This is the fourth and final part of a story I’ve been telling in this coaching log.

In the past three weeks you’ve been introduced to Dave’s story (herehere , and here ).

Long story short: Dave was a martial arts and strength coach who wanted to make his comeback in competitive powerlifting and asked me to design a program for him with the following constraints:

-          4 training days a week, average 1.5h/day divided in

-          2 days (usually Mondays and Tuesdays) on a Crossfit box with helping friends

-          2 days (Thursdays and Fridays) on a generic commercial chain gym with no barbells

-          Coming from a hip injury with unknown evolution

The strategy I adopted is described in the previous logs.

Although I worked with Dave for years, the program I am writing about here is 14 weeks long. The last 4 weeks are the tapering cycle before the meet (click to enlarge):

Dave tapering - June 6 2019

Here is what Week 12 looked like (click to enlarge):

Dave - week 12 - June 6 2019

Sadly, Dave did not compete: the meet was cancelled shortly before the date. This is frustrating. For an experienced athlete, the response to frustration may range from nothing, since “shit happens” and they know it, to turning their back on that path. For Dave, that was it. As he told me in the beginning of this program, he wanted to compete just as a point of focus. He needed a measurable objective to work his personal goals of strength and skill recovery after a long period of dealing with an injury. He considered himself satisfied and his focus is no longer powerlifting.

We did measure his 1RM and there was a significant increase in the estimated maximum in the beginning of the cycle. A mock meet, though, is not a meet. There is abundant data showing that results on the platform deviate from those in the training setting – either for higher or lower numbers.

The hybrid system, adjusted to his two different training facilities, were considered a very good alternative by both of us.

 

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