January 17, 2026 – Week 20, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Paused Safety Squat Bar Squats (2 seconds)
65x6
115x4
155x2
205x2
245x5
250x5
255x5
260x5

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only, with run up)
49x5
85x3
108x2
120x2
(60 minute rests)
140x1
140x1
140x1
140x1
140x1
140x1
60 Second Sets
130x11 (1 miss)

Yoke and Sandbag Husafell Carries (50’ run back)
Y – 180x50’
Y – 270x50’
Y – 360x50’
Y – 450x50’
Y – 540x25’
Y – 630x25’
720xpick (5 seconds)/290x5’
720x50’/290x50’ in 32.77 seconds
720x50’/290x50’ in 31.87 seconds

Rolling D-Handle Hangs
bw for 5 seconds
bw+70 for 45 seconds
bw+70 for 45 seconds
bw+70 for 35 seconds

Atlas Stones
55”
315x2
315x2
51” 
330x2
30 second sets
350x3

Stretching

Comments: It would be an interesting day for training. Last week with this session, I had been anxious and quite surprised with how well I handled going from a mandatory deload and like I didn’t skip a session and then do a light session for some of the events. But how would things be after doing a week of hard training and then expectation to do more than the week before as has been the case? Contest prep/peak is quite intense and I can see why building up tolerance to volume for my body to hopefully recover better is needed for the aggressiveness of plan. I’m learning all the time. I had more bruises from suit work but I wasn’t feeling as beat with only the top set. But even so, I didn’t feel as “rested” going into this session. I did try to go to sleep earlier like I had last week but fell a little short of that and did need to hit snooze twice. But that was fine because the winter weather had other plans. Thankfully where I am, there was barely anything but to the east where I’d need to go, it was not great. So there was some hesitancy with getting out to train (my one friend decided to train local rather than deal with the roads) as my parents warned that they saw accidents out that way. There were like 5 reported accidents on the route I take. I didn’t want to go too late and while I have off for holiday Monday, I really didn’t want o play around with training dates this close to competition with trying to manage stress and recovery. I contemplated training Sunday as it seemed like better weather wise. I’m glad I didn’t listen to that as my area got hit with a lot of snow Sunday morning. Drive out was fine most of the way (although there were some idiots in my local development) and then big slow down once I got close to the gym. There were only tow people there besides myself when I arrived and they left shortly afterwards. People that are generally in earlier came later and those that come later weren’t affected in the slightest. I had not walked on Friday because I took too long on my lunch to get ready and it got dark and cold fast after work and figured I’d rather prioritize sleep. I didn’t need a lot of foam rolling on my lower body but did need a bit for my upper back. Neck rehab stuff felt fine. Lower body stretching was good and nice decompression from the dead hang. On to training. Pauses with the ssb for squats. The ssb was already in the monolift so I figured I’d just do that rather than move. And perhaps I’m getting used to it. So like last week, this was to be a primer and doing 4x5 with same weight as last time. Notes were to flex glutes a lockout. I was being explosive out of the hole but kind of “coasting” to lockout. I think I didn’t focus on that as I was worried about losing my brace and getting off balance being violent and aggressive there. I think I also felt that some people do that even if the movement isn’t fast from the hole. These felt better than they did last week. My knees and ankles didn’t feel as stiff so I took bigger jumps in weight to get to where I was going to be. As these were feeling better, the weight was feeling easier than last week so I added 5lbs per set and that didn’t really change the difficulty here. With that done, I was moving on to my event specific stuff. With first thing being circus dumbbell. I did the same abbreviated warm up as last week. The plan was to work up to 140lbs for 6 singles and then do a timed set with 130lbs. For the 140lbs, I was to do 60 seconds rest between the lifts. I reset the dumbbell to be upright each time here. I misstepped slightly on the fifth one and almost twisted my right ankle at the start. Not sure what that was about. For the timed set, this was to be 60 seconds. Ms. Funk mentioned I should be focusing on the solid lockout as I may not get the down call at contest when I go fast. I believe up until this point I was more focused on getting it moving fast and my confidence again after some hiccups with needing the deload week. It hasn’t been a straight line of progress. But with how last week had gone, I felt I had things where I wanted them and that I’d try to have someone do commands for this week. It definitely makes a difference. On video it only looks like a fraction of a second but it feels longer. Ensuring the stability was having me not have the best balance with things with going from one rep to the next. All the little things added to fatigue as the set went on. I could tell I wasn’t on the same pace as I was with the 45 second sets last week. I rushed going for the 11th the first time and I aborted it and set it down. I checked my time to see what I had left and if it made sense to go for it again. The contest is allowing “shot clock” rules so as long as it is moving, it will count. I had like 4 seconds left so I went for it. It was ugly but I got the down call. That was exhausting. I know that I won’t be at 100% at contest due to the heavy medley being beforehand but I know I can push through. Up next was the aforementioned medley. Last week I had swapped order to get in a set of Hercules hold. That wasn’t in the plan today and even if I wanted to, not enough people to help do that anyways. I did have to wait a bit as the lanes were being used. But not so long that I wanted to change up the order again. Plan for today was work up to two top sets. Jumps for this have been aggressive considering things. The plan for today was 30lbs more than last week on yoke and 20lbs more on the husabag. This maxes out what I got with the husabags and I see no way of getting anymore into the one I have even looking at techniques others have used. Last week with yoke had been surprising in that I went up 80lbs from the last time I touched it and didn’t really have that big a drop in time. I was to only do 75lbs but the plate math was easier not dealing with chips. I decided to make the increase 40lbs instead of 30lbs. That way I could just do 90lbs jumps from the empty yoke to working weight. So get a little extra set with empty implement to see how knees doing. Also would have me within doing contest weight yoke next week if warranted. Did the same warming up that I did last week albeit heavier. The working weight took me a bit by surprise with my pick as initially I didn’t fully commit to it and thought I could pop it up and I didn’t quite stand up with it. With that little slap to the ego, I did it correctly and it went up fine. The husabag I knew was going to be a little different. It is the heavier of the two but it more shaped like the actual rock verse the other one that is just trapezoid shaped. It has nice spots to hold it. The more compact one does not and I remember how rough it felt my first session using it. It wasn’t too bad today. In training last year, I hadn’t gone over 700lbs on yoke so to go up this quickly and have it feel ok pretty neat. Not the fastest and I was a little worried that I’d get off balance here but failure wasn’t an option. Starting not under it to get tight and braced makes this tougher for me. But got it done and ran back to the husabag. A little hesitancy to pick at first but once I got it up I was good and it was a nonissue. Not sure why I decided to chuck it so violently after the first set. Yoke felt a little better on the second set. Only about a second slower compared to last week with less weight on both implements. Put that nonsense away and at a rice Krispie treat to get my energy up as I still had two more things to go. And this felt like the best time to have something in my stomach and not have the exercise cause me to feel indigestion. So to work the things for Hercules hold, doing the rolling d-handle hangs. Plan being 3 sets of 45 seconds. Now I’ve had issues in the past (as in all the time) with repeated efforts during a workout. Usually if I hit a heavy hold, I have to drop the weight down by like 90% to be able to do multiple sets. I was very surprised I did two comfortable holds with 100lbs for 30 seconds last week. I figured that I’d need to drop off a decent amount of weight to find something that would be good for 45 seconds. I apparently chose too heavy as I was only able to manage it for 2 sets and came up 10 seconds short on the third set. This was with long rests as my forearms were getting pumped up from these. First set had been fine if a little tough and then second set was right about my limits. I think my previous best for 45 seconds had been with 45lbs added (I am a bit lighter though). I do feel like these are better training than the Hercules hold for the event but I think it is still a good idea to get a session or two on the apparatus just to deal with the balance aspect. My forearms were pumped enough that I took a little bit with getting setup for stones. I didn’t want my tape wrapped too tight nor did I want my forearms that fatigued. Plan for stones was to do 310lbs to 55” for 2x2 and then move to the 51” platform to do heavier things. I did ask Ms. Funk if I could perhaps do 315lbs instead as that stone looked to be in better shape than the 310lbs at least when it comes to tacky accumulation as last week that stone just ate all my tacky and was dirty/dusty. I don’t remember the stones being like this when I was using the years ago unfortunately. Some of the stones I know didn’t get the “cleaning treatment” (the heavier ones) so they may still be like they should. I’m low on tacky (I didn’t plan on increase frequency with prep or having to deal with shipping/tariffs on my preferred brand lol). The only tacky left was some old Elite Tacky (I’ve not had good luck and needs to be heated up to use) and a little bit of Spider Tack (ok) and a little bit of STAB Tack (which I like). I used just the remaining Spider Tack for the 315lbs stone. I had to do a bit of maneuvering to get it from the one side to the other. This did stick better than the 310lbs but I needed more tacky after that so I had to use some of the remaining STAB Tack after that. 330lbs for a double was next. It went up easy the first rep but I had a little issue on the second. I forgot to tuck my shoe laces and I got my fingers on my right hand inside the loops when I went down so I had to not do that before picking up the second lift here. Dangerously low on tacky. I shipped some to my younger brother in Arizona so I didn’t have to worry about it possibly being confiscated by the TSA traveling. I delayed purchase of tacky due to no longer having a US distributor so having to pay international shipping and now tariffs on top of that. So pricy for likely only this one prep having atlas stones with tacky (out of vogue). I was not feeling the most energetic coming into the stones. Last set was a 30 seconds set with the 350lbs 21” diameter stone. This stone unfortunately also got the “cleaning treatment” but do to being pretty darn heavy, it hasn’t been as used so still has some stick to it. But it isn’t as it was 2.5yrs ago. My expectations was to get 3 reps here in 30 seconds and maybe try for 4. First rep was good and second ok, tacky was feeling like it was gone going for the third one so there was some hesitancy as I needed to make sure my grip was secure. The biceps issues happen when something that is secure suddenly isn’t and causes a gap/slip. There were some miscommunications with stuff as I think I had 3 seconds left after the third rep. Not enough time to get a lift (not shot clock like overhead event). But this is what I expected. Going to try and see if I can get some tacky (not the brand I like/want) to make sure I have enough for at least one more session on stones. Ate and drank the stuff I packed and put stuff away before driving home pretty late. The roads were clear by that point. Stretched when I got back and cleaned up. Very close to the end of this. Just got to keep it together a little longer.