Peaking for a meet

With the Eastern Bloc training philosophy, when peaking for a meet you want to keep your strength you built during the off-season and transitional periods with multiple sets of low reps in the 60-85%, you want your tendons recover and be fresh for the meet, you want to supercompensate and maximize the accummulated strength and you want to keep your motor learning skills at high level.

What happens when the traditional peaking is used when you cut the main lifts 2 weeks out and only do light assistance before the meet? I think you lose a bit the motor learning skills/patterns and focus on assistance which is completely irrelevant at this point.

Assistance lifts are done in the prep phases to improve muscle balance and to help local hypertrophy. 2 weeks out before your meet you are pretty much done with both these objectives. I never understood the philosophy: "the last week or two before the meet I do not deadlift anymore, I just do some light reverse hypers and abs".

I believe you should do quite the contrary: cut out all assistance and keep doing your classical lifts in order to keep your form and motor learning skills as long as possible right through the meet. You should at the same time lower volume and intensity to let your body recover, supercompensate and be ready to kill some PR's. Frequency does not have to be lowered at all or very little if the volume and intensity numbers are managed well. Remember, increased frequency will keep your motor learning skills right up to the meet.

Ever wondered why Pozdeev can pull over 880 in every meet he enters and he is light 240 yet Western style lifters in order to pull such numbers are usually over 275-300 lbs? It is because they rely too much on muscles to muscle the weight up and less on motor learning skills. Because Pozdeev pulls so frequently and for so many sets he can rely on his extremely efficient skills and less on muscles to pull the damn weight. This is no way to criticise Western lifters, I am just showing alternative methods, you be the judge.





So, how do we peek for a meet?

Let's try this:


5 weeks out:

• squat, bench and pull twice a week, squat and bench can be still 3 times a week
• 5 sets of 2-3 reps with 85%
• still doing some assistance but mostly for rehab and keeping the joints full of blood
• you feel here very tired and fatigued, maybe even weak; your joints ache

4 weeks out:

• squat, bench and pull twice a week, squat and bench can be still 3 times a week
• 4 sets of 2 reps with 90%
• cut assistance
• you feel here overtrained but don't worry the strength is there

3 weeks out:

• squat and bench twice a week, pull only once a week
• 3 sets of 1 with 90-95% (you can take 3 singles, maybe 90%, 92%, 94%)
• cut all assistance
• because the volume is down you suddenly feel the strength is peaking; you are tired as hell and achy but the strength is coming

2 weeks out:

• squat and bench twice a week, pull once a week
• 3 sets of 3 with 70-75%
• zero assistance
• you are still achy but you start feeling the strength is peaking and you are no more sluggish on the lifts = the speed is coming back

MEET week:

• squat once a week, bench once a week; no pulling
• zero assistance
• 2 sets of 2 with 50-60%
• focus on impecable form and speed
• you are now super strong and supercompensated, recovered and ready to hit some PR's :-)