January 24, 2026 – Week 21, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Paused Safety Squat Bar Squats (2 seconds)
65x6
115x4
165x2
215x1
265x3
265x3
265x3
265x3

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only, with run up)
49x5
85x3
108x2
130x1
(60 minute rests)
150x1
150x1
150x1
150x1
60 Second Sets
140x10

Yoke and Sandbag Husafell Carries (50’ run back)
Y – 195x50’
Y – 285x50’
Y – 375x50’
Y – 465x50’
Y – 555x25’
Y – 645x25’
735xpick (3 seconds)/290x5’
735x50’/290x50’ in 35.27 seconds
750x50’/290x50’ in 33.30 seconds

Rolling D-Handle Hangs
bw for 5 seconds
bw+114 for 43.67 seconds
bw+114 for 34.73 seconds

Atlas Stones
55”
315x2
51” 
330x2
45 second sets
350x4 (1 miss)

Stretching

Comments: For as good as I felt at the beginning of this week, that inverse is how bad I felt at the end. Thursday evening I felt like I was getting a scratchy throat and watery eyes and I had hoped it was just allergies with the high winds blowing in stuff from god knows where. But it was quite obvious Friday that it wasn’t that. Still, the plan was to get in this last really heavy event training session in early so that I can recover with the deload. My work already closed Monday and Tuesday for the once in a decade predicted snow fall (I’d still have to work remotely though) so that was going to give me a little more time to recover with sleep before the revert in work schedule again. But I woke up Saturday at work time and I did not feel great. I couldn’t stop coughing and my joints ached and I felt cold. Only people I’d been around this week was my parents one evening and I guess I caught something there (my mom does substitute teaching in her retirement). I guess stress from work and just whatever is going on right now in this country are taxing me as well as the training. I felt bad enough that I wrote off this session. If even a fraction of the planned snow hit tomorrow, there was not going anywhere or even trying to train at home in any real fashion. I was up for about an hour and called it a day and went back to bed. I must have been wiped as I don’t think I’ve ever fallen back to sleep after drinking coffee (I only drink one cup in the morning and limit caffeine to that). I fell asleep for 4hrs and woke up feeling significantly better. I still didn’t feel great but my whole body didn’t ache and I wasn’t hacking and horking. This was manageable. It was 1PM so not ideal to start training that would likely take hours with impending snow storm. But I figured I’d give it a shot (after eating my planned after workout sandwich). Drive out wasn’t bad but it is really cold right now.  My one friend (doing Arnold prep) was still there even though she had been there when I was planning to go out 4hrs earlier. She had a lot of stupid events to setup solo it would seem. I helped with the last “optional” event before I really started getting into my own training. Throat tickle came back before I started lifting and that had me a little worried but it calmed down thankfully. Didn’t need a ton of soft tissue work (maybe because of the Nyquil and Dayquil). Neck rehab stuff was fine. My left shoulder was feeling pretty tight though. Stretching for lower body was definitely needed as stuff was feeling tight there as well. Dead hang as well. On to training. Pauses with the ssb for squats. I’ve been enjoying the monolift for these I guess. Plan here was work up to 265 for 4x3 with the pauses. I was advised that the flex of the glutes at lockout wasn’t enough and that I need to be thinking of explosively lifting the whole way through on the concentric and trying to think fast twitch. I felt that I’d probably be able to manage that better with lower reps in the sets. At least if I was feeling like I did last week. My knees were feeling achy unfortunately and I knew that with the congestion that I’d feel a bit more pressure on squats and such. These squats thankfully didn’t feel as awful as they did that one session right before I took the mandatory deload. But these felt rougher than last week. I was initially worried that I miscounted the first set (I had to take a bit to collect myself between reps that set). I do feel I got these to be more explosive in movement but it was hard going. These are still to be a primer. I wasn’t sure how the rest of the session would go as last time when I had felt like this, I had called it after dumbbell was feeling bad. Which was the next thing. Plan here was work up to contest weight for four singles and then drop 10lbs and do a minute AMRAP. Same warming up besides the last jump before working sets. I did experiment here with no knee sleeves after seeing how my axle push press had felt. With my knees being achy with squats, I wasn’t sure if this would make that much difference. No knee issues here without sleeves. Felt a little more stable I think. This might be the way to go. Initially, the dumbbell at contest weight wasn’t feeling so hot but I did feel better as I went on these. I did not have someone that I could really trust to do contest down calls for the minute set so I just tried to recall how the reps had felt when I got the down call last time here. I wasn’t expecting to get 10 reps here. Breathing afterwards was hard due to the head cold but this was good and felt solid. Even with how I was feeling, I didn’t think the singles would be out of reach but I didn’t think I’d be able to get a minute set done so this was good. The next thing I wasn’t so keen on doing. Yoke into husabag. The initial plan was to work up to 735lbs on the yoke for two runs with the 290lbs husabag (since can’t make it any heavier) with expectation to do contest weight or so next weekend at end of deload. However, I had suggested that this be the last heavy session for it since this can take a bit out of me and with just knowing that recovery won’t be the best leading up to the show with the work shift and just how I handle things when having to take time and just how things had kind of gone with the short prep with world’s and bailing on the last workout. So the potential options were to do those runs as planned and then do 2 sets of holds with 750lbs for 10-15 seconds after that or to do one run at 735lbs and then the second run at 750lbs if I felt I could do it with no issues. With how 720lbs had felt last week, I felt like I could do contest weight already. Well so much for the big game I talked as I was not feeling that same way this session. 645lbs was feeling close to how 720lbs had felt last week so not a good sign. But I stuck to the plan here. My intent with the pick was a 5 seconds hold but I was a bit too aggressive and had a bit of forward momentum so dropped it at 3 seconds. I was advised I spent too much time fiddling around with the husabag to get up and go last week and my hope was to not do that this time around. I was dealing with the cold and indigestion at this point and I was not moving super fast with the yoke but I was moving steady. I tried to go fast with picking up the husabag and that didn’t go great as it tilted on me and it became a bit of a fight to correct and get it up and moving in not an ideal position. Like 4 seconds slower than last weeks time. I felt like that doing this again I’d be faster and might as well add 15lbs as with how I’m feeling, it will likely feel the same to me. Doing holds after this would just have me here longer and don’t want to potentially get caught in any snow driving home. As I thought, I was able to go faster this set with more weight by not screwing up the pick as bad on the husabag as well. It wasn’t as good as it could be with moving here. But I got 750lbs on yoke done, which is the most I’ve done in training since 2024. Finally able to get a little food (rice Krispie treat) in me to hopefully spike a little more energy to finish out the session. Initial plan here after the yoke and stuff was to do the rolling handle hangs again for two sets of max time. I did express interest in doing one more set on the Hercules hold just to get something heavier and work with balance as the setup at the show looks a bit unwieldy. But with showing up 4hrs late, that wasn’t happening so reverting back to just the hangs. I had been surprised how comfortable 100lbs had felt and so I was tempted to do that again but figured since there was weight out on the power stair/duck walk implements, I’d do that. 114lbs and doing these hangs. I was surprised I got near 45 seconds that first set. The drop off on the second set was expected, regardless of the rest I took. My forearms didn’t get as pumped as last week when it was time to do stones. A little less volume with the plan being two doubles with lighter weight and then the 350lbs stone for a set of 45 seconds. I had new tacky I’ve never tried before and I unfortunately forgot to bring a fresh roll of tape so I was lucky to get as much coverage on my forearms as I did. I was feeling pretty worn by this point and wasn’t expecting much from myself or the new tacky. So color me surprised with how strong the tacky was that it get me issues on the first set where I had to fight to get myself off the stone. So I guess I got a good winter time alternative to my other tacky I like. I felt better on the next set and eventually got ready for the work set. My understanding being this is the last heavy stone session. Tacky was sticking well and I wasn’t going as fast a pace at the start compared to last time but I was quite surprised that I had like 8 seconds left after getting four reps. I wasn’t expecting to have that much time and I think because of that I hesitated a little with it and then I got off balance and fumbled it with having it too low on my person going for a fifth rep. It was as close to a load as it could be with it not being on the platform since it spun off. So I’m not really counting that as a miss there. I felt fine afterwards and had to clean up before downing a shake and then driving home with plans to eat dinner and then stretch and shower. Now I need to make sure I recover and hopefully not get snowed in for days.