September 19, 2026 – Week 3, Day 3

Dynamic Warm Up

Paloff Back Breaker Presses/Step Ups w/ Band TKEs (8”, ab)/Dead Bugs
mb’sx10 – bwx10/10 – bwx5/5
mb’sx10 – bwx10/10 – bwx5/5

Push Presses (beltless, 3 second dip eccentrics)
45x5
65x4
85x3
105x2
125x2
145.5x5
145.5x5
145.5x5
145.5x5
145.5x5

Front Squats (beltless, 5-1-0-0 tempo)
45x3
75x3
105x3
135x3
165x8
165x8

Paused Heel Elevated Sandbag Squats (2 seconds, no lockouts)
112x15
112x15

Quad Fallbacks/Neck Harness Back Extension Holds
bwx6/bw+25x30 seconds
bwx6/bw+25x30 seconds
bwx6/bw+25x30 seconds

Power Pin Swings (EMOM)
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8
88.5x8

Backwards Treadmill Pushes (10% Incline)
5 minutes

Stretching

Comments: I was dragging ass by the end of the week. The getting up a little earlier and the added walking did cut into my recovery stuff as already there is a deficit with the commuting vs telework sleep schedule. I was exquisitely sore from Day 2 session from the tempo snatch grips as well as the other stuff that has not really been done or focused on. I was at least able to do soft tissue work but I know that my body would’ve appreciated doing some longer walks to loosen things up. But plan was to tough it out and just sleep in on the weekend. And no “guilt” in doing that as I wasn’t intending to train at the strongman gym this weekend. Reason being that next weekend will be closed for powerlifting meet. This is a new switch from the previous two weeks and plan is after these next two weeks to switch further so I’d rather keep things consistent these two weeks. What also solidified that plan was there was construction happening near the highway where I have to get on to go out to train (there had been some last weekend but this weekend it sounded worse) and I didn’t want to deal with that nonsense for something that could be done at home on my own terms. Digestion was feeling a bit off so that further delayed starting training where I figured it was best to just have breakfast and then after training have an earlier dinner. Foam rolling to start things out as has been the case for some time now. Calves needed a bit more than they’ve had to have the past week and really nothing much else really felt that bad besides upper back (which was expected). Neck rehab stuff was fine and no issues with glute activation and lower body mobility. Dead hang to decompress a tad before getting into training. The Day 1 and Day 2 sessions, I’ve been going more of a prefatigue and getting muscles targeted circumstance whereas today was more of a priming things and getting mobile intent. I had made slight adjustments to this just based on feedback from this week. A triset of the back breaker paloff presses from Day 1 (new home for them) and then some more typical of this session of step ups with band TKEs and some dead bugs. I wanted to get stuff feeling less tense in the lower back but ready for movement and get my knees ready for a lot of bending today but moving in a good way. The paloff variation because this was also going to be a pressing session. These seemed to go well enough. Then time to actually put some weights in my hands so to speak. Push presses up first. It has been since World’s that I’ve done push pressing and it has been probably a decade since I’ve done push press with a barbell. While intent is to work on lower body drive overhead, the return to just barbell was to focus on the mechanics of the press from essentially the start square. It has been log or axle and feel like there is something that is amiss with overhead with disconnect with lower body and upper body. Competition is log but we are like 18 weeks away from that and I’ve kind of gotten sick with my feelings towards axle and log in the past 3yrs. Barbell should make things easier to have close to body and work on getting cooperation with leg drive and press. So plan is to do two waves of three weeks with the focus on the dip drive. The first three weeks being eccentric focus and the next three being isometric focus before switching to log to start specificity to competition. Percentages are light and I’m using 264.5lbs/120kgs as my estimated 1rm here. No belt, only wrist wraps. I’ve never really done these with the controlled lowering of eccentric on the dip phase as always has been with lowering the weight from lockout to shoulders. I’ve done overloads with axle last year but that was only for like 2 weeks and not really working there. But my understanding of this is that the dip is the only eccentric loading of the overhead for the first rep and that the eccentric for the lockout to shoulders is more for strict pressing and maybe loading for a second rep if going into rebound style. Working on shoulder/rack position mobility here. Timing the lowering to actually getting into the position is tough so I imagine this will be helpful for me in the long run. I was feeling like I was getting there more consistently by the end of the sets. Plan for next week is more weight and more sets but lower reps. From there, onto front squats. Already warmed up with the push presses to some degree. Front squats are to be my main squat assistance for this prep and offseason approach. Unlike other stuff this week, I was going to wear my knee sleeves. Give some support as focus is to try and do more knees over toes emphasis rather than sitting back and having my knees rigid. Beltless and using the strap grip to give my wrists a bit of break from the push pressing and be a bit more log focused. Aim being RPE 5-6 for 2x8 with long eccentric. The last time I did these was like 3yrs ago and I recalled these had been quite sucky for me. Ended up only doing like 135lbs and that was with a belt. To be fair, had been after some paused hatfiled split squats. I feel like these went better as I was fully prepared for 135lbs to be my working weight. I wasn’t sure how the weather was going to hold up so I put away what I had outside and moved into the garage to finish up the day. More squats. Initially the plan was hack squats but with the gym closed next weekend, I had elected to do a different squat variation and wait until no issues for the next few months before adding in machine exercises (I had also got rid of some machine exercises for that reason in the sessions). This was more knees over toes but with more focus on the anterior load. I was looking at goblet but figured I’d rather do my light sandbag instead. I was definitely not ready for the weight on my chest like that as I had to take a few moments just holding it up there before I felt comfortable to actually do anything. Aim was 2x15-20 with leaving reps in the tank. No lockout to keep focus on the quads. 15 reps ended up being the right call here. From there a superset of some things I’ve been working on. I did the Nordic curl eccentrics with quad fallbacks the past two weeks as a pairing but with moving days, this left it open for another but similar exercise. I’m keeping in the quad fall backs to keep up mobility in hips/knees and ankles as I don’t want to have tight upper quads impeding things. So for those, lower reps today with no target besides getting my head to the floor. I forgot that these tend to have my do-rag come off due to the movement. The thing these were paired with was back extension holds with neck harness. My plan is to just get used to these again after not doing them for about 2yrs more so to get ready to do paused back extensions in the next block of training. 25lbs on the neck harness is enough here for sure and felt solid. But I did forget that it does mess with my glasses so need to remember that for next time. With these done, it was time to do conditioning. The power pin swings were originally going to be on Day 2 but timing and just how beat that session already had me made moving to this day the best option. It has been like 3yrs since I had these as something and I was doing a lot more weight on them but not as many sets. Plan here being to use 15-20% of my 1rm raw deadlift for EMOM sets. I wasn’t sure how rough these would be but thankfully they weren’t bad. My left biceps felt tight on the first few sets until I got my body to cooperate with the movement. Plan is to do 10x10 same weight next time. Inside for the last bit of conditioning. Backwards treadmill pushing to essentially do the infinity pool version of backwards sled drag for the knees. 5 minutes of this wasn’t bad compared to when I’ve done 10 minutes of it. I figured 5 minutes was fine after doing 10 minutes of swings. Put stuff away and stretched before using my birthday gift cards to get some big burritos for the first time in 3yrs for dinner.