I am competing at the Raw United UPF Challenge on July 21. I am doing a full power, 3 lift meet. I pretty much have decided to be conservative in selecting my attempts because I am coming off a bad right biceps tendon tear, which I underwent a 3.5 hour operation to repair, a year and three months ago. My recovery has been stilted and gone back and forth during the last year and some. Last October I could barely bench the bar but last week I did a close grip bench, using fat gripz, with 250lbs. My best competition bench is 385lbs so it kills me to be benching so light.
My goal with this meet is to get back into competition and do my best. I am looking for advice from experienced powerlifters regarding how you would approach lifting in your first meet. My planned openers at this point are:
I will determine my second lifts according to my performance for the openers but my general progression is a 35 lbs increase for squat and deadlift and I go between 15 and 35 lbs for bench. Please chime in on your opinion regarding my plan. Power, Form, Speed, Strength!
Today I just did a minny-meet. I felt good today after having a terrible cold this past weekend. Haven’t been able to sleep regular patterns for the past week due to my daughter’s cold and me contracting her sniffles. I was determined to get my last lifting in today before the contest on Saturday.
My lifts today were:
Parallel Box Squat: 625 lbs
Fat Gripz Pause Bench Press: 265 lbs
Deadlift (on top of 1.25 inch box beneath each side of plates): 550 lbs x 3 reps.
My total work time (including warm ups) was 2 hours and my performance on all lifts was explosive and in competition form. I’m looking to have a great meet! I have four days of rest in front of me but I will most likely do some light mobility drills and foam rolling mixed in with some static stretching. My plan is to eat very healthy this week, keep my protein as usual in the 250 to 300 grams per day, and carbs to match, with a lot of nutrients, minerals, and good fats to aid me in recovery and growth. Onwards and Upwards!
So, I am only 3 days out from the RAW United UPF Challenge and I feel ready. I am getting my supplements and food menu ready for the competition. A powerlifting meet can last all day so one must be prepared. A competition has many factors centering on making the 3 big lifts but one must consider the duration and have muscle endurance to stay ready to lift over hours and hours of waiting and anticipating. I’ve found out that this meet is a qualifier for the Raw Unity Meet for next January so I want to be chosen to represent RAW United for that competition.
What experience do you have at meets? Do you prepare well. I bring a foam roller, a towel, extra clothes, a cooler of food and supplements, coffee, and patience. My nerves are usually jumping at the meet. Being in front of great lifters and their people expecting excellent, strong lifts, and feeling the pressure of making my attempts are things I deal with. I mostly stay focused on my lifting goals but the outside influences always are nipping at my thinking. What about you?
Meet day is fun day for me. The training getting to the meet is tough…the actual meet is time spent with like minded meat heads cheering each other on. Some guys act like they’re going to put gloves on and kill each other. Those guys are fun to watch. Look at doug young at 1:29 of this video
OP, you might want to do some full squats (below parallel), as they are quite different from box squats. Maybe a little bit lighter opener would suffice, and then you can jump up the way you planned if it was way too easy. Just trying to keep you on the safe side. If you’re pulling 550x3 from a deficit, then 585 should be more than fine.
I’m not OP, whoever that is. Thanks for the Doug Young video. I’ve seen it before and it’s a classic.
I will be opening with a 585 lbs squat so that should go nicely. Hopefully the deadlift will be an easy opener as well. Sometimes in the past I get tired by the time deadlifts come around at a meet.
Thanks for the advice from all. I will update my results from the meet in a couple days.
OOPS I’m not up on all the rhetoric. So I am OP. I made this thread to see what people think and find out if what kind of advice or thinking other powerlifters out there use going into a meet.
Meet is tomorrow and I’m psyched. I weighed in today at the gym at :219.2 lbs. Going to eat a bunch and drink a lot of water so maybe I’ll come in to the meet weighing 223 lbs or so. I own and operate a lawn business so I went in for the weigh in right from work and I had considerable perspiration for a couple of hours working in the sun so my weight was down a few pounds due to water loss. I’ve become pretty good at managing my weight within a few pounds of weigh in coordination with working and the water loss I experience every work day.
Did okay today. Wasn’t my best day lifting but I had the highest squat of the meet.
Squat: 615
Bench: 265
Deadlift: 550.
I was worn out from a hard work week. I own and operate a small lawn business here in Florida. As you may know it is often 100 degrees here and hotter with the humidity. Thursday I had mild heat stroke i.e. muscle cramping, headache, and nausea from work but I recovered fairly well Friday though I believe the wear and tear affected my performance today at the meet. I will not compete again for another 6 months and I will use my numbers today as a platform to build from for the next meet. I am positive, as it has been in the past, that my meet performance will be better during the winter months due to a lighter work schedule and more recovery time. I am happy with today in that one year and three months ago I had major right biceps tendon surgery due to a bad biceps tear doing a deadlift in competition.
Thanks jjackkrash. Later on in the evening after the meet I began making plans for my upcoming training. I hopefully will be invited to compete at the Raw Unity Meet in January so I have 6 months to really get my bench and other lifts up. I want to make a statement in January. I believe I will begin training again tomorrow however I will be doing a greatly reduced level of intensity for the next couple of weeks. I think there will be a lot of kettle bell swings and olympic lifting as well as sled pulling this week.
Nice job, as mentioned 615 is an excellent raw squat. I was worried your deadlift was a little high for an opener, I am glad you dropped that down. It seems like you might have learned a lot from this meet, this is what would take away from this if I was your coach:
Your parallel box squat is pretty equivalent to your competition squat
Your fat grip bench is the same as your comp paused bench press at least as of now
Try to either schedule a few days off from hard manual labor before the meet OR don’t do a meet in mid July next time, shoot for something fall/winter/spring if you can’t take the time off
Your tend to be tired by deadlift time so best to train them that way, train them after squats so you have a better expectation of where you are at.
Personally I would make bigger jumps in weight but start lighter to save some energy. I have found 87.5% of your 3rd attempt is a good opener, 95% is a good 2nd, and then 100% for your third.
But 1430 is a very solid total and knowing you left some weight out there due to the bench you can be at 1500+ and then 1600+ soon so that is a solid job with room to grow on. Nice lifting and again awesome squat.
Thanks Tim. My best total is 1600 about a year and a half ago. I like your percentages for your opening attempts. I feel my bench getting stronger by the week. I believe doing all the associated muscle group strengthening had helped recover my bench and will continue to do so. In the past I have not run out of energy for my deads but regulating my energy days before the meet must be a priority in the future. That is not so easy to do when you are running a business that is so physically oriented but I will make better efforts. I feel that with a little tweaking on my dead and with great improvements in my bench I will post better than a 1600 in my next meet in January. My squat continues to grow 5 or 10 pounds per month so I’m shooting for a great performance with the upcoming cooler temps here in Florida.
