I had a great meet yesterday at the USAPL Holiday Classic. Huge meet PR on my total and all three lifts. It was at Blinnergy in Woodinville, WA, which had a great layout and setup for a PL meet. The meet was also livestreamed on YouTube, which was pretty cool, and I linked to the timestamps of my third attempts below.
Link to my results on Liftingcast
I’m 41 so I competed in Master 1, and I weighed in at 104.4kg so I was in the 110kg weight class. This was my fourth meet overall and first full power meet in USAPL. My last full power meet was a USPA meet in September 2024.
Total: 605kg (+57.5kg meet PR)
BW: 104.4kg
Dots: 365.7 (+38)
I had the second highest total at the entire meet and got drug tested for the first time!
Squat
- Attempt 1: 200kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 2: 210kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 3: 220kg ⚪⚪⚪
+7.5kg meet PR. I saw a lot of other lifters before me get two reds for depth so I knew my depth had to be undeniable. On my third attempt I got a little nervous, rushed the descent and bottomed out, so I had some form breakdown, my hips shot up first and I almost got folded, but I had enough push in me to get them back under the bar and lock it out.
Bench
- Attempt 1: 115kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 2: 120kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 3: 125kg ⚪🔴⚪
+10kg meet PR, I have benched more in training but played it safe due to the long start and press commands. I breathe in before I unrack, so I was holding my breath for what felt like forever and running out of oxygen waiting for the start command. The weight felt pretty light though, no sticking point. Got one yellow card from the center ref, for what I have no idea (lmk if you see something), but good lift so it's whatever.
Deadlift
- Attempt 1: 235kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 2: 250kg ⚪⚪⚪
- Attempt 3: 260kg ⚪⚪⚪
+22.5kg meet PR. My second attempt was smooth so I knew I had a shot at this, but I was worried it would be a hard grind. At the end of the previous block I pulled a 565lbs deadlift but it was shaky and ugly, and this was 8lbs more than that, but it moved really well. That’s the difference a good peak and taper makes.
Meet prep
I'm self coached and wrote my own program with a basic upper/lower split with a third upper day for bench. Offseason I basically do static RPE and adjust according to my fatigue level. In meet prep I just ramped up the RPE of the primary singles and backoffs over the five weeks prior and tapered the final week, hitting my openers a week out and then doing light squat and bench on Mon & Wed of meet week. This went really well, I felt both strong and fresh on meet day.
My training split looks like this:
- Mon: Primary bench (1x1 then 3x3), OHP, single arm lat pulldowns, triceps pushdowns, preacher curls
- Tue: Primary squat (1x1 then 2x5), RDL
- Thu: Secondary bench (2x8), then same accessories as Mon
- Fri: Primary deadlift (1x1, 1x3, 1x5) then secondary squat (2x8)
- Sat: Tertiary bench, an easy 3x5, then wide grip, flared elbow bent over rows, then weighted dips
Congrats! What a solid day, and way to trust your own training and taper. Good luck at the next one!
Congrats! Curious about your program - it looks relatively low volume. Was that an intentional decision / have you noticed that works well for you?
Yeah, it is low volume, particularly in terms of set count, but it's relatively high intensity and proximity to failure. I think it works better for me because I'm heavier and older than the average powerlifter. On my accessories I just do two hard sets of 8-10 reps to 0-1 RIR each. I have found that adding more sets fatigues me much more, reduces my motivation, and makes my workouts take longer. I lift in my garage gym in the morning before work and I only get about an hour, so I need to keep things moving.