Overshoot and cut before meet

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

I am mid 40’s early intermediate powerlifter. Since Sept 2019 I have got my squat from a wobbly 100kg to a solid enough160kg. Deadlift has gone from 120-190kg and Bench is 125kg from 100kg.
All in all things are going great and in spring 2021 I’d like to enter my first meet.
I hope to squat as close to 200kg as possible. In my age bracket that’d be a local record and I’d be thrilled to do it.

When I started this journey in September 2019 I was around 12stone10 and I now weigh 14stone8!!

I have gained a ton of muscle and feel excellent, but also a fair amount of fluff and softness.

I’m 44 though, married with kids and I’m no longer greatly interested in how I look! I have just been bitten by this 200kg squat bug.

I want to compete in the 93kg class. I currently weigh 92.5, and obviously need more muscle to meet my goals.

My waist was around 31/32 inches and is now more like 34-35inch.

My intuition says - just keep working out hard and keep pumping in those good quality calories (around 3400kcal per day) then when I get to target cut and adopt a lower volume/maintenance form of training?

Is this a sensible way to approach things?

Any help much appreciated.

2

Liftabit,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the forums.

A few things:

  1. I would not recommend weight gain right now for you.
  2. I don’t think you need to gain weight to get stronger, as this is more of a programming thing.
  3. I wouldn’t recommend dieting heading into a meet.

Since this is your first meet and, presumably, there will be many meets in the future if you like this sort of thing, I would plan on maintaining your weight heading into the competition and seeing where the chips fall.

-Jordan

3

Hey Jordan, sounds like good advice. Will aim to stay around current weight with daily weighing and a little more focus on dietary discipline and continuation of solid training.

Thanks so much for your thoughts!