Routine for First Time Gear User

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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I have decided to succumb to a squat suit and bench shirt for competing and was wondering how the training should change, if at all. I need to break the suit in(any tips?) and learn the correct path of the bench shirt. Should I just stick with my raw training routine (WSB template at mo)?

Any help appreciated, cheers

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In my opinion stick with westside cause its the best side lol! But seriously dont try and break in gear alone it can be a daunting task especially bench shirt! For benching i like to work boards to just break the shirt in some people say dont use boards but that overall is personal preference most guys just work up to a triple to as low of a board as possible. For squatting I like to do box squats because it gives you a sense of where you need to be when breaking in a new suit or briefs we work up to a heavy triple to a parallel box! Hope this helps a lil

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I’m so proud of you.

First off, what kind of gear are you looking into? Singly ply / multiply ply? Secondly, do you have an experienced group of people to train with?

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  1. Single ply - Titan Centurion and Inzer Blast (got it for nothing so will try it before I shell out for a decent one).
  2. Train with one other person but can easy get to a group who are experienced.

Aim is 540+kg for a national qualifier.

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[quote]ThermalWarrior wrote:

  1. Single ply - Titan Centurion and Inzer Blast (got it for nothing so will try it before I shell out for a decent one).
  2. Train with one other person but can easy get to a group who are experienced.

Aim is 540+kg for a national qualifier.[/quote]

I’ve never used either, but I am familiar with the blast. Any gear is going to change your “groove”, but the Blast shirt probably won’t be a whole lot more different than your raw bench stroke.

I’ll tell you how I do it (drug free and multiple ply). We wear our bench shirts once every 3 weeks, even in the “off season”. The last 7-8 weeks leading up to a meet, we’ll bump that up to every other week. This way, you’re always evaluating where you’re at with the shirt and you don’t have to re-learn the groove before the meet. Keep in mind, this is for 2 / 3 ply shirts which can change the groove quite a bit and take a long time to master. With a Blast shirt you probably won’t have to train in it that often.

With any squat suit, I’d recommend working a few weeks with the straps down before putting the straps up. Personally I get quite a few pounds out of my suit, so just coming off a long hiatus and putting my straps up will beat the shit out of me for days. We might train raw on our heavy days once a month, the other days we’re either in briefs or our suits.

I don’t know what your training is like, but I like to warmup raw then start putting my gear on. My first set with gear will probably be something not much more than my raw max. This lets me concentrate on using the gear without worrying that my face is going to explode. As you get more experienced you can play around with that.

This is just what I personally do, results may vary etc.