I recently lifted in the 2019 USPA National Championships where I totaled 1767 in wraps at 198 via a 655 squat, 451 bench and 661 deadlift. Next up is an off-season and picking a meet.
Day 2 - Back Work
1. Barbell Row- working sets of 5 up to 375. This was getting close to the limit here.
2. Lat Pulldown - 140 x 5 x 12
3. Seated Cable Row - 140 x 5 x 12
4. Direct Arm work - 100 reps x 2 movements (200 reps total). I pick a couple different movements based on what I feel like doing and what equipment is available. No science here.
Doing direct arm work at pretty high volume is a part of how I keep my elbows healthy. I used to struggle with distal biceps tendinitis pretty bad and years ago I read about Adam Driggers (elitefts alumni) doing a dedicated arm day, really light and high volume to battle the same problem. I've been sprinkling this into my training ever since with a lot of success.
That combined with limited straight bar squatting has made a lot of difference for me.
Day 3 - Bench
1. Floor Press- top set of 375 x 5. OF COURSE right after writing about how good my bench strength feels I manage to hurt myself. Had some cramping/straining on the last rep of this. Not a major injury, just the same strained crap I manage to do a couple times a year.
This all started in 2014. My bench was skyrocketing and super strong. I had just hammered 475 for reps and was starry eyed and dumb thinking about benching 550+. Boom. Pec tear. Minor, superficial, but torn/strained. No surgeries thankfully, but strained. At least once a year since then.
Skipped my close grip work, did some rope pressdowns and rigged up a reverse band press that Dave had recommended in the past. Set it up so that the bar was floating at my chest and did reps to between 125-150 total. Idea is to push a bunch of blood through the area without the pec doing much/any work.
Plan for the next couple weeks: Changing day 4 to not have any pressing. Deload/skip pressing next week. Chiro/bodywork appointment next week as well. Probably deload the following week as well.
Longer term: I've experimented with different training fixes in the past. One common denominator to this issue seems to be heavy floor pressing now that I look back over the past 2 years. So, I will floor pressing sparingly from here out.
Might experiment with alternating between a "max" effort press 1 week and then either a dynamic effort or rep effort the next. That approach has worked well with my squat and deadlift in the past. Since that reduces the overall stress quite a bit, I would only truly deload every 6-10 weeks rather than every 4th.
Picking a meet: Not sure. I was thinking either November 9th in Michigan or Columbus on December 14th. Depends on how quickly this resolves. Its just sore, so I think it will be fine quick, but I want to make a couple weeks to make any commitments.
