February 18, 2026 – Week 1, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

13” Wagon Wheel Axle Deadlifts (straps)
116x5
206x3
296x2
346x1
396x1
441x6
446x6
451x6
456x6

Sandbag to Shoulders (left side only)
175x1/225x0
175x1/225x1
175x1/225x1
175x1/225x1
175x1/225x1
175x1/225x1
175x1/225x1

Deadstop Safety Bar Good Mornings (lower to deadlift pull height)
65x8
95x6
125x4
155x8
160x8
165x8

Sandbag Zercher Stationary Lunges
bwx5/5
bwx5/5
112x10/10
112x10/10
112x10/10

Deadstop Supported Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Pull Ups
62x4/4 – bwx3
102x8/8 – bwx5
102x8/8 – bwx5
102x8/8 – bwx5

Stretching

Comments:  Well, I was right about being incredibly sore in my pecs and triceps. And it is a kind of soreness that will likely be present until next week’s session where I do all again. But hopefully it will not be a sore then and not take as long. Work itself hasn’t been as draining but it is a lot but light at the end of the tunnel at least with this being the last week of the four weeks on this rotation and back to my preferred schedule that will allow for more sleep/time. But can’t just let it go by easy as the city decided that now was a great time to do a construction project on the route I take to work and having to take a detour to get to and from. I ended up being late for work Tuesday as I got lost on the detour but no issues today. I wasn’t too sure how long the workout tonight would take as some of it seemed like not bad on paper but other stuff could take longer. Soft tissue work to start things off here. Considering how much I needed on my lower legs Monday, things were pretty easy and quick here on this today. The neck rehab was where I was going to get reminders of my sore pecs. But even that just felt good on them. Lower body stretching was a little tight but not in a way that had me doing double like Monday. I remembered to do the dead hang today in the warming up. Man, am I still feeling whatever as my left forearm was feeling sore besides my tight pec, triceps and (by extension) lats. With that done, it was time to do the lifting. No tib/calf raises at this time. The next show has a deadlift event with an axle using the 13” pull setup of the “wagon wheels” that have become popular. So this would be a first touch of one of the events. Contest is 535lbs for reps (no suits). Instructions for today was to work up to 4x6 at about RPE 8. Not sure where I was on this as been pulling from the floor on axle and bendy bar setup and last month or so has been with a suit. But the hope would be that the elevated position with my levers would potentially be more advantageous to me. I’ve also not felt like I had good juju with the wagon wheels as of late with the last prep for a show using them as an event I had bailed out on due to a lot of strong emotions and then trying to bring them in to spice up my training out of boredom. The math says that if I’m good for a single at competition weight, I should be able to do 8 reps at 426lbs so that was the bare minimum for the working weight. I was initially going to do 40-50lbs jumps but I’m kind of used to the plate jumps to start now and then switching to that. Going above what is “3 plates” is where things get tricky to gauge how I’m feeling. Feeling like do this and then dropping back and so on. I was feeling a lot of pressure doing the singles working up. I settled on 200kgs or so and really hoped I didn’t overestimate myself here. Other than my body being confused on why I’m deadlifting, this felt like I lowballed the RPE a good bit. So added 5lbs and figured I’d do that each set. Well the second set didn’t feel as easy as the first and had me reconsidering adding more weight but I did anyways and that felt a little bit better. Last set is when I think I remember that key to having a tight and short stroke on the deadlift and that seemed to be fine. I felt I had reps in the tank but I could tell my back and hamstrings were fighting hard. Hamstrings were twitching like crazy and it was having the weights shake on me on some of the later reps of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th set. This is a decent starting point here. With the exercises as they were here, this was likely the only break between where I could use the time to tear down and setup to get some liquids in me as the rest of it would get a bit tricky. The next things was sandbag to shoulders. Another event for the Midwest qualifier. Max weight but you have 60 seconds to achieve that out of selection of bags. Not sure what those will be but I have some idea. So this would appear to be the placement of this event on this day rather than with all the other events like last prep. Only doing singles to my strong side with 175lbs and 225lbs bag. Plan was to do 5 rounds of that but I biffed it the first attempt and then noticed after my first “good set” that my camera was off so I added another since this wasn’t too taxing. This was a little trickier than it should’ve been because I was trying out a different style of shouldering. My method has worked with bags up to point with size wise and weight but if the weight bag option I think will be available is there, I’m not sure if my way will be manageable. So trying something that may work with having the bag upright vs laying on the ground. This was also a reminder that the chalk I bought most recently is garbage quality and I need to get something better. Last set felt the best here. The rest of the workout was not going to be events and was not going to be fun. The mention about my lower back not feeling as strong was received loud and clear as I got more good mornings on the menu after all the deadlifting. Dead stop style with the ssb. I had did somewhat of a version of these when I was doing my own thing last year but that had not been to a dead stop. Plan being work up to 3x8. I was initially expecting more weight to be needed here but that had been based off the other variation and I ended up lowering what I needed here by a good bit wanting to keep form strict/good after the axle pulls. I could tell my lower back was feeling the previous two exercises as unracking the weight had the weight feeling the most heavy on my lower back and feeling relatively fine when doing the movement. This was another humbling one but need to work things to be stronger. The exercise that followed may be the most terrible thing Ms. Funk has had me do since she started my coaching. Notes said to do zercher stationary lunges while holding a sandbag to my chest. Be tight and move fast. My lightest sandbag at home is 112lbs and don’t know if I’ve gone above 100lbs total for any split squat or lunge type variation since starting with her. I did bodyweight (well I also held 3 couch cushions so I was bearhugging something) and my knees (mostly my right) were not thrilled with this. So knee sleeves were going to be needed here. I also added my soft belt. Getting into position wasn’t bad but man was this intense just getting the reps here. I had to do a double take that very first rep as I didn’t feel like I could do it at first. Now I’ve been doing unilateral stuff with this training as doing maybe 30 seconds rest between sides at most. But when I’d done other training where the single side stuff is really pushing things, I’ve treated each side as its own set and rest accordingly. That hasn’t really been viable when these are supersetted into things. With this one, with how intense this was feeling, I went that route as I feel that if I went right into the next one like that, I’d not have a good time with short rest to repick the sandbag back up. This took a bit longer than I was expecting and I was not expecting this to be the most intense thing of this session. I had to take a bit to recover after that before I got to the final thing and it was already pretty late considering having to get up earlier with the current shift. The last thing was a superset. A slight modification to the supported single leg dumbbell rdls in that suggested to do them from dead stop if I could. The other half of this being then regular ass pull ups. Aim for max reps. It has been months since I’ve done these. I was initially going to do the same weight I was doing and left off on with the rdls but with how beat I was feeling and the increased effort of pausing the reps on the floor, I had to reduce the weight a good bit to keep from stumbling (even with support from the rack). In hindsight, I probably could’ve gone a bit heavier with how things were moving. The pull ups was a different story. I did a set of 3 reps as a warm up and those were really tough. I was not going to be doing a lot of reps today. I used the rack in the garage rather than go outside to cut down on time between the exercises. I got a rough five here. This was going to kill me. I dry heaved a little during my rest. I didn’t have that issue on the other sets and I managed to match the reps on the pull ups. It was only after I was done that I realized I had forgotten to turn on the camera so I missed that last exercise pairing. I guess there is next time. I was moving slow like a zombie after this and took a bit for me to get dinner down after the retching. Eventually stretched and got to bed late. Hopefully doesn’t effect me too much tomorrow and I can try and get some sleep in the coming days again.