Training for competition has started

Now that we have got the warm up week out of the way it is now on to the real training. This cycle is going to be a lot of volume, eg sets of 10 reps. At this stage my first competition this year is going to be the Canterbury Benchpress Champs which is generally held in March with my first 3 lift competition being the Canterbury Powerlifting Champs. While I want to be putting up some good numbers at these competitions they are not "targeted" comps. My first Targeted comp will be the South Island champs to be held in June. By this time I hope to be on for a go at a few New Zealand National Records.

Today it was Squats with a straight bar for 3 sets of 10 reps @ only 100kg. Felt a lot better than last week and I had more power, speed and focus for them.

Front squats went pretty well, Could feel myself using my butt a lot more this week than last. happy with them.

Back work consisted of Bentover Rows for 4 sets of 10, D/bell rows of 3 sets @ 35kg and Cable rows for 2 sets at 78kg for 10 reps. All the sets went pretty good and right now I am happy with how it went. A few more weeks of this and I should be getting back on track a lot more.

Go to my training program page to see what I did yesterday

Benchpress and Tricep Training

Wow I got to get into the gym 2 days in a row. Today I was just getting my body back into doing benchpress and tricep work. Again volume work, set are for 10 reps and anywhere from 3 to 4 sets.

Didn't feel to bad after yesterday so was able o get back into it reasonably quickly. Wasn't pushing things so my benching was 3 sets of 10 @ 100kg. Was able to get them out reasonably well. Stop press was pretty good with some speed and power of the bars. Just straight weight.

Close grip bench I was a little light and could have probably got been able to get 80kg done but will take the 3 sets @ 60kg all things considered. Flat back tricep extensions were okay but were a little down on what I might have expected. Tricep pressdowns went well and was getting a good pump out of the exercise.

Buffalo bar good mornings went okay and I was able to get a bit further over than I thought I would be able to. 3 good quality sets. Finished off the train with 3 sets of prowler pushes with 60kg on it and about 15 mtrs each way.

23 sets done in 85mins and a total volume of 13174kg

Benchpress: 3 x 10@100kg
Stop Press: 4 x 10 @ 100kg
Close Grip Benchpress: 4 x 10 @60kg
Flat Back Tricep Extension: 3 x 10 @ 25kg
Tricep Pressdowns: 3 x 10 @ 32.5kg
Buffalo Bar Good Mornings: 3 x 10 @ 60kg
Prowler Push: 3 x 30mtrs @ 60kg

Just Getting Back Into It

First time back in the gym in such a long time (5 weeks) due to personal matters and the fact that there was so much work for me at this time of the year. Long days at work. Got the chance to go in yesterday and start the process again.

Have some pretty big goals and plans for the next 12mths so will have to get it all done. Have targeted 3 big competitions for 2015 with the possibility of a 4th towards the end of 2015. Individual lift wise I have some big goals on that as well. We will go into them at a later date.

Yesterday and for the next few weeks it is a lot of volume and to make sure the body is working fine. I am going to be making a few changes to timing and that sort of thing as well. For the first couple of cycles when I am doing the big heavy weight sets the time between sets is going to be 6 mins for the first week, 7 mins for the second week and 8 mins for the third week. The timing between my accessory sets is going to be 2 mins. So as you can see the speed is going to be up there, However when you go to a competition generally you will have 10 -15 mins between attempts so if you can do this during training it should be quite easy at competition time. All he time I will be trying to push my limits in relation to both weight and reps.

An interesting thing in regards to the workout from yesterday that while I am a little stiff and just a tad sore if I was to rate it I would put stiffness at a 2.5 maybe a 3 out of 10 and soreness at about a 2 just. And this was with 5 weeks off training anything at all.

Total reps for the Day was: 230
Total volume for the Day was: 12590kg

Squats 3 x 10 @ 100kg
Front Squats 4 x 10 @ 60kg
Bentover Rows 4 x 10 @ 60kg
D/bell Rows 3 x 10 @ 25kg (way to light)
Cable Rows 2 x 10 @ 72kg
Reverse Hypers 3 x 10 @ 60kg (love this exercise)
Cable Obliques 4 x 10 @ 42kg

All of this was done in 67 mins from start to finish.