I am serious about wanting to meet national qualifying standards in powerlifting. I’m also aiming to compete one day with the British Drug Free Powerlifting Association.
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 and some fantastic progress during the first half of 2010, 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
My first week back under the bar after a month of bodyweight workouts. Only a half week (having spent the first half of the week doing the other half of my rest week) but still some pleasing evidence that I didn’t lose strength while on my bodyweight series and somewhere along the line I’ve gained some mobility.
I’m keeping a lower and upper body split for a while and working on a more ad-hoc basis of one workout every two or three days. Rather than having fixed workout days I’m trying to make this as flexible as possible round work while still getting three or four workouts in each week. I’ll see how this flexible approach works and if I’m not getting many workouts in once I get back from my holiday and settle into a proper pattern then I’ll fix the days again.
It was only a few months ago that I tried a three workout week and felt that I wasn’t getting enough volume. However, since that experiment I have started doing Krav Maga once a week and started taking more care to get my walks and rides in. The combination of four hard workouts, a session of Krav Maga plus a few 6-8 mile walks and a bike ride or two every week is just a bit too much at the moment. I was burning out by the time I reached my rest week, and that was just on bodyweight workouts, so now I’m cutting down a bit to keep the overall program sustainable while putting the weights back in.
I’ve also swapped over to a 5×5 program from y 10×3/4 program. 5×5 didn’t work for me a year ago but I’ve moved on a long way so now it’s time to see if I am finally ready for 5×5.
Bench
Action plan
- Maintain – technique
- Develop – lat and shoulder strength
Progress this week
Activating my lats had become a bit of a nemesis towards the end of my bodyweight series. I was struggling with my pull ups and was aware that it was my dominant traps causing the problems again. Do deal with this I’m supersetting my bench press 5×5 with chin ups, also on 5×5. I’m then finishing my upper day with a load of corrective assistance work such as bent over rows, dumbbell overhead presses and face pulls.
Having only done one session with this it’s difficult to comment on progress except to say that 5×5 really made me hurt and I didn’t manage to complete my chins, even with no weight added, which was a bit depressing (but does give me something to aim for).
Squat
Action plan
- Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
- Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength
Progress this week
I dropped the weight and dropped the height. You may remember from week twenty-eight that I dropped to the box, from the stool. I played about with dropping to squatting without a depth marker but on close study of the videos I was tucking badly on the final few inches and wasn’t aware of the tuck-point so I’ve had to keep a depth marker. However I’ve dropped to our smallest plyometric box now and am happily squatting to 11.5 inches. So much better than the 17.5 inches last year!
Set one looked pretty good (if I can get the video below to work – apologies to everyone if I never manage to get YouTube to agree to accept this video):
Pleasingly, the reps were still looking good on the final, fifth set:
You’ll spot from the video above that I’m only squatting with 40kg. Pathetic I know, but the extra depth and the sets of five instead of three reps really kicked me hard. Hopefully I’ll be able to put the weight up reasonably fast as I adjust to the new depth and rep style.
I’m going to have to change my action plan. Hip mobility is definitely on the “maintain” list now!
Deadlift
Action plan
- Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
- Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength
Progress this week
Ugh! I worked up to a three rep max on this after my squats. As with my squats, I’ve dropped the height and am (finally) picking this up from the floor, rather than off a slightly raised platform.
The extra depth is tough for me (so maybe I’ve not quite got that hip mobility thing yet) and I’m pretty sure my form was deteriorating by reps two and three on 70kg, however I’m going to keep working at this.
Meanwhile, to help both my squats and deadlift, I’m also doing hip thrusts on my lower body day – building up some more glute strength. Well I couldn’t leave them out, could I?
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