Powerlifting Journal: November 2021 - End of 9-Week Cycle
The following is a powerlifting article for OMD Journal. None of this is health, nutrition, training advice.
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November 2021 Highlight
Training Period:
October 31 to November 27
Heaviest training set this month:
Squat: 425lbs x 2 reps
Bench Press: 265lbs x 2 reps
Conventional Deadlift: 475lbs x 1 rep
Over Head Press (OHP): 140lbs x 5 reps
Average Bodyweight: 152lbs
Zero Fasting Data:
Daily average fast: ~16.5hrs
Fitbit Data:
Daily average sleep time: ~7h 13m
Daily average calories burned: ~2,800kcal
Daily average steps: ~11,900 steps
Reflections are divided into the following:
Training
Nutrition
Recovery
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
Training schedule:
Sunday - Cardio/Pull
Monday - Day 1
Competition Squat; top set of 4 @ RPE 9; ~6 work sets
Overhead Press; top set of 5 @ RPE 8; ~4 work sets
Feet-Up Bench Press; top set of 5 @ RPE 8; ~5 work sets
Tuesday - Day 2
Competition Bench; top set of 2 @ RPE 9; ~8 work sets
Deficit (3 inches) Deadlift; top set of 3 @ RPE 8; ~6 work sets
1-arm KB Bottom-up Press; top set of 8 @ RPE 9; ~5 work sets
Wednesday - Cardio/Pull
Thursday - Day 3
Competition Squat; top set of 2 @ RPE 9; ~8 work sets
1-arm KB Press; top set of 5 @ RPE 8; ~4 work sets
Close Grip Bench Press; top set of 4 @ RPE 8; ~4 work sets
Friday - Day 4
Competition Deadlift; top set of 1 @ RPE 9; ~6 work sets
Paused (2-sec) Bench; top set of 5 @ RPE 8; ~5 work sets
1-arm KB Press or Dips; top set of 10 @ RPE 5; ~5 work sets
Saturday - Rest (i.e. full day of writing)
Exercise selection divided by movement patterns:
Days 1 & 3: Squat + Vertical Push + Horizontal Push (secondary)
Days 2 & 4: Hip Hinge + Horizontal Push + Vertical Push
Cardio/Pull: Vertical Pull + Horizontal Pull + Shoulder Rotation + Cardio
To start, I would recommend reading the October Powerlifting Journal to get an understanding of movement patterns (e.g. vertical push, horizontal pull, hip hinge) and intensity measures (i.e. RPE). I explained my approach in depth in the inaugural issue and without the context, this might sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
Changes From October
New exercises this month were the deficit deadlifts and secondary bench presses (i.e. feet-up, close grip). The exercises for each day—listed in the training schedule above—are ordered in level of priority.
That meant the third exercise on some days was missed on days tight on time. It was a natural result of the main exercises taking much longer as rest times got longer, leading to 3-4 hour training sessions being the norm this month.
Increasing the frequency of bench pressing from 2x a week in October to 4x a week in November was another change. Though, in some weeks, I missed a pressing movement on Days 1 and 3 due to time and absolute fatigue.
Another change was moving Day 1 from Sunday to Monday. Though this might not appear material, it meant losing 24 hours of rest between Day 3 and 4.
These days had the highest intensity with peak weight on the squat and deadlift. I thought condensing it would be great training for competition periods to build a level of work capacity. But the mimicking would’ve made sense to put a heavy deadlift and squat day in the same session if that were the case. In hindsight, this was a mistake. Condensing intensity was not ideal for my recovery, hence a faltering in performance.
Having my heaviest training days on Thursday and Friday brought on the idea of moving them to the front of the week when I would be most rested as well. Lifting heaviest on Days 1 and 2 would allow me to present my most rested self to start the training week. This might work well with how long it appears for me to taper.
Tapering
Tapering is the process by which powerlifters induce super-compensation. It happens in the last week of a training cycle on the week of the competition. We train hard and introduce maximal intensity over the cycle to stress the body out and take time off—about a week—to let the body rest.
The body gets confused by the lack of stress for the first few days. But it’s been trained to expect high amounts of stress from the last few weeks of training. The lack of training in the final few days leading up to the competition makes the body overcompensate.
If planned properly, it will result in a day or two where everything starts clicking and weights will feel smooth. Warm-up weights will feel like feathers and there will be smoothness in the motions—a kind of effortlessness.
I felt its effects on my Day 1 training session on November 22. The entire training session felt easy and the squat backoff sets flew up. This was the squat sequence on the day:
Lead up sets
365x4@ 7
385x4@ 8
405x4@ 9
Back off sets:
365x5@ 7
365x5@ 7.5
365x5@ 8
365x5@ 8.5
The top set of 405lbs for 4 reps felt amazing. What further surprised me was how amazing the back-off sets at 365lbs felt. It felt as if I could’ve done 2-3 more work sets in addition to the 4 I already did.
The results of this day were a genuine surprise as the Day 4 training session from the Friday the week prior was atrocious. I felt extremely weak and nothing was clicking.
I also noticed a quick drop-off in strength on Day 2, November 23. My strength levels continued to float at a suboptimal level and the body was sore and uncomfortable compared to the euphoric training session on November 22.
The empirical observation says my taper is about four days. This estimate comes from the last strength high I felt on November 18, which was the Day 3 heavy squat session. Using my squat strength levels as a benchmark, it would appear four days of doing nothing but cardio, easy pulling and sauna gave my body enough time to super compensate for the ensuing Day 1 training session on the 22nd before completely disintegrating for the rest of the week.
Therein lies the observation that my full development cycle appears to be around 9 weeks, followed by four days of taper. That gives me a 10 week lead up time to future competitions. Assuming a Saturday competition date, I would start my taper after a decent intensity on Tuesday.