I’m currently in meet prep for the 2016 APF Equipped Nationals, in Orlando, Florida on May 28th, 2016. I will be competing at 132 pounds, raw with knee wraps. The big picture is to prep for this meet, and obtain a top three placing to qualify for WPC Worlds in November.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com

Tuesday's training session began the peaking cycle leading up into the meet. As much as I hate deadlifts, it was that time to start getting up close to an opener and then hitting a hard supplemental movement for a top single. Speed squats and pause squats have just been going really well lately, so nothing really too different there. My deadlifts did feel a bit different. It was like I was leaving the bar out in front of me and my set up was kind of sloppy and pushing the bar away from myself. This definitely needs work and I'll be sure to address it next week with all my speed singles. I then worked up to pulls against a good deal of band tension and this was just sucky. I had in my PR sheet that I had pulled 435 for a single, but I don't know how I manged to do that. Probably because it was a max effort day and I wasn't destroyed going into it. So all things considered, I'm still pretty happy. I do feel that my deadlift is getting stronger, I just need to be very technically locked in on meet day (and also not put myself in a bad position subtotal wise).

Bring on the pain for the next 5 weeks!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6yHTfrCNfs]

Items Used in this Training Session
Cambered Bar
Short Light Bands
Mini Band

Warm Up
Reverse Hyper - 3x15
Standing Cable Crunch - 3x15

A1) Cambered Bar Speed Squats vs Short Light Bands
65x10
65x5 - add bands
115x3
155x2
185x2
205x2
225x2
240x8x2

B1) Pause Squats
155x5
205x5
235x5
270x5
305x3
340x11 - PR

C1) Sumo Deadlifts
135x5
185x3
245x2
295x1
335x1
385x1
415x1
440x3
460x2x2

D1) Sumo Deadlifts vs Quad Mini Bands
335x3
365x1
395x1
415x1

E1) Goblet Lateral Lunges
3x10 per leg

F1) GHR
3 sets, max reps

G1) Reverse Hyper
5x20
G2) Standing Band Crunches off GHR
5x30