I’ve stated a number of times in previous blogs that my goals for this powerlifting meet were 550-600/400-415/675-700. After my post on alcohol and powerlifting, I pointed out my mistakes and overstepping my MRV (maximum recoverable volume). Well, that trend continued. As of the MRV post, I was just about done my deload of my last strength block and about to go into a 2 week peak for the RPS New England Revolution on 4/2/16. The peaking was going just as bad as the last part of the strength block. I cut down volume after the first half of the first peaking week, planning on dropping intensity over the last half of that week with a priming week to follow. On the last high intensity day (competition deadlifts 90%x2x2), one the first rep of the first set, the bar got away from me, I tried to recover and got stuck in the middle. I put the weight down and immediately felt pain in my lumbar spine. Mind you, the pain didn’t feel that bad, just kind of an uhhh that’s probably not good. I waited about 10 minutes in the hook lying position, got up, set up for the pull, but could barely get into my starting position. I scratched the rest of the deadlifts and moved onto squats (60%x2x3). I tried the empty bar, got about half way down, and felt the pain worse than when I pulled.
You might be wondering, why are you telling me this? Great, you hurt your back. This was Friday and the meet was the following Saturday, 8 days later. The next morning I woke up and could barely bend down to tie my shoes. As a physical therapist, I had easier access to anti-inflammatory modalities and I knew how to manage it appropriately to get rid of the pain ASAP. I was still contemplating competing. I wanted so badly to hit those numbers. The past 5 months of hard work essentially going to waste, I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I wanted new maxes off of which to base my training. I wanted to reap the benefits of the new program. Ultimately, I withdrew from the competition as the health care practitioner inside of me knew better. So I did not achieve my goals and my new maxes were not set.
Was the last 5 months a total waste? No. In fact, it was probably better this way. It forced me to reflect on all the mistakes I made, forced me to further my knowledge of programming, and forced me to critique every aspect of my technique. My back has improved significantly since then. The plan had 3 weeks of active rest built into it after the competition. I had to take the week prior to the competition completely off to let my back settle down. I’m doing 50% volume and intensity for non-competition lifts during the active rest phase with lumbar rehab exercises, SMR, lower extremity stretches, and other miscellaneous soft tissue work or rehab work that needs to be done. So there’s my powerlifting meet review and what came out of the whole situation. Hopefully you can gain some insight from my mistakes and the decisions I made.