March 17, 2026 – Week 5, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Dumbbell Push Presses (4-0-0-1 tempo)
40’sx3
57’sx3
70’sx3
87’sx3
87’sx3
87’sx3
87’sx3

Paused Axle Floor Presses (2 seconds at lockout)
96x5
136x4
186x3
226x2
276x4
276x4
276x4

Internal Rotation Dumbbell Flyes/Single Arm Dumbbell Triceps Extensions (0-1-0-1 tempo)
10’sx12 – 6x6/6
40’sx10 – 26x10/10
40’sx10 – 26x10/10
40’sx10 – 26x10/10

Paused Banded Close Grip Push Ups/Paused Band Cross Face Pulls
bw+lbx16/(2)mb’sx18
bw+lbx13/(2)mb’sx18
bw+lbx13/(2)mb’sx18

Stretching

Comments: Having to change things up this week and next because of the gym being closed most of the day this coming Saturday. The plan being to move days forward one (so Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday) this coming week and then same next week but back to Saturday for my Day 3 to get back on track to finish out this training prep. Weight a little over 259lbs on Sunday and had my younger sister over to do some event work as she is considering competing in June. That went well and as long as no neck issues on her log prep, she should be on track to do well despite no strongman stuff in a year. It was good that plan to adjust was done as the gym won’t be opening until 6PM Saturday (thought it would be 5PM as not many people for the show) and then tornado warning on Monday (they let in office people out 4hrs early) so that wasn’t conducive to doing this session on Monday with the stress of that and just dumb stuff in general. So didn’t do anything Monday and plan being sleep but my mind decided to have a stress dream despite going to bed a few hours earlier than I have been. Weather continues to be chaos as it was 60’s and rainy Monday and now some snow when I woke up today. This week’s sessions looke to be quite intense. Soft tissue work to start off the day. I didn’t really need it anywhere besides my upper calves. Neck rehab stuff felt fine, little tense but not bad. Lower body stretching was ok followed by a dead hang. It had been nice and sunny last week. Now just about freezing. Slight change in the the tempo dumbbell push pressing. No pause in the dip this week but still doing pause at lockout and slow eccentrics. Suggested weight for these was increased (85-90lbs). I was initially thinking of warming up one way but decided smaller jumps made more sense with the reduced reps and sets for the working weight. I went for something in-between for the suggested since the plateloaded dumbbells are quite unwieldy. Warming up just felt so-so here.  I knew I needed to have a little oomph on these to get into position. Snow squall came out of nowhere that first set. These just felt ok. They just felt a little off I think not having the pause in the dip. I did wear my hard belt on these. But stuff away and into the garage for the rest of the workout. It was still pretty cold and I’d not yet warmed up fully so I kept my warm ups on here. Started cooking dinner at this point. Axle floor pressing again with the paused lockouts. I guess I had done enough last week that the suggested reps and sets were bumped up a good bit. It had been 255x4x2 last week and now 265-275x3x4. I was going to aim for 275ish if feeling good but would have to see how warming up went. I was advised to have the weight come back over my face more with pressing this week. Warming up felt just ok but I guess a little better than it can be with usually one jump just feeling off. I got set for that first set (I did go with 276lbs) and it felt quite comfortable. So that was good. I had been worried that I’d be struggling a little. I guess I decided to do that on the second set. I had the strength here but the issue was that I was a little too close to the rack where I positioned as the first two reps were easy and then the last two reps I hit the rack coming up and had to shift and adjust. That was frustrating as it was only a little off and that was kind of why I was trying to keep the bar path a bit more rigid up and down. I took a little longer rest to get my head right again and scooched down a little bit more so that unrack was a little tougher but I didn’t end up mashing the rack with the stroke of the bar path. It wasn’t as easy as the first set had been but it was solid work. Then on to the first of two supersets that have been the second half of this session this cycle. Chest flyes with internal rotation and single arm triceps. I was advised to keep my arms a little straighter this week and to be conscious about the rotation happening during the movement rather than just at the completion of the lift for the flyes. Same weight suggestion for both as last week but going from 4x8 to 3x10. Chest felt a little iffy at the start for these while triceps seemed ok to deal with what was about to happen. Definitely felt better on the flyes as I did them and triceps didn’t feel as difficult as last week with the pauses. With those out of the way, it was on to the last thing of the session and closer to having dinner. Another slight change to the last superset. Pause now being added to the banded close grip push ups (still indicated as 10-20 reps per set). Pause for a count in the bottom of the lift. Also advised to make sure I was fully locking out my triceps as well on the push ups as Ms. Funk feels that I need to keep working that and making that automatic so that my triceps don’t fatigue on me at inopportune times in competition. Reps were increased on the paused cross style face pulls. Initially, the pauses felt like nothing on the push ups and then hit hard. I was kind of surprised that I was able to recover enough to match reps on the third set with the second set with how much these seemed to sap me after the first set. Not to mention that the face pulls were a lot more exhausting this week compared to last week with the extra reps. Got through the “easy” session for this week. The next two sessions look to be quite brutal. Put stuff away and ate dinner before stretching out.