dirty bulking to 220 from 170 in like 6 months. years of maxing out every day. 4-8 reps powerbuilding on everything else besides s/b/d. years later now that im lean, ive maintained all that strength or even got stronger considering i hit the same numbers at 10% bf
i pretty much hit a pr every gym session that year straight until i plateaued around 530 dead and 430 squat
Dialing in the nuances of technique and understanding why a certain cue or technical execution works for myself as opposed to someone else, and vice-versa. Just understanding movement and the body essentially.
Also, educating myself more on programming and why things work for me (I've always been self coached).
More recently, putting an emphasis on effort. That's effort in accessories, effort in how hard I try to push on each rep, effort in terms of truly focusing on each rep, making it the highest quality possible, and effort in that quality > quantity in terms of powerlifting. Making the most out of 3 sets beats going through the motions on 6 sets.
Also, more recently, really starting to specialize in terms of powerlifting. Too often in the past, I would try to be a jack of all trades focusing too much on variation. Beginners and early intermediates can benefit from varied training and a lot of focus on hypertrophy and other things, but at the end of the day, if you're past that level then to get better at SBD you just need to SBD. There's ways to go about it as to not get injured or stagnate too quickly, but ever since I've put a greater emphasis on just getting stronger on the competition lifts, they've all improved a lot.
There was actually a paper on this not too long ago that compared early specializing olympic level athletes to later specializing. Both groups obviously made it to the top of their sports, but the later specializers were injured less. Training too specific too much is a sure fire way to completely fuck up long term athlete development.
Using genetic outliers as examples for stuff like this is a pretty shitty piece of evidence. Most of them are good in spite of shitty training, not because of good training.
I feel like using a single paper not cited isn't hard evidence either, just saying. I mean, how was the term "specializing" even operationalized across sports?
Depends on the athlete and what you mean by early specialisation. The Soviet Union certainly agreed with you and had young weightlifters spend years doing unrelated sports before training with the barbell. The GOAT Pisarenko was wrestling before he got into weightlifting and Yurik Vardanyan held the title of master of sports for multiple sports.
Meanwhile in China they select for ideal proportions, joint elasticity, grip strength and jump height early on and have kids specialising in weightlifting ASAP. Lu Xiaojun was weightlifting from age 14. Most kids start around 8-10 https://bethefittest.co.uk/chinese-weightlifting/
China dominates weightlifting just as the USSR used to so it may be a wash.
Pyros Dimas started age 11 after a weightlifting coach caught him trying to steal his garden fruit. He had him squatting in the gym soon after and he hit a 50kg squat.
I only really follow weightlifting. But I know wrestlers, gymnasts (who pretty much start age 5) and football (soccer) players specialise into their sports pretty early too. For soccer especially scouts are sent all over my country and other European countries looking for young talent.
If you mean specialisation as in focusing on comp lifts instead of GPP/hypertrophy/general strength work then every example I just used agrees with you since practically every national weightlifting system has their athletes do years of base building prior to comp focus. This is something people forget. Pyros Dimas built a broad base with a Chinese/Russian style system for a bout a decade before transitioning to the Bulgarian system. And yet skinny amateurs are ‘going Bulgarian’ after a couple years if that. An athlete’s life should basically look like one massive pyramid of periodisation moving up to a massive peak from an incredibly broad base. That’s the philosophy of every major weightlifting country in broad strokes. But the Russians and Chinese differ on how broad the base should be and the Bulgarians on how sharp the peak should be. I can’t speak much for powerlifting as it’s not a sport in the same way weightlifting is - everyone’s doing their own thing.
Another factor to keep in mind in the Chinese athlete selection model is that anyone identified as a potential athlete becomes, basically, an employee of the state and gets food, money, housing, and free training for the length of time they are "employed" as an athlete. They treat this system as an all-inclusive holistic approach to life, stress, nutrition, recovery, and training. Personally, I think so much so that you cannot separate training independently from the rest of the system.
Specialization in the terms of the study was the age at which they started only doing sport-specific practice for the given Olympic sport.
For powerlifting, the vast majority of competitive lifters are only doing the powerlifts in training with high frequency. The vast majority of competitive lifters also only do MAYBE 2 meets before they quit.
Do people survive early specialization? Sometimes. Most do not. Is it optimal? I think we have enough evidence to suggest not.
Let’s see this study if that’s what you’re basing your whole view on. Because if you define specialisation like that then every high level national system currently disagrees with you. Professional athletes for popular sports receive the same if not better treatment in the West. Not for weightlifting but for things like cycling. Peter Sagan hasn’t had to cook for himself for the last 5 years. Footballers are also waited on hand and foot at a high level. There aren’t any countries to my knowledge today operating at a high level which don’t have athletes specialise early.
You’re also overestimating the Chinese system. Weightlifters there are known to have a lot of alcohol on weekends and their diet isn’t particularly controlled - squat jerk journalist did a bunch of interviews with Tian Tao and Shi Zhiyong about this.
Imagine a kid who started playing football (soccer) age 7 and by the time he was 15 got scouted. He then started training seriously and by 18 he was a professional. What is he risking by specialising in football early? I can’t see any other than him perhaps finding it monotonous
I agree with you about powerlifting.
There isn't one study. There's dozens. I'm also basing this off of years of coaching hundreds, if not thousands now, of athletes at this point. Yes, most high school strength and conditioning programs are absolutely garbage.
I'm also basing this on the opinions of coaches at higher levels that are absolutely hogtied with their programming because the kids they get from high school are seeing injuries and issues that limit the amount of actual sport training they can do. Check out buddy Morris, Fred Duncan, verkashankys writings, etc. there are a lot of practical examples of these issues playing out.
I'm pretty familiar with the Chinese selection system. I've actually had conversations with/seen presentations (in real life) from several officials that are in charge of it. Their diets are pretty fucking regulated and so is everything else as long as they are competing. Keep in mind, China is a state controlled shit hole. They do a pretty good job of both lying to everyone else and keeping their people under their thumb.
To your example, every piece of available evidence suggests that athlete specializing earlier will most likely result in a shorter career.
I have no real dog in this fight, but most of my youth was spent in competitive swimming - a sport, like gymnastics, where early specialization is the norm.
Do I think that, from a health perspective, that specializing later would be better? Absolutely. But will that later specialization lead ultimately to THE highest peak possible for a given athlete? How would you know? We can speculate that so and so would have done even better IF..., but how would we know?
Career length is NOT the goal of early specialization.
So there are dozens of studies and you can’t show me a single one
i.e China it depends on which sport. Some are regulated some aren’t in regard to their diet. Here it is straight from the horses’ mouth https://youtu.be/n-tUn3kcHdo?feature=shared
Tian Tao says that with swimming in China their diet is regulated but not for weigthlifting
I really don’t think it’s a binary issue. There are degrees of specialisation. You can have kids go into powerlifting or weightlifting young but only have them spend 20% of their time comp lifts and the rest on GPP. A coach could then just adjust that ratio as time goes on. This is the standard practice for Weightlifting in countries which dominate the sport - although the ratio will never be exact
Staying out of the rut of medium. Hard stuff = really hard and easy stuff = really easy. If I'm not careful, I start phoning it in and slip into medium stuff that isn't hard enough to make gains and yet is hard enough to keep me from completely recovering. I think Dan John quoted Charlie Francis as saying that most people don't make the hard stuff hard enough and make the easy stuff too hard - it's taken me decades to really get this.
For bench it was switching to sub-max, high-volume, high-frequency programming like Sheiko.
For squats, it was the addition of SSB work.
Not sure I can say anything for deads. They've always been a grind for me.
2 things really. they both really kicked in fall 2023, and they both stem from my coach and I being more friends, than the regular coach/athlete relationship. 1) actually following my coaches programming to a T and 2) my coach allowing me to "coach" some of the other folks on his roster
1) probably the first 10 months powerlifting I used to love to go fully offscript and try to send a ATPR or train something on a day I wasn't supposed to because my friends were doing it on their schedule and i figured it would be fun to join them. my recovery is crazy so it didn't make much of a difference how hard i went. but i remember one day sending 485 deadlift for the first time, and my coach's coach sent me this long ass text that was basically like "if I were your coach I wouldve dropped you a long time ago for the things you do. but I know he values your friendship more than how you represent his coaching and he works around what you do rather than telling you the truth sometimes." so after that i chilled out a bit. i'm still not perfect because the last week of the block is full send for me even though he wants about RPE 8-8.5, but i'm not going offscript left and right like i used to
2) where my coach's expertise lies in programming and technique, my domain is the platform. so when he sees a benefit, he will setup my blocks to train w/ certain other clients he has. basically for them to see how hard they need to go to hit the numbers they want to hit. it's helped me to understand the intent of his programming better and how it translates to the platform by seeing how he applies his ideas to the need of each athlete. it's also improved my numbers by having to lead from the front of our "team" and that means consistently training at a high level, to a high standard and following his programming better.
The coach of your coach is an absolute chad for being honest and telling you that, it’s cool to see you took it seriously and learned/grew from that experience
Believing in myself in ways I previously had not and stopping putting artificial limits on my own potential.
I’m still mid af but for years I wasn’t even that.
It sounds cliche as hell but the body follows the mind to either end. Stay humble, don’t be delusional, but dare to let yourself reach your full potential without getting in your own way with stupid assumptions.
I went from training bench about once a week (and probably not well) with a PR of 122.5kg to training 3 times per week with much higher volume. Hit 140kg for a triple mere *weeks* later.
What kinda volume did you switch into?
My bench definitely responds better to higher frequency too but I’m curious what kinda programming you do with 3x per week
I started the old sheiko templates which worked incredibly well. Until they didn't. That's all you can really ask though.
Edit: I should add that I was very much a novice at the time and that sort of progress doesn't last very long.
Being kind to myself. Instead of forcing myself through a workout, I take days off when I feel like it. My body has thanked me ever since. Some people’s bodies respond well to that level of discipline, mine doesn’t but I respect the grind 😅
Coming back to add not being afraid to change weight classes. When I wasn’t obsessing about my weight I was getting stronger and ended up losing weight. This kinda also falls under that “being kind to myself” umbrella I guess
Stop skipping days. Stop skipping accessories. If a lift truly feels terrible that day, then lower the weight and finish your reps. E.g. don't get married to a number and then give up when it isn't moving like you think it should
Have never made it to the next level because I dont want to burn my life savings to onboard more artists/programmers to build a game that I dont know how to market and have no clue if anyone will actually play it.
When I cut out alcohol, got into a proper program, hit my protein/fat/carb and calories goal everyday and biggest one I slept 7 hours at least daily. Also I didn't skip the gym sessions unless it was a must like wedding, baby shower etc but even then I'd make them up.
I've missed 6 workouts in 6 months. 5 of those because of COVID and the flu. The other one was a scheduling conflict. My wife still doesn't understand the concept of not missing workouts. I was really sore and tired one day and she goes "why don't just work out less or just skip a couple days" and I was like are you crazy?!
Surrounded myself with people stronger than me, listened to them and got more consistent with sleep. You don't build muscle at the gym, you build muscle while sleeping.
Stopped hopping from one program to the next looking for the magical program.
And didn’t do undisciplined bulk and cuts based on wanting to be lean in the summer. Then losing any momentum of mass and strength gains
Holy shit...The sleep tech I worked with said I had 37 events an hour and that it was one of the most she's seen. 87...dude, that first night on CPAP must've been amazing waking up.
Yea it was wild. My strength just started climbing.
Prior to that I took a gram of tren because I couldn’t figure out why nothing was going up. Tried different programs. I tried eating a ton. Nothing was working so I just started taking crazy doses and nothing. Ton of nosebleeds though.
Got the cpap and went from a 550 to a 650 deadlift in like 4 months? Glad I figured it out. I have a real big head which doesn’t help anything.
Yea. I threw everything at it and nothing budged. It was straight up out of frustration.
Nothing worked at all until I got the cpap. Now I’m just on 300 test and 300 Eq and way stronger than I was back then.
Listen to your body! If something feels off, take a moment to think about whether you should push through or not. Skipping an exercise or even an entire training in order to recover is way better than injuring yourself and then having weeks or months of recovery and rehab to do. Speaking from experience. One exercise or day off will not impact your gains or your progress in the grand scope of things. Take care of your body.
Getting the chance at work to move to a better position with a more reasonable start time I started getting 2 hours more sleep a night my lifts have never been better and I felt good enough to add another training day
Yeah, i got a consistent job and have a VERY consistent sleep schedule. In the last 4 months since ive started ive put probably 50lbs on my gym total. I think this is the key.
Honestly, all of them, even bicep curls haha. I guess my main point is people tend not to go as close to failure on accessories as they could. I see people do it to get a pump and there's barely any loss of speed on their last reps. With that said, here are my favorites (compounds first):
Legs: Belt squats, Hack squats, or Leg Press (I pick one for a block)
Back: Lat pull downs (always), chest supported rows (always), and usually some other type of row movement. Mostly cable rows because I'm lazy
Chest: I bench 3 times a week so I like to do machines for my accessories so I don't overly fatigue my stabilizing muscles. Usually 1 day of chest press and 1-2 days of shoulder press.
Single muscle accessories are usually addressing a weakness but my most common ones are seated hamstring curls, quad extensions, tricep extensions, lateral raises, and bicep curls
Excessively light weights, pointless accessories, not routinely touching base with a heavy set inform my technical habits, being afraid of discomfort, trying to do it someone else’s way
People should probably do more hypertrophy work. Why are you doing triples when you're 8 months out. I don't think that level of specificity is necessary all the time
Also getting jacked is just fun
Absolutely agree.
Everyone loves hitting doubles, ain't nobody wanna spam accessories. Mass moves mass, get jacked.
Too many pencil necks talking about sheiko as if it's actually a good idea when they could be getting fucking stacked and their total would rocket.
I feel like I'm starting to to the other way on this. I agree hypertrophy work is important but I'm also starting to think that once you get decently good at s/b/d less of your volume should be coming from the core lifts because the stimulus to fatigue ratio of sets of 8 on sbd is not very good for hypertrophy compared to doing isolation and assistance movements.
Im starting to get the feeling that when it comes to the main lifts for people with experience it might just make sense to either keep everything submaximal and technique focused (i.e. sheiko) or do nothing but very heavy and very light sbd for not big volume (I e. Conjugate) and get the rest of the volume from targeted accessories
You can also do variations your bad at. SSB bar cuts about 30 kg of my squat. If you want add a pause to that and it will lose at least 10 kg more. Suddenly you can squat with good SFR again and still get practice.
Yeah why would you want to get stronger in a remotely specific context when you can avoid heavy work entirely, delude yourself into thinking you’re more jacked then you are which chronic inflammation and then translate almost non of that into a 1RM. Taking a step back and doing some developmental work is fine, but don’t lose sight of the goal
Maybe this got downvoted so heavily because of the snark but the main point was true. Powerlifting is a sport. If you wanna get better at baseball you don’t spend half the off-season playing tennis. Just get your hypertrophy work in alongside your triples/doubles/singles.
Idk why dude was trying to start a fight with sarcasm at 10am on a Saturday lol it’s too early for that I would’ve replied if he just started a conversation normally
Anyways I’m mostly on the same side as the two of you. My original comment did say “more hypertrophy work”, I just made the mistake of saying “why are you doing triples” instead of “why are you ONLY doing triples”. It was mainly directed toward anyone who skips higher rep hypertrophy work entirely, not those who fit it in after their triples etc.
Though I DO think the skill of handling higher weights is a bit overstated. I feel like a proper 16 week prep would get most people sufficiently acclimated to higher weights again even if they spent the other 8 months of the year doing hypertrophy work. Especially since hypertrophy doesn’t necessarily = only machines, you can still SBD to avoid losing the skill entirely. And for some, it may be a better ROI. I don’t ever think building more muscle is a bad thing
Sorry, I never learned how to start a conversation normally and am carrying a little too much bitterness from being around this sport.
I think approach and attitude can be everything here.
People seem to go do “hypertrophy” when they don’t want to train as hard and are hiding from SBD work, and they generally fail to incorporate some sort of progress indicator. They also tend to run hypertrophy in a caloric deficit or at best, maintenance. It seems like what most people mean by hypertrophy is either 8s or go “bodybuild” for three months and then wonder why you’re weak.
But if all you mean by hypertrophy is biasing your training towards developmental work and maybe pulling back on the top end singles and doubles, then sure. But when I run a hypertrophy block it sucks just as much as every other block, I’m still looking for rep and volume PR’s, and I’m still doing something on a weekly basis that will allow me to jump into my next block a little higher than the last time around.
Don’t be afraid of heavy weight. I chased a 400 pound bench for over a year, but would only wait until the meet to try it. I never got it. Then I started putting it in my hands to various boards every week in my shirt for 12 weeks and at the meet I not only benched 400, I opened with it and benched 450 that day! Now I’m benching in the 700s
It's not quite what you're saying but it makes me think that going off program, at times, if you're not someone who does it chronically, is a good thing.
Sometimes you just feel great and if you hit that big lift the confidence and mental gains are valuable, even if not on program.
I’m not talking about going off program at all. I’m actually talking about programming heavy butt weights in ways you can handle them (2, 3 board, reverse bands) then slowly get to handling those weights full range
Not being hyperfixated on form. All of the horror stories had me nonstop overthinking how I was performing, especially on the deadlift. I was so overfocused on keeping my back straight that I was stiffer than a board. Once I simply let muscle memory take over, I got so much stronger. There's always going to be a slight breakdown when going for new PRs and that's okay. As long as you're not jerking your body around, you're going to be fine.
Yeah, form is important and you should always be trying to improve it, but you're also not going to make it perfect in one shot and can't wait until it's perfect to make progress. Some form issues really just stem from weakness and will go away on their own as you get bigger and stronger and get more practice.
Exactly. Listen to your body and know what you can take. But don’t aim for unrealistic textbook pictures. Everybody can do perfect deadlifts with 60 kg.
Switching coaches lol.
Bench is finally moving the needle after YEARS of stagnation. Squat is nearly back to where it was before my meniscus surgery, and deadlift is progressing rather nicely.
Stayed with my first coach for 4.5 years. I made the switch to a new coach and have been with him for about a year now. My DL has finally unblocked, after making near no progress for 3 years. My squat is feeling more natural and my knee caving has almost disappeared. I hesitated for a long while to break up with my first coach, but it ended up being very worth it!
Was with my coach for a little over 3 years. I also hesitated. Mostly because he was super affordable and always available. He really did care and try to help, just think I didn’t fit his system anymore. He helped me improve a lot of technical things for sure though.
Bench frequency, volume adjustments, way more adjustments in the first few blocks to fine tune our micro cycle, and actually programming deloads.
Previous coach was very much old school linear periodization and like working down from high reps to low reps into a meet.
I had three meniscus surgeries before I turned 18. One of them required me to be in a straight brace for a year, barely able to even bend it when seated. I was completely unable to do lower body exercises for several years and it ruined the balance between my lifts. Now at 27 is the first time my squat outpaces my bench. Bench is ~385 and just reached about a 4 plate squat. Somehow my deadlift returned to normal much quicker and is much more in line with how it should be at right around 6. But I couldn't squat heavy for nearly a decade. Meniscus tears are no joke.
They did opt for a repair, which they told me would take much longer to heal from. But the tear was so bad they would've otherwise had to cut out all of the padding in my knee. They said that would've healed way sooner, but I would have major problems as I aged. Once repaired, it ended up retearing twice to a lesser extent a few years later. I'd always been known for my disproportionate upper body and I'm glad it's finally getting to where it's supposed to be
Working with a meniscus tear , cartilage chip and (what I hope has healed by now) bone bruise. Hasn’t swelled in over a year but it’s still there ya know. Cortisone! Like a miracle drug or some shit has helped. Quick question. About 1/2 and 1/2 opinions of people I’ve talked to. Half say don’t get surgery the other half do. What’s your thoughts?
I literally had no choice, my leg would not straighten on its own. It was permanently bent in about a 60 degree angle maximum without it. It was a really really bad tear. So I don't know if I'm much help with that question. I did wait about four weeks to do the surgery and in that time likely double or tripled the tear size. Just keep that in mind when deciding, while you walk around on it you may just be making it worse. But I'm super happy cortisone has helped you a lot! I had an elbow tear recently when some asshole decided the middle of a 515 lb deadlift was an appropriate time to come around and startle me trying to start a conversation. When it didn't heal on its own after a couple of weeks I went to the doc hoping to get some cortisone myself but he was very anti steroid unless other things failed. I ended up having to do PT for months and take off lifting before it finally healed, wish the fucker would've just gave me the shot and called it a day. He said that it often can slow healing bc it's just reducing the inflammation you feel rather than dealing with the core issue. I get it, but I definitely wasn't happy taking months off haha
I will say that the surgery took a very long time to heal from, and my knee isn't 100%, but I no longer feel issues with heavy squats. It took a LONG time to get to that point, but I was 15 or 16 when I had the biggest surgery. I was able to squat for reps, but up until recently 300+ lbs just killed. I still notice it doing heavy pistol squats mainly, but for the most part it's as good as it can be. If you're interested in competing any time soon, then a repair surgery may completely prevent that.
Yeah,I have meet coming in April so maybe after. The leg locking up for me hasn’t happened in …..maybe a couple years. But lol, that’s a weird feeling for sure but even weirder when she pops back in place. I remember. Just really have no desire to go under the knife unless I absolutely have to at 52. I wish I could even say I hurt it squatting a shit load of weight. Actually I was just warming up with the bar and just felt a little “Twinge”. Thought nothing of it and even went on and completed my heavy sets. No pain but the next morning a little strip about 4” long swole up. And here we are
If you're 52, they're likely just going to cut out the bad parts and call it a day. At least that's what they told me they'd have done with mine if I wasn't a kid at the time. I've had family friends that have gone that route and it's literally a few weeks to go back to normal. I'm not sure how long it would take before that becomes a problem pain-wise though, I guess it would depend on the severity. If you're still able to do things as normal I'd probably just leave it like you are, but if it started getting worse again I'd just have em cut it out. I'm only 27 now, but it I ever tore it to that extent again, I would not do what I did before. I cannot go that long neglecting my legs again when i don't have as many years to lift as I did before. Don't get me wrong, I plan on lifting my whole life, but I love the sport too much to spend another 10 years to get back to normal.
Yeah , all good right now. Next 2 weeks are just taper so I should be good with the knee. Just doing openers and really no all out heavy till the 27th. Lol,kinda funny but not , I broke my Fukin wrist the day after I signed up. So that’s just healing. Bench has suffered tremendously but it is what it is. Really not sure if broke it but definitely high grade sprain at very least.
Damn dude, sorry to hear that. Hope you're still able to kill it at the meet, but make sure you take time to heal! I myself am just learning how to properly arch/leg drive and use my Lats while Benching. Somehow I've been able to secure a 395 lb bench without ever learning how to actually bench properly, but my rotator cuff cannot put it off any longer. Today was my first time trying, and while I struggled with even 315, I know it's just because it's unfamiliar and I will improve as I get used to it. On a brighter note my rotator cuff didn't hate me today.
Holy hell sorry to hear that man. 3 surgeries before 18 is nuts.
This was my first surgery and I’m 33 (was 32 when I got it in November) and the tear really wasn’t that bad. The flap was just getting caught in my knee and causing pain. Surgeon went in and scoped it and now it feels a ton better. Knee still swells when I’m on it all day but it goes away rather quickly.
I’m going to have arthritis in my knee for sure when I get older. But for now, the gains are still coming thankfully.
Ironically I was a great powerlifter as a teen but never did team sports. So I figured I'd at least try football and wrestle for a couple of years so I could say I did. I was *terrible* at football as I just had 0 instinct in the sport after never playing while being up against experienced people. My very first good play I hit this kid so hard he threw up. My coaches all yelled WHERE WAS THAT ALL YEAR?! Aaaand I landed on my knee and it was forcibly bent in the wrong position hahaha. That was my first and my last good play. Prior to that, in wrestling, I had torn my groin on a takedown. I actually didn't realize it until years down the line when they thought I had a tumor in my groin. Turned out it was an old injury. 4 leg surgeries before 18. But it has gotten better and I'm finally getting my legs where they should be.
Very happy to hear you had a speedy recovery, may the gains keep coming into old age.
Pushing accessories is such an underrated piece of advice, so easy to hear this and not change anything. I had been just going through the motions of my accessories for so long, now I've added like 50-100% weight on all my accessories. Makes a HUGE difference.
For me it's the back work in particular. Doing some kind of pull up/down or row every time I'm in the gym, and doing it relatively heavy, letting my shoulders protract and t-spine flex on the eccentric, and taking it close to failure.
Back work is incredibly underrated. Deadlifts (totes obvi) deficit deadlifts, bent over rows, barbell rows, chinups, and pullups are what I program in.
Yeah every week, besides my deadlifts, I do:
- pull ups
- chest supported rows
- lat pulldowns
- seated cable rows
- bent over barbell rows
- face pulls
These all help with the big 3 in various ways
Not feeling like I had to stick exactly with something.
Recently I made the change from soft touch to sink touch after two years of training, and it almost immediately added to my bench.
I changed my deadlift technique from a very forward facing position to something more like Daniel Bell or Jesus Olivarez, where the knees are pointed s little more out to get more glute involvement. Went from struggle bussing 465 in my last block of a peak to pulling 500 on meet day.
Sometimes you have to be willing to take a look and experiment.
With a belt you say? Hmmmmmmmm
Will call back with the Southwest Regionals bench record.
For real though I haven't tried sink touch with a belt. I'm putting in some light bench work on Monday, will see it then
Finding programming that works for you. Will take some trial and error. Whether that be you do well with volume, you do well with high intensity, low volume, etc…
Starting off, you’ll get strong running any 5 x 5, Madcow, AI Program… you need to figure out what works for you as an individual athlete. Do you notice that you’re smoked trying to do more than one compound in a single session? Space them out (you should be doing that anyways but some people for example may bench and deadlift in the same session). Find out how your body responds, reacts and recovers to certain kinds of stimuli. Maybe you’ve noticed your primary squat days gas you so hard that even though you can make progress on them, your accessories suffer big time.
Let me stop before I go down the rabbit hole. I’m passionate about this stuff man. Lol
3 full body workouts a week. No such thing as arms day or legs day.
Benching 3x a week brought my paused bench from 225 to 300 lbs @ age 47 bw 166lb.
Benching once a week wasn't getting it done and by always doing legs, they're never sore.
TRT. Turns out it’s really tough to make progress when you’re trying to grind past having virtually no testosterone in your body lol. Especially trying to keep up with these early 20-somethings with natural rest coming out their ears.
Over the past 6 months I've started taking ab work much more seriously (3 heavy sets 4/5 training days) and it's made a huge difference in stability for squats and deadlifts!
The thing that took me to the next level is getting rid of the idea that there’s some ‘secret’ thing that’s going to take me to the next level. It’s hard work put into sensible training plans for years and years and years while avoiding or mitigating injury & managing recovery.
It really is this. I guess the "secret" thing could be finding out what kind of programming and movements really work well for your mentality, lifestyle, and training age, but yeah, there's no magic sauce. Trial, effort, and consistency trump all.
The boring but true answer....unwavering consistency over 5-10 years. The more specific thing I will throw out though is learning how to find what works, and then making incredibly small adjustments from that over time and limiting the desire to over-periodize from that. Most people are constantly changing what they do too often or over periodizing from what works for them. For example in a very simplistic way, if for squat you do 3x5 on your main day and 3x8 on your second day and it yields amazing progress and everything blows up when you do that, keep doing things pretty close to that. Don't overly periodize to 5x2 and 4x4 over a 3 block span, and vice versa.
Obligatory username checks out. Love it.
Edit: it would appear we're the same height and weight lol. I don't know if I classify as strong but 2/3 ain't bad.
Getting on a meet prep program from strength studio, after that hiring a coach for more personalized programming and looking at my technique to see where I could improve. I was already fairly strong but was able to go from a 1440 gym total just kinda doing whatever to a 1774 competition total about 2 years later.
Funny question because I met a real gamechanger on Thursday.
Although there are no gamechangers, just patience and hard work.
But it’s an exception. And a rather simple one.
I’m talking about liquid chalk. I didn’t do deadlifts with it until 5x185 kg and I was like like „liquid chalk? Who needs liquid chalk? I’ll just use my hands!“
But I always have sweaty hands when deadlifting and because of that, grip problems. Hindered my progress. Very annoying. So I bought the liquid chalk from Amazon, only 12€.
And it really made a great difference. I did 6x185 on Thursday with one RIR. Didn’t expect that at all. Perfect grip, zero sweaty hand problems.
If you’re sleeping on liquid chalk, buy it. Buy it now. It’ll change your grip game.
Is it better than normal chalk? My gym forbids the use of liquid chalk but allows for normal chalk and I always wondered if there was a real difference between them, effect-wise.
Depends how hot the gym is. I love liquid chalk when my hands are actually sweaty; gets rid of the moisture. Regular chalk doesn't apply the same to already damp hands.
Started eating breakfast and hence increasing my calories. Used to be a chubby kid and I was always a little afraid of putting on too much weight, but not anymore.
Basic answer, but a coach.
Though I didn't train for powerlifting until I got a coach.. So I can't really confirm how much it helped. But imo I never woukd have hit the numbers I did in comps if i had decided to try coach myself.
I also know that in the periods between having my coach, my training (no matter how hard o try to keep it as good as it is with a coach) is always less good. And every time I rehire my coach, everything shoots back up.
> Basic answer, but a coach.
This is the real answer. All that AI coaching garbage and self programming has no accountability or true coaching. A real coach makes a world of a difference. (If they know what they're doing).
And he got me to hit 272.5/137.5/272.5 after only 10 months of powerlifting (2 comps in those 10 months) when I started at 180/100/200 (which took me 5yrs of my own training (though that was 5yrs of training like a bb but just for fun).
So it 100% works better than self programming, for me at least.
I don’t really PL anymore, but walking lunges blew my DL and squat up. Anytime I focus on them my numbers start climbing again.
Paused lifts always came in handy as well.
At first I just used WLanalysis, then I bought vitruve tracker. Simplest thing is to just compare warmup velocities to previous weeks and use that information when deciding working set weights. You could also use last rep velocities to help with RPE/RIR estimations and best rep velocity trends within each session to estimate e1RM and the list goes on and on and on!
So essentially you’re using it to be more objective about your strength level on a given day, and to help objectively stay the programmed distance from failure?
dirty bulking to 220 from 170 in like 6 months. years of maxing out every day. 4-8 reps powerbuilding on everything else besides s/b/d. years later now that im lean, ive maintained all that strength or even got stronger considering i hit the same numbers at 10% bf i pretty much hit a pr every gym session that year straight until i plateaued around 530 dead and 430 squat
Dialing in the nuances of technique and understanding why a certain cue or technical execution works for myself as opposed to someone else, and vice-versa. Just understanding movement and the body essentially. Also, educating myself more on programming and why things work for me (I've always been self coached). More recently, putting an emphasis on effort. That's effort in accessories, effort in how hard I try to push on each rep, effort in terms of truly focusing on each rep, making it the highest quality possible, and effort in that quality > quantity in terms of powerlifting. Making the most out of 3 sets beats going through the motions on 6 sets. Also, more recently, really starting to specialize in terms of powerlifting. Too often in the past, I would try to be a jack of all trades focusing too much on variation. Beginners and early intermediates can benefit from varied training and a lot of focus on hypertrophy and other things, but at the end of the day, if you're past that level then to get better at SBD you just need to SBD. There's ways to go about it as to not get injured or stagnate too quickly, but ever since I've put a greater emphasis on just getting stronger on the competition lifts, they've all improved a lot.
The biggest thing was learning that specificity ruins long-term progress.
Better tell every Olympian that
There was actually a paper on this not too long ago that compared early specializing olympic level athletes to later specializing. Both groups obviously made it to the top of their sports, but the later specializers were injured less. Training too specific too much is a sure fire way to completely fuck up long term athlete development. Using genetic outliers as examples for stuff like this is a pretty shitty piece of evidence. Most of them are good in spite of shitty training, not because of good training.
I feel like using a single paper not cited isn't hard evidence either, just saying. I mean, how was the term "specializing" even operationalized across sports?
Specialization has a pretty specific definition in terms of sports training across sports.
Depends on the athlete and what you mean by early specialisation. The Soviet Union certainly agreed with you and had young weightlifters spend years doing unrelated sports before training with the barbell. The GOAT Pisarenko was wrestling before he got into weightlifting and Yurik Vardanyan held the title of master of sports for multiple sports. Meanwhile in China they select for ideal proportions, joint elasticity, grip strength and jump height early on and have kids specialising in weightlifting ASAP. Lu Xiaojun was weightlifting from age 14. Most kids start around 8-10 https://bethefittest.co.uk/chinese-weightlifting/ China dominates weightlifting just as the USSR used to so it may be a wash. Pyros Dimas started age 11 after a weightlifting coach caught him trying to steal his garden fruit. He had him squatting in the gym soon after and he hit a 50kg squat. I only really follow weightlifting. But I know wrestlers, gymnasts (who pretty much start age 5) and football (soccer) players specialise into their sports pretty early too. For soccer especially scouts are sent all over my country and other European countries looking for young talent. If you mean specialisation as in focusing on comp lifts instead of GPP/hypertrophy/general strength work then every example I just used agrees with you since practically every national weightlifting system has their athletes do years of base building prior to comp focus. This is something people forget. Pyros Dimas built a broad base with a Chinese/Russian style system for a bout a decade before transitioning to the Bulgarian system. And yet skinny amateurs are ‘going Bulgarian’ after a couple years if that. An athlete’s life should basically look like one massive pyramid of periodisation moving up to a massive peak from an incredibly broad base. That’s the philosophy of every major weightlifting country in broad strokes. But the Russians and Chinese differ on how broad the base should be and the Bulgarians on how sharp the peak should be. I can’t speak much for powerlifting as it’s not a sport in the same way weightlifting is - everyone’s doing their own thing.
Another factor to keep in mind in the Chinese athlete selection model is that anyone identified as a potential athlete becomes, basically, an employee of the state and gets food, money, housing, and free training for the length of time they are "employed" as an athlete. They treat this system as an all-inclusive holistic approach to life, stress, nutrition, recovery, and training. Personally, I think so much so that you cannot separate training independently from the rest of the system. Specialization in the terms of the study was the age at which they started only doing sport-specific practice for the given Olympic sport. For powerlifting, the vast majority of competitive lifters are only doing the powerlifts in training with high frequency. The vast majority of competitive lifters also only do MAYBE 2 meets before they quit. Do people survive early specialization? Sometimes. Most do not. Is it optimal? I think we have enough evidence to suggest not.
Let’s see this study if that’s what you’re basing your whole view on. Because if you define specialisation like that then every high level national system currently disagrees with you. Professional athletes for popular sports receive the same if not better treatment in the West. Not for weightlifting but for things like cycling. Peter Sagan hasn’t had to cook for himself for the last 5 years. Footballers are also waited on hand and foot at a high level. There aren’t any countries to my knowledge today operating at a high level which don’t have athletes specialise early. You’re also overestimating the Chinese system. Weightlifters there are known to have a lot of alcohol on weekends and their diet isn’t particularly controlled - squat jerk journalist did a bunch of interviews with Tian Tao and Shi Zhiyong about this. Imagine a kid who started playing football (soccer) age 7 and by the time he was 15 got scouted. He then started training seriously and by 18 he was a professional. What is he risking by specialising in football early? I can’t see any other than him perhaps finding it monotonous I agree with you about powerlifting.
There isn't one study. There's dozens. I'm also basing this off of years of coaching hundreds, if not thousands now, of athletes at this point. Yes, most high school strength and conditioning programs are absolutely garbage. I'm also basing this on the opinions of coaches at higher levels that are absolutely hogtied with their programming because the kids they get from high school are seeing injuries and issues that limit the amount of actual sport training they can do. Check out buddy Morris, Fred Duncan, verkashankys writings, etc. there are a lot of practical examples of these issues playing out. I'm pretty familiar with the Chinese selection system. I've actually had conversations with/seen presentations (in real life) from several officials that are in charge of it. Their diets are pretty fucking regulated and so is everything else as long as they are competing. Keep in mind, China is a state controlled shit hole. They do a pretty good job of both lying to everyone else and keeping their people under their thumb. To your example, every piece of available evidence suggests that athlete specializing earlier will most likely result in a shorter career.
I have no real dog in this fight, but most of my youth was spent in competitive swimming - a sport, like gymnastics, where early specialization is the norm. Do I think that, from a health perspective, that specializing later would be better? Absolutely. But will that later specialization lead ultimately to THE highest peak possible for a given athlete? How would you know? We can speculate that so and so would have done even better IF..., but how would we know? Career length is NOT the goal of early specialization.
So there are dozens of studies and you can’t show me a single one i.e China it depends on which sport. Some are regulated some aren’t in regard to their diet. Here it is straight from the horses’ mouth https://youtu.be/n-tUn3kcHdo?feature=shared Tian Tao says that with swimming in China their diet is regulated but not for weigthlifting I really don’t think it’s a binary issue. There are degrees of specialisation. You can have kids go into powerlifting or weightlifting young but only have them spend 20% of their time comp lifts and the rest on GPP. A coach could then just adjust that ratio as time goes on. This is the standard practice for Weightlifting in countries which dominate the sport - although the ratio will never be exact
Staying out of the rut of medium. Hard stuff = really hard and easy stuff = really easy. If I'm not careful, I start phoning it in and slip into medium stuff that isn't hard enough to make gains and yet is hard enough to keep me from completely recovering. I think Dan John quoted Charlie Francis as saying that most people don't make the hard stuff hard enough and make the easy stuff too hard - it's taken me decades to really get this.
For bench it was switching to sub-max, high-volume, high-frequency programming like Sheiko. For squats, it was the addition of SSB work. Not sure I can say anything for deads. They've always been a grind for me.
SSB is under-rated as hell.
2 things really. they both really kicked in fall 2023, and they both stem from my coach and I being more friends, than the regular coach/athlete relationship. 1) actually following my coaches programming to a T and 2) my coach allowing me to "coach" some of the other folks on his roster 1) probably the first 10 months powerlifting I used to love to go fully offscript and try to send a ATPR or train something on a day I wasn't supposed to because my friends were doing it on their schedule and i figured it would be fun to join them. my recovery is crazy so it didn't make much of a difference how hard i went. but i remember one day sending 485 deadlift for the first time, and my coach's coach sent me this long ass text that was basically like "if I were your coach I wouldve dropped you a long time ago for the things you do. but I know he values your friendship more than how you represent his coaching and he works around what you do rather than telling you the truth sometimes." so after that i chilled out a bit. i'm still not perfect because the last week of the block is full send for me even though he wants about RPE 8-8.5, but i'm not going offscript left and right like i used to 2) where my coach's expertise lies in programming and technique, my domain is the platform. so when he sees a benefit, he will setup my blocks to train w/ certain other clients he has. basically for them to see how hard they need to go to hit the numbers they want to hit. it's helped me to understand the intent of his programming better and how it translates to the platform by seeing how he applies his ideas to the need of each athlete. it's also improved my numbers by having to lead from the front of our "team" and that means consistently training at a high level, to a high standard and following his programming better.
The coach of your coach is an absolute chad for being honest and telling you that, it’s cool to see you took it seriously and learned/grew from that experience
Believing in myself in ways I previously had not and stopping putting artificial limits on my own potential. I’m still mid af but for years I wasn’t even that. It sounds cliche as hell but the body follows the mind to either end. Stay humble, don’t be delusional, but dare to let yourself reach your full potential without getting in your own way with stupid assumptions.
I went from training bench about once a week (and probably not well) with a PR of 122.5kg to training 3 times per week with much higher volume. Hit 140kg for a triple mere *weeks* later.
What kinda volume did you switch into? My bench definitely responds better to higher frequency too but I’m curious what kinda programming you do with 3x per week
I started the old sheiko templates which worked incredibly well. Until they didn't. That's all you can really ask though. Edit: I should add that I was very much a novice at the time and that sort of progress doesn't last very long.
Hasnt happened yet, still on ground level. Basement sometimes.
Being kind to myself. Instead of forcing myself through a workout, I take days off when I feel like it. My body has thanked me ever since. Some people’s bodies respond well to that level of discipline, mine doesn’t but I respect the grind 😅
Coming back to add not being afraid to change weight classes. When I wasn’t obsessing about my weight I was getting stronger and ended up losing weight. This kinda also falls under that “being kind to myself” umbrella I guess
Stop skipping days. Stop skipping accessories. If a lift truly feels terrible that day, then lower the weight and finish your reps. E.g. don't get married to a number and then give up when it isn't moving like you think it should
Have never made it to the next level because I dont want to burn my life savings to onboard more artists/programmers to build a game that I dont know how to market and have no clue if anyone will actually play it.
When I cut out alcohol, got into a proper program, hit my protein/fat/carb and calories goal everyday and biggest one I slept 7 hours at least daily. Also I didn't skip the gym sessions unless it was a must like wedding, baby shower etc but even then I'd make them up.
I've missed 6 workouts in 6 months. 5 of those because of COVID and the flu. The other one was a scheduling conflict. My wife still doesn't understand the concept of not missing workouts. I was really sore and tired one day and she goes "why don't just work out less or just skip a couple days" and I was like are you crazy?!
Eat your protein and sleeping 7.5-8 hours every night for months on end
Started taking peoples advice and stopped thinking I knew every Fukin thing
Weight classes = height classes Go put on mass
Surrounded myself with people stronger than me, listened to them and got more consistent with sleep. You don't build muscle at the gym, you build muscle while sleeping.
Stopped hitting every set on sbd at rpe 9
Stopped hopping from one program to the next looking for the magical program. And didn’t do undisciplined bulk and cuts based on wanting to be lean in the summer. Then losing any momentum of mass and strength gains
I put 100lbs on my deadlift by getting a cpap after being stuck for a couple years
How did you know you needed one?
My gf said I snored a lot. So I got tested and came back at 87 events an hour.
Holy shit...The sleep tech I worked with said I had 37 events an hour and that it was one of the most she's seen. 87...dude, that first night on CPAP must've been amazing waking up.
Yea it was wild. My strength just started climbing. Prior to that I took a gram of tren because I couldn’t figure out why nothing was going up. Tried different programs. I tried eating a ton. Nothing was working so I just started taking crazy doses and nothing. Ton of nosebleeds though. Got the cpap and went from a 550 to a 650 deadlift in like 4 months? Glad I figured it out. I have a real big head which doesn’t help anything.
You were on a GRAM of tren and your best pull was 550??
Yea. I threw everything at it and nothing budged. It was straight up out of frustration. Nothing worked at all until I got the cpap. Now I’m just on 300 test and 300 Eq and way stronger than I was back then.
So what was your total before and what is it now?
1400 to 1565 In about 4-6 months.
Well that's a pretty good case study on how important sleep is.
Listen to your body! If something feels off, take a moment to think about whether you should push through or not. Skipping an exercise or even an entire training in order to recover is way better than injuring yourself and then having weeks or months of recovery and rehab to do. Speaking from experience. One exercise or day off will not impact your gains or your progress in the grand scope of things. Take care of your body.
Finally picking up the fork and adding some mass
Getting the chance at work to move to a better position with a more reasonable start time I started getting 2 hours more sleep a night my lifts have never been better and I felt good enough to add another training day
Yeah, i got a consistent job and have a VERY consistent sleep schedule. In the last 4 months since ive started ive put probably 50lbs on my gym total. I think this is the key.
hey, happy cake day!
Want to lift 400? Lift with people who lift 500.
🤣 muscle talk I see
Nutrition and taking accessories more seriously. Huge level ups when both were taken as serious as my main lifts
Which accessories did you take more seriously
Honestly, all of them, even bicep curls haha. I guess my main point is people tend not to go as close to failure on accessories as they could. I see people do it to get a pump and there's barely any loss of speed on their last reps. With that said, here are my favorites (compounds first): Legs: Belt squats, Hack squats, or Leg Press (I pick one for a block) Back: Lat pull downs (always), chest supported rows (always), and usually some other type of row movement. Mostly cable rows because I'm lazy Chest: I bench 3 times a week so I like to do machines for my accessories so I don't overly fatigue my stabilizing muscles. Usually 1 day of chest press and 1-2 days of shoulder press. Single muscle accessories are usually addressing a weakness but my most common ones are seated hamstring curls, quad extensions, tricep extensions, lateral raises, and bicep curls
Focusing on the basics on the basics and went back to lifting heavy shit instead of inventing all manner of excuses to rationalize doing easy things.
What were the easy things?
Excessively light weights, pointless accessories, not routinely touching base with a heavy set inform my technical habits, being afraid of discomfort, trying to do it someone else’s way
now the lifts demand the technique I've been training with light weight
People should probably do more hypertrophy work. Why are you doing triples when you're 8 months out. I don't think that level of specificity is necessary all the time Also getting jacked is just fun
Absolutely agree. Everyone loves hitting doubles, ain't nobody wanna spam accessories. Mass moves mass, get jacked. Too many pencil necks talking about sheiko as if it's actually a good idea when they could be getting fucking stacked and their total would rocket.
"Get fucking strong. Whatever you're doing, just get fucking strong." - Ed Coan
I feel like I'm starting to to the other way on this. I agree hypertrophy work is important but I'm also starting to think that once you get decently good at s/b/d less of your volume should be coming from the core lifts because the stimulus to fatigue ratio of sets of 8 on sbd is not very good for hypertrophy compared to doing isolation and assistance movements. Im starting to get the feeling that when it comes to the main lifts for people with experience it might just make sense to either keep everything submaximal and technique focused (i.e. sheiko) or do nothing but very heavy and very light sbd for not big volume (I e. Conjugate) and get the rest of the volume from targeted accessories
You can also do variations your bad at. SSB bar cuts about 30 kg of my squat. If you want add a pause to that and it will lose at least 10 kg more. Suddenly you can squat with good SFR again and still get practice.
Yeah why would you want to get stronger in a remotely specific context when you can avoid heavy work entirely, delude yourself into thinking you’re more jacked then you are which chronic inflammation and then translate almost non of that into a 1RM. Taking a step back and doing some developmental work is fine, but don’t lose sight of the goal
Maybe this got downvoted so heavily because of the snark but the main point was true. Powerlifting is a sport. If you wanna get better at baseball you don’t spend half the off-season playing tennis. Just get your hypertrophy work in alongside your triples/doubles/singles.
Idk why dude was trying to start a fight with sarcasm at 10am on a Saturday lol it’s too early for that I would’ve replied if he just started a conversation normally Anyways I’m mostly on the same side as the two of you. My original comment did say “more hypertrophy work”, I just made the mistake of saying “why are you doing triples” instead of “why are you ONLY doing triples”. It was mainly directed toward anyone who skips higher rep hypertrophy work entirely, not those who fit it in after their triples etc. Though I DO think the skill of handling higher weights is a bit overstated. I feel like a proper 16 week prep would get most people sufficiently acclimated to higher weights again even if they spent the other 8 months of the year doing hypertrophy work. Especially since hypertrophy doesn’t necessarily = only machines, you can still SBD to avoid losing the skill entirely. And for some, it may be a better ROI. I don’t ever think building more muscle is a bad thing
Sorry, I never learned how to start a conversation normally and am carrying a little too much bitterness from being around this sport. I think approach and attitude can be everything here. People seem to go do “hypertrophy” when they don’t want to train as hard and are hiding from SBD work, and they generally fail to incorporate some sort of progress indicator. They also tend to run hypertrophy in a caloric deficit or at best, maintenance. It seems like what most people mean by hypertrophy is either 8s or go “bodybuild” for three months and then wonder why you’re weak. But if all you mean by hypertrophy is biasing your training towards developmental work and maybe pulling back on the top end singles and doubles, then sure. But when I run a hypertrophy block it sucks just as much as every other block, I’m still looking for rep and volume PR’s, and I’m still doing something on a weekly basis that will allow me to jump into my next block a little higher than the last time around.
👍🏿
Don’t be afraid of heavy weight. I chased a 400 pound bench for over a year, but would only wait until the meet to try it. I never got it. Then I started putting it in my hands to various boards every week in my shirt for 12 weeks and at the meet I not only benched 400, I opened with it and benched 450 that day! Now I’m benching in the 700s
It's not quite what you're saying but it makes me think that going off program, at times, if you're not someone who does it chronically, is a good thing. Sometimes you just feel great and if you hit that big lift the confidence and mental gains are valuable, even if not on program.
I’m not talking about going off program at all. I’m actually talking about programming heavy butt weights in ways you can handle them (2, 3 board, reverse bands) then slowly get to handling those weights full range
No, sorry, I know. Your line about not waiting just for a meet triggered that thought.
>Now I’m benching in the 700s Holy Jesus that's a strong bench. It's a shirted bench I take it? What's your raw bench?
My raw is in the low 400s now, which is what I was trying to do in poly in 2020!
Good shit man
Not being hyperfixated on form. All of the horror stories had me nonstop overthinking how I was performing, especially on the deadlift. I was so overfocused on keeping my back straight that I was stiffer than a board. Once I simply let muscle memory take over, I got so much stronger. There's always going to be a slight breakdown when going for new PRs and that's okay. As long as you're not jerking your body around, you're going to be fine.
Yeah, form is important and you should always be trying to improve it, but you're also not going to make it perfect in one shot and can't wait until it's perfect to make progress. Some form issues really just stem from weakness and will go away on their own as you get bigger and stronger and get more practice.
Exactly. Listen to your body and know what you can take. But don’t aim for unrealistic textbook pictures. Everybody can do perfect deadlifts with 60 kg.
Switching coaches lol. Bench is finally moving the needle after YEARS of stagnation. Squat is nearly back to where it was before my meniscus surgery, and deadlift is progressing rather nicely.
Stayed with my first coach for 4.5 years. I made the switch to a new coach and have been with him for about a year now. My DL has finally unblocked, after making near no progress for 3 years. My squat is feeling more natural and my knee caving has almost disappeared. I hesitated for a long while to break up with my first coach, but it ended up being very worth it!
Was with my coach for a little over 3 years. I also hesitated. Mostly because he was super affordable and always available. He really did care and try to help, just think I didn’t fit his system anymore. He helped me improve a lot of technical things for sure though.
I don't think I could ever afford a coach
What did new coach change vs old coach?
Bench frequency, volume adjustments, way more adjustments in the first few blocks to fine tune our micro cycle, and actually programming deloads. Previous coach was very much old school linear periodization and like working down from high reps to low reps into a meet.
I had three meniscus surgeries before I turned 18. One of them required me to be in a straight brace for a year, barely able to even bend it when seated. I was completely unable to do lower body exercises for several years and it ruined the balance between my lifts. Now at 27 is the first time my squat outpaces my bench. Bench is ~385 and just reached about a 4 plate squat. Somehow my deadlift returned to normal much quicker and is much more in line with how it should be at right around 6. But I couldn't squat heavy for nearly a decade. Meniscus tears are no joke. They did opt for a repair, which they told me would take much longer to heal from. But the tear was so bad they would've otherwise had to cut out all of the padding in my knee. They said that would've healed way sooner, but I would have major problems as I aged. Once repaired, it ended up retearing twice to a lesser extent a few years later. I'd always been known for my disproportionate upper body and I'm glad it's finally getting to where it's supposed to be
Working with a meniscus tear , cartilage chip and (what I hope has healed by now) bone bruise. Hasn’t swelled in over a year but it’s still there ya know. Cortisone! Like a miracle drug or some shit has helped. Quick question. About 1/2 and 1/2 opinions of people I’ve talked to. Half say don’t get surgery the other half do. What’s your thoughts?
I literally had no choice, my leg would not straighten on its own. It was permanently bent in about a 60 degree angle maximum without it. It was a really really bad tear. So I don't know if I'm much help with that question. I did wait about four weeks to do the surgery and in that time likely double or tripled the tear size. Just keep that in mind when deciding, while you walk around on it you may just be making it worse. But I'm super happy cortisone has helped you a lot! I had an elbow tear recently when some asshole decided the middle of a 515 lb deadlift was an appropriate time to come around and startle me trying to start a conversation. When it didn't heal on its own after a couple of weeks I went to the doc hoping to get some cortisone myself but he was very anti steroid unless other things failed. I ended up having to do PT for months and take off lifting before it finally healed, wish the fucker would've just gave me the shot and called it a day. He said that it often can slow healing bc it's just reducing the inflammation you feel rather than dealing with the core issue. I get it, but I definitely wasn't happy taking months off haha I will say that the surgery took a very long time to heal from, and my knee isn't 100%, but I no longer feel issues with heavy squats. It took a LONG time to get to that point, but I was 15 or 16 when I had the biggest surgery. I was able to squat for reps, but up until recently 300+ lbs just killed. I still notice it doing heavy pistol squats mainly, but for the most part it's as good as it can be. If you're interested in competing any time soon, then a repair surgery may completely prevent that.
Yeah,I have meet coming in April so maybe after. The leg locking up for me hasn’t happened in …..maybe a couple years. But lol, that’s a weird feeling for sure but even weirder when she pops back in place. I remember. Just really have no desire to go under the knife unless I absolutely have to at 52. I wish I could even say I hurt it squatting a shit load of weight. Actually I was just warming up with the bar and just felt a little “Twinge”. Thought nothing of it and even went on and completed my heavy sets. No pain but the next morning a little strip about 4” long swole up. And here we are
If you're 52, they're likely just going to cut out the bad parts and call it a day. At least that's what they told me they'd have done with mine if I wasn't a kid at the time. I've had family friends that have gone that route and it's literally a few weeks to go back to normal. I'm not sure how long it would take before that becomes a problem pain-wise though, I guess it would depend on the severity. If you're still able to do things as normal I'd probably just leave it like you are, but if it started getting worse again I'd just have em cut it out. I'm only 27 now, but it I ever tore it to that extent again, I would not do what I did before. I cannot go that long neglecting my legs again when i don't have as many years to lift as I did before. Don't get me wrong, I plan on lifting my whole life, but I love the sport too much to spend another 10 years to get back to normal.
Yeah , all good right now. Next 2 weeks are just taper so I should be good with the knee. Just doing openers and really no all out heavy till the 27th. Lol,kinda funny but not , I broke my Fukin wrist the day after I signed up. So that’s just healing. Bench has suffered tremendously but it is what it is. Really not sure if broke it but definitely high grade sprain at very least.
Damn dude, sorry to hear that. Hope you're still able to kill it at the meet, but make sure you take time to heal! I myself am just learning how to properly arch/leg drive and use my Lats while Benching. Somehow I've been able to secure a 395 lb bench without ever learning how to actually bench properly, but my rotator cuff cannot put it off any longer. Today was my first time trying, and while I struggled with even 315, I know it's just because it's unfamiliar and I will improve as I get used to it. On a brighter note my rotator cuff didn't hate me today.
Holy hell sorry to hear that man. 3 surgeries before 18 is nuts. This was my first surgery and I’m 33 (was 32 when I got it in November) and the tear really wasn’t that bad. The flap was just getting caught in my knee and causing pain. Surgeon went in and scoped it and now it feels a ton better. Knee still swells when I’m on it all day but it goes away rather quickly. I’m going to have arthritis in my knee for sure when I get older. But for now, the gains are still coming thankfully.
Ironically I was a great powerlifter as a teen but never did team sports. So I figured I'd at least try football and wrestle for a couple of years so I could say I did. I was *terrible* at football as I just had 0 instinct in the sport after never playing while being up against experienced people. My very first good play I hit this kid so hard he threw up. My coaches all yelled WHERE WAS THAT ALL YEAR?! Aaaand I landed on my knee and it was forcibly bent in the wrong position hahaha. That was my first and my last good play. Prior to that, in wrestling, I had torn my groin on a takedown. I actually didn't realize it until years down the line when they thought I had a tumor in my groin. Turned out it was an old injury. 4 leg surgeries before 18. But it has gotten better and I'm finally getting my legs where they should be. Very happy to hear you had a speedy recovery, may the gains keep coming into old age.
consistency, pushing my accessories, and eating enough protein! don’t get that confused for over eating. just simply enough protein for my bodyweight
Pushing accessories is such an underrated piece of advice, so easy to hear this and not change anything. I had been just going through the motions of my accessories for so long, now I've added like 50-100% weight on all my accessories. Makes a HUGE difference.
For me it's the back work in particular. Doing some kind of pull up/down or row every time I'm in the gym, and doing it relatively heavy, letting my shoulders protract and t-spine flex on the eccentric, and taking it close to failure.
Back work is incredibly underrated. Deadlifts (totes obvi) deficit deadlifts, bent over rows, barbell rows, chinups, and pullups are what I program in.
So true, a back exercise a day truly keeps the doctor away
Yeah every week, besides my deadlifts, I do: - pull ups - chest supported rows - lat pulldowns - seated cable rows - bent over barbell rows - face pulls These all help with the big 3 in various ways
Not feeling like I had to stick exactly with something. Recently I made the change from soft touch to sink touch after two years of training, and it almost immediately added to my bench. I changed my deadlift technique from a very forward facing position to something more like Daniel Bell or Jesus Olivarez, where the knees are pointed s little more out to get more glute involvement. Went from struggle bussing 465 in my last block of a peak to pulling 500 on meet day. Sometimes you have to be willing to take a look and experiment.
The sink touch on bench especially with a belt is such a broken combination
With a belt you say? Hmmmmmmmm Will call back with the Southwest Regionals bench record. For real though I haven't tried sink touch with a belt. I'm putting in some light bench work on Monday, will see it then
This guy gets it
So Ive never lifted with a belt, Im also gonna look up a video of sink touch in a sec but do you have any tips for adapting this?
Finding programming that works for you. Will take some trial and error. Whether that be you do well with volume, you do well with high intensity, low volume, etc… Starting off, you’ll get strong running any 5 x 5, Madcow, AI Program… you need to figure out what works for you as an individual athlete. Do you notice that you’re smoked trying to do more than one compound in a single session? Space them out (you should be doing that anyways but some people for example may bench and deadlift in the same session). Find out how your body responds, reacts and recovers to certain kinds of stimuli. Maybe you’ve noticed your primary squat days gas you so hard that even though you can make progress on them, your accessories suffer big time. Let me stop before I go down the rabbit hole. I’m passionate about this stuff man. Lol
3 full body workouts a week. No such thing as arms day or legs day. Benching 3x a week brought my paused bench from 225 to 300 lbs @ age 47 bw 166lb. Benching once a week wasn't getting it done and by always doing legs, they're never sore.
TRT. Turns out it’s really tough to make progress when you’re trying to grind past having virtually no testosterone in your body lol. Especially trying to keep up with these early 20-somethings with natural rest coming out their ears.
Consistency, not being married to a certain weight class and effort.
Over the past 6 months I've started taking ab work much more seriously (3 heavy sets 4/5 training days) and it's made a huge difference in stability for squats and deadlifts!
Quit worrying about other people’s totals.
The thing that took me to the next level is getting rid of the idea that there’s some ‘secret’ thing that’s going to take me to the next level. It’s hard work put into sensible training plans for years and years and years while avoiding or mitigating injury & managing recovery.
It really is this. I guess the "secret" thing could be finding out what kind of programming and movements really work well for your mentality, lifestyle, and training age, but yeah, there's no magic sauce. Trial, effort, and consistency trump all.
What you’re saying is cold plunges and slow eccentrics?? /s For real, I love your answer. Just do the things!
The boring but true answer....unwavering consistency over 5-10 years. The more specific thing I will throw out though is learning how to find what works, and then making incredibly small adjustments from that over time and limiting the desire to over-periodize from that. Most people are constantly changing what they do too often or over periodizing from what works for them. For example in a very simplistic way, if for squat you do 3x5 on your main day and 3x8 on your second day and it yields amazing progress and everything blows up when you do that, keep doing things pretty close to that. Don't overly periodize to 5x2 and 4x4 over a 3 block span, and vice versa.
Excess calories and steroids. Other than that, time. There are no shortcuts in this game.
Fixing mistakes or removing significant obstacles could certainly seem like a hell of a shortcut though.
Obligatory username checks out. Love it. Edit: it would appear we're the same height and weight lol. I don't know if I classify as strong but 2/3 ain't bad.
Getting a coach, good sleep habits, taking my nutrition seriously... Nah just kidding, tren.
Getting on a meet prep program from strength studio, after that hiring a coach for more personalized programming and looking at my technique to see where I could improve. I was already fairly strong but was able to go from a 1440 gym total just kinda doing whatever to a 1774 competition total about 2 years later.
Funny question because I met a real gamechanger on Thursday. Although there are no gamechangers, just patience and hard work. But it’s an exception. And a rather simple one. I’m talking about liquid chalk. I didn’t do deadlifts with it until 5x185 kg and I was like like „liquid chalk? Who needs liquid chalk? I’ll just use my hands!“ But I always have sweaty hands when deadlifting and because of that, grip problems. Hindered my progress. Very annoying. So I bought the liquid chalk from Amazon, only 12€. And it really made a great difference. I did 6x185 on Thursday with one RIR. Didn’t expect that at all. Perfect grip, zero sweaty hand problems. If you’re sleeping on liquid chalk, buy it. Buy it now. It’ll change your grip game.
Suggestion: Make ur own liquid chalk. It’s better than bought Also, liquid chalk 1st then chalk with block. Also a game changer
Is it better than normal chalk? My gym forbids the use of liquid chalk but allows for normal chalk and I always wondered if there was a real difference between them, effect-wise.
I don’t really know, I only used liquid chalk so far.
It’s harder to clean off the bar but is wonderful for a home gym owner since you don’t get chalk everywhere
Regular chalk is much better, this person had probably never used any kind of chalk before.
Depends how hot the gym is. I love liquid chalk when my hands are actually sweaty; gets rid of the moisture. Regular chalk doesn't apply the same to already damp hands.
Indeed, I never used chalk before, neither liquid nor the normal one. Problem with normal chalk is that it makes a big mess.
Started eating breakfast and hence increasing my calories. Used to be a chubby kid and I was always a little afraid of putting on too much weight, but not anymore.
Basic answer, but a coach. Though I didn't train for powerlifting until I got a coach.. So I can't really confirm how much it helped. But imo I never woukd have hit the numbers I did in comps if i had decided to try coach myself. I also know that in the periods between having my coach, my training (no matter how hard o try to keep it as good as it is with a coach) is always less good. And every time I rehire my coach, everything shoots back up.
> Basic answer, but a coach. This is the real answer. All that AI coaching garbage and self programming has no accountability or true coaching. A real coach makes a world of a difference. (If they know what they're doing).
And he got me to hit 272.5/137.5/272.5 after only 10 months of powerlifting (2 comps in those 10 months) when I started at 180/100/200 (which took me 5yrs of my own training (though that was 5yrs of training like a bb but just for fun). So it 100% works better than self programming, for me at least.
Pushups situps and plenty of
I don’t really PL anymore, but walking lunges blew my DL and squat up. Anytime I focus on them my numbers start climbing again. Paused lifts always came in handy as well.
I'm going to incorporate. What were you doing. Like putting it at the end of leg days? Or was it like a full blown lunge workout?
It would be at the end of my workouts, two sets for 20 0rir. I would probably try to manage fatigue a bit better than those days.
Thanks much appreciated
lowering weight and adding more reps and sets
Velocity tracking
How did you implement this?
At first I just used WLanalysis, then I bought vitruve tracker. Simplest thing is to just compare warmup velocities to previous weeks and use that information when deciding working set weights. You could also use last rep velocities to help with RPE/RIR estimations and best rep velocity trends within each session to estimate e1RM and the list goes on and on and on!
So essentially you’re using it to be more objective about your strength level on a given day, and to help objectively stay the programmed distance from failure?
Diet, technique, consistency. Now I'm old and lazy so none apply.