March 11, 2026 – Week 4, Day 2

Dynamic Warm Up 

13” Wagon Wheel Axle Deadlifts (straps)
136x5
226x3
316x2
366x1
406x1
456x1
496x2
506x2
516x2
526x2
536x2

Sandbag to Shoulders (left side only)
175x2/225x2
265x1
265x1
305x1

Deadstop Safety Bar Good Mornings (lower to deadlift pull height)
65x12
115x6
165x12
165x12
165x12

Sandbag Zercher Stationary Lunges (0-1-0-1 tempo)
bwx6/6
112x6/6
112x6/6
112x6/6

Deadstop Supported Single Leg Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts/Pull Ups
62x6/6 – bwx1
102x12/12 – bwx7
102x12/12 – bwx6

Stretching

Comments: I’m not quite used to the time shift, at least when it comes to going to bed on time. I seem fine with waking up but I don’t feel as tired and I’m essentially losing an hour of sleep each night. Going to have to try and rectify this going into the weekend. I did not miss being off work Monday. It got up to 84 on Tuesday, so about 30 degrees warmer than Saturday. But there was a breeze and it wasn’t that humid so it didn’t feel terrible. Dropped down a bit but a bit humid for today. There were nerves mostly from just how I wanted to do well and the not as much sleep. Soft tissue work I needed a lot on my calves and a decent amount on my quads. Not much needed for hamstrings and upper back. Still feeling tension in the mid back on the right side but not as much as it was Saturday and so on. Chest was feeling tight initially on the mobility and neck rehab stuff. I guess that was needed. Lower body stretching and dead hang after that. And then the tough stuff. Axle pulls with the wagon wheels again. The “heavy” session. I’ve not been liking how after the first week of these that I’ve been getting lightheaded working up in weight (once I add a belt). Notes for today indicated 480-500lbs for 5x2 but additionally indicating that if not feeling like RPE 9 that I should increase the weight. I kind of already had a plan formulated with those options that I’d make it so I was doing almost barbell 40-50lbs jumps with the setup so that at minimum I’d be using 496lbs for 5x2. Even if not feeling my best, I feel that since I was able to do 5 reps from the floor with this in off season prep that I have this in me here. I need to have it if I’m planning on doing anything with contest weight. It would then depend on how things feel here if I was sticking to this weight or going up. And it would have to feel really shitty for me to not plan to go up in weight each set. Because I like doing that. It would be whether I did it with 5lbs or 10lbs jumps. My hope was going to be the 10lbs jumps as that would mean I’d be doing just a hair above contest weight for the last double and that would be after prefatiguing myself with heavy sets beforehand. My thinking here was that usually with this kind of training, once I get to a certain weight with the intensity at this level, everything feels tough and heavy but I can eek stuff out. And sometimes my third set ends up being my best for some reason or another. So even if I think that my first double is RPE 9, it may not be the case and I might be able to add 40lbs to that RPE 9 feeling. I was feeling ok warming up. My belt came undone on the first warming up single which wasn’t great but the weight felt easy. Had to make sure that didn’t happen after that. It seems to happen on deadlift with this belt with only happening once on yoke. Ended up having to get the oscillating fan out to provide some air flow in the garage. But I got up to the planned starting weight for my sets. Felt heavy. Video says it was fine. I figured it was going to be like that and decided I’d just do 10lbs jumps here and that each time I approach the bar I’d say it was 496lbs and I was just doing another set of it. I mean mentally that is what I said but I know fatigue was building and that there was a little bit there saying that this was more weight. This was most notable after the third set. Not trying to tap fully into that berserker mode. Honestly, it gets tougher when it is a lot of sets like this or volume to bring that up. The deload and rest help there. But I got what I wanted done. I know I can do reps with contest weight. I’m not expecting the win here on this event. Putting away the deadlift stuff is really the only break I get during this session that is long enough that I don’t have to worry about upchucking any liquids. Sandbag to shoulder following up. Things had gone better last week but not like feeling on top of the world feeling. I had been subdued as I feel that my back was just knackered from the reps on reps of deadlifts beforehand and with how things ended the previous week. I was worried about screwing up and injuring something in my sloppiness so I was very deliberate. Ms. Funk said to knock that off and be more aggressive and have intent. I know I should and my hope here was to have that. I think I was falling into the mindset of treating every weight like it was a max weight. Rain and thunderstorm rolled in around this time. To start things off, 175lbs and 225lbs bags for a double each and resting for about 5 seconds between lifts. Just one go through this time. I started the bags upright and picked them up like how I would if I was doing them fast and in a series with tilting them down and getting hand under. I’ve had some hesitancy with doing this off the bat since the off center pick up style does put more stress on the one hamstring vs both together. This was fine. The next thing was singles. I was supposed to only do 2 singles last week with my 265lbs if I felt good and that I was confident I’d get it. This week it was same but adding a third single with either 265lbs again if not feeling it or 305lbs if I was. I really wanted to go for the 305lbs. I’ve only attempted it once almost two years ago in prep for a show and it had been surprisingly easy for me. But I was also about 30lbs heavier at the time trying to bulk up. First attempt with 265lbs didn’t go well. I mean, it was better than any of the upright attempts had been previously but it didn’t feel crisp and easy to have me think that 305lbs was budging today. But the switch from set grip last week to tilt and go might have had me a little off. I came back and launched it up the second time easy so I brought out the 305lbs bag. I’d feel pretty foolish if I messed this one up. The pick up was tougher compared to last time I did this but it felt comfortable being picked up and shouldered. It is my most firmly packed bag and seems not stretch out. But it felt real good with the pop up on the shoulder. This is where I want to be. I had been worried I fell off on this event and was way behind my past on this one. I still got a lot of work to bridge the gap to the next big jump up but not lacking the tools and ability. The nerves from the previous two weeks seem to be gone. Maybe someone from Natural World’s signing up for the show added a little something to my motivation. Anyways, got a little bit of liquids down and then on to the accessories for the session. First up on that order being gms with the ssb to rack height. Plan was to do 165lbs for 3x12. Advised to try and have my legs a little straighter on these. I didn’t try and sneak any extra weight on the bar this time around because of trying to follow that cue and because the extra reps and the heavy stuff beforehand was likely going to be challenging. I think these went quite well to be honest. Sandbag zercher lunges with tempo pauses again. These aren’t as monstrous as they were that first week but still quite tough. These still require a bit of prepping for my knees to be somewhat ok with what is being asked. Same as last time but 6 reps per set. I tried to keep the rest per sides shorter this time around but longer between sets. I also made sure to start with the left side as that is the side that has a harder time with things. First set of these is always rough and then seems to be better/smoother as I do them. The last thing was a superset. The supported dead stop single leg dumbbell rdls and pull ups. Still set reps for the rdls and max reps for the pull ups. But a slight mercy in that only two sets of these this time around. That brief reprieve. The added reps on the rdls definitely was noticed by my forearms. I needed to take longer breaks between sides and then catching my air for the pull ups. I had been pleased that I didn’t feel like crap on the pull ups and only had to do a single one to feel warmed up this week. I felt better about the reps I got on the pull ups. The rdls are deceptive in how exhausting they get. Put stuff away and ate a large dinner before stretching.