Monday, October 01, 2007

There Is Never A "Perfect" Time

I came to realize this while I was gone.

The stars never line up exactly.

It always costs twice as much and takes three times as long.

Nothing just "happens."

Tomorrow never comes.

And I'm not getting any younger.

All cliche-y for sure, but the reality is I want to move on with my life both personally and professionally and I must chase my dream now.

I must train to compete. I must train to place. I must train to win.

So I've found two weightlifting meets: One is in NC on the 27th of October and the other is the 3rd of November in SC. I must total 292kg qualify for the American Open in December and 295kg to qualify for the Nationals in February.

Is 5 weeks enough time? I'm about to find out. Some of my indicators tell me so. I've got all the tools that I need and a fully operational body (for the most part). It's time to get going.

My plan is to train 6 days per week, Monday thru Saturday. M/W/F will be practicing the lifts and T/Th/Sa is pure strength training. I am wary of several things:
  • In order to train at this frequency, daily volume must be kept fairly low, especially on strength days
  • I must get under the bar routinely making it comfortable and automatic
  • I must practice recovery: sleep, creatine, and R-Phase
  • Along with the increased physical work, I must increase my spiritual work in order to keep from burning out emotionally: I am getting up 30-60 minutes early for "prayer walks." This of course also means that I have to go to bed earlier too.
Today's training:

A. (1 Power Snatch + 2 Overhead Squats)/3
50kg/3, 60/3, 70/3, 80/3
Felt pretty easy and good to be under the bar. Knees pain free. Should be able to ride this up to around 80% or so.

B. (1 Power Clean + 3 Front Squats + 1 Power Jerk)/2
70kg/2, 80/2, 90/2, 100/2
The 100kg felt right on the money with the 90kg feeling the "best." I've got about 20-30kg left on this combination right now. So room to grow.

Tomorrow is strength day. Because I need to get under the bar, I will perform some form of squatting every day, either low intensity/low volume or higher intensity/very low volume.

6 Comments:

Blogger Anthony Springman said...

Good Luck Geoff,
IMHO I would not "do some sort of squat everyday." Easy does it- see how your knee progesses.

9:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geoff I have been meaning to say that your article on T-nation on OL squats vs. PL squats is excellent!

Goals are great and sometimes necessary and no time like the present to reach those goals.

take care buddy,

10:11 AM  
Blogger Mike T Nelson said...

Good luck Geoff and as always, be sure to listen to your body during the process.

Nice article with Mike Robertson on T-mag. I was hoping for more of a "debate" from an entertainment stand point, but great info! Nice work!

Rock on
Mike N

10:13 AM  
Blogger Geoff Neupert said...

Anthony, The daily squat will be as much as a 5RM or as little as just squatting w/ the bar. I used to be naive/foolish enough to think I could really squat every day. The point is to condition my mind/will as much as my body.

KJ and Mike, glad you liked the article. It was originally titled, "Getting Stronger or Lifting More" but apparently it was edited. I was surprised honestly that there wasn't more "kickback" regarding box squatting, etc. Glad people are open to learning.

12:31 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Good luck and God speed. You can do it.

6:35 PM  
Blogger Franz Snideman said...

Great post Geoff. nice to hear that are really putting to use all the years of training, education and so forth.

So true about "the stars never aligning perfectly" or waiting for condition to be just right. That just doesn't happen. You have to go out there and make it happen and earn it!

11:40 PM  

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