End of TM, 18 weeks out

[Sean Stangl]

Hey Andy,

I'm 18 weeks out from my first PL meet, and I've run squat TM into the ground over the course of a year and a few injuries. In that time, I very rarely deadlifted, and only then with singles to not interfere with squats. With a meet in mind now, I'm wondering what would be a safe way to slightly increase my squat while reintroducing deadlifts.

I'm 24, 5'6, 188# with the following lifts:
Squat - 500x2 (record in 198 weight class is only 510) (430 5x5)
Bench - 252.5x5
Deadlift - 495x1
Press - 175x5

The 5/3/1 For Powerlifting template looks doable, but I'm worried that the reduction in squat volume and the initial 90% hit to 1RM won't translate to me safely crushing the record when meet time comes. The pyramid model from PPST2 also looks reasonable, since 5x5 has been working very well, but then I'll have the same problem with deadlift interference. So I have choices, but I'm not sure how to evaluate them with the timeframe in mind.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated -- this is new territory for me.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

My meet prep template looks like this:

Mon: Squat Volume
Tues: Bench Volume
Fri: Squat/Bench/Dead intensity day