I’m often asked when my next competition will be. I love competing in lifting, and I will always lift throughout my life, but right now I’m not committed to competing in lifting. Other things like hobbies, writing, running a business (I run all facets of my business, albeit poorly), and coaching get in the way of entering a meet or competition. Until you’ve traveled for almost two months straight and only get to train several times or pull 12 hour days to write a book, you won’t understand that. It used to bother me that I wasn’t a top weightlifter or powerlifter, but I’ve come to accept it and not worry about it. But I think people forget — and I sometimes do too — that I compete all of the time.
I get huge spikes of adrenaline when Chris, my former training partner, lifts
This past weekend I coached 11 lifters; I competed 11 times. Those lifters had 99 attempts; I competed 99 times. Each of those lifters had warm-ups, psychological factors, and physical variables that had to be accounted for. I don’t merely count attempts and push them to the platform; I try to manage their life. It may be that what I do doesn’t have as much of an effect as I think it does, and it may be that the lifter doesn’t ever notice what I do, but I’m constantly evaluating them and making decisions on their behalf to perform optimally and get the most out of what they can do on that day. I competed all weekend.
For me, coaching is competing. I get adrenaline spikes for each lift, and they are higher than any psyche up I’ve had in my own lifting in at least a year. The difference is that I have to stay in the moment and try to minimize error. In 2010 when Chris missed his last deadlift, I literally took a walk and cried because I was so spent physically and emotionally from coaching. Pretty dorky. Nowadays, I do that three days in a row with more than twice as many lifters. Someone asked me why I opted to handle so many people. I don’t get to sleep, I don’t get to eat, and I really don’t get to hang out with my friends. The only conclusion I can come up with is because it’s a challenge, it’s a competition. That’s the first lesson.
There were ups and downs over the weekend. My philosophy as an athlete and a coach has always been, “Let’s find out what went wrong, then figure out what we need to do to fix it.” Remember our lifters from the meet recap (Part 1 and Part 2): Courtney, Wendy, Brent, Sean, Jordan, Andrew, AC, Norman, Drew, Mike, and Chris.
Second Lesson – “National Meet Syndrome”
Raw Nationals is a big meet, and it’s run differently than local competitions. If you’ve never been to one, you won’t really understand how it’s different. In truth, it’s still a powerlifting meet, but it’s the human psyche that builds it up to more than it is. And even if you think you are immune to it, you will fall victim to the fact that it’s not the same as your local USAPL meet. Here’s why.
You traveled to the meet. If you get on an airplane to go compete, you are automatically at a deficiency from what you normally are at home. It’s because you had to go to the airport, dick around in security, sit down on a plane for a while, and eat shitty food. If you’re traveling by air, then you are staying in a hotel for at least one night and your food intake is inherently different than when you’re at home.
You cut for the meet. If you are still relatively new to cutting for a meet (fewer than five times), then this process will be debilitating, even if it’s only a few pounds. It may be that you are slightly physically weaker due to losing weight. But it’s more likely that you have stressed about making weight, even marginally. People freak out about cutting weight. Even Mike still gets worried; he debated not eating or drinking after 4 PM the night before, I told him not to do that and he still weighed in 1kg/2.2lbs under. The stress of making weight, the unknown, is enough to reduce the ability of a lifter, especially when that lifter is less experienced.
It’s a national meet. Especially your first national meet. Especially if you’re still inexperienced (it was the second meet for several lifters). Automatically most people will be over zealous. They’ll be nervous during weigh-ins, getting their rack heights, and warm-ups. They don’t understand that because of all of these things, but especially because it’s a national meet, they are not going to hit the high end weights that they want to. It’s not that nationals are stressful, it’s that in the back of the lifter’s mind, they know they are going to and at a national meet. That little bit of nervousness or stress is enough that physically and psychologically drains them. This is easily treated with some psychological tactics; I implement these tactics with the regular lifters (but it leaves the scope of this post). I had one lifter tell me that it wasn’t a big deal. I’d like to think it’s because I did my job of keeping them calm (which I was actively doing at all times), but the more experienced people are with competition in general, the less phased they will be from big competitions. There’s no substitute for experience, even if it’s another sport.
All of this means that a lifter should adjust their goals to account for being at a national meet, traveling across the country, and/or cutting weight. A lot of powerlifting mentality comes from geared lifting, and raw lifting is a bit different. First attempts probably need to be lower, and third attempt aspirations need to be lower. Shit, even Chris wanted to deadlift 15lbs more than what he actually did. Wendy opened with a 303 squat and it took her until her 3rd attempt to get a good lift. She only had to jump in the car for a few hours of travel but the fact that it was a national meet, albeit her second one, was still a factor. Accept being conservative at a national meet. Gym PRs are not meet PRs. If you meet PR at a national meet, that is very good.
Third Lesson — Prevent A Weigh-in Fiasco
As a lifter, make sure all of your information is correct. As a coach, triple check this. Andrew wanted to open on squat at 200kg. Whether the judge heard him wrong, or he said it wrong, 220kg was written on the card. Then he signed it. I wasn’t present because I went to eat breakfast, but I still felt responsible (I had already briefed him on what to do and gave him a piece of paper with his openers). I could have rectified this by triple checking his opener on the board, but I didn’t. I sure as fuck will forever in the future.
Also, Chris’ second bench was set for 611. Brad Gillingham, Chris’ hero, came up to him and said, “Hey man, are you actually opening with 611 on bench?” Chris said, “Yeah…nah, I’m just kidding. They put it up wrong.” In this case, it was correct on the attempt card but put into the computer wrong (it was his squat opener).
Also, double check equipment before and after the equipment check-in. This is not exactly our fault, but AC’s socks were cleared at equipment check-in and on his first attempt (there’s a judge that stands there specifically to check the attire of the lifter and they will notify you if anything is amiss). On the second attempt, she said his socks were not high enough. This, by the way, is fucking bullshit. Don’t accept them at the check-in and on the first attempt. And if you do, take us out to dinner first, because I like to be wined and dined before I’m FUCKED IN THE ASS. While another judge would apologize for this, as a coach I’m not going to allow socks that are questionable. Check the equipment, don’t let the socks touch the knee sleeves, and don’t wear underwear or spandex under the singlet (you might be sneaking some squat briefs).
Fourth Lesson – Third Attempts
Only 4 of 11 lifters made their third attempt squat. Courtney, Wendy, AC, and Mike did. Sean missed his because we went for a record (probably a bit more of a jump than normal, had to pull the trigger though). Andrew didn’t have a chance to do his because of the “wrong opening attempt” fiasco, so he’s not a good data point. Drew is a shitty data point because he was not actually squatting correctly. I just realized I forgot to recap Drew’s meet — SORRY DREW. He had this hunkered over squat with the bar two inches below the crease of his armpit. This means that his torso was inclined forward more than 45 degrees, and that does not fly in USAPL, at least not at the stricter national meet. In any case, he had a crack at an attempt on the third attempt after changing the bar position and standing up more to get a rack command, but the squat was high. He is not a good data point because it was literally the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen and unacceptable in the meet. Brent, Norman, and Jordan missed there thirds, and for each of them I would point to the programming leading into the meet. Jordan and Chris were more mechanical issues — they both came forward slightly to not engage their posterior chain and didn’t have hip drive. So 4 of 9 lifters made their attempts, and 3 of those 5 that missed can easily hit a third with modifying their program.
5 of 11 people made their third bench, but two of the misses were due to injuries, so it’s more like 5 of 9. Courtney, Brent, Sean, Andrew, and Chris made their thirds. AC and Mike missed due to injuries. Then Wendy, Jordan, Norman, and Drew — the four who missed and didn’t have an injury — all had reasonable jumps. Had I planned Wendy’s attempts I probably would have gotten her a third, but she had hit openers and went based on feel. The rest of the fellas just had 5kg jumps after second attempts that were around moderate difficulty.
4/11 made their third deadlifts. Two misses are artificial here. Wendy actually locked out her third attempt, but she hitched it on the way because she didn’t have baby powder on (my fault). Mike missed his third because it rolled his singlet up and got caught on it. Those are two issues that are easily correctable. So 5 of 9 legitimately missed. Courtney’s miss was due to her programming; she didn’t have any high intensity pulling (it was low intensity, high volume), and that has to be there for powerlifting. Brent, Andrew, Drew, and Norman missed because of their programming. Deadlift, more so than the other lifts, has to be trained so that the body can lockout heavy pulls when it’s already fatigued. Norman in particular was completely exhausted; he hadn’t done a meet since December, I think. The other guys just missed weights that should have been doable (all the weights were below what they wanted to hit) because they hadn’t trained specifically to hit a third dead. Brent even said that he hadn’t deadlifted a lot in training.
Let this be a lesson. Unless you are specifically doing things to account for third attempt possibilities in training (which is taught and explained in The Texas Method: Advanced), then plan on more conservative attempts. Everyone, except for Mike, always has an unrealistic view of what they want to hit. I mean, Courtney was talking about hitting 375 (she’s done it before, not in a meet), and she finished with 325 (missed 353, which is doable with proper programming). AC and Chris weren’t unrealistic because we decided what we wanted to hit a couple of months ago, though Chris still was hoping high for his deadlift.
Just trust me on this. This lesson ties in intimately with the second lesson: the fact that it’s a big meet means you won’t do as well. That could be the case for a variety of reasons, but that’s just the way it is. Until you have done a few of these big meets, you will fall victim to this reality, so plan around it. I’ll be talking more about this in the future.
The Lessons
Like I said, there were ups and downs. When you look at the completion numbers, it’s not exactly pretty. However, four people medaled (were at least top 5), Mike was a singlet malfunction away from 5th place, and AC was 15kg away from 5th place (doable with a healthy shoulder and a chance on what we wanted for the third deadlift). Two younger guys bombed out, one because his attempt was wrong (and I didn’t fix it) and the other because he’s squatted silly all year. 6 people qualified for the Arnolds, and if Brent hit one more lift he would have qualified (I should have kept an eye on this, but no one was talking about it that day).
1. It’s a competition for everyone, so everyone has to be on their toes. I learned a lot as a coach that will help me prevent a lot of the bad things that people had to go through.
2. National meets mean the lifter won’t lift as much. That’s just how it is unless they are experienced. Plan around it.
3. Triple check everything. This will prevent any equipment or attempt card malfunctions. And then check them again.
4. Since lifters won’t lift as much, plan the third attempts accordingly. A small PR is still a PR, and it’s better than missing a lift. Account for malfunctions with baby powder and get singlets out of the way.
If you guys have any questions about this meet, or other meets, drop them in the comments. The meet was awesome, there were a lot of big lifts. Powerlifting legend Brad Gillingham, possibly one of the best super heavyweights in history and has pulled over 800 pounds in over 80 competitions, competed and only placed second! Kimberly Walford was red lighted on a 507 deadlift (she locked it out) in the 148 pound weight class. Ian Bell deadlifted 705 on his second attempt in the 198 weight class and LOST (made 2nd place). Our friend AJ Lareto deadlifted 650 in the 198 class and only placed FOURTH. This is raw lifting, folks, and the standards are strict. It’s a good show.
awesome
Oh, I forgot some funny stories. Before Brent was about to do his second squat, I said, “So what do you want to talk about?”
He used blocks on his first bench and it looked really good. Then he said he didn’t want the blocks. As he’s walking to the bench he says, “I’ve never seen those before. Get ’em off my screen.” quoting the Bill O’reilley freakout video (go watch it if you haven’t). The back spotter, a tall black guy, starts laughing and says, “He says he’s never seen them before.” Then Brent laughs and says, “No, I’m just kidding. It’s a Bill O’relley quote.” and then the guys laughs and says, “Oh ok.” as if he knows what Brent is talking about. Then he handed it off a second later and Brent hit the lift. Cya.
Nice write up Justin! Would you agree that the whole “you will lift shittier at a meet then in training” is a personal thing…? I have always bested my gym lifts at meets, PR’ing every lift both times, and I credit it to the insane adrenaline rush you get from lifting on the platform in front of a crowd.
I lifted at Raw Nationals. It was my third national meet. I thought the article was pretty clear. But I’ll go ahead and whip out the ol’ caps lock key. YOU WILL NOT LIFT AS MUCH AT A NATIONAL MEET AS YOU WILL AT A LOCAL MEET OR AT THE GYM. Okay. I think that covered it.
The key here is “national meets”. All of the factors involved like travelling, stricter judging, mild psychological stress, long days, etc. are what I’m talking about. If you are referring to a normal, regular meet, that’s not the same. I’d expect to get more out of a lifter in a meet than the gym, depending on the person, and depending if they aren’t “overtrained”.
Thanks Justin, and sorry Rob :P I’ve done national meets before but here in the great white north that doesn’t really mean as much.
Thanks Justin. I’m competing in a meet on Saturday. Although it’s not a national meet I will keep these lessons in mind. – (I’m still driving 5 hours, staying in a hotel, and cutting weight).
Justin – outstanding article. You just cannot drill people enough on lesson three. Really. Everyone thinks they are going to go to Nationals and blow everything up. YOU WILL NOT. That’s worth repeating. YOU WILL NOT. The exception being if you have significant experience competing at that level. This was my third big meet, and I finally hit competition PR’s, though I did not beat my gym PR’s. (Nor did I expect to.)
On the socks, if something like that happens in the future, perhaps consider protesting to the jury based on them being allowed on the first pull and ask to have the clock re-set.
In any event, I mentioned to AC that he, like Albus Dumbledore, will now look in the Mirror of Erised and see socks. AC laughed politely.
I’m right on the line about signing up for a meet. I intend to compete, one way or another, in 2013. However, I’m debating entering a meet in St. Louis (River’s Edge) in November. The issue is that I’m still on an LP, and not squatting over 300 on the reg. If I can stay consistent with my training, I’m confident I can hit 405 in 12 to 15 weeks (this is even assuming a reset around 350), which would be right around meet time. I’m uneasy about trying to taper and what not while still on an LP, and getting very close to my limit on one. If I don’t sign up for the meet in November, I probably won’t have the opportunity to enter another one until March (that’s usually when the MO State/Ozark meet is), at which point I should be well into intermediate programming and hitting some decent numbers.
Nobody at the meet will care what numbers you hit as long as you practice commands and look sorta like you know what you’re doing, and don’t bomb out. Get your first meet out of the way, try to go conservative and 9/9, establish some competition PRs, then go out and improve on them in the next meet. Seriously.
Now I’m considering it more strongly. Should I just go in and treat like a workout?
You could. Just make sure you’re practicing squats w/ commands and paused benches w/ commands for at least a couple workouts beforehand. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to open with your last LP numbers and make appropriate jumps from there for your second and third attempts. Bonus: They’d all be PRs. Downside: Everything will feel heavy as hell.
A better idea IMO would be to transfer early to a TM (maybe 6 weeks out) and get some experience with triples, then multiple doubles on your intensity day to better emulate the competition. Justin goes into this in the second TM book and will be expanding on it soon, I’m sure.
You could then get back on a LP after the meet, milk it for awhile longer if possible, and get back on a TM with plenty of time before your next meet.
Justin, excellent material – some of the most frank, direct, and pertinent advice I’ve seen for a meet. Definitely will keep this stuff in mind for my first meet.
Are you thinking about doing something local? If so, I might be interested in doing it at the same time.
Why, yes actually. I (and another guy from CF Annandale) are looking at the USAPL Virginia State meet, October 27, in Lexington. Bit of a drive, but should be good fun. Let me know if you decide to check it out.
http://www.usaplvirginia.com/2012%20Virginia%20State%20Championships.pdf
Gumbo-
We will be taking at least a few folks from Outlaw there this year. I brought 3 with me in 2010, went solo in 2011, and as of right now it looks like we have 4 guys (including me) and 3 ladies.
See you at VMI~
Man, you do a lot of competitions! Kidding aside, have you already registered? Last week I emailed the POC, Gary Emrich, to see if they still have openings, but I haven’t heard back yet. How fast do these normally fill up? Since it’s still 10 weeks out, I’m thinking about just sending my check in, even if I don’t hear back from Emrich.
i still think it would be cool if you kept a training log Lascek. :( Or periodically updated us on some cool stuff you’re doing. Like all the logs are pl logs and thats cool too, but seeing how you approach training or dealing with not being in an ideal training situation would be badass!
Maybe I disagree. I think that his personal training goals should remain somewhat vague. In the same way a philosophy professor shouldn’t indicate if he’s atheist or southern baptist. Does that make sense? I feel like the potential is high for a new trainee’s plan / goals to be influenced somewhat by what he’s doing? I like reading about delt development as much as the next guy though…
Haha, I doubt you’d think it’s badass, Stroup. I’m gonna do a post on the mountain I climbed recently and then the Oly workout I had a few days later (I went 125/150 with no misses, which were goals before leaving to coach at nationals — the mountain was a goal too).
I think your guys open too high. I was watching some of this online, and noticed my boy Brent open 190, made it look pretty easy. But then he got pretty stapled by 205 on his 3rd attempt (though to be fair he looks strong enough for that weight). If 205 was the goal, that means the opener is 93% of the goal. The goal was probably a bit high, so the opener is closer to 95% of his max. That means 3 heavy attempts well over 90%. This is hard.
Chris, same thing. Opened 617 with a goal of 666. 93%. Very heavy, and turned out to be closer to 95% of his actual max for the day, since his missed 661.
And the kid who had the mistake 220 opener instead of 200. If the 3rd attempt wasn’t even going to be as high as 215, why is he opening at 200?
For all the reasons you stated above about how national meets are a pain in the ass due to all the travel/stress/cutting weight/etc etc, openers should be much more conservative as well. I personally like to open ~85% of my goal.. anywhere in the 85-90 range really. I want to KILL the opener.
I am aware that some of this goes out the window when you’re actually competing for a top spot in your weight class. But for guys just going to do their best, if you want more success on the 3rd attempts, it’s not just about estimating your ability better. You also can’t go too heavy on the 1st and 2nd attempts and complete drain yourself.
This is a pretty good point. Generally you want your total jump to be a little over 10% of your start.
IE: If you start at 235, add 10% to that, and you have an end goal of 258.5, which would be 260.
In chris’s example, if he opened at 272.5, add 110% to that,a nd you have 299.XXX, which would mean he’d end at either 300 or 302.5 You can generally take about 60%/40% jumps for this.
Since I know AC’s attempts, and since his goal was probably 255 for this meet, I’d have set it up to be 230-245-255 instead of 235-245-255.
This all depends on the lifter, but generally opening something right at about 90% of your goal for the day is standard.
Yup this is about bang on to how I usually choose my attempts as well. Space the first two attempts out a little more than the last two. Opener should never count towards your total anyways if you don’t pick your attempts like a retard so no reason to make it even remotely difficult.
I talked Brent into lowering his attempts. I agree Chris’ was slightly high, but it’s the same situation he did at the Arnold where he squatted 661 (though his opener was too high in this particular meet, but, again, his 2nd and 3rd lifts had mechanical deficiencies that caused him to miss).
205 was not Brent’s goal, it’s what I lowered it to after the second attempt.
Of the other three lifters that I planned attempts for after having coached or sorta worked with them, they all hit their third squats.
But I get your point. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since leaving Texas and I should have mentioned it in the post. But It’s also more of a retrospective thing — the “national meets are hard” lesson was there before, but more so now since I handled so many new “national meet lifters”. But I could have gotten more out of the lifters had they opened lower.
Part of this is my fault because I often ask the lifter if they can make an x jump, and they are uncomfortable with a 12.5 or 15kg jump when in actuality it’s probably not a big deal. I should go with the lighter opener since it would leave them fresher.
Thanks for the post.
Edit: To address Nolan — I don’t typically look at it that way, but I see what you’re saying.
Adam — I/we do it that way too, it’s just in some instances the opener is probably a bit heavy.
To all three: I still think that by manipulating the programming it can improve the resistance to fatigue for third attempts, but someone who has not prepared with an optimal program should open lower than they did. And even if they do, it’s going to use/waste more energy than necessary.
Very interesting discussion. Matt Gary (coach of multiple USAPL national and international teams, and 2012 USAPL coach of the year, for what it’s worth) has a good article on attempt selection. He’s had a lot of success coaching using conservative, percent-based attempts. His basic advice (obviously not applicable to all situations) is 1st: 90-92% 1RM, 2nd: 95-97%, then 3rd: try for just a small, 5-10lb PR.
http://www.marylandpowerlifting.com/page.asp?contentID=135
Justin is understating the arguments he had with Brent in particular about attempt selection. Most of the lifters he doesn’t personally coach on a day to day basis came in with expectations for their attempts, and there was only so much change he could wiggle away from them. Cut him some slack on this one. I tried to convince several friends at the meet that I wasn’t coaching to lower their openers. I think only one listened. The others had their minds made up already.
It’s real easy to be a Monday Morning QB on this stuff, but the bottom line is that most of these folks spent a lot of time thinking about their attempts and there is typically reasoning behind why they’ve done what they’ve done that might not be apparent to the casual observer.
Example: RoryT on this site has squatted 518 in the USAPL, but has had some bad tendencies of coming forward on his ascent (and lost 26 pounds of fat, from 204 to 178). I opened him at an easy 440 and he missed 2 attempts at 484. It would be easy to whine and bitch that a 20kg jump was too much, but it’s a weight he’s done, literally, a hundred times. He just had a problem with the weight coming forward on his 2nd, and it wore him out for his third. Shit happens and cues don’t fix everything. The 20kg jump might look silly on Monday morning, but had he gone 440/484/501 as planned (and he has the strength to do it), the story would be different, right? Keep in mind that there was also a Wilks to worry about, so seconds and thirds for him were going to be close together to try and eek out a 390 for Arnold’s.
BTW he’s going to absolutely crush some squats at his next meet. On Monday I asked him “what do you want to do during the fuck-around week after the meet?” He jumped into the squat rack and did a nasty-hard 6×6 workout.
Wow, good stuff. I actually got my first meet in just about 4 weeks from now.
Quick Question:
I’m doing the Texas Method right now. How should I modify it to prepare myself for a meet?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The TM:Advanced book tells you exactly how to do this.
Yup.
I have the opposite experience with 3rd deadllifts and meets. The meet gets my adrenaline going and I have never been able to get anywhere near my meet PRs in training.
I don’t get the same effect with squat and bench press though.
This should be the case for less experienced lifters (if you fit into that category).
TIL singlets are meant to be worn commando. Lovely. Do they seriously crack down on spandex underwear like underarmor shorts?
Yeah, I’ve had the same question. Cloud? According to the USAPL handbook, “A standard commercial ‘athletic supporter’ or standard commercial briefs (not boxer shorts) of any mixture of cotton, nylon or polyester shall be worn under the lifting suit.” So, do boxer briefs pass that?
No. Wear boxer briefs (no matter how short) and be prepared to be asked to take them off at any point when a judge notices them. Our friend Elliot suffered this fate at Nats and it screwed up his 3rd squat attempt.
Get your whitie tighties or jock approved during tech. All of my lifters take 2 pairs and 2 pairs of socks (and 2 bras for the ladies – no underwire) to have in their bag “just in case,” and we do at least one mock meet ahead of time with the exact gear we’ll be wearing on the platform to get used to it.
The last thing you want is to get on a national stage and realize your superman PJ’s (or black thongs for the ladies) show through your singlet, for example. Practice everything beforehand!
What makes you think I don’t want my superman man-thong showing?
Just make sure it’s Titan-branded.
Hey Justin, long time reader and all that stuff. Have been following the Texas Method as per your first ebook for about 6 weeks now, seeing great gains – at least initially.
Some context: I am a relatively novice lifter (current 5RM of 127.5kg @ bodyweight of 83kg), but I transitioned to TM early due to persistent form faults (right knee caving in from a left/right glute imbalance that has taken months to try to iron out – looking much better now).
After the first four weeks (which were easy 5RM PRs), when I stopped advancing the volume day weight (at 110kg), I immediately stalled on intensity day (130kg – hit 3 reps last week, 4 reps this week).
So my question: do you think that relative novices like my self might be better served by advancing the volume day weights for longer before trying to open up the VD/ID gap? Or should I look for other factors causing my stall? Should I just calm down and stick with it rather than trying to tweak things after only two weeks of stalling?
There isn’t enough context to answer this question. Before I read the actual question, I was of the opinion that switching to intermediate programming because you have a muscular imbalance (that was more likely a mobility and strength limitation) was not the solution.
Is your technical issue taken care of? It sounds like you just need something like 28 squat workouts (12 weeks) with correct technique before attempting an intermediate program. (I pulled that number out of my ass, but imagine if you had 15 work set reps in 28 workouts, that’d be 420 reps with correct technique. I’d wonder if we’d be having this conversation if you did that).
Thanks for the reply! I’d say the technical issue is mostly taken care of. It only appears at weights approaching my 5RM – I can complete VD with good form, and that has helped my ID form out – I’d say that my ID form is now 90% better than my form when I finished SS (which I reset 1000 times to try and fix form).
I think the issue was mostly tightness in the anterior hips which had caused glute weakness over the years – I had a messed up gait, snapping hip, tight IT band and all that junk – but squats have pretty much cured me.
Unless there’s any specific context I could give you, I guess I will soldier on and experiment with the template, as I am enjoying it much more than the end of my linear progression. Thinking I’ll wait it out a bit longer, and if I fail to see improvement, I’ll try progressing VD a bit faster.
Hm, I guess this was a partial reply to my comment yesterday. Nice writeup, Justin.
Yeah, sorta. I was gonna say it anyway.
I’ll eventually do some meets even if they aren’t my primary method of training, but there are a lot of factors that would make it not happen right now.
I was hoping you would say this…I mean, you’re always one of the biggest proponents for “get out there and compete”, so I figured why not go out there and try to kick some ass every once in a while.
Which reminds me, I really do need to register for a comp one of these days…
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I back you up on the coaching = competing thing. Having coached wrestling and soccer (more so wrestling), when my guy is out there, he is putting to the test everything that we’ve worked on together, and pitting that against everything that the other guy and his coach have worked on. How well the coach managed training, nutrition, weight, grades, skills, and social life are all tested, and yes, there is a huge adrenaline surge. I always wanted to sleep the whole day after tournaments.