OMD's Journal: Powerlifting July '22—Thinking about Training Systems
It was a slow month. There was a three week deload in July and that opened up opportunities to think about other training protocols to ponder about for future experiments.
One particular point of experimentation I’m excited to incorporate is a truncated development cycle where I’d love to see if I can peak in 6 weeks. The rationale for this will be explained in the article.
Overall, it was a decent month of training for my health. But…I could lose some weight.
July 2022 Highlight
Period Covered:
July 3 to July 30
Training Highlights:
Deload: Three weeks (a new record!)
Daily average steps: ~12,586 steps (~8.93km)
Nutrition Highlights:
Daily average fast : ~16.6hrs
Daily average calories burned: ~2,910kcal
Water consumption: 4-5L/day
Caffeine consumption: 2-3 cups of coffee every day
Alcohol consumption: five glasses of beer
Recovery Highlights:
Daily average sleep time: ~7h 25m
# of Sauna sessions: 0
Reflections are divided into the following:
Training
Nutrition
Recovery
Last Month’s Goals:
Training
Complete the vertical pull/push and mobility/core accessories I’ve assigned myself for 3 of the 4 training days (includes deload days too) = 75% success
Nutrition
1 coffee + green tea only until 4pm on non-training days (3x / week) = 25% success
Recovery
Carbon Dioxide Test Every Morning = 0% success. Oops. Failed this for two months. It was a bad goal.
The long term goal for training from the inaugural October Journal is attached at the bottom if you’d like a refresher on what the point of all this is.
Training
3-week Deload
It was unintentional but I took a 3 week deload. Well, I don’t know if that is completely fair. But it was interesting how training moderately heavy 2x a week seemed to preserve a level of strength coming back to the new cycle.
The first week of the deload had 3 training sessions with the top weight at about 50-60% of my 1RM with the lower end for squat and deadlift and higher end for bench press. Reps were kept to a maximum of 5 for 3 sets per exercise. This meant most training sessions ended at RPE 5-6.
The second week was 3 sessions with dumbbells. Each training session tackled hip hinge, horizontal push, vertical pull, and squat. All were done with dumbbells so the movements were accessory in nature with 10-15 reps per set for a total of 3 sets per exercise.
The third week was supposed to be the start of my new development cycle. But life got far too busy so I decided to make it a deload period instead.
Week three was four sessions with one of the days dedicated to doing pause squats with the bar again. It was belt-less but the 365lbs top set for one rep felt very good. I followed this up with barbell benching for a few sets of 4-5 at RPE 8 as well.
The next few sessions in the week were more accessory focused again with machines and dumbbells used to hit every plane of movement. I was essentially doing a trial run of the first two days of what would be the new development cycle (shown below in the New Cycle section).
The training stress was kept to a manageable level throughout the three weeks. When I say manageable I left the gym feeling I could’ve done far more and felt unsatisfied. But it appeared the third week was actually required because I still felt very “clunky” on the third week when I got under the bar to squat. My lower back was still quite sore and everything felt sluggish.
Now, I had been travelling so that could’ve contributed to this feeling of sluggishness. But my body didn’t feel ready to train, which was not ideal for Week 1 of a new development block. The purpose of the deload was to reset my body and give it the rest it needed to come back fresh and ready for another cycle of work.
After taking the third week of unintentional deloading, the proper full Week 1 the week after felt far better. My body felt smoother in my first squat session. The weight was lower by ~10% from the previous cycle’s peak but my body felt well tuned. I was a well-oiled and rejuvenated machine again.
I’m not sure if three weeks is the amount I need to deload now. I don’t know if that was always the optimal amount or if this too has been an evolution as I’ve aged and my training schema has evolved.
But it’s become clear to me that at the intensity I like to push my body…with everything I try to still do on the recovery side of things for day to day performance…I’ll need at least two weeks of proper deloading to recover after beating up my body for 7-8 weeks.
Now, the question is whether I can ramp up the intensity to 6 weeks and whether my body will need 2 or 3 weeks of deloading after that.