August 15, 2026 – Week 18, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Axle Wagon Wheel Squats to Pads (27”)
26x15
116x2
166x2
221x3
221x3
221x3
221x3
221x3

12” Log Clean and Push Presses (one clean)
2 second pauses
87x2
107x2
EMOM
127x2
127x2
127x2
No pauses
153x2
153x2
153x2

Sled Drags/Prowler Pushes (60 seconds rest)
195x75’/195x75’
195x75’/195x75’
195x75’/195x75’
195x75’/195x75’
195x75’/195x75’

Stretching

Comments: Besides having workouts hopefully taper and go smooth, the idea has been to deload on the stress and hopefully be feeling loosey goosey by next week. I don’t feel like mentally I’m stressing at this point but I can tell I’m holding a good deal of tension in my shoulders. Monday had not been ideal with my left shoulder getting sore on me at the start but it has pretty much evaporated as of today. Which is good since plan is to touch log one last time haha. Work is thankfully tapering down as well so shouldn’t be that bad hopefully for the two days I got next week. Plan being Monday session of just moving around with my dynamic warm ups and some extras added with stretching and then walking Tuesday and then packing/traveling Wednesday. Walked Thursday with soft tissue work and then just worked on stuff to prep for travel as well as try and figure things out with plan getting back with training. My plan today was to go out to the gym to do this last session but I was tired and the things I was to do the night before didn’t happen and I eventually figured out I could do everything at home and would rather save myself the hassle and stress of driving. So eventually got on to getting ready. Foam rolling stuff felt fine here. Need more on the right side for the calves compared to left but they both needed it a good deal at odd spots. Quads tend to be tight but they seemed even this time around and not as much as they’ve needed previously. Upper back I needed it today as well. Neck rehab protocol felt good and needed. Nothing felt off here thankfully. Glute activation I’m still trouble shooting some things here but good and mobility stuff felt fine. Dead hang felt fine and not feeling tension in the left shoulder like I did at the beginning of the week. So there is that. Today would be last touches of anything weight related and for three of the seven events. With first up being axle squats to boxes. I’ve been doing these at the gym with actually having boxes to use. The setup takes a bit even there but once setup, the weight loading is convenient for the most part. I’ve also not really thought it would work at home but apparently I could’ve based off what I was able to setup with the wooden spool “tables” I had. I think part of me was also leery just with how bad my knees were hurting the last time I did squats at home. Plan here was to work up to about 50% of my max on this and do 5x3 with 2 minutes rest. Ground is a little uneven unfortunately but either this weight or the sturdiness of the “boxes” made this not so bad. I think knowing that a wider stance and more gm style of hip loading has me taxing my time with the setup and feeling more solid if not fast on the movement is best. Knees a little achy but was moving well and felt powerful/strong as I went. Granted, this is like 50% and I’m wearing full gear to compete so it should be moving easy. But that is the point. Right hamstring a little tight. So this part of things done and it was on to next thing, log. I know, I said I moved “event” pressing to this day so that I would be doing stuff in a gym with a bit more temperature control and an even floor (I’ve busted up the concrete from doing axle in the past unfortunately) but this is light and needed. I did do heavy strict log on Monday but I want to make sure that I’m doing the actual movement and fluidly for that matter with the competition coming up. Strength should be there. It does seem that this will be something I need to work on. The clean doesn’t appear to be an issue here, I seem to have that figured out. It is finding what actually is a good base to press from and being stable. Narrow I feel like stuff feels solid but then if I misgroove, I can’t muscle it out through the sticking point while wider I can do that but it feels not as strong with my lower body drive. A little too late now. Anyways, the plan here was to do 3x2 with 50% with a pause in the dip and then 3x2 with 60% normal tempo. I decided to make these EMOM style and no rest between the different modalities. I don’t know if it was the floor or just overthinking things with getting setup for the drive for the press but only the clean was consistent on these. This weight is light enough that a bad rep isn’t going to be a miss here. But thankfully, most were good and I seemed to figure it out by the end of each. I had sweated up a good bit by this point and I had one last thing which was going to be a gut/lung buster. Something from Mr. Westerling in that the progression of the deload week being something heavy-ish for upper body, speed work lower body and then something that got you breathing hard and heartrate up to end it that was easy to recover from. Which was often sled pushes and drags with short rest. Since one of the events at world’s has a sled drag and sled push component, felt like a no-brainer to do that to finish things up. Since this is usually it’s own thing with maybe something light beforehand, I did indicate that I would have a range here of 4-5 sets with 60-100’ for down and back. The old me this would be three separate deload sessions for contest but I’ve improved work capacity and I can’t really do anything training week of with travel. I split the difference as that was about enough length of street without inconveniencing any of my neighbors and would keep me mostly in the shade. This got difficult fast and I was immediately regretting my decision to do this on the second set. The uphill drag wasn’t and issue. It was the downhill push as my legs just decided to not work and get full of lactic acid. Mostly my right one. I was breathing hard after the second set here. Progression is usually first set ok and then faster second set and maybe third set but then usually a decrease to what first set was and then a decline until reaching a dramatic one if not recovering well. For this go, about 29 seconds first set, 27 seconds second set, 29 seconds third set and 30 seconds fourth set. I was considering ending it after the fourth set with how my legs were feeling and breathing hard. I can see my conditioning from the beginning of this year’s prep has kind of diminished. But I got back into it and did one final one that took me 44 seconds or so to finish and I was done and absolutely gassed/knackered what have you. Ate a decent lunch (putting three small meals in one) before stretching out. I’ve done what I can to be ready at this point.