January 14, 2026 – Week 20, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Suited Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
No Suit
143x5
233x3
Added Suit (single-ply)
323x2
413x1
503x1
553x1
583x2

Paused Seated Safety Squat Bar Goodmornings (21” box, 1 second)
95x10
95x10
95x10

Supported Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows
65x6/6 – 56’sx6
95x6/6 – 86’sx6
135x6/6 -- 116’sx6
135x6/6 -- 116’sx6
135x6/6 -- 116’sx6

Zercher Jefferson Curls (45 seconds rest)
95x12
95x12
95x12

Stretching

Comments:  Still trucking along. The peak for this contest is pretty intense as far as progression with things considering the baseline with off season. Assuming things go well to the finish line. Biceps still sore from Saturday but think part of that is that I did heavy rows Monday so that didn’t really engender them feeling recovered by any means. There are spots that are still sore/bruised from suit work last week so not ideal going into another suit session. I woke up with my calves feeling a bit tense but that disappeared early in the day. Soft tissue work to start things. Still needing a fair amount on the calves but not as much as the previous session this week or last. Considering they felt tight upon waking that was a little surprising. No worries with my biceps feeling tense or pulling doing any warming up. Quads (especially the sides) really needed a lot of foam rolling. Needing stuff to feel good for suited pulls. Neck rehab was fine. No issues with the stretching for hips, knees and ankles. Dead hang followed after that. Temperature was up a little but it was still wet and cold in a way so it didn’t feel as warm as it could. But I knew I’d be plenty warm with just the nature of suited deadlifts later on. I did the tib into calf raise exercise for two sets to start things off. I did notice that I seemed to be rotating to my left side on the first set and tried to make sure I didn’t on the second. On to the heavy thing for the evening. Another session of getting into the suit and pulling weights. Last week had been good as far as my suited sessions have been this prep (which is two lol). The first one I had felt like all the pulls were max efforts and just all in my lower back with my multi-ply suit. I reverted back to my single ply suit with some tailoring done to have it perhaps not be so loose in the legs and that had felt like a gamble to do with getting 33-53lbs less weight from the singles for 4x4. But it worked out for me. Wasn’t 100% awesome but it moved things in the right direction. I didn’t feel dead in my back and soul like last time. I did have to reinforce the seems I’d sewn for another session today. Volume dropped a lot as the plan was to work up to just a top double. No back down sets or multiple reps. Idea being seeing where I’m at as far as trying to plan opener and second attempt. Advised to have the effort range be between comfortable and “these go to 11”. My weight is down a bit from last time I used a suit and part of it is also uncertain if my setup is going to be like contest. I could just not be very good with this kind of long bar with the flex at where I don’t get much out of it. Point is just putting in work and seeing how it plays out I guess. All that really matters is that weight goes up and things feel better. So my thinking here was that I’d treat it like I was doing my “attempts” but not exactly. Contest has the bar change at 550lbs to the long bar vs just a deadlift bar so my plan is to have that likely be my opener but have to see how things are. Rather not have to take an attempt besides warm ups on the other bar really. Contest has 25lbs jumps and with three attempts I’m probably looking at doing 50-75lbs jumps and maybe going for just 2 attempts. Anyways, my hope if everything felt amazing was to do 50lbs jumps to the double after warming up. In the best case scenario, that was going to be 603lbs for the double and leaving myself the option to do that with back up plan being 583lbs. I didn’t want to do the same weight as the singles ideally. The new stitching did make the suit a bit tighter in the legs but there was still issues with the legs riding up. But I could tell that it felt tighter overall with not having the straps as tight as I made them the previous week on the last two sets. With how 553lbs went, it didn’t feel so comfortable to me that I felt 603lbs for a double was going up without needing to go into the reserves, which was not what I was told to do. No berserker rage here. In hindsight, it could be that I had tightened the bar extenders and the bar sleeves weren’t rotating like they usually do. It just felt like the bar wanted to be stiffer today. I know for contest it would’ve been 25lbs or 50lbs here but I went with 30lbs as close enough. The start of that first rep was a bit slow but I knew I had the double once the second rep broke the floor. I had three here for sure but not sure if I could get four. At least not with the current mental state I was at. I’ve only gone into greater arousal this prep for pulls on that one week after I was sick with the 513lbs sets for doubles. I saw a splatter of blood on my left sock after that set and I was worried if that had come from my nose or something but I guess the bar had cut open my shin at some point. Did the double and shut it down. I want to do more but I got another heavy session left and when it matters is going to be the competition. Just have to remind myself of things like no clue how this setup compares and that I’ve never pulled on that bar so anything is technically a PR. I will need to make sure I keep reinforcing the seams so that things are good for day of competition. This is the shorter session with aim indicating specifically to be able to recover for Day 3 session. So like last week (after putting away the deadlift stuff) started with seated ssb gms. I had aimed for max flexion last week but apparently aim is hips and keep the lower back rigid. Save the rounding for the jeffersons. So I adjusted my ROM and how I was doing these this time around. 3x10 with more weight and still doing a pause. These actually felt a bit more lower back doing them this way honestly. Which is what I wanted with the blood flow here. Besides suited deadlift, the next thing was also the logistics hassle for me. Superset of supported single leg dumbbell rdls with chest supported dumbbell rows. The addition of being allowed to have my hand support as really allowed me to work the ROM and weight on these rdls compared to being at the mercy of my balance. Last week the rdls had felt light and I felt maybe I went too heavy on the rows. Well this week same weight on rdls (more reps) and more weight on the rows (less reps). At present, I don’t have enough weight to have both sets of implements fully loaded at the same time so I have to move weights from one to the other between the superset. I did feel that last week only one warm up set hadn’t been near enough for my body to be ready for rows. So I did an extra work up set. The rdls felt fine and rows like last week I felt better as I did the sets. I’ve maxed out the small weights I got besides a pair of 2.5lbs so hopefully plan is more reps on the rows or something. I’m glad these both held up considering the biceps being sore earlier in the week and heavy rows. Last thing for the session was Jefferson curls. Same weigh and reps as last time. Apparently, I was to do those with a minute rest and I didn’t pay attention to that and likely did 1.5 minutes rest since that’s usually how long it takes me to do a lap inside my house and come back. I paid attention this time as it said 45 seconds rest. With the length of set, it was going to be about 30 seconds of work and 45 seconds rest. Of the sessions doing these with actual weight, this was the least issues I’ve had with holding the weight. Put stuff away and started cooking up dinner and then stretched.