Gettin Back In. Chasing Records

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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Quick Background:
Currently 28 years old, 6’2", and 240 pounds.
The last time I competed was at 19 years old, 6’ 2" and 217 pounds
@ 19 I did 1 meet - 512 squat (NASA Texas State Record), 303 bench, 485 dead (missed 512 on my final attempt)

I haven’t competed since then and spent years being lazy and stayed out of the gym. I’ve been back in the gym consistently for a little over a year now and have felt myself getting stronger than I felt then, starting to get the itch again. The overall goal is to go after the current bench and deadlift record in the 242s (Bench-358, Squat-545 Equipped) at the meet in either 7 months or 1 year.

There is a meet coming up in 18 weeks that I’m thinking of getting into just to get my feet wet again. The plan for the December meet is (2) 8 week training cycles with the 8th week of each cycle being the deload week. I guess I’m just looking for training advice on how to plan my workouts for these two training cycles leading up to the December meet, and maybe some ideas of goal weights to set myself up for the record attempts either next March or Next August. Ill be spending the next 2 weeks finding my 3RM in order to have percentages for the (2) 8 week training cycles. I do know one thing that will have to change from what I have been doing is lowering my rep ranges to get used to those smaller, higher weight sets.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

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Awesome that you’re getting back into it.

First time back I would use linear periodization (study Ed Coan) to get your feet wet again before you move to anything more complicated.

Also at 6’-2" and 240 I would have you gain some serious weight. At the state level a 6’-2 lifter should probably weigh either 275 or 308. Before my long layoff I weighed 211 at 5’-6" and always felt underweight. I now weigh 240 at 5’-6" and am staying at this weight and trying to lean out while maintaining the same weight.

You might be the exception to the rule like John Kuc but its not likely. In any case just focus on getting strong and eating enough to fuel anabolism and let the weight go up if it wants to. Its not super hard to lean out when you have a lot of mass because muscle burns calories in a resting state.

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Although I do think once I get to a size I’m happy with I will be a bit heavier, 275-308 seems a little heavy for me lol. 250, maybe 260 on the heavy side is about as far as I want to go. I think in that range I could still drop down to the 242s for competition. I’m looking into the Linear Periodization method now. I’ve also seen some stuff on PHAT method that looks intriguing to me. I may try it out for a couple workouts throughout my first training cycle and see how I feel about it.

Thanks for the help.

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What fed are those records in? They seem way low for open 242 raw let alone equipped