First Entry--Post Olympia Training

First of all I'd like to introduce myself: My name is Dan Green and I have been competing in the sport of powerlifting since 2007. I live in Mountain View, California and have always competed as a 220. I run a small lifting club called Boss Barbell Club and am excitied to announce that within the next month or so we will be moving from my 2-car garage into a sizable space near downtown Mountain View.

I'd also like to thank Chad for the invitation to post my workouts here and all the readers who take the time to look into my training and perspectives... Here we go...

So in my last two meets I won the Clash for Cash in New Orleans by hitting the world record total of 2030 raw at 220 and finished second in the USPA Olympia Deadlift Only Invitational. I lifted 821 in the 220 class.

To finish out the year I plan on competing again November 3rd at Supertraining Gym in Sacramento and then again December 1st in Oregon at the USPA West Coast Open.

Both of these meets are raw with knee wraps so most of my squat training over the next two months will be with wraps.

This first log will hopefully catch everything up from what I've done since the Olympia...

I took about a week off from training following the Olympia as my right shoulder had become extremely sore and inflamed from "something"...


Saturday, October 6

Today my training partner Mike Zundelevich and I made the two hour drive from Mountain View to Sacramento to train at Mark Bell's SuperTraining Gym. Mark had invited me out there and the plan was to do some squatting with the "Rhino" Stan Efferding. They told me Stan was intending to make a 900 squat attempt so I was pretty interested to see how this workout woud go... not to mention excited... This was also my first time squatting in wraps since October 2011

In knee sleeves...

BW squats... a lot... getting blood flow to my knees and quads

Bar (65) 3 sets x 5

155 2x5
245 1x5
335 1x3
425 1x2
515 1x1
605 1x1

with wraps... (Metal Silvers 2.5m)

705x1 ... wraps a little loose, lost balance a little...ok for feeling out the wraps
755x1 ... felt easy...thought about a double but I had 800 on my mind...
800x1 ... Hit it for a 40lb pr... felt hard but balanced ... could be a second attempt at the Nov 3 meet

So I hit 800 and Stan made a 905 squat...
check the link below for video footage



Sunday, October 7

Sunday is generally a bench day. I usually have a target weight x reps to hit paused then follow a general template after that...

Bench
45x15
95x10
135x5
185x5
225x4
275x3
315x2
...with pauses...
365x1
405x1
430x5 (rep PR)
430x4

My power off my chest felt great, but my tightness and lockout felt all over the place. My strength was good because I'd lifted infrequently over the last month with the two contests, but I could tell my work capacity was reduced. I hit three sets of touch and go benching for added volume and was done.

405x4x3sets

Monday, October 8

Monday is normally a squat day, and since I'd just back squatted Saturday today was slated as a front squat day. Where I generally like very low rep, heavy back squats for honing in techniquae for a meet, I feel that front squatting for relatively high volume benefits my strength even more so because of my leg length. In other words, front squats allow me to train my quads much harder so that I'll have the leg strength to hit back squats I'd otherwise turn into good mornings...

And since as I said earlier my upcoming meets will be with wraps, I am front squatting with wraps as well...

wearing knee sleeves...

BW for a lot to warm up knees and quads
45x2x5
135x5
225x5
315x5
405x5

with knee wraps...

500x6
550x4
600x1

This was only my second ever wrapped front squat workout... The wraps definitely give a nice pop out of the hole and really allowed me to not only train the quads hard but to really overload all the erectors and traps with all the extra weight handled. None of these sets were down to max reps but on all the sets I just felt like I was getting exhausted from having so much more weight than usual racked across the chest... These are actually supposed to be really hard I'm just whining a bit here and making excuses ;)