Now that I've given my body some rest after the APF Summer Bash, I'm running an off season training cycle, where my goal is to build upon my healthy movement, and hopefully hit the platform raw, full power in late 2017 or mid 2018, and rack up another 10x bodyweight total.

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

To put it quite bluntly, my training session on Tuesday straight up sucked. Not only was I just not feeling the best, by the time I got under the bar for my speed squats I could just tell it was going to be a rough day. I manged to push through the speed squats, but the deadlifts were a whole different story. As soon as I got to about 275 my right knee started to bother me. I threw some Toast on, and thought that might help, but as I got heavier, stuff just got worse. I got to 360x6 and I just said screw it. I just thew my intra-workout away and called it a wash. I knew that at that point I needed to refer out to get help for my knee and back problems even more.

This has been an incredibly frustrating year (2017) for me for powerlifting. After my performance at World's, I was hoping that I could continue to stay on a decent pace at one to two meets a year and keep my body healthy, but it's been the entire opposite. It can be had to see the light at the end of the tunnel some days, but I'm back to square one at figuring what's going on with my body. So my off season was very short lived...I barely made it a week and a half.

So from this point, I'm still going to be training and seeing what I can get my body to do cooperatively, but as of right now my competitive outlook doesn't look good for the rest of 2017, and 2018 will still be TBD.

I know as an EliteFTS athlete is to lead by example and provide useful training logs. Even though I can't compete in full power, I do intend to get back on the platform, but I just need to put my health first and really figure things out. So I apologize to those of you that enjoy following my log, as my training will be rather random and based upon what my body is allowing me to do on the given day. I'll just be training much more instinctual than anything else, and maybe that's just what I need for the time being anyways.

Time to make the call to the PT and go from there.

Items Used in this Training Session
Duffalo Bar
Box Squat Box
EZ Loaders
Chains
Texas Deadlift Bar

Warm Up
Soft Tissue Work - Glutes, Hamstrings, TFL, Quads, Calves
Hip Flexor Stretch - 30 sec per leg
Leg Lowering 1 - 10 per leg
Leg Swings (forward and side to side) - 10 per leg
Alternating Lunges - 10 per leg
Single Leg RDL - 10 per leg
Bulgarian Split Squat - 10 per leg
Lateral Lunges - 10 per leg
Hanging Knee Raises - 15

A1) Duffalo Bar Speed Box Squats vs 3 Chains Per Side
55x10
55x5 - add chains
105x3
135x2
165x2
185x2
205x10x2

B1) Sumo Deadlifts
135x5
185x3
225x3
275x5
320x5
360x6
*I just opted to shut it down here and cut my loses.*