Deadlift Fun

Today was going to be a challenge. I needed to get my training out of the way early as I had a barbecue in the country to get to and needed to be on the road by 10:00. For context I hate rushing and really dont like early morning training.


Two weeks out from Nationals and I was programmed for a 97% 1RM deadlift today followed by working sets.


Given it was 7:30am I made sure to hit plenty of light reps to warm up the back. The early timing also ensured there was only a handful of lifters around.


Warms ups done I started laddering my way to a top set. Form felt a little off as the weight went up until I gather my breath and gripped and ripped my top set.


Overall it moved pretty quick but video review afterwards revealed I had let it get way too far in front as it hit my knees. I really had to work that much harder to get it to lock out.


It just illustrates that when your form is off even a little, the weight is proportionately that much harder. On my work sets I realised I had neglected to focus on keeping my lats tight thus the drift forward.


Refocusing on lats for my work sets resulted in a much quicker pull and an overall feeling of being tighted and more fluid. I will need to focus on this queue right up to comp day.


Depsite the time pressures I felt pretty good about this week and overall relaxed about Masters Nationals.


Thomo

Lift more...switch off the brain

I wish I had a switch that would allow me to turn off my brain. One of the problems of being naturally inquisitive and an analyst by background is that I can sometimes overthink things in a desire to achieve an outcome. This becomes particularly problematic in regards to training. 

For the last couple of months, I have been running a 10-week contest peak which was going perfectly fine until I ran into a challenging period at work. You know the usual, long hours missed meals and travel. This translate to two weeks in a row of 4 day breaks from training following by 2-3 consecutive days of training in a frantic effort to maintain momentum.

Friday night I found myself in this situation and with meet day looming I needed to get my squat back on track. In the previous week, it felt like I had completely lost the fundamental ability to squat. Annoyingly I just couldn't get consistent good depth and when I did it felt like I was completely out of position. 

With this context, I wasn't particularly confident to hit the number I needed. However, in a rare moment of clarity I remembered the words of a coach of mine from a few years back. While I'm loosely paraphrasing he would say, Thomo don't overcomplicate the squat.Put the bar on your back and sit down, don't think don't worry about failing just sit down and stand up....simple turn my brain of and keep it simple.

Net result with a single spotter, no wraps, and no fanfare I hit an unwrapped PB squat. Mentally it was a morale boost and proved I am stronger this year. The number unwrapped was my previous wrapped 1st or 2nd in comp and is 89% of my best wrapped competition squat.

Tomorrow is deadlift day and will likely be 95-97% of 1RM. Sitting here tapping away I have at least 3 steaks in me along with enough carbs to get a good bloat happening.

Bring on the pain.

Thomo