October 8, 2025 – Week 6, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Deadlifts (straps)
116x5
206x3
296x2
346x1
386x1
436x3
436x3
436x3
436x3
436x3

Safety Squat Bar Front Box Squats (24”)
65x6
115x5
165x4
215x3
265x2
315x6
315x6
315x6
315x6

Snatch Grip Romanian Deadlifts (straps)/Paused Pull Ups (1 second)/Paused Lying Band Leg Curls (2 seconds)
225x5/bwx3 (no pauses)/(2)mmbx1
315x12/bwx8/(2)mmbx20
315x12/bwx7/(2)mmbx20
315x12/bwx6/(2)mmbx20

Sandbag Carries
225x50’
225x50’
225x50’
225x50’

Stretching

Comments: Let me just say I’m not a fan of this in office every day stuff after being able to telework fully longer than the civil war was. My body was definitely stressing out about this leading up and it has been odd with adjusting schedule of things that I could do whenever really. Feeling tired and there is a bit of a sink in energy. I was initially looking forward to the training session but after seeing how long/late it got with Monday session, I was worried about this one as well and making sure I recover and not miss things. Foam rolling to start things and similar to Monday in that not a ton needed but more emphasis on the upper back. Neck rehab stuff fine as well and felt good. Not explicitly indicated this time but I did the calf and tib raises again with some glute activation work as well before doing the stretching for lower body. Felt ok. Stretches seem to feel smoother on this day vs Day 1 and Day 3. Axle deadlifts again. Even though competition will be with a bendy bar and suit, my coach still would like to work in a strength phase with axle to build and this is likely something I need as this is generally popping up as the deadlift at these comps for Natural World’s qualifier stuff. The plan for these was to do 5x3 with 60lbs less than my set of 5 reps last week. So it should be doable. Since doing reps and I was having issues with the axle staying in place I went with the wagon wheels and standing on 4” platform for these erroneously thinking the wheels would be less likely to shift. They were not and it was a bit too late to swap out as I didn’t want to eat up more time. I put crash pads behind them so they wouldn’t roll down the garage. So the good news here is that the axle pressure on the thighs didn’t cause the discomfort I felt last week. So that was a positive. The bad was that this weight felt heavy as shit. Like working up I was thinking oh crap. The video says this wasn’t so bad. You can tell on the last set I was slower but otherwise it didn’t look like how it felt with being heavy and straining. Lower back feeling fatigue and feeling a little bit of sciatic stuff creeping on the right side. I wore the ratchet belt here as didn’t want to risk the other belt coming undone with how these were feeling for me today. It was not the confidence boost I needed with all the rest of the workout to go. Put stuff away and got a few sips in before moving right on to the next thing. Front box squats with the ssb. These had been a concern last week with increasing weight and loading up the legs but things actually felt pretty darn good and I was sure I could do this workout plan with same weight as last week. Going from 4x4 to 4x6. Then I saw how my body reacted to deadlifts and I was worried about these. But I told myself to just gut these out if I could and be done with it. So did the same warming up as last time and keeping an eye on my knees and ability to sit back. These felt at least comfortable for the most part with the unracking but it was a bit tougher moving the weight. As well as keeping the weight on me for a bit longer with the two extra reps per set. But I feel like I got used to that as I went and that I managed to keep things solid and moving here. This was work but it didn’t feel like grinding me to dust tough like deadlifts had been. Trying to move things along for the next things but still making sure that I get fluids in me. The triset continues here. No changes to the bookends of it in regards to the snatch grip Romanian deadlifts or the lying band leg curls other than increase in reps (12 and 20 respectively). Still same weight/band tensions here.  The rdls I was a little leery about as I did feel like there was tension in the left side that was there on Monday with pendlay rows and it was showing up with warming up here but thankfully not present on working sets. I also didn’t have issues with my belt this time around as well so also good. I could tell that these sets were getting tougher as I went but first set was quite strong. Even with things feeling tougher, I’m not feeling like the first week I did them where I felt unconditioned if that makes sense. Pull ups had an adjustment made to them. Back to bodyweight only (yeah) but adding pauses at the top (boo). I know how much doing holds at the top have made my upper abdominals and serratus sore. Told to aim for 6-8 reps here. See how I felt and maybe just do 3x6 if these were god awful. They weren’t as bad as I was expecting but I did find I dropped off a rep each set here and it was challenging. It being cooler/dryer does help with me not being sweaty doing these or needing a fan. The leg curls I did a little testing first to make sure I got the right spot and to make sure I didn’t have things tighten up on me like they did at the end of last week. Adding 5 more reps per set here was a bit rough with pauses and I was kind of surprised that I didn’t see a more drastic drop down in the rdls and subsequent sets of the leg curls. I did end up using the bit by bit counting method on the second and third set of these to keep me distracted. As we all know, this was not the end of the session. As has been the case, sandbag stuff when I’m thoroughly fatigued. Now since the show I’m doing doesn’t have sandbag to shoulder but a carry instead, the over shoulder stuff was just going to be carries. 225lbs for 3-4 sets of 50’. Simple enough. And quite a bit easier to recover from then suplexing the sandbag. But I had a few things going against me. One was that my handtruck is not operable while trying to find wheels that fit the frame. I can only do 50’ straight runs in the street so needed to use my dolly that has a plastic tub on it for some reason to move the bag. It is also quite dark outside and will only get worse as the fall continues and then winter. Did my best to have lights from my house and garage and setup reflective stuff for the course. Lastly, I’m pretty stiff by this point and not exactly moving good so this was not graceful. The one good thing here with this being light and not as taxing meant I could take like 90 seconds rest and be raring to go. Which meant I could and did so that I could hopefully get this all done sooner and get to eating, stretching, washing and sleeping. First set was the worst of them and I’d say the third set was the best. I did even sets so that I had less distance to bring the bag back inside. But these were easy enough. Just really fatigued with the picking up part of things. Finally done and put stuff away before eating another late dinner.