February 25, 2026 – Week 2, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up

13” Wagon Wheel Axle Deadlifts (straps)
141x5
231x3
321x2
371x1
421x1
471x3
471x3
471x3
471x3
471x3

Sandbag to Shoulders (left side only)
175x1
225x1
265x1
175x1/225x1/265x1
175x1/225x1/265x1
175x1/225x1/265x0,0,1

Comments:  It was nice to get a walk in. A little worn from stuff but I feeling decent enough. Not very sore in my upper body but upper back and shoulders a little stiff. Another dose of the second day and I was looking forward to it. But I guess my allergies had other ideas. I initially did nasal spray and that didn’t seem to cover it and then Claritin. I didn’t want to use Dayquil as this didn’t feel like it was that serious. Just annoying. I can tolerate annoying. So started things off with soft tissue work. I had been tempted to do this during my lunch break just so that I could get right into training but I figured it was best to do this together and not get cold from desk work for hours beforehand. Lower legs needed it. Still some soreness in the hamstrings that was present Monday. And about what was expected in the quads and upper back. Rehab for the neck pretty standard with getting some tension out of the chest, shoulders, upper back and neck. Lower body stretching for the hips, knees and ankles after that. Dead hang felt good. Then garage time for heavy lifting. I had needed my warm ups Monday at the start but it felt like it was warm enough to not need them this session. Axle pulls with the wagon wheels again. What was planned was expected by how the last session went and kind of how I imagine things would be. So work up to 470ish and do that for 5x3. With how things had felt last week, I figured that this would likely feel rough and heavy at the start getting ready and then pretty decent on the working sets with getting more used to it. Maybe be doing reps with +500lbs the next “heavy day” (assuming like with the bendy bar prep). This is a much shorter one though. Again, the plate jumps have things feeling a little odd with how heavy stuff feels around 315lbs. From there, singles with 50lbs jumps to the working weight. I had gotten a little excited last week with my last warming up set not inspiring confidence and then it seemed I undershot a little on the effort. So I knew that could be coming and maybe that had me not as hyped here. But that first set felt rough. I felt lightheaded on that first pull and had to take a moment after each pull that set to make sure I was still conscious and pull it again. I did not pass out here thankfully. But not an enjoyable start to the deadlift session. Now thankfully, I didn’t have that issue after the first set. Allergy meds do not help with the pressure unfortunately. I do have this with some working up sets but usually once it is like that, I’m inoculated for the rest of the training session. I also made it a point to hold the lockouts for a beat here as there will be up and down commands on this event. Third set felt the best but could be because the music was having me a little more excited vs the other song choices (it was the same song that came on doing dumbbell Saturday). I got through this volume work with decently heavy weight here without incident so that was good. The next things was sandbag to shoulders. This was adjusted from last time with instead of being doubles now triples with the 175lbs, 225lbs and 265lbs sandbags. At least that was the plan. I was advised if that was too much at this time to do a double with the 225lbs bag after the 175lbs bag. I didn’t want to think that as too much for me as I’ve thrown around 225lbs easy enough for multiple sets for time in my off season prep (albeit my previous pick and shoulder style). I was thinking that this would go better than last time as I tend to improve on these things quickly and I wanted to see how a full bag would feel vs the floppy ones. So my plan here was to do singles with each bag rather than try and jump right into it like last time where I didn’t have a good time. This did not start off well. 175lbs felt awful to shoulder that first rep. Really hoping just getting some rust off here and still recovering from the pulls. 225lbs wasn’t too great either. My hope was that 265lbs would be my salvation. That I could say that I didn’t need to do these lighter bags that won’t be like at contest with the setup. Certainly felt firmer but I seemed to not know what to do with it. Like a serious brain fart and my attempts to bump it up my body had it barely moving. It just felt so damn heavy on my side and I didn’t feel like I could stand up with it in position. This is not a sensation I’ve ever felt before with this event. Honestly, I wouldn’t have counted this lift if I was judging but I figured this was a warm up and that when I went live, it would be better. With the actual sets, I was told to not go right from one to the other, but take a 5-8 seconds breather between each bag. I’m doing reps at this time but it will be a max and this is to train for me making multiple attempts in that minute if needed. With how rough warming up was, I went with 8 seconds to start. 175lbs was easy and 225lbs was not the best but it didn’t feel terrible. 265lbs was up now. The upright style is not doing my any favors it seems as I’m not staying close to the bag as this size bag is really low to the ground. It took like 3 bumps to get this to the shoulder and it was not a smooth transition up there but it was world’s better than my warm up attempt. I decided with how much pressure that was putting on my left side to “lockout”, that I’d see if my hard belt helped with that. I’ve tended to avoid a hard belt on things like sandbag, stones and kegs but I’m willing to learn and adapt to what I have. So hard belt on for the second set. 175lbs was easy, 225lbs the pick the bag didn’t go how I wanted so a little tougher. Still doing 8 seconds rest here. 265lbs went up in one movement after I got my position settled in the lap after the pick. So I guess this did something. So aim now was to make last set the best set here. 175lbs went up easy and despite a little issue with the bag on pick with both that and 225lbs, they went up easy with 5 seconds rest. So I went for the 265lbs bag. But I didn’t balance it right on the pick so it was bottom heavy and didn’t quite clear my legs. I didn’t want to drop it (should’ve) and rotated on my knees so that I was holding it like I would for a carry and generally how I’ve shouldered sandbags. But it felt foreign to me and I couldn’t get it to the shoulder and I dropped it. Starting to panic here. I reset it and take a decent amount of breaths to try again and I get a better pick but it gets stuck on me like my warm up with this bag did and it won’t go up. Really starting to freak out. I’m trying to keep myself composed but I break out into a cold sweat. My breathing is labored and I’m trying to get myself focused to try once again because I’m stubborn. This was a better pick and it gets up better but stuck again like my warm up and it gets to the point (even with a hard belt) that it is very difficult to stand up and lockout. I got as close as I could fight it and dropped it. Like the warm up, I wouldn’t have counted it. I immediately took off my belts and knee sleeves and just laid on the carpet in my house panting and sweating. This kind of sensation happens when I miss a lift I’m expecting and I’ve put some importance on it. Trying to get any motivation or energy back but it seemed futile and I just took a semi-conscious nap. I’m not sure how much time went by but it was at least 10 minutes but possibly 30 minutes. I had no appetite to do the rest of the workout with the gms and zercher split squats, pull ups and single leg rlds. I was going to just frustrate myself and my myself angrier than I already was. So I figured best thing was to call it there. I had at least done the event work for the day. Now to clean up and sleep it off like a honey badger bitten by some venomous snakes and hope the rest and distance improve my clarity of thought. I’m like 99.9% certain I’m just going back to my previous style of sandbag shouldering after this session.