or luxury with the work schedule and it is obvious that I’m very fatigued in my lower back and hamstrings right now. It is frustrating in that I’ve done this weight and these weights in the past no problem in series (2021, 2022 and 2024) but perhaps not after doing so much deadlifting and not being this light in bodyweight. I also know in most cases that I had a longer build up for said shows to work out things and sometimes the shouldering was the heaviest thing for said session. It also wasn’t helpful feeling like the effort was making the hip flexor issue flare up on me. But we move on and adapt and learn from it. Accessory work from there. First up on that order being gms with the ssb to rack height. Weight increased 5-10lbs from last time but reps dropped in half to 3x6. I was perfectly fine with that. My lower back was feeling tight and I tried to get some tension out right before the first set but no avail. My hamstring were feeling really tense on these so I was glad to just have the lower reps this time around. I don’t know if I’d been able to handle higher reps as well with the weight increase. Body is craving rest for these worked areas. Sandbag zercher lunges with tempo pauses again. Dropped from 3 to 2 sets but back up 10 reps like that first terrible week with them and that was without tempo and I wasn’t dealing with the hip flexor issue. Before this session, these were seen as question marks with the one leg rdls if I could tolerate them. Options were banded leg extensions and leg curls for higher reps and slow tempo. I figured that with the “damage done” from the shouldering, that I might as well get these over with. I didn’t need as much warming up for my knees to get on with it. Also might be trying to get done. These just don’t seem to get easier. The additional two reps per set was quite tough here. I really hope I don’t have these the rest of the prep so I can recover and have peace of mind as it always seems to be single leg split stance stuff that irritates something in my hips or thighs when it is quad/knee dominant. The last thing was a superset. The supported dead stop single leg dumbbell rdls and pull ups. Weight increased on the rdls by 5lbs and reps dropped to 5 for this week. The two sets like last week was helpful here. No issues on the rdls with my hip flexor but I think maybe I was more worried about the hamstrings as they were twitching and screaming at this point. No issues but could tell that my midsection was also beat at this point. The decrease in reps on the rdls definitely saved my forearms and had me not breathing as hard afterwards when it came to pull ups. First set of pull ups felt like how they usually feel for me without all the extra fatigue. But second set the fatigue was fully present there. Stretched after eating. Really hoping I’m feeling recovered for Saturday since I got to get back on my usual days for the rest of prep.
I’m a little taller than 6′6″ and I really like to lift weights. I’m a competitor in amateur strongman contests. My hope is to become a competitive professional strongman. Currently I'm training for the Midwest Clash Natural Strongman World Qualifier in El Paso, IL on 4/11/2026. I’m not a major competitor yet and I have a long way to go but I’m having fun.
