March 22, 2026 – Week 5, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

18” Monster Texas Squat Bar Box Squats (4 second eccentrics)
66x5
110x4
154x3
198x2
242.5x2
286.5x3
286.5x3
286.5x3
286.5x3

Circus Dumbbell Clean and Presses (left side only)
49x5
85x4
108x3
130x2
145x2
30 Second Sets
160x4
EMOM
150x3
150x3
150x2
150x2
150x3

Sandbag Carries (turf)
250x60’
250x60’
turns at 60’
300x120’
300x120’
250x180’

Standing Arm Over Arm Pulls (turf, uphill)
270x30’
320x30’
370x60’
385x60’

Reverse Hyper Extensions
50x20
50x20

Pulldowns (drop sets)
170x8/130x8/100x17
170x8/130x8/100x17

Stretching

Comments: I guess one good thing with this week was not needing allergy meds. But there was discomfort after the last session. Sciatica stuff I think but what was really the big issue was my right hip/top of quad was feeling off and tense. And hard to say if that was what was tweaked or if this was from my lower back just being very tight and tensed from Thursday session. I took ibuprofen Friday to see if that lessened anything and it didn’t really seem to do much of anything. Trying to not let negative thoughts derail me. Saturday my sister came over to train events again. That was all I did that day besides getting some things ready for next week with in office revert. I took more ibuprofen to see if that helped me with my sleeping. Not sure it did anything. I had gone to sleep at a reasonable hour so I could get up at my usual work time as I didn’t want to be out at the gym too late with having to go into work earlier on the revert and not having a day to adjust. I did initially get up but stayed in bed for about another 90 minutes because I didn’t really want to get out of bed as I was worried about training and just a bunch of things swirling around. I needed that time to build up confidence/courage to get out of bed and try and train with the anxiety and the discomfort. Almost forgot to check my weight (back over 260lbs).  I was not sure if I’d be hampered in anyway on stuff besides the mental aspect but I wouldn’t know until I tried. So out to train a bit later than planned. Drive out was fine. Pretty much empty besides some people coming in to train stuff and leaving. Foam rolling only really seemed to need it on my right quad, which was the one that was really tense from whatever. That did feel good but didn’t exactly get the issue fixed. Neck rehab stuff was good. Hoping that anything I was doing warming up would cause something to “click” and have things be back to normal. Lower body stretching was good. Dead hang felt nice. Starting things off with eccentric focus box squats. Indication was to do the same as last week. This was going to be the first test as sometimes sitting down on something and moving from there hadn’t been great. I did some bodyweight assisted squats to box to make sure I was good and my knees weren’t terribly achy. These actually felt surprisingly good. Easier than last week. I ended up doing the same weight and reps as last week with the same setup but taking less rest between sets as I wasn’t feeling so fatigued. Which was not expected considering how wrecked pulls had me compared to last week. But sometimes these lighter squats don’t tell me how I’m going to do when push comes to shove on things. The next thing was what really had me anxious. Not because of possible pain (bending over with a narrow stance and offset) but because I might underperform and “fail”. I felt good last week on these and this was to be a 30 second set with contest weight and then drop down for similar reps/sets as the deadlifts for EMOM with 10lbs less. The good feeling last week was worry this week as I was feeling off with the hip thing. Fearing I’d not hit expectations and other negative minuate. Warming up I was feeling pretty good. I did some extra reps at lighter bells. 145lbs didn’t feel great so I wasn’t quite confident with how 160lbs would go. I’ve definitely done reps with more than this but it had been hit or miss getting all the reps. I just had the one shot here. I wanted to get 4 reps here and that is what I got. I had only 3 seconds left so I didn’t bother trying for 5 here. I had needed a bit of time for reps to settle in the rack and feel ready to press so a little slow and I needed to set down the dumbbell before going for more reps. This bodes well for competition. The EMOMs I was waffling on as have a certain mental rigidity with patterns and numbers. The suggested was 5x3-2. So I decided I’d push myself and pull back if the triples became too much. The first two sets I did triples and I could tell I was getting sloppy on the second set so I decided to go to doubles if the next set didn’t feel strong. I had to wait a good bit for my balance on the second rep with the dumbbell in the rack position before I felt I could go for the press so that meant I went with doubles. Second double I felt crisp and recovered. Last set unless I felt awful, I was going for a triple. That was the biggest relief of the session but my anxiety wasn’t fully resolved. From there on to sandbag carries. My issue was if the pick would be not comfortable/good and how running with weight and the hip would be. The plan for today was warm up to two contest runs and then drop down to 250lbs again but for a 180’ run (so two turns). I was feeling like there shouldn’t be issues with the pick with how box squats and dumbbell went but never know. 250lbs to warm up continues to be demoralizing with how rough it feels. 300lbs the pick does take an effort to do but moving with it feels fine. I was feeling fatigue in my legs on the second set but that ended up being faster by a second then the first set. Neither set felt as good as 300lbs did last week. 250lbs for the long set felt slow to me and my legs were feeling quite tired on the third leg. But it doesn’t seem like I was that slow considering things. Arm over arm next. Last thing for event work. The notes said to make these heavy this week (taking 40-45 seconds to finish). A little tricky as technically my one set last week with 320lbs where I lost footing and had issues was in that range. I figured that adding 50lbs would get me in that range if I was on point. I did 30’ warm ups to get ready. 370lbs would be 5lbs over the most I’ve tried on this exercise in training (also that was with thinner rope and was downhill vs uphill). At this weight, there are some issues with footing with the floor so this did get a bit away from me. Still, this was in the 40-45 seconds range. I erroneously thought that I was good for more with rest if I had better footing. Adding 15lbs more made this a good deal tougher and my footing did not improve from the last set. This was thankfully under 60 seconds but was not fun. I do think that I should be getting in some lighter speed runs just incase. I could tell endurance was fading on this as well. Now the gym stuff. Reverse hypers again. 2x20 with 50lbs. Just for blood flow. I was kind of hoping this would help get things right in the lower back and hips. No dice there but felt good regardless. I think the weight placing I had this time around felt the best setup wise. Then last thing being pulldown drop set. Stil 2 sets but some changes. Increased the weight with jumps altered slightly. 20lbs added for the top weight (6-8 reps) followed by a 40lbs drop (had been 30lbs) for 10lbs more (8 reps) and then 30lbs for the last weight to rep out (10lbs more). I was aiming for 8 reps on the first set. The added weight was noticed here. Lost a good bit of reps. I was very surprised I was able to recover enough to get same reps on the second set. So the session went well. It was high 70’s but didn’t feel like it in the gym. Maybe because I was alone? Ate my food and drove home with plans to get other stuff figured out for Monday. Stretched when I got back.