A few things have hit me this past week:
- After we ran the small, in-house mock meet, I really miss the weightlifting programming.
- I have gained weight. Not good weight. Comparing my videos to some a few months ago it is obvious.
- The intensity of my workouts needs to increase. A lot. I think that will help with the weight gain.
- I want to change my program up but I want to continue the squat program that I am on.
- The accessory work I have been doing has made a noticeable difference in my back and core strength
So what to do from here?
I have a program from Catalyst which uses a lot of EMOMs in the training that looks pretty promising, but my squat program most likely won’t fit into that template. I might have to consider abandoning the squat program all together and starting fresh with a new cycle. The one program I have looked at, one of our other masters lifters has followed with success. I briefly went through one or two weeks, looking at the progressions, and there appears to be a lot of heavy singles in there, so we will see how that goes.
There is not a lot of accessory work similar to what I have been doing. I can always add that in but need to gauge the time of each training session and the impact it has on my body first.
A conversation I had with a fellow lifter yesterday was pretty encouraging, though. He said that one of the reasons the past 4 weeks has probably been so good for me was that it was just training. There was no added pressure of preparing for a meet. There is probably a lot of truth to that. I have for so long put this massive pressure on myself to qualify for Masters Nationals and every meet felt like it was the last chance I would have to do it. My fear was always the total requirements being raised beyond my ability, so I worked tirelessly to meet the current numbers, only to find them just out of reach.
But through all of this, especially helping coach other athletes, it has helped me enjoy the process more. I have been able to hit PRs, beyond 40 years old, in a sport that is notoriously tough on the body. Despite what I have been through, I still feel stronger than ever and have the drive to continue.