12/7/13 Finished my 8 week cycle so thought id post my results (late i know) Squat work up to a single at 170, felt easy so went for a second rep which was silly, almost made it but not quite lol bench worked up to a pause single at 120kg, then tryied 130kg and got stapled lol deadlift worked up to a single at 190 which was fairly easy So this was 4 weeks out from my comp, not going to win any medals but it should be fun At the moment on week 2 of a 4 week pre comp peaking phase
Hi Icefield Could you tell me please how your pre-comp 4 week cycle works? How's it different to the cycle you've just finished? How much volume is there? And how often are you training? Do you change your frequency at all in this mini 4-week cycle? ??? Look forward to hearing how you do this Thanks in advance
Not sure if this will make any sense but here you go The 4 week cycle will simply be a condensed version of the last 8 week cycle, so starting heavier with a higher percentage of my max, and making slightly bigger jumps week to week I feel I have built (well rebuilt after various injuries) my strength base over the last 2 8 week blocks, so what im looking to do now is to avoid burn out, get used to heavy singles and do some volume in order to hopefully increase strength a little Volume wise its as follows Squats I squat once a week Warm up sets then singles up to a heavy single for the day which is a percentage of my max and increases week to week (this is to keep me used to lifting heavy singles) I then do the voume/strength building work for squats its 2 sets of 5 with a set percentage which increases each week, followed by 2 x 5reps of pause squats for strength out of the hole, depending on how I feel I drop pause work on the last few weeks as the weights get really heavy Bench I bench twice a week Volume day, I work up to a very easy single then do 3 x 10-15 with normal grip, 2 x 10 close grip (elbow is hurting at moment so not doing these) and 2 x 10-15 very wide grip Strength day I work up to singles again, then do a single back off set of as many reps as possible with a set % of my 1 rep, ill follow this with 2 x 10reps of the incline bench Deadlifts Again warm up then singles up to my max for the day, then 2 x5reps in back off/strength building sets, I follow this with 3 x8 RDL, 3 x 8 rows, 3 x 8 back raise and 3 x 8 chins, ill reduce the number of sets on the assistance stuff for the deadlift as the cycle comes to a close The last week of the cycle ill do a deload if I need to, and then then week after ill retest my maxs, ill usually only lift once that week and do squats, bench and deadlift max in that order to simulate a comp I lift twice a week, Wednesday deadlifts and bench volume, Friday squats and bench max On Mondays and Thursday I do extra back and shoulder work, rows, face pulls, pull downs chins etc before my MMA class, after the comp ill start adding in split snatches and power cleans and push presses, but at the moment I have a messed up elbow which I want to nurse through to the comp lol
Thank You for posting that. It makes for interesting reading. I find these kind of cycles fascinating. Especially getting it right and managing to peak for competitions. It makes a lot of sense. Good Luck in your competition.
7/8/13 one week out from the comp so reducing volume squat up to a single at 165kg and a triple at 150 which felt very easy bench up to a double at 120kg, very happy with this as its the best ive done since my injury last year and it was done after doing 100, 110 and 115 under strict comp rules, finished with 100x8 deadlift up to 2 singles at 195, then pulled 200kg for the first time in 2 years and it was fairly easy, nice to get that monkey off my back hopefully haven't peaked too soon we will see
^ Good luck next week. I'm more interested in the technique but less in the competition, not helped by the move to a commercial gym, it really doesn't help having no one around that looks like they have a clue. If I didn't already have two events on Saturday I might hassle a friend into going to watch
thanks quite a few from our gym lifting (8 i think) so should be a fun weekend saturday is going to be a long long day, they have so many people lifting that us fat boys have been moved to sunday so ill be spotting all saturday and then lifting sunday which will be...mmm....interesting
So comp was this weekend and it was a long long weekend, spent all Saturday loading and spotting for about 75 lifters, then Sunday lifting. Weighed in at 9am at 102kg, then ate until warmup started at 10-30, squats started at 11am, I warmed up to 150 x 1, then did 160 x 1, 170 x 1, and for my last attempt 175 x 1, three white lights and a 5kg personal best in the squat Bench was next and all the warm ups felt heavy (this is now my worst lift since my injury last year dropped my bench from 140kg right back to 30kg) first attempt was 110, second was 115 which felt heavy after a very long pause but went up, failed 120kg for my fnal attempt, which stalled about 5 inch’s off it, thankfully the spotters took pity on me and took it off me and put me out of my misery Onto the deadlift, by this time I was tired as anything, id forgotten how draining comps can be the deadlift didn’t start until gone 1-30pm so that was 2 hours after squats had started and I felt it, warmed up to 180 back stage then took 190 for my opener which was easy, second attempt was 200 which came up slowly but well enough and was a 5 kg comp PB, felt like the limit for the day but for my final attempt I tried 210 which would have given me a 500 total, but it didn’t move off the ground lol So fairly happy with the day, got a PB in both the squats and deadlifts, and the bench is coming back slowly, Although spotting the day before isn’t the best way to prepare saturday was a great day spent it on the platform crew with a load of guys from our gym and two world record holders from another federation who came down to help out, got lots of free training tips from them as we helped keep some lovely people safe as they tried to kill themselves with heavy weights since my bench is coming back slowly time to start taking this seriously and try to get strong
powerlifting 11/10/13 warmed up then squats worked up to a single at 165, then 2 sets of 5 at 150, left the pause squats as wanted to deadlift later bench worked up to a single at 125, then failed 130 twice lol, happy with that as its getting me back to my 140 mark slowly and my back felt fine through all the lifts then deadlifts worked up to two singles at 190 which felt easy, then 170 3 x 3 good session
right will try to keep this a bit more up to date 28/10/13 AM 35 min GPP work, average HR 132 bm, alternated 2 miin rounds shadow boxing, core work on stab ball and band work for upper back (pull aparts, face pulls, rows) PM powerlifting test day before a week off from the gym, deadlift warmed up then singles, 180kg x 1, 190 x 1, 205 x 1, felt easy more there but didnt want to push it, then 190 x 2, and 180 for a triple. bench warmed up then singles, 110 x 1, 120 x 1, 125 x 1, 130 failed at mid point, then 120 for a single 107.5 x 4 and 90 x 10 x 3 sets wide grip bench squats warmed up then, 150 x 1, 160 x 1, 172 (new gym PB) x 1, then 180kg for two singles felt good and strong coming out of the hole. Happy with that, will reset after a week off frm the gym
Might as well update this 11/1/14 AM kung fu and conditioning 10 minutes long arm forms, hung gar 5 animals 5 elements, First and second CLF forms and family silum form, green dragon. Then 15 minutes tempo bike intervals, 15sec on 1min rest, 1min rest was long arm shadow boxing. total 25 min hr 130-150bpm PM powerlifting busy at the club with 10 people competing next month,defranco warmup then squats 70x5, 110x5, 130x5, 150x1, 160x1, 165x1, 140kgx5 x2 sets. No bench due to wrecking shoulder during judo so straight into deadlifts. 110x5, 140x5, 160x3, 180x1, 200x1. Then 160x5 all paused on ground no bounce.
12/01/14 AM conditioning session 20 minutes hakka short arm stuff: bak mei and lung ying work, started with 2 x 3 min shadow boxing rounds, then 10 minutes of form work, followed by a 4 minute round on the heavy bag, average hr 130bpm then 15 minutes heavy resisted intervals on the bike, 7 seconds of work with the resistance cranked up, then walking rest until hr reached 135bpm before next interval PM kung fu class, worked mainly wing chun straight line stuff, also worked hakka power generation using the pole, hakka power generation arm on arm, and some bakmei application stuff. also ran through one of the family silum forms
So had the last few weeks off with a back injury feels ok now so back training, still powerlifting, doing a bit of MMA and kung fu and now judo as well 29.10.14 AM 20 minutes jump stretch band traction and stretches PM MMA club, the coach isnt teaching at the moment so basically its turn up, grab a partner do some training some conditioning and that’s it, not too bothered after 10 years of MMA training sort of know what to do and actually prefer this Band traction warm up, then 20 minutes tempo sprints (16 sprints with 1 min active rest) active rest was either core work (4 sets), 5 x ring dips ( 4 sets) 4 x ring chins ( 4 sets) followed by two sets of 12 kg dips x 3, and 12kg chins x 3, hate ring work much harder than normal dips and chins. Avergae HR for this work was 142bpm 3 x 2 min Thai pads first two round power shots, 3rd round working knees and elbows from clinch range 10 minutes no gi judo entries and set ups, 5 minutes actual throws, worked mainly o goshi, uki goshi, o garuma, osoto gari and tao toshi, then 5 minutes randori work, looking to make partner move by threatening trips and sweeps to set up the throw I wanted Ground work, 10 minutes drilling leg locks, then 5 minutes rolling Finished with snatch grip straight leg deads, worked up to 100kg x 6 @ 8 RPE, back off set 95kg @ 8 rpe
training this week tuesday 1hr and a half of judo, working mainly throw entry on different lines, alot of randori and ground sparring thursday 1hr and a half of judo, alot of time working ipon seonagi rounds of randori and rounds of ground sparring, also drilled turnovers to chokes friday powerlifting, squats up to 170x5 reps@9, 160 x 5 @8, 160 x 5 @ 9, pause squats 100x5@8, 95 x 5 @8 touch and go bench up to 105kgx5@9, 100x5@8, 100x5@9, ohpress 55x6@9, 52kgx5@8, Was also lucky enough to spot the below lift, forklift is 62, the IPF world record for the squat in this weight and age group is 290kg, here he is doing 291kg the last time he had this much weight on his back was 17 years ago https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1543753362526379
my weight loss regime is gonna be walk miles with the dog, eat 1000 cals a day, and pick heavy stuff up, push heavy stuff up, carry heavy stuff, and start bjj monday
weekends training 1/11/14 band warm up then 10 mins of box jumps and med ball slams deadlifts up to 170x5@9, then two back off sets at 160x5@9, no bench as back and chest tight so did 3 x 3 ring pullips, 3 x 5 ring rows, 3 x 15 band face pulls followed with 30 minutes ground and pound work and sparring 2/11/14 kung fu class, lots of stretching and working strikes and angles wearing the boxing gloves, ran through a few forms and finished with clinch/sticking sparring
Week or so off due to illness (man flu ) 24/11/14 Powerlifting and MMA Warm up Stretch band whole body followed by with 4 x 2min on the bags, with 3 x 3ring chin between each round Bench Warm up then 2 count paused bench, worked up to 110kg x 2 @ 9, might have even been a 8 , back off sets of 105 x 2 @ 8, 105 x 2 @ 8, 105 x 2 @ 9 Throw entry and practise, working o-goshi, tai toshi, ipon seonagi and osoto gari, all no gi using underhooks, neck tie, finished with 5 minutes light throws sparring to submission Ground work, 20 mins light rolling, working mainly escapes and arm bars Deadslifts, rushed for time so rushed warm up and paid for it, topped out at 190kg x 2 @ 10 (nothing else there) last week I did 190 x 3 at an easy 9, oh well that’s what illness can do, no back off sets left it there 25/11/14 Judo, lots of throw entry and throw practise, as always reminded to work on keeping distance on all turning throws (pull them off balance and into you) and killing distance on all backwards throws, then lots of randori, caught a tai toshi, tan otoshi, couple of osot garis and got thrown a lot by the blackbelts there Then worked a couple of new throws Sode tsurikomi goshi andTsurikomi goshi, coach also went over how to do sode no gi Finished with ground sparring, worked my pins and pin escapes, and caught a kimura, two arm bars and a coller choke. 26/11/14 woke us sore so 10mins of band stretching followed by 15min bike HRI, 10 sec heavy resisted bike sprints, rest until HR 130bpm then go again.
Ive run a conditioning programme for the past 5 weeks Before I started laying resting hr was 63, I did a burpee test to see how many I could do in 7 minutes (managed 77 lol) And then tested HR recovery afterwards hr from 163 to 130bpm Results 5 weeks later seated resting HR 56 (had a cold which means breathing whilst laying is hard ) 7 min bupree test (89) HR recovery from 167 to 135 in 1 min Happy with the results resting HR has gone down a fair bit for 5 weeks, power output over 7 minutes has increased, recovery is down a bit but HR was higher at the end of the 7 mins and I was going at a much higher sustained pace I expected my strength levels to go down as well but pleasantly surprised, the same week I finished the programme I deadlifted 190kg x 3, squatted 170kg x 3, bench 120kg x 3, all 3 rep pbs
Wow, that's pretty good actually. Good stuff . Can't remember if you mentioned it previously though, how long have you been powerlifting?
I normally get it down to 130bpm or below, but using a new hr monitor which is playing up (being replaced next week) didn’t help only regiseted when i held the watch to the strap lol burpess were not part of the conditioning plan, purposely left them out so as to have a true test of conditioning and not simply part adaption to the exercise itself which I think also effected recovery Been lifting for years, but competitive powerlifting at a proper gym only the last 4 years or so, wont compete again until I become a master lifter (later this year
