Today I did my second mock meet. It went well. Far from ideal, but I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and whatnot.
For some background: A year ago in february, I set some goals for myself. At the time, my squat was 275, bench was 205, and deadlift was 335, with a strict press of 145. I decided that, by the end of the semester in 2013, I wanted to squat 405, bench 255, deadlift 455, and strict press 195. Hit the strict press a few weeks ago, and this is the testing of the other lifts. Originally I was planning on testing them on separate days, but instead I figured it’s more productive in the long run to just run mock meets when I test from now on haha.
Bench was a pain in the ass, I screwed up royally and did badly. But it’s always been my nemesis and I learned from the experience. Squat went well, and deadlift was a blast. Here’s the video. Mostly just posting it to share and keep myself accountable for my accomplishments and failures, but any advice, criticism, questions, whatever are welcome as well. Thanks everyone, the forums have been a great resource over the past year. Can’t wait to get back to work.
I’ve got total squat envy as far as your form goes there. How do you grind it out with your quads like that?
With your bench, I saw something that could help you get tighter and leg and back drive. It’s your feet. They’re pointing out nearly sideways. I understand this gets your heels back farther and can bump up your arch a tiny bit but it’s at the expense of a lot of leg drive and stability. When it’s done that way, you lose the arch in your foot and can’t drive with your legs. Try pointing your feet a lot straighter forward so you can keep your feet arched. I found my setup became much more consistent and my paused and touch and go gap closed too.
You’ve seen my deadlift and know that I totally throw my back into it to excess. What I see with yours on that 475 is that once your form just goes a little bad you can’t recover it. I couple things I’ve done and for me perhaps even overdid is ‘chaos control’ movements. A concept coined my Louie Simmons. Flat back to slightly round back GMs and front squats with chains have done wonders for me to be able to still get up deads I botch which is pretty much anything above 85% at the moment lol. The GMs will help you get the lift if your back gets pitched forward and/or rounded and help punch your hips through and the the front squats with chains will hammer the hell out of your upper and thoracic back so you straighten out that part of your back at lock out while pushing your hips through.
Haha thank you Fletch for the squat compliment. I wish I didn’t have to grind so damn much… but I was really happy with the form on those.
That’s a really interesting observation on the bench. I honestly never think about my feet except to try and keep my heels planted, and didn’t notice how turned sideways they were at all. I will have to play with trying to keep them straighter in the future. My bench has always been a serious weakness, and I really appreciate any insight that goes towards improving it. I need to keep tweaking my technique - and in the mean time I’m just going to hammer my back and arms. Try and gain a few inches of mass on the upper body, see if that doesn’t help haha
Also, I agree with you on the deads. I hammer technique constantly and I am used to a very straight, smooth, and fast pull… the downside being, when a lift does go awry, I can’t recover well haha. I got crazy amped for that 475 - it was the first time I ever tried smelling ammonia before a lift lol. Wanted to give it a try on my final attempt… that shit is REAL haha. But anyways, all the psyching up just et to me using a lot of back, and letting the bar drift a little too much, and then my ass was helpless to squeeze through lol. Your suggestions are really interesting, I’ve never heard louie talk about chaos control, that’s a really interesting concept. My plan for my next training cycle is basically to do a speed day, and then a “heavy speed day,” where I’m pulling 365-405 for a bunch of singles with 2 minutes rest. My idea is that I will do an even better job hammering technique with heavy weight. But maybe it would be a good idea to add in some chaos control stuff as well, to prepare myself for those max attempts when technique inevitably breaks down. I can see something as simple as stiff leg deads working really well, to just get me used to a less than ideal position.
Haha yeah… pretty bad. But hey, I’d rather royally fuck up in my garage then when I actually start competing. I was so bummed out I failed that 240, and there was no crowd or judges haha, I don’t think I’ll make that mistake again.
[quote]N.K. wrote:
Haha yeah… pretty bad. But hey, I’d rather royally fuck up in my garage then when I actually start competing. I was so bummed out I failed that 240, and there was no crowd or judges haha, I don’t think I’ll make that mistake again. [/quote]
That is true!! I have a question about your bench work, do you ever do any paused reps during your workouts? When I powerlifted I added paused reps and my bench shot up… Its hard to get the weight off your chest if your not used to doing that…
I actually do quite a bit of paused work. A few months back I added paused stuff in, and it was the first thing to get my bench moving in a while… so then I switched literally ALL of my bench work to paused stuff haha, which I now think was a mistake. I made better progress when I was doing a mix of paused work and touch n go, so for this next cycle I’m going to add back in some touch n go assistance work, along with my regular paused stuff and some long pause benching that I am adding in as well. Hopefully the added variety will help me progress
