September 14, 2026 – Week 3, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Band Pec Flyes/Paused Band Pull-Aparts (3 seconds)/Paloff Back Breaker Presses
lb’sx20/µbx20/mb’sx10
lb’sx20/µbx20/mb’sx10

12” Log High Incline Bench Presses (3 seconds eccentrics)
87x10
107x8
127x6
147x3
167x8
167x8
167x8
167x8

Paused Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows (3 seconds)
56’sx5
81’x10
81’x10
81’x10

Feet Elevated Bench Dips
bwx6
bw+53x12
bw+64x12
bw+75x12

Chaos Chain Bradford Presses
PVC+44lbsx60 seconds
PVC+44lbsx60 seconds
PVC+44lbsx60 seconds

Stretching

Comments: The previous two weeks had been more GPP focused with the offseason. Real different from what I usually do. Now moving onto more gym-based focus with some GPP conditioning still involved and then transitioning after two weeks to the next thing and so on. I did not feel as sore in areas as I had the previous week. I did seem to have mystery scrapes in places. I was still a little slow with getting things moving along to train here. Foam rolling starting things off. Calves did not need much. Really the only thing that needed a ton was my right quadriceps. Everything else was fine with just a little bit. Some tension in the upper back. Neck rehab/mobility stuff followed that and felt pretty good. No issues with glute activation or lower body mobility but could tell my hamstrings were a tad tight. Dead hang to finish things up and did notice some shoulder tension here. So this would be the true start to the workout cycle with the numbers kind of being important and working towards event goals. Saying it is the “pump/hypertrophy” phase not entirely accurate. These sessions are borrowing from previous “offseason” sessions with slight modifications. Starting point of the session was bands triset. I’ve done a superset before of pec flyes with paused pull-aparts. It has been 5yrs since I last did them but able to slip right in where I left off. The new addition was a new exercise for me deemed a “back breaker” variation of the paloff press. Usually it is to the side for the anti-rotational but this was as if I was doing a log/viking press with the bands anchored behind so it was abs involved as well. The pec flyes felt a little awkward with getting the tension/movement right. No issues with the pull aparts other than the 3 second holds made them take a long while to do. Not sure how I feel about the paloff variation. It is useful but I don’t think it fit with the session. I may move it to Day 3. This was more a warming up to the weighs for the session. So the first exercise with weights was log incline bench presses. I keep coming back to this exercise and I wanted to have these in the mix to work the pressing but not be a standing strict press. Hopefully allowing me to hit pressing twice with lower body drive pressing on Day 3. I did two changes here though. One was that I got one of those metronomes so that I had audio cue for tempo count as I was going to have to be comfortable with that for a good chunk of this start of prep and I tend to lose count of reps with getting certain tempo schemes. The other was I increased the angle of the incline so closer to a standing press than a bench press (previous setup was closer to midway point). Seeing if that has more carryover. So indicating that as high incline. So the plan for these was to pyramid up in weight to do 4x8 with a weight I felt I could do with 3-5RIR on that first set. The catch was that these were to be done with 3 seconds negatives and brief pause at the chest and aim for 2-3 minutes rest. I know I’m not as strong overhead wise compared to 5yrs ago so I wasn’t expecting to match those numbers. Especially since I increased the incline angle. But figured I’d start with the empty log and just add 20lbs a jump and take off reps. This movement was a tad different but I was feeling more shoulders/triceps compared to the other style it seemed. It could also be from the dips on Saturday. The good news with the metronome is that it is loud enough to hear it over my music. I was definitely 3RIR range on this effort and I was definitely feeling the fatigue at the end of each set as feeling like I was close to 1RIR on those sets. But no missed reps here or helicoptering lockouts. That was it for the outside training and into the garage for more stuff. From there it was on to rows. Dumbbell rows using the bench to support my chest. Control the movement and hold in contraction for 3 seconds. No arching the back. I know I don’t need much to really warm up for these when doing holds as the weights tend to not be that much compared to what I can heave. I also didn’t want to bother with lighter weights and dumbbells so did a set with 25’s on the handles and then went for 80ish for the working sets. Feeling the fatigue in the forearms and biceps on these with the holds. I had done rows and pull ups and mace work last week. I took about the same rest as I was doing for the incline pressing for the first two sets but for the last one I ended up taking a good bit longer to make sure I wasn’t shortchanging due to fatigue. Next item was bench dips. I think it may be almost 5yrs since I last did these. Trying something out with more triceps work. I was a little uncertain after how the slingshot dips had felt Saturday. Plan being 3x12. See how bodyweight felt and go from there. If terrible scrap it. Felt quite good and easy. Last time I started these, I remembered doing 25lbs and that was too easy and ended up doing 45lbs for the last set. I figured what the hell and put 53lbs in the backpack. These were to be with 3RIR but man that just seemed to feel too easy. I was initially going to add 5lbs but decided to pop in another 11lbs of chain instead. And that went well. I could feel the top of my triceps bulging against the skin of my arms. So put in another 11lbs of chain in there and that did eventually get close to 3RIR but still that would be a conservative estimate there. Quite surprised to be doing 30lbs more than I was expecting here. I may need to slow it down a little on the pacing. I don’t intend to do these very long once switching some exercises over. Chaos chain Bradford presses for timed sets followed that as the finisher. As I had hinted at, I was becoming fond of this one. Same weights as the past two weeks but going to 3 sets of 60 seconds. My intent here was to do 120 seconds rest and I thought I was sticking to that but my head count was unfortunately 30 seconds slower. I will try to do these again with less rest and hopefully get to 120 seconds rest vs 60 seconds work. These seem to be easy on the joints and get nice burn in the shoulders. I hope this works as a way to improve shoulder conditioning/endurance while being gentle on the shoulder joints. Plan is two more weeks of them stick to same weight and 60 seconds of work. Finished putting stuff away before eating dinner and then stretching. This seems like a good true start to things.