Client Case Study – John Petrizzo (Power Lifting), Part 2

Overview

In part I of this case study we looked at the “offseason” program of power lifter and strength coach John Petrizzo.  In part II we will look at his meet prep program for the RPS Long Island Heat Wave in July 2013. 

There are several important changes we made to his program for the meet prep.  First, we added much more volume in on the competition lifts.  Instead of just hitting one top set to failure (or close to it) we changed to a sets across format.  Adding in the higher volume work (5×5 in this case) allows the lifter to get in more practice with the competition lifts, and allows some fatigue to accumulate over the course of the loading period, which makes the tapering period even more effective. 

The second big change we made was the institution of a “mock meet” day on Saturdays.  Power lifting is a sport and like all sports, it places a “sport specifc” demand on the body.  The mock meet is nothing more than a workout that includes lots of singles on the squat, bench, and deadlift.  Training the squat, bench, and deadlift on their own training days is fine, but it is not uncommon to see lifters who do this gas at meets.  Especially when they get to the deadlift.  If the lifter is always used to doing deadlifts first in the workout, on their own day, he may be in for quite a surprise when meet day rolls around and he is pulling his deads on tired achy legs.  The mock meet does an excellent job of conditioning the body to go heavy on all 3 lifts in the same session.  The mock meet was intentionally placed on Saturday to get his body in tune with lifting on a Saturday morning.  I encourage all lifters to do this if they are able, especially if you are used to working out in the evenings.  Our body has a way of setting its ‘clock’ to do certain things at certain times.  Lifting heavy in the morning may not go so well if you aren’t used to it. 

 

Training Schedule

The training schedule we set up for John was very simple:

Tuesday:  Squat Volume (5×5)

Wednesday:  Bench Volume (5×5)

Saturday:  Mock Meet

 

Keeping in mind that John is limited on time with his career demands, and is a pretty strong guy, he wasn’t required to do anything other than squat on Tuesdays.  It doesn’t seem like that much on paper, but 5 work sets of squats with 8-10 minutes of rest between sets can easily take 60-90 minutes, especially if you are slow to warm up  (like me!).  If one wanted to add in assistance work to this day, things like ab work, back extensions, reverse hypers, etc could all be performed although I’m not convinced they help all that much.  If you wanted to be a bit more aggressive with your selection of assistance exercises then movements like goodmornings or power cleans are good choices.  As you will see in just a bit though, we did John’s pulling volume at the end of his mock meet sessions. 

On Wednesday’s Bench Presses were also trained with 5×5 across with long rest periods.  Bench Presses are not as fatiguing as squats, nor are they as complete an exercise, so I generally like to include standing overhead presses as an assistance lift on this day.  Done strictly, this is an excellent movement to strengthen the shoulders (and keep them healthy), the upper chest, and the all-important triceps.  2-3 sets of 5-8 reps is appropriate when trained after the volume Bench Presses.  John didn’t do any more than this, but certainly some additional tricep work could be added.  However, it is important to remember that in 72 hours, the bench will be trained again for heavy singles, so we want to avoid creating excessive soreness and fatigue that will hinder progress on Saturday. 

Saturday’s mock meet trains the Squat and the Bench Press for 5 singles across, and the Deadlift works up to just one heavy set.  At the beginning of the cycle we had John pulling his target weights for 3-5 reps.  Over the course of 7 weeks, we lowered his target reps to 2-3 and eventually to 1-2.  We have the option after the deadlifts to pull 1-2 sets of Stiff Leg Deadlifts for sets of 5.  The back off sets are an easy way to accumulate some pulling volume without having to pull from the floor twice per week.  The choice to do the extra deadlifting volume is an individual one that varies from lifter to lifter.  John puts a TON of focus and intensity into his deadlifting sets (and therefore a TON of fatigue) and I’m not sure that he actually did the back off work on most weeks. 

Tapering

After six weeks on the following schedule, it was time to taper down for Meet day, which was set to occur at the end of week 8.  I have a very specific deloading/tapering plan that I use for intermediate/advanced lifters prior to a power lifting meet, that starts approximately 10 days out from the meet.   

Here is the basic template that I used for John:

 Week 6:

Tuesday:  Volume Squat

Wednesday:  Volume Bench + Assistance

Saturday:  Mock Meet (Last heavy day of singles)

 

Week 7:

Tuesday:  Volume Squat (last volume day – hit new 5×5 PR)

Wednesday:  Volume Bench (last volume day – hit new 5×5 PR) + Assistance

Saturday:  Mock Meet (work up to openers only, approximately 90% of last week)

*Mimic meet conditions as much as possible.  Use commands, etc

 

Week 8:

Tuesday or Wednesday:  Squat 3x2x80%;  Bench 3x2x80%

Saturday:  Meet Day

 

Notes

Below (in quotes) are a few random excerpts directly from the documents that I sent over to John after our consultation:

“Try and stay with 5×5 as long as possible.  If you can’t make all 5 sets across in the latter weeks then you can just do like 1 set of 5 with the target weight and then back off about 5% and do the latter 4 sets with a slightly lighter weight.  It is important that we keep the volume up though.  You will reap the rewards during out deload at the end of week 7.  Ditto with the 5 singles across.  Make the sets across for as many weeks as possible, then just make your target single and back off 5% and do your last 4 sets with lighter weight.”

On the Bench Press plan:

“These numbers will probably seem very easy in the first few weeks.  One thing you can do to make things harder is do everything with as close a grip as you can.  As the weeks go by you can start sliding your grip out.  This is a way to “make a light weight feel heavy” and it has been shown over and over again that doing close grip work has tremendous carryover to the heavy stuff.  You can do this on the 5×5 work and the singles.”  

 

Results  

John totaled 1460 at the RPS Long Island Heatwave in July.  Almost exactly 1 year before he totaled 1250 at the RPS Long Island Insurrextion.  210 lbs in one year!