Where There Is [No Struggle], There Is [No Strength] – Part 3

Training Age & It’s Implications

So far in Parts 1 and Part 2 we have covered the idea that we need to ensure progressive overload to get stronger, and to do that we need to take deloads now and then. These are then put into a long term programme via periodisation, the way you choose to do this is dependent on many factors. We have also looked at picking rep ranges and how you can pick different ones to emphasise your goals.

Today I am going to share with you some thoughts on how your training age impacts how you set up your periodisation cycles. Regardless of your goals, if you do not set up your training in a way that is specific to your training history, you will not see the progress you desire.

What is Training Age?
By training age I basically mean the amount of time you have been training. However, there is a caveat, because some people train but not appropriately, or with any sort of intelligence (I was one of them). Initially that is fine, you can get away with it as a novice lifter, but to progress past that stage, you need to set your training up with a longer term focus.

So when I talk about training age I mean proper, periodised training with good nutrition to back it up. If you have been lifting 5 years but for 2 of those 5 you were dieting, and 1 of those 5 you were inconsistent with the gym, you sir have a training age of 2 years.
So your training age is the time you have spent lifting with a proper programme and eating in a way to support that training.

Are you a novice, intermediate or advanced lifter?
Once you have the number of years you have been training the next step is determine where that puts you in terms of advancement. Are you still a novice, or have you progressed to an intermediate or even advanced lifter? If you’re reading this and it is all new to you, likelihood is you’re a novice. Many of you will be going into or will be well into the intermediate zone. Very few of us ever reach advanced lifter status.

Novice – 6 to 9 months of training
Intermediate – 6m to 4 years of training
Advanced – 2 years to 6 years of training

What we must remember is that you can actually fall back into different categories. For example, you had been training 3 years but then went travelling for a year and then took another year to get back into a routine. Because you have had such a period of time out, you have gone from intermediate, back to novice status. However, you’d quickly get back up to intermediate with the right training and nutrition.

Also remember that you’re better off under estimating your experience than over estimating it, the stuff that works at the start will work better for someone more advanced than trying to use advanced protocols for someone less trained. So don’t go looking in magazines at the elite lifters and trying to copy their training regimes. Because you’re not ready for that, and it wouldn’t provide you the results you desire.

Right so you now know where you sit in terms of training age and therefore your training status, what does that mean for your programming?

How to periodise appropriately for your training age
So as we progress as lifters the gains we see get slower, and smaller, just like when we lose fat, initially it is easy, but as time goes it takes much more effort and time. As we learnt in Part 1, you need to create enough stress to cause an adaptive response. When you are new to lifting this is easy, but as said, when you progress past this you need heavier loads to cause enough stress to warrant an adaptive response.

As you become more trained you can handle more load, this takes more out of you and therefore you cannot keep using them all the time. This is where periodisation comes in, you build up volume, then reduce it and replace it with intensity, to eventually show some progress in strength. As said in Part 2 we accumulate volume, then we reduce it in place for intensity.

This is where training age comes in, as a noob to weight lifting you can see this progress every single workout. But once you’re an intermediate you will not progress that quickly, it shifts to weekly progress. Past that stage, when you become an advanced lifter you’re doing well to progress every month.

Novice – daily progress
Intermediate – weekly progress
Advanced – monthly progress

The way you therefore set up your training needs to take into account your training age. If you are a novice and go onto an advanced training programme, you are limiting your potential, because you could be gaining daily. Whereas if an advanced lifter tries to progress every single workout, they will stall out. They need to take a longer term perspective, build up their volume and replace it with some heavy highly stimulating loads, over the course of several weeks.

Where there is no Struggle, there is no Strength
So there we have it, you now know that without struggle there is no strength. However, the amount of struggle needs to be appropriate to you training age, and how you select your struggle protocols needs to be specific to your training goals

Where There Is [No Struggle], There Is [No Strength] – Part 2

How to Pimp yo’ Programme

In Part 1 I introduced to you the concepts of progressive overload, deloads and periodisation. You learnt that you have to push, and push hard to create enough stress to stimulate a positive response from your body.

However, you cannot push all the time, as without sufficient time off (deloads) you cannot grow stronger to overcome the beating you have taken. These two are played against one another in something called periodisation, which is essentially how you set up your training programme.

In todays article I am going to go over some of the programme variables you have at your disposal, and how you can use them to individualise your training. Furthermore, I am going to touch on setting your programme up for success, manipulating your intensity and volume. Combining this information to help you pimp yo’ programme.

Reps, sets, load, rest…
When developing your programme you have a lot of tools at your disposal, not just exercise selection but also your rep and set scheme and load used amongst others. The combinations will produce different training effects, and they all overlap.

The above table clearly shows you the variables you can manipulate and how you can select appropriate zones to allow you to train towards your goals. Now you must remember, if you want to get bigger, you sure want to be training in the hypertrophy zones.

However, to get the most out of these zones you need to be using heavy loads, so you also want to be strong, therefore it makes sense to utilise some strength protocols.

Furthermore, to be strong you also need to develop power, this will directly influence your strength. Yet we must not forget endurance, although having arguably less importance to muscle hypertrophy it will allow for us to maintain performance for longer.

As you can see each help one another develop to a degree. This is true for almost any goal. So you want to use each protocol in your training programme, but you can prioritise those that benefit your overall goal most.

Volume & Intensity
Volume and intensity were introduced to you in Part 1.

Volume can be thought as total number of reps x load used, Intensity can be thought as the % of your one rep max. The two are manipulated to bring about specific training effects. They do not go well together, because you can’t lift a tonne of weight for a lot of reps. Likewise you don’t want to go to the gym, lift puny weights and not do many sets. There is a balance needed.

In general most programmes call for a high volume, low intensity phase followed by a high intensity, low volume phase. Many reps with relatively light loads is called accumulation/extensification. Fewer total reps but heavier loads is called intensification.

The first phase is generally used to lay the foundations for the second. Imagine gathering your building material and then hammering it together, that’s extensification and then intensification. The lengths of each of these can be manipulated, you can also choose to extensify and then intensify different exercises at different times. Maybe your bench is a weak point so you keep a higher level of volume on this lift for longer before ramping up the intensity. So you can intensify your other prime lifts beforehand and then focus all your efforts on bench press when the time arrives.

This brings us to The Principle of Individuality. When selecting your approach you must look at a persons weak and strong points, training background, injury history, goals, time available and level of training proficiency.

That last point came up in part 1, and essentially it is your training age, the amount of time you have been lifting with a decent training and nutritional programme behind you. As a novice your intensity doesn’t need to be very high to push progress, you can pretty much improve with any variable of strength, speed and hypertrophy used. Whereas someone more experienced will need clever manipulation of the above, light loads all the time won’t spur progress but nor can we lift heavy non-stop.

What have we learnt?

• You need to use different training variables to produce certain characteristics (strength, hypertrophy etc.).
• Each characteristic interplay with one another and want to be included in your programme. The degree to which depends on your goals.
• Volume and intensity need to be manipulated in a periodised fashion. Both can’t be high, both don’t want to be low.
• In general a high volume phase will then lead into a high intensity phase. This is called extensification and intensification.

For a look at periodising your training according to your training age be sure to check Part 3.

Where There Is [No Struggle], There Is [No Strength] – Part 1

To Push or Pull?

In this series I will be telling you why without struggle, there is no strength. What that really means is if you never have to try particularly hard, you’re never going to get better at what you’re doing.

Our bodies love staying the same, so to induce change we must provide a stress big enough to cause a response. However, if you keep pushing, never pulling back, you’ll cause problems, because you won’t have time to respond and grow to overcome the issue.

Yet if you don’t push hard enough or for long enough, you’ll simply never see a positive change. It is knowing when to push and pull and why that is important, and that is what Part 1 is about.

The Push- ‘Progressive Overload’
The principle that is progressive overload simply means that there is a need to increase training load in order to progress. In gym talk, you gotta add more weight to the bar or get more reps out if you wanna make gainz.

So to get stronger you have to push right? As touched on before. That push comes in the form of more weight or reps. Yet like previously discussed, you cannot push all the time. Why? Because our bodies cannot take it, we increase the risk of injury, overtraining and are likely to stagnate and even go backwards. No gainz.

The Pull- ‘Deload’
How do we pull back? This is usually done by reducing volume, and or intensity. The purpose is to allow our body to grow and repair from all the pushing. Growth and repair means gainz.

Combing the Push & Pull – ‘Periodisation’
Periodisation is the means by which we organise our training into blocks of low, medium and high volume and intensity. We have a microcycle (weekly), mesocycle (monthly) and macrocycle (yearly) to organise this within.

If we are always on the high end of intensity and volume all the time, we are pushing too much. Yet if we are using a low volume and low intensity approach, we aren’t providing enough of a push. If we get that balance right, we are on the way to gainzville. This process is captured particularly well by Selye’s General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) model of adaption to stress.

As you can see as we push we start to adapt, but push too long and we can stagnate or even deteriorate. Yet, given the right amount of stress the body will not only adapt but overcompensate (‘supercompensation’) to a higher level in anticipation of similar stress to come.

Push and Pull the right amount, say hello to gainzville.

When to Pull?- ‘Deload’/Taper
Right so we know that we can push our bodies too far causing no further progress. Yet we also know that if we do not push enough we won’t be stressing our bodies sufficiently to adapt. We must find the sweet spot, enough push, and then pull back at the right time.

The time we want to do this is when supercompensation peaks, as said before, too late or too soon and we will stagnate. That is brilliantly depicted below.

How do we know when our supercompensation is going to peak? This is dependent on our training age/experience. And that is where I am going to come to a close on Part 1.

What have we learnt?

• We need to continually push our bodies (progressive overload), to provide a stress response.
• We must take periods where we pull back (deload), to allow for supercompensation.
• This is done via a manipulation of volume and intensity, which is provided via periodisation.
• How you approach periodisation is reliant on your training experience.

Stay tuned for the rest of the series if you want to get really strong!

GSD (Get Sh*t Done)

Finding your WHY

I cannot stress enough just how important it is to know why you do things. Especially those that require daily habits and actions. Why? Because, if you do not know why you are doing something that requires daily actions, you won’t do it for long.When it comes to fitness and health, we all know how key consistency is to achieving what we want.

So my question to you is why are you careful with your nutrition, why do you train, why do you even want the body you want? It is an important question, and one many of us haven’t considered.

Once you have your why you have great power. You have the power to demolish your workouts every day. You have the power not to miss a session. You have the power to eat well and be consistent with your nutrition. This is because anytime you find yourself swaying, or motivation is lacking, you can come back to your why.

During my contest prep I continually questioned WHY? Why am I putting myself through hours of horrible cardio. Why do I want to take my body to unhealthily low body fat levels. There were times I was unbelievably hungry, tired and just wanted to give up. Imagine if I didn’t know why I even wanted to compete, I wouldn’t get very far would I? I found my why and it drives me, day in, day out and will continue to do so.

What’s my why?
On my blog I wrote about how I got into fitness and health, and how an interest developed into a passion, this can be viewed here.

In short, I know what it is like to be lost, unhappy with your body, confused about how to train, how to eat, demotivated, actually depressed. What begun as a pursuit to give myself confidence developed into a passion, a passion of discovery. I find the human body and its ability to adapt simply amazing. I have seen my body go from near death, and then built up and developed a strong and muscular physique.

My own development is almost like an experiment. I use my own nutrition and training to learn about the human body, so that I can take these experiences, along with the scientific literature, to help others who are frustrated or unhappy with where they are currently. My goal and why I do what I do is to help others achieve their goals, and so they too can revive stronger.

Why Sir Mix Alot is right

(_E=MC2_)

Above is a Smart Ass, it isn’t an ordinary butt, to be an educated bottom is a great thing, and as we are being brainy lets start calling them glutes. The glutes are one of the most underrated muscle groups by your typical gym goer, but they perform many vital roles for powerlifters, bodybuilders, footballers, gymnasts, men and women…the list goes on.

What role do the glutes play?

• Help with knee stability.
• Secure the joints of the lower back, helping prevent pain.
• Extend the hips.
• Externally rotate the hips.

So we can see the glutes really have some vital roles, not only do they play a major part in sprinting, lunging, squatting, deadlifting etc. but they help keep us healthy by securing our knees and lower back.

Plus in the words of Sir Mix Alot “my anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun”….

How to build a Smart Ass
So now we know how important the glutes are I am going to go over how to maximise their development. According to Bret Contreras your weapon of choice should be the hip thrust. Bret does a terrific video explanation that can be viewed here.

The Hip Thrust
To get better glutes than average, you need to do more than the lay person. Great glutes require work and sacrifice, hip thrusts are not the most glamorous or comfortable exercise, but they work the butt like nothing else.

Here is your step by step guide on performing the hip thrust:

1. You will need a bench, barbell and a pad or matt. Get some olympic size weights on the bar, place the bench against a secure platform.
2. Get down into position, placing your back against the bench, just below your shoulder blades. Get the pad and place it around the barbell. Roll the bar over yourself and rest it on your pubic bone
3. Your stance wants to be around hip to shoulder width apart, with toes forward or pointing slightly out.
4. Wedge yourself into this position, that means get nice and snug, and before you begin the lift take a deep breath and brace your core.
5. Make sure you push through your heels, by raising up onto you heels you may find you get more glute activation.
6. Be sure to fully extend, locking out the hips.
7. Shins should remain roughly vertical at the top of the lift, do not allow your knees to extend over your toes.
8. Make reps fluid and smooth and control the negative portion of the rep, coming to mid-air or all the way to the ground.
9. Really focus on pushing with the glutes and hold the final rep at full extension for 3-10 seconds.
10. You performed a successful round of thrusts :).

You can programme this lift into your workouts in many different ways, just like any exercise, you can do straight sets, pyramid sets, rep max sets or plus sets etc. I recommend whatever you do you periodise this exercise, to help develop the glutes best.

For example: Week 1 – 3×15, Week 2 – 4×10, Week 3 – 5×5 and repeat.

Now you have one key move that will take you towards building that Smart Ass! There are a huge number of varieties, all brilliant in their own way.

Join Team Revive in the current trend that is the #hipthrustselfie and thrusting, Sir Mix Alot, your spouse and lifts will thank you for it #ReviveStronger

Further Reading:

• Losing Fat is Hard 
• The Importance of Context
• Why You Need a Coach 

What we can learn from stinky cheese

Who Moved My Cheese?

Recently my dad recommended I read the book Who Moved my Cheese? He said it really opened his eyes, and thought I would benefit from it. So having just read the book, it did really make me think, and now I want to share it with you.

Imagine something you love, hold onto and cherish, this is your cheese. You work hard for this thing you care for so dearly, and feel you deserve it because of this.

Now imagine a situation in which the cheese is no longer there. No more cheese. It isn’t coming back, you can’t work harder to bring it back. It has gone, vanished, poof no more cheese.

What do you do? – this is the killer question.
I’m going to make it super easy and give you the answer right here: search out new cheese, life moves on and so should we. Sure we love our old cheese, it brought happiness.

Finding new cheese will be scary, but this is short lived. Trust me, the longer you leave hoping your cheese will return, the harder and scarier it will become. So act sooner rather than later. Once you move past fear, you’ll feel free and will enjoy yourself much more.

Plus you can make this process much easier on yourself. You can keep smelling your cheese, reassessing the situation as you go. By being proactive you will make finding new cheese dead easy. You will be ahead of the pack, and find better cheese.

Embrace change, just think change brings the potential of better things. Think you have it good now, you love that cheese, but think of a better cheese. By imagining yourself with new, better cheese, you will lead yourself to it.

Think about being productive, not just active. Sure consistency is brilliant, but if you consistently do something that is bringing no results, your simply being active for the sake of being active. However, if you change your ways, and make all your activity move you closer to new cheese, you’re being productive.

So who the hell cares who moved the cheese? Because, living in the past will not bring it back. Finding out who moved the cheese won’t bring it back. The cheese has gone. Search out new cheese, because life moves on and so should we.

I will tell you something, having someone to guide you to your new cheese can help a lot. Imagine the cheese is the body you always wanted, no doubt every time you reach that killer bod, you want more. A coach can lead you to that new cheese much faster, and will make sure you are proactive and productive in all your actions.

So You Want To Become A Master?

Becoming a Master

Right so you want to squat like a boss, deadlift like yoda and bench press better than anyone else, you want to master these lifts. I do to, and so do my clients, so you are not alone and I am going to share with you how to progress over closer to lifting mastery.

Key to Masterhood
To become a master we must first know what is required, we must find the best and most efficient form for our anatomy. For some this might be ass to grass when squatting or maybe it’s just to parallel, just like you may be better suited for a sumo deadlift rather than conventional. So find out what form works best for your body. I am going to assume you have already addressed any mobility issues, if not, you cannot become a master.

Everyone is different, therefore one persons technique mastery may look starkly different to someone else’s. This is the principle of Individuality, and it springs up all the time when considering exercise and nutrition. Now we know this, I can take you through some steps to becoming a master mover.

Step 1 – Grease the groove
First things first, you need to get in some work. We all know the common saying ‘practice makes perfect’ and well it is completely true. And this is what I mean by grease the groove, if you want to improve your form at something, you need to practice practice practice. So don’t expect to master the squat by doing it once a month, by increasing the frequency you do the lift the better chance you have at ironing out any inefficiencies.

I like to think about this in terms of travelling down a stream into the ocean, at first there is not much room to manoeuvre, however as you keep going you eventually enter out into the ocean, making getting around easy. Just like any movement, at first it feels wrong, and is uncomfortable, but as you work at it, it gets easier and easier. So you want to become a master? Increase the frequency you perform the lift. 

Step 2 – Know how much you can take
Next up we must be recovered if we are going to do any exercise properly. Think of it like a machine, if it is not well oiled and in good nick you wouldn’t expect it to work efficiently. So we must take care of our recovery if we are to master movements.

Therefore, we must know our training level, if you are new to the gym then you will not be able to recover as fast as someone who’s been lifting years. So the less time you have been training the less total volume of work you can get in effectively. You can learn more about this in a previous article I wrote Picking your training volume.

Further to this you must also get your nutrition and other lifestyle factors nailed. Get in sufficient protein to recover with, and carbs to fuel your workouts, but also make sure to get enough sleep. So you want to become a master? Nail your nutrition, get enough sleep and manage your training volume according to your training experience. 

Step 3 – Consistency, consistency, consistency
The final step is made pretty clear, be consistent. People who are over achievers are because they get it right over and over again. So make sure if you decide to pursue mastery, do it for a decent stint of time, and keep at it. Don’t expect it to come from random weeks of dedication.

Furthermore, you need to be damn disciplined. You cannot let your form diminish, you need to perform the lift as if your coach is there watching you every-time. So you want to become a master? Do not let your form slack. 

I have written about mastery before in my article 4 Steps to Learn Anything, and consistency is damn important.

Great technique allows strength to be expressed effectively. As I said before, not everyones technique will be the same, individual body dimensions, leverages, strengths and weaknesses will dictate what technique is most effective for you.

So now you know how to become a master, go get it and #REVIVESTRONGER

The Powerlifting Newb Series – Part 2 – Picking your attempts

So in Part 1 you got to see how the day went and some key lessons I learnt; make a plan, know the process and stay composed. I am going to touch on each of these in more detail to help the new powerlifter out.

First things first, I want you to have a plan of what numbers you are going to attempt for each lift. The only numbers set in stone are the openers, all the others can change on the day, but we will have a plan for that too. Using the below you will a guide that will get you a 100% success rate and give you the best chance of doing well in your meet.

What Weight?

Right, so you have been training with a meet in mind for many weeks or months. All the hard work you have put in is being put to the test on this one day. Hopefully you have been increasing your intensity slowly and have built up a good amount of volume prior to the meet. The last few weeks should have got you pretty well prepared for shifting heavy weights.

In the video below you can see how I recorded my main lifts and noted down how each set was feeling, information and footage like this is very helpful when picking your lifts.

Using your training notes you can look over the sort of weights you were achieving for a given number of reps, you can use these to look at what you estimated 1 rep maxes might look like. This will give you a good idea of what you 1 rep max on the day might be.

Rep Max Calculator

This gives you your starting point, you have your estimated 1 rep maxes. They give you a range to work from, you can set yourself a minimum and maximum for each lift. That way you know if you’re feeling crummy on the day you have a minimum you can hit and if you’re feeling super you have a maximum to aim for.

Picking Your Opener

The way I see it is that your opener is just an extension of your warm up. So this should definitely be something sub-maximal and shouldn’t take away from your next attempts. This is the only lift you have to hand in before you start, so you cannot judge how your warm up is going to give you an indication of how this lift might go. Therefore, it makes even more sense to pick something you can hit any day of the week come rain or shine. 

This should be a weight you could hit hungover wearing the clothes you had on during your night out. That means no belt, no lifting shoes, no chalk, you get the picture; no chance of failure. Furthermore, because it will be easy it will give you confidence for your next lifts going forward.

So because everyone likes rules of thumb;

• Your opener should be 80% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• A piece of pie, whether hungover or not.

Picking Your Second Attempt

So after killing your first opener you’re ready for your second attempt. Again, we are going in with the mindset of hitting every single lift. Because, a missed attempt is as good as wiping your ass with cling film. Messy, uncomfortable, embarrassing and an all round epic fail. So 9/9 is our aim, therefore the second attempt is again something we are confident about hitting.

However, you have the first attempt to help guide you here. My advise is to have a couple of options before you get to your meet, have a feeling shitty option and a feeling good option. If your opener felt a bit slow, then opt for the feeling shitty second attempt, if it felt like it should, easy, then go for the feeling good option. Too many options will only leave you second guessing, if things are going to plan, you should be feeling good, it will be pretty clear if things aren’t.

Either way this lift again should be a no-brainer, not dead easy but not hard either. Something you could hit for a 2-3 rep max on a good day and hit for a single when you feel like utter crap.

Right so how do you go about picking these two?

• Feeling shitty 85% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• Feeling good 90% of your final attempt (1 Rep Maximum).
• Something you could hit for a triple on a good day.

Picking Your Final Attempt

Right so now you are in a great position, whether you’re feeling good or not, you will have so far succeeded in getting every attempt, 6/6, good job! So using the 1 rep max calculator and your lifting history you have an idea of what you should be able to hit. Again I suggest having a feeling crummy attempt and a feeling good number.

As a rule of thumb set your final attempt at:

• 100 – 102.5% of your estimated 1RM.

Remember, we are going for 9/9, and especially because this is written for the powerlifting newb we are assuming a lack of meet experience. Therefore, you do not know whether you bloom under the competitive environment or crumble. It’s like those kids who know all the answers to the questions in lessons, and do well on their course work, but when it comes to exam conditions they suck. We therefore have little meet history to go off, so we are going to be conservative. As said before, a missed lift is useless, so we don’t want any second guessing.

The Take Home Message

If it wasn’t clear by now the take home from the above is that you want to avoid missing lifts. As someone new to powerlifting you want to be especially conservative, and learn from the process. Having a plan allows you to have better focus on the day, plus by having a minimum and a maximum you have a great way of selecting weights on the day, because who knows how you might be feeling.

In the parts to follow I will talk more about each lift, nutrition, weighing in and all the details of the meet day.

The Powerlifting Newb Series – Part 1

So 4 months after competing in a Natural Bodybuilding contest I decided to try my hand at Powerlifting. Why not? They both require you to be strong, and can really compliment one another. In short, bigger muscles are stronger, and by focussing on strength you are continually progressively overloading your muscles, key for growing.

In this following series ‘The Powerlifting Newb’ I am going to take you step by step through my transition form Natural Bodybuilding to the meet. However, in a Star Wars esq. fashion I am going to start with the ending first and tell you how I got on in my meet.

Night before Worries

So the night before the meet me and my girlfriend had a long discussion about my lifts and what weight I would attempt. There was me stressing about the fact my first and second attempts were a walk in the park and wasn’t sure about my third attempt. Going back and fourth about what if you miss that or if that makes you tired later etc. It was stressful and very unproductive. I stuck with the programme and forgot about the debate. This was a very good idea and I will go into depth about weight selection in another part.

Lucky for me I didn’t have to worry about my weight, as I have been sitting around 77-79kg consistently for about a month. Not a chance I would be over the 83kg limit. For those close to it, there is the potential to manipulate things…again, this part is about me and my lifts on the day, that will be covered later.

Day of Meet

Typically I eat a late breakfast, normally around midday. However, I wanted to make sure to get in sufficient fuel before the lifts. Breakfast therefore was a bit random and I went for a protein shake, banana and cookie, easy on the stomach and energy dense. I weighed myself at home after this and I was still well under 80kg, so all good. We then set off for the meet, the drive would take around 2 hours.

Once arriving we signed in and got in the queue for a kit check and to weigh in. This was my first newb moment as I had one of my Revive T Shirts to wear, for a meet you’re only allowed blank T’s or logos affiliated with powerlifting e.g. SBD. All my kit was fine, and then I weighed in, they checked out my briefs (which you must wear) and I selected my openers.

Now we weren’t due to lift until 2pm, so I had a good couple of hours to kill. I ate a tuna sandwich and had a drink, from there I just hung out with my girlfriend and kept an eye on who was lifting. Then at 1:15pm we got called up to select rack heights for the squat, after which we began warming up.

Some people had started warming up an hour before lifting, in my mind that is overkill, who warms up for an hour? No one. So with half an hour to warm up I was happy, people were all really nice and shared the racks. To say it was cramped is being kind, there were only 2 racks, really not enough for the number of lifters. So I probably had my worst warm up ever, but hey, I was under the same pressures as everyone else.

The Squat

For the squat my plan was:

1. 165kg opener
2. 180kg second attempt
3. 190-195kg third attempt

My first and second attempts went really well. However, on both I only got 2 white lights. These lights are bit like those in X-Factor, except it’s not whether they like the performance of not, the three meet judges decide whether or not the lift met the required rules. So my first two attempts may have been slightly lacking in depth, according to one judge anyway. This put me off, and so I decided to just go for 190kg on my third attempt.

This final lift was my best, a grinder but it was deeper than the last two. It looked good, it felt good, it was a 10kg PR, but it didn’t count. Steve the newb powerlifter racked the weight before he was told, bad Steve, no lift.

The Bench Press

For the bench my plan was:

1. 90kg opener
2. 100kg second attempt
3. 110-112.5kg third attempt

The bench was something I was really confident on, not because I was strong, in fact it is my worst lift, but in terms of my plan. I actually think I can hit 115kg, but I went conservative, and for bench, this is a good idea, that I will touch on in a later part when I go over weight selection.

So 90kg is around my 8RM, or 80% of my 1RM, so it was easy. However, I felt like an idiot when I failed this lift. Not because I couldn’t lift it, but because I wasn’t aware of the first call ‘Start’. I thought once I had said ‘My Bar’ I was good to go, but no. Yet, for my second lift I went onward with 100kg, because I knew it was easy. As thought, I got it comfortably.

Then I was in two minds whether or not to go for 115kg, but I played it safe, it was my first meet, so I went with 112.5kg a 2.5kg PR. Again, the lift felt good, a slight grind, and as I normally would in the gym, I hit the rep and racked it. Error number 2, I racked too soon, I forgot to wait for the call, no lift.

The Deadlift

For the deadlift my plan was:

1. 185kg opener
2. 205kg second attempt
3. 225-230kg third attempt

Right, so by now you are getting a pretty clear picture of how things were not going to plan. With a total of 280kg I needed 332.5kg to qualify for nationals, which was my intentions. Sadly if my 190kg and 112.5kg lifts counted I would only need 210, which I had hit for an easy triple a couple of weeks back. So as you can imagine my opener and second lifts went up easy. So on my final attempt I went for a very unrealistic 232.5kg, which would be a lifetime PR, let alone this bodyweight. As expect I didn’t get it, and to be honest I went into lift it with the wrong mindset.

Lessons Learnt

So as you can see on paper I didn’t do very well at all, however I still came 7th out of 15 lifters and for my first meet, that isn’t terrible. Annoyingly, if I had hit all my planned lifts I would have qualified easily and come third. But hey ho, you live and you learn. I now will have the confidence I know what is required for my next meets. Furthermore, my clients will know what to expect when preparing for a meet. In future I would practice lifting under mock conditions more regularly, and I would get my clients to do the same.

Key Lessons:

• Go in with a plan, trust the plan and be confident.
• Know the calls and meet expectations, train like this prior to the meet.
• Keep composed, especially when benching and squatting.

Those are just some of the lessons I have learnt. In future parts I will go over training running up to the meet, nutrition, warming up, lift selection, mind set and much more! So stay tuned.

You know what I am disappointed but I will #ReviveStronger watch this space.

Your Fat Torching Guide by Revive