I want to apologize to those in the EliteFTS community that have been following my log. The past two months have been kind of a chaotic time in my life, and I unfairly put logging my offseason training on the backburner keeping up with some transitions that are coming my way. I have honestly missed too many logging opportunities to try and catch up on what I've been up to. But now that my short (for me) 12 week offseason has come to a close, I'd like to give you guys an update of what's going on in my life, what I learned from this hypertrophy block, and how I'm going to apply those lessons going forward going into prep for my upcoming meet. Although I have thoroughly enjoyed the break from heavy training and had a ton of fun with the bodybuilding style training I've been doing, I am really looking forward to competing at Boss of Bosses 3 on August 20th. Training kicked off for me last week (will update y'all on that in my next post) and I'm currently 11 weeks out. I have decided to go up a weight class to the 242's, and also will be dropping the knee wraps to compete against the big boys in sleeves. There's a few reasons why I'm opting to compete in sleeves. First, was the current all-time 220 lb total world record holder Kevin Oak getting in my ear about competing in sleeves. Kevin and I started competing around the same time, and I did my first two powerlifting meets with him. I've developed a tremendous amount of respect for him watching him develop as an athlete since we started, and respect his opinions a lot. After he heard I'd be attending Boss of Bosses, he reached out to me and asked if I'd compete in sleeves as he was trying to get all the big dogs in the 242's in one giant head to head match-up. At first, I was reluctant to accept his challenge because I've always competed in wraps, and had my mind on trying to hit the 2100 lb total mark after competing at the Arnold. But after giving it some time, I realized I was just being a wuss and not stepping up to the plate for a rewarding, potentially once in a lifetime challenge. After talking it over with my coach, Mike Mastell, we made the commitment to competing in sleeves. Through talking to a few other competitors who have made the transition from competing raw with wraps to sleeves, I learned about a few other key factors that helped strengthen my resolve to make this transition. Some guys I talked to felt like competing in sleeves (slightly) reduced the overall risk for injury due to the fact that you're handling a little less weight than you normally would be if you were squatting in wraps. Staying healthy should always be a lifter's number one priority in training, but for this prep it is even more important for me. I am currently trying to begin my career as a professional firefighter, and have recently made it as far as I ever have into the formal hiring process for two local departments. An injury would mean I wouldn't be able to proceed in the hiring process, so this is the literally the most inopportune time to get hurt in my powerlifting career. By opting to compete in sleeves and putting extra stock in my programming coach, mobility coach, and physical therapists, I feel like I can manage the risk of injury appropriately enough to proceed forward with meet prep even with an important job opportunity coming up., The same lifters I spoke to told me that squatting in sleeves has helped save their backs for the deadlift, again due to the fact that you're handling a bit less weight overall, and they've gone on to hit bigger deadlift PR's in unwrapped meet performance versus being wrapped up. Considering I've shit the bed on my deadlift in my past two meets, I will take whatever perceived advantage I can to finally hit a meet deadlift that represents what I'm truly capable of. Now, onto what I learned this offseason through training like a bro. Although I fell behind on the individual workout logs that would give you the most complete scope on how I approached this offseason, I can break it down in a TL;DR format for you. Lesson 1: Pre-exhausting is highly underrated for powerlifting, and it's here to stay for me. This offseason, I did pre-exhaust work for the first time in my strength training career and fell in love with it. It sort of goes against the intuition of strength athletes wanting to be as fresh as possible for the main lift of the day. However, pre-exhausting gave me an opportunity to remain focused on the objective of this training block - hypertrophy, NOT trying to chase weight on the bar! After getting a good sweat and a pump going prior to the main lift, pre-exhausting forced me to focus on the quality of the work being done on the main lift and not be so worried that I was using significantly less weight than my competition PR's. I also noticed I went into the main lift warmed up better and with my joints felt great. This approach will definitely be incorporated into future offseason training. For the squat and deadlift, I typically pre-exhausted with GHR's, 45 degree hypers, and seated/lying hamstring curls. For the bench press, I mostly did pronated dumbbell flies, but also incorporated some high rep dumbbell pressing and rear delt work. Bands and intensity techniques, such as rest/pause sets forced stretches, isometric holds, and drop sets, were also periodically rotated throughout the block on those exercises to alter the stimulus. Lesson 2: Don't be afraid of strength loss during hypertrophy phases At the beginning of the program, I was a little concerned that my strength levels would take a dump due to all of the pre-exhausting and lesser emphasis on pushing weight that my coach and I had planned. But early indications of meet prep, based on bar speed, have shown me that my strength is close to where I left off before the Arnold. Strength training is meant to be periodized - where you develop different physical abilities and characteristics during different times of the year. Hypertrophy is a characteristic that sometimes gets lost in a sport that's all about moving heavy shit between point A and point B. Focusing on building muscle between meets will give you a better base to work off of for your next prep. Lesson 3: My arms and rear delts, responded tremendously well to high rep training (15-25 rep sets) Pretty self explanatory here. I stepped away from the overused 3x10, 4x8, etc. rep schemes for my arm and rear delt exercises this offseason and it paid off tremendously. I found my biceps and triceps experienced more growth in the 15+ rep range in this 3 month span more than they have probably in the past year of training them with lower reps. I'll keep this in mind for my future programming. Prep started last week for BOB, update on how that's going is forthcoming.