May 28, 2025 – Week 1, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Clean Complexes (2 hold seconds at knees, only pull to stomach first rep with 2 second hold)
50x1+1
80x1+1
110x1+1
140x1+1
170x1+1
200x1+0 (oops)
200x1+1
200x1+1
200x1+1
200x1+1
200x1+1
200x1+1

Snatch Grip Iso Deadlifts (straps, 3 seconds just off ground) 
95x3
135x3
185x3
225x3
265x7
238x7
238x7
238x7

Rack Safety Bar Good Mornings (lower to deadlift pull height)
65x5
115x5
155x15
180x15
205x15

Contralateral Load Single Leg Stepdowns (18”, foot to rear)
bw+15x10/10
bw+15x10/10
bw+15x10/10

Stretching

Comments: I thought I had things figured out with my plan. But then I got a curve ball lobbed at me. I woke up to an e-mail from Natural Strongman indicating I had qualified. I immediately wrote back asking if this had been meant for me as I got 4th at the competition. I had thought this wasn’t a option for me. And while the events aren’t the most exciting (I believe I said not worth crossing an ocean for) they could be good for me. But I wasn’t convinced this was meant for me and I hadn’t heard back by the time it was time to train after work. So I didn’t want to deviate much from what I had planned but I wanted to keep that option alive. Work was busy so I didn’t exactly have time at all during the work day to contemplate things and I spent about an hour figuring out how I wanted to proceed before starting training. The is an exquisite soreness in my upper body for my chest, shoulders and triceps from Monday. Foam rolling to start things off. Not as much needed for the lower body but definitely needed it for the upper back considering the training. Then on with the neck rehab stuff which constitutes most of my upper body session warming up. A little more lower body stuff since I was going to be doing some stuff more than just the dip for leg drive like on Monday. Then time to train. The first thing was a day of change as initially looking at starting with deadlift stuff but seeing as how I may be doing worlds, I did some stuff contest specific. So I’ve been toying with treating axle cleans separately from the movement to work on that aspect as that seems to be giving me headache/heartache the last few times it has come up. But didn’t have axle clean and press as an event and turn around not great to allow for integration of the parts as a whole before competing (as next show would be 8 weeks). But this could work with things as they present themselves right now. The plan is taking these “complexes” that work different parts of the axle to shoulder. Plan is to do like 2 weeks at each variation, see how it goes. First session kind of break in and then second session more serious. I felt like I should do training for this week mostly without support stuff. This first variation was with the first rep going for 2ct just above the knees and then popping on to stomach for another 2ct before dropping it. So no clean to shoulder. Then the second rep same pause above knees but no pause as stomach and going up to shoulders. This was going to be the first time I’ve done axle clean without Olympic lifters so this could be interesting. My hope was to be doing low 200’s hopefully. Idea was to work up to a weight that feels like RPE 8-8.5 for 6 sets of these complexes. Shoulders were definitely feeling Monday still. I had a miss on the clean the first try with 200lbs because the axle slid on my shirt. I had not wanted to wear stuff or chalk up for these but I had to put on a rehband belt so that I had some place for purchase with the axle so not sliding down my shirt. Once that was taken care of, I had no issues. I was a little slow on getting my thumb clear of the bar on the right side with the flip sometimes. Felt easier as I went with these and felt very easy and explosive by the end. Hopefully I can push these more next time. But like I said, getting used to it and this was spur of the moment. Shoulder tendons are sore from all the push pressing Monday. Put away the axle and moved on to deadlifts. I was a little tempted to use the axle here since that is the deadlift event but I felt it was best to stick to barbell for what I was about to do and can always use the axle for other stuff once I’m sure. This was the actual start of the previously planned workout for off season for deadlift. Namely, get my deadlift start to not be awful by working that and making things awful. So for that, it meant doing beltless snatch grip deadlifts. Not wide grip as I went all the way to the ends of the grips on the barbell. Also not regular style as I was to break the weight just off the ground and hold it there for a 3ct and then set it back down and pull it like a touch and go rep to lockout. That counted as one rep. This is the protocol from the MST system app. Plan was to work up to a top set of 7 reps and then take off 10% and do 3x7 with that weight. Plan was to have this be a break-in session so top set to leave a good bit in the tank. I had no idea what that would be here. I was kind of hoping it would be low 300’s and I did start very light to get the feel. Not bad at the start but I could tell at 225lbs that this was not going to be something I could do with 300lbs and leave a lot of reps in the tank. I also felt like 275lbs was a bridge too far. I was going to do 255lbs but I decided to do 260lbs as bodyweight and then talked myself up to 265lbs for 120kgs or so. Because I might be going international lol. Didn’t start off bad but after the fifth rep I started to feel taxed and wondering if I miscounted a rep. I was feeling pretty blitzed after that set. My air hasn’t quite come back from the cold at this point so I was sucking wind a good bit here. Lowering the weight for the down sets did not make these any easier. Same amount of fatigue after them. If I wasn’t paying attention, I may have stupidly done another set in error. This was rough and this is why I feel like the demands in the MST system are too much for week to week stuff so doing this every other week seems necessary. I had sweated through my shirt at this point and I didn’t want to be in a wet shirt for the rest of the session so I put on a dry shirt as I got ready for the next thing. It has been a long time since I’ve done legitimate good mornings with weight on my back vs in my arms done zercher style. Idea here with doing ssb gms was to do them from deadlift start position. Work upper back and lower back with the hip hinge. Progression to be ascending sets and dropping reps each session. I used to do this for my secondary accessory lifts more than a decade ago. So for this first go about it, the plan was warm up and do 3x12-15 with 3-5RIR. I figured this would be light because of that as well as just the deadlifting before this that kind of gassed me. I’ve not tried doing more than 12 reps I think in the past on these. I was planning on doing these where I was starting at the rack height but it was raining and the rack in the garage is not sturdy to handle weight on the arms without it sinking down. So started from the top and just paused slightly on the pins at the bottom. These felt awkward. I kind of knew these would be feeling odd considering how paused squats with the ssb had felt when I was doing the previous “off season” stuff. My plan was to do the first set beltless and then add soft belt for the second set and then latch the thicker soft belt for the last set. While I’ve not done 15 reps sets, I feel this has gone down a bit from when I was doing these regularly. I had apparently gotten up to like 350lbs for 6 reps for the most but close to 300lbs I think for 12 reps going up 30lbs a set to that point. First set I guess was fine. Second set definitely feeling tougher. Last set was definitely not leaving 3-5RIR. That was definitely closer to 1RIR territory. I got to 12 reps and was so close to 15 reps so I kept going to get that. If I was smart, I’d have stopped at 12 reps. Oh well. Just need to adjust for next time. But seeing as how I’m like 70lbs or so off where I was, there is room to grow on these and hopefully add some gains to my deadlift here as well. I was really feeling this workout at this point and this was only “half” of what this full session would be with MST (2 more exercises that I moved to another day). The next thing ended up being the last thing for the session. I made the executive decision to not worry about doing abdominal work with all the beltless snatch grip pulls and doing all those goodmorning reps. The stepdowns (worked well for me last training cycle) with weight contralaterally loaded was also going to be more core work with that. I put on knee sleeves for these and jumped right in. Lowered box height to 18” and weight to 15lbs as I knew that I’d be feeling the other stuff from this week. Knees a little rough and I was likely going to be doing these every week. Considering the fatigue I was feeling, these went well enough. I was just glad to be done. No update on the invite validity at this point. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching. Waiting to train pushed everything back so it was about 1:00AM before I got myself to sleep.