Congrats on the meet!
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You know what, everyone keeps congratulating me but the more I think about it the more I’m disappointed with my performance. I actually fell short of my training PRs in all three lifts, and none of those training PRs were all-out maxes either. The way things went on my first squat attempt definitely messed me up and I was running out of energy by the time deadlifts came along, but I can’t see a good reason why I couldn’t bench 400 there. I was also thinking that if my 600 pull was easy enough I would go for a 4th attempt, in this fed and many others you can take a 4th attempt to set a record but it doesn’t count towards your total. Unfortunately I couldn’t even manage 600.
Look at this 390 bench and tell me it doesn’t look like I could handle another 12lbs:
If anything, this just makes me more motivated to get even stronger. I don’t know when I’m going to compete again, but I want to total 1600+ with my 2nd attempts alone.
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Maybe next time don’t lift so heavy right before the meet.
It has nothing to do with that, the peak was fine and I was fresher and more recovered than I have been any time during this whole training cycle. My squat warmups were fine, 485 (my last warmup) moved like an empty bar.
Excuses are worthless, but aside from bench I can see why things didn’t go well. On squat, I wasn’t even in the same room when I should have been wrapping my knees, I squatted my opener with my wraps barely even hanging on my knees (I might as well have just gone up there without them). I haven’t squatted over 400 without wraps in a few months and basically having a panic attack before straining to lift your opener is going to take a significant amount of energy out you.
As for deadlift, it was a very long day, I didn’t eat a whole lot and the caffeine was wearing off before I even started warming up for deadlifts. On top of that, I’m used to training in the morning and it was 8pm by then. The only thing I could have done differently is eat more between lifts, all I ate since I left home shortly after 1pm was a few cookies. You can’t expect a meet to move at your desired pace, all you can do is be prepared for things to not go your way and at least I made all my 2nd attempts and set 3 records.
As far as all this peaking business, you have to realize that there are different approaches. Some people take the whole week off before the meet and do fine, those are usually the same people who do well with deloads that are not much more than a light warmup session. Other people, such as myself, don’t do well with a week of no real lifting. Mike Tuchscherer has some peaking strategies that involve training like normal, with plenty of volume, right up to 2-3 days before the meet. The logic is that if traditional peaking strategies don’t result in a boost in performance and you are able to see week-to-week improvement in performance during your regular training then why train differently from that as you approach a meet?
Honestly, I couldn’t have been any more recovered than I was before this meet. A week with nothing more than a few easy singles on Tuesday and then 3 days of zero training is easier than what I do on my deload weeks, and I come back stronger every time.
I’m sure you realize this, but I don’t think the importance of time management at a meet is stressed enough in general discussions of meet prep. I do a bit of “coaching” and helping out with a range of people from beginners to very high level, and no matter what if they’re doing a meet that I’m at (and not lifting in myself) I make it my absolute priority to ensure that the only thing they have to think about is lifting the weight. Obviously, not everyone can have the luxury of a good handler, but I’m sure if next time you had even someone to watch the flight progression and keep you up to date on where you need to be with warm ups and wrapping, that would make a big difference.
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Congrats on the meet Chris. Not perfect, but as Mark said, you didn’t bomb and you didn’t get hurt, so the glass is half full.
Oh, powerlifting… and its ridiculous number of records. Borderline comical.
I’ve been envious of lifters at meets who had people looking after all this. The lifters just sat down listening to music, while the coach ran around, gave them measured amounts of food between flights, loaded their warmups, chose their next attempts, etc.
There is definitely anxiety added to the lifter during a meet to try and juggle all the moving parts.
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Yeah, with this sort of setup it would definitely make a huge difference. I have done a couple meets where they had a TV screen in the warmup room showing the same lifting order/weights as the main screen and this same meet last year was set up differently so that the platform was in the same room (a very large room) as the warmup area, all you had to do was look to one side and the screen was right there. I guess I got too comfortable with those sort of luxuries.
My main mistake was assuming that they were going to take a break between flights. They moved very fast through each round of attempts, the spotters/loaders were totally on point here, and to compensate for that they took 3 minutes before the next set of attempts but once 3rds were done then went straight into the next flight. I was 2nd last on squat openers and I assumed I had at least 15 minutes to go from the middle of the 3rd attempts in the previous flight but in reality it was closer to 5 minutes. Next time I would rather be done warming up a bit earlier than necessary and at the platform before my flight starts.
It wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t a disaster.
Quick upper body workout today, nothing serious at all. Some dumbbell pushups, dips, and neutral grip chin ups, 3 sets of each. Short breaks, didn’t really watch the clock but it took about 15 minutes or maybe less. Dips felt surprisingly hard, I haven’t done them in over a year and back then I was doing them with over 100lbs hanging from my waist. I stopped doing them because I thought they were messing with my shoulder but later I figured it had to do with the serratus anterior getting too tight. I figure I will use them for some tricep work.
Tomorrow I’m going to do some SSB squats, paused Hatfield squats, and good mornings, just some light stuff to get the blood flowing and also to get a feel for SSB and Hatfield squats again since I’m going to use them for the next while. When I was having issues hitting depth in my last training cycle I thought it might have had to do with the fact that I spent a couple months before that doing SSB squats but later I realized that the problem was that I was trying to descend too fast and with heavy weights I was a bit unstable towards the bottom. Aside from those being two good variations to build up the quads and back, it will also give my arms and shoulders a break from straight bar squatting.
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Enjoy the cardio work lol
Today was way worse. I started to feel sore just looking at the bar. Just some light bullshit squats and good mornings, but in terms of total reps I think this was actually more volume than I have done in a while.
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Monday, May 6 - Main bench day
Wider grip bench - about 2.5" wider on each side than my comp. grip, not really what I would consider “wide grip” though
315x5 - paused - Pretty sure I could do 2 more. Feels a bit awkward with a wider grip but strength is there.
CAT bench (same grip, touch and go)
275x5x5+ - 2 min. breaks - AMRAP on last set: only got 6 reps, not sure if a 7th would have gone up. The first couple sets felt explosive but it dropped off from there, work capacity is low at the moment.
Dips
bwx10, 8, 7 - Weak on these but they felt better than they did last week
Incline DB flys
30’s x15, 13, 11 - I feel this a lot in my front delts
Band pushdown
light band x10 - triceps are toast
super mini x15, 12
Neutral grip chin ups
bw x10, 8, 7 - Same reps as dips, a complete coincidence
Squats tomorrow are going to be brutal. Not looking forward to the soreness and stiffness after that, but it has to be done.
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Tuesday, May 7 - Main squat day
SSB squat
365x5 - could do another 2-3 reps. The idea here is to start off conservatively and increase the weights rather than go all out from the start.
Pause Hatfield squat
455x6x3 sets - The plan was 4 sets but my body said no fucking way. After the 3rd set my whole body felt like jello, there was no way I could have done another set. The pause makes this significantly worse than it would be otherwise, and on top of that every rep is hard, it’s just that you can use your hands to keep yourself moving where you would otherwise stall. The 1st set wasn’t too bad but the 3rd set was maybe RPE 9, I could have probably squeezed out another rep but it would have been a 100% full body effort.
Breaks were 5 minutes, which sounds long but it wasn’t long enough. Anyway, maybe 3 sets of this is plenty.
Sumo RDL with band around waist
185x15x3 sets - this got my glutes burning but it wasn’t horrible.
The original plan was to do a couple sets of Bulgarian split squats at the end but that just isn’t happening today. Maybe next week if the Hatfield squats don’t kill me. On the plus side, there is a bunch of recent research showing that too much volume is counterproductive and such, maybe I really don’t need as much as I think I do.
Right now I feel like I got beat up, my whole body is aching and I can barely see straight. Work this afternoon is not going to be much fun.
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Sounds like Hatfield’s smash you quite hard. Is the juice worth the squeeze?
I sure hope so. I was doing them last year for multiple hard sets and higher reps, that was even worse because it’s hard to breathe with the bar pushing down on your chest. Part of the idea here is that rather than high rep junk volume where only the last couple reps actually do anything, here each rep is providing a significant stimulus plus overloading parts of the movement where normally you wouldn’t have to push hard.
I don’t think I will get smaller or weaker from these, I just have to be careful not to burn myself out. The last couple months were low volume and low reps so this is a bit of a shock to my system. Squatting for sets of 6 now counts as high reps I guess.
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Thursday, May 9 - Bench assistance day - AKA upper body cardio
Close grip floor press
280x10, 7 - first set was a 10rm, not sure if I had another rep on the 2nd set
Military press
180x12, 9, 6 - 12rm on the first set, seems like I have some skill when it comes to selecting weights. You can also see that my work capacity is shit, hopefully it will catch up soon but that is what happens when you spend months doing low reps.
Neutral DB pushups
15, 11, 9 - I feel everything in my triceps much more than expected
Floor pause tricep extension
115x15, 9 - I was planning on doing 3 sets but my triceps are dead, no need for more at this point. This was harder than I expected too, I thought I would be able to do more weight than with skull crushers but the combination of all the work before this plus the fact that it’s an unfamiliar movement make it difficult.
Duffin upright row
10x25, 14, 10 - First time ever doing this, my shoulders were on fire. I didn’t think 10lbs could do anything for me but I was wrong. Breaks were 1 minute which partly explains the abrupt drop in performance.
Barbell curl
65x15x3 - aside from the fact I haven’t done curls in months, my shoulders were fucked and it made this feel extra terrible. I’m just glad I don’t have to drive anywhere right now because holding the steering wheel would be a max effort exercise at the moment.
I feel like I’m complaining too much. I’m just not used to everything feeling so horrible, I should get over it soon.
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Friday, May 10 - Light squat/main deadlift day
1 1/4 squat - Transformer bar on 1.5D setting (feels like my comp squat)
315x2x6 sets - 45 sec. rest
Deficit deadlift (sumo)
425x6x2 sets - could do 2-3 more reps on each set, fairly easy but it’s a decent start to this block. I haven’t deadlifted in 2 weeks and a couple weeks more since I pulled from a deficit, don’t want to die on day1.
Snatch grip rack pull (conventional)
405x10x2 - again, could do a couple more reps on each set. Really felt this in my lower back.
More variables: stiff bar (don’t want to fuck up my DL bar), straps, controlled eccentric rather than smashing it down to the pins. This is essentially a full ROM exercise, despite the fact it’s out of a rack. Long legs and short arms mean I have to round my back to pull conventional from the floor, the snatch grip just makes it harder on my back (upper and lower) and lats.
Dumbbell row
105x12, 10, 8 - 1 min. rest between sets - My right side is slightly weaker so I do left first and match reps with the right. Left side sets were about RPE9, right was maybe @7-8. No use pushing that harder to increase the imbalance.
I feel you on this man. Hell, even my conventional deadlift lockout is around the base of my ball sac.
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You pull sumo?
No. I have had groin and adductor issues in the past. I enjoy conventional more and usually when my conventional goes up, so does my sumo so I don’t train it as much.
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Still a strong session with the DLs