Week 1, Day 1: New cycle, and Nationals recap!

3-position clean (hip, knee, floor) + 3 jerks: 3 sets
Back squat: 3 sets of 5 reps
Halting clean deadlift: 1 heavy set of 5 reps (at least 3 warm-up sets)

Solid opener at 60 kg!

Wow, what an incredible weekend. I don't even know where to start. I am still in awe of all of the awesome lifting we got to witness first hand. It was a very inspiring and very humbling experience.

For those of you who missed it, Steph lifted on Friday in the 58 kg class in her first ever national meet, and represented Industrious well! She made two solid snatches at 60 and 64 kg, and a VERY easy-looking 70 kg clean and jerk on her opening attempt for a 134 kg total. Great work overcoming the nerves competing at such a big meet for the first time. Awesome!

Some thanks are in order. First, a huge thank you to Molly and Stephen. Without them, we wouldn't even have a weightlifting team or the equipment that we do, and I wouldn't have the opportunity to go coach lifters at awesome events like the National Championships and the American Open. Thank you to Steph for putting in the work and trusting in my coaching to get her to Nationals. Thank you to Tyler for driving us around all weekend and sharing my enthusiasm for watching as much weightlifting as I possibly could throughout the weekend. Thank you to Piper for being there for me not only all weekend, but always, and for being supportive in my crazy enthusiasm and commitment to weightlifting and our program and always improving myself and others. Thank you to my parents for always supporting me in whatever I choose to do, and for helping us get to Ohio. And of course, a big thank you to the whole Industrious team for always being awesome, working hard every day, trusting in my coaching, and being a part of such an awesome community and training atmosphere. I can't wait to take even more of you to the American Open in December and Nationals next year!

With Nationals over, it's time to start a new training cycle and get prepared for the next big meet: the Washington State Open Championships. This meet was in October last year, and I'm expecting it to be held around the same time again. Regardless, we will plan on peaking for a big meet sometime in October. Yes, we are still going to lift in the Bad Mother Open at Thrush on the 24th, but this training cycle will really be designed to prepare us for a big meet further out. The main focus of this cycle is STRENGTH. There is not a lifter among us that does not desperately need to get stronger, and getting stronger needs to be a priority. We are going to do something a little different with the squats for this cycle, and this is intended to get our squats up as quickly and consistently as possible. Instead of the maxes and drop-sets we've been doing, we are going to do sets straight across with a working weight on the Tuesday and Thursday workouts. Tuesday will be back squats for 3-5 sets of 5 reps (always) and Thursday will be front squats for 3-5 sets of 3 reps (always). On the Saturday workouts we will go for 3 or 5 rep maxes in the back squat. Now, this next part is very important: we want to increase the weight on the bar EACH AND EVERY WEEK! We will do this systematically. On the Tuesday and Thursday workouts, we are not necessarily going as heavy as possible for all sets, but rather just heavier than last week. This first week we will start somewhat conservatively, maybe 85-90% of your 5 rep max, and the following weeks just add 2-5 kg each week. Likewise on the Saturday workouts, we want to increase that 3 or 5-rep max every week, even if it is only a kg or two. On each of these workouts, you should know what your working weight will be going in to it, and you should try to get up to that working weight as efficiently as possible. You should already be warm from the snatches and clean and jerks. And once you get to that working weight, just get your sets in there and move on. I can't stress enough the importance of increasing the weight on the bar each week, and if you get greedy and make your 3 sets of 5 an all out max one week it might be hard to keep increasing for the next few weeks.

On the snatch/clean deadlifts, we are working to a single heavy set, and again we will increase the weight used on this set each and every week. Part of the point of the deadlifts is to really strengthen the positioning we need to have in our snatch/clean pull, so it is absolutely essential that these deadlifts  exactly mimic the snatch/clean pull from the floor to the hip. Along these same lines, take a minimum of three sets at lighter weight to get up to the heavy set to get more practice in and better engrain those positions. On the halting deadlifts, bring the bar to the knee and pause for two seconds, then, WITHOUT STRAIGHTENING YOUR KNEES ANY MORE, bring the bar to the hips and pause, then return the bar to the knee and pause, then the floor and repeat.

On the 3-position cleans, work up to a working weight that will challenge you but allow you to make all of the reps. We will be repeating this exercise for the next few weeks, and trying to increase the weight incrementally each week. Positioning is key here! We are trying to engrain good positioning now that we will build upon for the remainder of this cycle as we work towards more and more full snatches and clean and jerks.

Lastly, we may or may not do a formal "deload week" on the squats/deadlifts/presses until the very end of the cycle. This will be determined more individually. We will increase the weight on the squats for as long as possible. As long as the gains keep coming, we will keep riding the wave. When you do reach a stall (assuming it wasn't because you made too big of a jump week to week...), we will simply reset the weight back down 5-10 kg and start systematically ramping the weights back up again, blowing right by that old stalling point.

This should be a great few months, and I can't wait to see the progress everyone makes!