Not Just a Man's World

I am serious about wanting to qualify and compete at powerlifting, but when I started out on this series there were a few key problems:

1. I spent most of 2008 and 2009 trying to improve my form and find the weaknesses that were being masked by poor form (like my abs) and working hard at eliminating weaknesses.  I’m not there yet, but I’m definitely moving in the right direction.  However, the flip side of that is that I’ve not done any proper powerlifting moves for a while and my good form weights are below qualifying weights.
2. My hip mobility is dreadful so I can’t squat deep enough and it hinders how much I can deadlift.
3. When I bench, I can’t stabilise the bar once there’s a mildly heavy weight on it and I tend to fail about halfway up.

17.5 inches depth at the start of my powerlifting program

This series 

Having had some reasonable successes at the end of 2009, I’m now four weeks into 2010 with a slightly altered program.  Fixing the problems while also driving up the strength numbers are the priorities of the program and I’ve taken a different approach to the deadlift compared to last year.  I’m recording my progress in this series: powerlifting progress.  It is serving as a journal and makes me a bit more accountable to my goals.

Next week is a planned rest week, which means no workouts from Monday – Friday.  That means I’ll still get my bench and deadlift workout in but there will be limited supplementary exercises or squat work going on.

Anyway, here is where I’ve got to this week with my progress.

Squat

Action plan

• Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
• Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength

Progress this week

It was a bit of a dud week for my squat work since I was staying away on business at a hotel with no gym.  I missed my second leg workout, which is my big split squats (my first leg workout is deadlifts).  But I did keep doing my RDLs and ab work. 

On the abs front, I’ve moved on from doing weighted dragon flags to doing a transition week of high rep hanging knee raises.  Next week is the magic week when I find out if I can now do bent leg raises on the pull up bar.  If so, I will progress to those.  If not, then I’m probably back to the dragon flags.

To make up for the dud week I finished the week this weekend with a squat depth test.  All I can say is that RDLs seem to have done their job!  From the start I felt like I was moving in a different way, despite it being only 3 weeks since I last tested this.  There was no straining to stop myself from tucking and the blocks behind me were rapidly taken away.  I ended up down at 13 inches which was a definite parallel.  We took the photo below as evidence but I did in fact get another inch lower before I started tucking.

Success!

Bench

Action plan

• Maintain – technique
• Develop – lat and shoulder strength

 Progress this week

My bench pressing is finally starting to slow down.  The last rep of every set drains me of everything and my form was a little bit off on some of my reps this week (after being so happy about it last week).  However, I did complete all my reps so the weight will continue upwards (very slowly, but very definitely).

Adjusting the weight and reps on my bent over rows also made a big difference and meant that I’ve sorted out the dominant traps issue I was having the week before.  Of course, I could have made it worse again working out at a client site where the chairs are too low for the tables (again), but I dealt with this by working with my computer on my lap for three days instead.  As a result of all of this work my posture has been halted from a downward spiral and my lats are engaging in my pull up work again, which all bodes well for the next bench press workout.

Finally, my pull ups continue to break new ground for me, gaining a rep at each workout and bringing me to 3 sets of 4 reps now, before going down to 3 reps for the remaining 7 sets of my workout.  How much longer this progress will continue I can’t tell, but I’m putting all my effort into this, since (powerlifting aside) pull ups have been a big personal goal for me over the last few years.

Deadlift

Action plan

• Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
• Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength

Progress this week

After feeling like I had died at the end of my first sumo cluster workout last week it was pleasing to find that, in comparison, this weeks sumo clusters felt (relatively) easy, despite having put a few extra kilos on the bar. 

I have one more week with the clusters and then I’ll be moving onto singles.  I’ll be interested to see how the singles perform – I was definitely starting to struggle to keep my lower back and abs locked out on the last rep of each cluster set through sheer exhaustion, which is something I should avoid doing singles.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week twenty-one
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week forty-four (fat loss: week six)
3. Powerlifting progress 2010: week ten
4. Powerlifting progress 2010: week twenty