After an abysmal showing at APF Equipped Nationals, I'm now in an off season mode of training. Currently, I am in a strength block building up strength and weaknesses to prepare me for a meet prep cycle for WPC World's in November. 

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Tuesday's session called for the final bit of the dynamic effort wave for squatting, a good solid work up, and then some heavy deadlifts. It wasn't a bad day of training, but wish I would have had a bit more in me for my deadlifts. My squat has really been going well, and think I've got everything dialed in for this lift. Deadlift is still just getting the groove back and getting used to heavy weights again. If the off season bodybuilding did anything, it just made the deadlift feel a bit foreign and hard to get some momentum going so far, but I have faith that it will bounce back here soon.

While my reverse band set on deadlifts was a PR for the movement, it's clearly not an overall PR for me, as I've deadlifted more than this in training with straight weight. On my heaviest set, I had a bit of a balance and black out issue start to occur, so I just let the lift go at basically lockout. I knew it was more technical than anything else, so I took it again and did much better (but forgot to hit record on my camera...something I'm too familiar with). I was hoping to hit 525-535 (which would have matched my PR with this set up with average bands), but it's just not there right now. I do think I've found this is a really good tester movement for me to know where I currently stand. It was about 480 on the floor (usually an opener for me), and by the time I hit my knees the bands were basically completely deloaded. So I will probably use this going into the next meet to get an idea of where my projected third should be for World's.

I won't deny that I was a bit worried all day about coming into this lift. The last time I attempted this going into XPC Finals, I tweaked my back setting me out for two weeks until the meet and going strictly on hope. So deep in the back of my mind I was slightly concerned about that happening again, but the weights were moving good and I felt great, so I'm doing much better with my back health and staying adjusted and square this off season.

Definitely not my best deadlift day, but it's getting back to where it needs to be. I've been relentlessly chasing 530 (4 times bodyweight) for a long time. It's not too terribly far away!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeUhtprYwd8]

Items Used in this Training Session
Duffalo Bar
Light Bands
Mini Bands
Box Squat Box
Texas Deadlift Bar

Warm Up
Hip Flexor Stretch - 30 sec per leg
Leg Swings (forward and side to side) - 10 each
Single Leg RDL - 10 per leg
Bulgarian Split Squat - 10 per leg
Goblet Squat - 10
Standing Band Crunch - 15

A1) Buffalo Bar Speed Box Squats vs Light and Mini Bands
55x10
55x5 - add bands
105x3
145x2
195x2
235x8x2

B1) Buffalo Bar Squat
235x3
285x2
325x1
375x8 - PR

C1) Reverse Light Band Sumo Deadlifts
135x5
245x5 - add bands
295x3
335x1
385x1
425x1
475x1
495x1
515 - miss/near pass out
515x1 - PR

D1) Stiff Leg Deadlifts
225x5
275x3
315x2
375x7 - PR

E1) Reverse Hyper
3x20

F1) Lying Band Leg Curls
4x40
F2) Standing Band Crunches
5x30