suggestions to stay in "meet shape"

[Cole Gorton]

I run the 3 day TM for Powerlifting as written in the grey book (pg 138) for meet prep. Outside of meet prep I am going to do 3 day TM with rotating I-days. However, as the weight on the bar is going up, my volume days are getting long. I can imagine at some point after squatting 405x5x5 with 10 minute breaks I wont have much left for Bench. The grey book suggests going to a 4 day split. That will work for me for development blocks but not for meet prep, since I really need the Squat-press-pull setup to mimmick meet conditions. Any suggestions on how to transition back to the 3 day full body method after months of doing a split, without having to spend 2-3 hours on volume day, but also not losing the gains I made on the 4 day split?

[Mark Rippetoe]

That will work for me for development blocks but not for meet prep, since I really need the Squat-press-pull setup to mimmick meet conditions.

I don't think any experienced lifter would tell you this is necessary. You need to do heavy singles, but I don't know of any really good lifter who did squat/bench/deadlift at max loads on the same day in training.