June 17, 2025 – Week 4, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
50x5
80x5
110x3
140x3
170x2
200x2
220x1
240x1
225x4 (misload)
217x4
217x4

Paused Axle Push Presses (3 seconds in dip)
190x4
190x4

Dips
bwx5
bw+50x3
bw+95x8
bw+95x10

Pull-ups
bw+5x5
bw+5x5
bw+5x5
bw+5x5
bw+5x5

12” Log Seated Overhead Lockouts (7” ROM)
185x3
235x3
285x0
235x3
235x3

Powell Raises
16x12/12 
16x12/12
16x12/12

Half Kneeling Band Face Pulls
sbx25
sbx25

Stretching
 
Comments: I was a little in my own head because of that sensation in my right inner thigh and hip area. I’ve had this before (early 2018 and early 2023). Sometimes it actually is hip stuff but usually it seems that related to lower back pressure. I was hoping that mobility and warming up stuff as well as the potential decompression from exercises today would help with matters. Also thinking about how little time I really have with contest prep for this level of show. I mean, got as much notice as everyone else but I feel like I needed a better baseline and more time figuring out my training. But I guess positives is that my neck/shoulder thing has been more manageable. Been diligent with the rehab stuff. It has been damn humid the past few days. Raining off and on and then being muggy when it is not. Also dealing with some car related headaches (nothing in regards to the vehicle, just the paperwork bullshit). Also just a bit self conscious about my deadlifting and overhead but what else is new? Warming up and mobility stuff and stretching fine. I had made sure to target the hips/inner thighs with soft tissue work the day before and that seemed to help as well making sure I move and do walks. Then on to axle work. I may need to make adjustments to the training for this day going forward with how I was feeling. Plan here was to work up to a comfortable single (82.5%) and then do 3x4 with a little less than last week. But of course I tend to focus on where I want to be at and if I’m using the right numbers. I’ve been basing the training max off 270lbs and I’ve hit 290lbs as my best in the last 7 months out of the rack. So I got a little creative with the weights and I guess I was seeing how I felt. I was feeling pretty good warming up. Knees were really aching and aim was to do 230lbs for the single. But I started overthinking it. Put on the wheels. I do thing these make things feel heavier when doing these since they don’t move as smoothly with axle compared to my other plates. The weight with the wheels the first set working up felt decent so I figured I was good for today and decided to change things up. But the next set it felt tough. But I was stubborn and went with more jumps to get to 240lbs for the planned top single and then I’d do the same weights as last week for the down sets. 240lbs actually went up well enough. Just a bit rough considering this was 30lbs more than last week and that had already been about 30lbs more the week prior. The plan then was to do 3x4 but I screwed up my math. Original plan was 210lbs but figured I should do the correct percentage drop. Which erroneously got me to 225lbs (I felt this was a bit much considering). This felt tough. Heavy on my shoulders and triceps not really firing. This almost was 1RIR feeling (I was without belts or knee sleeves) and I wasn’t going to get two more sets if they ended up like this. At least not get them and be in a good place mentally. My match was off and I was to be doing 217lbs here. So corrected and these did go better than 225lbs but there was already some doubts and damage done here. Dropped down to 190lbs for the paused reps. Just 2x4 here but still doing the 3 seconds hold in the dip. These felt like they should as far as bar speed and difficulty. Didn’t feel as much variance between sets as far as fatigue compared to last time. With the axle work done, into the garage for dips. The dampness of the previous day and today messed with the electronics for the garage lights so it was a little dark. I think being inside let me catch up with how sweaty I was at this point. I was hoping that my fatigue in the upper body wasn’t going to be something holding back the dips today. I feel like I had a lot of lower body drive power but stuff feeling heavy in my shoulders and triceps. So it wasn’t great. Shoulders didn’t feel that achy warming up here on the dips. First set for just the prescribed 8 was fine. I was hoping these would help with getting hips and lower back decompressed and feeling good. Maybe that happened. The weight is getting to where it is moving me around a bit. Took a bit more effort than I’d have liked but I was able to keep to double digits on the second set. Moved on to pull ups. I had switched to doing lower reps but more sets as that seemed to be more in line with what I wanted to be doing and I wasn’t taking a long rest between sets to recover like I was doing with less sets and higher reps. Pull ups are one of those weird ones like that. I put in that this would be 4x5 session with 5lbs added to the dip belt. See how things went. I wasn’t as optimistic of 5x5 here as I remember how my forearms and such felt before after doing the zercher carries. Put on a fresh shirt as I had drenched the previous one. But things went well enough. I started cooking up dinner at this point as I knew this workout was taking longer than planned and with newer stuff at the end planned, may go long. It started raining about half way into this and it go more so as I went. I did a fifth set as these were feeling good. I’ll likely drop a set next time to increase weight a little bit more. Not sure as what I felt was certain is not so right now with the training prep with how I’m feeling today. Log rack work next. These sucked today. Dealing with the rain and setting this up and just being sweaty while it was raining was not fun. Plan had been to do less reps to hopefully get more reps on the top set with the same weight. I could tell that this wasn’t going to be as easy with how my shoulders felt fatigued and the 235lbs felt heavier. I could barely get 285lbs off the pins and I gave up after like 3 attempts at it. It was pretty apparent I was not fresh here and beating myself up on it wasn’t productive. I dropped it back to 235lbs to do 2x3 as a “deload” but I think this may be it for them this prep. As something has to give I guess. The superset from last time was no more for the last bits. Trying a new exercise here with powell raises. I’ve seen various setups and such on these. Lying on the side and doing a horizontal shoulder adduction with a dumbbell. I’ve only really done something like this as part of rotary cuff rehab and that was usually with therabands or similar. Not something that was pushed. But it seems like the idea is to push these. These were tougher than I was expecting and I think I went a bit too heavy on them for what was to be an introduction week. But I think part of it was that I was annoyed and just wanted to move weight around. I can see where these can be helpful on things like shoulder movement on sandbag tosses for the release. I got these long arms too so be interesting on how I can really progress here. Face pulls with bands to finish up. Perhaps having both these and powell raises is a like a hat on a hat but I didn’t know that going in. The plan is to do more event specific style of face pull going forward and this was kind of a transition to that with doing no pauses and higher reps. Just took the strong band and setup in the rain as I didn’t want to bother setting up an anchor inside since already had weights out. Rain had picked up at this point. These did feel fine though. I was feeling a bit tight in some areas in my upper body but hopefully rest and soft tissue work with even that out. I also need to think on things. And make sure I don’t catastrophize and spiral. I know this is early in the prep and I can recover (as seen last prep).