My first powerlifting meet is in 8 days. Today is the scheduled deadlift day. How heavy would you go? I am not sure if I want to pull my opener at about 90% for a single. Or stay at 80/85% and hit a few fast reps.
42 years old, one year of training, and first competition, if those things factor in.
[quote]BDJBoston wrote:
My first powerlifting meet is in 8 days. Today is the scheduled deadlift day. How heavy would you go? I am not sure if I want to pull my opener at about 90% for a single. Or stay at 80/85% and hit a few fast reps.
42 years old, one year of training, and first competition, if those things factor in. [/quote]
It’s 8 days, that’s a long time so you can’t hurt your progress (unless you hurt yourself), but it is short enough that you won’t really add anything either, so chill, no magic here, anything you do will most probably be as good as anything else.
Singles under meet conditions is a fine last workout(chalk up, have Joe cinch your belt and remind you of what an animal you are, snort a snap, throw it on the ground like you mean it, make a noise, walk up to the bar, do your prep dance, grip, rip, lock out and wait for the head judge to stop staring at the hot chick over there and finally glance back at you to give the “down” signal, lower bar to ground under control, look for your 3 whites, bow to the judges because that is what they do at the Olympics, walk away.)
Since this is your first meet, pick an opener which is equivalent to a last warm up, something you can do for a triple even if you have a full bladder, because if this is your first meet and you are wearing a suit, as soon as it is pulled up, you will have to pee. I’m going to guess that this is around your 85%.
That easy-triple weight might be a good one to do some singles with for this workout anywhere in the 80 - 90% range, which is what you propose. Hard singles in the 80ish% range done once a week will preserve forever whatever it is you do deadlift for a max. Weights which are heavy enough to grab your attention, but not so heavy that you go snail slow and change your impeccable form. Or so it goes for me.
Anyway, chill, practice some meet form singles with a reasonable weight and then chill again.
Best of luck. Lemme know how it went.
Emskee that was best reply ever and you didn’t even make fun of me for misspelling deadlift in my original post.
What about heavy cable concentration curls?? 
[quote]emskee wrote:
[quote]BDJBoston wrote:
My first powerlifting meet is in 8 days. Today is the scheduled deadlift day. How heavy would you go? I am not sure if I want to pull my opener at about 90% for a single. Or stay at 80/85% and hit a few fast reps.
42 years old, one year of training, and first competition, if those things factor in. [/quote]
It’s 8 days, that’s a long time so you can’t hurt your progress (unless you hurt yourself), but it is short enough that you won’t really add anything either, so chill, no magic here, anything you do will most probably be as good as anything else.
Singles under meet conditions is a fine last workout(chalk up, have Joe cinch your belt and remind you of what an animal you are, snort a snap, throw it on the ground like you mean it, make a noise, walk up to the bar, do your prep dance, grip, rip, lock out and wait for the head judge to stop staring at the hot chick over there and finally glance back at you to give the “down” signal, lower bar to ground under control, look for your 3 whites, bow to the judges because that is what they do at the Olympics, walk away.)
Since this is your first meet, pick an opener which is equivalent to a last warm up, something you can do for a triple even if you have a full bladder, because if this is your first meet and you are wearing a suit, as soon as it is pulled up, you will have to pee. I’m going to guess that this is around your 85%.
That easy-triple weight might be a good one to do some singles with for this workout anywhere in the 80 - 90% range, which is what you propose. Hard singles in the 80ish% range done once a week will preserve forever whatever it is you do deadlift for a max. Weights which are heavy enough to grab your attention, but not so heavy that you go snail slow and change your impeccable form. Or so it goes for me.
Anyway, chill, practice some meet form singles with a reasonable weight and then chill again.
Best of luck. Lemme know how it went.
[/quote]
Worth repeating!
[quote]BDJBoston wrote:
What about heavy cable concentration curls?? :)[/quote]
Of course…
Emskee put it very well. I typically won’t bother deadlifting for a couple of weeks out from a meet but that’s because I know where I’m at and what I’m doing - 20 plus meets into it. Before my first meet I had to resist the urge to beat myself up the week prior just so I knew I could still do it. Fortunately, at the time, I had a very old school coach who made me open at weights I thought were embarrassing (triples on a full bladder). I’m glad he did because meet lifts aren’t gym lifts
Just don’t psych yourself up too much before the meet because that in itself can burn up up.
fwiw, I did my first meet at 42. Have a great time.