Bartley on choosing meet attempts

The main thing about a meet is it completely different then gym lifts. Some people are great gym lifters and then go to a meet a do terrible or bomb out.

For example, my gym squats are always high, my bench is crappy during training and half the time the only groove I find is the one between my butt cheeks and my dead is well...awful in training with anything over 70%. But when I go to a meet, my squat is usually great, my bench is usually a PR and on occassion I have a decent deadlift.

I have however halfway figureed out the squat and am getting better on the bench cycles and just waiting on God to intervene on the dead and lift 800 for me. My main focus during training is to run 120% twelve to sixteen weeks out and work my way down to 50% the week before the meet.

For the squat and bench, I base what I can do in a meet off what I did with multiple band tension with just briefs on the squat and raw off a two or one board with multiple band for the bench.My reasoning for this is simple. The bands tell you what you can lock out at your best leverages. The gear gives you support in your poorest leverages so if this is true then you should be able to lockout whatever you lockout with extremely heavy band tension like 125% of your max with about a third bar weight. In other words, whatever you can lockout at the top, the gear should give you enough support in the bottom to accomplish. On the deadlift, this does not work for me yet, I am working on rack pulls just below the knees with lots of tension to see if this applies here. It did not work, for me, with the jump stretch board because it was off the floor.

Some numercial examples for me would be:
SQUAT-3 BLUES AND 7 PLATES WITH BRIEFS AND BELT ONLY. THIS TOLD ME I COULD LOCKOUT BETWEEN 1200 AND 1250 OFF A PARALLEL BOX.AT THE LAST MEET I OPENED AT 1080 WHICH IS 90% OF 1200. With the full gear, I hammered 1124 and 1151(slightly high but fast) and should have gone to 1200 instead of 1151 so i picked alittle wrong but I also wanted to leave some on the plate for the Arnold.

BENCH WISE i DID 835(135 BAR WEIGHT WITH LOTS OF MINIS AND MONSTER MINIS DOUBLED UP) OFF THE THREE BOARD RAW. WENT TO THE MEET WITH 800 AS THE GOAL,OPENED WITH 716 -89.5%, HAMMERED IT, BUT SUCKED ASS ON 749.5 Twice BECAUSE OF FORM. The squat formula did not work because I used a three board instead of a one or two board and only worked up to one rep. (three seems to work better on this and use the shirt more.) The one board is my parallel box for the bench.

DEADLIFT-DID TOO MUCH HEAVY WORK ALL THE WAY THROUGH ON SQUAT NIGHT AND GOT SLOW ON MY SPEED DAY. SHOULD HAVE JUST DONE UP TO 70% ON SPEED DAY ONLY.

Other good indicators:
Squat-We do a modified Russian routine(I only call it that so you can remember the formula. Wear briers only and belt(light knee wraps on the heaviest sets only)Straight squatting only.Go up 30-50lbs per set. 1st set 5s,2nd 3s,3rd 3s,4th 3s,5th 5s of 2nd set weight. Whatever you can triple with briefs on the fourth set of 3, you can add 150-250lbs(depending on gear and experience) on your max meet squat. For example, the night I tripled 775, I knew I could squat a grand and did so easy for the first time at the '04 Seniors.

-Full gear work, I doubled 1005 which is about 83 to 85% of 1200.

Bench-
My new(although it is only new for me) philosophy after the band tension work is shirt work for 3s(90%)(12 to 16 weeks out),then doubles(95% or so). I was wokring on this before I tore mhy tricep and it was working well with 705x3 off a one board after band work weeks.

Dead wise I will not go over 70% 12 weeks out per the new shw champ Andy Bolton and the end goal is 800 so I make myself go up on my openers every meet. It is the only way I will get there.

The bottom line is I first evaluate my goals and what I believe I can do based on my band work and what I also believe in my heart. I haven't gone into a meet and held anything back. Balls out on all the lifts and let the chips fall where they fall.So the botttom line is you have a good opening strategy(90%)but after that as in all meets, it then falls to instinct. Always trust your guts, they never lie to you about anything..