Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Back in (half assed) intensification mode

Finally ditched the idea of competing in Spain’s next Powerlifting open, just too many things going on in my life right now (busy spell at job, and a real Achilles-and-Tortoise situation with my dissertation, when as I seem to get closer and closer to finishing it I keep finding more and more loose strands I have to work on, thus putting the real completion farther and farther away). However, I’m still sticking to a “false meet” on the actual competition date (or around that) to see where I’m at, and transition to the next training block (which involves focusing on speed and explosiveness, and getting as fat as possible).

So I am back in intensification mode, substituting triples (and soon singles) for the sets of five I had been mostly doing in the main lifts, and limiting the amount of assistance exercises to the bare minimum. It has not started well, as the first session centered around the squat saw an abysmal failure in the first set of triples, at what should have been a relatively easy 150 (about 85% of what should be my current 1RM, which I expect to be hovering  around 175 kg) ended up with my first fail ever in just the second rep (having already done a triple with this weight a couple of weeks ago). Blessed be the power rack, as I left the bar in the safeties without a problem (and then, after stripping it of just a couple plates, did my first pin press ever –a session of firsts, as may be seen-) and could resume the training with less weight. Fact of life is that far from gaining strength since the end of last year, at least for this lift I’ve probably lost some of it, and I’m not sure if it is lack of frequency (as I’ve not adhered much to my pristine program, and have stretched most microcycles wo they ended up lasting between 12 and 14 days, instead of the 8 days that would have been optimal) or on the contrary, lack of recovery between sessions, specially for the squat (as the bench press doesn’t seem to have been similarly impacted, nor does the deadlift, which I’m training much less frequently).


Be it as it may, I’ll just soldier on with this type of routine (go to a daily max, then triples for one more cycle, and then singles for another one, do accessories as needed to keep the frequency of presses and squats high) until April, and then it is off to the races (back in shot putting mode)…

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