I’m currently in meet prep for the 2016 XPC Finals at the Arnold Sports Festival on March 5th, in Columbus, Ohio. I will be competing at 132 pounds, raw with knee wraps.

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Saturday was my first day of meet prep busting out the knee wraps. The goal for the session was to try to establish a good opener, and kind of go from there. It took me just a bit to get used to being in the wraps again, but overall I think I'm in a good spot. I've certainly got a few things to clean up though. While at Elitefts last weekend, Dave reminded me on how I need to settle with the bar more. I started off rushing this, but by the last two squats, I had it down, and both of those lifts showed how much stronger and explosive I looked, especially on video. Matt Smith also pointed out to me that last weekend I was shrugging the weight out, and not setting my lats from the unrack the way that I need to, and this made complete sense on why I was pitched forward at my last meet and completely out of position. I cleaned this up a lot on this day, and that I've finally got my groove back. It still needs a bit of work, but all in all, it's movement in the right direction.

On my snatch grip deadlifts, I started to get a bit of an exhaustion headache, and that's a good sign for me that I need a deload soon. I had planned to have one after this week, so the timing is about perfect. I'll try to get in an overreaching state by the end of the week, and then drop the intensity down to let my body recover before making a final push. At the four week point, I think I'm at a good place with my squat and feeling much better than I thought I would. Still got to be patient and keep working my weak links.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr7DDRfU1hM]

Items Used in this Training Session
EZ Loaders
Chains
Cambered Squat Bar
Mini Bands
Maverick Knee Wraps
Krait Knee Wraps

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

A1) Squat
65x10
155x5
205x5
245x3
295x2
335x1
385x1
425x1
475x1 - add Maverick Knee Wraps
500x2x1 - add Krait Knee Wraps
525x1 - add reverse micro bands

B1) Cambered Bar Squats vs 3 Chains Per Side and Forward Pulling Mini Bands
65x5
65x5 - add bands and chains
155x5
205x5
245x5
295x5
315x5 - PR

C1) Snatch Grip Deadlifts
3x10

D1) Poor Man Band Assisted Inverse Curls
3x10

E1) Reverse Hyper
3x20

F1) Seated Band Abduction
3x20
F2) Wtd Sit Ups off GHR
4x10