Hi everyone! I have just completed Week 4 of the Powerbuilding template and have enrolled in a powerlifting meet in early November. As it works out, I will have completed the Powerbuilding template 3 weeks before the meet, so I was planning to do the 3 week peaking template afterwards. Does this make sense? This will be my third meet and I have had good results with the peaking template, but I wonder if I should modify the Powerbuilding template (by doing the comp lifts instead of the supplemental lifts?) or swap Powerbuilding for something like Strength 1?
Having great results with my bench on Powerbuilding with my squat and deadlift pretty much staying the same based on e1RM.
I am:
female,
58 years old
57 kilos
squat 1rm: 170 lbs
bench: 90 lbs
deadlift: 220 lbs
My training history is SSNLP and Strong lifts for years (?!) The Bridge twice and the 3 week Peaking Template once.
I don’t own the powerbuilding templates, but your post seems to imply that it doesn’t program each competition lift at least once a week, which I would have considered unlikely, but I don’t actually know.
So if they already have the competition lifts programmed once a week, then I’d say you’re good. Even if they don’t, I’d expect you would do well with the programming, but it is reasonable* to think that you would do marginally better on the pure “Strength 1” program when it comes meet time.
*there are always deviations from the mean response. Some individuals may respond even better with Powerbuilding vs Strength 1, or respond radically better (as opposed to marginally) with Strength 1 over Powerbuilding.
Hopefully these thoughts help you come to your own programming decisions, as presumably, you know how you respond to training better than anyone else on these forums, and you are the one that are invested in the results.
One thing I’m learning is that these templates are a best guess as to how a random person should respond, but it’s up to the individual to figure out what works best. You, for example, see your bench improving but not the other two lifts. The advice I’m reading from Mike Tuchscherer is stick with what works until it doesn’t. If you know the bridge worked better for the other lifts, then follow that protocol instead for those lifts and keep doing what you’re doing on the bench. You already know the peaking template worked, so definitely do that again.
Maybe the strength template could work better, but if you have some past experience with a programming block that worked, then doing that again makes more sense then risking doing something new.
Thank you so much for the advice. I gather from your responses that it’s not unheard of to do relatively higher volume sets before a meet. Not used to these high volumes so I may actually be underestimating my RPE on my sets of 8 or 10 – I could have more reps in the tank, but I the set becomes such a grind after the 6th or 7th rep that I really, really don’t want to do any more. I may just stick with Powerbuilding as written after all, just to see how I respond to these loads. That’s what nice about being a 57 kilo Masters 2 female lifter, you can often place at a local meet if you make the board with sucky numbers just because you’re the only one in your division.
The peaking template you plan on wrapping up with should go a good ways towards taking any gainzZz from the hypertrophy template and specifying then to the 1RM attempts.
The general rule of thumb is to dial back volume, increase relative intensity, and increase specificity before a meet. But the peaking template (I assume) already does that. So then it’s a matter of figuring out what will drive a strength adaptation for you up to that point. Don’t be afraid to pivot your SQ and DL back to the bridge rep ranges if you had success with them.