I’m officially 12 days out from my first and last attempt at competing in the World’s Strongest Boilermaker strongman competition. I detailed out my approach to this meet and my goals in a recent post so I won’t go through the details again but long story short, this is my first time doing a strongman competition and I intend to learn as much as possible above all else. That being said, I am close enough to the meet that I am beginning to get into my last max effort days before I shut it down going into the comp. Today was the last of heavy deads and the session went as follows…
Everything moved today. I won’t say that it moved explosively or fast but it all moved and felt good. For some reason I was very sore coming into the gym today in my legs, especially the hamstrings, which last week I would have blamed on being on a rocking ship during vacation but this week it almost has to be a carryover from my dynamic effort day last Friday. I will keep an eye on my recovery and with a decrease an intensity going into next week, I will be 100% on competition day barring any setback.
In other news, I have begun to read. This is something that I have secretly been beating myself over for a long time but just never seemed to pick out or pick up reading material aside from textbooks. The other day my conscious finally got the better of me and I purchased “The Vault” by Dave Tate, the owner of Elitefts. It is basically a compilation of 200 pages worth of training knowledge and tips broken up into page or half page bits of writing. So far it has been perfect to sit down whenever I have 10 or 15 minutes to spare and knock out a couple segments at a time and come away with little pointers here and there. I am sure in the near future I will be involving some items that I find helpful into some logs but for now I want to spend a little more time learning than talking. Until next time!
Bench pressing continues to feel very solid as I move into week 2 of meet prep. The percentages were bumped up slightly this week with reduced rep schemes. Everything is moving fairly quickly and by that I don’t just mean the weights, I mean this prep itself! The sessions are flying by but maybe its just me getting used to this prep schedule. Either way, my bench attempts and accessory work went as follows…
Stretch and Warm-Up
Bench Press
45×10, 95×5, 135×5, 185×5, 225×2, 255×3
285x2x3
295x3x2
Dumbbell Incline Bench
50×12, 60×12, 70×12
Chest Supported Row
110×12, 120×12, 130×12, 140×12
Dips – 3×12
Band Flys – 50 Reps
Band Pressdowns – 50 Reps
Band Pull Aparts – 100 Reps
Band Ab Pulldowns – 4×12
I could definitely tell that the extra 10 pounds had been added to the bar when I moved to 295 for my three doubles but I set up like I have been practicing, let it sink in and moved all three sets just the way I wanted to. After having ran a volume program for 4 weeks, these training days feel like they are too short but I know I need to let myself recover more from these bigger weights. Whenever I find myself second guessing something that I am doing I just have to remind myself that I have Brandon write these programs for me for a reason. He hasn’t let me down yet and knows what he is doing. The last thing you want to do during a meet prep is to overdo it and put yourself out of a meet (e.i. train smarter not harder). There is no sense in hitting a bunch of accessory work if it does not help you move toward peaking on meet day. There is definitely a time and place for volume work to build a muscular base but during meet prep is not that time, especially a six week prep. I will be taking my first heavy squats tomorrow evening after our Spring Call-Out. Hopefully I will be able to get some videos for those. Until next time!
When I first joined the Purdue Barbell Club we were a group of around 10 students who shared a passion for training hard and enjoyed being around others who felt the same way. I never imagined that this little organization would take off in the way that it has. Last Saturday I saw 13 lifters proudly wearing their Purdue Barbell shirts as they took the platform to compete for our team. I saw over 10 club members come out to support their teammates, many working their tails off all day assisting with knee wraps, photography, loading/unloading plates, etc… I saw just as many family members travel hours to watch their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, husbands, and wives compete with Purdue Barbell. What this organization has become is mind-blowing to me. We have filled a niche at this campus that was much bigger than any of us imagined and the response has been amazing. As I took it all in this past weekend looking around at all my teammates, some who were competing for the first time and some who were trying to build on past meets, I couldn’t help but smile. This club has become family and I am very proud to be the leader of such a spectacular group.
Enough with the gooey stuff, here is how meet day went for me!
Travel and Weigh-Ins
For the first time since my first meet in Spring 2014, I did not cut down to 242lbs for a meet. After my last meet I made the decision to put on some weight and attempt to fill out the 275lb class. This proved to be a little harder than I would have imagined as my weight gain stalled at around 264lbs at the beginning of meet prep, 6 weeks out from the meet. This did not bother me to much because my plan was to make the weight jump slowly while adding solid weight onto my frame. Since I did not have to cut, I chose to wait until meet day to weigh in instead of weighing in 24 hours prior to meet on Friday morning. Two of the lifters that I took with me, Ethan Lenn and Austin Elpers, had cut for this meet so we drove down Friday afternoon after weigh ins and stayed in a hotel. I must say that not having to worry about making weight did take a little stress out of the preparation for the meet. After getting settled in to the hotel, those of us that had already arrived went out to eat with Brandon Smitley and enjoyed a relaxing evening.
Meet Day Morning
Since I had not weighed in yet, we arrived to the meet venue right at 7am. We just beat the rush and I weighed in at an expected 266lbs. After the rules meeting at 8am, things started to pick up a bit as the first flight guys and gals took over the warm-up room. I was third from last to lift in the final flight so I relaxed, hydrated, and took a little time to get my head right.
Squat
Squat started off very oddly. As I mentioned we had 10+ lifters competing in this meet and 5 of use were in the final flight for squat. The problem started in the warm up room when we ran out of time to take our final warm up attempts. By the time the bar was ready for me to finish my practice sets, I was too close to my name being called to take the weight. I ended up making a 80lb jump, going from 425 in the weight room to an opener of 505 on the platform. To make matters worse, 3 of us were scheduled to lift back to back! This meant that we needed to get the knees of 3 lifters wrapped and ready to go in a very short amount of time. Brandon performed like the professional he is though and we were able to make it through our squats all wrapped and good to go. My attempts went as follows…
Opener – 505 (Good) Second – 523 (Good) (PR) Third – 551 (Good) (PR)
Bench
As I have discussed frequently, the bench has always been my weak point in competition. Whether is a technical mistake or simply not being strong enough, something has gone wrong during the bench for my past few meets. For this meet, I set my opener low. I wanted to make sure that I crushed the first rep and had momentum going into the second. I really believe that I am on the verge of busting my bench wide open and will see a huge increase in strength over this coming off-season. Although I did miss my final rep on the bench for this meet I did PR on my second attempt and have a solid foundation from which to grow now. The attempts went as follows…
Opener – 305 (Good) Second – 319 (Good) (PR) Third – 336 (No Good)
Deadlift
Deadlift is my favorite, everyone that has trained with me or kept up on my training log knows this. I think the reason that I enjoy it so much is the lack of thinking you have to put into it. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of technique that goes into a good pull but in comparison to the control that you have to exert on the squat and bench, deadlift is just a primal, grip it and rip it type of lift. To me deadlifting in competition is so simple, it comes down to one thing, I am either strong enough to pick this weight up or I’m not and its as simple as that. Anyway, back to the meet, I was amped up as always for my pulls. I opened a little heavier than I should have but I am comfortable with this lift and wanted to set myself up for a nice PR. I ended up finishing the day going 3 for 3 on deads and a 11lb PR in the books. Attempts went as follows…
Opener – 523 (Good) Second – 541 (Good) Third – 562 (Good) (PR)
Summary
At the end of the day I went 8/9 on my lifts, only missing that last bench press attempt. I set new PRs on all of my lifts and subsequently a new PR total as well. My new best lifts look like this…
I have been chasing a 1400+ total for a long time and although it took me a little longer than I originally thought, I cannot complain one bit. This meet had the greatest showing by Purdue Barbell to date and resulted in a bunch of PRs and good times. I believe that everyone that competed from Purdue Barbell came away with some type of hardware. It was a great day and I look forward to the next team meet.
Going Forward
In the days since the meet, I have been able to sit down and come up with a tentative gameplan for my training during this next offseason. I plan to stay out of the gym for at least 4 days before hitting a few volume training days. After that I think I am going to jump back into offseason training with a new training partner who is currently training to compete at the XPC finals at the Arnold Classic this year. I am really looking forward to hard training days again and getting back to making strength gains. I appreciate everyones support as always and hope you will continue to follow along and I gear up for another Fall/Winter of training here at Purdue. Until next time!
Training: by Josh Lytle 