Peaking my squat for a PL meet

[hamburgerfan]

I'll be competing in my second powerlifting meet this december, and I'm looking for advice for how to program my squat leading up to it. My best squat is 485 raw as of friday. Knee wraps are allowed in the competition.

I just finished an extremely high volume squat program (smolov base phase) which took me to 485, so realistically speaking I probably won't gain much on my squat from volume before the meet. Any gains I make will probably be from peaking my 1RM and getting used to squatting in wraps.

I was thinking about squatting twice a week, one day of fives and one of singles. These will be ramped to 1 top set. I would do the first few sets raw, until I reach a fairly heavy one and then I would add wraps and do one or two more with heavier weights. I would do this for 5 weeks, and take a light week before the meet.

How does this setup sound? Does it sound reasonable, or are there better programming options for this situation?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sounds like a return to a modified TM to me. Are the 5s sets across? How many? How many singles.

[hamburgerfan]

Sounds like a return to a modified TM to me. Are the 5s sets across? How many? How many singles.

I was planning on doing ramped sets rather than sets across until after the meet. The logic being that since I just got done with an extremely high volume program, I would be better off putting more weight on the bar for a top set rather than pushing the volume even more.

4-6 sets of 5 and up to 6 heavy singles was what I had in mind. Your thoughts?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Taper the volume and intensity of both over the six weeks. Two weeks out, do 2 triples, one week out do a double, instead of the 5s. Singles all the way through, wraps and belt on all the singles.

[hamburgerfan]

Do you recommend using wraps for the heaviest set of five? I used them tonight, and the workout didn't go so well. Ended up losing my balance and dumping the bar. I'm not sure of using wraps for sets of five is a poor idea, or if I just need to practice squatting in the more often. What do you think?

[Mark Rippetoe]

You have to practice using the wraps, so use them for all the last warm-up sets and heavier.