It's been a while! I haven't stopped training but my blogging could be much more consistent. I'm going to blog a lot more consistently from here on, at the very least until my next competition on October 2.
For the first 5 months or so of the year, I ran a strength cycle by re-linear progressing until I got stuck, then I moved to Texas method for a few weeks. During this time I would do 3 days a week of relatively light olympic weightlifting. I started relatively light on most of my lifts, something like 385 squat for 3x5, 135 3x5 for press, 205 bench for 3x5, and 315x5 for deadlift (I ran through this without a belt to really strengthen my back).
I ended up with: 470x5x3 for squat, 270x5x3 for bench, 180x5x3 for press, and 385x5 for deadlift (I didn't move this up if any back rounding happens). At the end of this whole thing, I tested new maxes and got a 515 squat, 315 bench, 195 press, and 395 front squat. I have the squats and bench on my instagram @ysu2008.
Now I am on a precompetition cycle. Initially I had planned to do a meet on August 2, but my coach felt that it didn't give me enough time to practice technique and would have required pretty serious dieting (I gained about 15lbs during the strength cycle). The new goal is October 2.
My training is currently 3 days a week of heavy olifting with 2 days a week of accessory and strength maintenance work:
M: front squat 5 sets of 3, snatch grip push press 5 sets 3, 3 sets of pullups
T: Snatch heavy, C&J moderate, Snatch pulls, good mornings
W: Back squat 1 heavy triple, 3x3 for 90% of that, push press 3 sets 5, pullups
Th: Snatch moderate, C&J heavy, Clean pulls
S: for both snatch and C&J: go up in weight until you miss. Deload about 25lbs and work back up 5lb at a time. If you miss you're done. Front squat heavy triple, romanian deadlifts without thumbs (this has helped my grip tremendously).
We recently did a max out day where I hit 111kg snatch and 136kg C&J (300lbs wooohoooooo!) I have about 2 more months of training left, where I want to get to the point where I routinely hit my current maxes. I would be ok with a 245 total (previous meet PR is 229kg) in the october meet, and 250+ would be great.
Awesome, glad you're back and plan on posting more regularly.
ReplyDeleteFew questions:
(1) Do you think the strength cycle was worth the time away from working on technique?
(2) How much are you eating these days?
(3) That seems like a serious weekly routine. What happens if you feel like you have an injury?
Thanks man!
ReplyDelete1) Yes-ish. I think I started far too low and probably wasted some time there. My max around that time was about 470ish, so starting at 385 for 3x5 was probably too low of a starting point. The new strength definitely has translated to my oly lifts however.
2) I haven't been counting calories. I just don't eat until I'm about to burst, and that seems to be slowly causing me to lose weight. I'm about 211 right now (from my heaviest at 220).
3) I try to train around the injury. I ripped a callus pretty bad, so I taped it up and used straps for a week. I also pulled something in my neck recently, and I dealt with that by taking some ibuprofen pre-workout and warming up much more than usual.