Sanity check: Any reason not to drive on as prescribed?
Ha! That was a great line to end your post!Originally Posted by Geoff Bischoff
Let's say you do nationals and by that point you're a solid 4 months into post novice, early intermediate training. There is certainly plenty of variance, but kind of like a lot of people's LP lasts around 4 months, a lot of people seem to make weekly progress for around 4 months. I'd say continue as you're doing, making weekly progress, but do 2 things:
1. Instead of going with the strategy of doing intensity day fives till they fail or nearly fail, then 3s, then 2s, then 1s - which leads to an unknown end date, plan things out a bit so you're down to hitting singles the previous two weeks or so before the meet. It's a big meet after all, you're traveling and making a whole trip out of it, and 4 months into intermediate training is a reasonable time to actually taper down a bit and hit a real PR, not just doing the meet in lieu of normal training.
2. Pay close attention to your fatigue, and taper the volume down a few weeks before the meet, too. Don't necessarily have to do this as much as a more advanced lifter on Block would, but if you're doing 5x5 every volume day, drop a set a few weeks out, drop another set the next week, and the week leading up to the meet on what would normally be volume day, hit your opener and just do a couple back off sets of five (or 3x3) at 10-15% less weight than your volume usually would be at. So this isn't a true, full, 100% taper and peak, but is kind of a softened one, more appropriate for a still pretty new trainee, but one who is no longer a rank novice or even fresh intermediate, and who has likely accumulated some fatigue whose dissipation will result in a better expression of strength built over the previous months.
