I was talking with someone today and they asked if I was planning on competing soon, so I figured it was a good reminder to post an update to those following my training blog/log..
My Last Meet: I competed last April and qualified for USAPL Raw Nationals (which was in October), but wasn't in a position to be able to go.
The past 8-9 months have been interesting with a lot of different things going on. Financially, I've been consolidating all my non-school debt and working on a plan to pay it off over the next 2.5 years. It's a really positive long-term move, but it's got me living pretty paycheck-to-paycheck right now, making it trickier to travel for a meet or even just travel to elitefts to train like I used to every weekend (obstacles I just have to work around). In that same theme I've been looking at relocation opportunities in my job field, which will hopefully help improve the financial side of things. Health-wise many have read my posts about getting off the meds I was on, and it has definitely been a roller coaster. Overall things are improving but I still haven't gotten them where they need to be, and it's definitely made training more challenging. All that being said, I'm still blessed to be healthy overall and have the opportunity to train - and I've been fortunate to make some solid progress recently.
It does look like I'll continue to be in Ohio at least until the end of Spring semester (I work at a University so much of my schedule is based on academic years even though I'm not a student), so my hope is to compete this Spring if I can swing it financially. I like to compete at least twice a year, and my hope is to get back to that soon.
At some point in the next year I want to get on a bigger stage again; whether that be XPCs at the Arnold or drug-free Nationals for USAPL or USPA. One goal I have is to beat my 220 wrapped squat at 198, and I feel confident this will happen.
In the mean-time, to those that follow my training it may seem like I do a lot of rep work for powerlifting; but I've found that maintaining good work capacity and having a good base built puts me in a good position to shift into preparation for a meet over a short training cycle. My training will need some tweaks when I have a meet date set, but less of it will change than you may expect. Right now my raw squat is the strongest its ever been in training, deadlift is close, and bench is my biggest weakness but challenges are a good opportunity to keep learning.
Keep an eye on my logs for insight into my training, Podcasts, and information I feel can help you become a better lifter. I'll be posting updates on a meet as soon as I have one picked. Thank you for reading,
-Joe
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