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WPO Semis Training Cycle: Evaluate, Change, Fail, Learn, and Start Over
By Marc “Spud” Bartley
For www.EliteFTS.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlike many other sports, most powerlifters don’t mind sharing their information on training. We all want the same thing—higher, better performance each round. There aren’t any templates that match every single human body size or type so one style won’t yield top performances for everyone. The only one that seems to apply to most is Westside.
Most people cringe when I say this because they don’t want to believe that one system can cover so many bases in just about any sport. But this system does just that. You just have to adapt it to the particular sport. Essentially, it’s just a hodgepodge of some of the best systems from all over the world. But even the best programs need tweaking.
Over the past 4–5 years, I’ve had to hybrid it so that my team and I can continue to make progress by eliminating mental fatigue and physical adaptation to the basic Westside format. These changes have come from many different people who employ different systems to accomplish the same result—the highest performance possible. I listen and watch and think about how I can get what they’re saying and of course its efficacy into my program. Everything I do is about what makes sense, not just work to do work. Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again or did Susan Powder say that?
The training for this past fall’s WPO/WPCs was different. For starters, since the complete demise of the Compound in June of this year, all training was done at South Carolina Barbell. Some of the crew went one way and some my way. It is what it is, but it worked out just fine. I started a new crew with some of the old as well as a new cast of characters who have all jelled and come together with the same goals. Everyone wants to be stronger and put up big numbers. Wow. It had been so long I had forgotten what this felt like and so had some of the old crew who followed me. Just weight lifting and fun.
I quickly went to work designing my own program for me and all who wanted to get in on it. I put it down in a spreadsheet, which was available for all to view. Before, the program was more of whatever everyone agreed on that night for a few weeks, not that it didn’t work. But, there was less organization and fewer progress checks as we went along. This also enables you to work on what you need to work on for you, your strengths, and your weaknesses. I presented the plan to the crew, we all agreed it was a good plan, and off we went.
One of the biggest things that we stuck with was the deload week after each three week cycle. During these “breaks,” there was no squatting, pulling, or benching on max effort nights. This is a wonderful thing for a beat up body over the 15–16 week training cycle. On bench night, we either did dumbbells to failure or kettlebell floor presses. It’s heaven not to have to touch a bar with burning elbows and “arched out” backs. Everyone actually smiled and had a good time instead of focusing on the mission and being pissed off. Active R and R might be a good term for it. It would have been blasphemy in the past to not squat at all during a week of a training cycle with an inquisition and a “Braveheart rack stretch” sure to follow for such actions. These nights are now Prowler sled pushes around the gym followed by small amounts of auxiliary work and abs.
I now firmly believe that deload weeks are a necessary part of any training program, especially one involving large amounts of pulling, benching with bands, heavy band tension squatting, and full gear work from all three lifts. A long time ago, Paul Childress had said that it takes up to a month to recover from a meet or big gym lifts. So, if you’re taking several large lifts with bands, chains, and gear throughout a cycle, why wouldn’t you think that this is just as traumatic to the body, if not more, as a full meet?
Since I have just opened up Pandora’s box, I will start with the squat program and its results. If you’ve read my article from last year about our squatting cycles, most of it is the same, just a little more refined. If you’re not aware, some of it may be very foreign to you. The first three-week round is the heavy band tension with briefs only off the box. The first week is five doubles with retarded amounts of band tension—two blues, one green, and a purple (I ran out of blues so I had to go to a green and purple; even more tension, yeah!!) and the bar weight—three or four plates. I can’t remember now.
The second week was the same on band tension with four and five plates for the five sets of two reps. The last week is the doozie with an extra purple band added in for the last two singles. This time I put all of them on for about 700–750 lbs of bands at the top for all the sets and the singles bar weight at 555–595 lbs. This was the most productive part of the cycle for everyone as it built confidence and put the body under stresses far greater then the max weight at a meet would. This type of training has to be done extremely early in the cycle or your recovery will be much harder.
After the deload week, we did full gear singles for three weeks, working up each week and ending up with a final single within 20 lbs of the opener. I don’t kill it on depth either during training. I just try to get to parallel and that’s it. If you can get to this point, you can make the two or three more inches come game time. Save the depth for the meet because that’s when it counts!! If you struggle too hard to get to parallel, then there are other issues you need to contend with—either your suit or faulty brain circuitry.
After another week of deload, we came back to full gear again. We did lighter doubles of two sets for two more weeks to really get the gear tuned in and learn how to deal with heavy weights without freaking out. The first week was 955 lbs and 1015 lbs for doubles and the second was 900 lbs and 955 lbs. I like getting the hard part done the first week because you have some more recovery time towards the meet. Remember, it’s best to have a month to recover from big lifts.
The next stage is some heavy threes and fives in briefs. I described it as an old Russian routine we picked up. However, nowadays, if you label something, everyone gets pissed and says someone else did it first so it’s not theirs. I found this out while surfing a site with Olympic lifting articles on it. Everything was so called this and so called that. For example, everyone knows RDLs as Romanian deadlifts, but this PhD said it was so called and that the Romanians were not the first to do them so he didn’t want to give them any credit. He also didn’t want to give anyone credit or even acknowledge the stretch reflex so he called it the “so called stretch reflex” while describing the transition from the yielding phase to the concentric phase. The sets were 5, 3, 3, and 3 and back to fives again with the last set of three being the hardest at 850 X 3 (what I consider 70 percent of max in full gear) in briefs only. In the past, I have done three weeks of this but felt that was a little too much this close to the meet. The final two weeks were deloads at 55 percent and 50 percent with just briefs.
Pulling wise, we were still able to get in two sessions per week. The heavy pulls were on max effort squat night and the speed work was on Saturdays. This worked great for the last Arnold so we repeated it again with only minor changes. Mostly, these changes were waves of differing deficit pulls. On speed day, we did some with a three inch height, some with a two inch height, and some with a one inch height. We also did less rack pulls on max day. Stance wise, we concentrated on sumo almost exclusively on both lower body days.
The speed work didn’t really work this round. Or it had just grown stagnant at the 60 percent I was using. I think all sumo with wide stance squatting was too much on the legs and back so we were all very tired the entire training cycle. We utilized the various leg presses again with the speed work on Saturdays. This too was not as productive as it was during the Arnold training. During the training cycle, I felt that it wasn’t working, but the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kept coming up. This is one time I should have listened to Joe and gone with the “Weider Instinctive Training” principle. My guts were firing off, but I didn’t listen.
We did try sumo Romanian deadlifts this time around. The Fins are big on this one so why not? It’s something I hadn’t done much of before and was rather reluctant to do. However, I pulled on and ended up liking them very much. The only problem was that we went way too heavy (765 X 2 for me), and after heavy squatting, this isn’t productive to overall training. In retrospect, I should have stopped at 650 lbs, worked hard on the snap at the top, and done fives, which was what we were supposed to do according to the routine set out by the Fins. We also did one week of reverse bands with the bands letting off totally right below the knees and one week of suit work up to 90 percent. We went too heavy on both without a doubt, but we all know how that goes. If we don’t max out during the cycle for some reason, we don’t feel confident. However, this is one thing we will NOT do this upcoming cycle for sure. Or maybe we’ll still do it, but we won’t do as many heavy heavy sets to prove our manhood instead of our performance. I say this now, but the plan is not to go above 80 percent on the pulls. That will be for only one or two weeks tops.
At the semis, the weights were not heavy, but they were certainly slow. We were all tired, which is a definite sign that we were overtrained by a minimum of 10 percent. This is only a guess for all of you number fruitcakes out there. It may be less than that.
Bench wise, we tried a variety of things differently. The first was DE or speed day. For the last two training cycles, we basically did the same thing. From a raw standpoint, I gained some strength, but this didn’t translate to the shirt bench. Ever since my first 2400 lb total at the APF Seniors in 2004 my bench has gone south on certain aspects. I have benched more since then but I haven’t been solid, nor have I reached my full potential. After this meet, I developed a drift in the bench. The only way I can describe it is to say just that. It was a drift over or near my face and this twilight zone where I couldn’t move the bar to lockout or even hold it up long enough to squeeze out that last inch to inch and a half. My theory at the time was that I had lost triceps power somehow and needed to work that angle with a limited range of motion. I determined that the 3-board was right below this area of bench shutdown. So instead of floor press speed work like I did for the Arnold, I decided to try pause presses off the 3-board. The 60 percent rule from the deadlift worked well so I went with that for the weight. This ended up being 485–535 lbs most of the time for five sets of three reps with a three second pause on each rep. The time under tension was about 12 seconds per set, which sometimes felt like an eternity.
We worked on staying as tight as possible with the bar on the board. We would also sink down to get more leg drive and better timing between the legs and upper body after pressing. The interesting thing was that you were so ready by the time you heard three that it was like anticipating the press command. We all seemed to slam the bar faster.
As the weeks progressed, we realized it wasn’t working very well so we started lowering the boards to two and one board. This seemed to increase bar speed by 5–10 percent, especially on raw work. In the last week of the training cycle, I went off the chest with 405 lbs and then did 455 lbs for two sets of three and 500 lbs for two sets of three. I have never done 500 lbs for two sets of three so easily before. My conclusion is that the 3-board is good every once in a while, but the best boards for raw work are definitely the 2-board and the 1-board. Additionally, I added 4-board triceps in for three sets of five under the advice of Jimmy Grandick, who has a pretty nice bench.
Max effort upper was somewhat of a similar story. I went with a lot of 3-board work through most of the cycle. In the end, it didn’t help my problem, but it certainly made me stronger. As if super band tension wasn’t enough for squatting, we added it in on the bench as well during the SAME three week wave! This is a Chris Cooke favorite. The only difference was that we went raw instead of using the shirt. The bar weight was 135 lbs with lots of doubled up mini and monster mini bands. We would do three reps and then move up either a mini or monster each set until we could not do three. Sometimes, we threw some singles in at the end. We worked on tightness, wedging it off the lats, leg drive, and all the other techniques. If you miss any of these minor details, you’ll get crushed by the bands.
I think I ended up with somewhere between 790–835 lbs at the top for a single. This encouraged me going into the first shirt wave. I decided to do a circa max type with purple bands doubled up to increase lockout intensity for a three week wave. The end goal was to get 635–675 lbs for a triple with the bands doubled up. I ended up with 585 lbs for three and 635 lbs for one so I was somewhat encouraged going into the next three week round. This round was just 3-board work for week one and two and then down to a 2-board for week three.
The first week was great with a PR of 785 lbs for two so I stopped there instead of going for 805 lbs for a single or two. I thought it would be there the next week, but it was all downhill from there. I came back and barely got 755 lbs off the 3-board for one. The last week was a disaster. I barely got 715 lbs for two or three off the 2-board (I’ve blocked it out because it was so bad). Obviously, it was just too many weeks with near maximal weights. The circa max cycle with doubled up purple bands should have been put somewhere in the off-season or 20–25 weeks out from a meet. Not a keeper so deep in the meet preparation.
We planned out two opener days the last two weeks before the meet. My goal and thinking was to get the 725 lb opener the first week and then do some light rep work the week before the meet to aid recovery. You guessed it. The second week out from the meet I got 695 lbs for one off the 1-board but couldn’t get 725 lbs to lockout on two tries. So on to the week before the meet…this week all the restorative things I was doing as well as the lower volume were starting to bring us back to life. This time I got 725 lbs for one fairly easily and was satisfied with that one week too late.
Results, you say. Squat wise, most people know what I did—1124 lbs fast and 1151 lbs just as fast but with not as much depth. Karl T. got 1047 lbs in the masters 308 lbs class at a light 283 lbs. Barry hurt his leg at the meet but got 790 lbs in training more easily then I’ve ever seen him get. Mike, our 181 lb masters (a real masters at age 50!!) did 510 lbs, which was up over a hundred pounds in less then a year. I think this part of the program worked well—not much tweaking here. Bench was so so for all. I crushed the opener of 716 lbs and thought I would get some good numbers. However, 749 lbs got me twice. On the first attempt, I went back over my face and couldn’t lock it out. The last attempt was better, but I couldn’t lock the right arm out and was finished. Karl upped his bench from 507 lbs to 535 lbs but got 565 lbs in training so there was only some improvement there. Mike had problems all day and just got his opener. This section is already under complete overhaul and I’ve deleted a good portion from the meet prep cycle.
For the deadlift, I opened with a PR, rushed it, and totally missed it. I had to retake it again but got it with success. I went about two inches wider on the second attempt, but I freaked out a little and moved my legs back in some for the third attempt as I had done at the Arnold. I had no trouble with the lift, but it was very slow. Both side judges called me on my right leg because it wasn’t totally locked out. Oh, well. Karl had a rough go on his last two attempts, but he got his opener easily. Mike, whose worst lift is the deadlift, got a PR with 456 lbs.
All in all, it was a good day considering we blew all the minor things. But, that’s how we really learn, and it’s always great to see what you are made of week after week. I still believe there’s a perfect combination of different training strategies out there that will yield the greatest results in a shorter period of time. At least that’s my dream eight years after I started this journey. I’m an American, which means I want it all right now with minimal sacrifice and bloodshed. I know that isn’t possible, but I like to say it anyway. Paying dues is part of anything you really want in this life. I just wish I could do it sitting down
By Marc “Spud” Bartley
For www.EliteFTS.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlike many other sports, most powerlifters don’t mind sharing their information on training. We all want the same thing—higher, better performance each round. There aren’t any templates that match every single human body size or type so one style won’t yield top performances for everyone. The only one that seems to apply to most is Westside.
Most people cringe when I say this because they don’t want to believe that one system can cover so many bases in just about any sport. But this system does just that. You just have to adapt it to the particular sport. Essentially, it’s just a hodgepodge of some of the best systems from all over the world. But even the best programs need tweaking.
Over the past 4–5 years, I’ve had to hybrid it so that my team and I can continue to make progress by eliminating mental fatigue and physical adaptation to the basic Westside format. These changes have come from many different people who employ different systems to accomplish the same result—the highest performance possible. I listen and watch and think about how I can get what they’re saying and of course its efficacy into my program. Everything I do is about what makes sense, not just work to do work. Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again or did Susan Powder say that?
The training for this past fall’s WPO/WPCs was different. For starters, since the complete demise of the Compound in June of this year, all training was done at South Carolina Barbell. Some of the crew went one way and some my way. It is what it is, but it worked out just fine. I started a new crew with some of the old as well as a new cast of characters who have all jelled and come together with the same goals. Everyone wants to be stronger and put up big numbers. Wow. It had been so long I had forgotten what this felt like and so had some of the old crew who followed me. Just weight lifting and fun.
I quickly went to work designing my own program for me and all who wanted to get in on it. I put it down in a spreadsheet, which was available for all to view. Before, the program was more of whatever everyone agreed on that night for a few weeks, not that it didn’t work. But, there was less organization and fewer progress checks as we went along. This also enables you to work on what you need to work on for you, your strengths, and your weaknesses. I presented the plan to the crew, we all agreed it was a good plan, and off we went.
One of the biggest things that we stuck with was the deload week after each three week cycle. During these “breaks,” there was no squatting, pulling, or benching on max effort nights. This is a wonderful thing for a beat up body over the 15–16 week training cycle. On bench night, we either did dumbbells to failure or kettlebell floor presses. It’s heaven not to have to touch a bar with burning elbows and “arched out” backs. Everyone actually smiled and had a good time instead of focusing on the mission and being pissed off. Active R and R might be a good term for it. It would have been blasphemy in the past to not squat at all during a week of a training cycle with an inquisition and a “Braveheart rack stretch” sure to follow for such actions. These nights are now Prowler sled pushes around the gym followed by small amounts of auxiliary work and abs.
I now firmly believe that deload weeks are a necessary part of any training program, especially one involving large amounts of pulling, benching with bands, heavy band tension squatting, and full gear work from all three lifts. A long time ago, Paul Childress had said that it takes up to a month to recover from a meet or big gym lifts. So, if you’re taking several large lifts with bands, chains, and gear throughout a cycle, why wouldn’t you think that this is just as traumatic to the body, if not more, as a full meet?
Since I have just opened up Pandora’s box, I will start with the squat program and its results. If you’ve read my article from last year about our squatting cycles, most of it is the same, just a little more refined. If you’re not aware, some of it may be very foreign to you. The first three-week round is the heavy band tension with briefs only off the box. The first week is five doubles with retarded amounts of band tension—two blues, one green, and a purple (I ran out of blues so I had to go to a green and purple; even more tension, yeah!!) and the bar weight—three or four plates. I can’t remember now.
The second week was the same on band tension with four and five plates for the five sets of two reps. The last week is the doozie with an extra purple band added in for the last two singles. This time I put all of them on for about 700–750 lbs of bands at the top for all the sets and the singles bar weight at 555–595 lbs. This was the most productive part of the cycle for everyone as it built confidence and put the body under stresses far greater then the max weight at a meet would. This type of training has to be done extremely early in the cycle or your recovery will be much harder.
After the deload week, we did full gear singles for three weeks, working up each week and ending up with a final single within 20 lbs of the opener. I don’t kill it on depth either during training. I just try to get to parallel and that’s it. If you can get to this point, you can make the two or three more inches come game time. Save the depth for the meet because that’s when it counts!! If you struggle too hard to get to parallel, then there are other issues you need to contend with—either your suit or faulty brain circuitry.
After another week of deload, we came back to full gear again. We did lighter doubles of two sets for two more weeks to really get the gear tuned in and learn how to deal with heavy weights without freaking out. The first week was 955 lbs and 1015 lbs for doubles and the second was 900 lbs and 955 lbs. I like getting the hard part done the first week because you have some more recovery time towards the meet. Remember, it’s best to have a month to recover from big lifts.
The next stage is some heavy threes and fives in briefs. I described it as an old Russian routine we picked up. However, nowadays, if you label something, everyone gets pissed and says someone else did it first so it’s not theirs. I found this out while surfing a site with Olympic lifting articles on it. Everything was so called this and so called that. For example, everyone knows RDLs as Romanian deadlifts, but this PhD said it was so called and that the Romanians were not the first to do them so he didn’t want to give them any credit. He also didn’t want to give anyone credit or even acknowledge the stretch reflex so he called it the “so called stretch reflex” while describing the transition from the yielding phase to the concentric phase. The sets were 5, 3, 3, and 3 and back to fives again with the last set of three being the hardest at 850 X 3 (what I consider 70 percent of max in full gear) in briefs only. In the past, I have done three weeks of this but felt that was a little too much this close to the meet. The final two weeks were deloads at 55 percent and 50 percent with just briefs.
Pulling wise, we were still able to get in two sessions per week. The heavy pulls were on max effort squat night and the speed work was on Saturdays. This worked great for the last Arnold so we repeated it again with only minor changes. Mostly, these changes were waves of differing deficit pulls. On speed day, we did some with a three inch height, some with a two inch height, and some with a one inch height. We also did less rack pulls on max day. Stance wise, we concentrated on sumo almost exclusively on both lower body days.
The speed work didn’t really work this round. Or it had just grown stagnant at the 60 percent I was using. I think all sumo with wide stance squatting was too much on the legs and back so we were all very tired the entire training cycle. We utilized the various leg presses again with the speed work on Saturdays. This too was not as productive as it was during the Arnold training. During the training cycle, I felt that it wasn’t working, but the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kept coming up. This is one time I should have listened to Joe and gone with the “Weider Instinctive Training” principle. My guts were firing off, but I didn’t listen.
We did try sumo Romanian deadlifts this time around. The Fins are big on this one so why not? It’s something I hadn’t done much of before and was rather reluctant to do. However, I pulled on and ended up liking them very much. The only problem was that we went way too heavy (765 X 2 for me), and after heavy squatting, this isn’t productive to overall training. In retrospect, I should have stopped at 650 lbs, worked hard on the snap at the top, and done fives, which was what we were supposed to do according to the routine set out by the Fins. We also did one week of reverse bands with the bands letting off totally right below the knees and one week of suit work up to 90 percent. We went too heavy on both without a doubt, but we all know how that goes. If we don’t max out during the cycle for some reason, we don’t feel confident. However, this is one thing we will NOT do this upcoming cycle for sure. Or maybe we’ll still do it, but we won’t do as many heavy heavy sets to prove our manhood instead of our performance. I say this now, but the plan is not to go above 80 percent on the pulls. That will be for only one or two weeks tops.
At the semis, the weights were not heavy, but they were certainly slow. We were all tired, which is a definite sign that we were overtrained by a minimum of 10 percent. This is only a guess for all of you number fruitcakes out there. It may be less than that.
Bench wise, we tried a variety of things differently. The first was DE or speed day. For the last two training cycles, we basically did the same thing. From a raw standpoint, I gained some strength, but this didn’t translate to the shirt bench. Ever since my first 2400 lb total at the APF Seniors in 2004 my bench has gone south on certain aspects. I have benched more since then but I haven’t been solid, nor have I reached my full potential. After this meet, I developed a drift in the bench. The only way I can describe it is to say just that. It was a drift over or near my face and this twilight zone where I couldn’t move the bar to lockout or even hold it up long enough to squeeze out that last inch to inch and a half. My theory at the time was that I had lost triceps power somehow and needed to work that angle with a limited range of motion. I determined that the 3-board was right below this area of bench shutdown. So instead of floor press speed work like I did for the Arnold, I decided to try pause presses off the 3-board. The 60 percent rule from the deadlift worked well so I went with that for the weight. This ended up being 485–535 lbs most of the time for five sets of three reps with a three second pause on each rep. The time under tension was about 12 seconds per set, which sometimes felt like an eternity.
We worked on staying as tight as possible with the bar on the board. We would also sink down to get more leg drive and better timing between the legs and upper body after pressing. The interesting thing was that you were so ready by the time you heard three that it was like anticipating the press command. We all seemed to slam the bar faster.
As the weeks progressed, we realized it wasn’t working very well so we started lowering the boards to two and one board. This seemed to increase bar speed by 5–10 percent, especially on raw work. In the last week of the training cycle, I went off the chest with 405 lbs and then did 455 lbs for two sets of three and 500 lbs for two sets of three. I have never done 500 lbs for two sets of three so easily before. My conclusion is that the 3-board is good every once in a while, but the best boards for raw work are definitely the 2-board and the 1-board. Additionally, I added 4-board triceps in for three sets of five under the advice of Jimmy Grandick, who has a pretty nice bench.
Max effort upper was somewhat of a similar story. I went with a lot of 3-board work through most of the cycle. In the end, it didn’t help my problem, but it certainly made me stronger. As if super band tension wasn’t enough for squatting, we added it in on the bench as well during the SAME three week wave! This is a Chris Cooke favorite. The only difference was that we went raw instead of using the shirt. The bar weight was 135 lbs with lots of doubled up mini and monster mini bands. We would do three reps and then move up either a mini or monster each set until we could not do three. Sometimes, we threw some singles in at the end. We worked on tightness, wedging it off the lats, leg drive, and all the other techniques. If you miss any of these minor details, you’ll get crushed by the bands.
I think I ended up with somewhere between 790–835 lbs at the top for a single. This encouraged me going into the first shirt wave. I decided to do a circa max type with purple bands doubled up to increase lockout intensity for a three week wave. The end goal was to get 635–675 lbs for a triple with the bands doubled up. I ended up with 585 lbs for three and 635 lbs for one so I was somewhat encouraged going into the next three week round. This round was just 3-board work for week one and two and then down to a 2-board for week three.
The first week was great with a PR of 785 lbs for two so I stopped there instead of going for 805 lbs for a single or two. I thought it would be there the next week, but it was all downhill from there. I came back and barely got 755 lbs off the 3-board for one. The last week was a disaster. I barely got 715 lbs for two or three off the 2-board (I’ve blocked it out because it was so bad). Obviously, it was just too many weeks with near maximal weights. The circa max cycle with doubled up purple bands should have been put somewhere in the off-season or 20–25 weeks out from a meet. Not a keeper so deep in the meet preparation.
We planned out two opener days the last two weeks before the meet. My goal and thinking was to get the 725 lb opener the first week and then do some light rep work the week before the meet to aid recovery. You guessed it. The second week out from the meet I got 695 lbs for one off the 1-board but couldn’t get 725 lbs to lockout on two tries. So on to the week before the meet…this week all the restorative things I was doing as well as the lower volume were starting to bring us back to life. This time I got 725 lbs for one fairly easily and was satisfied with that one week too late.
Results, you say. Squat wise, most people know what I did—1124 lbs fast and 1151 lbs just as fast but with not as much depth. Karl T. got 1047 lbs in the masters 308 lbs class at a light 283 lbs. Barry hurt his leg at the meet but got 790 lbs in training more easily then I’ve ever seen him get. Mike, our 181 lb masters (a real masters at age 50!!) did 510 lbs, which was up over a hundred pounds in less then a year. I think this part of the program worked well—not much tweaking here. Bench was so so for all. I crushed the opener of 716 lbs and thought I would get some good numbers. However, 749 lbs got me twice. On the first attempt, I went back over my face and couldn’t lock it out. The last attempt was better, but I couldn’t lock the right arm out and was finished. Karl upped his bench from 507 lbs to 535 lbs but got 565 lbs in training so there was only some improvement there. Mike had problems all day and just got his opener. This section is already under complete overhaul and I’ve deleted a good portion from the meet prep cycle.
For the deadlift, I opened with a PR, rushed it, and totally missed it. I had to retake it again but got it with success. I went about two inches wider on the second attempt, but I freaked out a little and moved my legs back in some for the third attempt as I had done at the Arnold. I had no trouble with the lift, but it was very slow. Both side judges called me on my right leg because it wasn’t totally locked out. Oh, well. Karl had a rough go on his last two attempts, but he got his opener easily. Mike, whose worst lift is the deadlift, got a PR with 456 lbs.
All in all, it was a good day considering we blew all the minor things. But, that’s how we really learn, and it’s always great to see what you are made of week after week. I still believe there’s a perfect combination of different training strategies out there that will yield the greatest results in a shorter period of time. At least that’s my dream eight years after I started this journey. I’m an American, which means I want it all right now with minimal sacrifice and bloodshed. I know that isn’t possible, but I like to say it anyway. Paying dues is part of anything you really want in this life. I just wish I could do it sitting down
