September 22, 2024 - September 28, 2024 - Week 16

September 23, 2024 – Week 16, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

12” Log Push Presses
87x5
117x2
147x2
177x2
177x2
177x2
177x2
177x2

Paused Chest Supported Barbell Rows
100x5
150x5
200x5
Added Straps, 2 seconds holds
250x5
250x5

Bench Presses w/ Chains (+22lbs)
No Chains
45x15
Add Chains
45x5
95x5
135x3
185x2
225x5
225x5

Band Face Pulls
abx20
abx20

Stretching
 
Comments: Feeling some level of normalcy with stress. About 275lbs at this point. Watched what I could with scores and video with Nationals. This year wouldn’t have been a good one for me to do with prep and such for sure, especially not as open HW class. Doesn’t sound like any details for next year were provided at this time. Got stuff done Sunday besides sleeping in. Glad my joints aren’t feeling like they did two week’s prior. Probably also good that didn’t have anyone I care about die starting this week off as well. It is fall now and with the tropical storms in the south still brewing, it takes longer for the deary and rainy weather to dissipate since it is cooler out now. I had gotten walking done Sunday before it started to rain. It rained most of the day Monday and looks like it will be the case for the next few days. So probably good that this session was going to be somewhat backing off on stuff due to shoulders and triceps needing more recovery. Needed to not dilly-dally since I tomorrow is the in office day and have to prep for that. I was hoping it would stop raining but no real luck there. Warming up was ok. There was stuff still achy and sore. I did increase one weight for an exercise by 5lbs just so that it was easier for weight reasons going forward. Starting things off with log. No bands this week and also push press. Dropping weight 25lbs from what I was strict pressing with bands. 5x2 with the option to rep out the last set for 5 reps. I already knew I wasn’t doing reps after figuring out some things with how I think I need to proceed with upper body training. For whatever reason, push press out of the rack with log feels awful. The only place where it ever felt good was when I was training at the YMCA on that one tiered squat rack. Anywhere else and it feels uncomfortable and just kills my knees. Plus my form feels off. Like I can do strict pressing fine and other support things with log but not push press (or really any lower body drive with log). Clean the log once or every rep is also fine for push press. So not thrilled on the menu but doing it as indicated. I could tell with just the empty log it was not going to feel great. I had to fiddle around with the rack height to get things feeling a bit better. Felt uncomfortable but did feel better as I went. Not saying much there. No support gear besides knee sleeves for the knee discomfort. Just did my doubles and got out of the rain and into the garage. My right medial deltoid decided to get sore after the last set. Feeling similar to how my shoulder has felt when I get a flu shot so not a great sensation. And obviously indicating that backing off was the right call. Chest supported barbell rows with pauses out of the rain. Continue to push the weight up by 5lbs with 2x5 and having the option to lower to 30lbs less or so from the top set weight for that second set if I felt like I couldn’t keep things going like how benching exercises had been. I’ve done rows when stuff has felt uncomfortable in other parts of my body. Sometimes it’s the only thing that goes well in those cases. I could feel that shoulder with rotation of shoulder (internal and external). But as long as it wasn’t feeling worse, I could hopefully recover with rest. Sometimes these aches and pains feel better the more I do and the heavier I get. 50lbs jumps with sets of 5 reps. I will say this was the closest I felt to needing to drop weight on the second set. I think part of it was feeling the blahs from the weather, knowing I was deloading pressing and the shoulder discomfort. I also know with the rows that usually there isn’t a decrease in performance set to set on this exercise and sometimes my second or even fifth set feels the best. So finished up here before moving onto benching. I was a little leery with the benching. The shoulders were feeling achy and the right one feeling how it was at this point was not having me feel confident. But it was a different kind of achy and maybe the movement would actually shift something into the right spot so not feeling crap. Same setup of benching with chains. But dropping back down to 225lbs for the sets. Make them speed reps again. I could feel like my lats were actually doing something this time around so that was a good sign I guess. I was leery about the shoulder and had to find that balance of being fast but tight. Unrack the first set was a little squirrelly but settled in. Second set I was almost too loose unrack and tightened up to slow down and lock in before repping out. Managed to get down no worse for wear. I know knee is feeling better as knee wasn’t bothering me like last time laying on the bench or using lower body drive to brace. Last thing being face pulls with bands to finish up. 2 sets of 15-20 reps with a medium band. It was raining off and on still and I decided it was quickest to just do these in the garage. I was kind of hoping here that these would start having the shoulders feeling good. They tend to do that for me. Not as miraculous a change this time but still noticeable where it seemed to have the shoulders feeling somewhat better from how they were earlier in the session. Finished with prepping dinner as I put away stuff from outside (I had used the rubber weights to anchor done the rack for log) and in the garage before eating. Stretched and cleaned up for bed as I’d have to wake up an hour earlier for making it into the office tomorrow.

September 25, 2024 – Week 16, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

13” Wagon Wheel Deadlifts (straps, touch and go)
135x5
225x3
315x2
405x2
495x2
565x3

Step Ups (18”)
bwx20 L
bwx20 R
bw+20’sx15 L
bw+20’sx15 R

Wall Sits
bwx60 seconds

Crunches
bw+50x30

Paused Hanging Knee Raises (1 second)
bw+20x25

Stretching
 
Comments: Despite shoulder issue Monday and having to go into the office for the day Tuesday (and no walking) and it being rainy going on today, feeling pretty good. Like almost relaxed at this point. Probably helping that workload this week hasn’t been as crushing. Maybe it is because my folks are back and I’ve already been over for dinner twice since they got back and watched garbage movies. Or that the next block of training has been figured out and hopefully the changes will have the positive impact. I was kind of hoping it would stop raining today as it would potentially make things a bit tricky with setup for some exercises. But I had checked out things Monday and it seemed doable for everything to be in the garage if necessary. Warming up was ok. Some joint aches but that was kind of expected with how Monday went. Wagon wheel pulls to start things off. Same as last time with soft touch and go reps but working up to a top set of 3 reps. It seems that idea is to leave something in the tank as the next session will be for a much closer to a 3rm set. Essentially plate jumps before the top set. No body aches like last time to deal with and have me second guessing. Also trying to keep an eye on uneven touch downs with the weights as well. Doesn’t seem to be too much rhyme or reason to it but either my grip is slightly off on side or the other or the garage floor isn’t quite even in spots. Considering this is a spot where the weights tend to not roll away, it probably is something like that. The big jumps here I made sure that I took appropriate rest and didn’t rush things like if it was more like 30-50lbs jumps. But really, it was going to be those last two plate jumps that would be my indicators for how things were going. I had already expected fully to be doing 565lbs for the top set after doing 545lbs last time. 405lbs continues to not feel great but it was the best it has felt over the past few workouts. So that had me feeling like this should be a sure thing if it felt the worst last time and I did what I did. But would also need to see how the next jump with the hard belt would be. Working on getting a bit more of a hamstring hip hinge thing going on breaking the weight off the floor and priming. It felt ok. I wasn’t dealing with a max hype situation here for this so I knew I had another level to go for the top set. Made sure I got things chalked up and prepared for the braced pulls with breaths at lockout to get good, quality reps with the touch and go. Rushing it hasn’t been a good thing on these kind of lifts with the control needed. It gets exhausting. As planned, it was not a max triple. There is definitely more there. Hopefully enough that I can go 585lbs next time. This was similar reps in the tank compared to the 545lbs from last time. I could be repping the contest weight in a months time (I mean like a double but still). Settled down from there and got some stuff put away before moving on to the lighter stuff of the session. Step ups was tricky. I had to make sure I could stand up on the box in my garage. I can if I stand under the ceiling light as it is a recessed fixture. I usually go outside as less room for error but I didn’t trust doing these with it raining as it was. Too much risk of slipping on stuff and eating it big time. Starting things off with bodyweight. Knee sleeves on, no ifs, ands or buts. Making sure wearing these for recovery on the knees. These went fine I guess. I was expecting to have to take a little break here to get the dumbbells setup but then I realized I got big hands and could actually hold my 10lbs kettlebells and 10lbs dumbbells at the same time and not have it be too thick a grip that it would tax grip unnecessarily. So that allowed me to kind of move right along. So 12-15 reps here. The herky jerky movements didn’t seem to be as present. Maybe because I realized there was a ceiling above where raising my hands above my head would be unwise. Adding weight was tougher than no weight but this went pretty well for me. It does look like next time will repeat this. Wall sits were next. It was written as the single leg variation for a minute again but considering that going back to regular style next time and staying there to let my knees recover better, I figured I’d just do that this time instead. That isn’t to say it isn’t worthwhile doing. I can certainly get into a deeper squat position with both legs and not feel as much knee joint stress and quads still want to act up here. I figure that if I’ve stayed pretty much the same with other things like planks and other abdominal work, there wasn’t any shame in another isometric exercise staying at a certain spot for some time. This would also speed up the workout. Core work after that. Weighted crunches. The choice to go with the change in weights on these had been fruitful with a 5lbs jumps in weight making it really tough again. So I was ready this time. It was not as rough going this time. Maybe because not as taxed from doing regular wall sits vs single leg. But able to get 5 more reps added. Still feels a bit away from 35 reps here. Paused hanging knee raises to wrap things up. This was also tricky with setting up in the garage and making sure it fit as well as being safe. The thing is that this was a quicker setup to do and the way the flimsy rack is made actually has a little back support thing so that I can stop my swinging and be able to reset the movement from a dead stop without having to have my feet touching the ground. Also gives me a tactile notification of the reps. I did forget at the start about holding for a count the first rep so didn’t count it. 25 reps does seem to be my limit here but I did do an extra rep not paused so I guess I’m getting a little better from last time. Put stuff away before getting dinner ready. Stretched afterwards.

September 28, 2024 – Week 16, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Yoke (turf)
235x50’
335x50’
435x50’
535x50’
635x50’
735x50’
835x50’ in 19.65 seconds

Sandbag Loads
60“
225x1
275x1
325x0
325x0
58”
325x1
325x0
325x1
EMOM
306x1
306x1
306x1
306x1
306x1

Yoke Pushes (turf, 50 seconds rest)
205x50’/205x50’
205x50’/205x50’
205x50’/205x50’
205x50’/205x50’
205x50’/205x50’

Stretching
 
Comments: I’ve been a little less stressed this week. I guess noticeably so as I’ve not had eye twitches going. It has been rainy off and on all this week and looks like that will continue into the next week. But it has been mostly light rain so just making sure when going for walks that is while there is daylight out in some capacity. So lunch break. Not going to sweat working through breaks for my own health. I can only do so much. But with the rain my allergies have been acting up but not hitting until a little later in the mornings. Friday hit me hard where my throat was tightening up from irritants and thankfully went away after a few spritz from the nasal spray. Plan for the day was to get up early to train. Like hour before I’d get up for work. But I was not feeling it and ended up hitting snooze for a half hour. I had everything packed up the night before so I wouldn’t be needing a ton of time besides digesting breakfast to get out to train. As long as I got out of the house before 10:00AM, I’d likely not have the traffic congestion issues. And I did so I didn’t. Only thing of note I guess with my body was left side base of skull and jaw was feeling stiff and it could just be from sleep and strain from this week and the previous but just delayed. But it wasn’t effecting anything. The gym atmosphere felt pretty chill. It didn’t really feel like anyone there besides me was really training something at my intensity. I know one person has a show in a month (but just three events) and another in like two months (not all events released) and another in a bit over 5 months. Another is a maybe for a show in June. Which was fine by me as that likely meant I’d have access to everything I needed today without sharing. Warming up felt fine. Knees continue to feel better from how they felt three weeks ago. Still keeping an eye on the right shoulder as far as aches and such. I know that my upper body is still taking a bit to recover at this point but hopefully feeling right as rain this coming week or next at the latest. First up was yoke. Trying to ride the train of heavy stuff a little bit longer. As long as I can. I had accidentally gone over 800lbs last time when really it was to be 40lbs less that I did. Things changed when the event weights for most of the events changed (but really, we are months out so no harm, no foul). 770lbs had been meant to be testing contest weight. Well now contest weight is 700lbs. 790lbs had been the plan maybe if I felt good and I thought 800lbs was close enough and sounded better and then misloaded it by 10lbs. It was a challenging run for me with the slant of the road outside my house (so had to pick a little lower) and how unexpectedly unstable my new yoke was. But even with all that, we thought it was good enough to keep pushing that. The plan would be 830lbs for today. I decided to do a little more than that with 835lbs because the empty “monster yoke” (which Rogue Fitness no longer makes) is 235lbs (I weighed it months back) so I could just do that empty and add 100lbs. It would be close enough and I could make this yoke stable with the pins and screws. So best chance at success. It may not seem like the best thing to be aiming for 135lbs over contest weight 4 months out but bear with me. My yoke tends to feel best with moving fast when I’ve worked up heavy. My yoke in 2018 when I worked up to 1000lbs for contest (I was beat) I was able to do some of my best yoke runs in contest and in training for speed at 700lbs and 800lbs range. I however ended up with a relapse in back pain end of 2018 doing sandbag loads after 825lbs yoke run just over 10 seconds for 50’ and I’ve not been back over 770lbs in training for runs until just the last training session. And it showed as I was good for about half to 2/3rds the way and then slowed down a ton. Having like 200lbs in reserve is helpful here for me when some times warming up is not great due to contest length and my height being quite a disparity with others. Anyways, back to training. Going forward it will appear doing heavy and speed. So heavy this time. I kind of want to keep pushing what I can do on turf with how much more effort it requires of me and that this contest coming up is supposedly on turf. It has been a while since I’ve used this yoke. I plan to use this one for the heavy weeks and the lighter/wobblier yoke setup for the speed weeks and when doing around contest weight stuff as likely what will be used. Little bit of learning curve as the spacing on the pin heights isn’t exact between all the different yokes and making sure I’m moving well and not having the implement hitting the ground as I move or as the weight starts to compress me. Not sure what weight it was but I smacked the back of my head on a set working up and I didn’t want to do that again haha. Despite it being cooler this week, it was still humid and I was sweating a good bit. I wasn’t feeling terribly confident in how things would go as I got to 635lbs as it didn’t feel like last time’s weight had. It didn’t feel terribly speedy so also miffed about that. But 735lbs felt a lot better and felt smooth. So I was back to believing again. 835lbs would not be the most I’ve attempted with turf. 960lbs had been in 2018 turning that half ton prep. Got on a dry shirt and chalked up and did my best to calm my nerves. And I was off. The pick felt better compared to 810lbs and I was feeling like I was going at a decent pace. But I again seemed to get to a spot where I was fatiguing fast and started to get off balance and I felt that if I kept going at the pace that I was going to lose the yoke forward and drop it. And I was not about to have that. I know how to tough things out. So I literally came to a stop with the weight and let it settle momentarily before starting up again at a slower pace to finish it off. Not really how I wanted things to go but his actually ended up being like half a second faster than 810lbs had been last time. So that was something. I’m not sure how heavy this will get pushed but plan is 850lbs next heavy time. I wouldn’t mind getting up to about 900lbs for this prep as I feel that would have me in a good spot in the event a show for Pro/Am requires a darn heavy yoke. I’m also very happy that nothing was hurting. There was a time in beginning of 2021 that my knees were hurting to pick up about half this weight. I was looking forward to sandbag loads. This would be the last time in this prep before switching over to something more event specific and allowing for more rest. That will be its own little puzzle to figured out what makes the most sense. So the plan here was to do EMOM loads. As I mentioned last session, I was given option of doing either another single on top of the previously accumulated (so 9 sets) with same weight or to do five with a little heavier. I wanted to do 325lbs for the EMOM. I’ve been 300lbs a lot and I was itching to give this weight a go since it would be technically a PR for me to load it to any height as I’ve not attempted a sandbag load over 313lbs. I’ve put 336lbs over my shoulder in 2022 as the heaviest sandbag I’ve ever lifted. With how 300lbs has been feeling and how 305lbs last time felt, I was thinking this was no biggie. So much so that I decided I’d just do the loads to 60” as it was 5 feet. I figured I’d do 50lbs jumps. I was thinking 25lbs jumps but the 250lbs bags were a bit buried and 40-50lbs has worked out. 225lbs was nothing and 275lbs I knew would be a pain with the pick because it is a severely underfilled bag so floppy. I also am not a fan of the canvas grip on it. That was fine. The 325lbs bag was buried under other bags. Well mine was. There are two bags but the one 325lbs is a longer bag as I think it is 350lbs bag from another company brand. And that one was really in the back behind the 350lbs bag. The 325lbs used to be the 336lbs bag and had been the 313lbs bag before that. I had added lead shot to it to get it to be over 330lbs for training for 2022 Nationals but apparently weight was taken out for a contest last year. The canvas apparently got stretched from the lead shot and now that it has 10lbs taken out of it, it is also a bit floppy. It was covered in rust dust from the pipes and a smashed centipede was stuck to it. So it apparently hasn’t gotten a lot of use. I got set for what I thought would be a tough EMOM at worst. Boy was I wrong. The pick felt like it took a lot longer to get into my lap than usual. And the bag just never felt tight to my body. I went for the extension to load and it just wasn’t high enough. I couldn’t really tell where I was as I’ve never really missed these on the load at height as it just goes over for me lol. I think in that moment I realized how I can’t really see what I’m doing on this exercise and go by feel. I reset things and decided to give it another shot as maybe I’d take this a bit more seriously. Ended up with much the same result but kept going but once I saw the yoke was tipping over I stopped. Well damn. Decided I’d try and salvage but lowering the height to what it was originally when doing these at 58”. In this brief time, I’d already soaked through the fresh shirt. I was able to get a rep finally at 58”. But it was tough. Sticking with the EMOM timing I went for the second set. I quit on it too early with the load as it would’ve gone over if I didn’t stop short. But I can only see how close it was after the fact reviewing video. Having someone be my eyes on this setup would’ve been very helpful. I was able to get one last rep here and it was ugly. I was a little too far away which normally isn’t an issue with lighter weight and more compact bags but here it was and I had to really fight to shove it over. I figured at this point to call it there as I was not going to keep at this with that bag. I at least ended it on a successful load but I didn’t want to end it there. I also didn’t want to be doing more lifting with the 300lbs bag as it was packed away and I was definitely feeling the effort I put in already. And I didn’t think it was smart to do 9x1 as I’d already done 5 attempts. I then remembered there was a small 306lbs sandbag. I figured I’d do that one for 5x1 to get in some more singles and end on a good note. Other than fatigue, I had no real issues here with this bag. But this really highlighted and issue I have when a sandbag isn’t as compact. Kegs and stones are always going to be hard when applying pressure to them, they don’t get loose. Sandbags can vary greatly. My 305lbs at home is really compact and feels easy. If I had not gotten cocky and stuck to 58” and had someone be my eyes, I’m sure I’d been successful at the original EMOM plan with 325lbs. But I was still able to get two successful lifts with it so I guess the itch has been scratched. Live and learn for next time. But it is also another reminder that I wasn’t going to be ready for Nationals this year. Last thing was sled work. I decided I’d make some changes to this. I’ve been doing the sled pushing with two prowlers. But I realized that I could actually just do this with a yoke instead and not have to worry about setting up multiple prowlers to do the 50’/50’ or have to turn around two implements. I could just do town and back with none of that. I think part of it had been that I was originally not using enough weight to use even the lightest yoke and worries that setup would mess with how I pushed things. I took a long while before I did these after the sandbag stuff talking peoples’ ears off. About strongman stuff. Ended up finally increasing the weight on these after figuring out the best way to do these on turf. These felt ok. After two runs I took the knee sleeves down as I was worried that my legs would be too pumped up and have issues keeping them moving well. I think I had them on still as knee concerns (the going around the implement stuff). Started to slow down a good bit on the fourth set and last set. But not bad. Turns out I was counting too fast this time around for the rests so it less than a minute each time. Put stuff away and closed up the gym as no one else was there and drove back. Filled up the gas tank and stretched out. Hopefully the rain takes a break soon.