This is specifically for someone who has been doing 5/3/1 for three to four months and decided to do a meet short-notice. I won’t go into 5/3/1. If you’re curious, check out Jim Wendler’s book on elitefts™. I will, however, go into the last five weeks heading into a meet.
5 Weeks Out: Deload 4 Weeks Out: Single at 90% 3 Weeks Out: Single at 80% 2 Weeks Out: Single at 70% 1 Week Out: Deload Meet
As you can see, it is very stripped down with low volume and lighter weights as you near the meet. The goal is to get in the mind frame of doing singles again and remembering how to be fast. Repetitions can slow you down over time and a peaking phase of all singles in descending weights can help you get that speed back for meet day. When working up to your singles, be sure to make 5-10 percent weight jumps up to your last single. The main goal here is also to let yourself recover and to stay away from big weights. Save the big weights for the platform. Assistance work should be treated in this manner as well. Four weeks out is the time to start lowering the assis- tance work. Each week cut an exercise out, so that on your last week you are only hitting your 70 percent single. Mobility/soft tissue work is crucial during this phase, so be sure to roll daily and hit specific mobility movements to tighten up any joints that have been previously injured or took a beaten during your 5/3/1 training cycles. The one thing that only remains constant is core work. Be sure to hit your abs two to three times weekly, all the way up to the last week. Drop out all cardio or conditioning work the last three weeks to increase recovery. Again, this is specifically for someone who has been doing 5/3/1 for a while and decided to take the plunge and do a meet. Base your percents off of your best training max.
This eight week program is something I used when I was having a lot of difficulty getting my deadlift to progress even a couple of pounds. I stepped back and looked at what I was doing and determined that I really needed to address my week points and hit them hard. Those week points were pretty much my entire posterior chain. What I did was more of an instinctive approach rather than a scientific method or use of percentages. I based the amount of weight I was doing off of how I felt that day and made the most of it. So when I say “heavy” it means whatever felt heavy that day. It may have been more or less than the week before, but I’d always try to hit a PR if possible. The last couple of weeks before a meet, things change to the point that I pull from the floor in my dead- lift suit. Week six would be around 85-90% of my 1RM for a single, and week seven would be my opener. The exercises I decided to use were…
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Suspended good mornings with the SS bar – I’d set the SS bar at bellybutton height in the chains and work up to a heavy triple and then a heavy single if I felt good that particular day.•
Conventional pulls from the floor – these were done primarily against average bands for heavy doubles or triples, but sometimes I substitute chains for the bands if my joints weren’t happy with me.•
GHR – done using bands, holding plates or medicine balls or elevating the end of the GHR. Reps were be- tween 10-15 for four sets.•
Rack pulls – done every other week after squatting while still wearing my briefs and I’d work my way up the rack from pin one to pin three and then start back at pin one. I’d never pull off pins above my knees because I wanted to work below my sticking point instead of at or above it.I rotate through the exercises each week based on what I did on my first training day of the week, which was on Sunday. So the rotation would look like this:
Week 1 Sunday
• Sumo rack pull – pin 1 – ME single Thursday
• Suspended goodmorning – three-rep “max” Week 2
—By Jo Jordan
Thursday
• Suspended goodmorning – three-rep “max” Week 4
Sunday
• GHR vs. band Thursday
• Conventional pulls vs. average bands Week 5
Sunday
• Sumo rack pull – pin 3 – ME single Thursday
• Suspended goodmorning – three-rep “max” Week 6
Sunday
• Deadlift from floor – full gear 85-90% of 1RM Thursday
• Conventional pulls vs. 80-120 pounds of chain for 5-8 reps Week 7
Sunday
• Deadlift from floor in full gear – opener Thursday
• Suspended goodmorning with light weight - 10 rep sets of 3 Week 8
MEET
Accessory lifts done on these days consisted of reverse hypers, rows, pull downs, shrugs
and grip work. They were also done using the instinctive approach, so the reps and weight used was based off of how I felt after doing the primary exercise for the day.
Using this training cycle, my deadlift went from around a 600 pull, to 700 within a year and a half. So, I have to say I was very happy with the outcome since one of my primary goals when I started was to be consistent and take my training serious and to pull 700 at 242 pounds. Perhaps if you are stuck like I was, you will give this a try and do as well, if not better, than me.
—By Amy Wattles