June 9, 2025 – Week 3, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Push Presses
30x5
60x5
90x3
120x3
150x2
180x2
210x3
210x3
210x3

Paused Axle Push Presses (3 seconds in dip)
182x3
182x3
182x3

Dips
bwx5
bw+45x5
bw+90x8
bw+90x11

Pull-ups
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5
bwx5

12” Log Seated Overhead Lockouts (7” ROM)
185x2
235x2
285x4
285x4
285x7

Leaning Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Paused Half Kneeling Band Face Pulls
36x10—10/sbx15
36x10—10/sbx15

Stretching
 
Comments: Another week down. Definitely felt the need to recover after Saturday session. Gym will be closed until 5PM Saturday for competition and seeing as how beat I’ve felt doing these past two weekend sessions, I’m likely going to workout Sunday instead so that I can have plenty of day and daylight. Still some things with the left forearm/brachialis area. Insides of my knees are bruised to hell from the power stairs. Weight up a tad but still under 260lbs for another week. Still no response from insurance about status of vehicle stuff. I’ll give it another 2 days and then I guess. Warming up stuff has gotten fairly routine at this point with the neck rehab and foam rolling. Calves felt like they needed a lot this time. Mobility stuff and stretching fine. Then on to axle work. So changing from the high volume stuff to more a contest conditioning prep for heavy axle. Keeping the clean and press separate until we are 6 weeks into prep and then merging together. So for the next 3 weeks, keeping to no support gear on the axle work besides wrist wraps. I think this plan still works as being what this week needed as volume reduced but intensity increased. As I had mentioned, the original plan before doing worlds was to be potentially an AMRAP with like 75% of training max. New plan was to work up to 77.5% for 3x3. Knees a little achy and with the weight coming out pretty nicely for 30lbs jumps from empty implement I did that. I’m not sure what the competition setup is going to be like but I figured I should get used to “denser” weight in the event they use metal kilo plates. I’m not sure why but after I got done with 120lbs, I figured why not use my 26” metal wheels for weights? That could be what the setup is and I recall that sometimes big plates mixed with other plates feels different on parts of the movement. So I did that. It was not confidence building to feel that difference. But I know from past experience that feeling heavy on the shoulders doesn’t mean I can’t move it. But there was hesitation. I definitely noticed that the weights didn’t move as freely and it felt like more triceps/wrist needed for lockout. 210lbs did feel a bit heavier than I’d have liked on my shoulders but it did move well. I’m not sure if I’d have really been hitting a crazy good number on a max rep set with how I was feeling though. But not going to worry about that. The other part of this phase is brining back in the paused axle stuff. Stop hard going into the dip and hold for 3 seconds before launching the weight up. 10% off the previous weight for also 3x3. So this ending up being the weight I did last week for the 10x3 but pauses this time. The dropping in weight did give the feeling I was hoping for with this feeling really light on my shoulders and in my hands on that first set. Just launching it up there. Fatigue does tend to build with this exercise between sets as recovery takes longer so I did notice that but still powerful the entire time. That was at least a good thing. With the axle work done, into the garage for dips. I had indicated I’d be doing 5lbs jumps weekly and that had been my intent. Some shoulder aches but I knew that usually I just needed to add weight and things feel better here. I ended up doing 2 more reps than I had planned warming up and I figured fine, I’ll just do 2 plates rather than try and figure out a combination that felt balanced and aesthetically pleasing to my senses. The added weight was noticed. I only felt like I needed the single oscillating fan in the garage to keep reasonably cool. First set for just the prescribed 8 was fine. A little fatigued on the second set but still matched what I did the last time I did 90lbs (last prep). So likely I’ll be back on track going forward with improving this. Moved on to pull ups. I made a change here. Plan had been to just keep trying to add reps to 3 sets with 12 as the max for this week and maybe next week and then move to lower reps but more sets for weighted pull-ups. But I felt that wasn’t the best option here as far as progressing to that point as I was taking a long time between sets when I was going for that many reps. I needed to change things up so that I was getting back to doing these like other sets where taking about 90 seconds and then going. So I dropped it to 4x5 with just bodyweight. Left triceps was feeling kind of tense. The forearm/brachialis thing was acting up at times depending on the way I was exerting stuff. Not ideal. But the reps felt easy enough. I could tell fatigue was building but still able to keep the reps consistent and solid. I think because it was going as well as it did is why I did a fifth set of them. I guess I’ll see how things are next time but I may stick to just 5x5 for bodyweight (maybe add a set) or add a little weight to it. Log rack work next. I mentioned how last time I had lowered the weight and the rack height from what I had set the first week because I felt it wasn’t quite right. I had done the 9 reps I set as the determinator on whether I go up in weight or reduce volume so I went up in weight. 15lbs jump was probably a big ask. I was thinking this might be a hard one today with how the last warm up felt. Last week I had not worn wrist wraps on the first two sets and then did wear them tight for the rep set. The added weight was noticed here as I was having a dickens of a time with get the sweet spot. First set I was ok but second set I just couldn’t get another rep and went a put the wraps on loose to get the remaining three. Ugh. So not looking forward to the rep set. Wondering if I need to pull these back and potentially not do them some weeks for recovery. I got set and I went to work. 15lbs is not nothing being added here. I wasn’t quite able to stay in the groove like I managed last week but I was able to get more than 4 reps in the set. I just hit a wall trying to get an eighth and stopped there rather than try and force it. So 7 reps ain’t too bad. Just stick to same weight next week with reduced volume and see if able to improve the reps. Last thing being superset of leaning laterals and paused face pulls with bands. This might be the last week of them as I have plan for assistance work after this session. Just not sure if starting the migration over next week or if giving them another week. Plan was to do set of 10 reps for the laterals for the last time on them. I also wanted to try and push the face pulls so increased band tension with possible expectation of reduced reps or not doing pauses to make the reps. I ended up going a little heavier on the laterals than I had planned but it worked out. Band face pulls I felt it was good enough so I did pauses as I felt I could get my reps with them at this tension. So 15 reps again with the face pulls. It was a good bit of tension as I felt my one knee “crack” bracing. Second set was tougher as it usually is with this kind of pairing of shoulder exercises. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching.