As a coach I am not a huge fan of doing competition lifts year-round, I think that is lazy coaching that will lead to overuse injuries and athlete burnout very fast. I am also not a huge fan of using variations for the sake of it, they have to have a dynamic correspondence to the main movement you are trying to improve. In Bondarchuk's books transfer of training in sports he details incredibly well what lifts improved his athletes throwing abilities. That is what dynamic correspondence means, picking an exercise that is not sport-specific/identical to the competition movements and using it to improve your competition lift, the more your comp lifts go up because of the exercise the higher the correspondence.
So when using a variation you tend to want to pick the one you have specific weaknesses in and it should show itself pretty easily but what I see nowadays is athletes just picking exercises for the sake of it or because so many other people use it, it must be the right one. After a meet I see everyone jump into SSB squats and while they are a great exercise it doesn't always translate into improving your main lifts if it doesn't build on a weak area that needs work. I have seen a few athletes recently that use this exercise and it is stronger than there actual comp squat, that right there should raise a red flag that this exercise is probably not one I need to work on anymore, but the ego won't let it go. Find exercises that have the greatest carryover to your main lift and to do this you have to track and analyze each one to see how it corresponds to your main lift going up. When I trained with Dan Green he knew his front squat was around 200lbs less than his back squat, so if his front squat went up to 600lbs he knew his back squat would be around 800lbs without even touching that exercise. This allowed him to train lighter with front squats, lighter meaning overall load not how hard he was training, which kept him fresher for when it was time to go back to comp squats. Just something to think about when making exercise selections.
8-30-19
Beltless Stiff Bar Deads- 455lbs for 3 sets of 5 reps
2" Block Stiff Leg Deads- 455lbs x5, 495lbs x5
High Bar Squats w/ Squat Wedge- 315lbs x6, 365lbs x6, 405lbs x6
BB Rows- 245lbs for 3 sets of 12 reps
Lat Pulls- 3x12
s/s
Band Abs- 3x20
8-31-19
SSB GM's- 275lbs for 4 sets of 5 reps
GHR- 3x10
s/s
Chest Supported Rows- 3x10
Supinated Lat Pulls- 3x12
s/s
Seated Med Ball GM's- 3x8
Kneeling Abs- 3x15-20
s/s
Single Arm Rows- 3x12
