October 12, 2026 – Week 7, Day 1

Dynamic Warm Up

Band Pec Flyes/Paused Band Pull-Aparts (3 seconds)
lb’sx20/µbx20
lb’sx20/µbx20

12” Log High Incline Bench Presses
90x8
120x6
150x4
180x2
200x10
180x10
Add 1 Second Pauses
160x10
160x10

Pause Inverted Rows (1 second)
bwx5
bw+30x8
bw+35x8
bw+40x8
bw+45x8

Lying Chain Triceps Extensions/Leaning Dumbbell Lateral Raises/Strap Band Face Pulls
55’sx15/22x15—15/lbx15
60’sx15/22x15—15/lb+(2)µbx15
64’sx15/22x15—15/lb+(2)µbx15

Stretching

Comments: I hadn’t felt like I had done so much Saturday that I’d feel the need for 10hrs of sleep Saturday and Sunday evening. Especially since it rained all day Sunday and I didn’t walk and did soft tissue work only. But maybe not going for a walk hampered recovery. So kind of glad I got another day off before back to working Tuesday. My biceps are sore and twitchy and I’m uncertain if from the sandbag roll ups or from having my upper body bracing so hard on those lying leg curls. In either case, I’m glad I went with having the event specific pressing stuff being on Day 3 and then more gym focused stuff on Day 1 for the pressing as I’m sure I’d be leery if I was to be doing some kind of clean and press today. The tons of rain yesterday at least leaves and sunnier day for today’s training (at least at times). Since off work, aim was to do workout early afternoon after settled from morning stuff so as to have more time in the evening to mentally prepare for work again and to hopefully get to bed early so as not to feel drained for work time. Foam rolling starting things off. Calves needed it but not to the extent I was expecting after how they had been Saturday. My right hamstring and quad needed a ton of work today to loosen up. Not so much the left side. Thankfully neither biceps cramped up on me here. Upper back felt fine but did need some buffing out, Neck rehab/mobility stuff followed that and that was fine. Nothing really felt beat. No issues with glute activation or lower body mobility. Actually was losing count on some things. Dead hang to finish things up and get a little more decompression before starting training. Get a good stretch in upper body too. On to training outside. Band superset to starting things off with pec flyes and paused pull-aparts. No issues here. Feeling the pump and fatigue from these. I got a little distracted afterwards clearing dead foliage from the bushes in the backyard before moving on to the weights. I think because I was nervous with the plan for today. Hard to gauge things with the amount of reps and fatigue from the volume I’ve been doing with the high incline log press lately. My worry of missing a rep or being stapled. Making sure there is recovery for this session and from Day 3 push pressing as that will be important when switching to competition prep. This aspect and making sure that deadlift doesn’t suffer with the events coming in are key. So no restriction imposed with doing a ton of reps working up like that past several weeks of high incline log pressing. Plan was simple but brutal; work up to 10rm or there abouts and then drop off 10% to match and then another 10% for 2x10 reps with pauses. Based off last week, I felt that 200lbs would be workable here and be easy for just taking off 20lbs and then 20lbs for the other sets. But starting things didn’t feel great. My left elbow felt achy on the empty-ish log but did feel better as I went. But just felt like there was a lot of fatigue in my chest, shoulders and triceps. 30lbs jumps and dropping 2 reps as I went. 180lbs for my last working up set didn’t feel like a confidence boost. I was really worried. Heart was racing and not in the eager and excited way. More in the oh shit way. With how the reps felt, I’m actually surprised I got 10 reps here with 200lbs. Been over 2 months since I’ve touched this kind of weight for upper body stuff. I feel like I’m getting better at pushing through my sticking point on incline lately. Perhaps it has moved due to the higher incline angle though? But pleased I did get this done. Maybe 1RIR here. I broke into a cold sweat upon completion of the set. I wasn’t out of the woods here as I had 30 more reps to go. 20lbs off certainly made the next set feel much more manageable. Another 20lbs off and it was pauses. These felt light at the start but in the second half I could tell that these were draining me and if I misgrooved, I’d be in for a not good time. Pressing done and into the garage for the rest of what I had planned. Inverted ring rows up next. My plan was to do about the average across sets last week for 4x8. Try to stick to straight weight sets. I figured this could be a bit more challenging for me with my twitchy biceps. So I did a bodyweight only set to make sure things were feeling good. They were thankfully. So put 30lbs in the back pack and went to work. Felt way too easy. I initially was going to do just 2.5lbs jumps but talked myself into doing 5lbs jumps instead. Certainly got me working by the last set but still probably close to the effort range. Likely going to use set weight next time as option for last set is to do more reps at that point. But good to see that upper back is feeling strong. I started getting my late lunch prep under way at this point as I put away the stuff outside and got things setup for the finishing triset. Same as last week with chain triceps, leaning laterals and strap band face pulls. Of last week, I felt the laterals had been the one I was closest to getting it right effort wise. The face pulls I wasn’t too sure with as they had felt pretty tough. I knew I needed to go heavier on the chain triceps extensions. So initial plan was all the chains for the triceps (I hadn’t expected to be a this point already) and bump the lateral raises to 10kgs/22lbs and keep the face pull band tension the same just in case everything was fatigued from the previous stuff being heavier (including the rows). Well, the triceps still felt not quite at the right effort here. The laterals were and my left elbow was not a fan of the torque that first set. The face pulls were easy unfortunately. If I kept the extensions and face pulls the same for the remaining sets, it wasn’t going to be worth my time. I had a thought during one of my walks on how to continue with loading the chain triceps exercise so I guess I was putting that into practice today. That worked and it was definitely closer to what I wanted but still needed a little more. No discomfort in the left elbow on the second set of the laterals so that was good. I added some bands to the face pulls and that little bit was enough to make them challenging again. So for the last set, I tried to add a little bit more to the chains and that was where I wanted these. Some discomfort came back on the third set for the raises but minimal. Face pulls were fine at this point. I got another session with these three next week to get it ironed out finally. Took a moment to eat my late lunch meals before finally putting stuff away and then decompress before stretching.