Anybody have any wisdom and experience in competing raw and the methods in which you used. Especially for someone that’s a tweener…Not 198 and too heavy for 181. I have the time and desire to compete, and am looking forward to training hard…just need a direction.
Buy 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler at elitefts.com . It’s a simple approach everyone seems to get stronger doing. follow it as written.
To give you any kind of meaningful advice, you’ll need to answer a few questions, such as: What are your strength levels and what are your goals? What kind of base are you building off of? How long have you been training and how’s your form?
I’ve been training for strength/power for the past 6 years. Recently got married and the wife had we paleo’d all Summer which dropped me from 205 to 190. My current numbers are 440/315/500. I’d like to total between 1300-1350.
I personally use some variation of 5-3-1 most of the time, but when a meet rolls around, I’ll drop it and run a peaking program. Joe Skopec has a stack to choose from:
Just train how you normally train, take it easy the week before the meet, then see how well you do. It’s your first meet, every lift you make will be a PR. Try to go at least 8 for 9, and have fun. After the meet, assess what you perceive your weaknesses to be, and experiment with different movements and training styles until you find what works for you. It’s a game of trial and error, and you will not get it perfect your first time. Guaranteed.
On a side note, there is a plethora of excellent articles geared towards raw powerlifters (especially those new to the sport) on eliteFTS. Here’s a couple links to get you started:
http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/tips-for-the-raw-powerlifter/
http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/more-tips-for-the-raw-lifter/