April 7, 2025 - April 13, 2025 - Week 6

 April 9, 2025 – Week 6, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
26x5
56x3
86x2
116x2
146x2
176x5
203x5
230x8

Dips
bwx5
bw+45x3
bw+80x8
bw+80x11

Band Assisted Pull-up (stacked, pin 20)
sbx4
abx12
abx12
abx12

Axle Seated Overhead Lockouts (6” ROM)
226x2
276x2
321x3
321x11

Paused Single Arm Dumbbell Y Raises on Incline Bench (2ct)/Single Arm Overhead Band Triceps Extensions (2ct stretch)
12x12—12/mmbx15—15
12x12—12/mmb+µbx15—15

Stretching
 
Comments: Sunday night training was brutal. I already had mentioned that but it was more so than I was expecting. And coupled with not having a day off to rest really with getting up early for work didn’t help. My tibs were still sore Monday and I was feeling quite stiff. I was mentally not running at 100% either as there were times I’d make a call and then wonder why I was getting a return call and not recognizing the number. Oddly enough my numbers at my physical were really good (though blood work gets done later this month). One day of rest was obviously not enough as I was still feeling sore in my lower legs. Also got a little bit of an impingement with the left shoulder which also annoying. I was also thinking about the recovery for this week with the planned heavy double for deadlift. I decided I’d just not do anything Tuesday and since doing now 3 days a week, I have the flexibility to do that. I did no walking and went to bed like 2hrs earlier than usual so got about 10hrs or sleep. Body feeling a bit better as far as lower body (hoping some of that would go away with warming up and session). Left shoulder still present but I guess a little better. Have to make do with what I got I guess haha. Warming up was ok. Lower body was feeling fine. Left shoulder was cranky. Not sure how it would react to the different things planned for the day. Axle push pressing to start things off. Alternating between strict log for triples with bands and axle push press following 5/3/1 protocol. So back to 5’s after going through a cycle (minus deload). My plan for progression here was to add 10lbs to the max if I did 3 reps or better averaging on the reps sets of the designated 5, 3, and 1 top sets. Which I did. Still, I wasn’t feeling confident here. I could tell the left shoulder issue was having things feel a little tight with lockout. But thankfully nothing painful here.  Weights were feeling a little heavy in my hands. Actually not so much my hands but definitely in the shoulders. I was feeling not so powerful and with how the second set of 5 reps went, I was worried that I’d be getting a single with 230lbs for the top set. Nerves been really bad when it comes to doing these as of late. Perhaps the fingal finger stuff is just too much for my shoulders to recover from with training. But perhaps being so nervous and anxious had me feel like I should be feeling with getting reps on the last set. I know I had indicated trying to just do them with no rebound reps but I’m just going to do what feels right in the moment. I got 5 reps with the rebound and then more controlled and taking a solid breath to get 3 more reps for 8 total. Last one was a little rough to lockout but still solid. Happy that this went as well as it did considering the circumstances. I stated setting things up for stuff later in the workout to get some rest before moving on to doing dips. I was leery about how these would go with how my left shoulder was feeling. It actually wasn’t that bad. My left elbow was achy however so that was a little weird. I’d been doing these every week but now it will be every other week. I was going to do just adding 5lbs each time but figured that since it is two weeks between sessions, I could probably push a little more here. So I went with 10lbs increase. Initially, I was thinking this may be where I have to pull back on the reps to keep progressing with how the weight felt that first set where I do just 8 reps. But maybe I took things more seriously or knew what to expect as I was able to put in the performance I expected on the second set for reps with something left in the tank. I feel 100lbs added for decent reps with no support gear is happening by the end of this. I had started getting dinner ready by this point. Back outside for the rest of the workout. Band assisted pull-ups. Same band assistance as last time but adding another set (3x8-12). I wasn’t really too concerned with the RIR as aim was to try and get 3x12 with something in the tank by the end hopefully. This could potentially be something my left shoulder didn’t like. Could hear things shifting and moving but no pain unless I tried to pull myself down to stretch the shoulder forward at an angle. These felt pretty good. No biceps tightness today (I remember that last time I did the 400lbs fingal finger) and I was able to get a decent clip before kind of dead hand rest pausing the rest of the reps to get 3x12 with 2-3RIR. I’ll likely be lowering the band tension assistance for next time and go lower rep range. See how things are feeling since this is being tested weekly. Moving on to seated lockouts with the axle. Plan was to do 2x4 and then rep set like I’d been doing. And since I got over 8 reps, I was to increase the weight 5% or so. The weight is adding up at this point. Getting to the point where if not in the sweet spot, it ain’t budging. Warming up felt awful. Again, nothing here bothering the shoulder thankfully. I felt tired and maybe the push pressing and dips had been too much today. My first set with top weight I didn’t budge it and had to refocus and do it again. I essentially had to rest pause the reps to get a triple. I decided that I’d go the lower range on these as my back up in the event I don’t get more than 8 reps is to drop down to 1-2x3 and then rep set. And once in that range, the weight increase changes to 2.5% but the threshold for reps is lowered to greater than 5 reps. I was thinking I’d get another 3 reps, maybe 5. But I guess I got things figured out by this point and got double digits again. My body just being a bit ole faker today. Since the bench was already outside, I just did the final superset outside as well. This was unliteral upper body stuff. Single arm y dumbbell raises with holds and single arm band triceps with holds in stretch position. I felt doing these together as unilateral stuff would help with getting things to be similar to the walking with the finger for the one aspect and the other just getting nice full ROM since doing a lot of partial stuff heavy. The left side definitely took some issue with the y raises but it is what it is. It didn’t really make things worse. Forcing and movement has seemed to help with it not feeling so bad at times. Balance was a little wonky (felt easier to balance left vs right but right easier to handle in the hold and movement). Band tension was a little too light the first set and adding a micro was apparently just what I needed to get into the right range. Put stuff away and got to eating dinner before stretching out. Hopefully I’m recovered well enough for the rest of this week of training.

April 11, 2025 – Week 6, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

2.5” Thick Bar 18” Block Pulls (straps)
167x5
257x3
347x2
437x1
527x1
617x3
540x3
540x3

Paused Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows (3 seconds)
40’sx5
56’sx5
76’sx5
96’sx10
96’sx10
96’sx10+10 Kelso shrugs

Single Leg Stepdowns (foot to rear)
12”
bw+25x3/3
18”
bw+25x10/10
bw+25x10/10
bw+25x10/10

Back Extensions (5ct hold every 5 reps)/Paused Ab Rollouts (5ct)
bwx10/bwx13
bwx10/bwx7
bwx10/bwx5

Stretching

Comments: It was a good decision in hindsight to move the training for this week out one extra day. It allowed me to recover and then kind of gave me a little more freedom for this particular training session with the plan being heavy deadlifts. By having it be Friday, I didn’t have to worry about potentially having a bad session and then having to go through a day of work thinking about it before I got a reprieve with the weekend. Not to mention that this week with work was tiring and exhausting on top of feeling drained at the start of the week from the heavy training session Sunday evening. This also meant that I could take time with things since I didn’t have to get up early for Saturday. This day would be another test of proof of concept to see if the adjustments made are allowing me to recover enough to keep pushing training. Not sure the usual things either. I have some bruises on the back of my hands and on my upper stomach and lower pecs from fingal finger (at least I hope just that with the pipe resting). Still some stuff going on with the left shoulder but seems to be somewhat recovering at this point. I should also mention that the other strongman competition that was scheduled at the gym this spring has also been pushed back three months. Literally the week before the competition. Irritating stuff here if I was a competitor in those shows with the planned routine (different feds but both doing so due to lower than expected turnout) as I had to plan out my training to coincide with availability. So I have to get my training back to a Saturday Day 3 after this coming week to be sure to have assistance with events (fingal finger and Hercules hold). It is what it is but it makes me leery to do any really local shows or recommend them to people. Anyways, on to training. I did some modifications to my warm ups. I’ve been finding that the assisted Cossack squats aren’t really feeling great on my knees and do little to get them feeling good as much as doing foam rolling and other exercises. I did a bit more foam rolling of my calves for this session. In my eagerness to train I forgot to do my usual static stretching for my hips, ankles and knees and didn’t realize that was the case until hours later as I was getting ready for bed. Oops. But I guess that also indicates not always needed. I kind of needed to be “stiff” today. As I mentioned last time, no skater jumps and going right into the deadlift stuff. Plan was big jumps in weight and aiming for a top set of 2 reps leaving 1-2RIR. The last time I did these heavy, they hadn’t felt great. I felt I needed a deload and my lower back was just whooped. I was seriously worried I’d bomb this event at the competition. My hope here was that I recovered a bit with some of the changes to the programming for lower body with changing the “light” week session and taking more rest from the last session. I was initially going to go with the jack stands like I’ve done the past three sessions here but I figured that I had nowhere to go tomorrow so taking the extra time to setup like I did the first two weeks with the wheels and foam blocks would be fine. So one of the things that had me a little more optimistic for this session was that I had seen someone post a video of pulling from this height on an axle and they were a stouter individual and they were using a wider stance and grip. Perhaps counterintuitive as you’d think narrower would be better starting position. But for me, that is a lot of lower back, especially with how thick this bar is. Also gets my hips further away. So I figured I’d try to widen my stance to see if that let me get more hips and leg drive into it. It would be easier/more natural to do this with the block setup vs the jack stands since I’d need to stand on 1” wood to get to the right height. Felt ok working up with plate jumps. I realized after the 437lbs lift that my stance was too wide to get the best power here and I needed to find a happy medium. This next lift kind of mattered on whether I had found a better position to pull and if I’d actually be doing well here for the planned double. I could tell immediately that this was moving a ton better than 520lbs felt last time. So I’d be going on with another plate jump. My initial plan for this session before making the changes had been to hopefully do 610lbs for the top double. This was the minimum I felt I had to do to be on track with the 660lbs pull at the competition as it would be 92.5% of that. The triple had been 90% and that would hopefully have me at 95% for an even jump then for my last heavy session for a single. The plate changes and the different setup from jack stands made that a little trickier. So 617lbs it was to be this time around. I took my time here with getting myself setup. Chalking up straps and hands. Had to believe this was going to happen. Know that when this is heavy that I have to take breathers between the reps because with how far out the bar is, there is no rest at lockout. It is just taxing your back and hamstrings just standing there. The bar did not move very fast that first pull (I was also really nervous and overthinking things) but it felt decent and I took a bit to prep myself for another pull. It felt much the same and I let out a little shout of excitement that I got it and it wasn’t a maximum effort. I was to just do a double but I felt I could do another and still have 1-2RIR in the tank. A bit more hesitancy as I recalled how last time the second rep had moved better and then I had a tough time with the third rep before deciding to commit to the idiocy. So I grunted a good bit and then went for a triple here and I got it. I was quite pleased. The weight also told me I was done with my set as the left side rolled off the platform. For the first time this prep, I believed that I could do the contest weight next month. I dropped down 12.5% from that weight for 2x3. I was still feeling the high from the top set so I was singing out loud to myself to the music before going for the pulls. These move well but never feel “easy”. Just kind of have to grunt and go. I was thankful that I wasn’t having any slippage with straps at any point. Moving on to the chest supported dumbbell rows. I moved these to this day as it seemed to make sense and have more back stuff while reducing the number of training days. Made more sense to have this one on this session. Pull ups on Day 1 act as some spinal deload as well. So still tempo work and warming up with sets of 5 reps. Honestly, kind of need to be tempo work of some kind with doing dumbbell chest supported rows using two dumbbells as I only have so much weights and space on the dumbbell handles. Last time (besides the skipped week) I had worked up to a top set and then did a reduction in weight for matching rep sets. This time I was going to do a little more weight than I did for the top set and aim for 3 sets of max reps (leaving 2RIR). I mean that was the plan but odds are that I was going to probably follow that for the first set and then try and match those reps after that. That is pretty much what I did lol. I followed it right the first set. The issue here is that the holds are really taxing and recovery between sets is difficult. I felt things were feeling pretty good with the normal rest going into the second set but I hit a bit of a wall after the 5th rep here and had to rest pause the rest of the reps to get another set of 10 reps. I took double the rest before going for the last set and that went a bit better but not perfect. On that last set, I was to also do Kelso shrugs (5-10 or near failure, whatever). I was pretty beat by this point. Could tell my scapula on the left side wasn’t moving as the right side was. Kind of knew/expected that with the tightness and such on that side. It is a work in progress. Took a break to start getting my dinner prepped before finishing up the session. From there moving on step downs. These have been progressing nicely from initially starting at lower height box and now back to where I was and able to start adding weight. My best with weight on these (albeit a little higher box) is 40lbs for sets of 10 reps. Not going to jump right to that as this is something that is small progress each time. Even though it does appear that a few years back I could just jump right into doing things without any warming up. I figured maybe I don’t need as much warming up to get up to snuff here. I also felt that I should probably do these weighted warming up too as going from bodyweight to weight after jumping up 3” in height is probably kind of rough. I wasn’t too sure with doing a 6” increase from one to the other but when I realized I had done the warming up set without knee sleeves, I figured I’d be fine. Glutes on the left side were feeling pretty tense that first set. Honestly, the ease and the discomfort seemed to fluctuate set to set and rep to rep. I’m not too sure how I want to proceed with loading for next time as I could do dumbbell but I can make more minute adjustments with my plateloaded kettlebell handle. Last thing wasn’t initially meant to be a superset but I figured it would speed things up and one shouldn’t really affect the other. Back raises have been absent of a bit and my thinking was to have them for a little bit as blood flow and restorative with the other stuff I’m doing. No sense pushing these with elevated deadlift stuff and then zercher rack work as well on top of heavy farmer’s walk. Just bodyweight and 5ct holds every 5 reps. These were then paired with ab wheel. 5ct holds at extension with bodyweight as well. 25 reps total for those and to do them over however many sets it took leaving 2RIR. I’ve not done them for about as long as the back extensions but I felt that I should be able to do 25 in 3 sets if I set my mind to it. The back extensions were fine. The holds were a little intense on the hamstring surprisingly. The ab wheel was much tougher than I was expecting. Well kind of how it is with the first few reps being really rough and then being able to push through. Then dramatically dropping off in reps on sets after that if I don’t take a really long break. But I got it done how I wanted it. Hopefully I don’t get bad DOMS in my abs since I only get one day rest before Day 3 session. Put stuff away and ate dinner and then stretched.

April 13, 2025 – Week 6, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Box Jumps
18”x3
24”x1
27”x3
28”x3
29”x3
30”x3

Sandbag Throws (rotational style)
50x26’11”
50x25’9”
50x27’1”
50x26’5”
50x27’3”
50x27’6”
50x26’8”
50x24’2”
50x27’6”
50x26’7”

Safety Squat Bar Zercher Goodmornings w/ bands (+24lbs/+58lbs, 32” height)
65x2
115x2
165x2
215x2
265x2
265x2
265x2
265x2
265x2

Seated Leg Curls (2-0-2-0 tempo)/Monster Mondo Deadlift Start Leg Presses
110x5/300x8
155x5/480x8
220x12/660x8
220x12/750x8
220x12/825x15

Rolling D-Handle Hangs (2” handles)
bw for 5 seconds
bw+35 for 45.80 seconds
bw+35 for 35.67 seconds

Stretching

Comments: So this should be the last planned Sunday event training day going forward for this prep. As mentioned, the show that was to be last week has been pushed out 3 months and that was why I was planning on doing all April on Sundays. But now no reason and if anything, I need to get back on Saturday so as I can have help for these last three event days. It was a good call with having the heavy deadlift day Friday as I had a hard time getting myself to sleep so sleeping in and not doing much of anything besides chores, soft tissue work and walking was ideal. But would need to get up somewhat decent time for training today as don’t want to have another zonked out Monday. 265lbs as far as my bodyweight. Drive out wasn’t bad despite some construction (that wasn’t happening). There were a few people at the gym but none of them doing strongman stuff. I did foam rolling and mobility stuff. I made sure that I did some static stretches for the hips/ankles/knees. Warmed up for the session and got the throwing space setup. Load of good that did as it was windy outside and I had to setup the cones again and weigh them down. Lower back wasn’t too sore/stiff but abdominals certainly were. Box jumps to start off. I had an idea after last time where I should have the higher jump setup but place down the hard rubber mats to make the height shorter rather than be on the ground and add them to the box setup. Adding them was having the setup not be so stable whereas doing this would have the jump setup stable and the jump on firm ground. I wasn’t sure how the jumps would be going and I was thinking about going up in 2” increments this time around. I was initially not feeling great but as I did more of the bounding drills, I felt better. I did a triple with 18” height as I felt it was needed and then was fully prepared to do 24” for my first “working” set. But it seemed too easy so I just did a single and went with the mat idea. It felt a little daunting but once I got it out of my head, things seemed to be great. I went with just 1” as it appears the mats were not quite 1” each so what I was thinking was 26” was actually 27”. Which got me to 30” if I took all the mats away. This actually went well. Less hesitancy and felt easier. This had been my “max” triple so I’m thinking I can better than now. So outside for throws. As I said, I had to readjust the setup due to the wind moving things around. I had done some Cariaoca at the start of the session so I did some rotations with the 50lbs bags. I did chuck the 20ish bag three to four times as well and god those were awful throws. Some of my worst. Hoping to get the horribles out before competition. My plan for this was the heavy throw session and trying to get more tosses at 50lbs vs last time. While I did get more tosses at the 50lbs bag, this was not as good as I was feeling last time. Form just seemed to be a little off on the day. Maybe because I had to move everything over a few feet due to pallets lined up on the one side. But it had kind of felt like that last week too. Just couldn’t get the little extra as my furthest tosses were in the 27’ range. This weight is a bear to balance though. Put stuff away and moved on to more gym based stuff. The ssb thing I do against bands making an appearance again. I got the reps right this time with the planned 5x2 and not 5x3. Took 50lbs jumps here so working weight was 20lbs more than last time. I usually don’t wear a hard belt on these but I figured I probably should because I’m using one for the fingal finger (doing this to help that pop) my abs are really sore from the paused ab wheel stuff and I have to shorten the rest between sessions to get back to M/W/S schedule again earlier than expected. Been getting bruises on my forearms from these despite wearing elbow sleeves. These get fatiguing in that power output fashion quite quick and so have to really focus and put max effort in little bursts to finish strong. On to the machine superset for the legs. I never intended this to continue or to even be a thing but it seems to be working out for me so I’m going to keep riding it out. So no changes really to the leg curls with the tempo being key. I did figure out a way to add weight to the stack so not limited to 200lbs anymore (though probably can’t get 300lbs). So I did increase the weight here by 10% from last time. The bigger change was the leg press stuff. That was the actually planned thing and aim was to work up with RPE stuff for2x8 and then add 10% to the last set for max reps (1RIR). I wasn’t sure how close I’d follow the RIR thing as I’d go by feel really. No pauses and I was also not going full ROM. The bottom where the safeties catch on the leg press are pretty low for me anyways so it is like a doing 3/4ths a rep to start so I use my upper body to assist with getting leg locked out. So rather than move the safeties out, just keeping them on. So I can push a bit harder and not worry about failing. I wasn’t expecting 220lbs on the leg curls to go as well as they did. I did have to rest pause a little on the other two sets to get those reps (I hit 12 and I wanted to get that on all 3 sets) but more just because the tempo reps really take it out of me and I just need a breath to resume. The leg press stuff was a little odd. I’ve not gone over 600lbs on this leg press I think and it has been like maybe 7yrs or more since I’ve tried to go heavier on any leg press. So aim was 10% more than what I did last time and hopefully have that be RPE 7 and then another plate jump be RPE 8. Just getting the weight locked out for the start felt hellacious and straining. But then the repping out wasn’t so bad. Just a lot of pressure on the first rep and straining. Second set felt much the same. I was little worried with how the last set would go doing 10% increase on the last set. I was to leave little in the tank. But just guidelines for me. I’d do what felt right. I actually started pushing things here. Sometimes though the sled would hit the safeties and inadvertently rebound a little and make the rep really easy. So tried to pause for the briefest moment so that the reps were tough. I was initially thinking of stopping at like 12 but kept going. Left quad wanted to cramp up on me around 13-14 but I wanted 15 reps at this point. I probably could’ve kept going but didn’t want to risk it if my one leg already wanted to cramp on me. Next time is to be similar but less reps working up. I may end up doing 900lbs or something. Last thing then being grip. 2” thick rolling handles coming into play again. I downed my protein shake at this point so that I could maybe eat an earlier dinner (I didn’t really) and this wouldn’t really be an issue with my stomach for the grip work. Last time had been doing one longer set of 45 seconds or more and this was back to the session before that with doing more time over 2 sets again. 75-90 seconds between 2 sets this time with 2-3 minutes rest. I wasn’t sure how grip would be with doing the tempo dumbbell rows. I could’ve played it safe and done the same weight I did last time as that should for sure be one I could do for this. But I guess I wanted to live dangerously so I increased the weight of the kettlebell by 4kgs. I knew this would probably be a bit much and that I’d likely have to settle for a lower timed hold from the fatigue on the second set. So aim was to get 45 seconds the first set and then rest 3 minutes and hopefully get 30 seconds the second set with the same weight because I know how much my grip strength endurance drops off after a solid effort. 45 seconds was a tough get but I got it. Second set it was fight but I got past 30 seconds so I kept going. I knew I couldn’t get to 45 seconds again and called it before I failed. A little over 80 seconds total works for me. I put stuff away and stretched out my calves before leaving. Stretched out the rest of the way at home.