[quote]TB284 wrote:
my raw bench is in the ballpark of 490-500lbs at 220. [/quote]
Do you compete? a 490 bench at 220 would put you in the top 10 on powerliftingwatch.com easily. [/quote]
Doing my first full meet next month, USAPL PA state championships. I’ve been doing some local bench only contests for fun for a couple of years, but my squat and deadlift weren’t near where I wanted them to be before now.[/quote]
Good luck with the meet. With your numbers, you should do the USAPL bench press nationals in San Antonio in August. We could meet in person there.
Doing my first full meet next month, USAPL PA state championships. I’ve been doing some local bench only contests for fun for a couple of years, but my squat and deadlift weren’t near where I wanted them to be before now.[/quote]
FYI, the top two USAPL lifters in Bench last year in the 220 class were a 523 and a 468.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Good luck with the meet. With your numbers, you should do the USAPL bench press nationals in San Antonio in August. We could meet in person there. [/quote]
Thanks. I was talking with someone I’ve competed with a few times at the local meets, Sean Timms, about nationals. He competed last year in Georgia and set the American record at 185lbs, I believe. I’d love to go eventually, but this might not be my year. My one-year wedding anniversary is a coule of weeks before that, and I have a feeling my wife is going to demand any extra money I’d have to travel is spent on a trip to the beach with her.
Edit: That’s good to know. The top place was Dennis Cieri I’d imagine?
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Good luck with the meet. With your numbers, you should do the USAPL bench press nationals in San Antonio in August. We could meet in person there. [/quote]
Thanks. I was talking with someone I’ve competed with a few times at the local meets, Sean Timms, about nationals. He competed last year in Georgia and set the American record at 185lbs, I believe. I’d love to go eventually, but this might not be my year. My one-year wedding anniversary is a coule of weeks before that, and I have a feeling my wife is going to demand any extra money I’d have to travel is spent on a trip to the beach with her.
Edit: That’s good to know. The top place was Dennis Cieri I’d imagine?[/quote]
Yep, first with USAPL and 3rd on Powerliftingwatch.com
[quote]LoRez wrote:
How/why did you move into training so frequently?
And how do you regulate your volume and intensities since you are lifting so frequently?[/quote]
I first jumped into high(er) frequency training about four years ago with the various Sheiko templates floating around. I wanted to train more often because I just really enjoyed it, and they seemed like a good challenge. I responded pretty well to it, so I used those interspersed with a few months of other training styles here and there. (5/3/1 for a break from the volume, pseudo-Bulgarian stuff for a chance to handle heavier weights often, etc.) I tried writing my own programming for a bit in a sort of Sheiko-style, but I didn’t do so well with that. I’d either go too easy on myself or write something that looked good on paper, but ended up beating the shit out of me.
I was pretty used to the frequency at this point, but I needed to find a good way to work auto-regulation into things, so I adopted the RPE methodology of Mike Tuscherer. If you’re familiar with his stuff at all, I set up my last couple of blocks with lower RPE’s and generally higher fatigue percents (6-10% mostly, using combination drops at the higher end) on the higher volume periods, and higher RPE’s (9-10) with more moderate fatigue percents (4-7%) on the higher intensity periods, using different kinds of fatigue drops preferentially with different movements based on what I seemed to respond to. I used that scheme on all movements across the board this time around, but I’d like to work some things differently after my meet.[/quote]
That’s pretty interesting.
No, I’m only vaguely familiar with the RPE training. I haven’t found much information on it (short of buying the book), but I also haven’t looked too hard either. I understand the basic concept of the RPE number, but not the fatigue percent.
What kind of changes are you looking to make after the meet?
No, I’m only vaguely familiar with the RPE training. I haven’t found much information on it (short of buying the book), but I also haven’t looked too hard either. I understand the basic concept of the RPE number, but not the fatigue percent.
What kind of changes are you looking to make after the meet?[/quote]
I’m going to have a little more time with each block since I don’t have any meets planned for the near future, so I’m going to try working much higher volume on the assistance lifts, and varying them a bit more, during my accumulation block. So instead of doing something like x4@8 followed by a 7% load drop for competition bench, pause squats, and closegrip bench on a given training day*, I want to try to stick with that scheme for the competition lift, but vary it to maybe x5@8 with a 10% combination load/rep drop on the assistance stuff. I think if I vary the assistance work a bit more than I am now and work that higher volume all the time, I can probably push my volume up a lot during that block without sacrificing too much intensity on the competition lifts.
*Without diving into anything that you couldn’t find for free on the RTS forums, x4@8, 7% load drop is basically working up to an initial set of 4 reps with a weight that you could lift for 6-7 reps with good technique, followed by backoff sets with a weight ~7% lighter, which you repeat until a set of 4 with that weight is an 8 RPE.
[quote]TB284 wrote:
I’m going to have a little more time with each block since I don’t have any meets planned for the near future, so I’m going to try working much higher volume on the assistance lifts, and varying them a bit more, during my accumulation block. So instead of doing something like x4@8 followed by a 7% load drop for competition bench, pause squats, and closegrip bench on a given training day*, I want to try to stick with that scheme for the competition lift, but vary it to maybe x5@8 with a 10% combination load/rep drop on the assistance stuff. I think if I vary the assistance work a bit more than I am now and work that higher volume all the time, I can probably push my volume up a lot during that block without sacrificing too much intensity on the competition lifts.
*Without diving into anything that you couldn’t find for free on the RTS forums, x4@8, 7% load drop is basically working up to an initial set of 4 reps with a weight that you could lift for 6-7 reps with good technique, followed by backoff sets with a weight ~7% lighter, which you repeat until a set of 4 with that weight is an 8 RPE.[/quote]
Thanks for the information/introduction.
I’ll definitely be coming back to this in the future once I learn more.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Thanks for the information/introduction.
I’ll definitely be coming back to this in the future once I learn more.[/quote]
Not a problem. I’d definitely recommend the RTS book if you ever decide to train similarly to this. Even though Mike’s constantly updating his own theories and protocols, the basics don’t really change and he lays out lots of good ways to set up training blocks.