I just finished my first meet last Saturday (10/20) at the age of 45. Did a raw push/pull and ended up with a 347 bench and a 475 pull at 195 pds.
Just missed my last pull at 512 pds. when I got it just above my knees but had back rounding issues and couldn’t lock it out.
I had spoken with Dan Dague at Lexen, which is only a couple of miles from my house, about joining which would have been the best thing for me as lifting and learning from those guys would be better than anything I can figure out lifting on my own in my basement. Unfortunately, my work schedule along with my son’s hockey schedule this winter makes joining and working with the group impossible right now, I hope to join this spring but I need some programming help between now and then.
I’m looking at doing another push/pull meet in 16 weeks and obviously my deadlift needs some major help. My back is still a little dinged up from the meet and my upper body is feeling pretty good. My thought is to start a Smolov Jr. 4-week bench cycle tomorrow.
When that is finished I would have 12-weeks before the meet and would run the Coan deadlift program on Mondays leading up to the meet along with some form of bench peaking cycle which doesn’t incorporate a ton of work on Tuesdays. With a third workout day each week for lower body and ab work and a fourth for additional upper body assistance work.
I know the Coan program is sort of old and there may be a better program out there for me. I chose it because I think I need some set volume on deads to deal with my form issues but I’m not sure my body can deal with more than one day a week of heavy deads.
I know a lot of guys post programs on here looking for “suggestions” after their minds are already made up that they are doing what they have laid out, this isn’t the case with me. If someone can give me a better option(s) with sound reasoning behind it I’m definitely open for suggestions as I’ve been at the iron game a long time but have only been focusing on powerlifting for around one year and programming isn’t my strong point.