December 12, 2025 – Week 15, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
143x5
235x3
323x2
373x1
413x1
463x1
513x2
513x2
513x2
513x2
513x2

Sandbag Box Squats (18”)
175x20 seconds
175x20 seconds
175x20 seconds
175x20 seconds

Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Chest Supported I Flys and T Flys
40x5/5 -- 16’sx3+3
85x10/10 -- 31’sx6+6
100x10/10 -- 31’sx6+6
115x10/10 (offset) -- 31’sx6+6

Jefferson Curls
45x12
45x12
45x12

Stretching

Comments: This ended up being a real butthole of a week. I was already not feeling great at the start with what seemed to be the cold I thought was licked coming back hard with the stress related to work and the wrist injury. With work (what else is new) they discovered a third party vendor had not been sending out mail for the past month so now we have to rectify that. The illness I had got worse on Tuesday and I knew that if it got worse, I was going to have to call off work. My wrist also was getting similar to how it was earlier last week before the shot so that was having me feeling like I was going to have an anxiety episode on top of being sick. Short story is that my cold got worse and I ended up taking sick leave (and not for a doctor’s appointment or mental health reason) since 2017 for two days. I was out of it and slept 14hrs both days I was off. I felt I needed to go to work Friday if I felt well enough mainly so that I didn’t get locked out of my account (password was expiring lol) and try to not have most of a week to get myself caught up next week. I also didn’t feel that it was where I’d get antibiotics for what I had so didn’t want to go be around more sick people for a doctor’s note (I need one if out more than 2 days in a row). Been on Dayquil and Nyquil and antiflammatories and allergy meds and I went through boxes of tissues like a bonfire. So really hard to tell how I was feeling with stuff being masked. And to top if off I strained my neck on the left side checking for traffic backing out my car out of the driveway going to work today. So just lovely feeling all around. I wasn’t feeling too bad considering things at work and felt like maybe I could handle no meds besides what I took in the morning. Nope, ended up needing some in the afternoon to finish out the day. I still felt like shit but it was a huge improvement from how bad I felt Wednesday and Thursday that I figured I’d warm up to train and see how that goes. This would need to happen if I wanted to have a shot of trying to get this week’s training sessions done to be good to go for next week. Foam rolling was ok. Calves were a little tight but alright and then my quads were tight but not as much as they could. This could be from the meds and lack of doing anything besides sleeping and working this week. Upper back was needing the foam rolling as well. Neck rehab followed and that was needed. It wasn’t as relaxing as it I wanted it to be with my neck tweaked at the moment. Went into the stretching for hips, ankles, hamstrings and knees after that followed by a dead hang to decompress. I was still a bit apprehensive with the session as with fluids and meds I wasn’t sure if I was actually ok to train intensely as I felt like my one hamstring did want to cramp. Wouldn’t want a neck tweak issue elsewhere you know? But I go on. I did the tib raises/calf raises, treating these as the first exercise of the lifting session. I did these in the garage on the concrete vs in the house on carpet like I’ve been doing. I think to make it feel more like part of the workout then the prep stuff. Or just to see if that changed things with how my ankle/feet reacted. Bendy long bar pulls again. The heavy session. No pauses at lockout this time and a bit different. This was going to be the toughest things of the session which I kind of expected a shift like this to start with contest prep starting up in earnest. The proposed plan was to do 505-515lbs for 5 sets of 1-2 reps. I asked about what I should be using to dictate going singles vs doubles with this weight as it could be a big difference in intent with the sets. Like if I was to make these feel like speed work, singles of course with this weight. Clarification was to do doubles if I knew I’d not miss. No misses. Alrighty then. I did the same warming up I’ve been doing here. I’ve done deadlifts when things suck and I just had to embrace that suck and figure out what kind of suck it would be today. I already knew I’d be taking a longer rests between the sets to accommodate for my lessened respiratory capacity and to mentally recover assuming I was doing these as doubles. I’ve been noticing that sometimes the first pull is really good and other times it sucks. And I need to keep pulling with this setup. Based on when I get this to about 460ish, there is 2” of flex in the bar. There may be more if I use larger plates besides the bumper plate but this seems to be at least some consistency. I got myself pretty amped up for these sets compared to the past few weeks. The first two sets the first reps felt slow and I wasn’t sure how I got the second reps with how they felt at the start but they then would go up smooth to lockout and feel easy there. I felt at times I was going to crap myself. I’m not sure I was successful with preventing that but it has been a rough 72hrs. Fourth set I didn’t quite have my brace keyed up with my initiating of the lift and I could tell after that set my left side lower back where my 2016 injury is was feeling a little tender. But I knew I’d survive the workout and got the last set done. I could relax and little now and recover before getting on to the rest of the workout. There wasn’t pressure to get things done supper quick as tomorrow Saturday and I wasn’t going to do anything anyways. I was a bit surprised with the change to the session after pulls. It has been ssb front box squats for the past 14 weeks. Now going back to something that was in the first training block for Worlds for a little bit with sandbag box squats. A bit different style and such. I also feel like my body moves a bit more like how I want it to as well. They had been part of a superset to a 6” higher box and I was holding the bag like I would if doing a bear hug with my 225lbs weight. This was to be 175lbs bag and try to crush it into myself and slightly hunched over. And it was for time sets instead of reps. So like the marching with it being 20 second sets. This was light enough and with my breathing compromised, it didn’t make sense to wear any support on my midsection. So just knee sleeves. Ideally, I’d have done some kind of warming up rather than just go right into squatting with the sandbag. But I think I just wanted to see how things were and move it along. I mean, I didn’t really do anything to prep for the marches. My knees were pretty stiff that first set but it felt easier and smoother as I went on these sets. I kind of just kept going with similar rest to what I was doing last week with the marches here so that I got these done and I think that I didn’t let myself have the fatigue catch up on me as I wasn’t really going to get my air back. These went well enough. A slight break in the action here putting stuff away and then getting the superset setup. Which already had a pretty big departure last week with dropping one of the exercises. This was a more dramatic change. The snatch grip rdls were replaced with single leg dumbbell rdls. No pauses. Focus on core bracing and such. I had asked how I was to load with the dumbbell and I knew it was to be offset loading (not dumbbell on same side as stationary leg) and I did my warm up as such. But I think jumping to the weight with a different dumbbell threw me off and I went to same side by mistake. I had not expected things to feel as strong/good as they did with the one leg rdls. I ended up adding weight as I went here and eventually realized I was doing these not how I was supposed to and switched to the right style on the last set (which made that quite challenging). My balance is not great as per usual. I should be able to correct for next time. The other half of the pairing was still the dumbbell raises for upper back but the reps range was cut in half to 6 reps. So I needed to pump up the numbers here to find what worked. This was the more challenging aspect of the super set at least until I figured out I was doing an easier variation of the rdls at the start. The last thing then for this session was those Jefferson curls again. Advised to do 3x12 with same weight as last time. I did them like I did last time zercher style off my sawhorses. I was able to move these a little quicker and smoother compared to last week. I was feeling a bit beat this session for obvious reasons with stiff/sore left side of neck, left side of lower back, left hamstring and right glute. But like I said, it is the weekend so I got at least a day to recover from this nonsense and figure out how I want to proceed. Ate dinner and stretched before eventually taking Nyquil to sleep.