28 Dec Danny Vega – Off season – Christmas Eve squats/Week 7 Bench

I am currently in off season mode. Over the next 4 months I will be focusing on building my bench and working on some weak points until I start meet prep for next May’s RPS Redemption meet. I will be competing raw with wraps in the 242 weight class.

Should I have come in on Christmas Eve morning to do squats? Probably not. So for my wife who occasionally reads my logs–again, sorry for that. It was dumb. We ended up getting to my sisters house in Miami later than we wanted because I should have been home to help her while she made pies. Happy to say I was only in the dog house for a few hours, though. I did have to cut the workout short at least.

Squat (beltless/sleeves) 55×10, 145×6, 195×5, 235×3, 325×2, 415×5, 3×5@435

Long count pause squats 2×5@325

Then did 325×15 and ran home.

This morning was my last bench workout of this eight week block and it was awesome. I’ll come in Thursday for bench assistance and push it one more time before next weeks deload. Then I’ll go back to a traditional ten week off season.

Quick thoughts on deloading the fourth week vs the third week. This can be beneficial under certain conditions in my opinion:

-Longer off season

-You’re bulking so you’re very well fed

-Focusing on getting more training volume in one lift while going even lighter on the other ones.

This is why it worked for me. I think if any of those would have been off it could have done more harm than good in my situation. I also changed the order of my days and it helped my  shoulders and elbows recover between bench workouts (only low bar squatted every third week and I would squat Friday, bench Monday and Thursday). Here’s what I did for bench:

Bench 45×20, 135×8, 185×5, 235×3, 275×1, 315×1, 335×5,5,5,5,7

Close grip bench 295×5,5,10

Slingshot bench 295×15

DB Incline 3×10@100

JM presses 125, 145, 145×10

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Danny Vega

Danny Vega is a 220lb raw powerlifter with meet bests of 640 squat in wraps (610 raw), 400 bench, and 700 deadlift. A native of Miami, Florida, Vega received his bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2004, where he was a member of the football team and a three-time Dean’s List recipient. Vega earned his masters of science in human performance from the University of Florida, where he worked with the national championship men’s basketball team along with women’s basketball, tennis, and golf programs. He then went on to become the Strength & Conditioning coordinator for VCU basketball. The Rams were 2007 conference champions and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

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