I have found much more success lately revamping my Squat from the feet up changing literally every aspect from foot wear, to stance to even where I rack the bar. This has allowed me for the first time in years to not only aggressively train the Squat but do so pain free multiple times a week. Amit Sapir is doing my nutrition and training and I have only gotten better. As my body weight climbs my Squat takes off more than anything. In the past 3 years I have successfully added 100lbs to my Squat every year. So technically the 50lbs if I stay at 220 is actually fairly slower than my past 3 years of progress.
Also I focus almost entirely on the Squat. I set up all training based around a bigger and better Squat. I don’t deadlift very often (3-4 every 6 months and almost always exclusively in peak). I don’t deadlift because it takes away from my ability to train my Squat harder. Lastly leverage and mechanically speaking I am built to Squat pretty well so that loft just goes up for me by almost looking at a bar bell. I actually built a 760 Squat raw squat with almost never going over 365lbs. So, now that I can actually train heavy, pain free, more often and am allowing my bw to creep up it will only get better.
I train my deadlift by getting a bigger Squat and working on technical issues in tje deadlift and strengthing my weakness in the deadlift but, I hardly ever have more than 405 on the bar unless in peak.
My bench I have some pretty shitty shoulder issues so I don’t push it much either as it hinders my bar position at times during Squats and causes me to have some pretty painful bench sessions. So, I only push it as hard as I can while not taking anything way from my Squat.
Good plan ive found that increasing squat for me has direct carry over to deads plus muscle memory.
Right now the sqaut is number one on my priorities.
Keep on squating Reed and good luck.
For some reason i keep getting you mixed up with Kevin Oak?
It seems I cant do anything wrong with my deadlift. It keeps climbing. I am however almost to the point of THINKING about running a Smolov or Smolov Jr for my squat. And I am fairly confident my bench will slowly but surely continue to creep up.
glad i found this post. i was just coming up with goals to keep me motivated for next year. haven’t been doing this for very long, but i think these are doable. my goal is to complete these all on the same day-- first saturday in november (too much snow after that)
bench current 435 ------> 450
dead 525 ------> 600
squat 425 ------> 500
bike 100 miles
run 5 miles
for me, i have never competed, just lift in my barn, the fun/challenge will be to balance my workouts so i can do all.
have been lifting for about a year and a half, and at age 50, can’t imagine i have many more years of increasing my weight.
looking forward to this-- and seeing how well the rest of the nation does meeting their goals
Just set my current maxes today after 2 months of consistent lifting after I missed most of the rest of the year… 427 Squat, 325 Bench, 462 DL. By then end of next year I’d love to get a 500 Squat, 350 Bench and at least a 550 DL as long as I can stay consistent with lifting and not be sidetracked by work
About halfway. How you guys doing on your goals? I feel ill hit my Deadlift and be close on bench (maybe 405-410) tng by the end of the year. I doubt squat will make it but getting some help with that from some guys that know more than me. But I also am still in 181 territory rather than 198 otherwise I’d probably be at the bench and Deadlift and close on squat.
I’d like 565/308/600 at 198 in meet and a reliable 300 lbs bench for reps
I’m now walking around around between three and six pounds shy of 181 lbs so I want to qualify for 2018 nationals at 181 this October and hit a 1320 lbs total in July.
Didn’t participate in December, but probably should have, so I’ll throw myself in here and get up to speed.
In December, I had deadlifted 505, and was just sort of thinking that maybe kinda sorta I could start barbell squatting again after a long hiatus (details in training log). In January, I back squatted up to 295 for a single on my first test day. Bodyweight was/is around 220.
In the last few weeks, I’ve hit a 330 front squat, 410 back squat and 550 deadlift, so I’ve set the year-end 2017 goals around a 365 front squat, 425 back squat and 585 deadlift, with my longer-term goals (lifetime) to hit a 400+ front squat, 500+ back squat, and 600+ deadlift.
So hard to predict b/c my progress has been very non-linear over the 3.5 years I’ve been training.
I compete Saturday so I don’t really know my maxes right now, but taking things conservatively:
475 wrapped/285/550
Would love to see
500/315/600
At nearly 49 y/o and 198 lb weight class, I won’t be as aggressive as some of you guys on projections. Those numbers would put me at or near elite and set up for some hopefully strong showings in Masters 3 come next July.
I’ve made very little progress on my goals numbers wise (due to injury) but my body feels better and I’m still pushing for them at a meeting I’m planning to do in Dec: 700 pull (will be a struggle to get there) and 1500 total (much more achievable).
I totally forgot about this thread. I said I wanted 500/400/575, I ended up with 480/365/530. My goals shifted to a 635kg/1400lbs. total to qualify for provincials, I missed it by 12.5kg. Played it conservative on squat, failed my 3rd bench (plus I’m totally plateau there), stomach was acting up and almost puked on deadlifts which caused me to fail my 2nd attempt which I re-took and completed on the 3rd attempt. At the time I figured a 10lbs. meet PR was better than going for broke and failing, but now I regret not going for that 560. I know excuses don’t mean shit, but I later realized that I had caught some kind of stomach bug that was going around at my son’s daycare.
So now I really need to get my bench moving again. I think I will go back to benching 3x/week, 2x seems like too infrequent and too much volume per session. Squat and deadlift have been moving along lately (should be capable of a 500 squat and 570 deadlift) so I will just keep doing more of the same thing.
But it’s interesting, the philosophy with which you pick your weights. When to go big when to dial it back and pocket a modest PR.
I’ve had the good fortune of great coaching, going from sedentary and weak to pushing a master’s total in 3 years. To me, the real benefit of a coach has been the eye, the keen eye to keep me healthy and know when to pull back. I’ve gotten the same benefits picking weights for a meet.
This coming meet, my openers:
This is aggressive but my current trainer is a squat world record holder and she, simply put, is aggressive on poundages squatting. I personally would pull back my opener, but the confidence she has in my I will shred that 440.
Ugh, I think way to conservative as I’ve pause benched 240 for 4 reps.
I agree with this but am not happy. My last meet PR was 529, and I felt I had 550 in me that day. I wanted an opener that could get me 575ish. . . but based on performance it isn’t in the cards.
My approach to picking attempts is that I have to lift at least 95% (for a single) of whatever my planned 3rd attempt is. Openers should be something I can definitely do for a triple, which seems to work out to about 88-90% for me. Second attempt somewhere in the middle. I want my openers to feel easy, save my energy for the attempts that really count. If things aren’t going my way I will reduce numbers for subsequent attempts, this meet my 2nd bench didn’t move as fast as it should have so I reduce my 3rd by 2.5kg - and still failed.
I see some elite level lifters opening with closer to 95%, I suppose that their approach is that they want a decent total even if they only make their openers. Either that or they aren’t used to taking bigger jumps between lifts. On the other hand, there was recently an article about Dave Ricks where he says that his openers are a weight that he can lift for more than 3 reps and he only attempts his perceived 1rm if necessary to win or achieve a particular total.
To bench 160 kg/~350 lbs. paused. I’m 21 and around 210 lbs. Currently around 145-150 kg/320-330 lbs. touch and go. Doing a hypertrophy phase with lots of “bodybuilding” was the best training decision I’ve made in years.
How did you guys do? I wanted 625/425/750 at 198. Never ended up filling out the class and only managed to hit the deadlift. Squat I could’ve taken a third (585-590) and ben closer but still off. Bench seems like my shoulders don’t want much more than high 300s
Would up messing my hip up pretty bad so couldn’t focus too much on my raw squat. I was for 850 did manage to hit 815 but got in gear after some time off and to try and keep my hip happy. Wound up squatting 1003 in comp in it. So still pretty happy with that. Bench I gave up on haha. I did manage to beat my 650 pull by pulling 655 so that’s not bad either. All in all a pretty good year and looking to November for the WPO meet in Florida. Pretty much will spend all year prepping for it.
