Friday night boxing was hard conditioning, like usual. After rope skipping, we did dumbbell shadowboxing with a short supply of light dumbbells. As a result, I ended up boxing with a 4 pounder in my left hand and a 5 in my right. Striking was slow as a result, but there was a fun Dragonball Z effect of putting them down and feeling super fast with empty hands.

Did 3 rounds of medicine ball burpees, plyometric push-ups, and dumbbell lateral holds. Immediately went to the heavy bags afterward and did power rounds on those mixed with push-ups, mountain climbers, and high knees. Ended with ab work.

Stayed after class to hit the bag for some extra time and watch a couple of my coaches spar. They went pretty hard. Inspiring.

Fast-forward to Sunday and my shoulders are still torched from Friday at the boxing gym. Traps are sore from the dumbbell holds, too. This coupled with having hard sparring scheduled for Tuesday drove me to leave a little more in reserve than I otherwise would have under the iron.

Axle clean once and strict press 

130 x 5

150 x 5

170 x 7

Super-set with band pull-aparts: 3 x 12

Front squats

240 x 5

275 x 5

315 x 3 + 1

Super-set with neutral grip pull-ups: 3 x 15

Incline dumbbell press 

80s x 3 x 10

Super-set with bent-over dumbbell rows 

115 x 3 x 10

Sandbag carries

200 lbs x 2 x 1 minute

Shoulder pain is feeling better under the axle press, although sore shoulders posed an entirely different level of discomfort. Left a rep in the tank, didn't want to grind.

I'm employing the barbell clean grip with front squats now rather than using the SSB and am finding them harder as a result. Feels like the weight is a little more in front of me and makes it more quad intensive, but I ran into trouble from sweat causing the barbell to start sliding down my chest, even with chalk. I will have to be very vigilant about watching out for wrist pain, especially with boxing in the mix. It felt fine until the bar movement started increasing the wrist strain. A grip shirt would be a good idea if I want to keep squatting this way in warm weather. 

I will definitely have to lower the weight on front squats using the clean grip. I managed to squat 315 for 3 before I had to rerack and reset my grip, and then squatted one more after a brief rest pause. My quads are actually a little sore just from this the next day.

Went out to Costco afterwards and had a really good grocery run. Got lamp chops for the fryer, lots of steak, salmon, chocolate whey, creatine, and 10 dozen eggs. 

Deload

Log viper press

155 x 3 x 5

Incline crazy bells

145 x 3 x 10

Super-set with bent-over dumbbell rows

100 x 3 x 10

The program suggests doing the standard 5/3/1 barbell lifts for the deload week. I kept the log for the main work but replaced the events training with the incline bench press, hanging 50 lb kettlebells off each end. I previously mentioned how crazy bells feel great for my shoulder pain so this is a good opportunity to bring them in.

I'll evaluate my shoulder health and strength levels closely the next few weeks to determine contest readiness. Between my 2 goals of getting better at hard sparring with Gabriel at the boxing gym and getting strongman ready, boxing still takes priority. I've got sparring again next Tuesday. Still, this deload has been incredibly invigorating and I went far too long not doing scheduled deloads. I'm super hungry to train heavy again.

Physique right now is in a good place after a month of a calorie deficit. I've lost bloat and midsection fluff, and though not ripped I have visible abs at rest.  

 Did a deload workout on Monday that I neglected to record, then did a 2.25 mile jog on Tuesday. Felt a bit under the weather and was going to rest, but when I got home I felt like going on the jog.

Wednesday boxing was with 2 coaches, which is a change. I haven't worked with coach Dominic in a few weeks, but he seemed extremely enthused to see me, which I wasn't expecting and was very cool of him. My group within the class started out with drilling jabs and straights using an empty barbell set-up like a landmine press. 

I'll be honest, it was starting off like this and then waiting for awhile for the bell to start to do an exercise that I knew wasn't going to challenge me or develop much power when I started to think that there's a reason I prefer coming in on Tuesdays versus Wednesdays lately. And I was right, there was nothing to popping up an empty bar for 3 minutes. But we rotated with the other groups to doing it with exercise bands that were tied to the punching bag posts and because everyone avoided the thick purple band, I got to use that one. That was a decent workout punching with it for 3 minutes. 

Final rotation was pairing with partners to practice pivoting out of a clinch. Everyone immediately paired up with someone, leaving me out - which I took as a great compliment. I worked with the coach, and instead of two partners trading off, I did several rounds of being the only striker. Double jab - clinch first round, lunging body jab - clinch second round, and third round a mix of both. Having to keep jabbing and lunging forward for 3 rounds was another good workout and I worked up a sweat by the end.