I’m currently in meet prep for the 2016 APF Illinois State Meet, in Sycamore, Illinois. I will be competing at 148 pounds, raw (without wraps). At this meet I will just be taking token lifts to qualify for APF Equipped Nationals which is in Orlando, Florida where I will be competing at 132 pounds, raw with knee wraps. As such, the bigger picture is to prep for this meet, and obtain a top three placing to qualify for WPC Worlds in November.

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Saturday's squat training was a bit different than most. I came in with a good game plan, but after looking at some footage the night before I got it in my head that I needed to give squatting in flat soled shoes a go. I discussed this with my training partners, and they agreed that if my squat just looked awful and need completely redone, that I should scrap it and save it for the off season after APF Nationals. Well, it turns out that my hypothesis was right (I think I'm going to write an article on this in the coming months) that to fix my issues, going to the flat soled shoes would help prevent me from pitching forward so much and feeling like I'm going to lose the weight. My squats looked just as good, if not better than they do in my weightlifting Adipower shoes. I opted to run with it for the day and see how things turned out, and it wasn't good I wasn't going to really be in a hurting this far out from Nationals as switching back was going to be pretty easy. Needless to say I think I'm going to give the flat soled shoes a go for Nationals (I'm still referring out to some people to see what they think as well) and see what kind of numbers I can put up. It might make the difference for me to get over the hump and issues I've been having to crack a higher total.

Otherwise, the rest of the training session went great. The weather has been amazing lately, and after some good rest I felt good to go for this session. Still chipping away at things, and I think I'm clicking pretty well at this point. Next weekend I'll be "competing" at the meet, so I'll likely just get my training done in the warm up room. I'm not going to deload or anything because I'm just going to take about 100kg on each lift and call it a day.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Q6mZZctTY]

Items Used in this Training Session
Mini Band
Chains
EZ Loaders

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

A1) Squat
65x10
155x5
245x3
295x2
335x1
365x1
395x3
415x2x2

B1) Squat vs 3 Chains Per Side
245x3 - add chains and bands
295x3
335x3
365x3 - PR

C1) Sumo Stiff Leg Deadlifts
135x8
185x8
225x8
275x8
315x8
345x8 - PR

D1) Single Leg Box Squats
3x10 per leg

E1) Reverse Hyper
3x20

F1) Seated Band Leg Curls
100 total reps

G1) KB Swings
3x20
G2) Weighted Overhead Sit Ups off GHR
3x15