Currently I am less than two weeks out from my meet in Newark, NJ on January 27^th. I have just finished up all of my 3 weeks out lifts and I am a little more comfortable with where I am. I’m far less concerned with where my strength is at, but the technique on my geared lifting is always suspect. Pretty much I am just showing up and crossing my fingers that a few attempts go my way in order to finish the meet.

Monday Deadlift Day

This was the heaviest deadlift week of the prep, and I planned on working up to 700 for a single. 650 did not feel great prior, but I gave it a shot. Although it came off the floor pretty fast, my lockout just wasn’t there and I failed 700 for the first time in a few years. My attempts might be a little less than I thought they would be, but ill pull what I have to in order to have at least 2 successful attempts.

135×5

225×5

315×3

405×1

495×1

585×1

Top Sets: 650×1, 700x X, 675×1

Thursday Squat Day

Squat day was a rough one. Of all the attempts I took, only 700 and 840 RB worked out for me. I must have tried at least 12 unracks on 4 squats, not being able to clear the rack after the bar had any more than 775lbs on it. I tried taking the monolift down to a height of 14.5, which is ridiculously low for me and started a whole new problem unracking from that position. With a 55lb bar and 8+ plates on each side, there is a huge bend to it that makes it really tough to unrack out of our monolift. I’m hoping that using a 60+lb bar at the meet and a heavy duty monolift will clear up some of these issues on meet day.

Empty Bar x 20

145×5

235×5

325×3

415×1

505×1

600×1

Top Sets: 700×1, 775x X (3 tries on unrack), 840×1 RB

Saturday Bench Day

Expectations were low for this one. Last week’s bench felt terrible and my elbow and shoulder have been carrying around a lot of pain after the last warmups are done. I did the best I could do work it out with floss bands and jigsaw massages, and the pain actually subsided quickly. My goal for the day was to take something light and touch just to get an idea of a possible opener. Right now because of the pain after squats, I will probably open up with a token raw bench and hit two attempts in the shirt.

Empty Bar x 20

135×10

185×5

225×3

275×1

365×1 3 board

405×1 1 board

Top Set: 425×1 to the chest

All the heavy lifting is done for this prep. It’s pretty up in the air how this meet is going to go, but needless to say I don’t have any expectations for myself. I can’t have a prep with sub par performance, hitting numbers much lower than my PR’s and expect to do well. With equipped lifting though, it is all about how you show up on meet day and execute your lifts. If I pull some technique out of my pocket I can definitely hit some meet PR’s.