I am serious about wanting to qualify and compete at powerlifting. When I started out on this series there were several key problems, such as poor hip mobility. Having had some reasonable successes at the end of 2009, fixing the remaining problems while also driving up the strength numbers are now the priorities of the program.
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.
This week
This was the eighth week in the program and I’ve now seen my first repeat of some of the max effort lifts in the “new” Westside-style program. It was a mixed but rewarding experience – bearing in mind that I’m writing this the day after my back squat attempt, which went well, so I’m probably a bit gung-ho right now!
Here’s how I got on in relation to my powerlifting goals.
Squat
Action plan
- Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
- Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength
Progress this week
Fantastic! I completed 58kg for a 5 rep max a fortnight ago and last night I managed a 5 rep max on 60kg. This 2kg increase may not seem like much but the quality was up there with the best of my squatting too. The 5 rep max last time had had a couple of dodgy reps in it when I fish-tailed about a bit. In comparison this week I was solid, focussed and only fish-tailed a little in the very last rep while trying to get out of the hole.
From a squatting perspective this program seems to be giving me some progress.
For lower back assistance work I’ve swapped from RDLs to good mornings for a couple of weeks as well, which is a little unpleasant. My lower back was unimpressed doing back squat max efforts, followed by glute bridges and then being subjected to good mornings as well, but I think the variety from the RDLs will give me some good development over the next few weeks.
Bench
Action plan
- Maintain – technique
- Develop – lat and shoulder strength
Progress this week
Less success with the max effort bench since I only managed to increase this by a measly 1kg on last time. However, it was an increase. I partly attribute the difficulty to having a weekend away and therefore moving workouts about so that this max effort was done on a third consecutive workout day (the day after a lower body max effort). Three days in a row was hard and we were both feeling the affects of the previous two workouts on our bodies.
Note for future training, avoid doing three consecutive days in the gym when following a Westside-style program!
Having established that my problem point in my bench is getting the bar off my chest, I have swapped my main assistance work to Viking presses since these really work raw power throughout the press movement. Hopefully this will show as an improved max effort performance on my press in a fortnight.
Deadlift
Action plan
- Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
- Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength
Scared of the deadlift bar
Progress this week
After last week’s frustration that I was fighting to get each new kilo I was unsurprised to find that I could only get 5 reps of my ten singles out this week when I put my deadlift up another kilo. On the plus side my form was good and I didn’t have the stiffness of the previous week.
Helpfully the problem seemed to be glute strength which I’m working on already, so I’ll just keep plugging away at it.
I’m still terrified about starting standard deadlift clusters next week.
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