1 Week Out from UPA Summer Showdown in Cleveland, OH - Competing Raw @ 220lbs

Following XPC Finals in March; I was beat up, my hip injuries were really bad, and I was extremely run down from a vicious cycle of lack of sleep and my anxiety and depression. I took the following 9 weeks and used this program to let myself recover, build some much needed muscle, and improve my aerobic base (which had gotten awful): Check out the full program HERE

After using that program, and getting some major sleep improvements with some new medication; I was feeling dramatically better both physically and mentally and transitioned into using 5/3/1 to get the main lifts back on track, and then transitioned that program into how I'm training now.

The past few months I've been hitting rep PRs almost every week, and while I still have my rough moments, my mental health and sleep is better than it has been in years. I've also been tracking my recovery better with the Coaching Assessments I've been testing on myself and the attention I've been paying to recovery/restorative methods and training sub-maximally has been paying off.  Normally within the last few weeks of training before a meet I'm beat up, miserable, depressed, and can't sleep. My last day of this training cycle I hit an overhead press PR, and in general I feel pretty awesome. I've set conservative goals for this meet, but I'm excited for it and feel like I'm going to have a great time.

I'll go more into some specific things I believe helped in training after I make sure the meet actually goes well haha - But overall I'd hands down the two best choices I made since March were:

  • Paying more attention to Stress Response and adjusting my recovery, habits, and training accordingly
  • Doing my own programming and taking 100% control over how I train. 

I'll make sure to write out some more once the meet is done, but this has been a great experience and I'm enjoying training more than I ever have before.

For Coaching & Programming Questions, feel free to contact me at joeschillero@gmail.com

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