Is it normal for your front and back squat to go to absolute shit while you are peaking for a competition? I’m four weeks out from a meet in Sept. I’ve also dropped about 5-8kg in the last 3 weeks. But 2 months ago I was easily back squating 180 and front squating in the 150s.
Last week I had to dump 160 on the back squat. Even worse, Sunday early in the session I CJ 125, later I had to dump a 130 front squat! I snatched 109 and CJ 120 last night. So my snatch is going back up and clean is little down.
it will drop, you lost 8kgs and you say your PRs were 2 months ago. When was the last heavy squat workout? I find that anything over 1 week will start reducing your squat if you aren’t lifting and roughly 2 weeks if you are doing oly lifts.
I have a meet in ~10 september. I plan to keep squatting till ~3-4 september. At that time I will only do high intensity, low volume squats. Something like trying to get a PR on the squat about one week before the meet.
I think in general the idea is when peaking for a meet, you reduce volume and you add frequency and intensity. Then the last week leading up to the meet you reduce intensity mainly but keep frequency up. Especially as someone who isn’t very proficient with the technique you want to get as many good reps in as possible. After all its most likely that in the meet you(and me) will miss mainly due to technique errors rather than reaching strength limits.
My FS varies about 10-15kg from my PB of 180 on any given day…aim for 90% on a ‘poor’ day and 95% on a good day imo. Any day you an hit 95% of your 1RM is a good day for that exerdcise imo. Anything between 90-95% is okay.
Losing 5-8kg is no sweat for you mate.
What else are you doing to peak? Are you hammering the OLifts heavier? Remember it’s about the OLifts so if your squats drop a bit it doesn’t matter as long as your OLifting well mate. CJ will be hurt more by drop in squat strength then the Sn.
For me I rarely ever hit a decent CJ if I squat poorly, but I can usually Sn well either way. I just won’t hit a new PB without FS well.