Meet Prep Plan?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey BBM crew,

Thanks so much for all the great content. I’ve been running some of your templates for a while now and making really excellent gains.

I’ve run the Beginner Template and am now about half way through the Bridge 1.0. I was planning on running some other templates for general strength, but I recently was encouraged to compete in a powerlifting meet later this summer. This would be my first ever meet, and I’m pretty excited to try it out!

I had a few questions about how best to structure my peak. I’ve been training with barbells inconsistently for several years. I was somewhat recently diagnosed with Lupus, so I’ve had a lot of starting and stopping, but I think we’ve got my treatment working properly now and I’ve been training very consistently now for about 6 months.

My current plan is to:

  1. Finish The Bridge 1.0
  2. Complete a 3-week peak from the Peaking Template
  3. Run Strength 1 up to the meet. This would have me peaking 1 week prior to the meet so I’d need to add an extra week somewhere in there.

So, my questions are:

  1. Is this a good plan? I should have the time available to train up to 4 days a week, even. Would Powerlifting 2 be a better starting point?
  2. Is there a better use of the ~4 week timeframe between templates?
  3. If I need to add an additional week, should it be to the end of The Bridge 1.0 or the beginning of the following template?

Here are my stats:
30yo M
5’9"
175lbs, 34" waist

e1RMs (calculated from my current lifts in The Bridge):
Squat - 280lb
Bench - 215lb
Deadlift - 345lb

I’m trying to decrease my body fat for health outcomes - would love to compete at 165lb weight class, but not exceptionally important. 165 was my goal weight before deciding to do the meet anyway. But, I would want to run the meet prep template at maintenance or a slight surplus to maximize strength gains.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!

2

In general, I think that folks should try to time our strength templates with their meets rather than try and modify the template and that’s what I’d do here. As far as what to do in the time before that, you can run the bridge and then the first 4 weeks over again or something like that.

I don’t know if PL II will be better for you. Based on your training history, I worry that it may be too much volume at this point. I’d stick with PL I/Strength I for now.

As far as weight management, I would probably just maintain your current weight for now and not cut or gain. Your waist is right in that gray area and I’d bet it goes down during the template.

-Jordan

3

Thanks for the information, Dr. Feigenbaum! Lining up the end of Strength 1 with my meet was the plan - sorry I didn’t communicate that well before.

I was curious about the volume for PL2 as well, seems like it might be on the edge, so I’d prefer erring on the conservative side here. I’ll go with Strength 1. PL2 will be there, as you say :slight_smile:

That puts me peaking right at meet time, assuming the 13th week of Strength 1 ends with a meet day peak. Once I finish The Bridge 1.0, I’ll have 4 weeks to fill with something. I like the idea of running the first part of The Bridge 1.0 again. I also have The Bridge 3.0 and PB1 if either of those might be a better option? If it makes no difference, I might just pick whatever sounds the most interesting.

In either case, I’ll forgo the first peak and work on building volume into Strength 1. And I’ll eat at maintenance so I can keep managing fatigue well.

4

I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the mentioned templates for the 4 weeks and would definitely pick the most interesting one :slight_smile: