January 7, 2026 – Week 19, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

Suited Long Bar Deadlifts (straps)
No Suit
143x5
233x3
Added Suit (single-ply)
323x2
413x1
483x1
533x4
533x4
543x4
543x4

Paused Seated Safety Squat Bar Goodmornings (21” box, 1 second)
65x12
75x12
85x12

Supported Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows
65x5/5 – 56’sx8
125x5/5 -- 106’sx8
130x5/5 -- 106’sx8
135x5/5 -- 106’sx8

Zercher Jefferson Curls
95x12
95x12
95x12

Stretching

Comments:  We’ve gotten to the weather where it is very dry and got to watch out for cracks in skin. One of my fingers had been bleeding from cuticle on Monday session and some knicks on my shins from the dumbbell rowing. Got to keep a watch on my heels I guess. The dryness also has me coughing a little more. Still super annoyed about that one coworker getting me sick last month and still having things lingering. They better not be sick when I come back in the end of this month. I made sure to get in a walk Tuesday during lunch. Stuff is crazy right now and just doing what I can. Soft tissue work to start things off with getting ready to train. Still needing a fair amount on the calves but not as much as the previous session this week. Needed less in the other areas as well. Neck rehab was fine, little tension in the left shoulder. No issues with the stretching for hips, knees and ankles. Dead hang followed after that. It was a bit warmer today compared to Monday. I did the tib into calf raise exercise for two sets to start things off. Then it was time to make the deadlifts. Suit work again. Last week had been a deload and that was needed as an intervention. Last time had not been good. It wasn’t terrible but it just left me wrecked. Each pull had felt close to RPE 10 (when was to be RPE 8-9) and just felt like it was all lower back. I had expected more from myself as well. But this did lead me to reconsider things as far as whether more suit was really better here. I took a gamble and went back to my single ply suit and I did some tailoring on it to make the legs tighter to hopefully keep from sliding up my legs. I had to watch a tutorial to remind myself how to sow as it has been like 25yrs since I last did it. So a bit of risk here as well in hoping that the seams would hold. Plan for today was to do 4x4 with between 520-540lbs with no misses. It sounds like the plan is suit on the rest of the way and heavier next week. I know suit work can take a toll on me (as seen with how last time went). First two warming up sets like last time with no gear and then putting on the suit after that. Gradually adding support gear and stuff as I went and fine tuning things. No shirt or shoes here. Shirt gets in the way with getting the straps on by myself with this suit and keeping reasonably tight and shoes make it harder to bring my feet together. I also wore four pairs of spandex shorts to add some thickness to my legs and hips but also to cut down on bruising on my thighs and hips. I had learned this trick with my single ply suit in 2022. I did feel like I could get my hips down into this better compared to last week and it wasn’t feeling like all lower back. But I was still very nervous with how the working sets would go. Granted there was a lot of pressure on my body, things went fairly smooth. I was gradually making the straps tighter the first two sets and decided to add 10lbs for the last two sets. I could tell by the end I was feeling tired from the effort. I didn’t realize how jacked my shoulders look with this lighting and the suit. I was feeling much better about how the suit was going. I will need to do some more tailoring for next session. My seams held for the most part but some got stretched and it was also still sliding up by the end. Thankfully, the rest of the workout for lower body stuff wasn’t terrible intense. Suit takes it out of me and my Day 3 sessions seem poised to be really long and tough days so get the strain done on deadlifts and do stuff to promote recovery. So the first of those things was the seated ssb gms. I had mentioned I like them and more so than the Jefferson curls and that something like that is good after the suit work to recover so these showed up. Advised to do 3x12 with a pause and light. I could use the empty ssb. Which was the plan but I felt like I probably could go up a little bit and I did each set. I took off my glasses (like I’m doing now on Jefferson curls) so as not worrying about them falling off and fully commit to the mobility/ROM. I had the power rack setup here and I wasn’t too sure with how I was proceeding with the session if I should leave it or put it away. I didn’t necessarily need it for what was next but it probably would be needed for the last thing. So I left it out and incorporated it into the superset. The recent superset has been single leg dumbbell rdls with chest supported dumbbell raises (upper back emphasis). Well looks to be that the rdls stay but the raises are not rows. Which lead to a bit of challenge. Having enough weight to load these up as needed. Essentially I was going to need to do one exercise and then take weights from that and put them on the other dumbbells to do the next exercise and so forth. I’ve done chest support dumbbell rows but it has been since like March and April last  year I was doing them. I was given some advice that I can hold onto something doing the one leg rdls due to my balance issues if that would hopefully allow me to keep constant tension and increase the ROM to like how I was doing on the deload week. The rdls were suggested 120-130lbs for 3x5 reps. I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable these felt with having the support guidance and being able to get a full ROM here. I ended up adding 5lbs per set here. It will be interesting to see how these progress. The rows what I did to warm up hadn’t been enough as that first set felt quite rough and had me thinking maybe I went too heavy too soon. But I knew that sometimes it feels off at first and then I can repeat it going forward. Last thing for the session was Jefferson curls. I was kind of surprised that I’d do these and the ssb seated gms. 3x12 and lighter and trying to move through them fairly quick. I had considered trying them with holding the weight in my hand but I figured it was a little late now and not worth hassle trying to figure it out. I think I was just concerned about pressure and bruising in my forearms and my nerves. But no issues that first set. A little the second set when I tried to hold it a different way (and my upper abs cramped on me) so it does seem that I need to try and keep my palms facing up to not compress the one nerve in my forearm on the left side. Got through the third set and no issues there. I was definitely feeling the session after the fact. Put stuff away and cooked up dinner before stretching.