December 14, 2025 – Week 15, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

19” Cambered Squat Bar Box Squats
85x10
135x8
185x6
235x4
285x2
335x4
340x4
345x4
350x4

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x5
72x4
94x3
108x2
122x2
137x2
152x5 (3 misses)
152x5
152x5
152x5 (1 miss)

Yoke and Sandbag Carries (50’ run back)
Y - 200x50’
Y - 200x50’
Y - 290x50’
Y - 290x50’
Y - 380x50’
Y - 470x25’
Y - 470x25’
560xpick (3 seconds)/225xpick (3 seconds)
560x50’/225x50’ in 28.30 seconds
560x50’/225x50’ in 28.80 seconds
560x50’/225x50’ in 27.10 seconds

ATG Split Squats (9”)/V-Ups
bwx10/10 – bwx12
bwx10/10 – bwx12
bwx10/10 – bwx12
bwx10/10 – bwx12

Incline Treadmill Walking (10 degree)
10 minutes at 3mph

Stretching

Comments: I was not sure if I was going to do this last workout of this week. Just now getting over the illness and I was starting to feel Friday’s session now. Just very sore lower back. Was it worth trying to fit this last workout in to be a completionist or should I just not do it and try to start fresh with next week back in the saddle? I don’t know if dedication or mental illness is why still did this one. December gets tricky with winter weather and I had not expected it to snow Saturday evening as early as it did. It would be a matter of how safe the roads were Sunday to figure things out. Weight was back down again near 256lbs. Honestly, that weight or more than last week wouldn’t have surprised me with how I was feeling. Either lighter from body fighting stuff or heavier from sleeping and not walking as much and still eating same meals. The roads were safe Sunday as sun was out. But it was damn cold and windy and the sun doesn’t hit the back porch. So it was covered in ice. Considering how cold and windy it was and that I was already anxious about circus dumbbell every week, it didn’t seem wise to do my session at home, even if the ice salt would break up the ice. I have some place weather controlled to train. It has been a bit since I’ve trained on a Sunday at the gym. So not the usual crowd. Cold when I got there but it got warm as I was there and did stuff and people showed up. Lower back is stiff and sore and I can tell there are some disc compression symptoms at play. Soft tissue work started things off. Calves needed a decent amount but not a ton. When it is like this, the left side needs more attention. Quads weren’t so bad. Upper back needed it today too. Neck rehab stuff was ok. Still trying to get the left side of my neck to fully calm down. It is better but still tender. Just so stupid. I then did stretches hips, hamstrings, knees and ankles and then a dead hang. Then it was time for training. Same as last week, it was cambered squat bar box squats. I think doing the sets last week at home on my box setup vs at the gym setup was a really big difference. Showed how much firmer the box at the gym is even with the hard foam as well as being stable compared to what I had. What I’m saying is it seemed to feel like less power lost coming off the box. My knees were also not so achy warming up. Plan here was to do 335-345lbs for 4x4. So either same weight or little bit more than last week. I was going with same weight just because I knew I wasn’t quite 100% and squats can be a bit more taxing on my breathing and I could just do 50lbs jumps working up and not worry about adding little plates at the start. But I decided that if I was feeling good enough to do this, I was going to add 5lbs per set just so that I wasn’t just doing the same weight. 5lbs shouldn’t add up too much since I think I did close to 345lbs for a set of 5 reps or something the first week of these. I didn’t necessarily feel the strongest on these but I didn’t feel like my knees were aching as much or that my upper back was feeling painful pressure. So I’ll take it. I also feel like doing these squats before pressing has been helping with conditioning there and preparing for stuff like when a show doesn’t have press first (like the one that is coming up). From there, it was on to circus dumbbell. The plan was to do 4x5 this week with about the same weight as last week. I wasn’t too sure what to expect here as my dumbbell at home is a bit different with the grip and a bit more solid feeling. But maybe that session with that one helped this one feel better as I was feeling like I could get into the position better and efficiently this time around. I did start implementing some of the contest specific stuff here warming up. I’m not quite where I feel comfortable to do it on my working sets yet. The dumbbell is going to be standing upright at the start and I will likely need to run about 15’ or so to get to it on the whistle based on video of this year’s show and the setup. No run ups, just the dumbbell tipping to start. Figure out what makes sense. Wait until I got my air back to do the other stuff. We got about 2 months. Anyways, I was nervous with the working weight and I wasn’t expecting or planning for these to be touch and go reps. But they felt right so I went with it. And it was going well that first set until I messed up the last rep. I kind of gassed and sapped my lower back so the cleans weren’t feeling so good. After the first close miss, I thought I had it going for it a second time as it felt locked in but apparently too far to the midline and it went right back down. I tried again and just couldn’t get it to feel comfortable in the rack and had to walk away to collect myself before coming back and getting it. So part good and part bad. Three misses not great but the bang and clang of the reps that did go was a good sign. I know that I may need to get things a little more firm on the reps for lockout come contest time but I think right now I’m trying to get the weight to move and feel comfortable and confident with it. I know when I got it up there solidly as it feels like I can hold it up there forever. Second set and third set I was able to get the reps touch and go with no misses and in under 30 seconds. That is how I want things to be here. Last set was on pace but I got a little too cocky with the last rep and it didn’t quite get there and I had to redo it. Unlike the first set, I got it with a short breather and still managed to have all the reps be inside of 60 seconds. I had been nervous about these with just the illness part of things as well as my neck being sore. So the big head ache nervous ball done and should be smooth sailing. Well, not exactly. So the next thing being yoke and sandbag medley. Work up to three top sets with more weight than last time. I had mentioned that last week would be just getting an idea of what I could do as it was very light on the sandbag part and I was going uphill and downhill with a wobblier yoke. This would be a bit heavier on the yoke and lot heavier on the sandbag. I was not feeling my usual self on the yoke. Felt slow and my lower back was stiff. I changed the warm up a little with doing just half run with the last weight before working weight. With working weight, I added in a contest prep thing with the yoke. It would appear that we can start with hands on the yoke but not be setup under it. I notice a big difference in my yoke when I can get tight before the start and vs when I have to in my own time. The staggered setup actually seems to make the getting under it and then getting a brace feel natural vs squared stance. I did like 3-4 attempts at this before each run before I actually committed. Get practice while I can that is low effort but high yield. I feel like with yoke I did get better as I went. I wasn’t sure how sandbag would go as this bag has straps on the side because it is a piece of crap from a cheap brand but it didn’t seem to affect me with how I was picking the bag up. Trying to pick it up like I would in a manner that feels like the husafel bag when walking with it. So out in front and a little low. Save it for when I am using the implement to try and position a bit better. The second set was going well I think and then I noticed my shoelace on the right shoe had broken at some point so I was trying to not trip on that getting back to the sandbag and then running with the sandbag. Got a new shoelace and did my last set which was over a second faster than my first set. While my lower back had been feeling tight and stiff, I wasn’t feeling very taxed from these runs surprisingly. I wasn’t expecting that with how I was feeling warming up. The last thing I did in the gym was the same superset as last week of split squat progression and the v-ups. Reps were the same for v-ups but increased for the split squats. I lowered the height by 1” on those just because it was the easiest setup closest to what I did last week. Right knee a bit achy but tolerable. Rest for these was brief between exercises. I think I spent some time on the floor more to see if my lower back would loosen up a little more after each set of v-ups. I left after I did these and cleaned up. I wanted to get home to start cooking dinner and I could do the tread mill walking at home too while that was happening. Stretched a bit later. I’m surprised I managed to get this week of training done with what happened but I did.