My planned opener is 450. Attempts right now are looking like 450/480/500.
Overall, I like my speed and strength, but I am working hard to turn my heels out more, and keep my heels and knees out throughout the lift. If you watch closely, I have a tendency to lift my toes while I drive my heels into the ground. Driving my heels is the right thing to do, but I should be driving my whole foot down and forward thru the front of my shoe, rather than lifting my toes.
The weight feels light and fast. Better than last cycle. I'm looking forward to seeing how I do on the platform.
7 weeks out now.. back from Vacation. Time to get some work in, and get comfortable back in my squat suit.
Today's training was 555x2, and 605x2 Reverse Band. I drove down to my friend Andy Vale's gym Strength and Health over in Smithfield, RI so I could train on his monolift and with him and his great crew. I've got to say, the Strength and Health guys are a class act. Exactly how powerlifters should be. Although I've known Andy for a couple of years, we haven't trained a ton, and I know a bunch of the crew - but really just from training there a few times over the years, and seeing them at meets... but the minute I walked in it felt like I had trained there forever.
Everyone jumped in, helped wrap my knees, two side-spots, a back spot, and Andy Vale worked the mono. Man, it just felt right. Again, great team of lifters there - and I really appreciate the opportunity to train there..
Back to my training.. my planned attempts are 560, 600, 620 at the meet, so we setup 555 for a double, and it went well. (No video, sorry)
Then we put up 605 as a second attempt with a light reverse band, for another double, and it went good. Video below. Still working on my balance/comfort in the monolift - but it will come. I was a bit high here, but we are going to dial in the depth next week. This week I just wanted to get some heavy weight on my back and get my CNS used to it.
I worked my training schedule around so that during my deload week, our family vacation would fall.. (I know, I must be dedicated haha)
Anyhow, we went up to Bar Harbor, Maine and did two nice hikes up Mt. Dorr, and Pemetic Mountain. Not huge mountains, each about 1300 feet or so, but what a great deload!
My legs and cardio got a nice workout, and my legs were nicely sore the day after each hike.. felt just right.. so got my training in, and some awesome sights!
Figuring on a max bench of 500, 75% comes in at 385, but that was a little light for my training, so I upped my working sets to 405.
On my last warm up (first shirted lift) of 385x2, it sure was a wake up call lol of being back in the gear.. first time since march.. I unracked the weight, paused for a second, and all my cues started playing back in my head.. ok.. elbows out..keep the shirt tight.. spread the bar..use the lats..lift the head..dont overflare.
It was like a light switch went on in my head. Anyhow.. speed was really good, weight felt super light. I can still improve my overall tightness, and locking my legs in. I want to try and get my feet further apart, and rotate my knees and heels out.
One thing I have been trying to incorporate are little pauses at the top and bottom of the reps. (more so at the top).. Time under Tension, and staying under control all work to help the overall lift.
Well its been quite awhile since I updated this blog, so I figured it was as good a time as any to get my ass going again with my posts.
Quick update on whats been going on since my last April '14 post. As you probably know, I've been training following Brian Carroll's 10/20/Life for the last 16 months with great success. April - July '14 has been my "Off Season" training.. where focus strictly on building raw strength, no gear, very little 1 rep maxes, and just overall strength building, bulking up, and enjoying all facets of my life.
The overall program run basically 2-3 weeks at a time, then a 1 wk deload week.. rotating the main lifts between 3-8 rep work, and sometimes even putting all 3 lifts (Sq/Be/DL) into the same day for overall conditioning work. Its been great.
Its August 13th now, and we are 10, actually 9 training weeks out of the meet. I got back into the squat suit last night for the first time since march, (blew off the dust haha) and following Brian Carroll's programming, it was Squat and DL's for 2 sets of 3 reps at 75%.
Squats:
Figuring on a 620lb Training Max for Squat, I went with a 465x3x2 with the straps down on squat suit, and no knee wraps.. using only knee sleeves.
Overall felt great - squats were high, but I don't usually hit depth until I'm north of 500lbs.
I need to make sure I am making my first move into the bar with my shoulders out of the hole, rather than just driving my hips. This will be even further a concern once I put the knee wraps on because they will make my legs shoot up faster. Getting forward on the squat is what caused me to miss by 2nd attempt squat back in March and take a step forward. Based on this I am going to try and get in the knee wraps more often, but its also dependent when I can round up my training partners to wrap my knees.. as self-wrapping with a suit on at 275lb bw is near impossible. (or damn funny anyhow if I pass out)
Deadlifts:
Figuring on a conservative 575lb deadlift, I went with a 415lb deadlift x3x2.
Deadlifts felt real good all around. I made sure I did full-resets with each rep.
I was happy I kept my back in position and tight, and stayed back on my lifts..
