Returning to powerlifting, please critique my plan.

[kettlebellnathan]

Hey guys, I am former powerlifter (4 years competing) who spent the last two years in skinny land. Playing sports and looking pretty. Anyways, I am sick of seeing people who are stronger than me and am returning to the platform.

For the last three months I have been rebuilding my base, here was my basic routine:

FSQ 5x5
BP 5x5
DL 5x5

3-4 days per week, plus kettlebell GPP twice per week top keep some variety of movement. I definitely got stronger and put some muscle on doing this, especially in the back and ass!

I have pretty much milked this program and am thinking of a weekly plan something like this:

• Upper Body Max Effort, rotating between bench, incline bench, floor press, pluss acc work
• Lower Body Max Effort, rotating between back squat, FSQ, deadlift, plus acc work
• Full body hypertrophy, higher reps, nothing too stressfull, different movements than in the ME days
• kettlebell conditioning work

I know the kettlebell stuff is kind of wierd here but it is a passion of mine. They will be taking a back seat in terms of intensity compared to the lifting though.

Any ideas moving from my super basic routine would be appreciated. Thanks!

[coachdavidh]

I would add in any explosive exercises you can, as part of a dynamic day to balance out the maximum effort days you are already putting in. Whether you use the Olympic lifts, or a version of contrast and/or band training, I would definitely spend some time developing your explosiveness.

[Frank.S]

dynamic / speed work is great.. if you are slow, if you are fast you wont get much out of it.

You really have only 2 days there that are going to help powerlifting much. With regular powerlifting training, hypertrophy will come just fine if your eating enough. I would have a full day for squatting and/or deadlifting for reps as well as the ME days sometimes are not enough volume for many.

[Frank.S]

also - front squats for ME are not very common, they wont have near the carryover to the back squat for most as a good morning / squat variation.

[kettlebellnathan]

Thanks guys. A speed day will certainly do me well. I will replace hypertrophy days with speed days in a few weeks. I am naturally slow, and used speed work with bands and chains in the past so they will help me.

For some reason I get a lot out of front squats, I tend to collapse in heavy back squats and front squats really increase my ability to stay upright. That being said, I have been mixing box squats into ME day more often.

After training heavy for the last few months I have noticed that heavy ab and p-chain will be incredibly important to my success.

Thanks again!

[AdamD]

How do you measure your speed? Does that just mean fast twitch response?

[NorthernWisco]

how fast the bar moves is how i measure speed