Team Hogan @ 2024 USAPL Raw Nationals - 9/6-8/24
What a week! This meet ended up being a very cathartic experience for me, as it truly did feel like the end of an era. With the landscape of USAPL shifting, this meet will be a bit different in the future, for better or worse.
I will say, unrelated to the people close to me, I feel less loyalty to this federation now, more so than ever, the experience we had running regionals paired with where the federation is putting it’s resources towards, leaves me sour and it really depresses me that it has come to this.
Nonetheless, I do think the event itself, was phenomenal. Aside from a snafu on liftingcast on day 1, there was very little hiccups, well, aside from the already planned primetime at 8:30 debacle. My lifters for one, had a great time, and I have to be honest in that I did too. It was everything surrounding the meet that was not as fun, for me.
Before I get into each individual, as a whole, I want to say I am beyond overwhelmed with what I have deemed a true team, these people who competed had support all week and I really feel like we were together on the days we competed, both remotely and in person. That is the major takeaway I will remember from this week. But enough yapping, let’s talk about each person, broken down day by day.
Day 2: Michael Beaupre
This was Mike’s 3rd nationals (2015/2023/2024) and this ended up being a great day, with a preparation that ended up being anything but great.
About a year ago to the day actually, we made the decision to stop trying to run huge peaks and tapers and instead train into each meet, as we found with his 5 week training blocks, he would come in strong on all 3 lifts, virtually every time on the 5th week, and that ended up being the correct call as we have had nothing but success and predictability with that kind of set up.
Michael is in an interesting phase in his life where life post nationals is going to look a lot different than life before nationals. He has a daughter on the way very soon, within the next few months actually, and will be getting married in 2025, so we know that although he is not stepping back entirely, things will be a bit more chaotic and less variables will be in check with this very important life phase looming upon us.
Naturally, we want every meet to go well, but we certainly wanted this one to be a positive one as with QTs being raised and his life changing, it might be a year or two before we get back here, if at all (not because he is not strong enough, different fed stuff) so, we really put our heads together on a plan of attack moving into this one.
The main theme of this prep was recurring glute pain, which, really did not bother him on squat to a substantial degree, not at all on bench, but rather severely on deadlift. More on that later.
When troubleshooting his most recent meet, Maine States, we found that his squat pretty much will consistently get stronger with the approach we use of a SUPER secondary day and a very heavy primary day and really were not worried about it. Bench, more of the same, taking out direct tricep work at first to let a few overuse things die down, only to add it back in and get a pretty robust effect from it. Deadlift, however, this is where we really needed to restructure things. Simply put, we have had a hell of a time getting that to show up in meet. He has been strong in training in certain blocks, but each time we tried to put it together in a meet, whether it be in a traditional peak, or a “train into” approach, there would be some issue. At first it was grip, which I am happy to report is no longer an issue, after a ton of frankly boring direct grip work. Then after that, we just came in weak at Maine states, not because he was detrained, but rather overtrained. So, the conversation we had was, we felt rep work did not translate to his singles, really at all. Meaning, we would PR a triple, or double, and his single would not move. We decided to run an experiment, to try singles year round, which mutated into pausing his singles in the first 1-3 weeks of a block, doing a regular single during the final 2 weeks of the block. This worked phenomenally and we will be returning to it, in some form. Along with this, we kept a lighter beltless conventional day to stimulate his back and just keep the technical groove of pulling something off the floor there.
How we planned to do this preparation, was to establish a heavy double on squat, conservative single on bench and deadlift 3 blocks out, a moderate/heavy single on all 3 one block out, then either look to match the progression rate if it went well, exceed it if it went awesome, and throttle back if it went poorly.
One block out he was able to squat 491lbs for an all time PR with room to spare, bench 319lbs for an all time PR with room to spare, and pull 545lbs for an all time PR with, you guessed it, room to spare. However, this is where things started to go south.
Michael is a very interesting case in that, what makes him strong, is equally volatile towards keeping him healthy. The glute issue we alluded to, he seemed to notice, would spike towards the end of a block, so we were hoping a week or 2 of easy stuff, like most of our week 1s and 2s include, would be enough to get it to die down. It did not, in fact, it got substantially worse.
This all culminated 2 weeks out, where he went to pull what we were hoping was his last warmup and was stapled with it due to the pain aspect, a whopping 45lbs less than his best as well. Needless to say, with the approach we had, we were a bit scrambled and needed to have a plan and the cool thing about all this, is I do not recall ever freaking out and overcorrecting during this time. We did not have much time, but with the time we did have we needed to be efficient and address things directly.
When you train a lift into the meet, you are pretty much banking on each successive weeks exposure building into the next and we simply did not have that, paired with a bunch of things, such as lack of heavy grip stimulation, feeling the weight for confidence purposes, and a slew of other things that go beyond common training principles. We essentially were able to do his secondary day fairly painful, both squat and dead, but made it through with load adjustments, then the big test was our 5 days out session, where we figured we needed to work up to around projected opener/last warmup because we needed to one: see if we held up under load but could not go so heavy that it re-aggravated the issue and then spiraled us even worse.
We were able to work up to what we projected to originally be his opening attempt, fairly pain free, but not entirety strong, we also elected to bring his conventional volume to this session for back stimulation but also to give him one less pull session during the week and thank god we did as we showed up on the day, above all else, strong and ready to go.
His cut went very well, we have that down to a science, he was a touch lighter to start and as such, was able to eat and drink a bit the morning of before getting on the scale, we both agreed from a physiological perspective it helps, but rehydrating never gets any easier.
Squat started off awesome, we were able to take 222.5kg/491lbs for a 5kg PR with frankly none in the tank, with how Michael moves, that was his RPE 10. Could maybe make the argument for 2.5 more, but we both feel this was the right call on the day.
Bench, the lift that really had no issues and was always strong, had the biggest snafu, with Michael missing his opener on jumping the press command. Now, this is where having a solid relationship as a coach and client helps, as I did not freak out, and just wanted to see if there was anything going on. He admitted, he got a touch nervous and felt shaky, however, we needed to go up SOME if we wanted a shot to stay on pace for a PR total/PR bench and the actual rep moved just fine. So we elected to go up 2.5kg and simply relax, breath, and remember who we are. Michael has competed at Bench Worlds before, so he can and does execute well under these type of situations. We came out and nailed it, we then had to decide, do we jump a full 7.5kg and tie his meet PR, or do we jump 5 and then be 2.5 under it. Since we had the buffer from squat, we decided to play is safe as going 1 for 3 would be a death sentence, he hit it, 140kg/308lbs, with room to spare, which we knew, had we nailed the opener, 142.5/145kg was 100% there, but that is the game and I do not regret taking a make.
Then finally, deadlift. This was the most nerve-racking lift for two lifters this week, one went well, the other, not so well. Michael being the one things turned out alright for.
I wanted to warm up early because we simply did not know how things would go and wanted to have time to change the opener, more than anything, had things gone south.
Thankfully, he held up and moved very well. We decided that we would trial bigger jumps to get to the top end this meet, as we always pace backwards, but usually in smaller denominations to protect his total. So instead of our usual opening jump of 10-12.5, we jumped 15, and for our 2nd to third we planned on jumping 7.5-10 instead of 5-7.5.
This actually ended up working out as it allowed us to open a little lighter but still finish towards the top of where we wanted. After his second, we called for what was going to be his first DL PR in 2 years, and we had only one conversation of, if you miss this, you will not PR your total, DOTS, and this will be a 7/9 day, are you okay with that risk. He obliged and we went for it and man, everything that we did to adjust, everything we did to get there, we put it all on the line. I saved something for him on that third that I won’t repeat, but I like to think that gave him the mindset to go out and not let it limit him mentally, if it was not gunna happen, it was because he was not strong enough.
And like that, he went out and pulled his first deadlift PR, in meet, since the summer of ‘22. And did it with absolutely zero training momentum and on the highest stage our federation provides.
Michael is chasing greatness at this point and we will talk on what comes next, but I can assure you, his best days are still in the future. Along with this, Michael was the only competitor in the open class to place in the top 10 from Maine, finishing 9th in a rather strong 67.5 class. Pretty cool man, we have some so far in such a short time. Since he has returned back to PL, we have added 181lbs to his total with no signs of slowing down short of just making sure he stays healthy. We are unsure about how we will approach the next meet, but we think we might approach our 2 blocks out training the same way we approach the previous 3 weeks block training, not turning up singles until the last one going into meet as with the data we had, that was the case. We also tossed around the idea of 4 week blocks which I am eager to experiment with for him. Nonetheless, he also was selfless enough to help assist handling for two lifters the next day and those two guys do not have the day they had without him. Proud is an understatement and I cannot say more confidently that he is one of the driving forces that inspires and keeps this team going. Well done, sir.
Results:
Sq: 222.5kg/491lbs, +11lbs PR
B: 140kg/308lbs
Dead: 242.5kg/534lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 605kg/1333lbs, +16lbs PR
8/9
Only Maine lifter in open to place top 10
Day 2: Andrew Graves
Only fitting we covered the original 2023 team here, this write up is going to get pretty off-track in terms of pure lifting, so if that is not what you are here for, then here is your warning. This last year, straight up, has been rough. Rough from a ton of standpoints. If you are curious as to what it was like getting to 2023 Nationals, please reference back to read about that, as that really was the catalyst towards everything that came after. We came into ‘23 Nats, injured, left injured, and did not get healthy until halfway through the year. We adjusted a ton of things, but the more I zoom back out on this year, the more I have come to terms with it was just gunna be hard in general.
A list of things Andrew endured throughout the year:
Directed 2 of the biggest meets around, Maine States and Northeast Regionals. I can speak for both of us, those 3 days surrounding a meet, 4 for regionals, are as hard as they possibly get. It is getting up at the crack of dawn, setting up, staying up until 2am, eating very little, and the stuff you do eat is poor, then take down, then the post meet logistical things that bleed into the next week, it’s hard. And that 100% threw a wrench into a lot of our preparation.
Traveled a ton, both for leisure and work. There was very little continuity block to block and that showed towards the end when we were running out of time.
Changed careers, which is simply a life thing but that caused his hours to be weird and with that, we lost that consistency towards the end stages of this preparation.
To top it all off, his final block before our peak cycle, he was able to all time PR his deadlift and the immediate primary session after, severely injured his back on a squat warmup that just did not heal in time or properly for the meet itself.
I think looking back on it, I should have pulled the plug there and really saved him the trouble expectations wise, but I can say why I didn’t, is because I wanted so desperately to give my friend an opportunity to feel good about his lifting again. We were not able to PR the total last nationals due to injury, and if we spent an entire year rehabbing, only to not PR the total again because of injury, that is frankly depressing, for both of us.
Maybe if we were just simply ultra conservative each week, we would have been able to at least finish the meet, but hindsight is of course, 20/20.
Programming weekly, we really were trying to just survive each week and then in turn, survive the meet.
We were able to go 3/3 on squat, which was our best squat in a long time. We went 2 for 3 on bench after a miscommunication on his third attempt that I do not blame his handler for, as it ended up not effecting much. Then finally, in the warmup room taking 1 red, he mentioned already that things were NOT feeling good. So I said, we need to warmup earlier so we have time to change the opener and shortly thereafter, he failed 2 reds and we knew then and there, it was not happening. I went to the scoring table and dropped his opener to 70kg and called it there. Special thanks to Andrew Saillant for handling him on the day, we probably don’t even make it to deads, without him being able to time things and keep him occupied.
Now, the hard part for me to write. This whole situation, really makes me feel terrible. This is not about me, but I do feel I am equally apart of why some of these injuries have occurred. It is unfair to me, that things like this occur to people who, for all intents and purposes, do everything right, only for it to be pulled out from under them, last second. It is frustrating for me, to not be able to deliver him to a meet healthy now, for 3 years, that is more than enough time to figure it out and I just have not been able to blend lifestyle stuff with workload properly and I am very mad at myself for this. I hate seeing him not being able to express his strength as at the end of the day, we got into this sport as lifters, this other stuff all came secondary to that initial goal of wanting to be a good lifter.
Some things we will be pursuing, I hope, are leaving the 82.5kg class behind, shortening our blocks to 4 week cycles, possibly changing our micro for the first time in a LONG time, and finally, training into the next meet, purely, as to avoid these massive fatigue swells we tend to accrue.
If you do end up reading this, Andrew. I am sorry I could not figure this out like I hope I would, your best days are still in the future, I believe that, we will get back out there with confidence in due time.
Results:
Sq: 232.5kg/512lbs
B: 165kg/363lbs
Dead: 70kg/154lbs (cooked)
T: 467.5/1031lbs
5/7
Day 2: Hector Martinez
Hector went, as we like to call it around here, supernova on the day. A little context, I took Hector on probably about 4 weeks before a meet, where for all intents and purposes we did what I wish more people would do and commit to. He didn’t cut for it, trained through it (we were back in the gym the next day), and then got into the flow of what we really wanted to accomplish for this nationals preparation. Although we missed a lift that day, we got a lot of valuable data and some assumptions we made turned out to be correct and allowed us to really dial in training for nationals.
Going into our first couple of blocks, the first change I made was bringing his primary deadlift to midweek, as opposed to the end, and his primary squat to the end of the week. I made this call for a few reasons, based on my judgment and his feedback. The first of which was he was having a hell of a time getting squat and deadlift to click simultaneously, he had had his deadlift take off at times, his squat kinda inch up, but training both was really hard to get moving in the right direction in terms of peaking for a meet. The other thing I noticed, is he reported that by the time he would get to the end of the week, he would feel fairly beat up and would not be able to actually execute due to that fatigue. Lastly, simply put, I felt he would benefit from training 2 lifts into the meet, as we trialed keeping more volume in, longer, in the meet we trained through, as he reported squat always stalling in a peaking block where reps came down a ton and intensity was sky high. This proved to be very effective, we switched his tempo squats with pause squats and really were doing 2 primary days where the session early in the week basically fed the other.
With this, we enacted leg pressing and midway through the second block of this, started to get some searing knee pain which caused us to remove a lot of his quad volume, and the knee only got marginally better but primary squat started to tank, so I made the call to add back in all his volume and virtually overnight his squat came back like that, a double edged sword as this was clearly hurting the knee worse, but we only had a few more weeks to hold on, so we got on what I like to call, “that good shit”, the Aleve/Advil flow. We made it through.
Bench is a lift that he has not had a ton of success on, for one reason or another, having kinda plateaued at 130kg in various meets, but we enacted something I have learned really works for longer ROM benchers, pushing reps, pushing higher rep ranges, and controlling rate of progression with fatigue singles. We made a ton of strides here, actually getting up to 137.5kg in training, this is the lift I actually thought would pop off the most, however, a second attempt mishap didn’t allow us to surpass it, although, it was certainly there.
Finally, for deadlift, this is the one I am most pleased with, he has not PR’d his deadlift since regionals of ‘23, and was having a hell of a time deadlift anything north of 240kg, in which we made several technical tweaks and enacted a beltless conventional secondary day as my theory was his back was just not getting any stimulation with his very leg dominant squat, fairly upright sumo, and again, this proved to be worth the effort, nailing 250kg/551lbs @ 8 RPE, maybe less, one block out.
Putting the plan together for this meet, since he had come to meets in the past with certain lifts being strong, just never all at the same time, the key was to not get greedy and if we simply took what was there and did not force the issue, we would have a monster PR total and DOTS.
Special thanks to Devan Tenney for handling here, as he was with Hector for most of the day, I only advised based on what I say on his squat, deadlift, Michael and him were benching at the same time so I did not get to see any of those. But man oh man, my guy showed up PEAKED.
We did a small gut cut which he responded well to, weighing in at 74.55kg with zero performance loss, and since we trained into the meet using progression rates from last block, everything was super predictable. 230kg/507lbs moved BETTER than the block before, for a 5kg PR and down a weight class from when he hit 225kg, good for 5kg more honestly on the day. 130kg/286lbs moved well on bench, but he had a snafu on his second which caused us to take a small jump, and the more I go on, a PR match on the national platform is just as valid as a PR outright, you will always be more pissed with going 2.5kg heavy and missing, than hitting a lift and maybe having 2.5kg to spare. Finally, deadlift went incredible, nailing 250kg/551lbs for a DL PR to secure a 9/9 day.
Hector is a lifter who, for all intents and purposes, does everything I ask of him. He gives great feedback, gives great insight as to what he is feeling, then simply executes to the best of his capability and sometimes that is refreshing for me as I am used to a decision initially being met with push back or doubt, with Hector, that is never the case and his performance kind of reflects that. I am honored to have him apart of what we are doing and like Michael, life in 2025 is going to change quite a bit, so I am glad that if this is the end, or one of the last, it went well and is the best meet of his career.
Results:
Sq: 230kg/507lbs, 11lbs PR
B: 130kg/286lbs
D: 250kg/551lbs, 6lbs PR
T: 610kg/1345lbs, 39lb PR
439 DOTS (+14), 9/9 on attempts
D3: Henry Sandelin
Mr. Creatine.
Henry and I had an interesting start to our working relationship. About a year and a half ago, I checked the roster for Maine States and noticed someone I did not know, had signed up, and was registered under my team, shortly after I got an inquiry from him and was naturally apprehensive that someone immediately thought they had a spot with me, which, this was not the case, he just didn’t know you could compete unattached and I was recommended to him from a friend.
Nonetheless, I have seen him improve in so many fronts over this past year and a half and kind of like Andrew, we were after this qualifying total for a very long time, it took us 4 meets to qualify, all with hard peaks, and when we finally broke through at Maine States, it was a major sign of relief, as straight up, we have done too many meets in this time frame. 5 meets in a year and a half is a LOT. Beyond that, we found along the way that Henry’s training was very predictable with a 4 week block set up, big jumps per week, and like clockwork, he would blow up huge numbers week 4 of each blocks primaries and ever since training into Maine States, we will always do this with him for each meet moving forward.
Squat really took off this prep, with him crushing both his high bar secondaries and top set low bar primaries, culminating in us a block out hitting 515lbs, for a harder but massive PR single. Bench had also improved, with us getting to around the 330lb range multiple times for fatigue singles or regular singles. Deadlift however, we were a little all over the place with. We had a sumo day and a conventional day, with at first the sumo day shining, him hitting 495lbs there for a breakthrough single, however it proved to kind of be a one-off as it became radically inconsistent, and conventional suffered because of it. We also had some technical regression conventional which caused most of his pulls north of 450 to be very stiff-legged, but at bare minimum, we knew he could grind out more conv, than he could sumo, so we planned to pull that way in meet.
Now, the weight cut, so, for the first meet we cut for, Henry did a gut cut and simply put did not respond well to it at all, only losing weight the morning of the meet and having to sauna and spit 2lbs to get to 90.00kg. This meet, we elected to do a water cut, as I am 32/32 for getting people to weight with this approach. Well, 32/33 now.
Simply put, there had to be a disconnect between how heavy he was to start and what his scale was reporting. He reported being 206 a week out, and the morning of the meet, after drinking 3 gallons of water, low sodium, a mostly liquid diet, and fasting for 14hrs, weighed in on the calibrated scale in our room, which proved to be accurate with the meet scale, at 207lbs.
Now, if Henry was 200lbs, we had more than enough time to spit and make the class. However, 9lbs to lose in 2hrs is frankly impossible shy of taking a hardcore laxative and puking for hours on end. Neither of which I was willing to explore, so we decided to rehydrate immediately and just compete as a guest lifter, which is fine, because we did not have the opportunity to medal anyway and longer term, we can and should move to the 100kg class regardless. I am glad we did this as Henry ended up having an awesome day.
As we had exceeded progression rate in the last block going into meet, and were coming off a weight cut/stress, and Henry handled all day the day before, we knew we most likely had to throttle back numbers to account for all that, and him and Michael Beaupre made the right calls virtually all day.
Squat started off with a giga grinder, 225kg/496lbs for a 7.5kg PR with truly 0kg to spare. Bench was surprising, with him hitting his second of 145kg/319lbs to tie his PR, then getting stapled with 2.5kg more, oh well, again, tying the PR is sometimes as valid as PRing outright. Then finally, we got deadlift to tick in time, with 227.5kg/501lbs moving with very little to spare to secure a PR squat, deadlift, and total day!
I look forward to not having a meet looming for a bit and getting a bit distant with his training and really building into the 100kg class as that is where Henry will really do some damage. I feel strongly that if we did not have to diet, did not have to handle the day before, we were good for 2.5kg more on each on a perfect day, but thats the game. Also got to spend a bit more time with my brother in iron here this past week and he is right up my alley, just works, trains, goes to school, and that is really it. I respect that life and know for a fact he will just keep improving living that lifestyle.
Results:
Sq: 225kg/496lbs, 16lbs PR
B: 145kg/319lbs
D: 227.5kg/501lbs, 6lbs PR
T: 597.5kg/1317lbs, 22lb PR
8/9 on attempts, 181lbs added to total in 1.5 years.
D3: Logan Allaire
Buddy!
On my instagram story, I alluded to the pandemonium that ensued with weigh ins, and I will only briefly allude to that here, but this meet meant a ton and simply put, I do not think we could have prepared more for this if we tried to. Not just with the training, but we had everything scouted to the minute detail. For that, I am proud, because that takes so much more effort than we thought.
So, getting into things, Logan and I have been working together for quite some time now, and with that, we have developed a good feel for what works for him, and what does not, and beyond that, what is sustainable, and what is not.
This preparation, was a bit of redemption from HS Nationals, which went wonderfully, and fell apart at the end as he got violently ill and lost close to 10lbs in 4 days and showed up in the low 190s on the day in which we pulled his opening deadlift, couldn’t even muster 90% of his best on the second, and scratched the third. This was frustrating for both of us, because he had a real shot at medaling and it was ripped away from us, seemingly unfair. But this meet, we knew should we show up strong, winning was a real possibility. So with that, we gathered the long term plan to get here.
His blocks before our peak cycle, were awesome, we allowed his bodyweight to creep up, 205lbs roughly, and that really allowed us to make a lot of progress on deadlift/bench, while squat was as strong as it always was.
The real dilemma was were we to train into the meet, as we had months of data that his 5th week was always the strongest, however, we also had data from every other meet, that a traditional taper was also very effective. Since I wanted to not try anything different from what we usually would do, for the most important meet of his career, I elected to take the latter option.
Getting into it here, this prep, was rocky. There were a few things we needed to adjust both before and during the prep that really saved us and I have some theories now as to why things went south where they did.
Squat training was the roughest here, he knows this, and it is not a knock on him, but we need to recalibrate depth hardcore as we were squatting high for a very long time and we have lost that feel which made all this kinda difficult to begin with. Along with that, the approach we traditionally used, where we flow a secondary pause squat to a regular low bar squat while keeping singles and 5s on his primary, to be blunt, stopped working. My theory here, is when he was a sub 500lbs deadlifter, he would be fine to basically run 2 primary squat days as there was not a third interference-driven lift to worry about. Logans deadlift has came up quite a bit in the last year, so him squatting 475+ on both squat days and pulling close to 500 on deadlift days, there really was not a ton of consolidation in terms of recovery and at 2 weeks out, we started redlining on squat. We hit 247.5kg/546lbs, high and hard (that’s what she said) and this caused both of us to panic a bit as we had planned to take the next week even heavier, that was going to be impossible based upon everything else. We were able to salvage it however by being smart in that, okay, we just reached the heaviest exposure a little early, so naturally, taper early. We elected to pull back on his secondary day a touch, then 1 week out, worked up to roughly what we anticipated an opener being, and besides crippling back fatigue, he actually moved well enough. We really pulled back the week of the meet and that was enough to get him to the day as strong as we could have hoped. Logan does not do ANY leg accessories as any time we have, he has gotten injured, however, post meet, we will need to return to finding something as squat has kinda stalled with JUST squatting now.
Bench press needed the overhaul BEFORE we went into prep. Although he would be strong on his week 5, he was feeling very week coming into the primary day each week and this is where knowing the right questions to ask was important, as I asked specifically, what was he feeling week to week on that day and the report was he was feeling unstable and the bar felt heavy in his hands. That to me meant we needed to raise intensity on our secondary day, we needed to eliminate the load primer in favor of a volume primer on the tertiary and have that be closer to when we hit the primary (he would previously have 72hrs between sessions, which we switched to 48hrs), and then from there, we would adjust how he felt. This proved to be correct as his bench really picked up and peaked incredibly well. We got a nice taper effect out of taking away weighted dips the week of the meet paired with a slight intensity reduction on his secondary, slight volume reduction on his tertiary.
Lastly, deadlift. We lost his deadlif for a bit technically, and right at the knick of time, got it back. Logan is one of the few who can do a pure hinge into position and at some point he went away from that. Deadlift was marred at first by being too close to that secondary squat day, so we moved it one day further into the week and then along with technical gains, it started to pick up. An important thing to note is we had to work around his work schedule a ton so a lot of these things were not optimal but was the only option we had. Nonetheless, deads were strong, but with the too heavy secondary squat, the RPE 9.5 single 2 weeks out primary squat, his final heavy pull, was missed at lockout because of that fatigue. I think this was my fault, I think if I went 5-10lbs lighter, he would have hit it, but I wanted him to hit a PR for confidence sake to pull for as high a place as possible, I learned my lesson, momentum over anything else, always, and no matter what. The week of the meet, we removed secondary deads altogether, and came in and pulled a single @ 70% of what we planned his third to be, and from there, just looked to eliminate the crippling back fatigue we had accrued with a very heavy squat, too heavy a deadlift, and very little time to dissipate it.
Logan was to do his first weight cut as well here, which we elected to water load, and to be honest, this worked very well. However, his calibrated scale had become uncalibrated and I made the fatal error of telling him to eat and drink as we were 2lbs under to start the morning, so the plan was to drink 4oz of water with a rice krispie, then spit to the venue to negate that added weight by the time he was on the scale. Knowing what we know now, he was really like 0.1 over weight and it was an easy spit to the venue type deal. Fast forward, we step on the scale at the venue, he is 90.6kg and to be honest, thank god above us we did not get cocky and still checked because we would have been fucked had we waited until his first official weigh in. Now, I will briefly allude the timeline as to how things occurred.
10am, figure out we are overweight by 1.5lbs.
10:01am, start spitting with the 7 sticks of gum we had while trying to accrue jolly ranchers and spit material from wherever we could get it. Enter, Michael Beaupre, Logan’s Dad, Randell Barrientos, and some random kid with sour patch kids.
10:20am, reweigh, 90.4kg.
10:25am, Logan and I start running in layers down stairs in intervals, stopping to accumulate sweat, spit. We do this for about 15 minutes.
10:40am, while doing this, I sent the text to Andrew that we might have to shave his head. Logan and I briefly have the conversation on if it is worth it, we can make the weight, but we have to decide now. He said he was willing to do whatever.
10:45am, Andrew begins to shave his head while he spits. We plan on weighing in nude.
11:00am, we intentionally miss his first weigh in. Continue spitting and running, this time upstairs.
11:10am, we kick everyone out of the check weight area, cover him up, he weighs in nude at 90.09kg.
11:15am, we get in the back of the weigh in line, Logan keeps spitting as much as he possibly can.
11:20am, we get on the scale, nude, at 89.95kg.
From there, he actually nailed his rehydration which I won’t get into detail about, but incredible composure here to stress lose weight and then calm down enough to get everything back.
Getting into squat, I needed to warm him up early, as if his legs were shaky from all the running, we were not going to bomb him out. He actually ended up feeling great, so we came out and executed our first 2 squats strong, the second being misgrooved a bit. We took a small jump to 2.5kg under his PR, which he hit, but got called for depth from all 3 judges, which was a fair call. We got lucky that who we thought was our main competition, both missed their third attempts too. The kid who ended up winning, he was 3/3.
On to bench, Logan had a hell of a time with press commands at HS Nationals, in which we simply expected it and executed as strong as we could. The warmup room platform was slippery as hell and all week we had to hold peoples feet down so they would not slide out from under them, so his warmups were feeling not awesome, but on the platform with great grip, felt immaculate. Since we missed the third squat, I had to play damage control and with us going 1 for 3 on bench at HS Nats, I was not going to make the same mistake twice, we elected to take the small 2.5kg PR, 142.5kg was there, but the next time we compete, 142.5 will be a second I reckon.
Lastly, deadlifts, all the luck we NEEDED, shined here. We knew first was out of reach, but needed to protect second, so basically, when you are not pulling last, you need 3 deadlifts. We pulled his opener clean, his second, I am glad I see him move often as most people would think that was smoked, but I knew he had very little left, I went up 5kg instead of 7.5 or 10kg, and that was the apex for the day. 0kg to spare and was also a 12.5kg meet PR.
Then, we figured, his opp for 2nd would have to load 272.5kg/601lbs, well north of what he ended his prep at, and we had it in the bag. Full stop, I assumed the kid would be stapled, but he got the lift all the way to lockout but got called 2-1 for hitching, so we weighted and when I saw his coach leave the jury dejected, we lost it. What a day of highs and lows.
It was rather euphoric having Elliot, Andrew, and Michael all back there to celebrate and it was the ending we earned to his T2 career.
Post meet, we will be exploring some distant training, some new variations, and some weight loss as we have done basically 3 hard peaks in the last year and are not screaming for experience at this point. We will also be experimenting with leg accessories he can tolerate as well as recalibrating squat depth, which will be fun.
Proud is an understatement, I have done a lot of cool things in this sport, but I have never produced a national medalist, now, we can say we did that. The future is bright.
Results:
Sq: 247.5kg/546lbs
B: 140kg/308lbs, 6lbs PR
D: 232.5kg/512lbs, 28lbs PR
T: 620kg/1367lbs, 28lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, 183lbs added to total in 2 years, first DOTS over 400, silver medal in T2 90kg class.
D4: Emily Grinnell
This meet, for all intents and purposes, was good but it certainly was bittersweet.
We have been in limbo with Emily’s training for a while now and to be blunt, I think this result was about what we could have expected based upon it. The beauty of weight class sports is everyone has a weight class so you can compete against others who are of similar builds. The hard part is if you don’t fit exactly in a certain weight class, there is a certain aspect of competitive powerlifting that will allude you. Just analyzing the open 90kg class, of the top 5, the weigh ins were: 89.5, 86.55, 89.25, 86.55, 89.95, so 3 were full 90s, the other 2, off analysis of them at the meet, were shorter individuals. We weighed in at 84.1kg after a full week of non-restrictive eating and drinking, we we basically did this meet as an 82.5kg.
The part I think we dance around as coaches, is long term substantial weight loss, drastically effects top end performance. I am well aware there is some cases where people added 5-10kg to their total after dropping down a class, but I am unaware of a scenario where someone has added 15kg+ while dropping down weight classes, at a certain point, physiology cannot be cheated.
So I think bare minimum, that kinda bit us here. That also being said, I am proud of this preparation as we came in strong, just had a few snafus with standard that we desperately need to clean up.
This is coming off as more of a critique, but I think I need to do a better job of not succumbing to going away from the plan, the same thing has happened each time, where we make progress, then we deviate and go heavier because we are close to a PR, then we get set back. I think if we are to commit to the 82.5 class, that style of training is not going to lead to longer term progress and we need to kind of recalibrate our strength expectations if so, and we talked about that.
I think moving forward, the things I want to refine most is starting from scratch with squat, trialing heels so we can leave these depth calls behind us at the next meet, I want to retool bench a bit more, and for deadlift, keep refining technique and developing the posterior chain. Along with this, I am trying to draw the most conclusive data and I think we can and should get back to more general movement, not just long walking, but athletic movements as we kind of lost our ability to understand things like our hinge, our depth, etc… All of this is on ME and me only, she has given me full effort with all things training so I need to figure this out and have reached out to many people for guidance, our peak was good, just need to put it altogether the next time and with retooled expectations.
Very excited for her future, Emily was the first girl who ever qualified for a national meet under me and I do not take that for granted. The best days are in the future, and I do think we will have our best meet yet, whether it be total, or that be coefficient, the next run through.
We had an emotional talk in the back that I will keep private, but she showed a lot of heart and guts to finish the meet strong and for that, that tells me all I needed to know about her resolve moving forward.
We went 2 for 3 on squat, missing the second on depth and retaking. 2 for 3 on bench, missing the third, and then 3 for 3 on deads with a change in attempts to end the day strong.
She is incredibly talented and hard working, the best days are coming and this was a day where we learned what we need to do in the future, to sustain progress and not damage our mental health in the process.
Results:
Sq: 162.5kg/358lbs
B: 97.5kg/214lbs
D: 165kg/363lbs
T: 425kg/937lbs
7/9 on attempts
Sal Bozzuto - USAPL Dennis Gleason Memorial - 24 August 2024
Sal, the OG. Been a while since I wrote one of these here meet reports so apologies first if I sound a little disjointed. What a way to start back up the competition season with one of my most tenured clients and someone I consider a close and honest friend of time.
To set the stage for this one, I think it would be best to lay out our entire working relationship together:
2019: Sal and I attend the same college but do not know each other. I end up helping him at 2019 Regionals just via circumstance that he was in the same flight as one of my lifters.
2020: I handle Sal on a whim after he reached out to me at the New England Open and we start working together shortly thereafter. I would have to check in depth but he is either the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th person I took on formally as a Team Hogan athlete.
2021: We make incredible progress and adding 25kg to his total virtually in a 6 month span. We have a slight hiccup in a corona meet where I was not allowed to attend then finally breakthrough in the summer of ‘21 where he hit his PR total of 520kg, along with his first in meet squat over 400lbs.
2022-2024: Shortly thereafter this is where the wheels started to kinda come undone. From ‘22 to the beginning of ‘24, we had what I would deem the worst stretch of luck a lifter can have with all intentions of doing the right thing. He does everything I ask of him, has an incredibly conservative (at least on paper) training progression/frequency and still, through this period we suffered injury after injury… after injury. The ones that come to mind, although there could be more that escape me: pec strains, shoulder pain, hamstring strains, back pains in various spots, restrictions that made us take either squats, benches, deads out completely at various points in time. There was even a time, I think at the end of ‘22, where I think we had an honest talk about whether or not it was worth it to continue, and looking back on it, I think that talk really set us up for everything to come thereafter. We discussed how it was going to be important to look at everything pre-injuries as a different chapter and how this mindset will allow him to experience everything after that phase as “new wins” in the next chapter of his lifting career. We decided it would be best to start doing meets again, to build back up, because too many times I have had someone want to take substantial time off, rehab injuries, but return stronger than ever, and ya, it can happen, but, let’s say you go 14-16 months between meets, and now coming back you have the expectations of: not re-flaring the injury, performing as strong as you ever have, and shaking the rust off from not competing in ages. I am glad we adopted this as we had 2 successive meets that build upon this notion, one in summer of ‘23 and another in January of ‘24, that were remarkable improvements from where we were at. Enter: this meet, the one I should be writing about but going on side tangents of our moments together, hahah.
The only hiccup we had in this prep was right after the winter meet, we went back to low bar squatting a touch too aggressively and really jacked up the shoulder complex to the extent that it was bleeding into his ability to rack the bar in addition to restriction with benching which we had to spend a bit of time rehabbing.
This prep was a bit more intensive in the sense of, we really did not push ourselves in terms of top end loading in the two previous so the expectations laid out were, expect fatigue to creep up in ways it hasn’t in years.
Doing a typical peak and taper approach, we knew the goal this time was to outright PR the total and to do that, we knew we had a rough denomination of numbers that made the most sense on the blocks prior and we paced out accordingly for those.
10 days out from the meet, we had out first missed lift in years, a 205kg/452lbs deadlift, which would have tied his best meets pull. And with that, I feel I need to take some blame here. We were kinda going back and forth and based on his last warm, I called for 205 which, to be frank, I should have known better. Sal is a lifter that thrives on wins, leaving some in the tank, and is not a mega grindy lifter so putting him in a position he has never been in, or at least has not been in years, under highest fatigue of this preparation, was irresponsible of me and I will make right of this next time. He missed the lift about an inch from lockout, but I knew despite all of that, with the data we have, we are always good for more in meet, then we do in training, so if we needed it, we would be able to pull it.
We had a major redemption session a week out on squat and bench, nailing 391 on squat, 303 on bench, albeit the squat a bit hard and the bench a slightly quick pause and on the notorious Rogue pad, and with that carried momentum into the meet with a plan that, if we executed all 3 heavy thirds, we would yield his first total PR since the summer of ‘21.
Squat cleared incredible, with him nailing 180kg/396lbs with at least 2.5kg to spare, this is incredible as his one week out session moved remarkably slower and that gives me faith that we tapered as well as we could have for this lift.
Bench however, again, my fault here, I think I should have planned for 297 outright. His second attempt of 132.5kg/292lbs moved with conviction, enough to get him that 137.5kg/303lbs, but we missed at midrange which kinda took us out of the running for the PR total unless we wanted to super extend ourselves on deads, a lift where our last intensity touch was a 452lbs miss, so we elected to finish the day with as much as we possibly could. The dilemma we had when discussing attempts, is we wanted to make sure the pull was as low as possible should be go 3/3 on both squat and bench, meaning, 205-207.5 was the threshold both of us felt comfortable with and I think in retrospect, we maybe should have still banked on the pull despite the end of prep miss, as I think we could have forced 5kg on there if needed.
We ended up pulling 202.5kg/446lbs with about 2.5, maybe 5, as mentioned, to spare, and with that, that was his heaviest pull in meet since 2021. Our last 2 meets we pulled both 187.5 and 190kg hard, respectively.
We finished just shy of his best total on an 8/9 day and with that, have a solid plan to approach training and not have to worry about having to be perfect to gain 2.5kg on the total, we will be outright strong the next time and it won’t be “if” but rather, “by how much”, will be PR the total.
Proud of my man here, I think it has become cliche to say, but many times over the last 2 years he has had valid reasons to hang it up and he kept coming back, kept putting his best foot forward and that is always rewarded in the end.
Can say with confidence that there is no one I would rather travel 8 round trip hours for, will be at a facility at the ass crack of dawn for, and just generally go to war with, than him.
Our best days are still in the future!
To Utopia,
Erik
Team Hogan @ 2024 USAPL Northeast Regional Championships - 8, 9 June 2024
Ah yes, Regionals. This meet holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons, and this weekend was a full circle moment for myself and co-director Andrew Graves. Let’s do a bit of a rewind.
The year is 2019, I am 1.5 years into “coaching”, which really was soft program design and guidance, not charging a dime, and working with I think 3 total athletes at the time. I find myself in Connecticut, at the Mohegan Sun, coaching Andrew for what we thought was the biggest meet next to Nationals, which, on paper at least, it was. This was long before pro meets, long before invite-only primetime meets, it was pretty cut and dry. Andrew was not under my programming, in fact, he was running (and dying) from Layne Norton’s PH3 into the meet. Andrew puked while “rehydrating”, which really was eat as many BBQ chips as possible with ice cold pedialyte. It was my second ever meet handling at, and boy was I in over my head. I had never used a combo rack, did not understand kilo math, and we somehow got so behind on squat warmups that we had to skip not one, but 2 warmups, and his last warm was easily 90 seconds before his opening squat. Andrew went on to win his division that day, which felt like a major breakthrough, for the both of us.
Fast forward to 2024, those 2 asshats were in charge of running this very meet and in my eyes, elevated it higher than most could ever imagine. The same person who had a roster of 1 at the meet in 2019, had a roster of 13 in 2024 doing the meet, and leads a roster of 48 athletes in total. This weekend was a long one, with us getting up at 6am and ending the day at 3am on Friday, ending the day at 1:30am on Saturday, then the same on Sunday, add in set up on Friday, take down on Sunday, then finishing returns on Monday. Safe to say however, this was well worth it, per reports from everyone who did the meet and I personally could not be more happy with how things turned out.
For transparency sake, there were a few things that did bother me going into this day. The first of which was an in-team issue that caused me to have to remove a lifter literally 5 days out, which, will stay private, but kind of pulled the rug out from under us immediately. More on that in a bit. The next was some initial push back I got to the team scoring division which frankly I thought was completely unwarranted. I am all for constructive criticism, but the opinion that the scoring was favored for lifters with the most athletes doing the meet was simply asinine and per the 10+ people who reached out and thanked me personally for featuring it in the manner in which we did, it is safe to say everything was fair and square and fun for all involved. Lastly, the biggest thing that bothered me was the lack of support from USA Powerlifting. We did not have any help beyond being granted the sanction from our regionals appointed individual, I had to personally DM the USAPL account on instagram to get posted on the main feed, and unless we pumped out content, you would have never known the meet actually happened. This simply needs to change and I truly hope USAPL starts taking these meets more seriously as this is what is keeping the federation relevant for many.
Now that I am done yapping, how about we talk about the 13 individuals who competed under the Team Hogan name over the weekend? I am going to go in order of session for uniformity sake.
Grace Poirier
Crazy to see Grace’s progress in this sport in real time. I said it before, but I literally remember vividly taking her on as an athlete, going through how to even execute a lot of these lifts in general, and to see that start, to where she is at now, is nothing short of break-taking. This was Grace’s 4th meet in a little under a year and I am happy to report we have improved total and DOTS in each meet and reached some major milestones in the process! This meet being a very short turn around from Maine States, we knew to temper expectations and unfortunately got hit with sickness about 4 days out in which she showed up to the meet noticeably shaky on squat. However, after the squat portion of the meet, she came back to life, able to meet PR on bench and all time PR on deadlift and hit her first deadlift over 300lbs in meet, with pretty much all odds stacked against her. She did all this after experiencing her first squat miss, I think ever, which, was a bit atypical as her second moved with conviction but goes back to the shakiness of being sick, more than anything. Her training was pretty dialed in and has been for a while, we have aligned 4 week blocks for every meet since the 1st, and like clockwork we are penciled in for big W4s virtually of anything else that comes before it. We both look forward to taking some time to not compete as often to rebuild her base and trial some new things, but for now, she should be proud of what was an incredible training and competition year. A euphoric day to say the least and she was around all weekend helping out with stuff in terms of take-down, which goes to show her character, more than anything.
Results:
Squat: 120kg/264lbs
Bench: 55kg/121bs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 137.5kg, +6lbs PR
Total: 307.5kg/689lbs, +11lbs PR
Haley-Jane Tuplin
The journey to even get to this meet for Haley is nothing short of incredible. A few months after her first meet, which actually fell around the same time as this one just a year later, I had got an update from her in a hospital bed, with the beacon that she was going to be out for a bit. Torn ACL from field hockey, which, of course, threw a bit of a wrench into what was a pretty explosive debut in the sport. As she got into specific rehab she had reached out towards end stages of it to get back on program, and to address some very glaring strength deficits while working around the injury. Progress at first was slow, dare I say, very slow, but when it finally took, man did it start to shine. Typical post injury stuff I have seen, in that objectively the clearance is there but mentally you can’t trust the positions that put the area under the most duress, whether that be conscious or subconscious. As alluded to in the previous meet recap, we elected to train through the Stand Strong meet to get feel for competition again before going into a regional championship, which I think 100% was the right call as she did not have to worry about any execution things in what was the biggest meet of her career, thus far.
One thing that took a major upswing this preparation period was deadlift, we had been tweaking with technique a bit, but to be honest the main keys were simply not letting the head dip straight down at the floor and being a bit quicker with grip application.
About a week out, she had what I would like to call, a horror session. Long story short, extraneous circumstances kind of showed up and caused lifts that were normally quite routine for her to be extremely difficult. No big deal, we relied on our strong week, tapered a bit more than usual, and on meet day she went off. Opened the day with quite the squat grind for a PR, matched her best bench, this time much easier, and for deads, I actually went 2.5kg above the top end heavy range because things were flying. After a year that featured surgery, recovery, and everything that stems from it, she walked away with a 140kg/308lb deadlift PR, with even more in the tank off a 280lbs final heavy pull in preparation. There were times early on where she was borderline failing 265lbs. Nothing short of incredible, but this is just the beginning, I look forward to growing the squat even more now and that is something we will be focusing on.
Results:
Squat: 105kg/231lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 67.5kg/148bs
Deadlift: 140kg, +6lbs PR
Total: 307.5kg/689lbs, +22lbs PR
Brie Cowing
Nothing short of incredible progress from Brie since we started working together in May of ‘23. I think above everything, I look at her history before we started, had not PR’d her squat in meet since 2021, had not made a third attempt bench… ever, and her total stayed at 315kg, just in different permutations of numbers this entire duration. To not only bust past those plateaus, but to really show no signs of stopping, that is cool to me above all.
One thing I noticed this meet, compared to the first, was a bit more nerves on squat, which could 100% just be my assumption but this meet carried a bit more magnitude than all the others she had done previously. The other glaring thing I noticed was bodyweight was LOW, I would have to go back and check exactly, but for the duration of this prep we are 149lbs+ and weigh in on the day was 143.6lbs, which tells me either the scale was not accurate to begin with or we simply pushed fasting/food sources too aggressively. This is solely on me and this is something I know effected top ends for the day, simply need to be better here and I told her this is something I will look to manage better next time.
Nonetheless, we elected to be a bit conservative on squat as it was already a 7.5kg PR, we might have had a touch more on the day but with the nerves/shakiness, it was not worth the extra risk. On bench, we were already ahead of pace by second bench, missing the third that just was not there on the day, still a 5kg PR, on deadlift, we missed the third for the same reason just was not quite there, we could have gone up 2.5kg to secure an even bigger PR total, or go for 5kg more in order to move into 9th place to pick up an extra team point, so I do not regret it really.
Meets like this are always a mixed bag, on a 7/9 day, she PR’d her squat, bench, total, and DOTS all in one go, but we both know there was more to be desired.
Post meets training, we are overhauling quite a bit for deadlift and I am not going to jinx it, but when it is time to reveal, you will see a meet PR pull from her next meet to the tune of a total PR that will make this one look like a joke.
A very introspective and thoughtful lifter, in terms of being a model athlete, I would be hard-pressed to find a lifter who is more well-rounded in terms of constructive and detailed feedback and receptiveness to being coached, which makes my job so much easier and is a reason why I think we have been able to make as progress as we have. Time to become large and in charge.
Results:
Squat: 130kg/286lbs, +16lbs PR
Bench: 62.5kg/137lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 142.5kg/314lbs
Total: 335kg/738lbs, +33lbs PR
Brittany Boxer
The prep from hell.
Wait, I thought that was Maine States? Nope, we doubled down even more here… and then some.
In all seriousness, this preparation period for Brittany was the culmination of several things at once. The biggest thing and lowest hanging fruit is this was her 6th consecutive meet prep, never having more than 16 weeks between meets since the summer 2022. Now, equally, we have made some insane progress during this time period, going back and looking on it, we have put 17.5kg on her squat, 15kg on her bench, and 22.5kg on deadlift, to the tune of 57.5kg on her total, 45 points to DOTS. So Brittany, I don’t know if you will read this, but this is insane and you should be very proud of all this above all.
To make a longer story short, we had very little continuity and momentum in her training since Maine States. I actually think almost all squat above 300lbs were failed, culminating in a fail of 285lbs a week out, off the back of a 350lbs deadlift fail which was poor judgment on my part and not hers at all, ironically, bench was the strongest it had ever been despite this. A lot of sessions had to be taken north of 10pm after a long workday, Saturday sessions sometimes had to be split into two separate sessions, she got sick, her daughter got sick, seemingly everything that could go wrong, did. Brittany is a bit finicky as with her longer levers, there is so much more “work” being done per rep compared to more compact lifters, and we learned now that we simply cannot deadlift mega heavy the week of heavy squatting, so long as the deadlift comes before that squat session, an adjustment we are trialing now we are in a much needed off-season.
So, we were looking at going into this meet, on paper down about 12.5kg on squat, up 2.5kg on bench, and at the very least, at or 2.5kg above her best deadlift. We had a phone call discussing how we were going to approach this as she had a real possibility of medaling at this meet and I wanted to at the very least, see it through that we could be in the best possible position to do so.
Truly calling attempts by eye sight, we somehow were able to squat 137.5kg, 5kg short of her all time best, but the heaviest she had successfully squatted since Maine States. Bench went off with a hitch, all time PR and meet PR of 70kg! Then, the deadlift debacle.
So, we knew we were going to have a shot at 5th here, and I knew it would be down to the wire, so, we took our planned 1sts and 2nds and then waited. I put in a place holder attempt of 162.5kg because I knew we needed to be at 157.5kg minimum based on what our opposition did and to see if they would bite. I feel pretty confident in knowing how she moves, and although a pull looks quick, with where she tends to default, what looks like 10kg in the tank is really 5kg. Based on the second, I thought 155kg was the right call, however, 157.5kg would be the number so I was okay going 2.5kg north of that to try to medal, however, what had happened, was 155kg was the declared weight for a lifter, as I prepared the card, as soon as that lift was over, I went over to go submit 157.5kg before the declared weight of 160kg for the next lifter was on the bar, as you have until the bar is loaded to submit an attempt change. I then got 2 people telling me that I cannot go down in weight, which I was aware of and I said I submitted it before the bar was loaded and I am not going down in weight, the attempt before was 155kg, 157.5 was valid. Not sure exactly what happened, but human error happens, and if I was rude about this to anyone at the table I really do apologize, so, we were unfortunately now locked in to 160kg, the lowest denomination we could have pulled, and she went out and gave it her best shot, but was literally not remotely close to our plan for the day.
This was a tough pill for me to swallow as I think if I had to do it again, fuck the medal, let’s end on a high note after the prep from hell, instead, I made a foolish decision to try to get her a medal + extra team points that is inexcusable, in the future I will play this more straight up as seeing what her reaction was post miss, is not something I want to see again.
Nonetheless, we have learned a lot, and above all, have grown a lot. When we step on the platform next, my goals for her are: 400 DOTS score, meet PRs on all 3 lifts, and a killer total. All are more than doable.
Results:
Squat: 137.5kg/303lbs
Bench: 70kg/154bs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 150kg/336lbs
Total: 357.5kg/788lbs
Mike Hartjens
Another person who had seemingly everything crumble the end stage of this prep, I want to personally thank Mike for being a team player above all else. Almost more than anyone, he had every right to drop this meet and wanted to stay the course to provide us team points more than anything. Mike is also an actual “team” player, meaning he holds no ego, wants to see everyone around him do well, and will be actively supporting the entire time. Sometimes in a team environment, jealousy is a real thing and as a coach it is the part I hate to navigate, but with people like himself, it is refreshing to know he understands I have his best interests at heart as well as everyone else.
To list the things we had to work around this prep:
A fluke deadlift session that just did not show up, more due to extraneous circumstance than anything else.
Moving down a full weight class.
A severe shoulder injury that nuked bench training to such a substantial degree that we did not bench only but one time the last 11 days leading into the meet.
Somehow, someway, we made it through to the other side in one piece. More than anything I am proud of our communication and adjustments during this period as without it, we really do not find a work around and are probably in even more pain post meet.
To dive into the shoulder thing a bit more, we basically deducted that we were simply doing too much comp benching, paired with low bar squatting, and we needed to simply wave off that stimulus and actually let the area heal paired with some TLC work Mike had gotten from a PT friend of his that seemed to have a pretty profound effect. We elected to switch most squat work to SSB to avoid torquing the shoulder back anymore than needed, which is something we are featuring in post meet training, as well as eliminated all benching until 4 days out, where I made myself available to talk him through a session in which we would find something close to what an second attempt would be, with a closer grip that we messed with to see if pain symptoms would be less pronounced with it, ending with a solid 235lbs that was a far cry from his best, but allowed us to know that bare minimum we had that in the tank.
Getting into meet day, my man numbed the FUCK up. It has become an inside joke on the team, but Mike had loaded up so much Tiger Balm that you could smell his presence from 20+ feet away and I promise on everything I love I am not exaggerating here.
Another one who weighed in LIGHT, we have talked about dialing in the cut next time and have that squared away, but that 100% had an effect on squat I feel. We actually adjusted down, taking the low end second attempt and then lower than the lowest end for the squat third, and thank the heavens we did, if there was announcer ounce on the bar, I do not think Mike gets it. But this set the tone for the day in so many ways. Bench, we opened him way lighter than usual to make sure we did not bomb out due to not being able to lock his elbows or something funny, with a new grip and then asked to do the movement under competition standards and in pain, there is no reason to take a risk. We jumped to the planned second, and by the grace of everything holy, were able to manage 112.5kg/248lbs on the day, with for sure a bit to spare! When it came to deadlift, we already had 5th place locked up and had gambled a bit so I wanted to play the hot hand and go for a 240kg/529lb deadlift, 237.5kg/523lbs would have been better here and would have been a meet PR but I do not think either of us regrets it. Although he did not outright PR his total, he established his first total in this new weight class and PR’d his DOTS for the first time since 2021 and took home a 5th place regional medal. One more meet for us this year, and he spaced it out awesome, January, June, then November, and then we build for something insane by next Regionals!
Results:
Squat: 192.5kg/424lbs
Bench: 112.5kg/248bs
Deadlift: 230kg/507lbs
Total: 535kg/1179lbs
Emily Grinnell
This meet was quite the adventure for Emily, for multiple reasons. After competing last November through some serious fatigue/back pain, we decided to really overhaul our approach as well as chase some new goals. One of which was moving down to the 82.5kg class, the other was trialing changes to deadlift to not cause so much built up fatigue that seemed to effect almost everything we did thereafter.
The first important variable with Emily is that she is a very grindy lifter, which, is a blessing first and foremost, because if she needs to squeak out 2.5kg more, she usually can, but it can be a curse as every time you see Jesus on a rep, there is some net negative that comes from it, whether it be in meet or in training. So we elected to really buckle down on leaving out blocks with a bit to spare each go around, which I felt we did a great job for the most part.
The second part was finding a deadlift style that allowed her to train the pull pain free above all, eventually getting stronger with it once we had established whatever that looked like. I could be misremembering but I am pretty certain our order of flow was:
Sumo with mixed grip, good for training pain free, but was not a strong stance for her.
Conventional with hook grip, good for training free, was stronger, but getting shoulders back at top was tough to do.
Conventional with mixed grip with a bit more knee flexion bias, strongest, but we had the least amount of time to work on this.
I am absolutely not making excuses, but I feel if we had a touch longer to work on mixed conv, we would have had a better set of variables to work with for this meet. More on this when I talk about training going into nationals.
Going into the meet, we knew Emily would have a chance to either win or bare minimum place top 3, which is important at meets like this. One of the things I feel I really dropped the ball on is something that seemed to be present with most of my team, drastically overshooting the making weight portion of getting into a new weight class, or making your declared class. Training most of this prep at around 183-185lbs, her weigh in on the day was around 179.9lbs. Now to the lay person, you might ask, how does that actually matter? Just 3-5lbs down. Well when you adjust to hitting weights at a certain weight, and all of a sudden there is a massive leverage shift on the day you are to hit the heaviest weights of your training cycle/life, there can be weird things that stem from that which can be attributed to net weight loss (energy deficit) but also forcing the lifter to rehydrate/replenish more than usual. And that was our issue I think, which falls solely on me, I should not have put her in a position to need to be that aggressive with it to begin with.
Squats started off a bit shaky, with us missing the opening squat on depth, forcing us to retake. We got our second and third on a small jump, keeping us in the fight. Bench we were able to squeak out 97.5kg/214lbs on the grind of a lifetime. For deads, I ran by all the scenarios to her that we could pursue and wanted to go what she felt strongest about/what was most important to her. We knew we would not drop any lower than third, but second was still very much on the table, so the dilemma was, we either:
Plan to take 170kg on the third to secure an 8/9 day with momentum and she had hit this in training convincingly.
Plan to take 172.5kg which would PR her DOTS, and most force our opponent for 2nd to hit her third to beat her.
Plan to take 175kg which would do all the aforementioned plus give her the QT for Raw Nationals at 82.5kg.
She felt strongest about pursuing the last option, so I was more than happy to facilitate it. Simply put, just wasn’t there on the day but I do not regret going with my athlete’s instinct and keeping their goals above all else.
All in all, she placed third in a stacked 82.5kg class on a 7/9 day and now we have the luxury of not being as food restrictive for Nationals, competing as a light 90kg. We have since overhauled the split and worked on a few variables that include:
Clearing the rack more efficiently on squat.
Learning and adopting a softer touch bench style as opposed to an aggressive sink and heave.
Moving primary deads to end of the week.
I am confident Nationals will be Emily’s best meet yet and cannot wait to put it altogether.
Results:
Squat: 160kg/352lbs
Bench: 97.5kg/214lbs
Deadlift: 165kg/363lbs
Total: 422.5kg/931lbs
Tayla Knapp
Tayla came into this meet with a ton of momentum and to clear the air right off the bat, I feel I really limited her performance by being way too aggressive on squat to start the meet. Somewhere along the line, I think I convinced myself I leave to much on the bar for people’s squat sessions but being as objective as I possibly can, I would rather take 5kg and give up 2.5kg, than force 7.5kg and end up getting 0kg. We were in limbo most of the day as placing was rather stable, so I should have played this straight up.
She was on a tear in training, rattling off PRs on squat and bench, deadlift was a bit harder to come around but we got it to tick just in time. We debriefed after the meet and I think one of the limitations with these bigger meets with lots of athletes doing it, is I don’t see any warmups and am really seeing the opening attempts blind, which might not matter for some coaches, but matters a lot for someone like me who is very visual, very consequential. Every meet Tayla has done with me has been that, so I really think I owe her a one on one meet where she is the center of attention for the day.
Getting into the day itself, she hit her planned second of 147.5kg/325lbs strong, but had a little bit of a bobble midway through, this tied her meet PR, and knowing she had hit 330, 335 in training, she mentioned she felt strong with it so I erroneously jumped 7.5kg to 155kg/341lbs. Foolish as visually speaking, 152.5kg/336lbs was there, objectively, and already would be a PR to start the day with momentum. She went out and had something unusual happen, almost as if she lost her drive from her back immediately. All on me, I need to put her in a better spot to succeed above all else and Regionals is not the place to “try” heavy stuff, it is to have a strong performance.
Ironically, the lift that has plagued us the most, bench, peaked the best and she nailed an all time PR of 65kg/143lbs with room to spare, I look forward to taking Tayla into the 70kg+ range so we do not have to rely on deadlift as much in meets in the future as we finally found a method that seems to grow her bench.
Deadlift was a mixed bag as I did not see her opener, or second, and I trusted her primary handler on the day, Michael Beaupre to make the call for her third, which was the correct call as she had 0kg to spare on the day.
As I watched her lock it out, I straight up thought it was a good lift, then I say 2-1 red lights so I sprinted to the jury table and very aggressively lied.
“Guys this lift was no different from the first two, all I am asking for is consistency”, I said, fully not even seeing the first two hahah. It almost worked, we got 2 people to agree to overturn but needed the third and they did not agree. Oh well.
We have since overhauled her split a bit and I think Tayla’s super meet is coming and when it does she will turn a ton of heads. This year has been very stressful for her and I think once life kind of settles, we will see the uptick again and I will for sure be better with selecting better attempts for her.
Results:
Squat: 147.5kg/325lbs
Bench: 65kg/143bs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 185kg/408lbs
Total: 397.5kg/876lbs
Meghan Frangione
This performance was rather remarkable for Meg for a multitude of reasons. When I first took Meg on way back in ‘21, she was simply looking to get back into strength training again in a bit more of a structured manner. Fast forward to the early summer of ‘24, we are 6 meets deep and things look a lot different now than they did then.
When we first started, Meg was in the 100kg+ class and at this meet she weighed in at 76.9kg, an absolutely incredible weight loss journey and one that was not all smooth sailing in terms of strength development, but one that was well worth it for everything else it has provided her.
Much like Mike Hartjens, Meg is a big team player and is really our glue, keeping things light, but also being mega supportive of all Team Hogan lifters and embodying the community aspect I really think is important and something that I cherish.
Our training for this meet was a big all over the place initially, as during the school year, sessions can be harder to get in due to the chaos that is being a school teacher, something I know first hand.
However, the final stages were rather strong, and we were able to salvage some momentum when we really needed it. Only really catching fatigue swells about 2 weeks out, that we were able to taper off starting a week out very well!
This meet, more than anything, and especially after all we had been through, was leaving with a win and that is what we did. I opted to be better safe than sorry, matching her best lifts from training on squat and bench, and about 2.5kg more on deadlift.
Meg was able to go 9/9 for the first time since 2022, and we now have a foundation to grow from in this class! I have a feeling this coming year of training not being in diet mode is going to have the most potent effects we have ever seen from her and I cannot be more excited!
Results:
Squat: 115kg/253lbs
Bench: 50kg/110bs
Deadlift: 120kg/264lbs
Total: 285kg/628lbs
Emily Gallant
Out of all my people on this day, I would say quite heavily Emily had the most variables stacked against her in terms of preparation, week of meet, as well as general life turmoil.
Here are all the things that come to mind immediately:
A specific autoimmune disorder than I do not think is my place to talk about, but it causes her to get sick… a lot. And with that, there is specific days where she will receive infusions that can effect squatting.
Childcare. This is nothing more than being a mother, and thankfully, working with as many as I do, I have been able to “get it”, it is not as simple as bring your kid to the gym and it never will be. She navigated this very well.
Getting pretty aggressively sick the week of the meet. This has become a common coping thing, but she literally was actively sick and was still sick on the day.
Recurring pain in knees, elbow, and every so often the low back.
Deciding between the 100kg and 100kg+ class, which thankfully we pulled the plug on when we realized net weight loss would be too aggressive with the time frame given.
Needless to say, that plus not having competed in over a year were all variables that mattered.
Training however, really had not gone better. With a hard reset after her most recent meet, we started only ramping back up around 20 weeks out. Chipping away each 4 week block until we found some supernova progress.
When it came to meet day, squat was a touch shaky so we opted to take the low end, which was a meet PR and moved clean! Bench had improved so much, nailing 70kg/154lbs for a strong 5kg PR. On deads, we could have forced the top end, but ultimately took the safer option, simply because we had taken the high option with almost everyone and missed to that point and knowing the low end was already 5kg PR and secured a massive total PR.
She came in PEAKED to hell, and took home a 5th place Regional medal for her efforts and I could not be more proud. Now that we have cleared well with the approach we have been using, we talked about adding a bit more and I am hoping the effects to that are profound, leaning into competing once more this year!
Results:
Squat: 125kg/275lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 70kg/154bs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 132.5kg/292lbs, +11lbs PR
Total: 327.5kg/722lbs, +28lbs PR
Evan Larsen
This meet really was a strong showing for Evan that really was again, masked by pushing just too much on squat to start the meet, like I alluded to with Tayla, somewhere along the line, I think I convinced myself that this approach was necessary, but if there is anything I learned it is that you will always be disappointed with going 2.5kg heavier and missing, than going 2.5 lighter and making, if disappointment is going to happen regardless. With Evan we had some serious catching up to do, mainly because he was coming off a meet prep and massive cut into Maine States, so not only did we have bodyweight to catch up on, but top end strength as well.
For this meet in particular we adopted some changes, first being a deadlift technique change that really allowed for him to finally put together solid deadlift training for the first time in months, more of a dive technique, more push, less pull and man, did it take. We also committed to pushing the secondary squat session a bit more and this certainly had a positive effect on his primary. For bench, we also committed and have doubled down on a softer touch style, which is objectively stronger, however the top end still eludes us. He can bench up to 145kg just fine, but 147.5kg+ really causes some hard sticking points and some aggressive flaring on one side, which we are looking to address in this post meet block.
Evan was going concurrently with Jon and Sam, and many times was going at the exact same time as Jon, really for the duration of the meet. His second attempt squat, which I think objectively watching back, looked good for 10kg more, just was not there, with him losing balance forward, something I am not used to seeing from him. Still, I should have played it more conservative and gone up 7.5kg, will not make this mistake again. Again, on bench same deal, and looking back on it, 5kg looked like it was there, just got too far back off the chest. This forced us to be smart with deadlift calls, which I hate because christ almighty did deadlift peak to oblivion. We were in a minor battle for 4th, knowing we would be pulling first. Evan had bodyweight, so no matter what we totaled, our main opponent would have to pull 2.5kg more than us, so we needed a high probability make. 265kg was the number we decided on and he pulled it at RPE 7-7.5, forcing our opponent to pull an all time PR if he wanted to go for it, which he elected not to, securing us 4th! This part was fun, but I wish we could have gone a bit more aggressive on pulls, making our third squat and bench will allow us to do that next time.
Training post meet we finally are in a spot to add the elusive 4th bench day, are doubling down on deadlift training and are adding more low bar volume on his primary day. Very excited for what the future holds.
Results:
Squat: 257.5kg/567lbs
Bench: 145kg/319lbs
Deadlift: 265kg/584lbs
Total: 667.5kg/1471lbs
Jon Lavoie
The old dog, the veteran. This was Jon and I’s second meet together and this one was a bit of mixed bag due to circumstances out of our control to an extent.
We pushed Maine States too hard frankly, knowing we were doing this meet, and that is more so on me, we went to failure on squat, deadlift, and really reaggravated some prior injuries that really reared their ugly head during this prep. However, we did find some cool things that we were able to uncover with his training and bench has remained undefeated above which leads me to think we will be back in the 400s very shortly here.
The theme of Jons career is being strong but not being able to put it altogether, at once, or, to do it healthy. This prep was as good as it could have gone, running into glute pain/numbness, lingering low back pain, and then struggling to find a squat style that allowed him to squat to depth and with loading.
I think between this prep and Maine States, Jon had hit:
525lbs on squat, albeit a touch high.
395lbs on bench, fatigued to shit.
625lbs on deadlift, a limit lift, but certainly was to standard.
A 1545lbs training total, however each one of those lifts had a profound rebound effect after the fact that simply had us just looking to try to win this meet above all else.
Squat came in as well as it could have, with him going 3/3 with all that was there on the day, 230kg/507lbs.
Bench was really strong on the day, and I think I probably should have taken 177.5kg/391lbs here to save face, but seeing what our main opponent pulled, I do not think it would have made much of a difference.
Thankfully I was able to see his deadlifts and I simply think time caught up with us, things were just not there and to be 100% transparent I was not sure if we were even going to be able to get the opener, thankfully, we did, jumped 5kg and got it.
With the battle being closer now with deadlift being down, we elected to jump 2.5kg to force our opponent to pull 2.5kg higher than our best total, which we were unsure of, but he had infinitely more than that at the end of the day.
He went out and gave it all he had, just was not there on the day. One thing I want to say about Jon, is out of all the higher level athletes I work with, or at least, have been training for quite some time, Jon literally has never given me push back or made me feel as if providing him objective feedback was insulting him, which frankly can happen, and for that, I really do think our best days together are going to be in the future. Not constantly peaking for meets, stringing together positive training cycles pain-free, and then finally… letting the 83/82.5kg class chapter end and making a concerted effort to fill out and move to 90kg which will 100% be best for keeping as injury free as we possibly can be. Post meet, we have reworked things a ton, the main themes are pushing bench and upper body assistance movements, starting from scratch with squat technique to allow us to hit depth with loading, and eliminating some bad habits with deadlift that so far, with us only being a few days into this scheme, look to have a profound net positive effect.
Wait till yall see the 90kg debut, I promise on everything I love, we will bring this guy a PR total for the first time since 2020 if it is the last thing I do.
Results:
Squat: 230kg/507lbs
Bench: 180kg/396lbs
Deadlift: 260kg/573lbs
Total: 665kg/1466lbs
Sam Peterson
The only guest lifter registered for this meet that did not end up one due to missing weight. Sam by far had the longest travel stretch to get there but I would be damned if that really effect much.
One of my longest tenured clients, this was our 6th meet together and I am happy to report we have improved the total in every single one of those meets! Sam is a lifter who, straight up, is not built to powerlift, and I do not say that in a slight manner, but I think by nature his leverages/natural disposition lend themselves better to things like running and endurance stuff, and to me, this is why Sam is one of the most unique and incredible athletes I work with, because despite all that, he has managed to get stronger and stronger and the guy squats over 400 and pulls over 500.
We simply have such a solid approach with tapering squats and bench, to the point where we can accurately predict around 2.5kg to where we will be based on the last heavys. Sam had a tough time with depth this prep, only for him to sink every attempt on meet day and have it not be an issue at all. We elected to end the prep slightly lighter than normal and bank on the taper and it took very well. Bench we actually had our first miss in years a week out, that I knew was fatigue related and a taper would save. Deadlift, frankly, has been slow moving and we have tried a lot of approaches to get it to tick and to be fair, it did tick a bit more than previous blocks, just did not materialize the way we wanted to at the end. More on that at the end.
Squat peaked super well, 187.5kg/413lbs moved clean for an all time PR and only his second squat north of 400lbs ever. Maybe even had 2.5kg more! Bench, again, tapered incredible, with us nailing what we failed a week out, 122.5kg/270lbs for a small meet PR, which again, might have had 2.5kg more. Deadlift, I think I made the wrong call here, his second attempt secured a 2.5kg PR total and I think we should have just jumped 5kg to secure a 7.5kg PR total, but we jumped 7.5 to also try to grab a deadlift PR, just was not there.
Post meet, we are trying our last option with sumo deadlift, and it is way outside the box, before we seriously look at giving conventional a shot. We are going to push 9s on the secondary, with the low rep top set to come AFTER and moving the primary day to the end of the week to see how it responds. I have a good feeling about it!
Keep being you Sam, I truly value having you on this roster and always will.
Results:
Squat: 187.5kg/413lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench: 122.5kg/270lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 225kg/496lbs
Total: 535kg/1179lbs, +6lbs PR
Gavin Akeley
Last but certainly not least, Mr. Akeley, who I had the honor of handling personally on the day. There is a few things that are inevitable in sport.
Game 6 Klay
Tiger on Sunday
2016 Isaiah Thomas in the 4th quarter
Week 5 Gavin
We have his training so dialed in that this meet was just an extension of everything we had been working since we started last year before Maine States. His first bigger meet, and the first where he actually needed to make weight, we, like many on the team, overshot the weight loss a bit that caused squat to be a bit more shaky than we would have liked, regardless, he was literally as peaked as I have seen a lifter.
But this did not come without adversity, his first injury spell occurred when we added in a secondary sumo session after Maine States and although we navigated it well initially, we equally had it come back at the very end, culminating in him actually being stapled with 20lbs less than his best ever deadlift 10 days out, that and really kind of overthinking deadlift technique, it was a toss up whether we would have a deadlift that would allow us to PR the total, but I believed in my guy and he believed in my process and it all came together.
Squat started off strong, like I mentioned, he was just a touch shaky and with the luck we had rolling the dice on squat, I was not going to make the same mistake literally for the 5th time, so we took the small PR, cleared strong. Bench, to be straight up, peaked so well that I cannot believe it watching it back. In the summer of ‘23 we attempted 137.5kg/303lbs, stapled, just was not ready quite yet. We attempted it at Maine State ‘24, completed albeit hard, taken away 2-1 for glute lift. I guess third time is the charm as this moved at RPE 6.5. I wanted to go 140kg/308lbs badly, but after snafu where he hit the rack and got redlighted on his opener, we took the safety jump and nailed his first 300+lbs bench in meet with a ton of room to spare. Finally, deadlift, this is where I saw a boy become a man. With no continuity our momentum, sometimes it can effect people mentally to attempt something north of a failure in meet, not for him. I kept reminding him, shut off the brain and just pull and by all that is holy, we were able to nail 217.5kg/479lbs, about 15lbs up from what he failed in training, 6lbs under his best EVER pull, and grinded out for his first ever mega grind on the platform.
Post meet, we are switching things up to get deadlift to tick a bit more and hopefully doing it a bit more safely this time so when we get back on the platform, we will nail a 1300lbs total. We will medal next year as well.
Results:
Squat: 207.5kg/458lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 137.5kg/303lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 217.5kg/479lbs
Total: 567.5kg/1240lbs, +11lbs PR
Team Hogan @ 2024 USAPL Ladies of Iron (MA) & Titan Barbell Open - 4, 5 May 2024
The final weekend, Gwen Stefani said it best in the 2001 song, “Let Me Blow Ya Mind”, as a featured artist to Eve, “It took a while to get me here, so I’m gunna take my time”. This one was full circle for a lot of reasons. Titan Barbell is a place where I first showed up in 2020, during Corona times, with 5-7 athletes to my name, to test openers (when I still believed in that, lol) for my fifth career meet. Six years later I am fortunate enough to be close to 50 lifters deep with five of my own doing the meets, another two handing lifters, and one doing the livestream set up. Might be a little corny but stuff like that really means a ton to me. But a las, this weekend was not about me, it was about these five individuals who, really overperformed across the board. We saved the supernova for the end! This was actually two meets over two days, but I will group them together as they were held in the same venue.
Shareen Almadani
Shareen and I had been working together since July of ‘23 and we trained for a solid 4 blocks before deciding to prepare for this meet. To me, I wish all new athletes I take on were like this because we had a good 16 weeks to trial and troubleshoot things before having a end date to be ready for, so we really were able to iron out some details that frankly needed to be addressed before going into max singles. The first of which was chronic back pain from deadlift, which thankfully, we were able to solve with some pretty outside the box methods, the first of which was enacting a sumo deadlift secondary session, which we knew was never going to be the competition stance but allowed her to train the pull pattern for reps while dosing conventional off blocks at first and inching our way down to the floor over a couple cycles. Her program design before was good, just needed a bit more organization for planning purposes and with that we were really off and running. Based on Shareens intake and our first couple of blocks, I decided to lean into wave loading for her, with a pull back in intensity, volume, or both, each week 1, to always make sure that fatigue debt did not creep up and irritate her back, and we stumbled upon that the 4th week was really the strongest across every cycle. We would push the top end every other cycle, with every alternating one being submaximal and really have made linear progress with that approach.
Going into this meet, we had expectations based on block 4 of the week before, but had some major caveats, the first being her first meet back in about a year along with it being her first in this federation, along with that, there is always a curve between training lifts and lifting in meet with equipment changes and judging, etc… So with that being said, we aired on the side of conservative for squat and bench and fairly aggressive on deadlift.
Due to some unracking issues and a fair bit of nerves, we opted to match her one block out best on squat as that was already a massive meet PR, we might have had some in the tank but it was imperative to start on a good note. Bench was the lift during prep where I was straight up in that she could be pushing heavier, and credit to her, she did, and we rewarded with a small meet PR, we might have had 2.5 more in the tank, but with women’s 3rd attempts, the second can be rather misleading, but the goal for her next meet is to make that third a second or opening attempt and so far we are on pace to do just that! Deadlift, now forgive me because I am getting emotional here, we had a cool moment where, with already and aggressive plan, I wanted to see if she felt as strong as she was looking, so I asked if she wanted to maybe up the third attempt 2.5kg more and crack into the 290s after only hitting 281 a block out. Being the gamer she is, she felt strongly about it, so we jumped a full 10kg to the 3rd, and she grinded out an all time PR for a supernova 9/9 day.
Shareen is wonderful to work with and I cannot say enough good things about her. I got to chop it up with her partner Jay on this day as well and he co-signed how much change he has noticed in her compared to previous months, all for the better. Her next meet, I fully expect her to be in the 300s on both squat and deadlift, and up into the upper 160s, low 170s on bench. Grand goals, but with the way she is as a client, I think this is conservative for our time frame.
Results:
Squat: 127.5kg/281lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench: 70kg/154lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 132.5kg/292lbs, +28lbs PR
Total: 330kg/728lbs, +53lbs PR
Rachel Chernick
Rachel and I have been working together for quite some time now and this was actually our second meet together. Actually, her and Shareen came from the same referral source (thanks Beverly!!!) and much like I mentioned with Shareen, Rachel is an absolute blast to work with.
Without getting into detail, this meet was powerful for a ton of reasons. Since we started together, the main goal was to move on from the previous chapter of her lifting which deteriorated quite heavily and move on with finality. In our first meet, we didn’t have enough time, but for this meet, we were ready to do so. We actually revamped her training quite a bit as in the middle of our duration together, simply put, with her work life and externals, workouts were simply too long and in our cycles we would constantly get behind to the point where it was tough to decipher if lack of success was due to that, or program related things, so I had a brain storm. What is the least we can get away with? Turns out that this was the golden ticket because ever since we did that, she has seen such a big uptick in training! We leaned into ascending volume on primary days, straight sets on secondary days and with that just titrated rep ranges to reflect how close we were to the meet and it worked like a charm!
With Rachel, since this was not her first meet, we didn’t have to really worry about logistical things, more so just making sure we stayed on pace to pull for a total PR. Squat went off very well, with us taking the top end of the plan, with her showing incredible depth which was iffy the last few weeks going into meet. Bench, we were able to chip her first meet PR on the lift since 2021 which was special in it’s own right. Lastly, and deja-vu here, we had a situation where, we could load up 140kg/308lbs (already a PR) for a total PR or, 142.5kg/314lbs for a milestone plus a slightly higher total PR with the risk of, if we missed, no total PR again. Riding on a high from the day before, she felt good for 314 and I obliged. Three whites, her first total PR since 2021, and officially closed a chapter that desperately needed to end.
I am so proud and honored to be in her corner and with her wave of progress and consistency, we will ride this high into Mass states quite well! Can’t wait for that.
Results:
Squat: 125kg/275lbs
Bench: 77.5kg/171lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 142.5kg/314lbs, +22lbs PR
Total: 345kg/760lbs, +11lbs PR
Hector Martinez
Now the true definition of a shotgun meet prep comes right here. Hector came to me about 5 weeks out, which normally I would be lukewarm on, but based on our intake call where he showed great interest, open accountability, and something that I find really imperative of his character, not bashing his former coach, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and I am glad we decided to go forward with things.
With only 4 weeks to prepare, I laid the following ground rules.
No changing of the split as a whole.
No changing of cues aside from minor things.
We would simply just ride with the base he had, not trying to expand upon it.
Any changes were to be RPE related or on the secondary day, minor changes to his primaries.
With that, all I really tried to do was dial in his taper based on his feedback in our first call in which he mentioned he felt he was a bit flat on meet day the last meet he did, and to me that just meant keeping his training volume higher, longer, and not dropping off as much leading into meet. This was a tune up meet before Raw Nationals in September, so we wanted to be fairly conservative across the board, but we wanted to PR the total if we had the opportunity to.
Preparation on squat and bench were awesome, deadlift was lukewarm and we kinda knew that and knew deadlift would not be our calling card for this one. I think I dropped the ball here because squat ended up being TOO conservative, and we will correct that in our next go, still, a 7.5kg meet PR @ RPE 7 is good money in my eyes. Bench, actually cleared strong and we found out a quicker descent to the chest is something that works well for him. For deadlift, we had the opportunity to take the low end and PR the total, or the high end and see if the taper strategy we used was as effective as we hoped. We gambled, it was literally as close to a make as it possibly could be, without being credited as one, but I don’t regret it and am glad we tried it. Within 5kg of his best total essentially training through the meet (we were back in the gym the next DAY) and with that, we are rolling in the block immediately after with some adjustments we have time for.
Hector is the type of athlete who I really do not take for granted, not only is he accepting of the process and trusting within it, but he is clearly eager to be better and with a lot of other things on his plate, he has done a wonderful job of adjusting to my system which admittedly is not the easier to just pick up from scratch. At nationals, you will all see the best version of himself.
Results:
Squat: 25kg/496lbs, +16lbs PR
Bench: 130kg/286lbs
Deadlift: 232.5kg/513lbs
Total: 587.5kg/1295lbs
Mike Iascone
This one was the most nerve-wracking for me, straight up. Mike competed in our Harvest Moon meet in November of ‘23 and had a big breakthrough day, massive meet and/or all time PRs on everything and on the day, forcing his hand we figured how he actually can deadlift, with a 518 PR turning into a 540 PR within 10 days.
I wish I could say it was smooth sailing after that point, but it was anything but. As he should, he took the winter to enjoy things he likes, snowboarding and going to the lodge and what not, however around this time we encountered some pretty distinct knee pain that ended up plaguing most of the preparation there after. Originally wanting to set it up so we could run his block length into the meet, we ended up only doing that for bench, with squat and deadlift literally being a hope and pray situation more than anything. On top of all this, Mike had a pretty severe back flare up that left him unable to squat and deadlift for I think two weeks, and even when we could, we could not string together anything productive. So with our final block I told him that we had a few options.
We put our best foot forward with the approach I laid out and commit to fighting through pain, knowing he was taking time off from the sport post-meet.
We lay off a bit, don’t push the top end, do the meet for fun.
We pull out of the meet altogether.
I was happy he chose option # 1 here.
Knowing how strong his base is, and having an understanding of how physiology works, I knew that his strength did not leave him, but we had to prepare his body conservatively to be ready to express that. For bench, besides a little bit of pain with leg drive, this was not really something we had to worry about, but for the lower body lifts, we adopted towards a better safe than sorry scheme, where we committed to train into the meet in the purest sense. At the peak, we were only doing 3 working sets of squat per week, and 2 working sets of deadlift. You read that right. Along with that, I told him for the final stages of prep we had to do our best to think performance and that numbing up was the only way to do so. Tiger balm and Aleve on deck for this.
Thankfully, we made it through without set back, the back rewired quite well, the knees, not so much. It was enough though, to be strong as we were at that point going into the last meet, virtually across the board.
Then he told me he wanted podium for this meet, which fired me up, so I decided hey man, let’s give it a shot.
Strangely enough this was my first time handling him directly and not that there are people who I do not enjoy handling on the day, but straight up, he let me just coach and him be the athlete, I worried about everything and kept him informed, but he was not overly concerned with anything other than hitting the lifts on the bar loaded for him, which to me, allows me to do what I personally believe I do best, and I am thankful for that.
For squat, we knew we were only good for one big attempt, and we had to make that one count, as much as I wanted 250kg, 247.5kg given the context was the right call, small meet PR and momentum into bench. Bench itself went strong, his opener actually being the hardest visually of the three attempts from my angle, cleared with a 5kg meet PR. Then, the fun part, deadlifts. We knew based upon the last meet, if Mike got to 518, he would have up to 540 on the day, the only issue is we had not touched anything remotely close to that 518 attempt 10 days out for months, which for most people would cause a lack of confidence. However, I really do not think this phased him. With our main opponent being in the second flight, we were the aggressors to put the pressure on, so we needed the highest he felt capable of the day with a make, as a miss would make podium not possible at all. Oh by the way, Mike was in a flight of 7 people meaning all these decisions had to be made rapid fire. Taking mongo jumps, Mike went out and nailed that 540 deadlift to secure a total PR, DOTS PR, and his first 9/9 meet since 2022 and with all that, was rewarded with a third place overall finish. Pretty special as I think when most people saw Mike in his first meet, they would not think he would be a ~440 DOTS lifter just a few years later, but we don’t pay much attention to anything other than the work. Mike has since pivoted away from PL to focus on other things, but if this was it for the time being, I feel very satisfied knowing how we ended it.
Results:
Squat: 247.5kg/546lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 150kg/331lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 245kg/540lbs
Total: 642.5kg/1416lbs, +16lbs PR
Tyler Hill (Seamus)
Now, the most emotional for last. Seamus and I have been working together since 2021 and I believe he was one of my first original 10 clients, so naturally, by now, our working relationship is somewhat set in stone. Originally doing USPA meets, in 2022 we pivoted to USAPL and this was actually his most recent meet until this one. And this meet would not make sense without context of that meet there.
Seamus went 5/9 that day and I really feel I was the major reason why. He will never make that excuse, but I think I could have done things so much better that day and sometimes I worry that people think I only pay attention to those who are making the most progress, when in reality, the ones who are not actively keep me up at night. As cringy as it may sound, I told him honestly that I will find a solution to his lack of progress and when it takes, we will keep it going so long as I had his trust, which, with him was not a concern and never is.
We revamped his entire training model to do some things that are atypical for a 100kg lifter, we squatted 3x per week, with the middle slot changing being a game changer our final couple of blocks, we elected to bench 4x per week with a closer grip than usual with a softer touch style, and we elected to only pull once per week with heavy RDLs on the other day, waving grip work for 3 weeks, removing it on the 4th.
Seamus mentioned he enjoyed having ranges to stay honest early in the cycle and we basically would range 2-3 weeks depending on the lift to make sure weeks 1-3 were kept submax and he simply just picked his cards right each block based on RPE designation. We found a 5 week block to be ultra reliable because of this and ran it all the way into the meet, with him labeling the meet as W5D5 which is awesome to me.
Seamus is stress-free for a coach on the day, and with that, other people reported to me they have never seen him that dialed in on the day, I don’t know if it was confidence in what we were doing, being in his home gym, or what, but I had to agree there. Squat cleared strong, with a 222.5kg/491lbs all time PR going up with at least some in the tank. Bench, we leaned into the commands on the day, not being overly attached, and this actually moved incredible, we were good for another 2.5kg easy. Deadlift, we had the opportunity to try to go for a 1300lb total, but elected to take the no doubt make after a little grip slip on attempt #2 and although we had some in the tank, it had been 2 years since we PR’d the total and we actually had never gone 9/9 till that point. He smoked 222.5kg/491 as a third, solidifying his best total ever, after years of purgatory and with that, Seamus if you are reading this brother, thank you for sticking it through when things were down and always believing they would turn up. Long live the Sunday prep crew.
Results:
Squat: 222.5kg/491lbs, +33lbs PR
Bench: 140kg/308lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 222.5kg/491lbs
Total: 585kg/1291lbs, +28lbs PR
Team Hogan @ USAPL Stand Strong Spring Storm - 27 April 2024
The sixth meet weekend of seven straight, this one was relatively low key compared to the back to back national meets a few weeks prior. That being said, that does not mean the three lifters who competed for me this day, did not have goals that were not respected, and with that, the three people who competed this meet: Rachael, Haley, and Robbie, all had unique stories and circumstances that led them to the day. It is nice that for Maine drug-free lifters, there is plenty of meets to choose from now, where as when I first entered into the sport, we were lucky to have 2 meets in a given year, now you can find 4-6 meets across federations at the time that works best for you! This was the 6th meet of Stand Strong’s that I have supported and thankfully I know the lay of the land well now which always helps for preparing lifters for what to expect. Now, getting into each performance!
Rachael O’Donnell
Rachael came to me via another athlete and was highly recommended for various reasons, but mainly because she showed so much interest in the sport/training as a whole, our working relationship was pretty solid from the get go. She came from a CrossFit background, naive me not understanding how successful her and her husband’s gym was before Corona times, and as such, understood standard of movement and the ability to move in relation to those standards. Carrying a decent amount of mileage from those days, and with some general wear and tear, our program design was quite different than the standard preparation you would traditionally see, heading into a meet. This was very fun for me as a coach, as to be truthful, although all programming takes thought and consideration, when someone is just getting into weight training as a whole, you can throw just about anything at them and they will have success in some capacity, however in cases like Rachael, where in my opinion, she was of an advanced training age and carried a few serious injuries in the past, you cannot, and should not, just throw anything at them as it will exacerbate existing injuries or resurface old ones. Our first few blocks were very much based on learning the sport as a whole while still operating on the guise of, “less is more” with her training volume and intensity. We achieved a lot of breakthroughs during this time, including her first bodyweight dip, numerous PRs on the powerlifts, and just overall, a sustainable training approach!
With that said, when we got into our meet prep, I feel I really dropped the ball in a major way here. Our training cycles would usually be about 4 weeks, wave loading on week 1 of every cycle to make sure we never red-lined in terms of fatigue debt and I should have just ate up a 3-week wave and ran a 4-week block into the meet, instead I decided to do a traditional ramping 7 week prep and this was not the right move, not because she did not get stronger, objectively, she did, but it came at the cost of massive fatigue accumulation. Around two weeks out we started to hit a wall in terms of just dragging it in the gym, and although I knew she would be good by meet day, I simply do not think this was productive for her mental and physical health and I am still kicking myself till this day about dropping the ball so much in this regard. The week of the meet, we tapered back a ton, more than usual, and her best feeling day actually ended up being the meet, thankfully.
Getting into the day, Rachael was on fire, we are able to match her all time best squat, match her best to-standard bench, and with everything going the way it was, walked away with an ALL TIME deadlift PR, north of what she failed in training, with more in the tank on the day. No strength misses, just a technicality call on her third bench, that was more than fair as a call. I want to extend how proud I am of her because to be candid, Rachael has provided me a lot of guidance and reassurance as a coach in navigating my business as a young man. I really appreciated her full trust in me and her trust in the process as a whole, because with as much experience as she has had in similar avenues, it would be normal to question things and/or lose faith during the downswings. We have since pivoted away from intensive barbell training and doing more restorative stuff ever since she has gotten her new puppy and this has been the downshift she needed for quite some time and I am more than happy to support it!
Results:
Squat: 82.5kg/181lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 55kg/121lbs
Deadlift: 95kg/209lbs
Total: 232.5kg/512lbs
8/9 on attempts
Haley-Jane Tuplin
Haley’s story coming into this meet is quite unique as well, but for different reasons. She is a collegiate athlete, with me taking her on the summer she graduated from high school, and after her first meet in June of ‘23, she was off to play her first season of collegiate field hockey. I still remember getting the Instagram DM of her in the hospital bed a few months after, torn ACL. Of course, I was more worried about her the person, then her the athlete, but I would like to think her base of strength pre-surgery helped her post-surgical outcome quite well. We got back into training about 16 weeks, or so, before this meet, and with her also expressing wanting to do regionals, we elected to use this as a tune up meet.
Running our 4 week blocks into the meet, our early programming was very careful in conservative, basically not wanting to irritate her knee too much, as although the squat and deadlift are not nearly as volatile to the ligament as cutting and running are, there is still a portion of stress that will be applied via heavy weights and the last thing I wanted to do was set her back even further.
Squat started off slow, but quite literally, without exaggeration, her strength and technique came back each time she got under the bar and we got to a point where we would be able to actually PR the squat, which I don’t think we anticipated from the on-set of this prep. Bench training, really was on another level, just naturally strong through the upper body as is, Haley responds well to just about anything on bench and can tolerate both intensity and volume to the highest degree. Deadlift, her bread and butter lift, actually was the hardest to get back. We messed around with a ton of schemes to get her pull back and there was actually a brief period where I actually thought it would take quite a bit longer to just get the confidence back to pull heavy weights again, but pretty much in the knick of time, the cues we had worked on finally took to form and she was close to her bests from before and not making them move @ RPE 10+ anymore.
The meet itself, we agreed we needed to leave some in the tank because the Monday after we were right back into training. So although she for sure had more in the squat, more in the deadlift, it still manifested as a PR total which means we really have made a sizeable amount of progress in a short time. Along with all this, Haley was up a weight class, but not nearly filling it out quite yet, when that happens, we expect there to be a massive uptick in strength and leverage. We are now about 13 days out from Regionals where she will be looking to win her T3 class and will be a point scorer for the team!
Results:
Squat: 102.5kg/226lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 67.5kg/148lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 132.5kg/292lbs
Total: 302.5kg/666lbs, +11lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Robbie Creamer
Robbie! This was Robbie’s second career meet, almost a year since the first one. Robbie is someone who I personally admire a ton as he took a lot of steps and gambles in her personal life to chase a dream, which I can relate to a ton. With that, his life looks a lot different now than it did when we first started working together, as although he is self-employed, I am certain he is working more than ever, not less than ever as some would assume. He is someone who, above all else, trusts me to be the coach, him to be the athlete, and with that, I think the success we have had is mainly attributed to that more than anything. We actually were lining up to do Maine States but there was a bit of a miscommunication and he did not get in, in time, so we elected to do the next Maine meet, which was this one about a month after. Our prep was hit or miss, mainly due to pretty extreme low back fatigue paired with technique feeling awkward on squat. To double down on all of this, he got fairly sick and his bodyweight plummeted towards the last few weeks of this prep, with him almost being down one full weight class (194-183lbs) which really shifted our expectations.
We decided to go to the sumo deadlift as it was the only stance where we could train the movement without it bleeding over into other avenues of his lifting and since have gone all in on this stance, with more time I do think it will surpass his best conventional, and substantially so, when we iron out some kinks. Bench training was clean and actually his bench was stronger pound for pound this meet, just weren’t able to express that as weight added to the bar with bodyweight being down as much. Squat, has given him the most trouble, with ankles issues, with different technical tweaks never making the movement feel natural, etc… But surprisingly enough, this is the lift that showed up best on the day!
The meet itself was very good, starting off with a squat PR. His third attempt bench was JUST too heavy on the day, but we wanted to take the gamble as he had the deadlift to pull for a PR total with the squat cushion we had. On deadlift, the plan was to PR the total on the 2nd pull and then chase the top end for the day on the third, a 2-1 soft shoulders call due to grip slip threw a wrench in that and we elected to retake it in order to seal the deal.
Since the meet we have overhauled this training and once the bodyweight comes back, you will see a much improved and confident lifter, until then, we are back in the lab. If you are reading this, please give my man’s clothing line a view and consider buying a piece!
https://hipressureclothing.com/ (Link to his site)
Results:
Squat: 175kg/386lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench Press: 115kg/253lbs
Deadlift: 200kg/441lbs
Total: 490kg/1080lbs, +6lb PR
7/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ USPA Kalibrated Kombat - 20 April 2024
Getting right into things, this was my first meet with both individuals, Chachey and Raz. This is somewhat atypical as generally I like my first meet with an athlete to be one on one, however, they both had competed at least once (or in Chachey’s case, for years) before coming to me, so I felt better about it. Now, I want to be clear, I do not hold any prejudice towards federations, I like my lifters to lift to a high standard and a have a good atmosphere/set up, but I would be remiss to say USPA meets as a whole (not by these meet directors, I actually felt this meet ran incredibly smooth and efficient) really are fairly antiquated in terms of modern powerlifting. I only say this as with liftingcast readily available, I would be curious to see why it is not featured for USPA. Again, this meet was ran incredibly well and thankfully in a smaller venue but in the past, going from platform to warmup room several times to see the order of flow is sometimes disorienting, that, and sometimes the paper set up of flights can be misleading should people change opening attempts. Just my thoughts! Now, to the lifters.
Chachey Tirado
Chachey and I had only been working together for 2 total blocks going into this meet, when she came to me, she had already signed up for this meet and I did not feel it was right to say we needed more time, especially knowing it was important to her, so I simply let her know that with such little prep time and a lot to overhaul, there was going to be only so much we could do to actually improve top end strength. She acquiesced and we were off and running. Our early programming was to first: learn how to low bar squat and eliminate chronic back pain from squats and deads. We did this mainly by eliminating chronic extension in the low back and looking to fix position off the floor in deadlift and since bench was already quite strong, I just looked to organize it in a way that reflected the strong day to be Saturday. We really started hitting our stride about 4 weeks out, where things were coming in droves on the lower body lifts. Unbeknownst to both us, her body weight had came down quite a bit, and when I say quite a bit, she was actually down 2 weight classes from her most recent meet, meaning when we saw bench kind of flatline, it had more to do with that, than anything else. Getting into the meet itself, squat tapered incredibly well, with 297lbs moving noticeably better than 285lbs did a week out. I find for smaller lifters, the squat bar really is a hindrance more than it helps, so setting up was actually the limiting factor more than anything. Bench is where we ran into some road blocks, now, again, I fully respect referees for their time and devotion to the sport, I just need to maybe understand USPA rules better. On her opening attempt, she was called 2-1 for glute lift. Now, I am uncertain as to what constitutes glute lift as she had it down but the ref I asked said, and I quote, “It was hovering the whole time and it never came down”, honestly did not know what to do here, so I cued her to just send her feet a touch more forward and as being as transparent as I can, it looked no different from her opener, in which she got 3 whites for this one. On her third, same deal, I watched from the referees side angle, in which it was no different from the first or 2nd, 2-1 red lights for glute lift. Disappointed for sure, but I need to be better about understanding USPA rules, still after answers here as to what more we could have done, but at the end of the day, we have since adjusted technique to make it no doubt. Deadlifts tapered incredibly as well, with 341lbs going up without a hitch, a full 16lbs up from her best pull of prep being 325lbs! Overall, this was an incredibly solid day and one we will look to build on in this weight class now that we are settled into it! More to come!
Results:
Squat: 135kg/297lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 75kg/165lbs
Deadlift: 155kg/341lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 365kg/804lbs
7/9 on attempts
Raz Baltazar
Much like Chachey, Raz’s meet prep was only our second block together! Raz has some very natural technique and as such, I did not want to tweak much beyond just making sure standards were being met. What is cool with Raz, and of course, I always welcome detail and questioning when an approach is introduced, is I tell him to work on X, he executes Y and it is as simple as that. No push back, just goes and does as he is told. To me, and he can correct me if I am wrong here of course, that tells me at the bare minimum, he trusts that I have his best interests at heart with his lifting and respects my craft for what it is, which is sometimes a breath of fresh air for me. Raz squats with the highest of high bar positions on squat, the longest ROM possible on bench, and has a very non-leverage dependent sumo deadlift, so his program design is to reflect more brute strength more than anything. Since we are in another meet prep right now, we still have not changed much, but as he looks to come to USAPL in 2025, we will introduce low bar squatting, a more technical bench set up, and do some tweaking with deadlift on the stiff power bar.
Getting into the day, this was actually the first time I met Raz in person, and my brother in iron is as stoic as they come. Me, of all people, had to convince him to smile at certain points because he would not showcase any emotion, haha. Coming off a very well executed water cut and rehydration, he was able to squat and bench north of his best in training, yielding him a USPA state record in bench, on deadlift, we actually were moving well but a slight hiccup on a bobbled opener deadlift set us back a touch and we had to retake it, electing to hit his planned 2nd, as his 3rd. Overall, one lift away from a supernova day and we look to make this meet a joke in August!
Results:
Squat: 190kg/418lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench Press: 140kg/308lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 205kg/452lbs
Total: 535kg/1179lbs, +16lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Max Dingle - USAPL Collegiate Nationals- 11 April 2024
This was the 3rd meet for myself in 6 days and needless to say, I was running on fumes at this point, however, my job is always easy with Max. To set the stage for this meet, I think it would do justice for us to go back to when I first took Max on shortly after a meet in Connecticut where he unfortunately bombed out on squat. A lot of our initial work was simply cleaning up technique and program design to reflect competition standard and create more predictability, so not that we were late to the game in terms of progress, but we simply needed to hit that standard before we started piling weight on the bar, more so for the lower body lifts. Our time since then has been more about refining and making sure we put together lifts that yield the best total, as with little time between meets, we really did not have the time to build the way we would like. That said, all of this was kind of full circle as the kid who had trouble hitting depth in general, came all the way around to executing a 9/9 day with the highest standard of judging the sport can provide.
The story for this meet was rather unique as this was just 2 weeks after his last meet, in which we largely were going to train through, but decided to send a deadlift for the win last second, which certainly made the 1.5 week on-ramp into this meet very interesting. As much as I am a stickler for letting time to pass by between meets, this was going to be a once in a lifetime, or at least career, opportunity as Max was about to graduate from college and life was about to be unpredictable for the foreseeable future until he picked a position on ship in which he would be spending at least the majority of the next phases of training at sea. It was a no-brainer to do this meet, with the caveat that we pretty much knew we would not be getting any stronger in just 10 days of prep work, but rather picking attempts to yield us another small total PR.
As referenced in the Maine States recap, I made a fatal error adjusting Max’s deadlift technique going into that meet, as well as his programming, and although we were within striking distance (3 inches) of locking out an all time PR that meet, we did not hit it, at the end of the day. So that ended up being a big theme for us going into this meet, the adjustment being dropping to 1x per week deadlift frequency from twice, and simply not pushing top end intensity and looking to taper, rather ramping up into the meet as we had data from the meet prior to Maine States, if we leave our prep off with a bit of momentum, we can save the all out pull for the meet quite convincingly whereas repeat peak intensity exposures do not seem to move the needle. We actually adopted this approach with squat as well and it worked very well!
Max, through and through, is a bencher, and he mentioned one of the reasons his bench is so much higher in a relative sense than is lower body lifts was due to injury he sustained in which he basically could not train lower body for a full year, so it leads me to think he is right on the cusp of a breakthrough in that regard. I digress, Max’s bench is pretty much always reliably there. We revamped his set up to be a bit more “powerlifting-technician” as opposed to brute force and ever since that tweak, we just make sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew per block and things have came rather organically.
Getting into the meet itself, we elected to have a plan that, if we were to go 9/9, would allow us to have a small PR total as we were really leaving a lot of this to chance as regardless of my process of planning, I literally have not had someone push very hard at a meet 2 weeks out, and then compete 2 weeks later. So the plan was to be within 2.5kg of his meet bests on squat and bench, in either direction, and if we could pull for the PR total up to 262.5kg, we would. Squat went through with flying colors, really did not have much to spare on this lift so I am happy we were able to execute well as this was the most nerve-wracking for me. Bench was a bit of a toss up as that entire week there was mild controversy that holds and pauses were excessively long, so we elected to make sure we rolled with the punches of our platform, not forced the issue and looked to complain after the fact. His second did not move the way we wanted so we just took a small jump to save face and he actually made it move better, really, with 2.5kg more in the tank, but a make is a make and we had momentum into pulls. On deadlifts, we actually had a unique circumstance where Max was told to take the platform out of turn, thankfully, the number was what we called and we received credit for the number regardless. The number we needed to pull for his best total, was 260kg/573lbs, a lift he had hit in November, but missed just 2.5kg more 2 weeks earlier. He went out and smoked it with at least 5kg to spare! 9/9 at his first national meet and off a 10 day prep, can’t ask for much more than that! We agreed that there was a lot of data we could take away from this meet and training post meet, for the most part, has gone quite well, I foresee a 200kg bench and a much improved squat and deadlift the next time we are afforded the opportunity to compete!
Results:
Squat: 227.5kg/501lbs
Bench Press: 190kg/419lbs
Deadlift: 260kg/573lbs
Total: 677.5kg/1493lbs, +6lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Dave Cailler - WRPF Ghost Clash III - 7 April 2024
The only meet during this 7 week whirlwind that I could not attend. When I saw the initial schedule for high school nationals, I was holding out hope that either, Logan would be in the morning session and I could fly out later that day to Florida, or he would be earlier in the week. Basically, at the last possible minute, the schedule had came out and it was the absolute worst possible scenario, 6pm lifting on Saturday and Dave began warmups the following day at 8am, so needless to say, this one would have been literally impossible to make even with the most aggressive travel accommodations possible.
I reached out to a friend of a friend to see if he had availability to help Dave out and thankfully he did, so before I get into detail, I want to thank Miles Lui for taking care of Dave on the day and he did literally everything I would ever ask from a handler for one of my own and to be 100% honest, probably was better suited for the environment than me anyway haha, if anyone ever needs handling done and he is available, I cannot recommend him more than I already do.
So, getting into things, I spent a good 75% of this meet behind, watching on 2 separate flights back to Maine (in which I ate the $15 wifi charge) via livestream until I finally got home and was able to watch deadlifts in real time. On par with character, Dave lost his phone and was unreachable the entire day. So my only communication was with Miles as things cleared through. Thankfully, we had already discussed the gameplan at-large and I felt confident regardless, trusting he would use his instinct if they needed to adjust. An important note when another coach is handling a lifter of your own, you set the expectations of how you want things to be done, however, do not micromanage or attempt to coach from your phone, I have been in situations where I almost feel like I cannot actually coach the athlete like a human on the day when other coaches are hovering over me so I wanted to make sure I did not do that by all means.
This prep for Dave was rather solid. Coming off of the Ghost Summer meet, we knew the lowest hanging fruits were nailing our squat peak, putting more emphasis on bench, and finding a scheme (and stance) for deadlift we wanted to use in meet.
The thought process was, he had been able to produce very heavy squats under what I would deem high fatigue, and we never really got a massive slingshot out of a taper protocol, so we elected to simply end his prep with an @ 8-8.5 single on squat, knowing we have more in the tank with a little reduction in intensity the week of, which proved to be correct as his 347.5kg third moved with a ton to spare. We will be returning to this approach next meet for certain.
Bench press training took off quite strong, now, this could be attributed to acute bodyweight gain, but nonetheless, he was able to nail a strong 200kg bench for the first time which we now know depending on standard of judging the taper will be more than likely repeating his best training bench, +/- 2.5kg which so long as it keeps going up, we will take.
Deadlift, although strong on the day, I think benefitted from the approach we did 2-3 blocks out, in which 90% of his deadlift volume came via conventional pulls and we really only did 1 working set of sumo deads on the back end of an SBD session, as opposed to the 2x frequency we used heading into the meet, I think 340kg goes up on the day, 345kg just a touch too heavy for the day itself.
Overall, the last piece when we designed this block was not prepping for too long, in the past we have done 8 week ramps into comp and I felt strongly that the accumulation of fatigue from that just was not worth how much we have to taper just to feel not wrecked and for really no extra strength benefit, so we elected to do a 2 week bridge block and cut down to about a 6 week prep with the final week being a taper week into the meet. This will definitely be the move next meet.
His best meet yet and as we inch closer and closer to a 2000lb total, he shows no signs of slowing down. The 220s and 242s were fun, but his best lifting will probably be in the 255lbs range and as a lighter 275er, these next few years are going to be incredible.
Results:
Squat: 347.5kg/766lbs, +28lb PR
Bench Press: 197.5kg/435lbs, +11lb PR
Deadlift: 332.5kg/733lbs
Total: 877.5kg/1935lbs, +33lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Logan Allaire - USAPL High School Nationals- 6 April 2024
Well well well, the meet that on paper was going to be our best yet, but again, on paper, was technically the worst. Where do we begin?
To start, this was Logan and I’s 6th meet together, which is wild to think about that way, but in that time together we truly have discovered not only what works well for him, but what we can get away with for shorter durations of time to surge strength. Only 17 now, and 15 when I took him on, we have adopted the minimum effective dose of training until this point for a few reasons. The main thing we noticed, is the kids who entered the sport with him, are either no longer in the sport now or have shifted goals towards other things and mainly due to burnout, so we kind of made a pact that we will eek out progress for as long as we can, at a slower rate, rather than try to get as strong as possible and peak at 16 years old. This has treated us very well as he has been able to, at least the majority of the time, be injury-free and each block we run, we have been able to piece together something positive, even if it was not a PR single, double, or triple.
We have had cycles where we do not use stiff knee sleeves, cycles where we intentionally are dropping bodyweight, intentionally pivoting away from comp specificity. All of that led to what this cycle ended up being.
As we game-planned this meet, we figured Logan had a real shot at 2 things:
Medaling
Setting the T2 AR squat
So, naturally we made a deal that for this year, we will be diving into specificity more so than ever and going all in on the 2 meets he will be doing, HS Nationals and T2 Raw Nationals and after that, going back to chilling and with that understanding, I formulated a plan to reflect that.
Our squat training is somewhat atypical in that we do zero leg accessories in meet prep (and very little out of it) and actually change secondary schemes intra-cycle, from pause squats to regular squats. We learned early on that since he can produce so much force in the squat pattern, and that he typically will squat ~40-50lbs more than he will deadlift, anything in that domain will be the major disrupter in terms of recovery, and no matter what we would do, he would see a major downtick in performance if we pushed the top end for too long and deadlift would just kind of be stagnant until we tapered, which didn’t really allow for any momentum. His opening single of the 7 week prep was 420lbs, week 6 was 560lbs. 140lbs difference between that span.
Bench really took off, after having some trouble getting the primary to pop, we realized his intensity on the secondary day was far too high, and there was not enough volume on the primer day, fixing that allowed for the primary to show up regularly, ending his prep off with 308lbs (busted the chip plates out and everything) that looked good for the 314lbs we wanted in meet.
Deadlift, this is where we made by far the most progress. For the first time, we brought in a secondary sumo session and that, paired with a tweak to how he was initiating the pull (hinging into the pull more than squatting into it) and applying tension with his hookgrip (not death gripping the bar) really allowed for all the cues after, to take effect. The patience, the vertical finish, the wedging, all improved to the point where we opted to increase load caps for the final pull of prep by 5lbs to give him a solid and convincing 520lb pull, a 20lb all time PR and a whopping ~35lbs over his meet PR.
So needless to say, confidence going into this meet was at an all time high as with the data we have on his tapering over the 6 meets, we knew we would be good for +5kg on squat, +2.5kg on bench, and will most likely match the best pull of prep. That would have been:
Squat: 260kg/573lbs
Bench: 142.5kg/314lbs
Dead: 235kg/518lbs
Total: 637.5kg/1406lbs (Exactly the total for 5th place at the meet)
Just a quick word on scouting, we knew straight up we had no shot at top 3, but I knew judging off the year prior and general knowledge, every year there is a kid that got there with less than stellar judging and won’t be able to meet the standard and there will be a handful of bombouts, this proved to be true to the tee. The kid seeded first, bombed out, the kid seeded second, drastically underperformed relative to his nominated total, but we also knew there would be kids in 6th-8th that could pull the difference. Looking back on the database, there was 5 bombouts this session, 1st and 3rd seeded were out before deads had even started.
All of this, then, it happened.
The Tuesday the week of the meet, I get a message: Been puking all night and didn’t go to school.
I thought he was joking, he was not.
What proceeded to happen was rather insane, from Tuesday to Saturday (the day of the meet) he went from ~200lbs to 191lbs, despite eating and drinking the morning and afternoon of the meet.
We knew from the jump, today would not be the day, but wanted to simply put our best foot forward and have a shot at a PR total.
Squat started out decent, we were able to chip a 5kg meet PR squat for a small all time PR @ RPE 17 and I think from that point, whatever energy he had, was gone after this.
Bench, man, I will be honest here, and if anyone reading goes back and looks at my meet reports, I do not complain about judging, but simply put, the holds/pauses for this session were as aggressive as I have ever seen it. There were 3 bombouts on bench alone! Now, I am unsure if this was simply a crackdown on a standard they wanted to be met, or just literally bad luck, but nonetheless, I think I dropped the ball here a bit. After his opener, which went up fine but he mentioned how long the commands were and how shaky he felt, I should have opted to just jump up 5kg, instead of the planned 7.5kg, because regardless of standard, he had that no matter what. We went up to 137.5kg and really just a dumb call on my end, with him being down 9lbs in bodyweight, why would he be able to feel strong on bench? Held up for forever on the chest, missed on strength. We retook it, and by the grace of God, he got it, but got called 2-1 for downward motion, and I went ahead to protest and before I could even say a word they told me to essentially not bother.
Deflating, and I need to be better here. By going up 5, we at least have a 5kg buffer to play with and if we miss the 3rd of 137.5 or 140, we at least have that 5kg zone to still PR the total.
We really had to adjust for deads and again, in hindsight, I should have adjusted the opener down, not up, like we talked about to get him a total PR on the second. The tough part was the table to put in attempt was about a 2.5 minute run from the warmup room and multiply that x2 and that eats up a ton of time in a busy warmup room. After his last warmup of 205kg/452lbs, I will be straight up, I really thought there was a possibility of him bombing out as it moved awful. Thankfully, we were able to register his opening deadlift, and that ended up being as much as he possibly had on the day, his 2nd not moving further than the knee. We opted to not go out for his third but not scratch so we could give the next kids an extra minute of rest, as I think that is the right thing to do and save face for the rest of the year.
Now, this is what I am most proud:
Logan was transparent about how he was feeling during all of this. I have had adults who frankly leave me in the dark about how they are feeling, what they are doing, and then we face the repercussions on meet day, with me feeling like I am the issue solely, which is rather unfair, but goes to show, if you are honest, you can and will get the respect from me and from others as Logan is not an excuse-driven lifter, so when he speaks up, it has weight to it.
He put his best foot forward. Simply put, if this was a local meet, I am having him drop out, and the fact that he went out and gave it his best shot, despite knowing it would not be anywhere near his best, that to me marks a true competitor and let’s me know he is in this sport for the long haul. I learned a lot about myself at this venue back in 2021 in my first national meet in which I underperformed due to injury, and that slingshot me into the success I was able to have in the immediate years after, I think it will be the same for him.
We walked out with our head held high. Again, meets like this can break you, but candidly, we were able to reflect on the fact that: you can prepare as perfectly as possible and still have the outcome be negatively effected by something out of your control. You cannot prevent or predict something like that occurring, and I am happy to report training after the fact is as good as it has been post meet.
We learned that what we did, worked like wonders, and will return to that for T2 Nationals prep where, I will go on record, he will be winning.
Overall, he PR’d his squat and DOTS and with only registering 1 deadlift and 1 bench, was still just 5kg away from his best total ever. That, is nothing to scoff at.
Proud of you sir.
Results:
Squat: 255kg/562lbs, +11lb PR
Bench Press: 130kg/286bs
Deadlift: 217.5kg/479lbs
Total: 602.5kg/1328lbs
4/8 on attempts
Cody Gubbins - USAPL New Hampshire State Championships- 30 March 2024
C Gubb!
This was Cody and I’s 2nd meet together and we really were able to find a ton of positive momentum in the cycles leading into the last two.
Looking at Cody’s competition history, he was able to make a ton of progress early on, but some bigger swings in attempt selection did not allow him to progress his total since 2021, so our goal from the jump was to simply out pace that total but we had a lot to work on in the meantime to make that happen. Mainly squat depth, not heaving his benches, and not ramping his deadlifts, all which have improved substantially since we first started.
In our first meet together, we knew we would not be in line for a PR total with the time domain we had, so we agreed to take what was there based off the prep cycle, gather data, and then simply assess where we can improve based upon how things showed up on the day.
We were able to go 9/9 that day and even were able to chip a small all time deadlift PR and meet PR which left us hopeful for things to come after the fact.
The next phase is a tale of 2 sides of the same coin, one positive, one negative.
The positive? Well we were on an absolute feverish stretch of progress and if I am recalling correctly, Cody was hitting 150kg/331lbs on bench for clean singles, squatting 210kg/463lbs with a ton in the tank, and overall had momentum on all 3 lifts, we were even looking at possibly totaling 600kg to cross off that milestone.
Then, the negative.
Unfortunately, Cody suffered a freak accident in the gym that really damaged his wrist to the point where we could not load a low bar squat or bench press, and it even effected deadlift, for quite some time.
Being 8 weeks out, naturally, this derailed our progress and we instead had to shift to a rehab focus and to simply do what we can, so we could actually execute it in meet. We had to pivot hardcore into what he could tolerate, which looked like a lot of SSB squatting, limited and graded exposure on bench, and simply limiting load on deadlift.
We were actually able to piece together a decent 7 week on-ramp into meet, leaving right where we wanted to for both bench and squat, deadlift, we had a bit of a slip up, but I think we now have 2 consecutive preps where, we overperformed in meet relative to training, leading me to think we either: do not need to train the DL as heavy concurrently with the other 2 or we simply rely on, we will have 2.5 more than what he misses/grinds out for the last heavy pull.
On to meet day, with Cody, things are super easy, we are able to very quickly pick his attempts and pretty much always make the right call based on seconds, not allowing number attachment to dictate anything beyond what we need to surpass his best total. On the day, we adjusted a bit on squat to leave with a make, bench, we had a slight execution error on the third which we identified and are working on diligently, and deads, as long as he keeps his weight on his forefoot/big toe and does not rock back on to his heels, we are pretty much good for a PR each time and this was no exception.
After bench, we knew we would be out of the running for a PR total, but we are now within striking distance and god willing any set backs we cannot plan for, I fully expect Cody’s next meet to be his best ever and not just another stepping stone to that point.
Results:
Squat: 215kg/474lbs
Bench Press: 142.5kg/314lbs
Deadlift: 230kg/507lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 587.5kg/1295lbs
8/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ 2024 USAPL Maine State Championships - 23 March 2024
The weekend that never ended.
This meet was incredibly rewarding but man, was it a process to just get there… and then get back haha.
Being 3 weeks removed writing this, there might be some fine details that I am missing but the general gist of the meet was:
One of the most aggressive snow storms the night before the meet that carried… all day and into the next day.
A dice roll whether we would have the turnout we normally do because of said storm.
A tougher than usual trek back to the homebase where we store things/Grand Theft Auto style driving post meet in a snowy wasteland that was Augusta, Maine.
Otherwise, this meet was quite smooth.
I was fortunate to have 16 lifters do this meet, 6 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon that were all handled by Team Hogan lifters/Team Hogan adjacent people and all to success, I never take my help for granted and they really make these bigger meets shine, so thank you again everyone who volunteered to help out.
I will go in order of flights to keep it uniform!
Sage Dubay
Where do I start with Sage here? Well, the best way I can put things, is Sage might have had the longest road to get to this meet of anyone I work with and had the most aggressive highs, the lowest lows, and then everything in between. Although we have been working together for a year at this point, this was actually our first meet.
Sage is a very powerful lifter and really, is strong as hell on all 3, however, her body just did not want to cooperate for longer than 3 weeks at a time and that made a lot of our training for the immediate blocks into the meet, rehab based more than anything.
In the summer time of ‘23, we actually got Sage up to 350+ on both squat and deadlift, and were benching 165lbs for easy singles. Now, that was also at a higher bodyweight, so not only did we have to manage the injuries she was dealing with, but we had to adjust expectations quite severely accounting for the larger drop in bodyweight, ~17lbs from her previous meet.
On top of all this, Sage was signed up for Junior Nationals and we still needed to establish a total for the 82.5kg class, so that was another set of variables we needed to account for.
After fiddling around with just getting injuries to control, we really only had 10 weeks of “prep” time to be ready for this meet and we were able to find her squat again, deadlift pain-free with a major caveat, but truthfully, forgot how to bench, causing us to scramble last minute with technical cueing to help her regain the feel for pressing with a strong pause again.
About the deadlift, she developed a major mental barrier with anything north of 3 plates on the bar, so much so that it made it hard for her to even attempt a weight north of it. She could smoke 310lbs @ 6.5, but had a very hard time even breaking the floor with 315, and it makes sense, deadlift was where a lot of her injuries stemmed from, and although we switched stances completely, it was still evident she was apprehensive to load her back.
So in our one week out call, we got creative. We went with a better safe than sorry route on squat and bench, and elected to hit the QT on her 2nd pull, in which I would do the math for, and then take what was there on the third, the caveat was, I was not going to inform her of anything other than her opener, and she was to just go out and lift it.
I am here to report it worked out phenomenally.
Sage went 9/9 in her first meet back, improved her DOTs, qualified for USAPL Raw Nationals in the junior 82.5kg class, and made it into and out of the meet injury free.
Sage is extremely busy and is always buzzing around so to see her have the day that we both envisioned, in terms of relative training momentum, that meant a lot to me. We are now a few weeks into our new scheme and she is looking better than ever, despite concurrently training for a 1/2 marathon with her father.
Proud of you girl, the best days are yet to come.
Results:
Squat: 152.5kg/336lbs, +17lbs PR
Bench Press: 70kg/155lbs
Deadlift: 140kg/308lbs
Total: 362.5kg/799lbs
9/9 on attempts
Qualified for USAPL Junior Nationals
Allie Hayden
This was Allie’s first meet in general, and you would not know it based on her performance. Besides a minor slip up with some knee lock on her opening squat, she executed rather flawlessly on the day.
Since this was her first meet, we did a better safe than sorry type peak, where I simply had her work up to @ 9 singles 10 and 7 days out, and look to replicate both squat and bench, and if a deadlift PR was there, take that.
In her first meet, she was able to squat 242lbs, bench 126lbs, and pull 292lbs… But about that pull.
We planned on taking 137.5kg/303lbs for her third as she crushed 295lbs 10 days out, however, the pitfalls of me calling attempts for 16 different people means I usually have back to back people, and this year we decided to submit via attempt cards, so I had to write down each attempt, and my handwriting was misinterpreted as 132.5 for her final attempt, not 1337.5 like we planned. I fully own up to making this mistake and feel awful I ruined that moment for her, but to acquiesce I let her take a heavy single the week after and 305 went up @ 7.5, she will probably pull 303 as a second or first in her next meet.
Very much looking forward to seeing her progress over these next few blocks and I would expect a massive improvement in meet #2!
Results:
Squat: 110kg/242lbs
Bench Press: 57.5kg/126lbs
Deadlift: 132.5kg/292lbs
Total: 300kg/661lbs
8/9 on attempts
Grace Poirier
Grace really came into her own this prep cycle. No longer a beginner, this being her third meet (in under a year lmao) we literally have found the perfect blend of progress and mitigating overuse injury and just simply bite off a little more each cycle and bias towards singles the last couple of blocks leading into meet and it has worked like a charm. After her second meet, we overhauled her entire bench technique and looked to work on establishing better leg drive, less tucked elbows, and a better ribcage position, in which she executed VERY well and so much so that this alone probably was the driver for her bench progress more so than anything else. We also looked to revamp our deadlift scheme as we had trouble putting together heavier pulls near 95% due to some flaws that were no fault of her own, glad to say we solved that as well!
For her peak, we ran our normal 4 week block, with the penultimate cycle having the heaviest exposures of the cycle in order to see progression rate leading into the meet itself. She ended up popping off on squat and really did so even more for competition time, effectively putting 20lbs on her squat in 8 weeks time.
We were able to hit PRs on all 3 lifts, 2 of the 3 being all time PRs and both of those had more in the tank, also added 26pts to her DOTS score.
Regionals will be her next meet until we shut it down and really look to start back up from scratch and bring something insane to 2025.
Results:
Squat: 120kg/264lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench Press: 52.5kg/116lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 135kg/297lbs, +16lbs PR
Total: 307.5kg/677lbs, +49lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Brittany Boxer
Brittany had what we like to call, a hell prep. Seemingly everything that could go wrong, did, and usually at the worst time.
Injury? Check.
Sickness? Check.
Forgetting how to deadlift? Check.
Along with this, we really did not have the continuity that we had going into the Harvest Moon meet in November that represented a major supernova for her.
The main things we needed to do for this meet was first of all, adjust expectation because we still could have a good day, a PR day even, if we scaled back a little with what we initially planned for, then re-establish continuity with her sessions and then finally, re-learn how to execute heavy deadlifts.
The first 2 were easy, the last was not as easy. I remember her being stapled with 300lbs one week, and it culminated in me actually coming in for her 10 days out session (since we basically could not deadlift heavy for 3.5 weeks, the final 3 weeks of her prep were basically “come in and work up to something heavy”) and giving some in-person tweaks, Brittany if you are reading this… Head up, arms long and please do something before you touch the bar. We were able to pull 320 in that session which gave us some hope we could at least pull for a PR total.
Thankfully, everything turned out the way it was supposed to based on training data, featured a squat grind and all time PR, a meet PR bench, and tying her all time PR pull for a PR total after being stapled with 36lbs less just 3 weeks before.
One more meet to go and then we can truly build, this will be her 5th meet in 15 months… Meaning we have been in meet prep for over a year in June.
Look forward to closing it out strong at Regionals!
Results:
Squat: 142.5kg/314lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 67.5kg/148lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 152.5kg/336lbs
Total: 362.5kg/799lbs, +11lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Carlee Cummings
This meet was awesome for Carlee, although it might not have been what she initially anticipated. Simply put, she has also been in meet prep for 14 straight months (5 meets) and with that has inherited some significant life stress along the way while going down a full weight class during this time. Simply put, we reached the end of the road of what was sustainable and were kind of feeling the effects of that in this prep cycle.
On paper, you should not be able to lose close to 20lbs of bodyweight, and get flatout stronger on multiple lifts, but she did that and did it well.
Coming off a meet at Stand Strong where she really emptied the tank on deadlift, we basically had to hop right back into a higher stress prep as she had a goal of hitting the USAPL Nationals QT standard at this meet, despite not having intentions of attending, and we were transparent that it would be hard to put 40lbs on the total with basically 11 weeks of prep time and already near the top end for deadlift + adding a weight cut on top of it, so as we navigated the prep, we actually put an end to the cut and adjusted expectations to simply PR the total and win the meet. We were able to do both of those!
The end was actually quite interesting as we found ourself in a battle with another lifter, we pulled into a protected 1st spot on the second, and on the third, probably should have gone 2.5kg lighter to extend what the 2nd place person had to pull, but I do not regret it as they did not take the bait and simply pulled what they knew they had and we ended up with the win and her 2nd consecutive best lifter award + a small PR DOTS, PR squat, bench, and total on a 7/9 day!
Now that we do not have a meet on the horizon, we can work on addressing some technical things that have been needing a revamp for a while now, and so far, so good, expect a big improvement the next time she does a meet at the end of this year or beginning of next year.
Results:
Squat: 157.5kg/347lbs, +17lbs PR
Bench Press: 80kg/176lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 160kg/352lbs
Total: 397.5kg/876lbs, +16lbs PR
7/9 on attempts
Kyle Kable
Keeping in theme of swan song, about 5 or so weeks out, Kyle expressed to me that this was going to be his last PL meet for quite some time as he pivots to other things he wants to do, both in life and with training, so the plan we had was pretty much based around, don’t leave anything to chance.
Kyle was down a ton in bodyweight, 320lbs in his last meet, all the way down to 304lbs in this one, so we knew that it would be hard to maintain such lifts like bench press but we ironically got stronger on the squat, and we did on the deadlift as well, we were just not in a position to show that fully.
Like magic, which is never really the case, Kyle’s squat and deadlift taper very well. A week out 300kg on squat moved @ 10 and on the day it moved @ 8.5, def had 2.5 to spare, 5kg if we needed a death grind.
On bench, I think I kind of messed up here, I think I should have centered around 182.5kg, not 185kg and with a 140kg lifter like Kyle, you cannot take 2.5kg jumps with how much force and output they disperse on each attempt, but we gave that 185 a solid try, just wasn’t there.
From there we went way off plan to try to hit the 140kg Raw Nationals standard, just to say we did it, which caused us to take big mongo jumps, we ended prep off with 302.5kg/666lbs and I think he actually would have been good for 322.5kg/711lbs on the day, 330kg/727lbs was just too much for the day, but pretty crazy to be in shape for north of 700 after only working up to 666 in prep.
We were able to walk away with a PR squat and DOTS while tying his best ever total.
Look forward to seeing what Kyle tackles next!
Results:
Squat: 300kg/661lbs, +38lbs PR
Bench Press: 180kg/396lbs
Deadlift: 310kg/683lbs
Total: 790kg/1741lbs
7/9 on attempts
Henry Sandelin
Boy oh boy, where do we start with this one?
Well, let’s just cut to the chase. Henry has been trying to qualify for T3 Nationals the last 3 meets and this was the one where, to be honest, it was a forgone conclusion. The only factor?
The Tuesday before the meet he was still 6lbs over to make 198 and we were not going to make it by dieting.
What ensued was the craziest weight cut I have been apart of: with a gut cut protocol he lost 0lbs until the morning of the meet where he woke up 3lbs over, knowing he had a 1pm weigh in we planned to spit and sauna the distance, and if you know me, you know how against sauna I am as a modality to make weight, but we really did not have any other option.
But wait, it gets better.
After multiple rounds in the sauna and spitting out 2 full gatorade bottles worth of spit, Henry got on the scale.
90.1kg
More spitting, he finally makes it @ 90.0 on second weigh in.
Naturally, since we had to emergency recomp (thankfully I brought extra triorals) I had no clue how he would respond, thankfully, we were able to get back up to training weight rather quickly and were actually able to be fairly predictable across the board on each lift. All time PR on squat, matching his all time best bench, and taking the total on opening deadlift, he was one little slip up away on his second deadlift from going supernova, but to be frank, that will come at Nationals. Another guy who simply has competed too much, 4 meets in 12 months, I look forward to allowing him to build organically into the biggest meet he could possibly do.
Results:
Squat: 217.5kg/479lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench Press: 145kg/319lbs, +16lbs PR
Deadlift: 225kg/496lbs, +28lbs PR
Total: 587.5kg/1295lbs, +55lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, added 160lbs to total in one year
Joey Beaucage
Supernova, that was what this meet was for Joey. I was actually in a better position with him than others because he made the adjustment to come down and get his primary SBD session in on the day I train on Saturday so all his heaviest lifts the last block, I was able to see in person which helped dial in how we peaked into this one.
We were able to nail all time PRs in both squat and deadlift and secure a +10kg MPR bench press on top of re-qualifying for T2 Nationals, this time in the weight class up (weighing only 76 kg mind you) and having a killer day.
Stone Cold, as he is known, performed exactly like that, he was wanting the smoke all day and I fed him as he was hungry and I am glad we were able to experience what true momentum in a meet feels like.
Truly do not think we could prepare better than this, once lax is over, it is gametime in Salt Lake City.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg/402lbs, +28lbs PR
Bench Press: 120kg/264lbs, +22lbs PR
Deadlift: 212.5kg/474lbs, +28lbs PR
Total: 512.5kg/1129lbs, +77lbs PR
9/9 on attempts, added 193lbs to total in one year, qualified for T2 Raw Nationals @ 82.5kg
Isaac Gould
Mr. Meet Prep! I kid, but as the theme of this meet report, this was Isaac’s 4th meet in 11 months and we really were able to dial in his peak for this meet and be very calculated with our attempts to reflect that.
Isaac is a lifter that, I never have to wonder if effort is the limiting factor, in fact most of the time I will have to reel him in rather than convince him to give me more, which is a good problem to have in my eyes.
I think the thing we figured out together, was the limiting factors he showcased were mainly from being in a year long meet prep cycle, rather than anything he was failing to do technically or strength wise. That said, we walked away with another supernova meet!
As of now, we are in our first ever off-season and not only is he improving, but he is loving his training which means a bit more to me for this stage than anything else.
Results:
Squat: 190kg/419lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench Press: 107.5kg/237lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 202.5kg/446lbs, +16lbs PR
Total: 500kgkg/1102lbs, +38lbs PR
9/9 on attempts, added 99lbs to total in one year.
Gavin Akeley
Dialed.
The best way to describe Gavin’s day, we have had training locked down to a science for at least 6 training cycles and we simply just lined this meet up with his strong week and things showed up big time. It is rare when you can get all 3 lifts to show up strong on the same day but man, was he able to do that and then some on this given day.
Already a natural squatter, we found a scheme that seemed to really make that lift shine, paired with a much improved squat and deadlift, we knew we would be in line for a big day total wise, just needed to see it through to the day.
Despite a minor, non-strength related hiccup on bench, butt lift, which we have since now corrected, Gavin was able to nail PRs on all 3 and leave with momentum, momentum he will need heading into Regionals!
Results:
Squat: 205kg/452lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench Press: 132.5kg/292lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 220kg/485lbs, +16lbs PR
Total: 557.5kg/1229lbs, +33lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, added 122lbs to total since working together.
Max Dingle
Kind of like Kyle earlier, Max is inheriting some life changes coming up that will inhibit is ability to compete, so despite him being signed up and in prep for Collegiate Nationals 3 weeks after this meet, we still elected to do Maine States as he had a good shot of winning and some money and a banner in your penultimate meet sounded good.
Prep was great on squat and bench, but fairly rocky on deadlift, straight up I dropped the ball here, I went with a set of strategies that I felt confident in, however they did not pan out and ironically, he is pulling better now than the end stages of meet prep peaking into the State meet.
We went rogue from the plan and elected to try to pull an all time PR for the win, a number that was a bit reckless with CNats coming but I do not regret it and he actually thanked me for allowing him the opportunity, as he was not of a regret mindset himself about it. We were still able to have a great day and I am actually writing this in the airport to handle him at CNats in just 2 days time!
Results:
Squat: 230kg/507lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 195kg/424lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 247.5kg/546lbs
Total: 670kg/1477lbs
8/9 on attempts
Evan Larsen
After the Odyssey meet, Evan elected to make a big cut down to the 100kg class, mainly for health reasons but also for an extra challenge, and simply put, the effects of longer term dieting caught up to us. Down 18lbs since that meet, we just did not have the pop we are used to having on the day, despite being better than all of our blocks leading into the meet.
On squat and bench, we probably were good for 2.5kg more than we left with on each, which, we probably should have planned for, which is on me solely, sometimes it is a dilemma I run into where I want to give my lifters the best opportunity for the numbers they want, instead of being firm with the numbers that are there, I will be better on this. We actually reeled it in on deads and actually did not have much to spare, leading me to think in meets I have to call it like I see it with him, because we have that report now.
Regionals prep has commenced and we will never be going back down to 100kg.
Results:
Squat: 255kg/562lbs
Bench Press: 145kg/319lbs
Deadlift: 260kg/573lbs
Total: 660kg/1455lbs
7/9 on attempts
Jon Lavoie
Jon and I’s first meet together and you know what, despite the total not being his best, I feel this was his best meet since 2021 for a few reasons. Mainly, I felt he enjoyed the day, despite being in pain of course, as much as he possibly could and it is very evident enjoyment makes him perform better.
We knew that if healthy, we could make something happen, unfortunately the last week, I dropped the ball and pushed him too hard to recover from and that showed on the day.
We have identified some flaws in his technique on squat that we are addressing hardcore in order to put together a squat that is reflective of his capabilities, which we did in training but want to make undeniable in meet next time. For deadlift, it was money all prep until we ran into crippling back fatigue that effected things pretty severely on the day.
Bench was the shining star and I feel confident his bench is back and we have found the method to bring it back to over 400 again, the super meet is coming, just wait.
Results:
Squat: 230kg/507lbs
Bench Press: 177.5kg/391lbs
Deadlift: 277.5kg/611lbs
Total: 685kg/1510lbs
7/9 on attempts
Evan Wright
Yo, that’s blood!
It’s been a while since Evan had done a meet, October of 2023 actually and in between there has been a lot of ups and downs and a decent amount of changes we made, what with shoulder rehab, adding back in a second bench day, expanding to 4x per week training from 3x, above all, he kept showing up and we were one pull away from him super meet.
Squat really has been undefeated for a year now and literally improves 5-10kg per block and has shown no signs of stopping, I even think he had a little more on the day, which we will be capitalizing on next time for certain. We were able to piece together a nice bench with the new scheme we leaned into and as mentioned, had a little fumble on deadlift that we were able to comeback from quite well on a retake.
Sky is the limit really and when the stars align, this guys total is going to be closer to 1600 than 1500.
Results:
Squat: 260kg/573lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench Press: 142.5kg/314lbs
Deadlift: 275kg/606lbs
Total: 677.5kg/1494lbs, +28lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Christopher Larson
Chris was training for a meet in June of ‘23 when he has an unfortunate accident that actually required surgery and put him out of commission entirely. I was pleasantly surprised when he reached back out after rather tedious rehab and then basic “back to basics” training and was dead set on seeing it through of doing a meet and man oh man did we capitalize on that opportunity.
Chris actually has great technique on all 3 lifts, it was just about the proper progression/taper to make it show on meet day. A little minor injury about 5 weeks out threw a wrench into things, mainly on the bench side, but we were able to rehab literally just in time to put up something he was actually capable of on a good day!
Chris has since moved on to other things but if and when he decided to do another meet, I will gladly be in his corner as he is one of the most coachable individuals I have ever worked with.
Results:
Squat: 172.5kg/380lbs
Bench Press: 102.5kg/226lbs
Deadlift: 195kg/424lbs
Total: 467.5kg/1030lbs
9/9 on attempts
Michael Beaupre
Last but not least, my Bang Brother.
Michael’s prep into this meet was rocky to say the least. We have relied on a 5 week exposure model to peak and for 2 consecutive blocks, his 5th week he got sick and then the other got food poisoning, so needless to say, with 5 weeks to go, we did not have much data to build on and went with instinct and realistic progression and leaned into training into the meet, more than anything.
We dialed in his cut, to a tee, not only was he able to be 100% comfortable during the entire cut, but he was able to rehydrate super well and that is why I think he was able to have the squat he did and bench, although 2.5 under what we thought, still is a massive bench for the weight class.
Deadlift, we really had a breakthrough this prep with a 540lbs pull held for 3-5 seconds, but in meets we continue to run into grip issues which we are tackling head on now.
His super meet is coming and now with marriage and a child on the way (I can say this now) we will have to cash in on the opportunity before life gets a bit busier as a homeowner/married man/father.
Till then, we will ball until it is time to get lit in Salt Lake.
Results:
Squat: 217.5kg/479lbs, +17lbs PR
Bench Press: 142.5kg/314lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 237.5kg/524lbs
Total: 597.5kg/1317lbs, +17lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Dani Lamarca - USAPL Boston Open- 11 February 2024
And just like that, we have another member of our collective with a nationals QT to their name! However, that is selling this performance short by quite a bit, as I like to do with most, let’s go back to the beginning with Dani here.
It was March of 2023 when she was put on my radar, and we began working shortly after our state meet at that time, training through the first meet and then having her first proper competition in the summer of that year.
Around this time, we were in a discovery phase, virtually on all 3 lifts, making a lot of tweaks technically and in more of a grander scale. Bringing the bar down her back, to a low bar position. Learning bar path on bench press. Learning how to deadlift pretty much outright.
However, it was around the time of her next meet in October of that year that we struck gold with our approach. A few months before this, she approached me with a goal of wanting to make the total for 2024 Raw Nationals. At the time, her competition total was 387.5kg, so I was straight up in that if we wanted to do it, it would have to wait to 2024, this was for 2 reasons:
Her competition total at the time was 30kg away from the goal and simply put, there was not enough time to add that much without taking hail mary’s that we frankly didn’t need to.
I did not know if the QT was going to go up after 2023, and like most of the people who were on the borderline, I did not want to formulate a plan to hit that total, only for it to be pulled out from under us and we are back to square one, when we could have just kept stacking our chips all along.
So the plan was put in place, that we would apply our results from the upcoming meet to see where the low hanging fruits were to apply to a meet in early 2024.
That meet, was detailed in a previous post, but to summarize, we knew after this meet, she would have a lot more on squat to give, at least a bit more on bench, which allowed us to rework how we approached deadlift as we anticipated she would not need a PR pull to get the desired total.
I vouched for her to do this meet, in lieu of Maine States in March, mainly because goals like this require maximum attention and as I will lay out, there is no chance I would have been able to change numbers accounting for 16 other people on the day, had we gone that route. Since she was on board with my plan the meet before, I felt it was important to make sure I could give my maximum attention to this goal and I am thankful she trusted me with this.
And from there, we got to work. Our developmental blocks went incredible, really without a hitch, only until we got into our final cycle did we reach roadblocks of any sort.
The changes we elected to make were:
Changing her secondary squat day from all low bar, to just a low bar top set (paused) with re-ascending high bar backdowns. This was mainly because of chronic arm fatigue/pain in her last prep paired with benching. This had such a profound effect on her squat, that we will be certainly returning back to this approach, when it is most appropriate.
Slightly increasing her average intensity on bench press, at first, this worked very well, but I will get into where I feel I dropped the ball in this approach.
Lastly, and probably most drastically, we elected to change her deadlift stance altogether, from conventional to sumo. We also dramatically overhauled her posterior chain exercises and sought to improve those as much as we possibly could, which I feel we did very well.
I am learning more and more, when an athlete does well with a certain block length, changing it for the final cycle, although might make sense on paper, usually will have a net negative in at least one capacity. The way this meet fell, it was exactly 7 weeks after our most recent block, in which they have historically been 4 week cycles. In hindsight, I think if I had to do it again, I would do a 3 week bridge block, then have the final 4 week cycle heading into the meet, at least for bench press.
Her training in prep looked like:
D1: 1x2 paused LB, 3 ascending sets of 5 HB, RDLs on this day as well.
D2: Tempo single, regular triple, then percentage based 8s, we also brought in weighted dips here.
D3: Sumo Deads, snatch grip block pulls, other posterior chain exercises.
D4: Tempo close grip bench press, ascending loading, with back work.
D5: Comp squat single with backdowns, comp bench single with backdowns.
We did not load cap the squat, mainly to let her cook when the pan was hot. We elected to do the same on deadlift, simply because we did not know where her top end was and frankly, needed to see it. The only caps/ranges we used were on both bench slots, just to make sure rate of progression was in line for where we wanted it to be.
Within these 7 weeks, I think all of her prep squat singles moved at the same speed, culminating in week 5, her taking 365 for a small all time PR, in which she was planning to take 380 the following week, believe it or not, I actually implored for 5lbs up from that for 385, which she crushed for yet another PR a week out from competition!
Bench, this is where I think I dropped the ball the most, I mentioned the higher average intensity worked well, but I think we simply ran with it too long. 7 weeks is very long time to sustain a bench progression, and with the magnitude of which her top sets on squat were getting, she started citing feelings of her arms being dead towards the end of the cycle, culminating in a 200lbs miss a week out that, thankfully, did not disappoint her too much. My analysis right when it happened was we simply flew too close to the sun and that tapering down the week of would be how we revitalize the pop off the chest she had before. With female benchers, on average, you have to be careful not to taper too much, because what might seem like an easy solution of just going a bit lighter the week of, can have such profound net negatives that I really did not want to explore that option. Instead, what we did was trim intensity back a touch on her secondary session, literally down less than 2.5% knowing squats would be lighter than week as well, and elected to make her weighted dips bodyweight, then removing skullcrushers altogether.
My thought process was: what is the easiest thing to get rid of that is a fairly high disrupter that, alone, can get a session to feel better outright, those were the 2 easiest exercises with one being very multi-muscle and highly loadable and the other being the more loadable tricep exercise (pushdowns not nearly as fatiguing on the elbows) and with that, my prediction was her bench would feel meh on Wednesday, a little better on Friday, best on meet day, which was Sunday and thankfully, we nailed that!
Deadlifts, where do we start? Basically, any time someone switches their stance, it is a dice roll the closer it is to an end date we have to meet. Reason being is we have limited time to work on technical qualities and many times, have to forgo them in favor of loading quickly, in this case it was doubly so because we were attempting a milestone goal.
In terms of deadlifts, her build is not favored for them and it has been a tougher time getting them to tick the way we want in either stance, uniquely, we have identified that, unlike people who usually experience the opposite, her squat output seems to really negatively effect her ability to express force on deadlift. That being said, we were able to close this prep tying her best ever pull, which was a win.
How we designed the plan was:
Needed 175kg/386lbs minimum on squat, however we planned on 177.5kg/391 because of how well 175 moved a week out. We knew if she missed a squat, we would not be able to make the difference up with the other 2.
With the bench miss a week out, as much as I wanted to plan for 92.5kg/204lbs, it was much smarter to plan for 90kg/198lbs, which would have been a 2.5kg PR and paired with the squat, meant we only had to pull 150kg or 152.5kg, 2 lifts she hit in prep quite convincingly.
Whatever we did, we needed to make sure the pull did not exceed 155kg/341lbs or it would simply be a dice roll to whether it would happen. If it came to north of 160kg/352lbs it would have just been reckless.
Oh and on top of this, she was in a flight of 6, meaning, at most, 5 minutes rest between attempts. Since this is her background, I personally don’t think this effected her, really at all, where as it might for other competitors, we even practiced this the week of the meet to make sure it was not foreign.
One of the things we will clean up is how we make the weight class and rehydrate, as that certainly was a limiting factor early on in the meet, and we already cleared way with how we will approach this that leaves me optimistic for the future meets we do.
Getting into the day, although she was moving well, she was a touch unstable on squat and visibly so, after squat 2, she wanted to go the plan B option, which was 175kg/386lbs, which I agreed. 177.5kg/391lbs was there, but like I always tell people, you always want to make sure you have a chance at the very end, and taking this ensured that.
Bench, was my most nerve-wracking because I knew it was game over should 90kg not go up, but crisis averted really immediately as I personally think this was the strongest her bench has ever been, blowing up that 90kg with maybe 2.5kg easy to spare!
From this point, this is where we knew we had to pull 152.5kg/336lbs to get the total, the key was how we went about it.
I presented her 3 options:
We keep the opener the same (142.5kg) jump to 152.5kg on the second, then worse comes to worst, we get a second crack at it.
Same as the first, but we open up 2.5kg heavier. The biggest jump she was used to at this point sumo was 10kg.
We plan to take 152.5kg on the third, take 145 on the second, open up at 135. The obvious con being we only had one chance at it.
Either way, I knew since it was below 155kg, we had it, just wanted to give her the opportunity to pick the route she was most comfortable with, in which she chose the second.
To spare you what you already know, she was able to hit it on her 2nd, punching her ticket to Salt Lake City. We did go up 2.5 after this, just for fun, which did not go up, but I think if this was the number we had to take with more than 5 minute rests, this goes up on the day as well.
Before the meet, I told her what the competition was looking like based on a scouting report but was strict on, don’t worry about that, we need the nationals total above all else. She ended up taking home her first ever best lifter banner, in a fairly competitive meet, in what turned out to be the best meet of her young career.
Dani is an inspiration to her kids and the people around her, when she is not lifting herself, she can be seen spotting her teammates in the gym, handling people at meets to great success, and plans on being a referee to boot. I can say with confidence, Team Hogan has become a better team with her on it and a long with all my other incredible mothers, have really inspired my young girls as to what is capable when conventional society says your athletic career should be over with.
She is now proud owner of the heaviest raw squat in USAPL Maine women’s history and is only getting stronger there.
We have the entire year planned out, with regionals next where she will be in contention to win her class, then we head to nationals and enjoy the moment for what it is.
In the meantime, we have already had a good productive talk on where to go for deadlift training and we are both very optimistic that we can get this solved. I do not see a world where her squat and bench slow down dramatically barring unforeseen circumstance for the next year, which means that total is going up big time.
Thank you for trusting me with a plan that maybe seemed like I was dismissing you at first, I knew what you were capable of, I just wanted to give you the best possible opportunity to experience success.
To Utopia.
Results:
Squat: 175kg/386lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench Press: 90kg/198lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 152.5kg/336lbs
Total: 417.5kg/920lbs, +22lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
409.5 DOTS, heaviest raw squat in USAPL Maine women’s history
Team Hogan - USAPL Worcester Open- 14 January 2024
Quick turnaround here, for the first time not at a national or regional meet, I had lifters compete in consecutive days. The two people I had represent this day, were people who were similar in nature, however, had 2 very different paths to the day.
As a quick note, I think this is why, at Team Hogan, our lifters tend to perform well in meets, although I am not too naive to prepare a quality handler for my people, I really enjoy seeing peoples training to the end and if it means I have to drive 4hrs to Connecticut, another 2 to Mass, then another 2 back home, I will do so every time and I believe my lifters appreciate this!
On to my guys though.
Mike Hartjens, left, and Joe Merchant, right, both were able to have incredible meets and in what I would deem a speed meet, a flight with 8 lifters, rapid decision making, and general chaos in the warmup room, and I could not be more proud of each of them.
Here is how both of them did!
Mike Hartjens
Mike is a lifter who recently got back into the game after having a pretty good and strong start to his career before life and general burnout got in the way. Having done 5 meets prior to this one, he was not a newbie by any means, but him being out of the game so long, I really wanted to make sure this day went well as it can make or break where he decided to go after the fact.
Mike and I started probably 5 blocks out from this meet and we hit some road blocks right off the bat with shoulder pain, a bit of a disconnect from intent on secondary sessions, and then finally, general growing pains adjusting to each other.
Not that Mike was combative though, he was rather open to the process and allowed things to come in droves and was eager to learn and grow as much as I was willing to bestow that upon him.
Where I felt we had a breakthrough was with 2 conversations/breakdown videos we had.
He let me know that in the past, his squat responded well to high, high volume, volume that was substantially higher than what he was currently doing.
Along with that, for squat training I had noticed in his sheets that his secondary intensity was drastically higher than what I intended. A quick explanation of what I was after on those secondary sessions as well as true attention to detail with reps in reserve, really seemed to benefit because his squat, and really every lift took off from there.
His training looked like:
Squat… Secondary was a top comp squat triple at a static RPE, followed by three ascending sets of 8 on high bar squat, followed by 3 sets of 12 on leg press. Yes, that was all on one day lol. His primary was a top single, followed by 3 sets of 4 at a fixed increasing % each week.
Bench… Secondary was a top triple, a top 6 set with shallow load drops off that top set of 6, tertiary was 3 singles of comp bench at a fixed load, then his primary was a top single, a top double that was load capped, then 3 easy 5s of backoffs.
Deadlift… Secondary was barbell RDLs, primary was top single on comp dead (load capped), top double (load capped), then 2 sets of 5 at a percentage of his double loading. We also incorporated wide stance snatch grip deads on this day to a ton of success!
On a whole, we found that Mike’s week 4 was so reliably strong, that we essentially re-ran our progression the previous block, only trimmed back a touch a week of the meet, and planned for attempts that way.
I think the only change we made the week of, was trimming back accessory work or removing some entirely, and tapering off his deadlift workout to blend into the Sunday he competed on.
Since this was his first meet in 2 years, I told him straight up, the goal would be to get as close to his best total as possible, and if we had a chance to pull for a total PR, we would.
On the day, we actually exceeded the previous block by quite a bit!
On squat, we hit 420lbs a block out, re-running the same progression we nailed 429 with maybe a bit more to spare!
On bench, admittedly his pauses at top end weights were suspect, his 265 a block out being touch and go, his 281 a week out being the same. His 259lbs 2nd attempt on the day being just a bit too out of line for me to warrant taking 270, so we elected for a small jump to 264 and it was about right for the day.
Lastly, I knew with how easily he was hitting deadlifts, we had a meet PR or at least a tied one, on the day. A block out he hit 505 very easily, 10 days out, 500 even easier, so we knew the range would be 518-523 on the day.
If we were able to hit the heavier end of the thirds on squat and bench, I would have called for the deadlift to PR the total, but since it was his first meet back in a long time, he had his family there, and there was nothing tangible besides that on the line, I elected to be safe and take the 9/9 day and I am willing to bet here that this was well received on his end, seeing as this was 18lbs heavier than anything he touched and actually secured third in his weight class!
Overall, sky is the limit for my man here and I can see a world where he exceeds all of these by 5-10kg whenever his next meet, which sounds like Regionals, is next.
I am very happy to be in his corner on this journey back into the fray!
Results:
Squat: 195kg/429lbs
Bench: 120kg/264lbs
Deadlift: 235kg/518lbs
Total: 550kg/1212lbs
9/9 on attempts
Joe Merchant
Joe and I have only been working together for 2 total blocks!
However, I feel we have made a ton of strides in the short time we have worked together, whether it be technically, or in strength.
This prep was a mixed bag as, in general, I try not to take on athletes this close to a meet (under 12 weeks) as there really is not a ton I can do in what usually is a discovery-based block, however, Joe had some pretty robust data from his previous meets and I said if he bares with me this first one, we can longer term, find the best blend that works for him.
The first step we made was increasing his grip width on bench, introducing the low bar squat, and trying to make his deadlifts less stiff-legged, and more wedged and I feel we accomplished that very well with how little time we had!
To be honest, we only really started to heat up a week out from the meet. In general, when a lifter has a tangible goal, I like to use load caps or ranges to pace the block out, but with Joe acclimating to a new stance or new grip or new pattern, I opted into just simply trusting pure RPE. My only fear that final week was that we did not go heavy enough, however, I felt with the data he gave me about what he hit in training going into his last meet vs. what he hit on the platform, we would at best be in shape for a PR total and tied meet PR lifts and at worst, right there for all 3, matching the total.
Now a major caveat here is Joe is extremely busy as a personal trainer and right now, January, is when he is most busy and he was fairly busy all the way up until just two days out from the meet! This led to some sessions being pushed around a bit more than what we intended but this is where I feel a good taper really matters as not only did we have to dissipate fatigue from training, we had to dissipate life fatigue as well.
Joe had several lifters compete under him on the day, some concurrently with him, but navigated it well and never took too much time away from his own performance.
Based on how things moved, we found some interesting tidbits.
His low bar squat has improved a ton, but we had to re-calibrate the bracing on the day. He was able to match his meet PR pretty clean with at least a bit to spare, that being 374lbs, his best in training leading up to it being 364lbs.
Bench on the day, honestly, moved and performed well but we noticed a distinct limiting factor of clearing the rack on a self-unrack, which, you would think the fix would be simply taking a lift off, but with him not really ever training with one, we elected to just calibrate how he was clearing the rack with an intentional wedge, nailed it on the second, but did not on the third, yet still blew up 275lbs clean like a glorified easy second! Best in prep was 260lbs.
Lastly, when it came to deadlift, he let me know going into his last meet, the meet that yielded a 435lbs deadlift, he ended his prep with a sub 400lb pull, his final pull of this prep being a 408lbs PR, I deducted with this logic, we could pull for a deadlift PR and total PR in one go, relying on this data. And man, thank god for data because he maybe had 2.5kg to spare but got the PR dead and total to the tune of a 441lbs pull!
Joe is a gamer and competes very well, surely a carryover to his college soccer experience, but I know this is just the beginning.
For someone as experienced and well-versed in exercise science, he was incredibly giving to the process and my expertise and I am glad to have a guy like him on this team, and I am doubly glad he serves as an inspiration to his clients who see him not only talking the talk, but walking the walk. He is do for major PRs in our next cycle!
Results:
Squat: 170kg/374lbs
Bench: 125kg/275lbs
Deadlift: 200kg/441lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 495kg/1091lbs, +6lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Sal Bozzuto - USAPL Snowflake Showdown- 13 January 2024
Crazy to think, this was Sal and I’s 5th meet working together in some capacity, his 9th overall!
I went into detail with Sal’s injury history in the previous meet recap, where he made his return to the platform after 2 years away from competition.
We had a plan laid out back then, that we stuck to quite well I feel, in that we would use that meet as a return to form, making lifts, regaining the skill of competing again, and letting the cards fall where they did in order to springboard us into 2024 competition season with momentum.
That meet, for all intents and purposes, really meant more than we anticipated at the time, as Sal’s training since that point, has mirrored his 2021 apex and we really caught fire this last prep!
With how our blocks aligned, we ran a 7 week cycle into this meet, really treating week 1 as a wash out/reload week and getting into the brunt of things, week 2 of that cycle.
When I made the breakdown video for this cycle, I feel it really resonated with Sal when I made it known that we had months upon months of data suggesting he was good for more on every lift, visual evidence as Sal is a great communicator/poster of his lifts, and then finally, we had months of pain free training to lead me making the claim to really lean into true RPE as he will tell you, there was a disconnect between how reps were moving and how they felt. I do not want to call it undershooting, but he certainly could serve to handle more loading, to make things simple.
This prep started off slow but then, almost all of a sudden, he caught fire, and in a real tangible/visual way.
The following were the approaches we took to his training that I felt were gamechangers:
Squat: We had been squatting twice a week, one HB, the other LB (primary) and were having success, however, I made the assumption based on injury history but also necessary exposure, that giving him a single set of low bar pauses at the beginning of the week, before his high bar work, would work to bridge the technical gap between sessions as well as feature a touch more loading, something I treaded lightly with at first, but we eventually got fairly aggressive with it and it worked out incredible. Last meet he did, he peaked out at 363 on the platform, a week out form this meet, he hit a clean and solid 392 with a bit to spare! Keep in mind his all time best in this lifetime is 402.
Bench: When I first started working with Sal way back when, bench was by far his standout lift, and we had a ton of success with high frequency, with multiple exposures north of 85% per week. Over the years though, I felt this approach contributed rather directly to the pec and shoulder issues he would have block to block, and for a span of gulps 20 blocks…….. we increased his frequency from a stripped down twice per week, to eventually 3x per week, then finally were able to volumize/expand upon that frequency with intensity in this final iteration. Sal’s bench training is fairly unique for a few reasons. Mainly, he trains in his garage and although he has access to a gym, trying to account for gym-specific stuff as drivers is hit or miss, so I elect to approach things a bit different. His bench training looked like:
Secondary: top tempo single with 3 sets of 8 backdowns at a low RPE.
Tertiary: 3 larsen close grip singles, followed by 2 re-ascending triples of regular close grip.
Primary: Top single, top double, then 3 sets of 5 backoffs at a low RPE.
The thought process here was to gradually increase per session intensity with load limiters like the larsen close grip, the tempo press, but also sustain/build his bench with enough working reps to reinforce the pattern as with someone like himself with a short ROM, there is a fair bit less the bar has to travel and we have to equate for that work somehow. I feel this worked out great as not only did we make it own injury free, but he increased his previous meets third of 270, to 303 a week out, that we elected to repeat on the day and he was good for 308 easily!
Deadlift: Deads were the only lift to not undergo a supernova, although they were exceedingly better than last prep. Super caveat here, Sal trains in his garage and in the dead of winter, many times for this pull sessions, would be wearing a full on parka style jacket and I cannot imagine it was easy to get warm for those sessions. His deadlift training was:
Primary: Top single, top reset double, a single set of 6 backoff at a low RPE.
Secondary: 2 ascending triples on conventional deadlift after his primary squat, bench.
Although his final pull was not what he wanted around 10 days out, he still was 2.5kg under his third attempt (which was fairly hard) from his previous meet and made it clear, he was confident he would taper into something higher, based on previous meet data, which I agreed. Ending prep with 408, he hit a clean 418 on the platform and I think 429 was there on the day!
This meet was fairly far for me, about 4hrs from my homebase, but I would be damned if I don’t have the time of my life with Sal at these meets. I feel at this point, we have a really strong bond and trust in the sense of, he trusts me to pace out the day for him, then simply focuses and listens to my input on the day and that is what has delivered him into two stellar meets back to back.
Within around 18 weeks time, he added 30kg to his previous meets total and is now within striking distance of exceeding his all time bests for the first time in way too long. This year, I really think we will see what he has been capable of for years on end.
One of my most tenured lifters, we recently passed 4 years working together and although it has not been smooth sailing that entire time, I feel we have both learned and grown so much since that day at the New England Open a 4 years prior.
Proud of you man, but now, we come for ALL TIME bests…
Results:
Squat: 177.5kg/391lbs
Bench: 137.5kg/303lbs
Deadlift: 190kg/418lbs
Total: 505kg/1113lbs
9/9 on attempts
Brie Cowing - USAPL Odyssey Barbell Winter Open- 6 January 2024
Brie and I started working together in June of 2023 and right off the bat we found some glaring holes that we could fix, by virtue of her prior training history.
Competing mostly as a 60kg lifter, she had already done several meets before me and was what I would deem, a seasoned competitor, by the time we had got going.
When I analyzed her training/meet performance, there was two things that jumped out:
Lack of frequency in each of her lifts.
Attempt selection was masking what her top end actually was.
Both of these were rather easy fixes in the grand scheme, but I feel like we really did not hit the ground running until around our third block.
There was a few things I wanted to trial and tweak and the first and most important one was to allow for bodyweight gain to take place, seeing as her bench was a kind of floating around 116-121 for quite some time, and judging upon her build, I knew pretty surely this would be as important as any single program design variable.
Along with that, we really revamped training on all three lifts, the following changes were made within the first 3 blocks.
Upped frequency on squat by a day, bench by a day, then biased a secondary primary scheme to align with the end of the week, rather than the beginning of the week.
For squat, we elected to run a primarily HB-based day for higher volume/rep counts on the secondary, then a LB-based day on the primary. This had such a profound effect, more on this in a second.
For bench, we added in the secondary day, switched basically everything in her set up, and intermittently would add in a tertiary day based upon where shoulder pain was at, again, more on that in a second.
Finally, for deadlift, early on we made the decision to train conventional as the weight she was pulling was similar to her sumo and she had a pretty fatal technical issue with sumo that did not really allow her to take advantage of the weight she could in theory hit, so we agreed that we would at bar minimum, not have the same issue conventional and could work to make up the difference.
With how short her range of motion was, and with how non-stimulatory bench was, I knew straight up, she would have the best results benching 3x per week, the only issue was as soon as introduced the tertiary session, pretty damning shoulder pain would creep up.
To make a long story short, paying attention to accessory stuff that did not yield pain and wearing wrist wraps, solved virtually everything and with that, I learned my lesson and made that tertiary session very low absolute intensity, and even volume, treating it literally like a practice slot, and with that, bench started to climb again!
Now, our prep for this meet was a little rocky at times, all for reasons outside her control.
It was few and far between where we could train on the same days week to week, and with this meet being on the first week of January, it meant the heart of the prep would fall during the holiday season, which was hard to navigate due to gym closure, weird hours, travel, the whole nine.
Fast forward to a week out, we had to maneuver her final deadlift slot up I believe a day (it might have been 2) due to sickness, and then the same with her final heavy squat and bench, taking that session 6 days out!
Deadlift, went well. 314lbs moved very strong with more in the tank.
Squat, was simply too close in proximity to the DL session and although we were moving well, she had a close miss at an all time PR of 125kg/275lbs, from there, she also had some personal news during bench press that really effected her ability to perform with a level head so we had her take what was there, and move on.
Since we took the final heavy days so close to meet time, I elected to taper a touch more aggressively on squat, deadlift, but since we did not go extremely heavy on bench, I actually kept RPEs higher on some sets leading into the day to air on the side of being trained over anything else.
Our plan for the day was to treat this like a springboard into the year, I knew we were in line for a PR squat, a meet PR on bench, and we would more than likely PR the total on the second deadlift, which was important because Brie had not totaled over 694lbs since October of 2022. Beyond this I noticed she had never gone 9/9 in any of the 5 meets she had done prior, had never made a third attempt bench, and was working with a 73% made attempt rate on the platform, so making lifts was important to say the least.
The day started off awesome, I do not know if squat could taper any better than it did, hitting 122.5kg/270lbs for an all time PR, just 5lbs under what she failed outright 6 days earlier. I think she could have squatted 281 this day, which is electric to me as I know where the low hanging fruits are for training after the fact.
In our final block leading into the meet, we introduced a second LB exposure via pause squats with higher repetition HB work, sets of 7, and we ran that all the way into the day, meaning, the week of the meet she hit a paused triple around 80%, then HB 7s up to a fairly heavy zone and it worked wonderfully.
As for bench, in general, unless someone is benching more than 200lbs on the women’s side, I have found taking a 5kg jump from 2nd to 3rd attempt, or more, is simply a risk that is not worth taking. Her bar speed on her second attempt of 55kg/121lbs maybe indicated she had 60kg/132lbs, but on merit of her never hitting a third attempt, 57.5kg/126lbs being a meet PR, we elected to take that and I feel that was the right call. She will bench the blue next meet, no doubt.
Finally, deadlift…
We were able to secure her a PR total on deadlift #2, like we anticipated, so I elected to go +5kg from her best training pull, instead of +2.5kg.
She was able to get the bar to her knee, with a slight stall, then locked it out, only for it to be turned down to 2-1 via a blue card.
This would have gave her a +27lb total PR and be within 11lbs of her best sumo pull.
I was rather frustrated with this call, honestly, still am, but at the end of the day, it is on us to be undeniable and it is on me to make a better call in that situation. I should have called for 319lbs and not gotten greedy, and I won’t make that mistake again.
That being said, we got everything we came for in reality, so there is not much to scoff over!
In our short time working together I have seen nothing short of incredible improvement around her mentality as well as her physical strength.
She is a very thoughtful and introspective lifter and I am glad I was trusted to make the corrections necessary to keep her drive in the sport high. Not only do I think this is just the beginning, but I feel quite strongly that when we look back on this meet down the line in December of this year, we will be pretty taken back by how much more of a step she took since that point.
I am never the arbitrary numbers guy, but I am manifesting a squat close to 300lbs, a bench closer to 140lbs, and a deadlift in the 340s this year.
Happy for you Brie, but now, we must build.
Results:
Squat: 122.5kg/270lbs, +17lbs PR
Bench: 57.5kg/126lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 140kg/308lbs
Total: 320/705lbs, +11lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Carlee Cummings - 2023 Carrie Boudreau Big Pull-ooza III - 9 December 2023
A supernova.
This meet was pretty special for a multitude of reasons.
Crazy to think, this was Carlee and I’s 6th meet together and in January of ‘24, will make 2 years of working together.
In this time, we have learned a lot about, again, a multitude of things but I would be damned if we have not seen anything short of remarkable progress during this time.
In fact, when I go back and look on at that first meet, then compare it to this one, it really is night and day and that is a testament to constant tweaking, good communication, and above all else, trust in the process and not being overly high on a great session, never overly low on a poor session.
Simply put, Carlee has now become a veteran of the sport, having competed now at 2 state championships where we feature national level refs, having medaled at NE regionals where the standard is just as high, if not higher, the skill of competing, I do not think is limiting factor for her.
This is not the same girl that got her first 308 squat taken away for missing a rack command or missing a squat on depth she was fully capable of sinking.
Prep for this meet, much like most of our other meets, we fairly up and down, when it was up it was way up, when it was down, you can imagine how down it was.
But the cool thing is since we have now been through this 5 times prior, we know how she responds to certain stressors and what is acceptable in terms of tapering into a meet and what is not in terms of expectations.
I think a lot of times, we blindly say, “Trust the taper”, when really we are just hoping for the best, and do not get me wrong, there is a healthy degree of that as well, but when you can be within 95% confidence, I have found that really lifts a lifters spirits heading into a meet when 1, or 2, of their heavier sessions does not go well.
Along with this, I have documented in prior posts, Carlee is a mother of a young child and during the majority of the year, has to care for him alone on top of training and of course, working.
Most sessions are taken after 9pm, as the last thing she does in the day, and with this, although it is the norm, there are fluctuations day to day on energy levels, stress levels, etc… that drastically effect how each one of her sessions go.
Before getting into major program design changes, I felt the biggest breakthrough we had as a coach and client was re-establishing trust about one block out before the preparation for this meet began.
No need to get into detail but in essence, I feel like we got back to the roots of what got her to her current status and I can say now, since we have exited the meet successfully, that talk and conversations surrounding it, paid off.
Beyond that, I was constantly reminding her something that I tend to be very high on with lifters that are very selfless, and that is the fact that at the end of the day, their performance matters to, and even if it is for just the final week leading into the meet, it is not selfish to put yourself, your recovery, your mentals, and your performance, first.
That became a big theme of the prep for this meet, fairly symbolic too with it being the last meet of the year for Team Hogan.
Now, let’s get into the major programming changes/themes for this meet.
The first and I think most important variable, was consistent exposure to competition equipment.
Carlee now takes all sessions with at the bare minimum, a competition grade bar, and calibrated plates. In the past we theorized that a lot of her pulls would be harder in the meets themselves because of the bumper plate set up she tended to pull on and we knew that if we could ever solve that, we would be able to at least be accurate with what we could pull, instead of hoping for the best in that regard. I also feel for a lot of people, not just herself, benching on a competition combo rack really helps, not just for the grip of the pad, but mainly for the custom rack height and the actual standard height of the bench itself, leading to more consistency in set up and things of the like.
The next thing is how we structured her heavy days and the spacing of each session.
Before, we would have a secondary pull session to either start the week, or end the week, with the primary somewhere in the middle.
She reported that even when we throttled that workload on the primary session back, it would still carry over into her primary day for squat and bench, and would mask results in that avenue and was becoming a rather recurring trend.
So, we already wanted to experiment with squatting after deadlifts anyway, for response purposes, so we decided to bring her primary day to the beginning of the week, post secondary squats, and move the secondary session to the middle of the week.
The most variable part though, was what style of deadlift we used for that secondary session.
We cycled through:
Heavy barbell RDLs
Deficit deads
Competition Deads (high rep, low rep, ascending sets, top sets, straight sets, you name it)
And really, I was losing faith in what we could do to get the deadlift to have the technical changes we wanted without overly fatiguing her week to week. We also knew we need to address her posterior chain as her ability to leverage her hams in the deadlift was very limited.
Then I had a real brain storm, her technical fault usually is fairly severe knee cave off the floor, in which we finally settled on a set of shoes and positioning with her toes that felt right and limited this, so my thought was to have that middle session be eccentric deads with posterior chain work for fairly high volume, as she was consistently able to recover from it.
Her day 3 secondary pull session would look like:
Eccentric deads at a fixed load, 4ct descent, a soft touch to the floor, back up to the top, low volume here, no more than 2 total sets.
Belt squat RDLs which was about the only loadable RDL we could train that did not make her back ache.
Glute pull throughs for high reps to train hip extension.
This proved to be very effective!
Lastly, we enacted belt squatting and fairly heavy leg pressing as we did not have access to that in prior preps.
For every benefit home training has, it has an equal detriment in what we can do when things with just the barbell and lighter DBs stops working.
The belt squats, the leg presses, and then for the upper body, making sure we biased intent to certain sessions and progressed exercises like dips and push ups, proved to be very effective.
She nailed her final heavy deadlift session, and had a massive breakthrough on bench with an all time PR, but her final heavy squat fell short towards our expectations, mainly because we had to take it a day early, under fairly intense fatigue, after a fairly stressful day.
I will just say it now for transparency purposes, she actually failed 315lbs pretty convincingly in the hole.
However, we had data from the block before that she was capable of somewhere around 325-330, and we leaned on that.
Getting into the meet itself, she completed her 2nd successful weight cut, which I feel is now a strength of hers to leverage extra body weight into a lower weight class.
I have talked ad nauseum about weight cutting, but weighing in light does nothing for you if you fail to rehydrate and if you fail to lift well. Credit to everyone for staying on her with consumption of fluid and electrolytes, this was crucial.
I was tasked, rather last minute, with handling 2 additional athletes the week of the meet, so most of the warming up was handled by Michael Beaupre, who I always make sure gets his credit, he made everyones life so much easier with his impeccable timing.
On squat, she felt 331 was there, and I told her rather bluntly, if she missed, her meet in terms of getting a DOTS over 400, getting a PR total, is probably not going to happen, so with that, she felt strongly, and if this was meet #1, I would say let’s be safe, but with her being in meet #6 with me, I felt I could trust her intuition.
She went out and nailed it, meaning she squatting 331 for an all time PR, a week removed from failing 315 outright.
Now, of course we never want to fail a weight that close to a meet, but I have come to be aware of fatigue accumulation effecting people with dynamic lives, a bit more than people who have every variable, really lined up optimally. You can only control what you can control, so we have to assume that in the end stage of a meet prep, we have to fight a little more than we would like and it is awesome this did not shake her confidence, really at all.
In our 1 week out plan, we agreed matching her best bench from prep was the move as it was already to be a meet PR and benching for female lifters is already finicky in the sense of, if you go strictly by how fast the opener is, you will choose a load too heavy on the third, 9/10, and I think 171 was the right call on the day.
Now, this is where I personally feel my strengths of knowing my lifters goals and how to get them, sets me apart, after squats and benches I was able to calculate the minimum deadlift she needed to secure a 400 DOTS, which was a major goal, and luckily, it was only 2.5 up from our planned 2nd already and it would still make the jump to her planned third, make sense.
As a coach, I like to talk to my lifters about these things and not just say, “We’re doing this”, as that is not how I approach a coach client relationship, if this was for placing at a regional or national meet, maybe I am fairly assertive with how I express this, but I still would always want the lifters okay, before doing it.
We hit that second pull of 347, matching her best in training, securing her a deadlift meet PR, and a 401 DOTS in one go, so with that, we really did not have a lot more to accomplish, so we agreed we would go for the planned top end, of 358, for the final pull.
It was hard, but it went.
All three lifts tapered magically and for the first time since meet # 3 (I do not count the RPS meet) she went 9/9.
She won best female lifter fairly convincingly on top of this and solidified a tremendous performance that she earned in droves.
Everyone who is lucky enough to have her in their lives knows how selfless she is and that was evident in her handling Connor Sheets directly after competing. I am thoroughly lucky to have her involved with what I am trying to build and really, without her, I do not think we have the successful women’s team we do and I think for all my younger girls, and guys too for what it’s worth, I could not think of a better role model about how to conduct yourself in the sport.
So happy you were able to have your day girl. Proud is an understatement.
Results:
Squat: 150kg/331lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 77.5kg/171lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 162.5kg/358lbs, +17lbs PR
Total: 390kg/860lbs, +28lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
407 DOTS
Has now increased total by 111lbs, down 1.5 weight classes, increased DOTS from 329 to 407
Team Hogan @ 2023 USAPL Maine Event: Harvest Moon Classic - 11 November 2023
The culmination of the busiest stretch of weeks for me in my powerlifting coaching career ended with preparing 11 lifters for a meet we were directing in Saco amidst a ton of turmoil we really could not have prevented.
I have talked about it before I think, but the main thing with directing meets is the 24hrs before and maybe 6hrs after that really zaps you completely.
Andrew and I run meets for 2 main pillars:
To provide an atmosphere for lifters to put on their best performances.
To continue to push the standard for what local/state level competition should look like.
We do not do it for any other reason. Having an avenue for my lifters to compete together helps, absolutely, but I think unfortunately sometimes people assume we are in this for money, or in it to profit. Without getting into mega detail, Andrew and I have never accumulated a single cent from the meets we run, with all money being re-invested into the next one and most times, operating at a loss. Not that this matters to the extent of you should feel bad for us, not at all, however, realize we are putting these meets on, doing this work behind the scenes, because we love the sport and want to provide everything we felt was missing on our way up several years ago.
This meet was truly the definition of Murphy’s Law the day before and then the antithesis of that, the very next day.
As we gathered up and were ready to pack the box truck we use, we noticed the tire was flat.
Did not panic immediately as that is pretty straightforward, put air in it, get after it.
But oh no, this tire was slashed. AAA roadside could not do anything about it. UHaul did not have anything available for the time domain. We had 100 chairs, 6 tables, 5 power bars, 4000+ lbs of plates, 2 combo racks, plywood boards, and tons of boxes of items to transport.
And this is why I am thankful to have the connections I do, and I am sure Andrew feels the same, as within 20 minutes we had enough help to transport everything separately, albeit much later than we would have liked.
What is cool is this being our 7th meet, we now know pretty much to a tee, how to set everything up and even our help knows what to do and where to put things as several things were already set up before we made it to the facility.
I want to thank several people such as: Carlee Cummings, Connor Sheets, Garrett Dupee, Luke Souza, Jim Sullivan, my brother Ryun, Twon, and everyone else who helped us with set up and takedown many of them being people who lifted in the meet and/or handled for me on the day. Without you guys, this meet is not as smooth as it is.
Now, with this being a meet with 11 of my lifters, and unfortunately I do not have photos of all 11, I figure the easiest way to do this will be womens team first, then the guys.
Without further adieu, here is how each lifter performed.
Team Hogan - Men’s Team @ 2023 USAPL Maine Event: Harvest Moon Classic - 11 November 2023
Typical guys, we did not take a picture and I only have low quality screen grabs, so here is a picture of the sick set up we had.
I was fortunate enough to have a pretty wide array of competitors on the day for this meet for my men’s team.
We had some veterans, some newcomers, and then everything in between with goals from: going 9/9 and having a great day, qualifying for national meets, placing on the podium, etc…
I will start with the morning session teen lifters, and then go into the afternoon.
Isaac Gould
So, in the most technical sense, this was Isaac’s 3rd meet, 2nd in USAPL, but meet #2 frankly did not go the way we wanted.
To make a fairly complex story succinct, he had a bit of a warmup room injury that caused me to step in and pull the plug, which, I. am glad we did as there was very little reason to push through.
We were able to have more time to prepare for this meet, meaning we could take our time with progressions and really find an approach that worked for him.
We found a few cool things that were big breakthroughs:
Squat was missing a bracing component on the unrack that was a game changer.
Bench benefitted from a faster descent.
Deadlift simply needed to be paced out more appropriately.
These are all things that maybe we would have stumbled on later, but I am glad we did now because he was able to finally showcase all the hard work he had cultivated in the form of improvement on the platform!
Simply put, I think he tapered and peaked incredible, his final deadlift was actually 2.5kg HIGHER than what he missed 10 days out, and it moved with 5kg to spare!
So proud of this kid for multiple reasons, but I hope a meet like this opens his eyes to see, he is capable and the best days are yet to come.
Results:
Squat: 185kg/408lbs, +45lbs PR
Bench: 102.5kg/226lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 195kg/429lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 482.5kg/1063lbs, +60lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Joey Beaucage
Joey had already done a USPA meet, which, by his own assessment did not go quite the way he maybe would have liked. With him only being 15, my approach with his training is a bit more, “organize, keep simple, make minimal changes” than most and I intentionally hold him back a hair most blocks because he does not need to peak at 15, although we caught lightning in a bottle with his squat that we road pretty much all the way into the meet.
Funny enough, this meet was the first time I met Joey in person and he is… much taller than I thought and this will tie in to the decision he made post meet that I think will fully be a game changer for him moving forward.
Alluding to that squat talk from earlier, he came to me with a trouble hitting depth consistently, and was pretty limited with his higher bar position, the first thing we did was change how he cued the movement and move the bar lower on his back and honestly, this was all we needed to do as he pretty much was adding 10lbs a week to his squat and drastically surpassed his last meets numbers, and his gym all time PRs, with ease. In fact, the squat at the meet was still representative of at least 5kg left in the tank!
Bench was a bit tricky and I have a feeling that we will be making a lot more progress here now that I know how tall and long-limbed he is, we actually did not miss on strength, just some downward motion, that frankly was a fair call.
Deadlift caught fire at the end, but I think we now know we need to get some reps in with a stiff bar/calibrated plates as the force curve/give in the bar is much different and we had to cue deads a but different, despite that, he hit a 15lb all time PR up from an all time PR he already hit 10 days out.
In his first USAPL meet, he qualified for both T1 and High School Nationals and made the call to build into the 82.5kg class moving forward for his next meet, which is a breath of fresh air for me, because I am so used to people wanted to force the lower weight class for as long as possible, and with him being as young as he is, his body wants to grow, I expect him to put 100lbs on this total here by next year, easily.
Results:
Squat: 170kg/374lbs, +77lbs PR
Bench: 110kg/242lbs
Deadlift: 197.5kg/435lbs, +39lbs PR
Total: 477.5kg/1052lbs, +116lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Qualified for T1 and HS Nationals in the 75kg Class
Henry Sandelin
Henry is now a veteran of the sport and has come a long way since he signed up for Maine States under my team without even knowing me, lol.
In all seriousness, this was a good preparation that I think I can make great for our next as we carried a bit too much fatigue leading into the meet than I was comfortable with.
Henry is someone who, straight up, does all the little things very well. Communication, effort, execution, all of that is there with him, which makes everything else so easy.
We are after, and for most of this prep were trying to formulate a plan for, a T3 nationals qualifying total in the 90kg class.
With him being in the age division for a while, I told him based on where we ended, it was probably best to bridge that into next meet, see how close we come this meet, and then see where we can serve to double down the most of our progress, and I am glad we did, because I see clearly where and how we can improve to get that total.
Henry put together a great day and is someone who peaks extremely well for meets, and above that, he trusts my input on what should be there, based upon the data we have.
When he showed me his missed attempt at 210kg/463lbs, I knew he would have 2.5 more at the meet itself, and sure enough, he did.
Bench has been the hardest one to replicate from him to meet, however, I think with a slightly newer scheme I have in mind, we should be able to make it more predictable, still left with a meet PR.
Deadlift has been the one lift that we have waves with, Henry has just a brutally strong back that tends to take over, immediately really, in most of his heavy pulls, we have improved in this regard, however longer term we will address how to prevent this which ties in to my main point.
He consistently weighs in 4-5lbs light each meet and I really in my heart feel if we truly filled out 198lbs, because he is lean enough to do it, that extra 4lbs of leverage means we are squatting 479, benching 319, most likely and then we do not have to pull as much to make that total.
His next meet will be Maine states, and we will do everything we can to get that total and then really build strong into Salt Lake.
Results:
Squat: 212.5kg/469lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench: 137.5kg/303lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 212.5kg/469lbs, +11lbs PR
Total: 562.5kg/1240lbs, +39lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
added 105lbs to total in a little over 8 months!
Brandon Allen
Getting into the afternoon guys, Brandon technically had the best meet of his career, but certainly did not have the day he was expecting.
Simply put, and this is not an excuse because he won’t look at is as such, but I will step in here and explain all the stuff my man had to deal with, that I feel inclined to speak on, other stuff is private.
Changing jobs.
Entering shift work and having to train very late at night, 1:30am updates were frequent.
Tweaks to deadlift that did not take.
Chronic fatigue from said DL tweaks.
Personal life things that honestly effect the system more than anything physical.
So with this, as we got into meet prep, I knew we would have to fight a bit more than prior preps to progress as we did not have the off-season we expected.
So, we planned on leaning into the data and the strengths of the prep.
Squats caught fire and he was able to do some pretty incredible things, such as a 501lb single to end his prep.
Bench PR was not going to be there, but we knew we could get within 5kg of it and with the amount his squat improved, it would be enough to pull a total PR.
Deadlift was coming back and we needed to ride that momentum into the meet as much as possible, as frankly he pulls better in meets and pretty tangibly so.
Here is another cool stat, Brandon in the 4 meets he has done, has an attempt record of 35/36, with the first miss coming at this meet here.
Brandon wanted to give 507 a try for an all time PR and looking back on it, I think I would have called it again, just wasn’t quite there. If there were reason to save it, I think 501 was 100% there and this is the risk you take sometimes with bigger jumps, go 2.5 too heavy, you lose out on an effective 7.5-10kg on your total, but we live and we learn, his second attempt was already a 16lb meet PR.
Bench we got a little lucky and ended up with the most he had on the day, that being 137.5kg/303lbs.
Now, I told him on deads, we still could PR the total, but he would have to hit his all time PR deadlift, a number he had not touched since March. Like a true baller, he went out, and grinded that shit out to salvage the day and gain the respect of everyone around him. This sport is awesome and fun when you are adding a ton of lbs to your total, however, who is sticking around when it becomes harder to do even half that? The best is yet to come.
Results:
Squat: 222.5kg/491lbs, +16lbs PR
Bench: 137.5kg/303lbs
Deadlift: 255kg/562lbs
Total: 615kg/1356lbs, +6lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
added 149lbs to total in a little over 1 year!
Nathan Hilton
Nathan has been with me since pretty much the inception of Team Hogan as a real “thing”. I cannot remember if it was 2020 or 2021 when we first started together but it seems like it has been even longer than that.
With Nathan, we have to be pretty creative with our approach as he does not have unlimited time to train, has other commitments outside PL, and needs a higher workload in order to express his strength via singles.
As of now now, he squats 3x per week, deadlifts twice, benches 3x and we have been able to progress at a decent rate, meet to meet, and have actually cleaned up his movement standard quite a bit to the point where I do not think it is anything that will hold him back in future meets.
It actually took him 4 meets for us to go 9/9, and I am pretty much ecstatic in meet #5, it happened again with PRs on all 3 lifts!
At some point, I think he would be a great case study candidate as the way we taper him is we do not taper him and it has worked like a charm the last 2 meets.
So proud that he keeps clocking in and does the work, because I care just as much about his progress than anyone else on this team and I think we are just hitting out stride with his best lifting!
Results:
Squat: 125kg/275lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench: 100kg/220lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 160kg/352lbs, +6lbs PR
Total: 385kg/849lbs, +22lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
added 89lbs to total since meet #1!
Max Dingle
Max was an athlete I took on that had some pretty glaring fixes that we have worked on very, very diligently as frankly, the kid is strong, however movement standard is what holds him back, or at least held him back, on each lift.
When Max came to me, he:
Squatted aggressively high.
Benched with either no pauses or a heave pause.
Had a bad hitch in his deadlift.
3 things that do not point my compass towards: let’s add weight to the bar.
So in our first meet in late April, we elected to make it a tune up to address the total he had in his previous meet that he bombed out at.
In this meet, we noticed he was within striking distance of both a collegiate nationals and junior nationals qualifying total and I figured, we would 100% go for it this meet.
Max is a dream to work with, I legit tell him work on X, Y, Z and he will say you got it and do just that.
On meet day, he is even easier to handle and people around him will attest to that.
We took 501 on squat to get him some cushion for bench, he probably had 507-512 if needed.
Bench, really is Max’s lift, and we made it even better with a set up tweak that has made his execution borderline flawless now. He nailed 187.5kg/413lbs for an all time PR at maybe RPE 8.
Finally, I did the math based on his subtotal and we found he needed to pull 551lbs to secure the total, which was already our planned 2nd, he hit it with room to spare and with already having a total PR and a QT, we decided to play with the top end on pulls and he went out and pulled 573lbs with maybe another 2.5kg to spare!
It was a great day for him and we will have some decisions to make based upon which meet he wants to do next.
Results:
Squat: 227.5kg/501lbs
Bench: 187.5kg/413lbs, +33lbs PR
Deadlift: 260kg/573lbs, +33lbs PR
Total: 675kg/1488lbs, +89lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Qualified for Collegiate and Junior Nationals
Mike Iascone
Now I saved this one for last because I am still kind of in disbelief of how this happened.
So, Mike has only done one meet before this, and did well, but I think he needed to take the time he needed to find himself before he committed to the sport long term and I think that was the best thing for him as training “for fun”, did a lot for him and blew up lifts like his squat.
When he returned to me, I knew we would be able to squat, but I was interested in bringing up the other 2 lifts, and man, did we do that.
Mike is interesting as we tweaked several small things that led to MAJOR progress.
The ones that I remember, that were not all me, some were ones he made, were:
Bringing his bench grip in.
Adding a primer bench slot to 3x per week frequency.
Working on a more hinge-based deadlift instead of trying to squat the bar from the floor.
Switching to hook grip.
There were more, but I do think these were the big movers for him.
We ended this prep with a bang with PRs on all 3 lifts with all 3 lifts being @ 7.5 RPE or below.
Getting into the actual meet, this being his first in a while, we now know there is some stuff that regularly competing will solve, that being how we approach a cut, rehydrating, etc…
Squat, which had been a money lift, performed well, however, he kept mentioning he was being pitched forward and that reared it’s ugly head on his third, we have talked and are going to try flats as if balance is the limiting factor for a guy who will be squatting 584lbs @ 181, I think we need to address that with low hanging fruits.
Bench, for christ sake, came out of nowhere. He benched 145kg/319lbs and had I think 5 more kilos to spare whereas the week before 140kg was his first bench PR over that 300 range, I could be wrong there. However, I do think this means we do not need to train the bench in a grindy pattern in order for it to pop in the meet and will be a big takeaway I have from this meet. This, and if we are 187lbs a week out, cutting into the class, having that extra leverage means we are looking at a 336-347lbs bench eventually.
Now, the part I was waiting to get to, the deadlift.
10 days out, Mike pulled an all time PR of 507lbs, which was a 22lb PR from the week before.
After bench, we noticed Mike had a chance at the podium based on his DOTS and our main opponents DOTS based on their opening deadlifts.
So we talked about it as we wanted to podium this meet if we could and we agreed we would stick to our plan on attempt 1 and 2 and then wait for the third and to be prepared to pull something maybe a bit outside our comfort zone.
Then, the opportunity presented itself to not only pull for 3rd, but pull into 2nd!
Now, Andrew was kind enough to draft up an “if/then” plan that allowed us to pick the attempt needed to chip that DOTS as that competitor was in different flight and was done lifting, meaning if we pulled over that DOTS, Mike would be at worst, 3rd, as our opponent still could and did pull after Mike weight wise.
Mind you, he is in 4th, so if he missed this pull outright, no podium.
This number by the way was 540lbs. 33lbs more than he had ever attempted and that was just 10 days ago.
I had a feeling though, that this would happen.
He wanted it, so I switched his pull to 540 in order to take second, which would force out opponent to pull 2.5kg more than his declared 3rd to get his podium spot.
With the moment right there for him, he went out and BLEW up this lift with room to spare to pull into second and we got lucky as that extra 2.5kg made our opponents third just a touch too heavy as he could not get his shoulders back to get whites.
And just like that, pretty much organically, Mike secured his first 1400lb total, and had what I was deem as close to a supernova day as possible.
We have big plans for 2024 and I am glad this day went the way it did as he has deserved to have his moment for a while now.
Results:
Squat: 245kg/540lbs, +133lbs PR
Bench: 145kg/319lbs, +38lbs PR
Deadlift: 245kg/540lbs, +94lbs PR
Total: 635kg/1400lbs, +265lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Team Hogan - Women’s Team @ 2023 USAPL Maine Event: Harvest Moon Classic - 11 November 2023
The ladies for this meet absolutely popped off.
It was the rule of 4s for this one.
4 lifters, all ran 4 week blocks leading into the meet, 4 9/9 days, 4 PR Totals/DOTS, 4 breakthroughs in their own respective ways.
I am not sure I could have expected anything more what we accomplished this day, to be honest.
Grace Poirier
This was Grace’s second meet and maybe the first meet she was viewed as Elliot’s girlfriend who was dabbling in the sport, but this meet I feel she established herself as her own lifter, her own person in the sport and convincingly so.
Grace has graduated from strict linear periodization programming to a more intermediate scheme for most lifts, although, since she has entered the sport, her squat has pretty much been on a linear trajectory. I am not sure if we have gone more than 1 block without a squat PR of some sort, which is crazy to think about.
Her bench has improved a ton as well and her consistency around the ranges of 93% and above. We have talked about some tweaks I want to make that I think can even take her to the next level which, should they take, will be a big increase to her total.
Deadlift, we honestly kind of lost but regained just in time. I think I am at fault here, as I gave her a cue that caused her to over-correct, thankfully since she trains at the same gym as me, we were able to do a little priming of her tech a few days out that I feel was a game changer.
On a 9/9 day, she was able to hit an all time PR squat with maybe 16lbs left in the tank, a nice bench grind for a meet PR, and touched a number on deadlift she has not hit since June!
Should she decide she wants to stay with the sport long term, I can say with certainty, within another year and a half, she will be up 100lbs on this total here.
Results:
Squat: 110kg/242lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench: 47.5kg/104lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 127.5kg/281lbs
Total: 285kg/628lbs, +28lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Jordyn Rocca
Jordyn, I think in terms of outright progress, has made the most of anyone on my roster. I think if people saw her first meet, which was a strong debut, do not get me wrong, they would be floored to see where she is now, just a year and 8 months later.
With Jordyn the main theme of her training is quality on the non-primary days and in our debrief of the final block, we committed to this firmly. I think one of the reasons she has been able to progress the way we intend as well as keep that pace, is she does 3 things very well.
Listens and is ready to receive feedback. This sounds rudimentary, but truly, there is a demographic that does not want to be “coached”, just guided, which is fine, but unfortunately sometimes you need to hear the things you need to hear in order to progress.
Is content with hitting her lifts with some to spare. In her entire career, she is 43/45 on possible attempts. There were meets we could have gambled, but what for? She is going to be over 400 DOTS next year with this approach.
Takes responsibility. The little things I feel she has a great grasp on. Letting me know a week is going to be hectic, piecing together sessions in non-ideal circumstances (the crunch fitness session…), letting me know when execution just was not up to her standard, etc… Again, I feel what we do on this team works best when there is accountability on both ends. I cannot want your success more than you, and for Jordyn, I can tell she is 100% going to be driven indefinitely.
With that said, we really leaned into keeping as many things the same as possible, to make meet day predictable. The week of the meet, she was still doing heavy SSB squatting and pretty heavy benching, all because in prior blocks we noticed the primary would pop on the 4th week of that and it worked like a charm.
In terms of attempts, again, Jordyn put herself in the position she had at the end directly because she made all 8 of her lifts leading into it.
She had 2.5 to 5 on squat, but with it being a 15kg meet PR, the risk was not worth the possible reward.
For bench, we pretty much know chipping away 2.5kg at a time is the way to go, if we have a magical cycle where we can add 5kg, awesome, if not, infinite bench progress albeit at a slower rate.
Finally, Jordyn’s back is made of vibranium and she can grind out a deadlift when necessary, the key was not going to that zone too ofter and saving it for the day and that ability was there when it mattered most.
The scenario played out where:
Our opponent in 4th was in the scenario where if she made her third, she would be in 3rd before Jordyn’s final dead.
If she missed, Jordyn was guaranteed 3rd.
Our opponent happened to make that lift, and we had exactly what she needed to to pull into 3rd by 1.7 DOTS points, technically, Jordyn being the lighter lifter, if this was purely a total meet, I could have gone 2.5kg lighter to tie on total as she was lighter, but she had 150kg on dead regardless.
In her first opportunity to pull for a podium position, she went out and took complete advantage of the moment and got her first podium of many. What is crazy, is I think she had probably 5kg left here as well!
If we do not DOTS 400 next meet, we will be awfully close.
Results:
Squat: 140kg/308lbs, +33lbs PR
Bench: 65kg/143lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 150kg/331lbs, +11lbs PR
Total: 355kg/783lbs, +50lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
227lb total increase since meet #1, 111 point increase on DOTS score
Tayla Knapp
Alright full transparent Erik checking in.
Out of all 11 of the lifters this day, the person I was most nervous about was Tayla and not because I did not think she was capable, but she had the most moving parts leading into the meet in outside the gym stuff and had some things we really can’t account for in the gym that made this meet just a little unpredictable.
So for Tayla, I have definitely had to go outside the box the most as she has several characteristics that remain constant:
Her deadlift is pretty much strong, reliably, anytime we need it.
Her bench is very finicky and with her home gym set up, we are limited with what we can do aside from barbell variations for major movers.
Her squat responds best to lower rep ranges and heavier exposure, with a third day being a priming day.
She has been effected by a lingering ankle issue that limits confidence in her squat descent as well, and this has been interesting to navigate as well.
We had a conversation a few blocks out that I felt really helped us bridge her total package strength to the platform this go around, as she has been capable of a meet like this for a while now.
What was interesting about her training for squat and deadlift, was her heaviest lifts came an entire block out, with the squat actually being a double. I feel like I will return to this scheme as it produced the results we were both looking for and did not overly fatigue her like out prep into regionals.
I knew from her opening squat, she was on this day, she was able to blow up 147.5kg/325lbs for a +5kg PR and I believe an all time PR and we could have hit 150kg on the day!
Bench, we knew a PR would be hard to come by, so we simply took the PR match, post meet she has mentioned she will be returning to a gym for her secondary sessions and I think getting her on some upper body machines and finding a main bench driver like band-assisted dips will finally take her bench to the places we want.
Deadlift, we simply relied on the data as the 3 weeks leading into the meet she really did not feel that strong. With a 4 week momentum peak, the hard part in my opinion is the deadlift taper, we decided for her, we would take that w4 super light to her second last warmup with 50% volume all singles, something I already do, but instead of acting as a taper, it acts as a primer.
And what do you know, she went out, hit 190kg/419lbs for a 5kg PR with maybe 2.5kg to spare, to secure a 400kg/881lbs total and the heaviest raw deadlift in USAPL Maine women’s history. I would have to do more research on this, but I believe this is the heaviest deadlift across multiple federations (USPA, APF) in terms of raw deadlifts, all others higher were equipped.
Tayla is someone who has become a veteran and I think once we figure out bench, we will be good for another 10-12.5kg by her next meet with where her squat is trending and we know we can put 5-7.5kg on her deadlift each meet.
Finally, your supernova!
Results:
Squat: 147.5kg/325lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench: 62.5kg/137lbs
Deadlift: 190kg/419lbs, +11lbs PR
Total: 400kg/881lbs, +22lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
66lbs increase on total since meet #1
Brittany Boxer
I think for the first time since we started together, we pretty much knew this day was in the bag for Brittany. I do not know if things could have gone smoother, maybe a weird shoulder issue somewhat close to the meet and some mix ups the week of the meet that caused deads to pretty much be performed for extremely low volume, but aside from that, we really had 4 straight money blocks.
I think the biggest breakthrough we had this go around, was the talk we had about weight classes.
Now, when I first took her on as an athlete, this was something I mentioned, but, we were rolling where we were at.
The talk this time was about how if restricting your eating is going to cause disruption in your life for the foreseeable future, how worth it is it to continue, when the goal of this sport is to get stronger?
Brittany was trending towards a nationals total in the 60kg class, however, with the rate of her progress, we were more than likely going to have to suppress her bodyweight for another entire year. That, paired with the fact she is about 6-7 inches taller than the tallest person in that weight class, at that level, meant we were giving up a ton of leverage in that department.
Sure, you can make the argument to just suck it up, but that approach does not cut it when you are a mother with a busy schedule and it is frankly irresponsible of me to force that.
I did not get into coaching to solely produce nationals bound lifters, and Brittany will get there anyway, so this was the right call.
We were not going to force a cut to 60kg, and stress about it, she was still extremely light for 67.5kg but man, if her at basically 62kg is doing the things she is doing now, she will be a force at 67.5.
We noticed in Brittany’s last meet, although strong and an improvement, she had some glaring holes we could fix relating to how we prepared into the meet on my end with our block structure and then things that are pertinent but seldom talked about, like intra-meet nutrition.
I can say with confidence, we nailed that to a tee here on all fronts.
Brittany is another person where, if we continue at the rate of progress we have been on, and then add the benefit of consistent calorie surplus, she is going to just keep progressing for at least another year or so with room to spare each meet and I do in my heart believe if she stays with this, she will make that nationals total at 67.5.
Since we have started together, she has been 26/27 for possible attempts on the platform and that precision is something I think is going to continue to carry her to big performances. Again, if you want to treat meets like max out sessions, go ahead, but on my team, we treat this like a sport, and in any other sport that is not recreational, you make only calculated risks, not belligerent ones.
This day started off hot with squat being blown up with another 5kg to spare, 5kg that will be there on top of another 5kg next meet.
Bench we had to drop frequency, per her request which I agreed was the right call and weirdly enough, her opener, second, both moved worse than her third, hahah.
Finally, I think even I will admit I sold her short on deadlift, the issue is I really did not know where she would be so I figured taking the lowest end of what I thought she would be capable would be sufficient, but this is why we do the meets, there was nothing really more to gain, if she had an opportunity at first I would have said let’s go up another 12.5kg, but again, we walked away injury free with meet or all time PRs on all 3 lifts, and can now check first podium/medal off the list that has eluded her at so many meets before.
So, so proud.
Results:
Squat: 140kg/308lbs, +16lbs PR
Bench: 65kg/143lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 152.5kg/336lbs, +22lbs PR
Total: 357.5kg/788lbs, +44lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
116lbs to total, 45 points to DOTS in 11 months
Team Hogan @ 2023 USAPL Western Massacre - 28 October 2023
Week 2 of what ended up being a 4 week whirlwind from New Hampshire, to Mass, to Florida, and back to Maine, this meet went very well and although there was a few hiccups leading in, I feel we got the most out of each athletes preparation.
Meets like this are important as there are several take home points that I feel sometimes go unnoticed/unaccounted for that we as coaches, or us as bystanders, need to be cognizant of.
In this write up you will learn 3 concepts:
Why it is important to see it through to the end.
It is inappropriate to judge others training and progress, without understanding the context of their life.
Greediness often does not lead to the path we set out for, this is on me though, not my lifters on the day.
I would also like to thank Michael Beaupre who traveled the 3 hours to Agawam to help us out as since we had 2 people in the same flight, and one in another, it was imperative everyone was accounted for.
Hope you all took something away from this!
To Utopia,
Erik
Logan Allaire - 2023 USAPL Western MASSacre - 28 October 2023
This one deserves daps for sure.
Logan is only 17 and somehow has already become a veteran of the sport.
When I first took him on, I knew he would be talented, but I do not think I could comprehend what we would be able to accomplish in just a year and a half.
I will start with, Logan uses me as a resource as well as any of my lifters and I have to believe trusts my judgement above all. I have no issue telling him what he needs to hear as well as praise the things he is doing well.
Over the course of his last 3 meets, we have found a plan that works very well for him as we have identified for him, he needs certain parameters to be met to showcase strength.
Some of those being:
Minimal frequency of the competition squat, until around 3 weeks out, really, we switch to comp squats intra-cycle at this time.
High volume and frequency of bench pressing and we really nailed it this time.
Deadlift was about building and pacing to the point where it would not effect his squat and we did a good job of that, I unfortunately fudged it up at the meet however.
There are others, but those are the most important constants.
I do not view Logan as a science experiment, but I do think I view his training from a different perspective as frankly, I am not interested in him peaking out in his best lifting within the next 4 years even, and he knows that. His process is very long-term driven.
That being said, this being his last year as a T2, we made the decision that we would go full force for both HS and Teen Nationals and with that, we would use this meet as an estimate to see whether we were headed in the right direction.
Training headed into this meet, really, I do not think could get any better.
Some highlights include:
529lbs squat
297lbs bench press
500lbs deadlift
Fast forward to the meet, I do not think I have seen a lifter peak as well for squat and bench as him.
He squatted 250kg/551lbs @ 8 RPE for a 10kg all time PR that is only 9.5kg under the American Record for the teen 2 90kg class!
If it is there at these next 2 meets, we will be taking this record.
Bench went insane as well, hitting his first 300lb bench, in comp, with a clean but appropriate 137.5kg/303lbs.
Now, for deads, I messed up. I got too greedy and went away from the goal.
His deadlift had been going well, but we did not have any data as to how it would respond with squat fatigue in the same meet and I knew there would be a drop off.
He actually locked out 230kg/507lbs but with a few hitches, 227.5kg or even 225kg was the better call this day and I should have made that call.
That said, our goal was to total as close to the winning total for T2 Nationals as possible with the number hit in the most recent nationals being 620kg, with a missed third deadlift, he totaled 607.5kg with 7.5-10kg to spare on the squat, MAYBE 2.5 to spare on bench, and a better attempt call on deadlift would give him an extra 5kg there.
So his strength potential on the day was really 622.5-625kg.
Needless to say, we will be going for medals at HS Nationals and Teen Nationals.
We will also not be going into a meet with our scale uncalibrated and having to spit and piss to make 90.00 on the dot….
The future is bright for this kid and he has taught me as much as I think I have taught him.
Results:
Squat: 250kg/551lbs, +22lbs PR
Bench: 137.5kg/303lbs, +28lbs PR
Deadlift: 220kg/485lbs, +11lbs PR
Total: 607.5kg/1340lbs, +62lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
156lbs added to the total in a little over a year
Emily Grinnell - 2023 USAPL Western MASSacre - 28 October 2023
So this meet was truly a mixed bag, a roller coaster, whatever analogy you want to use.
Simply put, Emily had to deal with a few things this meet preparation that were either foreign to other preps OR were more severe this go around.
Let’s go ahead and rip the band-aid off, so to speak, in terms of variables we had to deal with leading into the day.
This was our first meet outside of Maine. Now, some people do not see this as a variable, but I fail to see this argument. When you are used to competing under an hour away, with the people you know, with refs you know, etc… You begin to gain a false sense of security in the sport that is not there at the next level, Emily being a lifter with a nationals qualifying total, she has entered that phase of her career where I feel gaining these skills are important. Too many times I see people do 1-2 local meets and then fly across the country to do a national meet, we talk about keeping variables in check, and if your first national meet is the first meet you have traveled for outright, this really does not bode well for performance.
Training, really had not popped the way it had in previous meet prep cycles. I will get into why this probably was later in this report, but I feel for the first time in a while, we did not have momentum leading into the meet. This is solely on me.
Finally, beyond a few injury scares, we actually thought about dropping this meet last minute as we had a coronavirus exposure scare, about 6 days out. She tested negative each day leading into the meet however.
Needless to say, everything that could have gone wrong this prep shy of her having a massive injury, occurred.
Now, I alluded to seeing it through to the end in the beginning and I think Emily is the epitome of this statement. She had every reason to not show up and give her best shot, but she decided amidst it all, she would see where the day would end up, I feel we were both glad she did.
Coming into the day itself, I basically knew the day would be dictated by how squat went, and it manifested that way.
Having struggled with 355 the week before, I knew with the amount of back fatigue we accumulated, should we taper that appropriately, we would be in line for more on the day, how much more, was up to the day itself.
I knew that if we wanted a shot at a PR total, 167.5 was the lowest attempt we could take that still made sense at the end with how the other 2 lifts had been going.
So, we elected to take that and she grinded that thing out for a new meet PR!
A quick word on squat training, I did not set Emily up for success this meet. We had been doing well in the previous blocks and I falsely assumed that would continue, not accounting for the fatigue we would accumulate from trying to get the most out of the other 2 lifts. We were rocking well with a load cap scheme that I went away from and to be honest, I am still beating myself up over this weeks later. She did nothing wrong, the fatigue was just too much to precisely choose loading each session based on RPE.
Moving on to bench, most likely her best lift, I knew straight up, we had to go 3/3. I actually feel 102.5kg/226lbs was there on the day, however some wonky bar path on attempt #2 caused us to elect to match the PR at 100kg/220lbs and I don’t regret it solely because it kept us alive for a PR total and with momentum.
It has been said a few times, but I think it is true that you will always be more mad/disappointed feeling you should have gone just 2.5kg lighter after a miss, then thinking you should have gone 2.5kg heavier with a make, this was the case here.
Now, on to deadlift, this one has been tricky to progress.
Basically, the issue we have ran into is lighter weights, around 315-345, look smooth, move fine, when we enter the next zone that represents 87.5% +, we have technical things that make attempts a dice toll in meet.
My deduction is I did not approach this right. Even though her secondary pull session was lighter, she does not need that much work on her deadlift as whatever benefit it has in reinforcement it equally takes away in fatigue.
I did some math and figured what the minimum amount we needed to pull to PR her total/DOTS, and we restructured out plan based on that.
Her best attempt in training was a 385lbs that she got to the knee, and it would require us to pull 391lbs to PR the total, which I think was there.
However, this is where you have to play damage control and you have to contextualize the meet itself.
Emily got her 2nd pull turned down 2-1 at 170kg, but made the lift somewhat convincing strength wise.
If this were Northeast Regionals, and we are going for the win, or a medal, or for a nationals total, you go up. This meet, we elected to stay and retake as should she miss, it would now be the “worst” meet of her career and I was not about to have that with the amount of effort she gave me this prep.
So like a true competitor, she came back and nailed it with three whites and closed the day strong, going 8/9.
I do not want to spoil the surprise, shoutout Arctic Monkeys, but we will be exploring some new training ideas and maybe a new weight class…
So proud of your resolve Emily, the best has truly yet to come.
Results:
Squat: 167.5kg/369lbs, +6lbs PR
Bench: 100kg/220lbs
Deadlift: 170kg/374lbs
Total: 437.5kg/964lbs
8/9 on attempts
on an off meet, this girl is still 7.5kg from a nationals total
Meg Frangione - 2023 USAPL Western MASSacre - 28 October 2023
Super Meg!
To set the stage for this performance, I think we need to really contextualize the last year or so of her training as well as the immediate weeks heading into the meet.
To put it simple, Meg lives a very jam-packed life between work and training.
Not to make this about me, but I was a teacher for a single year, that was only one year because I could not take it any longer! Meg works as an art teacher and I think we assume teachers have summers and weekends off and every vacation off and that life is merry and it is the coolest gig on Earth. Could not be further from the truth as really this is a 6 day per week commitment, with odd hours and commitments unique to any other job.
On top of this, Meg has committed to a longer term weight loss journey that she has worked very hard on that culminated in her entering the weight class below for the first time this meet!
The last piece is about a year ago, maybe longer, she had a procedure that really made bench training quite hard to replicate pre-procedure and doubly so with bodyweight loss.
The reason I say all this, is because program design (where I think I can do better regardless of this) is only a single piece of the puzzle.
We see a lot of info on Instagram about optimizing training and I think sometimes this is not applicable to most lifters who straight up, have powerlifting as the 2nd or 3rd priority in their life, and rightfully so, you need to pay for rent and be attentive in your job!
Despite all this, Meg put together a ton of progress this meet that will bridge into the next meet, no doubt.
One of the unique takeaways I have for this meet is I need to do a better job of explaining the very barebones stuff.
This entire time, Meg had no clue how to take proper jumps up to a top set and that is 100% on me. We have since sewed this up and things are going well in this regard!
In general, we pretty much agreed, we would go 8/8 then take a gamble on deadlift and it ended up playing out this way, really to a tee.
Meg maybe had 2.5kg to spare on squat, pretty much reached the limit on the day with bench, then after her send attempt deadlift we decided we would try 142.5kg/314lbs that got to the knee, just wasn’t quite there on this day.
We have since talked about this and we also agreed, we have put this number on a pedestal for too long and it is getting to the point that her misses around this range are mental misses. I have full and total confidence she will hit well north of this, within one years time AND at a lighter bodyweight.
Meg if you are reading this, I just want to say I am so honored to have you apart of this team and your positivity towards everyone around you is something I have never, and will never take for granted, your supernova meet is coming, I promise.
Results:
Squat: 125kg/275lbs
Bench: 60kg/132lbs
Deadlift: 135kg/297lbs
Total: 320kg/705lbs
8/9 on attempts
added 45 points to DOTS since 2022
Team Hogan @ 2023 Odyssey Barbell Classic - 21, 22 October 2023
This was a super fun meet with people who had several back stories to get to the point they were at by meet day and I am truly thrilled with how well things turned out for each of them.
First off, want to thank Eric Lapointe for running an awesome meet, per usual, as I really feel quality of meets in NE has really increased over the last year and a half and the lifters really are being taken care of on all fronts.
I want to thank Michael for helping time warmups here, very invaluable in terms of lifters success.
I want to thank Elliot for taking killer footage as the primary videographer for a few lifters across both days.
And lastly I want to thank Team Hogan for always showing up and supporting one another.
A las, here was how these 3 individuals performed!
Dani LaMarca - 2023 Odyssey Barbell Classic - 21 October 2023
In order to describe the magnitude of this meet, we have to go back several months prior.
Dani and I started working together shortly after Maine States in March and from the jump, established a longer term plan that I feel like we have adhered to quite well and has yielded success.
With a pretty rich history in sports before hand and a higher base than most, there was not a lot I had to do on my end aside from shifting goals and aligning training to benefit top end strength.
In May (I think?) we agreed to train through a local meet to gain experience which she (begrudgingly) did to establish a baseline which made me feel much better about trying to go for higher goals in successive meets. I only say begrudgingly because it pained her to take lifts @ 5 RPE for a meet, but again, it was important to still treat her PL journey with respect.
In June we prepared for her first “real” meet and this is where we started doing some new things such as moving the bar lower on her back for squat, using SBD sessions, and adding additional benching in both volume and frequency.
This is where she had her first real success but also a bit of hiccups in the form of: not being able to get her knee sleeves on fully from how sticky it was inside the venue, missing her third squat (my error, I think I called a number 2.5kg too high) and being paced back a bit more than she would have wanted.
How I knew she was really about this, was how she responded that day. Came back and hit PRs on tough 3rd attempt benches and deadlifts, and placed 3rd overall for only her second meet ever. To me, that meant so much more than surface level things.
Fast forward to preparation for this meet, it was smooth, until it wasn’t.
We found the following really worked for her:
2 low bar sessions per week, one paused, one comp and I think within this one cycle, she put 33lbs on her squat.
3x per week bench frequency with careful load selection on the secondary and a very light tertiary. She has set at least a 5lb bench PR on each rep range, I think the entire time she has been solely powerlifting. I love this because I know we can sustain that for at least another 5-6 months, +/- 2 months depending on external factors. We also noticed that 2x per week low bar makes her benches “feel” harder, although moving pretty much the same.
Now, that was the good, here was what ended up being the bad.
Deadlifts.
Really since the meet in June, we have not had much momentum on deads and that can be attributed to a few things, but what we deducted from our trials was:
She does not have the best build for deads, so what makes her a great squatter and bencher, equally makes it difficult on deadlifts in terms of positions she needs to be in.
At the moment, she squats 10-12.5kg more than she pulls, and we noticed that squatting really zapped deads from a relative standpoint. Maybe a bit of reductionist thinking, but I think the reason SBD days work for some people beyond the obvious skill portion, is typically most people pull drastically more than they squat, meaning the hit to the “system” (whatever that means) is relatively less as it is the final thing they do. With Dani, my hypothesis was since her squat was drastically taking off compared to pull, and with how much legs she needs to use to lever the bar off the floor, by the end of her SBD sessions she would be smoked.
This all culminated with her unfortunately failing 335lbs 2 weeks out, which, of course never does wonders for confidence.
Now this is where we needed to put on our thinking caps as we obviously did not have a ton of time to overhaul the training and start from scratch, so I decided to do the following.
Flip the secondary and primary session. We were running beltless reps on a secondary, so I elected to bring that to the end of her SBD session that 1 week out mark, and have her take something somewhat heavy, around what would probably be a 2nd attempt, to represent our final “heavy” exposure. This was more for confidence purposes than anything as it’s one thing to say, “just trust me” and another to feel it yourself. I knew if we went heavier than this range, it would be counterproductive because we were just 3.5 days or so removed from her last heavy attempt.
Thankfully, this went well, next game the secondary session, in which we took her regular rep sets and elected to make it all singles, in order to practice some technical things I wanted to drill before meet day.
The next piece, in my opinion, was the decider on how we were able to hit what we did in meet, I had her pull pretty heavy the week of the meet. I realized we had not accumulated nearly enough fatigue to taper off, so I had her work up to her planned opener, which was 90% of her 1rm, 3 days out, to bridge the gap of heavy exposures and it represented a step taper into meet day.
Fast forward to meet time, we wanted to be sure she made 75kg so we manipulated food sources quite a bit leading into the day, this led to her weighing in fairly light, this was either because the scale was a touch off, she loses weight via food manipulation super easy, or a mixture of both.
Based off how she squats, I knew taking the minimum “heavy” attempt, was going to be the right call, generally because we had a total to go for, I did not want to repeat my same mistake in June, and with her very ballistic squat, looks can be somewhat deceiving with what is there on the top end (full disclosure, she had 2.5kg more easy this day).
So we settled on 165kg/363lbs for a new Maine state record in the 75kg class and an all time PR.
Moving to bench, she felt pretty strong on the day and we decided to go up to the top end on the day, which was 87.5kg/192lbs which she blew up, again, for an all time PR.
Now this is where I put my math hat on because, as all my athletes know, I have calculations and scenarios for all permutations of total to yield a DOTS score, so after she hit her bench attempt, I thought based on how light she was, she would have a chance at a 400 DOTS score and wanted to see what the minimum deadlift attempt would be to do so.
The way it broke down, was she’d have to pull 155kg/341lbs in order to pretty much hit 400 even.
So, this is where I like to consult with the athlete as I want to always make sure their goals are adhered to.
I broke down the pros and cons:
Pros:
Secure a 400 DOTS which is big time no matter the scenario.
Leave on a number closer to our best training pull.
Eases the mind with not having to reach so far on a deadlift attempt that we did not have the momentum for.
Cons:
We do not PR deadlift.
That is pretty much it.
So after deciding on that, she agreed she wanted the 400 DOTS score, so what we did was take the planned opener, take the planned 2nd low end to conserve energy, and just put it on the line for the final attempt, assuming we would get a fair bit out of the moment.
And lo and behold, Dani went out and pulled 155kg/341lbs, the heaviest she had touched since June and grinded it out to secure a 9/9 supernova day.
This is only the beginning though, we have a long term plan set on how we are going to do some special things in 2024, that I do not want to jinx by revealing just yet, but I have 100% confidence they will happen.
Expect another massive improvement when she gets back out there again.
Results:
Squat: 165kg/363lbs, +33lbs PR
Bench: 87.5kg/192lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 155kg/341lbs
Total: 407.5kg/898lbs, +44lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
+116bs on total since May of 2023
Evan Larsen - 2023 Odyssey Barbell Classic - 21 October 2023
Evan and I have been working together for quite some time now, since the beginning of 2022, in which I handled him the month before in 2021.
With that, we have had ample time to really tweak and trial several approaches and in return, have made a pretty dramatic comeback, netting him his first meet PRs in squat, bench, deadlift, and total since the year of 2018 in various meets since the time we started working together.
This meet, to me, represented the future quite heavily, in the sense of what we need to change but also what we can reliably call upon for each meet.
The prep for this meet, we noticed a ton of trends that reigned true.
If you have ever seen Evan squat and deadlift, you know the following is true.
His squat descent is very rapid and features a lot of forward lean.
His deadlift at the highest end will feature a fair bit of mid-back rounding, but he actually has the capacity to lockout weights you might not think should be possible.
With that, we noticed within our program design:
SSB, for all the benefit it has (we kept it in the whole prep for a reason), equally fatigues the hell out of his back and usually makes deads sluggish until we remove stimulus there.
He does not need many singles exposures on squat to hit something big.
He needs regular “heavy” exposure on bench, with smooth reps on the secondary as well as fairly heavy tempo work.
For deadlift, simply not doing too many deadlifts, tends to make it so his deadlift shines.
To end this prep Evan was able to squat and pull over 600lbs in the same week. 601lbs squat (PR), 606lbs deadlift (PR), and end on a high note with a very much to standard 331lbs bench press.
Now, I want to take a lot of blame here, as I used prior data to our last peak to apply to this one and I failed to account for the fact that he:
Wasn’t squatting 600lbs at this time and we just narrowly grinded out 601lbs on deadlift at the meet.
I think the trend was there that:
He does better under high fatigue and we do not need to taper so steeply.
We have to create distance between the last heavy pull and the last heavy squat.
So with that we planned for attempts on squat and bench a bit higher than we ended up with, but I think we adjusted quite well.
After a somewhat rocky 2nd attempt on squat, I told him straight up, 272.5kg/601lbs was probably as much as I was comfortable loading and he agreed, which he hit actually better than his 2nd attempt, but with not a ton to spare, we got the biggest initial goal which was to squat 600+ in a meet.
Moving to bench, I actually feel like this popped quite well, if he was in the 611 range on squat, I actually was fully ready to pull the trigger on 155kg/341lbs, but we took 152.5kg/336lbs to secure his first bench PR since 2020.
Now, on to deads, this is where we had some decisions to make.
To be frank, and he will agree, his warmups were not moving the best and there was a little snafu on warmup timing that threw a wrench into things, but the way I broke it down was:
DL to pull DL PR = 275kg minumum.
DL to pull Total PR/DOTS PR = 267.5kg minumum.
DL to pull into a tied total PR = 265kg
We had the convo and he made it clear to me, he wanted 272.5kg/601lbs come hell or high water. Of course, this was high risk, high reward, and he was 8/8 up until this point so I wanted to show him I believed in him, and to be honest, if there is anyone who can pull a deadlift out of no where, it is him.
Just wasn’t quite there and it is refreshing to me when someone immediately says, hey, just wasn’t strong enough today. That is not an easy thing to do in the moment.
Now, if I had to do this again, and knowing the context, I would have planned for 270kg as his final attempt as I think that was there albeit hard and that would have allowed us to take a 2nd and opening attempt much lighter to make up the difference in jumps.
We ended up deciding on a longer term plan of:
Training through states, or mini-tapering and taking that meet at a much lighter bodyweight to sew up some health things, then going all in on regionals.
Trying some new things to experiment with since we now have the time.
Evan is someone who I have a lot of respect for as he is a father of 2, a great father at that, and has a very busy schedule on top of training and I would be damned if that has ever been an excuse. I am the one usually making the excuses for him hahah.
So proud of you man, your best days in this sport are way ahead of you and I truly believe that.
Results:
Squat: 272.5kg/601lbs, +11lbs PR
Bench: 152.5kg/336lbs, +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 265kg/584lbs
Total: 690kg/1521lbs (Tied total PR)
8/9 on attempts
Cody Gubbins - 2023 Odyssey Barbell Classic - 22 October 2023
Last but not least, Mr. CGubb.
2 day meets are always a bit harder to get up for mentally on the second run for me, but I feel like we really had good synergy on this day regardless.
Cody and I started working together probably 6 or so months ago and from the jump, I told him straight up, we needed to sew up our standard of movement first.
Our early programming was very technique-oriented and truth be told, it took a little bit to kind of get the hang of things. But when it clicked, it clicked, and it seemed to all crescendo in the final block which was awesome to see.
For Cody, I told him straight up, I did not think a PR total this go around would be possible, and to instead look to sew up some attempt selection woes from his final meet that left him with a 5/9 day that probably was not reflective of all he could have done.
So, we agreed, this meet, we will put together a 9/9 meet and make sure we do not get a single red light and based off those results, use that to springboard us into the next one down the road where we look to take back PRs.
The final 6 weeks of this prep cycle were honestly as well as I have ever seen as he was getting stronger and moving better each week on every lift.
On squat our biggest issue was mobility, which we addressed through drills but also lots of paused and eventually high bar based work with a careful consideration into sinking each rep.
On bench, Cody benches with a heavy sink, so we always were cognizant of press commands “feeling” longer, if we did not train for it, to account for the extra 1-2 inches the bar needed to sink to be motionless.
Lastly, his deadlift was a bit too squatty at first so we really tried to our best to make the movement more hinge based by solidifying pinning the big toe down and using the glutes to drive hip extension.
Cody really nailed his final week of training, leaving something to spare on each of the 3 lifts, that led us to have tons of momentum into the meet.
For squat, we ended with a very convincing 210kg/463lbs with a bit left to spare! I knew once we cleared squats, we were going to have a great day.
Bench, ended up being fairly grindy, but the perfect call really at 142.5kg/314lbs.
Lastly, he bartered successfully, to increase his top end deadlift by 2.5kg, and he was actually able to pull a meet PR and really out of no where, at 227.5kg/501lbs.
Overall, this was an awesome day and exactly what I wanted to see so we have the positive momentum to flow us into more productive post-meet training to support getting back to his all time bests.
Cody has made a great addition to the team and even went out of his way to help handle one of my lifters in the summer time, before we even really knew each other like that, which tells you all you need to know about him as an individual.
Results:
Squat: 210kg/463lbs
Bench Press: 142.5kg/314lbs
Deadlift: 227.5kg/501lbs
Total: 580kg/1278lbs
9/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ 2023 USAPL Raw Nationals - 14, 15 September 2023
What a week it was.
We talked about this privately, and I kind of talked about it on my instagram, but this week felt poetic in a way.
Poetic from what we were able to accomplish.
Poetic for what it took for each of these guys to get there.
Poetic for what these 2 specifically have meant to my journey in this sport.
Before I talk about each person individually, I want to shed some light on some things that I think are pertinent to know/my experience as the coach, navigating this meet.
First and foremost, I am well aware, people say travel is a non-factor. I get that you can prepare in advance and do this, that, and the other, however, the fact of the matter is there are certain things that can happen that throw a wrench into your travel plans that directly effect everything to follow.
For instance, Andrew’s flight was cancelled last minute as well as a few of my coach friends flights and you cannot sit there and tell me you can prepare for that and that last minute stuff like that, doesn’t effect you at least in the vein of making it to the meet without having to scramble the day of competition.
Next, the schedule for handling for coaches is ROUGH here.
I handled in 3 sessions total, and I will get into that in a second, but the turnaround time for these multi-day meets is pretty exhausting.
For reference, even if you only have 1 lifter a session, you are on the floor from: 6:45am (ish) to midnight (primetime) and if you have someone the next morning, good luck.
My week entailed:
Handling Michael on Thursday afternoon.
Handling Dante Sena and Thomas Coons for other coaches Friday AM.
Handling Andrew Friday afternoon.
Now, again, not bad in a vacuum. But handling is exhausting mentally and physically, and let’s be honest here, you are expected to socialize/see the city the venue is held in, so many nights you are left sleep-deprived and in my case, drastically underfed.
Part of the reason I wanted to attend nationals and not lift was to feel out the process of sending a larger team and what that looked like logistically and now, I get it.
Not only do you have endless amounts to prepare for the day, such as your warmup sheets, attempt plans, goals for the meet, etc… assuming you take this seriously (news flash, there are several people who make it to this stage and do not know kilos, how to warmup, how to read LiftingCast, etc…) but you have the actual carrying out of the meet itself and executing your plan and staying engaged to your given platforms. On top of this for all my full time coaches out there, you have a duty to get back to your athletes by the end of the day, usually when you have very little energy for much else.
On top of this, I personally had 13 training cycles due that week and basically spent 90% of the trip working. I was doing training cycles in the airport on the way to Tennessee, I was doing training cycles in the hotel rooms in between sessions, and I was doing training cycles on the way back in the airport. Needless to say, this week WRECKED me.
It is a grind, but I feel better for next year, when I fully expect to send anywhere between 5 and 10 lifters through teens and open divisions in Salt Lake City, Utah.
As mentioned before, during meets like these it’s a good opportunity to help other coaches who either cannot make the event, or had travel snafus as I think we all hate seeing a lifter feel lost in the backroom.
I was honored to help out 2 great coaches, Matt Cronin and Tyler Stanio, this week, and was able to help both guys to good days, although I do think I left some to be desired for both of them. I find it hard to think like others and don’t always feel comfortable going against a coaches plan and data they have on an athlete. However, these guys made everything much easier and I cannot thank them enough for the opportunity.
Beyond this, I suppose the coolest thing about all this, was seeing everyone all in one area. I am not really a powerlifting fan per se, but even I can admire seeing everyone who pops up on the explore feed and see that they are regular people and at the end of the day, we all share a love for the sport in common and we aren’t too dissimilar besides that point.
Memphis was fine, I really only left the hotel twice, but I can’t say I will be back again willingly.
So with that said, I am going to attack this a bit different.
First up, Michael Beaupre.
Michael Beaupre - 2023 USAPL Raw Nationals - 14 September 2023
Michael’s trip back to Nationals was something out of a movie and I think in terms of earning this performance, he did that and then some.
As I have talked about in previous reports, Mike has a rich competition history.
His accolades include:
2015 T2 59kg National Champion
2017 Bench Press World Championships participant (4th place)
Multiple Maine state record holder from 59/60 up to 67.5
Participant in 11 powerlifting meets, with 7 of those coming before the age of 20.
Simply put, he’s been doing this for a while.
Kickstarting his comeback in January of 2022, over the span of 4 meets we have been able to put: 60lbs on his squat, 33lbs on his bench, and 66lbs on his deadlift, as well as add 33 points ot his DOTS score, however that has not been linear in the slightest and we have had many waves of progress in one domain while another sputtered OR things were wildly unpredictable to the point of we didn’t know fully if they’d hold on for competition.
In essence:
Comeback meet, meet #1 was simply to put up a total and get back into the groove with the sport. 1174lbs total.
Meet #2, his breakthrough qualifying meet, came down to the wire on his final deadlift, locking him into a Nationals qualifying total. 1262lbs total.
Meet #3, we had some road blocks to navigate as well as messed around with hookgrip on deadlift, this didn’t allow us to express the strength he probably had outright, along with his bench kinda petering out the week of the meet. 1272lbs total.
Nationals, we were just about dead on for everything, but to me, this is a testament to Michael’s ability to be coachable and be open to ideas. This is not about me, but he had some great ideas as well this prep and had I said no to them, we probably don’t get to the end result we had. I think at the end of the day, the takeaway, if nothing else will be, yes, you need to be collaborative, however, if you are having someone guide the ship, you need to have some degree of trust there, because the way we prepped into this meet was totally dissimilar to preps in the past and if he did not trust my judgment here, then regardless of what data I had, it would have fell short.
So before we talk about the actual day, what did we change going into this meet?
I think the biggest thing we brought into this meet, above all else, was him at as close to top health as possible.
In meets past, we have had to deal with:
Adductor pain
IT band pain
Pec pain
And other small hiccups here and there, and this prep, to my knowledge at least, we did not have much to deal with at all in that regard. People don’t want to hear it, but sometimes getting to a meet healthy is more important than whatever PRs you hit in prep to sacrifice that aspect.
This wasn’t really a change, but Mike dialed in every single variable going into this meet, and went above and beyond to ensure the day was as predictable as possible.
Things that he did to make data as applicable as possible:
All primary days were taken on calibrated equipment and equipment that was as close to comp specs as possible, traveling further if necessary to do it.
He switched his training schedule to align his primary squat and bench day, with the day he competed, that being Thursday.
He took commands on pretty much every lift, paid attention to his depth on squat, his holds on deadlift, etc…
Locked in nutrition so he didn’t have to spend the majority of the final 5 weeks in a deficit.
Aligned travel so he did not have to lift in Memphis, knowing his back would probably be tight from the long air travel.
Think about that for a second, he did the first 4 bullet points for 10 straight weeks. Possibly even longer in some regards. I think sometimes people say they want it but their actions don’t back it up, Michael, never vocalizes it outright, instead let’s his commitment do the talking.
Now, in terms of programming, what did we change? I will break it down by lift, then in terms of overall peaking protocol.
Squat Training
For his squat, Michael has a wider stance and fairly upright torso, with this, he tends to not do well with:
Super high reps, think 6 or more.
Super high volume, I do not think we have done more than 7 working sets of squat a week to any success.
Too high of an intensity, for too long. He only touched into the 89%+ range, weeks 4 and weeks 5 of each block.
Michael is also atypical in that he does not need to a ton of practice with the movement to make it feel strong. He has only low bar squatted once per week, for the duration of us working together, and on the primary session, we rarely deviate from a top triple, double, or single.
On the secondary session however, we had to get creative over the last year and a half.
We opted to move away from high bar as the rack position twice a week was really beating up his shoudlers/pecs for benching, and with that we elected to try the SSB.
This was good for a bit, until he had a back flare up that left him unable to deadlift for a stretch, or really squat heavy, so we elected to pretty much treat the SSB like a low bar squat, having him push up on the handles and really limiting the loads/RPEs to tolerable levels.
With this and his style of squatting, the legs get very little stimulus, so we elected to use adductor bias leg press as his “prime mover”, and we will 100% be returning to this in the future as the results were awesome with it.
I will show what a typical primary squat session looks like for him here:
We used to use load caps, and that worked well, however for an athlete at Michael’s level, I think talking about where is appropriate to end a block and pacing backwards from there, in jumps that make sense to him, works just as well, if not better.
Bench Training
Bench, for the entirety of his career, has been his best lift. I think, when unpacking his early days in the sport, this was due to the fact that: he had more muscle mass on his upper body than probably 95% of lifters his height, he enjoyed training the movement, he was not moving as much weight, relatively speaking in the other two lifts.
It took us a very long time to find a frequency, volume load, and intensity load that yielded progress.
Over the last year and half we settled on that Michael needed:
A true secondary, meaning a load that was just heavy enough to drive stimulus, nothing more.
A tertiary with the straight bar that self-limited load, we tried things like the swiss bar and stuff of the like to protect his pec, but ultimately decided it was not as applicable as straight bar work.
His primary needed to be wave-loaded, meaning every 5th week we would rely on the top end being there and not overdoing weeks 1-4.
What this looked like, was a tempo single on his secondary on the beginning of the week with very submax 7s, larsen spotos 3s with very, very light loading on his tertiary primer session, then finally a top single with submax 4s for his primary session.
We were able to get all the way up to 310 a block out with this approach, his meet PR coming into the meet at 297.
Deadlift Training
Deadlift is where we got creative as although technically speaking, he has actually made the most progress overall on his deadlift, that was within pretty much one block, right away where I think the novel stimulus of simply training sumo, was all he needed to progress it.
Over the last year and a half we really struggled to find a prescription that worked well for him. We tried:
2 days a week sumo, this was good but led to adductor soreness and fatigue that bled into his squat.
1 day a week sumo, 1 conventional, again, good, but seemingly no matter what prescription of conventional it would either cause fatigue disproportionate to the range or be so light there was no stimulus to begin with.
1 day a week sumo, that’s it. This did not lead to any pains, but sessions were incredibly long as we needed a requisite amount of volume to keep progressing.
Finally, we tweaked his grip to a hookgrip going into Maine states in March of 2023 and this proved to be the wrong call. It was pretty strong up to 500lbs, but north of it, it was a dice roll whether it would hold up or not. We learned to not overreact when something deleterious happens in meet because of this ordeal.
So after sputtering around, we had a brain storm session that led to at least the most progress we have had in a years time.
He said he really felt strong about 2 top sets, a single and a rep set, which I like anyway, but anytime we would feature that second top set for too long, it would become a nuisance as to be frank, sometimes you don’t have the mental energy to bring yourself up for 2 very heavy sets in a workout + backoff volume.
So we elected to do that approach, and taper off the second top set the week of his heaviest pull of prep.
Along with this, we found 2 things:
He needed to pull with a wider stance on the top end.
That wider stance did NOT lend itself to rep work.
We also came to the conclusion that he really just wasn’t doing enough working reps on the deadlift, so we put 2 and 2 together in that, we could do the volume he was currently doing, split it up into 2 sessions, and feature those 2 top sets with the wider stance on the primary, and the volume work with the narrow stance later in the week to accumulate workload, at a fixed percentage.
After pretty much being stuck at 515 or so for a year, we were able to work all the way back to 530lbs for his final heavy pull of prep!
Tapering/Peaking
So the biggest departure we took from prior preps, was how we tapered and peaked.
In the past, we would do anywhere around a 6-7 week cycle, where we would treat the first week as an intro week, then ramp up to taking our heaviest lifts a week out, then look to taper down and super compensate into the meet.
This worked well for the squat, did not work well for the bench press, and did not work that well for deadlift.
So my proposal early on, based on his assessment that W5 was always feeling so strong, was to run a 5 week block and simply treat W5 into the meet as a training day structure in order to capitalize on predictability.
What does this mean?
Essentially, if you have an established trend, the key word being established, if you got lucky one block that is not enough data, in my opinion, to lean into this approach, you use that block structure to guide you into your meet and use the prior block as your set up block to determine what should be there for the meet itself. It is also important to note, taking the primary on the same day, matters a ton here.
Still doesn’t make sense? In simple terms, it looked like this for Michael:
In the penultimate block his progressions on squat and bench were the following:
W1: 370, 265
W2: 400, 280
W3: 425, 290
W4: 446, 300
W5: 465 (PR), 310 (PR)
The W5 being also the best he felt, which matched the block prior with doubles.
So instead of overhaul that, we decided okay, based upon how these moved, we can plan for X amount up based upon the information we have and simply run this scheme into the actual meet itself.
This would mean that his heaviest lifts of the cycle, would come an entire a block out, which for some lifters can mess with their head, but when we broke it down, it should provide MORE confidence than anything, as we had 3-4 blocks where this was the case and this one happened to end in Tennessee and not Brickhouse Fitness in Sanford, Maine.
His progression into the meet mirrored that of his one in the penultimate block and looked like the following:
W1: 380, 265
W2: 410, 280
W3: 440, 295
W4: 460, 305
W5 (Meet Day): 474, 308
So you see, we peaked him as perfectly as one can expect in this regard.
Deadlift, since we were learning his approach, pretty much into the meet, we only matched his best in training, that being 529lbs, however, we have come to the strong conclusion that we have to end our preps heavier and not rely so much on a taper, because the style in which he squats and how far out we have to take the lift, we can’t expect for much of a “boost” on meet day.
Meet Day
The actual meet itself, honestly, was a blast. Strangely enough, this was the first time I was able to handle Michael one on one as usually I am tasked with 11-16 others and his father usually takes over, who does a phenomenal job with him.
Michael’s water cut, which I can get into if people would like a breakdown, went flawlessly, rehydration, well that never gets any easier, but we got back and replenished fully and that is all that matters.
Going into squats, he was moving very well. A week out he really misgrooved and oversank his last warmup and we were making sure he did not do that this here and worked to treat every rep as if it were his max attempts.
We opened at 197.5kg, effortless.
His planned 2nd of 210kg, tied his meet PR and set us up for 215 or 217.5 on his third. Based on how it moved, I told him we had 217.5, but 215 in the moment was the better call so we can take it no doubt.
He went out there and crushed 215kg/474lbs, 11lbs more than he had ever handled in his life… only for the lift to be called 2-1 for depth.
I immediately sprinted to the jury table to protest because he straight up squatted the exact same as his second, on his third.
Unfortunately, this is where a multi-platform meet falls short, the jury, were not watching our platform and as such, could not overturn it unanimously. This was really frustrating for me because, this defeats the whole purpose of a jury, in my opinion, I am also sympathetic to the mistakes we as humans can make, but the person wanting to advocate for my athletes in me was really disappointed by this. We will make in undeniable, with more weight next time.
So being down 5kg now, we had to shift our bench plans to conservative mode. We ended up taking 140kg for his third, good for a +5kg PR, but he did have more in him and we actually were thinking about loading 142.5kg, had he made his third squat to buffer us for deadlift.
On deads, we shifted further, to make sure we left with a 1300lbs total, 590kg. Coming in, the goal was 600kg, but we decided the deadlift he would need to pull would be too heavy to attempt without being reckless and that shifting to 1300 would be a better call, so we upped his opening deadlift, and planned 2nd up 2.5kg, in order to secure the total, and took whatever he felt he had left, for his third attempt.
He ended up doing just that, with a close miss on his 3rd attempt at a +5kg PR. Overall, it was a great day and one that is expected at this level.
Results:
Squat: 210kg/462lbs
Bench: 140kg/308lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 240kg/529lbs
Total: 590kg/1301lbs, +28lbs PR
7/9 on attempts
+149lbs on total since January of 2022
Coaches Note
Dear Mike,
There is a very real possibility that this moment does not happen for either of us, had you not been so welcoming of me coming to the sport way back, about 5 years ago. From teaching ME how to bench, to allowing me to guide you through a multi-year bench plateau and trusting me with your training for high level goals such as this.
From the outside looking in, one would say, hey, you two are in the same weight class, similar strength, there must be conflict of interest there. The fact of the matter is, I am not in this position now without you, and I will gladly put more weight on the bar for you, in spite of me, until you decide you are done with your career. I view you as the Godfather around here, so to speak, and will sing your praises when everyone else forgets.
To Utopia,
Erik
Andrew Graves - 2023 USAPL Raw Nationals - 15 September 2023
The OG
Well, if Michael’s journey here was out of a movie, Andrew’s was that, and then some, when we piece together everything about how we got here, you will see why.
When many probably thought this was a bit too ambitious of a goal, we were pretty steadfast in trying, and trying again (and one more for good measure) because we knew it could and would happen.
Where as Michael’s journey was a few years, Andrew experienced the same turmoil, maybe more so, over the span of September of 2022, to September of 2023.
While on the topic, let’s go back to September of 2022 to set the stage for what this last year has meant, represented, and ultimately manifested as, for the both of us.
Actually, let’s go back to July of 2018 before we do any of that.
We were in New York, in a place called The GBox, warming up squats in a room called, “The Gorilla Room”, and Andrew weighing in at a heavily dieted down 179lbs, proceeded to squat 418lbs, bench 264lbs, and deadlift 485lbs to secure his first powerlifting total, in both of our first meets in general.
We did just about everything wrong that day, from dieting, to picking attempts, to warming up too late, to not understanding how quickly a meet can run, the whole nine.
Man has life changed since then.
Fast forward to 2022, Andrew first made me aware that he wanted to make a real run at a nationals qualifying total, shortly after meet #8, the New Hampshire State Championships.
At the time he made me aware, he was working with the following parameters:
He was currently coming off a 650kg/1433lbs total, a +15kg total PR, a good 32.5kg/72lbs away from the qualifying total of 682.5kg/1504lbs.
He was amidst switching his grip to hookgrip, after having grip issues with north of 250kg for what seemed like months.
He had been stuck around 160kg on bench for a fair while.
So, as a coach, when an athlete comes to you with a goal of putting 72lbs on their total, in 5 months, more than double the rate of progression that we had sustained with a longer time period before, do you instantly think this is realistic?
The answer should be no.
However, with Andrew, I knew there was a lot of variables I could count on him with, that frankly I cannot bank on with others.
Spoiler alert, we did not get there in our first try.
Or our 2nd try.
In fact it took us 3 total tries to get to that total, but during this time period, Andrew really took ownership of making this possible in more than one avenue.
I think this is important to document, because to be as straight up as possible, if you are not blessed with elite tier genetics, you will have to sacrifice more things than others, and many times, more than you are 100% comfortable with, in order to just have a chance at making the numbers you need for goals like this.
For a full year:
Andrew completely dialed in his nutrition for a full year to fill out the 82.5kg class. Again, when you are not blessed with the best genetics for this stuff, which Andrew’s really are pretty good, I don’t want to make it sound like he has no pure talent, you have to make sure you are not fighting the leverage game. Him barely consuming protein, walking around at 180lbs, was going to make this goal impossible. So for a full year, just about everything was tracked, he made conscious decisions pretty much everywhere he went, and even in periods of high stress, still managed to get his nutrition in.
He gave up staying out late and having drinks with his friends. Not that he really overindulged in this since college anyway, but he really doubled down over the last year and had to say no to a lot of things in order to be recovered for his weekend sessions.
He brought consistent effort to each session and trained with intent. Speaking from first hand experience, it is not easy keeping up with the mental side of the sport, constantly bring yourself up to high emotional arousal levels where there is propensity to have comedowns that last 48hrs+ to recover from. There is a reason after a meet we tend to take our first block easier in terms of top end intensity, because beyond any physiological reasons, we simply cannot sustain that amount of focus infinitely.
He never once blamed me or second guessed my approach. Now, this is not me saying, trust me bro, however, there is a lot of merit here to how he reacted after failing to reach this goal twice. In the moment, he acknowledged the disappointment, but immediately after that, sought ways to improve for next time. I find when you do not come at these situations emotionally, you are able to actually find the next solution. Too many times as lifters we fail to acknowledge that we will have another opportunity down the line and put way too much emphasis on any single meet and let failure from one, make us blind to what could occur for the next.
He was open to change. And man, did we change a lot, either due to necessity or for a possible performance boost. He also went in understanding that any change we did make, could end up with a negative outcome, but that open-mindness tends to favor you, more than harm you, in my experience.
So, as you can see, for an entire year, he really gave himself up to the process and allowed this to be as close to the priority as he could, juggling all the other things he does that includes:
Full time work as a construction engineer.
Refereeing every other weekend.
Co-directing meets that require a ton of effort on the front and back end.
Helping handle Team Hogan lifters where he is available.
Being present in all the relationships he has formed over the last few years.
Needless to say, if you want this as bad as you say you do, reassess after you read all that back.
I truly don’t think we get there, if all these variables aren’t crossed off and to me, that is what I respect most and have always admired. It makes my end of the bargain so much easier as a consequence.
I have talked about our first and second attempts at this total and the pitfalls there, and eventual breakthroughs on the third try, so I will save the detail there, however, I do want to talk about our approach with context from those events as I do think a little bit of info is important for how we had the opportunity that we did meet day.
The Injury
The most pertinent and important variable we had to deal with this prep, was a knee injury he sustained over the course of the prep for his third try at this total.
You see, when you are pushing the top end, automatically, there is a trade off that injury risk will go up, whether it be acute or chronic.
Double down on that doing back to back meet preps.
Triple down on that doing back to back to back meet preps.
And that is where we stood having to really push without any real break to rebuild.
Andrew has a very distinct squat that features a very narrow stance, lots of forward knee travel, and with that, we place more load on the quads than more wide stance, sit-back style squatters and I think cumulatively the effect of this, not having the time to add more preventative measures, and really not having more than 1 week reload weeks between cycles for a year, exacerbated this issue to the point where it was here and here to stay for this meet prep.
We were lucky to have such a high base our last prep, that we were able to squat a 2.5kg PR but at the sacrifice of pretty much everything that came after that.
After consultation with a very polished and talented barbell PT, Randell Barrientos, out of Ukiyo Hawai’i, we were able to confirm it was quadriceps tendinitis, which both eased our minds, but also meant we pretty much had a dilemma of:
Do we push through it further, try to ignore it to push the squat again?
Or do we rehab it, load manage as much as possible to keep him healthy, or as healthy as we can, in order to salvage strength but also not derail his entire training year of 2024.
We elected to do the second option.
I cannot thank Randell enough, not only for the consultation, but for the help in giving us an approach that allowed us to be in somewhat strong shape for meet day and a shell to follow for complete rehab post meet. I would recommend his services to anyone in a similar situation.
Now, this is where program decisions blend into the rehab approach, so let’s get into that.
Squat Training
Needless to say, we were not going to be in shape to PR the squat outright.
We had that initial talk and to be honest, did not talk about it really much at all after the fact.
We instead found the minimum we had to squat, in order to have a chance at a total PR with where we projected his bench and deadlift.
We found that based off the data and proximity to the meet, we had to squat 240kg to have a chance at all of this.
The main changes we made were:
Secondary squat was to be very secondary, high bar, and with no more than 2 sets at a very low absolute load.
Primary squat was to feature a single, with 2 sets of 5 with a massive 23% load drop. This is usually too light for any meaningful adaptation, but with how detrained he was and with how finicky load managing a tendon can be, the thought process was to accumulate the bare minimum amount of working reps during the block to maintain quality of movement, with a single heavy exposure to prepare that tendon to be able to handled what we needed to for the meet.
We also eliminated all quad driven exercises that were not prehab-driven.
From there, we simply took what his body gave him, culminating in his final squat session, missing 240kg, in which, again, the maturity showed as he assured me had it.
I agreed only because:
His descent into the hole was noticeably slower than the week prior.
He was days removed from a 578lb deadlift.
He was pretty close despite all that.
Now, the worst thing he could have done, was retake it. As even if he did make it, he would have created such a fatigue debt that it would not have been possible. If you are confident, you don’t need assurance in the moment.
Bench Training
Andrew’s best lift is bench, and at this point, far and away.
His bench was on par, or heavier than a few lifters in his class in Primetime!
We did not get there in a linear path however. In fact, we stalled for pretty much 4 meets in a row at 160-162.5kg.
Now that we are about a year removed from that plateau, I have come to the conclusion that the following were things I managed poorly/did not address soon enough.
Benching a lot of weight, is easier, when the other 2 lifts aren’t as strong. When Andrew first benched 341lbs, his squat that meet was a very hard 474lbs and his deadlift an equally hard 551lbs. These days, at his peak he is squatting 557lbs, deadlifting around 590lbs. This is a real thing.
We were over reliant on an approach that did not yield results anymore. I have always said this, but failed here in practice, that what gets you to one weight range, might not be what gets you to the next tier.
We did not try other approaches early enough or for long enough to see if they worked, because by the time it came to make the decision, we were 5 weeks out from a meet again.
The reason Andrew benched what he did this meet, was a microcosm of the last 5 years.
Andrew has really filled out 82.5kg/181lbs. Training most of the year around 190lbs, that lean tissue he has built over the last 5 years has allowed him to have the fiber recruitment for presses around the ranges he is currently at.
He was open to a steep departure from what had worked in the past.
He gave me feedback that really flipped the switch for several lightbulbs.
In our last prep, the main thing we changed at first, was dropping bench frequency to 3x per week from 4x, not because I thought this would improve his bench, but actually purely to dissipate the overuse injuries and bicep pain we accumulated the prep prior.
During this time, he remarked his close grip tertiary slot was feeling noticeably stronger than his max comp grip sessions.
Then I had this real brainstorm. Why don’t we just bring your grip in and train that?
We did that with his squat, moving from HB to LB.
We switched his deadlift from sumo mixed grip, to conventional mixed grip, to conventional hook grip.
Why can’t we do the same for bench?
With leaning into this, we also enacted weighted dips, which proved to be our ace card for improving the bench to such a substantial degree.
I am a firm believer that if you have a longer ROM, less intricate bench, you need another mover that will help supplement progress. For some it is DB, for others machine, for Andrew, it was clearly dips, that we trained HEAVY.
We also were a bit worried that his bench from last meet was bit inflated by the Rogue pad, we found that even if that was the case, we were able to negate that mindset pretty quickly.
Leaning into data from last prep, our programming looked like:
Secondary: Top double, with up to 4 sets of backoff 7s. We found that we do not need to take this session very heavy at all, in order to stimulate his primary.
Tertiary: Ascending 4s, that to be honest, were pretty heavy. This is where we put his weighted dips and hypertrophy work as well.
Primer: Close Grip Larsen Press 3s, we throttled this session back quite a bit from the last prep as we used to take the tertiary here and found that on days he had to train Friday nights, then again on Sat morning, it would create such an interference effect that we could not bench heavy with confidence on the primary.
Primary: Top single, with up to 4 backoff sets of 4. Total performance was the goal, always after squats to have fully applicable data.
Needless to say again, we will be returning to this approach and will be benching in the 400s, within the next 2 years, you can bet on that.
Deadlift Training
Now, for years, deadlift was the bane of his existence, however, these days he has become a pretty proficient deadlifter for his strengths in the other 2 lifts.
He does not have the best build for deads, so a lot of his top end work features shaking, rounded back, and general high fatigue positions.
That said, we really had to lean into data from out previous preps because literally every other approach did not yield progress.
He and I can both agree, we are ready to move away from this approach that would be so time-consuming, it became borderline torture.
Top single, cluster doubles, and lots of them.
We were actually able to pull 260kg clean this prep, I think this is where we will progress the most over the next year, now that we have time to work on some things in a different capacity.
Meet Day
Now, getting into meet day, we knew the plan was to be:
Squat 240kg
Bench 175kg
Regardless of the first 2, find the minimum amount to pull on his third, to secure a 2.5kg PR total as anything more, would be reckless to plan for with his squat being about 12.5kg down.
Funny enough, and I feel better knowing we were not the only people who had these issues reading other meet reports, Andrew damn near timed out on his third squat to a re-order on lifting cast that was not reflected on our monitor until the clock was already running.
Weirdly enough, I think the fact that he did not have time to think, actually helped him here. He went out, divebombed the ever living shit out of it, and did not have a single kilo to spare.
Phase 1, complete.
Bench was on another level. If we needed that extra 2.5kg, we probably had it. But again, if something weird happens, we have to pull deep into the 600lbs now without that 5kg we could have had had we been conservative, so this was the right call as it was a 5kg meet PR and an all time PR with the strictest judging this sport provides next to IPF Worlds.
Deadlift, came down to our final attempt. 270kg.
His second, honestly did not move bad but I could tell based on 260kg, something was off.
Turns out he tweaked his back a bit and he was able to get 270kg to his knee, just not enough to take it to lockout.
But man, the moment was all we could ask for.
Andrew went 11 straight meets PRing his total, and it took severe injury to negate that streak.
The way I look at it, his squat was 12.5kg down and we still had the opportunity for a total PR.
His best days are yet to come and I will look forward to a full year of training without hail mary deadlifts, overreached training, and constant pressure each meet.
Results:
Squat: 240kg/529lbs
Bench: 175kg/386lbs, +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 260kg/573lbs
Total: 675kg/1488lbs
8/9 on attempts
Coaches Note
Dear Andrew,
Poll the crowd in Clifton Park, NY at the GBox and I am confident we are getting maybe the least votes, next to the guy doing the stiff legged variation or the women who benched on her toes, for the most likely to make a nationals total before they are done with their career.
I never once stopped believing.
I will never stop believing.
Thank you for all you have done for me, I am able to make a living doing something I do not loathe directly because of you and I will never take that for granted.
Your selflessness to the sport, is going to leave you with a legacy few in this area will be able to touch when you decide to hang it up, and I can say on behalf of everyone around you, you make all of us better in some capacity due to that selflessness.
That said, there are more horizons to reach, though, don’t be afraid to take at least 5 minutes to enjoy each breakthrough on the way up, if there is anything you owe to yourself, it is that.
To Utopia,
Erik
Gavin Akeley - USAPL Summer Sizzle - 12 August 2023
Mr. Akeley came to me shortly before Maine States 2023 and was at a crossroads in his PL career.
After his strong debut at 2022 Maine States, he had 2 consecutive meets that were not his standard and per his recollection, he knew it was time to seek help.
Gavin was someone I had always followed and would always pay attention to at our meets, mainly because I knew how hard he worked and wanted to see him succeed.
So in the months before that meet, I was pleasantly welcomed with an inquiry from him and ever since then we have done some serious damage in terms of progress.
Going into state, with basically only 2 blocks to work with, we agreed we would simply try to piece together a 9/9 meet as his previous 2 were littered with missed attempts. We were able to just that while adding 39lbs to his total in the process.
Now, this meet, we had much more time to prepare and clearly the result reflected it.
The main changes we made to his training were bringing the bar down his back and trying out a low bar squat. This took better than we ever could have anticipated as he pretty much has not stopped PRing his squat since this point.
We also made a point to improve his muscle mass and despite a lighter weigh in than expected, he very clearly has put good size on and that has helped his bench and deadlift.
One thing I want to remark upon as well, is Gavin is an excellent communicator and very coachable.
I cannot tell you how frustrating it is, when you give someone careful detail and in return they either do not trust it, or simply don’t try to execute it. Gavin is the anti-thesis of that. He has never once questioned my judgement and I think our relationship is one of the better ones I have on my roster.
Before getting into this meet day, I want to also thank Logan Allaire and Michael Beaupre for helping out handle as we had another lifter, Isaac Gould, on the day, who suffered an injury before hand and they stepped in with Gavin while I monitored that situation.
Meet Day
Now, getting into meet day, Gavin and I had a pretty solid game plan and with this being a fairly low key meet, we knew we wanted to be somewhat conservative with attempts as we were pretty much in-line for PRs on everything as well as a massive PR total.
Getting into squat, he has just a prototypical squat build and he really responded well to low bar. I believe he was in the 400s at least 4 times this prep, culminating with 435lbs a week out which was vastly over his meet PR of 396lbs.
After he secured a meet PR on his second attempt, I decided to roll the dice on the top end and have him take 200kg/441lbs and he hit it clean with maybe 2.5kg to spare. This was a massive PR and set us up for a good bench session.
Now, I want to take blame here as for bench, Gavin had a PR in him that day, and attempt selection screwed him out of that.
After taking his planned 2nd of 130kg/286lbs, that tied his meet PR. I elected to call for 137.5kg/303lbs.
Seeing as he ended his prep off with 290lbs, it was already a stretch to begin with and I should have formulated attempts on 135kg/297lbs instead. I almost never take a 7.5kg jump from 2nd to 3rd for a non-super heavyweight and I screwed up here.
Gavin and I talked about training with longer pauses our next go around and re-working his taper and I have a feel we will have this 303 next time, no doubt really.
On to deads, we were able to chip a small meet PR, albeit with room to spare. He had more, but I did not want to risk a miss and miss out out extra kilos to his total we needed to make up for on bench. He was able to hit 212.5kg/469lbs, which is actually an all time PR!
Overall, Gavin is someone I have a lot of respect for and he has some serious goals moving forward that will require a ton of work on his end, work that I know he is committed to.
The first of which, will be filling out the 198lb class, he ended up weighing in at only 189lbs! Imagine what that squat will be when he is a true 200lbs walking around.
Very proud of his effort and at states, expect a supernova next year.
To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 200kg/441lbs. +44lb PR
Bench: 130kg/286lbs
Deadlift: 212.5kg/468lbs, +6lb PR
Total: 542.5kg/1196lbs, +50lb PR
8/9 on attempts
+89lbs on total in 5 months!
Salvatore Bozzuto - USAPL Connecticut Dennis Gleason Memorial - 5 August 2023
Well, I know I tend to say this quite often, but I really do not know where to start with this one.
I suppose in order to give the context of this performance due diligence, we have to the 20th of January 2020.
For those don’t know, Sal and I went to the same college, Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts and he was a class ahead of me.
We did not really know each other at the time but after he had graduated, per his recollection, he had noticed I was coaching a small group of lifters (by small, I believe it was only 3 total people) and was wondering if I could handle him at his upcoming meet.
Now, to be transparent, I believe I had lifted in 4 meets to this point, handled at 2, and I really don’t think I had a full grasp of powerlifting as a whole quite yet.
Let’s just say, handling someone at a meet of 25 lifters, is a lot different than handling someone at a meet of 133 lifters, to say the least.
Nevertheless, it didn’t go too bad as he had an 8/9 day and from there, we were off.
Fast forward to now, a lot has changed, for better or worse.
Shortly after that meet, Sal became my 4th ever powerlifting athlete and we have been working together for 3 years now (!!!), which is crazy to write as not only has a lot changed for me, but a lot has changed for the world as we know it.
Between that first meet I handled him at, and this most recent meet, he did 2 additional competitions, one that was spectator and coach-less (corona was a weird, weird time) and that I coached him via Facebook Live, the other, his breakthough meet where he squatted 402lbs in competition to the tune of a 9/9 day with an 1146lb total.
That was 2021, and I wish I could say since then, it has been smooth sailing.
It has been any and everything but smooth sailing and to be frank, there were times where we really had to have a sit down talk about whether he was to continue with powerlifting competitively as I was slowly seeing his love for the sport dwindle based on what was consistently happening each block.
I remember the pivotal moment like it was yesterday, when he said he was ready to hang it up and after I believe an hour phone call, we both decided that giving up was not the path he would ultimately decide on and we simply had to adjust expectations and training goals as training for the purpose of raising 1rm was at best inappropriate and at worst, causing disruption to quality of life.
I’ll save the ramble on truly how many setbacks we had, but to give you all context on how much we had to strip back since 2021:
At our peak, we were squatting twice a week, benching four times per week, deadlifting twice a week.
In every block, more or less, until the penultimate block leading into this meet we were squatting once a week, benching twice a week, deadlifting once a week.
Only in the final 2 blocks leading into this meet did we turn up the frequency knob, so to speak.
Even deciding to do this meet was a tough decision, as competitors, it is hard to go into a meet knowing that PRs won’t happen outright and we can become mentally trapped and hyper-cognizant of holding ourself up to a different version of ourselves, one that is not applicable to the one now and we are all guilty of this at some point.
We had the talk that, it had been 2 years since his last meet, and as such, you become rusty to the competition process and to then add a stressor of feeling the need to PR each lift, to me, was going to cause more harm and make the situation bigger than it needed to be.
So my thought process was get this one out of the way, leave plenty in the tank on each lift, leave injury-free, and then we can kickstart with a re-invigorated approach to training as I think even the most “process-driven” people, need an end goal to actually enjoy said process.
Sal did a tremendous job this prep of not comparing his current situation to the one he was in at his apex and really allowed himself to enjoy the process of adding weight to the bar each week as if it were numbers he had never hit before.
The first layer we added was a third bench day, early on, as that was the lowest hanging fruit and as long as we controlled total volume, we kept a nagging chest injury at bay and even when it flared, Sal has done a much better job of not catastrophizing pain symptoms and allowing things to manifest organically as in the past, he will be the first to tell you, most little flare ups would cause a pretty sizeable reaction and we both felt this was harming his ability to get better but beyond that, attack without fear of reinjury.
We elected to keep pulling to once per week as we had been seeing success and oddly enough, we would train sumo and conventional in the same day and that really seemed to be a catalyst to get his deadlift back over 400lbs.
Squat was the biggest change, we had been squatting once per week for I think 5-6 blocks (25-30 weeks) and I made the decision that based upon the objective data, we was ready to handle the second day. This was met with apprehension on probably both of our ends, but I wanted to do it mainly so he could prove to himself that he could handle it and that his tissue tolerance had adapted with all the rehab-based work we had been doing.
We had been pretty much rehab-based for all lifts and the last peak cycle was our first, “performance-based” block, really since his last peak in 2021.
Sal is someone who is very in-tune with his body now and someone I trust when it comes to making river calls in his training and he navigated some flare-ups pretty well and was under the guidance of a fantastic barbell-specific physical therapist that helped us out very early on in mid 2022.
So, with all that, we embarked on his first meet since 2021 and here is how it went!
Meet Day
This was quite a long drive for me, about 4hrs, give or take, but I was lucky that this was my third time at this facility and the meets are always ran professionally and appropriately for lifters of all levels.
We had a plan, as we always do, and squat warmups went good as we began to settle in for his opening attempt.
As customary on Team Hogan, we don’t pick openers based on anything other than what our training said was there for a third attempt, paced backwards in realistic jumps to get to that end point.
The first lift in 2 years was 147.5kg/325lbs, clean, he did receive one red flight for depth so we made sure to be cognizant of that for his second.
His planned 2nd was 10kg up, 157.5kg/347lbs, which he hit with just a minor sticking point.
This is where I got a little gutsy, we actually went 2.5kg above our planned 3rd attempt, as I elected to go up an additional 7.5kg to 165kg/363lbs.
As soon as I called for this attempt, I knew this would be the “make or break” moment as he had not had to fight through a squat in quite some time. However, I knew based on his prior responses to tapering, what he was capable of in the past, and just general bar speed, this was the right call.
And what do you know, the man went out and squatted the heaviest weight he had taken in close to 2 years, on the platform, with kilos to spare!
I was as relieved as I was excited, as this gave us wiggle room for bench press, which ended up being 2.5kg short of our initial projection.
Sal was having trouble with lift offs on the platform and he is a lifter who relies a ton on scapular depression and bar placement, so from the jump I knew we would be benching conservatively. We were able to still match his best bench in training, 122.5kg/270lbs and honestly did not have a ton to spare so this ended up being the right call regardless.
On to deads, simply put, they were on point and I think had we had different goals here, Sal was capable of 7.5kg more than he ended up hitting which is WILD to me as we have been over 400lbs once in the timeframe aforementioned.
We went 170kg/375lbs, 180kg/396lbs, then finally elected for 187.5kg/413lbs which he blew up.
9/9, first meet in 2 years, and it truly felt like we never left.
This was an emotional one and truth be told, went way better than I ever could have anticipated.
Sal, I am honored to have you apart of this team and am never too proud to say:
You believed in me before virtually everyone else did.
You stuck with me through the highest of highs, lowest of lows.
You have been a constant on this team since it’s official inception.
I am proud to be the person you trust with guiding the ship to your destinations in the sport.
What a day, now, we are coming back for PRs in droves.
To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 165kg/363lbs
Bench: 122.5kg/270lbs
Deadlift: 187.5kg/413lbs
Total: 475kg/1047lbs
9/9 on attempts
Dave Cailler - WRPF Ghost Strong Summer Classic 2 - 23 July 2023
Erik here, for this meet day report, we are switching it up a bit, Dave was kind enough to draft a perspective for me, though his eyes, so first portion of this will be from his first-person point of view and the second will be my thoughts. Hope y’all enjoy!
Dave
As I sit at the Charlotte Airport during my layover since I missed my original flight back this morning (hint: my fault) eating a very anabolic double cheeseburger with fries (don’t worry I got a Diet Coke) I finally have time to properly reflect on what was the best moment of my young powerlifting career, even though it came very close to being my worst. Now while you all take a moment to be surprised that I actually know how to read and write at a somewhat competent level, I’d like to provide some background into my past offseason and meet prep.
After a meet in November that left me with a north of 500 dots in November that has me able to qualify for a slew of larger meets but for lack of a better term no publicity to get invites, I wanted to put my skills on a bigger more visible stage to prove I can execute to the highest standards in the game and compete with the best of them.
Enter the Ghost Summer Classic. Not to be confused with the Ghost Clash which is the Pro Event. Same gym, same meet director, etc… This would represent another travel meet (no offense but Miami does laps around OKC), as well as switching federations from the USPA to the WRPF (which also means squatting out of a monolift instead of a standard combo rack).
Prep/offseason for this meet started with a couple major changes. The first and most prevalent being the switch to conventional deadlift as the comp stance. This was due to a series of issues dealing with mixed-grip sumo and seeing as my conventional was only about 15lbs shy of my sumo in comp, Erik and I believed that this would both benefit my squat by being easier on my adductors, and by actually training the conventional deadlift it could surpass my sumo. Both of these assumptions turned out to be true.
Conventional technique clicked after about a month and the added stimulus to my posterior chain benefitted my low bar squat well. I was able to match my best strapless training pull (755lbs) in prep with lbs to spare, and on squat we were able to hit a relatively easy 760lbs (10kg above my top single from last prep) which put us in a good spot.
The other major change was on bench. After speaking with some athletes who bench considerably more than myself, I decided to pinch my grip in by a finger. I felt more comfortable and it was pain-free so I was confident in it. This led to some minor programming changes (more close grip work and a very abnormal bench-into-chains day), but I was able to hit 424lbs in prep, which was 5kg over my best ever bench.
Now, to the meet itself.
Squat:
Squats were flying in the warmup room. I felt great, picking out of the monolift didn’t seem to be an issue, and depth was no issue. My opener at 688 FLEW. We made a 50lb jump to 738 and this is where things began to get (literally) very shaky.
The squat bar used for this meet was a Texas Squat Bar. This may sound inconsequential, but this was not the bar I was able to use for the entirety of my prep (I was on a Rogue which is considerably stiffer and offers a full knurl across the entire bar). The Texas Squat Bar is known to be a little bit shakier, and this got to me on the 2nd. I still hit the attempt and speed was there, but I was shaking practically the entire way up and the attempt punched me in the gut so to speak. The planned third was anywhere from 771-788, but we made a call to drop to 766 to lock in a 3/3. Unfortunately, this absolutely stapled me. Oh well, still the highest squat of the meet and put me in first place for best lifter.
Bench:
Bench was also flying in the warmup room. The Ghost pads are some of the best in the game to bench with and this was prevalent with how well things were moving. We opened at 374 and the attempt moved well, but the pause command was very long, like a true 2ct long. No complaints about it since everyone was getting this and it was very consistent throughout flights and attempts, and frankly I think sometimes press commands are too quick. From 374 we jumped to 413, another long press command, but still moved well. Instead of taking the top end, we dropped to 424 to make sure we hit it. This attempt was an absolute grind that cramped every muscle in my body, but still hit, which is all that matters.
Deadlifts:
Deadlift warmups were also flying. I felt surprisingly good after the fatigue from the day and we opened at 705 and it shot off the floor for a smooth pull. Instead of going to 750 for our planned 2nd, we went for 738 since this was the pull I needed to win best lifter (which I will mention the importance of later). This is where disaster struck. Not only did 738 slip out of my hands, it took one of my calluses with it on my overhand. No blood, but the skin was RAW. This has happened before since I have a unique issue of my hands swelling after squats which makes it very difficult to grip the smaller deadlift bar. I ice my hands after squats, but it isn’t perfect. We had to retake this pull otherwise i would go from best overall lifter to:
2nd in 242lb class
3rd in best lifter
Furthermore, this would leave me without a PR total after busting my balls for 8 grueling months. Definitely what I would call a shit experience. I took about 2 minutes and had a little bit of a breakdown, to be fully honest. But after that I opened my phone, saw about 25-30 good luck texts, tags of people watching the livestream back home, and told myself that I’d take my hand off before I dropped that third pull. I applied liquid chalk to fully dry out my hands prior to chalking normally, death gripped the bar and held on as hard as I could. And while every callus both tore and bled on this pull, I was thankfully able to get a 2 to 1 good lift on the final lift of the day. Moving me back into best lifter, and securing me a spot for the Pro day for the Ghost Clash 3 next April (!!!) to compete with the best lifters on the planet.
Much more to build on from this, and who knows, I might even get frisky next meet and finally fucking out-deadlift my squat.
Erik
So, most people know I am predominantly a USAPL coach and I think most people who work with me, realize I do carry an inherent bias towards that federation. However, I do not, and will not discriminate against federations that do have great reputations and when I found out this meet was a WRPF meet, I was pretty ecstatic.
Again, no discredit to other feds, but unfortunately outside of USAPL it is hard to be technical as a coach in other feds due to things such as:
Lack of liftingcast to time warmups, assess coefficient scores, assess placing, etc…
Lack of specific equipment in the backroom to simulate platform lifting.
Generally no monitors in the back showing where we are in a given flight.
So, it was a breath of fresh air that this meet, had all those things and credit to meet director, Alex Uslar, for putting on a fantastic, professional, well-run meet.
Coming into this day, we had several goals, that when it came to strict numerical goals, we fell short on by quite a bit.
That said, I think this was Dave’s best meet as a powerlifter, not just a strong guy going heavy in meets.
This meet had something tangible on the line, there was great competition, and the standard of judging was strict as can be and we welcomed that, executing to a high standard is preferred.
On the day, we were able to work in with some cool dudes and it was fun being able to be apart of that.
On squat, on Dave’s first 2 attempts, I noticed 2 things I don’t usually see in him, that he already mentioned:
Shakiness on the descent
Bar movement on the ascent
Based on how the 2nd moved, I think the strength was there for what we attempted, however I could tell from the first inch of the ascent that it was not happening and I am glad he did not fight for too long.
Now, this is where we needed to re-adjust. When you take as big a jumps as we did, you run the risk of losing a ton of ground to your total, coefficient score if a miss occurs. That said, when you are lifting weights as heavy as Dave, a 5kg jump on squat or deadlift is usually not advised or applicable, if that occurs that usually means we went too heavy for the 2nd, or opened lighter than necessary.
We knew based upon forecasted DOTS, Dave was going to have to hit all 3 benches to stay in contention for best lifter, which clearly had some considerable circumstances on the line.
We also knew, the press commands tend to be longer in this fed and truth be told, they really aren’t, I believe the judging was fair and to a great standard. So with that, we were going to make sure we did not reach.
Something to note for my coaches out there, the rules for bench hand offs are slightly different fed to fed.
At IPL North Americans, I was told I would get a lift red-lighted if I left the platform after the hand-off.
At this meet I tried to do the same thing and I was physically pushed out of the way, haha. Rookie mistake.
I knew based upon where Dave stalls out that 192.5 would be a better call than 195 and thank god we took it as there was not another gram to spare, a true RPE 10.
Now deads is where I got a bit more tactical.
I will try to play this scenario out the best I can, but it all happened so fast that I probably will butcher some of it.
Going into deads, Dave was in second and was forcasted 2nd based off deadlift opening attempts.
It was to be:
Competitor 1 @ 505 DOTS
Dave @ 502 DOTS
Competitior 3 @ 501 DOTS
Now, we got a bit lucky at this meet as competitor #1 was simply taking opening attempts to solidify a total for a higher level meet, so we knew his coefficient score was not moving.
The harder part was deciding what was the least amount we could pull in order to stay in first.
After talking it over, I decided the best strategy would be to take his opening attempt and secure a total.
Go 2.5kg lighter on his planned 2nd, and if it came down to it, we’d have a scenario where if he missed his 3rd and his competition missed their third, Dave would be ahead.
The first part of that worked out very well, hitting his first attempt and locking in a total. The second part, well, we ran into some trouble.
After missing his second on a bit of a grip slip, we elected to retake as going up was not going to be necessary as competitor #3 did not have a heavy enough DL to overtake first, so we just sat back, gathered out thoughts, and then we prepared for what was to be the gutsiest attempt of his career.
As Dave mentioned, if he had missed this pull, he misses out on:
Winning best lifter
Drops to 3rd overall
Leaves without a deadlift or total PR
More than likely has a much different mindset coming out of this meet than he did making it
And with his back against the wall, the whole gym watching, he held on to that thing to the bitter end and locked himself into what will be the most competitive meet he has ever done.
I cannot be prouder of his effort and am really quite honored such a high level guy trusts my decision making to make these things happen.
There is only so much you can control on meet day and when things go south, you must be able to adapt. Ego lifting in a meet leads to poor performance, I am sure Dave wanted more, hell, I wanted more, but why be reckless when you can just take what is there for you on the day, which always leads to a better outcome?
See ya in April.
To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 335kg/738lb (2.5kg PR)
Bench: 192.5kg/424lb (5kg PR)
Deadlift: 335kg/738lb (2.5kg PR)
Total: 862.5kg/1901lbs (+10kg PR)
511 DOTS
Strongest DOTS on Team Hogan
Erik Hogan - USAPL Northeast Regionals - 15 July 2023
Alright fine, I’ll write about it.
I competed in my 11th meet, the second biggest in my career, and probably the biggest breakthrough I have had in the sport.
Full disclosure, this is a more personal read in the first third, as I feel it is important to air some of these things out, so here is your warning.
Part 1: The Breakdown
Much like my team breakdown, in order to set precedent for what this meet meant to me, we have to go back to the beginning of the year of 2023.
I was riding pretty high after what was pretty much a perfect year for me in 2022 and I, very falsely assumed that it would roll over into 2023.
I feel like I am beating a dead horse here, but for those who don’t know, I was working at a physical therapy clinic that was about a 35-40 minute commute both ways, 40hrs a week and on top of that, coaching 40 individuals, and actively training myself.
From January to April, I:
Coached at 5 meets
Two in New Hampshire, one in Pennsylvania, one in Maine, and one in South Carolina
Co-directed a meet
There were 23 total athletes of mine doing these meets
I was preparing for a meet in April myself in which I would not get to the gym most nights until 6:30-7pm, which does not sound bad, but when sessions take 2.5-3hrs, I was not getting home until 10:30pm some nights
Working each day, getting up at 7am minimum
In fact, in 3 straights weekends I co-directed a meet (this is a 3 day affair between set up the night before, takedown and returning the day after), then coached another meet the following weekend, then got on a plane mid-week and coached another national meet.
Needless to say, I was pretty much burning the candle at both ends, plus the middle.
Every single day, I felt awful, no training session felt good and it was easily months that passed by where I truly felt like I had no energy.
Then, some weird stuff started to happen.
Around March of this year, when I would be working, I would have these random episodes where I would get intensely light-headed, to the point where I would have to run to the bathroom because I thought I was going to pass out. This happened infrequently and I chalked it up to just a weird phenomenon. Then, it would happen more frequently. Up to 3x a day even, paired with it would be rapid heartbeats, difficulty swallowing, and a constant pressure in my head.
I dealt with this somewhat privately for about 2.5 months until I actually started to feel like something was very wrong.
I went to urgent care where they recommended I go to the emergency room, pretty much right away, to get testing done based upon the symptoms I was having.
I had panels done on my thyroid, general blood panels, ekgs, etc… and nothing came up.
So, naturally, I was a bit relieved but a part of me was even more stressed because I was wondering if I was actually going insane.
Then, I finally met with my new primary care physician and that is when things were put into perspective for me.
Saying all the the things I had wanted to say, made me feel a lot better, and allowed me to take action and take control of my life.
I was realistically giving too much of myself away, too often, with no recharge, and my psyche began to wane a bit constantly running on empty.
I had a lot of re-organizing to do, a lot of sleep to catch up on (truly do not think I have slept more than 6.5hrs per night consistently since 2018), and a lot of decisions to make as I simply was going to drive myself into delirium, had I continued at the pace I was going.
So, I made the rather easy decision to leave my job at the PT clinic, which, truth be told, I could have done as early as February of this year, but I had a fear of being looked at as lazy for pursuing my coaching services full time. Weird, I know, but that’s just the way I think.
I liked the people I worked with, I did not like that I was responsible for anything and everything that was not direct patient evaluation, we’ll save that rant for another time though.
With that, I also needed to overhaul my coaching service as, frankly, I was providing access at all hours of the day and as such, would never not be on my phone at any point during my wake cycle and it deteriorated any down time I would have, in theory.
Team Hogan started with me coaching 3-4 people back in 2018 and is now 45 people deep across the US. That is a major upgrade and as such, I needed to run this as more of a business, if I wanted it to sustain, and without getting into detail, I feel myself and my athletes are at a really good place with boundary of communication and expectations on both ends.
During this “recovery”, period, we ran another meet and I coached at another meet where I saw the very first Team Hogan athlete, Andrew Graves, see his dream of qualifying for USAPL Raw Nationals finally come to fruition on his 3rd, and final, try for the total.
I needed both of these as my “worth”, was dwindling a bit, as I felt like I was at a crossroads with my own lifting and then who I was as a coach. On top of this, a couple things happened that really hurt me personally involving gyms within my area, I don’t need to get into that fully, but I am grateful from what actually manifested on the backend of all of it.
Enter, the month of July.
Part 2: The Build-Up
As mentioned before, I did a meet in April of 2022, that, to be quite honest here, surprised me a ton because I did not feel strong the entire duration of that prep and really, forced the issue each and every session.
Although it was technically speaking my highest DOTS by a narrow margin, the total was 2.5kg less than my best, I did not PR squat, bench, and very narrowly edged out a deadlift PR.
Ironically I went 7/9 and won Best Lifter, which was cool, but not why I do the sport really.
During my time working in the clinic, I had a realization that what I was doing in the gym, was not going to be sustainable with the lack of recovery I was getting and had to make a major overhaul to my training split that had not changed in close to 2 years.
I elected to drop total training days down to 4, from historically 5.
I elected to incorporate an SBD day to drop from 3 high intensity sessions, to just 2, again for the recovery purposes.
I changed my split from M, Tues, Wed, Thurs, off, Sat, off to M, Tues, off, Thurs, off, Sat, off.
While I was working in the clinic, this actually helped quite a bit as I was actually able to decompress a bit, or at least more than before.
When I came off the clinic though, I actually had second thoughts of whether this was enough.
I figured, if it was not broke, do not fix it.
I should also note, for the first time in 3 years, I took 6 straight days off post-meet in April, which cut down on my prep time for this meet, but again, to be as honest as possible, I think this was more of a game-changer than people seem to lead on.
I had 11 weeks to prepare for this meet and I elected to do a 4 week cycle, and then a 7 week cycle.
I stumbled upon the fact that I do better with big jumps per week on primary lifts, and the effect was rather tangible.
For reference, I started my pause squat progression at 335lbs and ended week 4 at 440lbs. I started my deadlift double progression at 405lbs and ended at 500lbs for 2.
After the April meet, where I failed to PR squat (elected to match PR), failed to PR bench (failed 303 outright), I knew that I needed to change things up a bit.
Although I was dealing with a bit of a hamstring/high glute injury that has just now kind of resolved, I felt like I needed to try some new things.
The biggest changes I made to my overall training structure were:
2x per week comp squatting. Some people do not need it, I have faced the reality that in meet prep, I do.
4x per week benching. I had been benching 3x per week for the better part of 2 years and figured, there is no better time than now to experiment with 4.
Addition of weighted dips, a movement that I could not do due to shoulder pain in blocks prior, this originally took my bench from 286 to 303.
A second, technical reinforcement day, for deadlifts and I was to pull my secondary day either 1/2 and 1/2 or exclusively in straps due to my deadlift always being limited by hands tearing on the overhand.
At first, all of these changes had me feeling like I was unstoppable. I had, and carried into the meet, a perfect recovery curve where I could accurately predict the days I would be strong, the days I would not, and the days I that would fall in between.
Thankfully, the strong day would always fall on Saturday, my primary SBD day, and it was pretty liberating knowing I would be able to perform each and every Saturday, regardless of how poor the Thursday primer session would feel.
However, it would not be a meet prep without adversity right?
Around 3 weeks out, I had worked up to 275lbs x2 on bench press and felt my right rear delt tighten on the first rep, maybe subconsciously I offloaded the right side and went up for the second rep and pushed way harder on the left and I came up from that set with a weird sensation in my pec on that left side.
I went a hair lighter than the progression necessary for my end goal for the meet on my primary later than week, and by the time the following Monday rolled around 2 weeks out, my arms and pec were in shambles.
Anyone who has squatted low bar, HEAVY multiple times per week with a higher frequency of benching knows the inner tendinitis-esque arm pain I am describing and to be truthful the only thing that clears it up is reduced training volume.
Having planned for 290lbs x2 that day, I decided to be “smart”, and only do 255lbs for 2. This felt alright, it hurt, but not to the point where I felt it was getting any worse.
My final heavy session, I loaded up on aleve and was able to press 292lbs, fairly easy, but with that pec feeling pretty bad during the entire workout, so naturally, I was concerned that:
I was going to degrade in strength from lack of heavy exposure.
I was going to literally tear my pec.
So, the week of the meet, under the most pain it had been in, I elected to work up to my planned last warmup, instead of my planned opener to save face and load up for meet day and take the risks there, rather than in the gym. That number ended up being 255lbs for 1. This did not shoot my confidence as I do not do “openers” as I think it is unnecessary for the majority of reasons people do them, I simply use it on bench as it represents a final heavy exposure up to 4-5 days out before we taper down.
The Tuesday bench session was a taper session, and it hurt.
Wednesday was my final bench session, again a taper workout and it hurt less, but still hurt.
I elected to stop posting to social media this prep and honestly, cannot see myself continuing to do it as I:
Don’t care.
Don’t have anything to prove.
It depresses me more than it uplifts me.
I like meets and training.
Maybe in the future, or if something was made for me, but otherwise, prepping in the shadows was honestly refreshing.
Fast forward to the meet and we will see how things played out.
Part 3: The Supernova
This meet was one of the further meets I have had to travel to, being about 4hrs away from where I live, coming in second to Junior Nationals in 2021 where I flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Getting in on Thursday, I usually recommend, if you can swing it, give yourself at least a full day “off” before the meet, meaning traveling stuff and what not. I just find that if you are cutting weight or anything, the lack of stress is well worth it.
Speaking of weight cut, this was probably the easiest one to date.
I’ll show my weigh ins each morning, and then what I did to cut.
Sunday July 9 - 69.55kg/153.3lbs
Monday July 10 - 69.95kg/154.2lbs
Tuesday July 11 - 69.10kg/152.4lbs
Wednesday July 12 - 68.45kg/150.9lbs
Thursday July 13 - 68.80kg/151.7lbs
Friday July 14 - 67.70kg/149.3lbs
Saturday (Meet Day) July 15 - 66.85kg/147.4lbs
So, just under 6lbs during that week while keeping calories steady at 2100-2300 all week.
This was my 11th weight cut and I feel like the more you do it, the less worried you get with actually making the weight, it’s more about what can you do to fine tune things to mitigate performance loss.
Last meet, I started way too light a week out that caused me to weigh lighter than I wanted, so I knew being heavier was the key here and what’s cool is I can start even heavier for the next one based on this data.
I won’t go into the exact protocol, however, the gist is sodium and water manipulation, eliminating higher fiber food sources and solid proteins later into the week, and finally leaving enough time for the water to exit your system and not dropping carb intake.
Rehydrating, well that is a different story. It just gets harder and harder for me.
I almost projectile vomited twice during this period and was very concerned, luckily, I kept it down, we good.
Getting into warmups, I noticed the feeling that usually happens with squats, was not there.
Usually, all squat warmups feel like death and I just grow up and get it down, but these felt stable and I was entering the hole and exiting with as much force as I have ever produced.
Attempt #1 was 200kg/441lbs, moved insane so we elected to go 212.2kg/469lbs for the second.
This, honestly, felt even better.
Now, excuse my language, but when it comes to squats, I am a pussy and always go lighter than top end projection, but even I was ready for the top end this day, so that was saying something.
So, we loaded up 220kg/485lbs for my third, an all time PR and the most weight I had on my back since October of 2022, my first meet PR since July of 2022 and it felt so incredible. Three whites!
This was huge as my main opponent also squatted 220kg and another lifter squatted the same, meaning I was ahead after squats as I was the lightest of the 3 but in reality probably the heaviest in actual true bodyweight haha.
Now, the time came for bench.
I was off 440mg of Aleve and rubbed myself down in Tiger Balm, so I was fairly numb and I did a ton of activation things to at least make sure the pec was prepared for what it was about to be subjected to.
Then, something weird happened, bench warmups felt… strong? They did not hurt?
I took my last warmup and it literally did not feel like there was weight on the bar.
We opened up at 122.5kg/270lbs, clean felt insane.
Number 2 was 130kg/286lbs, which served as litmus to see if the top end was there. Strong.
We elected to take my top end, 135kg/297lbs and what happened was almost an out of body experience.
I did not think about what was on the bar, my pec, really anything, I just let my training and warmups go on autopilot and I think most would agree, I had 5 extra kg on the day. This was was the most I had benched in over a year and only 2.5 under a weight I failed on strength just months prior. This fires me up as I want and need to be benching into the 3s and maybe this was the impetus that showed that 303 on the rogue bad was not just a fluke, as this eleiko pad was as stiff as they come.
Now, on to deadlifts.
I knew if I got my planned 2nd, I was going to win, as at that point, anyone close would have to pull way north of all time PRs and I had everyone on bodyweight. So, the focus for deadlift was to make sure I got on the board, I did not tear my hands, and then finish the day with my top end goal.
We opened at 227.5kg/501lbs, strong, felt nice actually.
We elected to go to 240kg/529lbs for the second, I got a little forward, but locked it out clean. I strained the ever living shit out of my right spinal erector on this pull however, so I asked Andrew, who I will speak on later, to put in 245kg/540lbs which would secure me a 600kg total, a big milestone for me as I had already PR’d my total on the second pull and had already secured the win.
I texted Logan Allaire, Elliot Woznica, and Anthony Allaire that this was going to be hard but I was staying on it to the bitter end.
I went out, put my belt a hair higher to brace my erector, and then went up to the bar and gave it my best shot.
It felt so hard off the floor, but weirdly I felt totally in control the entire time, I got to lockout and could feel at the top my high hand was starting to open, but as I was feeling this, I got the down command.
I look back. 2-1 red lights. I thought the initial call was fair and to be truthful, I have had better looking lifts turned down 2-1 before so it was nothing new, however, I did want to protest it, so Andrew went out and did just that.
I remember going out to the walkway and not even really being disappointed I just kinda was numb because I was waiting to see what the verdict would be.
By chance, I went out to grab my phone and as I rounded the corner, I see Andrew sprint over, and hear the lift had been overturned and himself, Michael, and I just about lost our gahdamn minds hysterically.
I historically have terrible luck with this stuff, so it was nice to be on the other side for once.
I ended the day perfect, 9/9 with room to spare on the squat, bench press, and with my first major win of pretty much any athletic event as I am usually 2nd place.
Now, I need to thank 2 people in particular here.
Michael
Michael was my primary handler who helped with warmups and rehydration on the day and I have no ego in admitting that he is directly responsible for the day I had in a major way. Telling me all the things I needed to hear, making sure I was in the proper mindset, timing warmups perfectly, the whole 9. I am telling you all, if there is a meet day handler that I would deem high quality, Michael is that x10. Thank you for all your help man, it felt good to avenge the last meet and let’s just say, it’s your turn now.
Andrew
The guy who has been there from day 1. We did it man. Andrew essentially had every scenario laid out for me in order to make sure I took the win and I can say with confidence, I did not feel the need to look at the liftingcast display once the entire day. Every step of the way, he’s had me and did not sugar coat anything. I told him I was okay with stepping outside my comfort zone if he thought a number was there and we did that on the squat and bench and without him, maybe we don’t protest and get my third deadlift. Thank you man, we are only getting started and I truly feel that the best days are still yet to come.
Ironically enough, these 2 will be representing me at USAPL Raw Nationals this September.
Results:
Squat: 220kg (485lbs), +7.5kg PR
Bench Press: 135kg (297lbs)
Deadlift: 245kg (540lbs)
Total: 600kg (1323lbs), +7.5kg PR
2023 Regional Champion in 67.5 class
465 DOTS
9/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ USAPL Northeast Regionals - 15, 16 July 2023
Euphoric.
Just about the only way we could describe this weekend.
To paint the picture of what this weekend meant on a grand-scale, we have to go back to the announcement of Regionals returning to USAPL competition, and then even further back to the first Regionals I attended back in 2019.
So, for those who are unaware, Regionals has not been a meet USA Powerlifting has featured since 2019, and for a multitude of reasons.
The main, and initial reason, was the onset of the pandemic, wiping out 2020 completely and then most of 2021 as well. This forced most of 2022 to be a “catch up” period as things were changing such as our removal from the IPF, weight classes being changed, and then an overhaul of our presentation and upgrading to our meets around the nation.
Regionals, for all intents and purposes, has served to be a bridge between state/local meets and National meets. I will not be the only one to say, in years passed, it seemed as if Regionals was simply a bigger state-level meet as there really was no impetus to win beyond personal gain and although there were stipulations such as an automatic bid to Nationals and a meet at the Arnold that featured a duel of each region, it really was no different from a state meet.
This year, I think many will also agree this felt different. Maybe that’s because I am in a different spot than I was in 2019, but it may also mean the sport itself is at a different spot than it was in 2019.
I remember being at work when they announced the return of Regional competition and being pretty elated.
I thought this was the perfect time to bring a team out for a few reasons but mainly because:
Wanted experience with multiple athletes going at the same time or across different sessions/days.
Wanted experience competing at the same time as my own athletes.
Wanted to win the Team award for co-ed teams.
Wanted more experience in total-based meets where attempt selection matters for placing.
So I sent out the beacon to the team and I got 5 replies, which ended up being the 5 athletes that did this meet under me, as well as myself, who I will save in a separate post because I want this to be about them.
Joshua Dang, 75kg
Chris Couillard, 90kg
Carlee Cummings, 67.5kg
Jordyn Rocca, 67.5kg
Tayla Knapp, 90kg
Now, I will go over each athlete’s meet in specific, but as a whole, I could not think of 5 better individuals to debut Team Hogan on one of the bigger stages in the sport.
Josh and Chris are one of my first 10 athletes, Carlee is someone who has become an endearing member to the team and is the person who is there for really all of us, Jordyn is someone who has been a massive aid to me on the coaching side since joining, and Tayla is someone who has been ready to step outside of her comfort-zone and show who she really is as an athlete to the greater public for a while now.
I usually do these ladies first, so for today, I think we will cover the guys first.
Josh Dang - 75kg class
So, to make a long story short, I think this meet is a culmination of somethings we already knew, and then some things that flat out, I got wrong.
Josh is someone who gives me his all in training and with that, he also is very analytical. This is a good thing, but also can be an inhibitor when it comes to expression as an athlete. Sometimes, reps will be slow and grindy when they are not usually and a lot of times, there is really no glaring reason why. Josh has waves of training where things are going good, then we derail, and I think moving forward it has to be a priority to keep things more even keel as these massive fluctuations make predictability very difficult as well as take hits to his confidence, especially when they are close out.
Here are some things I think I got wrong here:
Block length.
We ran 4, four week cycles leading into the meet. Unfortunately, I think this experiment on my end fell short as Josh does NOT do well with a momentum-based peak, where you rely on the results of the last block to materialize on the back end of the other cycle. He needs a longer time to peak.
Not enough training volume/too aggressive of a taper.
Josh reported not really having any pop in his legs and although he felt fresh, he did not feel strong. This is a classic hallmark of too much of a taper and again, this is inexcusable on my end. Moving forward, we will be raising his training volume/frequency a bit and keeping it in longer, as we saw with his one week out session, he performs extremely well under high fatigue.
Relying too much on a taper effect for performance boosts.
In the past, we have gotten a pretty big increase from tapers into meets. However, I have noticed a trend that reigns true for a lot of people in that: the lighter in bodyweight a lifter is and the more seasoned they are with competing and then maybe throw in how relatively strong they are, the less they get out of a taper to increase actual output. Basically, you cannot expect for massive 7.5-12.5kg performance boosts from a taper and honestly, 2.5-5 is more realistic and for some athletes, even matching their best training.
So, Josh, I want to apologize, formally, for falling short here. I tried my best, but I am human and I fell short.
Josh actually was the ultimate team player here, as he pulled conservative on deads in order to maintain his placing in the open class for team scoring purposes. If that does not tell you who he is as a person, then I do not know what is. I owe you Josh.
Moving forward, we will be returning to sumo deads and expanding his volume.
He will also be better about being heavier as simply put, he is too light and too “athletic” of a build to support some of the weights he wants to hit.
Results:
Squat: 212.5kg (469lbs)
Bench Press: 130kg (286lbs)
Deadlift: 215kg (474lbs)
Total: 557.5kg (1229lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Chris Couillard - 90kg class
I feel for my man Chris here.
Sometimes in this sport, things we cannot control happen, and it makes the process of actually just doing the meet, so much more of a struggle than it has to be.
Chris works a very physical and draining job and that in itself has caused us to pull back on his training days from 5x per week to 4x per week.
Chris is someone who, to be transparent, I care about a lot. As a lifter yes, but also as a friend, and my heart really hurt for him this weekend.
On the Friday leading into the meet, he picked up a keg and felt a jolt in his back, one that made it very sensitive to flexion and loading and any hopes we really had for a supernova, was out the window before it even began.
Now, Chris is a warrior and really will not back down, and I feel like I let him down here as a coach.
Knowing this, I should have:
Dropped his attempts on squat and allowed him to go 3/3.
This would have made us have leeway to bench more aggressive and in turn, deadlift more aggressive.
Again, flat out, inexcusable on my end and I am learning, I need to be firmer in how I talk and execute on meet day. I need to speak up and put my foot down as I could have saved this guy, someone who I care about deeply, the mental anguish from 2 missed squats, by simply saying: Hey man, it’s not there today, let’s be more conservative and see what we can do come bench and deadlift.
I will be transparent here.
Sometimes, I let it get to me when people say my athlete’s sandbag at meets because they leave some in the tank for each lift and I think this makes me assume they think I don’t trust my athletes, so in turn, I over-correct this and go away from my gut instinct and to be truthful and NOT arrogant, I would rather trust my gut, have an athlete make a lift, and take that criticism, then go with what the greater public thinks I should do, have them miss, and then eat that on their totals that they work hard to showcase. I love input from others, but that input is always from others I trust.
So as such, I wanted to give Chris the opportunity. And that backfired.
I think with the info I got I would have gone:
Squat 1: 180kg/396lbs
Squat 2: 185kg/408lbs
Squat 3: 190kg/419lbs
This would have gave him an extra 5kg to work with, that would have allowed us to go 2.5kg up on bench, and then up to 5kg up on deadlift, an effective 12.5kg swing that would not have been a PR total, but would have allowed us to end the day positively, which we still did, but I don’t know, I just feel I could have handled things so much better and I am really beating myself up over this and have not stopped thinking about it since the weekend ended.
Chris, being the guy he is, finished the day going 6/6 with 2 full coatings of ultra strength Tiger Balm, 4 pills of aleve, and enough caffeine to numb himself up.
We will see where we stand with this injury, but when I tell you I just have a feeling that his next meet will be a supernova, I mean it.
Thank you for being you Chris and thank you for hanging in there and finishing the day. Your teammates and I are lucky to have you in our lives and I am honored to have a guy like you on this roster.
Results:
Squat: 185kg (408lbs)
Bench Press: 97.5kg (214bs)
Deadlift: 240kg (529lbs)
Total: 522.5kg (1152lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Jordyn Rocca - 67.5kg class
Well, I do not know where to even start with this one. Jordyn, I want to make it clear to those who are viewing this, is pretty much an ideal athlete to have in terms of a coach/athlete dynamic.
Jordyn is dialed in with her:
Nutrition, more on that later though.
Mindset.
Training intent and intensity.
Reactiveness and openness to feedback.
Beyond this, she is accountable and I think this is why she has been able to have the success she has had in the sport and why she had the meet she did.
Jordyn did 3 meets, really all in a row, and made great progress in all of them, but I knew straight up that the rate we were going was a bit unrealistic if we kept up that frequency of competition without any developmental blocks.
She agreed, but we had several road blocks to get to this meet.
We initially were going to do a meet in March of 2023, but that fell through and we were going to do one the week after the first planned one, then that fell through, so we were left with even more time to prep for this one.
Over the span of her last meet in September of 2022, to now, we were able to find a couple cool things that unlocked Jordyn’s top end on each lift and here were a few of them:
Higher volume of high bar squatting coupled with regular heavy exposure, controlled mainly on the secondary day. Jordyn is one of the few athletes I have who took 2 singles a week on squat, one high and one low bar and that was for 2 reasons. The first reason is high bar puts here at a leverage-unfavored position and the integrity it forces her to showcase, carries over well to her comp squat that is very back dominant. The second reason is she recovers very well from training and for athletes like this, you need to typically feature more exposures to heavier loading or else they tend to detrain or decay when the exposures per week, or time between heavy exposures, dwindles. Needless to say, it paid off as she hit 125kg for a 5kg PR with room to spare and much better depth than the first time she took it a week out.
Bench press was really effected by bodyweight as she got hit with sickness 2-3 blocks out that had her lose about 6.5-7% of her total bodyweight. Things felt rough and sticky during this time period and I just knew if she got her weight back, which she was diligent about doing, things would feel better, and they did as she nailed 62.5kg for a massive 7.5kg PR. When you are a lighter weight female lifter who is staying in the same weight class, it becomes harder and harder to improve on bench so this is literally huge. 3x per week benching was key!
Deadlift, we had a REAL break-though in 2 parts. The first of which, was how we trained the deadlift. Jordyn features a pretty rounded back on the top end of her heaviest pulls and as such, the lockout is always a bit sticky at the heaviest of weights. Now, you can argue the fix here is to “fix” starting mechanics off the floor and 9.5/10, I would agree. However, she never really would fail these lifts, they would just be hard. So, I enacted to do a few things to dial this in. We would train the comp pull with a ton of reset reps to replicate “first” reps, under fatigue and this solidified her starting position as well as we possibly could get it. From here, we would introduce a secondary day that would initially feature stiff legged volume, that turned into pause deadlift volume. The big change here, is I noticed that her primary day was lagging behind her secondary day where she was making everything look smooth. I think the easier thing to do, would be to take that secondary day and make it the primary, but we agreed that it would make peaking that for a Saturday meet, too difficult as it would be a Monday. So, I elected to move that secondary to the back end of her primary squat and bench press slot and the results were insane. She ended with 137.5kg/303lbs this prep and did the smart thing and left it there for meet day and that was rewarded by how easy her first 145kg/319lbs pull was.
Overall, Jordyn earned this meet and then some, and then on top of that, helped handle in the immediate session afterwards with me. One day, she will make a nationals total, you can quote me on that.
Results:
Squat: 125kg (275lbs), +7.5kg PR
Bench Press: 62.5kg (137lbs), +7.5kg PR
Deadlift: 145kg (319lbs), 15kg PR
Total: 332.5kg (733lbs), +27.5kg PR
first 700lb total
9/9 on attempts
Carlee Cummings - 67.5kg class
I think this is now turning into how much a rollercoaster each persons prep/meet was, haha, as Carlee had a prep from hell this go around.
She will never label them as excuses but here are some things that happened over the course of this preparation that spanned around 16 weeks:
She got pretty ill at least two times that I remember that caused substantial weight loss.
Her son had to be rushed to the hospital.
She signed up as a 67.5kg lifter and was dieted down for a full 16 weeks leading into the meet.
We had to make many alterations and condense training days due to schedule stuff.
There are more, but those are the main ones.
The main challenge here was a mindset change in the sense that, it was going to be difficult to put absolute weight on the bar, while dropping as much bodyweight as she did. She was aware of this and we were still able to knock out absolute PRs on the platform! That was just the beginning though.
Carlee was about 2lbs over the class a week out, and although there was other methods to lose that weight via diet, I never like to take the risk and go away from something I already know works.
So we manipulated sodium and water the week of the meet and I altered the duration of the water load and how much water was consumed at the peak to account for this and needless to say, the results were pretty much perfect! After starting the week at 150.6lbs, she weighed in at 147.4lbs and rehydrated to no performance loss at all. That is testament to her trust in me, her ability to be an athlete, and her ability to lock in and do these things while having to take care of her son.
We hit a bit of a roadblock a couple weeks out and we elected to simply retake a few lifts as we were already ahead of PR pace.
The cool part of this meet, was she had not registered a total at 67.5 yet, so her nominated total was 0kg. This allowed me to formulate a plan that really made it hard for people to scout her as she did not have a registered total at that class, does not have a public instagram, and I could see where everyone else was at in the medal standings.
I wrote in an email explaining attempts and the plan to her that based on nominated totals, we could get 5th if we played our cards right and only took what was necessary in order to pull for placing.
I wanted her to medal so badly and thankfully, the opportunity was there!
On her final pull, only needing 2.5kg from her last attempt in order to pull into 5th place by 2.5kg as she was the heavier of the 2 lifters, she blew up 155kg/341lbs with maybe 5 extra kilos to spare and medaled at her first Regional meet.
What a day!
Results:
Squat: 147.5kg (325lbs), +12.5kg PR
Bench Press: 75kg (165lbs)
Deadlift: 155kg (341lbs)
Total: 377.5kg (832lbs), +12.5kg PR
DOTS improved from 367-391!
5th place in 67.5kg class
8/9 on attempts
Tayla Knapp - 90kg class
Saving the most wild for last.
Tayla is someone who, for all intents and purposes, is capable of a lot in this sport.
I feel as if sometimes Tayla’s accomplishments sometimes get lost in the shuffle at the meets we run as there is a whole group of my people doing them and as such, she has never been able to have “her moment”, well, let’s just say, I took that personally for this one.
For Tayla, she is a very anxious lifter, who sometimes is limited by nerves.
On this day, I saw a distinctly different lifter. Someone who was confident, calculated, and ready for what was to come.
She did a very good job of not getting too high during attempts and did not get too comfortable and “low” in between disciplines as there was a long time with 3 full flights of lifters in her session.
I think for the first time in our working relationship, we nailed all 3 lifts.
She was able to knockout all time PRs on the squat and bench this meet, and to be honest, I am more ecstatic that we got those to cooperate more than anything with training aspects as we knew she’d be able to deadlift as that is her lift.
She responded very well to a smaller and shorter block structure and we used momentum here to accelerate us into the meet.
With Tayla, we also enacted a wider bench grip and that, with more frequency and leaning into micro-loading, seemed to be the little performance boost needed to bust through that bench plateau we were having.
Now, here is the coolest part of all this.
Coming into this meet, Tayla was seeded 2nd, well, tied for 2nd, with another competitor and I knew based upon a few factors, if we were 6/6 with her projected thirds on squat, bench, we would be able to pull into second with her being the bigger deadlifter than her opponent.
Now, I will credit all these people at the end, but I want to, in particular, thank Michael Beaupre and Andrew Graves, who were feverishly doing math to decide where we needed to go to pull into second.
After bench, we knew 3 things:
Tayla would be pulling after her opponent.
Tayla was lighter, meaning, whatever her opponent totaled, we simply had to match that to win on bodyweight.
Tayla made it clear, she was okay with not PRing her total, if it meant getting a crack at 2nd as at the time, we thought we had 3rd pretty much secured.
So, we went back and forth on a plan for what to do for deadlift #1 and #2, and I decided we would stick with the plan we had coming in and to not get cute.
She opened up at 167.5kg, clean, got her on the board.
We elected to jump 12.5kg, to 180kg, her best pull in training that was very easy, and for the first time ever, her grip slipped and she dropped the bar.
So, I did not panic, but elected to put in a retake so we could talk as we had some decisions to make based upon that.
This miss, opened the door for 4th place to take Tayla’s third place position, we were ready to protest immediately as we could not afford her dropping down into 4th for team placing purposes, we got lucky and this athlete ended up missing, meaning all we had to do was wait for the person she was behind for 2nd to pull to decide on what we needed to load in order to take 2nd on the final pull. We got lucky again, and this athlete missed (side note, I never want an athlete to miss, I do however, want my people to do well and I fully expect the same from our competition), so before Michael and Andrew did the math, Tayla and I had a talk.
“Do you want to go up another 11lbs to pull into 2nd or are you fine with 3rd?”
She made it very clear she was ready to pull for 2nd and that was all we needed to hear. As soon as the other athlete missed, we raised her 180kg to 185kg, as that would tie on bodyweight, and with her back against the wall, Tayla:
Went out to pull into 2nd, attempting a number that tied her all time PR, 5kg up from her miss just minutes prior, a lift that represented either the best meet of her life on total or worst meet of her life based on the same metric, and she went out and grinded it out to take the silver medal in what was a very intense battle that made all of us lose our minds.
This, is what powerlifting is about.
I think anyone who has been in this type of situation before, knows that there is something special about tangible competition. Although it would be hard to swallow had she missed, she would be the first to say, it would have been better to have the opportunity and miss, then play it safe and not even have the possibility of that moment manifesting at all.
Tayla, you are incredible and I am glad you finally had your day.
To Utopia.
Results:
Squat: 142.5kg (314lbs) +2.5kg PR
Bench Press: 62.5kg (137lbs), +2.5kg PR
Deadlift: 185kg (408lbs)
Total: 390kg (859lbs), +5kg PR
90kg Regional Silver medalist
Lastly, I would be doing this whole process a disservice, if I did not credit a few people here.
Sergio
Without you man, I do not know if this whole thing ticks. Serge has always been there for me and my people and he did a phenomenal job handling Jordyn and aiding with Carlee.
Evan
Literal blood. You stepped in pretty much at a moments notice and made all the right calls and served as a nice other set of eyes for me for Chris and did a great job getting Carlee in the right mindset to conquer the day.
Jordyn
You are an asset any team would love to have, you are not afraid to be the “bad guy” and are not afraid to take control over a situation if you feel it is necessary.
Michael
I’ll talk more about what you did for me in a separate post, but you handled Tayla to perfection and are turning into an A tier meet day handler and I would trust anyone of my athletes with you, without hesitation.
Andrew
Thank you for being there for literally everyone as you already had a busy weekend planned and I don’t think I had the mental capacity to make all the numbers decisions you drove and I am never too proud to admit that this type of weekend does not happen if you are not involved. Much like Michael, I would trust any one of my athletes with you.
Our goal was to win the mixed team division and we came just about as close as we possibly could to that and just fell short on day 2 by a narrow margin, placing 2nd overall.
Next year, we will be back to take the win and solidify that we are one of the strongest and most cohesive teams in New England.
What I really love about out team, in particular, is we have a way of getting behind each other and forming an actual team when each lifter competes. Egos are thrown out the door and whoever has the platform, has the attention and we all do our best to prioritize those people. This weekend was the coolest moment ever when I had just come off the platform and was in the crowd surrounded by a group of Team Hogan lifters, watching a Team Hogan lifter attempt to pull into medal position, while another group of Team Hogan lifters were in the back coaching her.
Regionals 2019 we had 1 athlete.
Regionals 2023 we had 6 athletes, placed 2nd overall as a team, and had support all over the busy Albany Capital Center.
Until next year.
To Utopia. 💫
Logan Allaire - USAPL Festivus Feats of MASS Strength - 11 December 2022
The final meet of the year, ended up being a supernova of sorts.
Logan Allaire, of Biddeford, Maine, came on to the scene in July of 2022 and debuted with an unofficial American record squat and a 9/9 day.
This meet qualified him for High School and Teen Nationals and generally speaking, why would he do another meet before then, more time to train right?
Well, maybe, but you see, where he is in the sport, although strong, is still very novice and there was some context to our decision to do this meet.
His first meet was in Saco, Maine. A stones throw from where he lives and required very little prep work in terms of travel. Beyond that, Logan was competing with all his friends, at a meet put on by people he knew, and to be quite honest, the whole thing was really a utopia-esque scenario for a meet.
I was thinking, would it really be appropriate to send someone to a state that is closer to Florida than Maine to compete with national judging as only his second career meet? No, enter us trying to find a meet to do.
This meet being in Massachusetts, it would at least require him to travel, which crossed that variable off the list, it was a meet that only he was doing, meaning he could get used to being uncomfortable, and finally it was another chance to experience competing as for younger lifters, the more experience, the better.
Fun fact, I was about to sign up for this meet, but when the opportunity arose, I gladly gave it up to him as he needed that meet more than I did.
Our prep for this meet started off strong, but we hit a pretty big roadblock during the mid stages of it.
Around 6 weeks out, to close our pre-meet prep cycle, he was hit with pretty severe sickness that caused him to take several days off, days that coincided with his heaviest lifts of the cycle.
So on a day we usually would be hitting lighter squats, was his heaviest of the cycle and he actually came in and failed 455lbs, albeit on a misgroove and came back and got it.
I had him call it there and we bridged into the next block.
A little shaken that a number 45lbs south of his best was very difficult, we made a plan to lean into momentum and to restore his squat with an approach that may seem unconventional, but when you break it down, makes as much sense as any strategy you could use.
So, the main issue is we could not get Logan’s squat to feel “good”, meaning even though we were able to add more weight, both his secondary and primary felt off and rusty. In our 6 week meet prep, his first 3 weeks were pretty volume intensive with accessory work and I had this revelation that: his squat is like most people’s deadlift.
At the time of this meet, he was squatting 45lbs more than his best deadlift, so inherently, the most fatiguing movement was that, and all his leg accessories were creeping into high levels regardless of constraints, tempo hack squats with closed to 3 plates, split squats with 100lb DBs, etc…
So starting 3 weeks out, I made the call to remove ALL accessory work for the lower body. Literally all.
Not taper it down, but remove it outright.
Within a single week, we finally had momentum and each squat workout would cause him to feel more confidence that more and more would be there.
We had to pull a riverside call a week out from the meet, this meet being on a Sunday, we wanted to take his final heavy day on a Sunday or Saturday, however, we were at the Carrie Boudreau meet on that Saturday, it would have been irresponsible to do his last heavy day after a long day of handling/standing around, and even more so doing it the day after without spots.
So, we ended up taking his last heavy day 9 days out and he was able to squat 505lbs for an all-time PR with plenty to spare.
Along this time, we found his deadlift to be progressing smoothly and he re-worked his bench press to cut down on ROM and this soared during prep.
Getting into the meet itself, we actually chose to document this on our YouTube channel and a lot of the day was captured in that video, which tells more than I can do justice, however, there was some context that you might miss watching that.
Logan’s flight was only 7 people deep.
What this means, is not only did warmups need to be timed on the dot, but there was to be very little rest or down time between attempts.
How it worked was he’d take an attempt, we would put in the attempt, he would sit for 4 minutes, then he would get up again 3 lifters out.
He squatted 468lbs, 496lbs, and then 518lbs in a around 21 minutes (honestly it was less because some people did not use their full minute) and to me, that is just the mark of being 1. In shape, but also 2. Not hung up on things you cannot control.
518lbs was an all-time PR and it honestly moved with a ton more to spare, which was huge as it reaffirmed the drop of all accessory work was the right call a few weeks out.
Bench we aired on the side of staying warm, so we moved his last warmup until about 5 lifters out, and tried to simulate a good pace and to keep the body warm with a jacket over him in between attempts.
He went 226, 248, 259, again with a lot to spare.
Then deadlifts got a bit interesting because we could not apply baby powder in doors per the gym owners rule.
So, in typical New England fashion, we had to go outside, in the snow (snow that delayed our travel back at least an hour) apply baby powder, then come back in immediately as to not stiffen up due to the cold.
Logan took it like a champ and was able to go 3/3 again here, going 413, 446, 463.
All in all, I feel better having this meet as it exposed him to what meets are actually like, weird stuff happens and you feel out of your element from the get-go.
Our next meet will be HS Nationals in April and this will be his best performance yet.
Results:
Squat: 235kg (518lbs), +27lb PR
Bench Press: 117.5kg (259bs), +17lb PR
Deadlift: 210kg (463lbs), +11lb PR
Total: 562.5kg (1240lbs), 56lb PR
9/9 on attempts
Team Hogan - USAPL Carrie Boudreau Big Pull-Ooza II - 3 December 2022
44/45.
That is what my memory will be of this meet.
The day Team Hogan caught fire and showed how we prepare and execute for competitions.
This meet featured:
2 First-time Competitors
2 Second-time Competitors
1 Seasoned Veteran
As such, each lifter had different goals coming into this meet and as the primary coach for all 5, preparation was key as this meet was a bit unlike most I have been to.
This meet was a single session, with 4 flights, and I had at least one lifter in each flight, which meant it was non-stop from the morning till the final deadlift, which was something I have certainly done before, but was thankful I had more help this go-around.
Beyond this, I was driving a few people to this meet so my day started very early, around 4am I believe, as we made the trek out to Wilton.
I should also add, Team Hogan lifter, Michael Beaupre, was absolutely crucial on this day as he stayed in the back and helped time warmups for people as with each lifter being in each flight, I had to constantly be at the platform for the next person. Without him, this day is probably a disaster.
This meet solidified what was a breakout year for my collective and I am so ecstatic that we went out with the bang we did. In no order specifically, here was each person’s breakdown.
Anthony Allaire - 75kg class
Anthony, aka Twon, aka Twonnay was competing in his first career meet here and had what I would call a supernova performance for his first time ever on a powerlifting platform.
To contextualize this performance, let’s back track a bit.
Twon had reached out to me about 4-5 months prior, looking to get into the game after his cousin, Team Hogan lifter, Logan Allaire, did his first meet in July of 2022.
Twon will be the first to admit, the base he had, although arguably better than most, was limited by technique more than anything so a lot of the first few blocks we did we spent time tweaking technique on all 3 lifts.
That said, Twon moves incredibly well and over the span of those months, I would actually come in on my off days to help guide him through his sessions, something I do not offer to people but I could tell he valued it, so I obliged no issue and that one on one time clearly paid off. These days, it is usually Twon and I as the last ones of our crew into the gym and then conversely, the last ones to clock out for the night and we have certainly grown closer because of that.
This meet, I wanted to accomplish two things for him:
Enjoy the experience.
Make all 9 lifts.
To me, if you have any other goals for meet #1, whether it be for yourself or for your athlete, you are running the risk of failure in multiple avenues that could sour someone from the sport entirely.
Twon able to do just that, make all 9 of his lifts, some with room to spare, others with very little, and would certainly co-sign that this meet hooked him in.
His third deadlift was the culimination of everything he had been working on technically and it all manifested when it mattered most.
I expect his next meet to be a totally different experience as he is not limited by technique anymore and we have been making strides ever since.
Results:
Squat: 142.5kg (314lbs)
Bench Press: 70kg (154bs)
Deadlift: 152.5kg (336lbs)
Total: 365kg (804lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Emma Fortin - 56kg class
Staying in theme of explosive debuts, Emma did exactly that at this meet.
Coming to me via Team Hogan lifter, Tony Pedersen, Emma is an extremely diligent and thorough worker. Not only is she very communicative, but she is very receptive to feedback.
Anytime I suggest tweaking something, she does it, no questions asked, and executes to the best of her abilities.
As I have mentioned in the past, it is always good to have a healthy skepticism with a training approach, however, if that becomes hostile and trust is never established, even the most sound protocol will fall null because the belief that it will work out is not there.
Coming into this meet, I am already contradicting myself, as I said first meets should be about enjoying the process and making all 9 lifts. As we got closer and closer to the end of the prep for this meet, we realized Emma was right on the cusp of a Collegiate and Teen Nationals qualifying total, although it would be close on the day.
We came into the day more than prepared and I think above all, her ability to lift to comp standard in training, really allowed her to shine as she was not held up on technicalities that some first time competitors seem to do.
After nailing both squat and bench 6/6, Emma did some math and figured out since we went 2.5kg less on squat than the planned top end, we would need to go +2.5kg on the top end for deadlifts in order to get that QT.
Although I was aware of this, I am glad she brought it up as not only was I flatout overloaded, but it’s nice to be reminded sometimes as you juggle so many things on meet day that it becomes impossible to focus on every single minute detail.
So sometimes when something like this happens, you can take 2 approaches.
Adjust all attempts up 2.5kg, or keep attempts as is and save it all for that one last attempt.
We decided to go with the latter here as this was going to be an all time PR for her and I knew any wasted energy was going to make the goal all too distant.
This is when disaster almost struck.
Emma made attempt #1 and #2 easy and I felt like we had to go for it, so we loaded an all time PR, 140kg/308lbs and got in the zone for it.
As we stood for 4 lifters out, Emma was panicking.
She could not find her belt.
We searched high and low for it and thank heavens, a fellow competitor allowed her to use hers as what could be an incredible moment, would be derailed from the jump and I was not really comfortable with letting her go out and pull on it beltless.
After a struggle from the floor, Emma brought it to the hips, locked it out clean, and solidified a National qualifying total in 2 separate divisions, in her first meet.
I have a feeling when it is all said and done, she will be one of the finest lifters Maine has seen.
Results:
Squat: 90kg (198lbs)
Bench Press: 40kg (88lbs)
Deadlift: 140kg (308lbs)
Total: 270kg (596lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Brandon Allen - 140kg class
The Behemoth.
Brandon made a huge jump this meet in terms of absolute weight added to his total.
Brandon is someone who came to me a very different person than the person you all see today, not necessarily in a bad way either, but he has matured and blossomed into quite the lifter and beyond that, everyone’s favorite teammate.
The goals for Brandon at this meet were rather simple, add as much weight to the total as possible, knowing full well he had states around 12 weeks later.
We did that, and then some.
Prep for him this go around was pretty smooth and we honestly peaked perfectly.
What I have come to notice for my heavyweight lifters, is on big lifts like the squat and deadlift, the intensity on each needs to be lower on average than my lighter weights as usually they are moving greater absolute load through a much larger range of motion, inheremtly making the movement more fatiguing. I believe for this prep, Brandon only went over 500lbs a handful of times and was able to hit a 28lb PR with room to spare, that is meaningful data.
Squat we were getting one red each time for depth, so I wanted to make sure we got all 3 and honestly, 200kg moved the easiest it ever has, just a safety call to make sure he sunk it.
Bench was clean here and although in the weeks leading up he felt he had more, 137.5kg/303lbs ended up being a limit lift on the day and I think he agreed another 2.5kg was probably not there on the day.
Then, when it came to deadlifts, he caught fire.
If anyone has ever seen Brandon pull, he has an iron back and simply picks up the bar with brute force. This is not to say his technique is bad though, to me, this signals he found the position that is strongest for him, something I preach for everyone.
He was able to take 245kg/540lbs and it honestly moved better than either of us could anticipate. He improved a ton here and his next meet is going to be his first total over 1300lbs, which is the next level for his journey.
Results:
Squat: 200kg (441lbs), +39lbs PR
Bench Press: 137.5kg (308lbs), +17lbs PR
Deadlift: 245kg (540lbs), +22lbs PR
Total: 582.5kg (1284lbs), +77lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Tayla Knapp - 90kg class
Tayla had competed in her first meet in March of 2022 and debuted with a podium finish, putting her on everyones radar moving forward.
Later that month, I was pleasantly surprised to see an inquiry from her in which we began working together shortly thereafter.
This being our first meet together, we had to tweak a lot of our pre-meet prep blocks to find what worked best for her and finally we found a formula that was not only sustainable, but provided tangible progress.
This meet was a stepping stone for Maine States and allowed us to get real meet data for what to do for states, so we took what worked the block prior and simply started that again with a higher base.
Squat we ended up chipping her PR of 303lbs, going 308lbs. I think she had 314, which she squatted in prep, but I always feel better going 3/3 after squat WITH a PR then taking a gamble, leaving with no PR, and no momentum.
Bench ended up performing better in the meet than most of training, leading me to think she taper rapidly so we are keeping volunme ultra high until 3 days out this next meet. She benched 132lbs for a small PR here.
Deadlift is where she shined and made history. After pulling 400lbs in training, we knew 182.5kg/402lbs would be possible, but would need the momentum to do so.
Tayla is a bit atypical in that she pulls conventional with a hookgrip, which is generally not seen in female lifters.
Although we exchanged thoughts on pulling all sets hook, in which I was initially not in favor of, she seems to do just fine and it clearly paid off as her grip is rock solid.
We went 363, 385, and then loaded it up, 402lbs.
She closed the flight as the last female deadlift of the day and destroyed the lift, possibly with another 2.5kg/6lbs to spare.
This lift ended up being the heaviest recorded deadlift in USAPL Raw Women’s history in the state of Maine.
That is incredible, as there have been a ton of strong women who have competed since raw drug-tested lifting has been a thing in Maine, since 2012.
In her first full year of competing she finished as the #4 female in the state of Maine, in 2023, I expect her to finish in the top 3.
Results:
Squat: 140kg (308lbs), +6lbs PR
Bench Press: 60kg (132lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 182.5kg (402lbs), +16lbs PR
Total: 382.5kg (843lbs), +27lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Evan Larsen - 110kg class
The other half of the Bang Bros, Evan is someone who came to me in December of 2021 to handle him at his upcoming meet, the first Carrie Boudreau Big Pull-Ooza in Waterville, and I obliged with open arms.
Little did we know that small favor would turn into a working relationship that has brought him 2 Best Lifter performances, a return back to pain-free training, and an absolute whirlind of the last year or so, in a good way.
Coming into this particular meet, we found that Evan was poised for the first time since 2018 to PR his total. I am going to sound like a broken record, but I have had athletes be very mad and down right disappointed with me when they don’t add more than 30lbs to their total in a given meet. Now, context matters, but until you have been dealt a bad hand in terms of injury, execution, and putting together all 3 lifts at the same time, in my humble opinion, any progress, is good progress.
This meet was also unique as we were in a spot in which no individual lift would be a PR, but those top end lifts together would yield a PR total.
Phase 1 and Phase 2 were successful, ending with him squatting 578lbs, benching 331lbs. 6/6.
Going into deads, I planned it so we would tie this best total on the second, then see what was there for his third and this is where we deviated off plan slightly.
We knew winning the meet was out of reach, so we had 2 options.
Go for 272.5kg/601lbs in order to tie his best ever pull, total over 1500lbs.
Go 270kg and PR his total for the first time in 4 or so years, secure his first ever 9/9 meet.
I asked him what he felt was there and since he gave me his word that we would stick to plan without qualms on squat, bench, I felt I owed it to him to go a little north of what I was comfortable with.
We loaded up 272.5kg/601lbs and he went out for the last pull of the day and was 2 inches away from lockout before his thumbs exploded.
To me, a miss like this, although frustrating, is a good miss in the sense of, for someone like him, we can always sew up things like hand care and grip, but missing on strength is incredibly humbling.
This being his first meet at 110kg/242lbs, in his next meet we are poised to finally break free of the 1488lb total he’s displayed as his best since 2018 and we honestly might do it after the first or second deadlift, which is a euphoric feeling.
2nd overall was not too shabby as well.
Results:
Squat: 262.5kg (578lbs)
Bench Press: 150kg (331lbs)
Deadlift: 262.5kg (578lbs)
Total: 675kg (1488lbs)
8/9 on attempts
Team Hogan - 2022 IPL North American Championships - 19 November 2022
A fever dream of a trip that has been deserving of a write up for quite some time, however, time has escaped me since taking on a full-time job on top of coaching as close to full-time as one can, nonetheless, I’m getting to it now damn it so bare with me!
So, to set the stage for what this meet was, and maybe what it was supposed to be (and ended up not being), we have to back track quite a bit.
The 2 representatives I was fortunate enough to have at this meet competing were Team Hogan’s two strongest individuals, both in absolute weight and coefficient, Dave Cailler and Bobby Dortona.
A few months prior to this event, both of them, pretty much on a whim signed up for this meet and from what I can recall, the reasoning was to get experience with international level judging as well as compete against lifters that are a little bit higher caliber compared to the local meets the both of them had become accustomed to.
Being the go-getter I try to be, I obliged with open arms, not knowing how the logistics of this would look like, being the meet was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and we are all based in New England.
I think both men will say the preparation for this meet was one for the ages and both came in as close to as 100% as they possibly could be with the cards we were dealt.
Before I breakdown each person’s meet, this meet was a bit interesting as the travel aspect was interesting to note here. The meet being on a Saturday, we flew on Wednesday, in which they would both take their final workouts and then have the following 2 days to finish out their water cuts and lay low. I feel like this is 100% the way to go, especially with federations with a 24hr weight in as if you are:
Underprepared
Overwhelmed
Rushing
All of the above
You can pretty much guarantee the meet you want to have, will not be the meet you will get.
Dave being a 110kg/242lbs lifter, Bobby being a 100kg/220lbs lifter (moving up from the 90kg class) they both weighed in a bit lighter than maybe we anticipated but was not a concern as the 24hr hour window for rehydration was a nice handicap to have and the method in which each of them dropped the weight was extremely passive, if we had to sauna and hot bath, this would be a different story.
Spoiler alert, out of the 105 lifters competing over the 3 day meet, we walked away with the 2 top spots, something I still think is extremely special.
Without further adieu, here is how each person did.
Robert Dortona - 100kg class
Bobby, as he is affectionately known, is an incredible lifter and I think everyone around him recognizes this. What I think I admire most about Bob is the fact that he is selfless, often to a fault, when it comes to the sport itself. On any given weekend you can see him at a random meet, spotting and loading, helping out with handling, or just attending for fun. I think during this prep there was a few meets he was spotting and loading at for 2 sessions, up to a few weeks out.
We had some pretty serious goals for this meet, some that we attained, others that we came a bit short on but overall, it was for sure his best meet ever in his pretty lengthy history in the game.
As highlighted, March of 2022 was his comeback meet after 5 years off from competing and I think that meet lit a proverbial fire under him as not only did he eclipse 500 on DOTS for the first time, he was able to take home best lifter, proving to himself that he has been capable of this kinda thing, all along.
This meet, our goals were pretty simple, total over 1800lbs, win the meet. We did both of those.
That said, we had some road blocks that kind of forced our hand on deadlifts, in the sense of being a hair conservative, that limited what he was actually capable of on the day.
Squat really blew up for Bob this prep, finally going north of 700lbs, which was a huge goal of his, and we fully anticipated it being there on the day, which, it 100% was.
We were hit with very, very, very strict depth calls and it seemed like every person was getting at least one red for depth and I did not see a ton of people getting through squats 9/9 on white lights.
Opening at 295kg/650lbs, we got on the board and jumped to 310kg/683lbs.
2 to 1 reds for depth.
As much as I trusted hip to go up, I told him straight up, winning the meet was not happening and he might even lose his class (spoiler alert again, this kid who we thought he was competing against, did not even sign up for the open) if we missed and only carried 650 into bench.
He agreed, came back and got it 2-1 whites.
Bench, unfortunately is where we hit the biggest road block. During warmups, he was getting pretty severe back cramps and in between most warmups I would have him keeled over, working on the knots in his back and I knew we probably were getting into a game of, “what is the most his body will allow on the day”, rather than what the data said would be there in terms of training trends.
To me, this is what powerlifting is. If it were a dream-like utopia out there, everyone would finish 9/9 and hit massive PRs every single meet they did, the thing about any sport is it is dynamic, things happen, there are a lot of moving parts that effect outcomes and you cannot prepare for all of them, the best you can do is react and be proactive in the moment.
Thankfully, we made it out 3/3 on bench, ending with a 2.5kg jump from his second to his third of 190kg/419lbs, this is what he called because he wanted every kilo he could get without screwing up his back for deadlifts. This ended up being the right call in the end, despite it visually looking like he had much more in him.
Then came deadlifts. This was Bobby’s first meet in 6-7 years pulling conventional and in the summer time, when he came back under my services, we had a very tough time getting his sumo to cooperate. Since we had heavy conventional in the rotation, it was not THAT much of a transition, however I did want him to have as many opportunities with “first reps” as possible to really ingrain that start position, so a lot of his work was cluster singles, something that he responded very well to.
We took warmups as they came to us and were hoping his back would cooperate, thankfully, it did and he seemed to really unlock a second-gear in his wedging as he was making everything move insane on the day.
We ended up going:
295kg/650lbs
312.5kg/688.9lbs
317.5kg/700lbs
Out thought process was open to get him on the board with something clean, take a big jump to feel out what was there, and then take the least amount we needed to secure the win. This ended up being the right call in hindsight, but in the moment, especially with no liftingcast as USPA/IPL, much to my chagrin, still uses an antiquated printed paper flight set up, we had to take a best guess, not knowing his only competition was literally the other person on the trip with us.
This ended up being extremely close and in the end, both men put it all out on the line. More on that in a second.
As for what’s next, Bobby needs to be benching more and I think we have the method to do that, and we will do just that if and when he decides to compete this year (2023).
Results:
Squat: 310kg (683lbs), +50lb PR
Bench Press: 190kg (419bs), +28lb PR
Deadlift: 317.5kg (700lbs), +22lbs PR
Total: 817.5kg (1802lbs), +99lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, 506.75 DOTS, Best Overall Lifter of entire meet.
Dave Cailler - 110kg class
Ah yes, the Jacked Kangaroo himself, one Dave Cailler, straight out of New Hampshire.
The progression Dave has underwent from our first meet together, to now, has been awe-striking, not just for absolute weight increases but mindset improvements as well.
Out of the 40-odd athletes I am fortunate enough to work with, I would say Dave is in the top 1% of those athletes in the following:
Nutrition, his diet is not fit for some, but he is ultra-consistent with it. On this trip in particular he forked out $150+ for groceries alone to make sure he had meals.
Pacing. Many times his squat numbers at the beginning of a block are 100lbs lighter than what he ends up finishing with. This to me not only signals he’s committed to the process but he finds value in momentum, almost like a cascade.
Execution. Early on, we had growing pains on relying on straps for deadlifts, but aside from that spell, there is no one you can trust more to execute to competition standard and not be prone to misgrooves or mental errors.
So with all that said, we went into this meet with what some would call (by some, me) a supernova prep.
It seemed like he was just making sizeable progress every single week in some form or another and we chipped some huge milestones including multiple squats over 700lbs, his first bench over 400lbs, and we made strides on the deadlift that we felt extremely confident in.
The day of the meet was rather hilarious in the sense of, he by far was the strongest he had ever been and almost made 170kg pop off his back and into the air. He racked the bar and looked at all the competitors and said, I quote, “You’re all fucked”, apologies for the kid’s reading at home.
Dave also inexplicably punched me in the chest extremely hard before his opening squat, in which my chest was sore for 3 days post strike and after his 3rd squat, hit me so hard with a bear hug that I thought I had a concussion, it was sick.
Getting into the day, we had pretty concrete goals that were to simply maximize every kilo we could get and total 1900lbs, if we could win, we would take it.
Dave was in the flight after Bobby, so we had a feel for what the judging was like before he took the platform, which helped.
His first 2 squats were 2-1 white lights and he was being called for depth as the 1 red each time. I have found that some lifters really panic if they see a red light for any reason, I do not think this phased him even in the slightest.
We ended up going 733lbs for his third, a bit lower than our range of 738-744, but it ended up being the right call as this was his first hard squat all prep.
Bench was uncharacteristically locked in, maybe a bit more so than we anticipcated because we wanted to go 413lbs for the absolute top end and not only did he hit it, he had 5kg/11lbs or so to spare which is scary for where he is at now.
Deadlift, this is where had we known the DOTS situation, I would have done things different.
We opened 694, which was smoked. Took his second of 733, which was clean but maybe not as much as we would have liked.
For his third, we took exactly what he needed for 1901lbs on total, which was 755lbs, and it ended up being just too heavy on the day to lockout convincingly.
Unbeknownst to us at the time, Dave finished with a 506.30 DOTS score.
Bobby, finsihed with 506.75.
Yes, the battle we were expecting ended up being completely in-house and had Dave taken any number that was south of the lift we took, he would have won best lifter at this meet.
I will say, as a coach, this is incredibly difficult to do in the moment, as you want both guys to do well and honestly, I would like to avoid this situation in the future, but as I mentioned, we were rather unaware how close it was the entire time.
That said, Dave entered the 500 DOTS club this meet and over time has been the following for me:
First Team Hogan lifter to squat 700lbs in competition, training.
First Team Hogan lifter to deadlift 700lbs in competition, training.
Second Team Hogan lifter to DOTS over 500.
A lot of ground has been broken and let me tell you, this is only the beginning.
Results:
Squat: 332.5kg (733lbs), +17lb PR
Bench Press: 187.5kg (413bs), +17lb PR
Deadlift: 332.5kg (733lbs), +28lbs PR
Total: 852.5kg (1880lbs), +99lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, 506.30 DOTS, 2nd Best Overall Lifter of entire meet.
Sam Peterson - USAPL Monster’s Bash 82.5kg class, (29 October 2022)
Since this meet was in Minnesota, Sam was kind enough to draft up a meet report for me on his experience on the day. I will comment from my perspective at the end!
Sam:
This was my 5th meet and 4th with Erik. We decided this meet it would be best if I moved up to 82.5kg/181lbs class. Worked up to 176lbs bdyweight during prep and managed to hit 385 squat, 250 bench, and 500 deadlift during training. Meet prep itself went really well. I missed no top singles during this prep and felt insanely strong day of.
The meet was really busy and flights were pretty long but the event went pretty smooth. I struggled with some nerve issues and wasn’t able to eat anything solid before the event. Warmups went smoothly as I worked with a crew of regulars I know from the area.
Squat was pretty straightforward. 352 opener was really casual. 375 2nd attempt was light but rolled up my back in the hole which made it a bit tougher. Went for a lighter 3rd and 380 was very easy.
Bench prep felt really good and that carried over to the meet. 231-248-259 all felt really easy. 270 was probably there today.
Deadlift was a little rocky at some times during prep but showed up on the day. 458 and 485 was really casual. 501 was my main goal on the day besides 9/9 and getting it was really emotional.
Incredible prep and great day.
Erik:
This meet was everything. It has been a year since Sam competed last and we made a vow that when he came back to it, he would be a new lifter, and a new lifter is what everyone saw this day.
Sam came to me in 2020 with 903lb total and left this meet with an 1140lb total, +237lbs since we started working together.
What I will say, is Sam is easily the most level headed athlete I work with. Very rarely, if ever, has he questioned my judgement and simply works HARD. That is it. Having someones trust is so valuable and understated and to me, that is why we really have the ball rolling for him.
The advent of accessory work that is not just barbell-based (he trains from home) was a game changer, especially on the bench press.
When he sent over his 3rd attempt of 227.5kg/501lbs, I damn near teared up on my drive home as I remember the person who came to me in 2020 and he would be amazed by who he has become. Sam is the perfect example of what you can do if you ignore genetics and stop placing artificial limits on yourself. On paper, he probably should not be as strong as he is, but that is for the birds, Sam can complete a triathlon and has deadlifted 501lbs in a powerlifting meet, who can say that? Not many.
Now? We build into the 181 class further and total into the 1200s.
To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 172.5kg (380lbs), +17lb PR
Bench Press: 117.5kg (259lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 227.5kg (501lbs), +17lbs PR
Total: 517.5kg (1141lbs), +50lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Evan Wright - USAPL Western Massacre 100kg class, (29 October 2022)
Yo… That’s blood!
This is Evan and I’s 5th meet together and his 6th in total. Oddly enough, however, this is our first being able to work 1 on 1 on the day, as I always end up having multiple lifters and to be truthful, I really think that made a huge difference in his performance, but more on that later.
There are several layers to this day that I do not think I can do complete justice, but I will try.
So, in general, at this point in his PL career, Evan is a “veteran” of the sport. Meaning, things like competition standards, executing in higher stakes scenarios, and staying neither too high, nor too low after a made or missed attempt, is not a limiting factor for him. With that, there is leeway in a coach/athlete relationship, and this definitely showed on this day.
Before we break down each lift, let’s first analyze prep into this meet. If you ever been around E Wright during training, he is the most lowkey person known to man. He comes in, executes the plan, keeps 95% of his work submaximal, and then when it is time to turn it up a notch, he can go there.
In terms of his squat training, we nailed it. I think the main thing with Evan, since he is a back dominant squatter, is we have to dose his workload not only creatively but in smaller doses than more leg dominant counterparts. Meaning, 5 sets of 5 low bar squats is more than likely not stimulating what we need to build leg strength, as he will inherently shift to using his back at some point when fatigue catches up.
We also learned the hard way that if we go the wrong direction with it, it can actually negatively effect his primary squat. We ran SSB squats, which were phenomenal for getting solid loading on a squat pattern movement, but they really effected his primary DL and primary SQ via back fatigue, so for the final portion of prep, we swapped those out for high bar squats and those really seemed to move the needle for him. This, accompanied with general unilateral accessory work, keep him healthy enough to keep up the progress.
Bench training was a bit hit or miss as Evan has been dealing with a shoulder injury that got better to a point, but did kind of stagnated as we had to begin pushing the bench for peaking purposes. Pros and cons were we knew he’d have a PR, just at what cost.
Deadlift training, frankly, was on point. He had pulled 600lbs for a breakthrough PR in the block before, maybe it was 2 blocks before, but never the less, I find it so interesting that small refinements made all the difference from him. In his first meet, he pulled conventional with a mixed grip, then eventually we moved to sumo with a mixed grip, finally, after a ton of time trying to figure out why his DL didn’t match his true strength, we settled on giving hookgrip a solid chance and man, did it take over. Evan also adopted a more patient pull, a smoother pull and I think that also helped as it allowed him to stay in position and leverage his strengths, much easier. Besides a small hand tear, we were locked and loaded.
Getting into the day, Evan has been gaining weight slowly for a good 8 months now and he has really filled out the 100kg class. I think with a couple months of slow and steady gaining, we can chill just a hair heavier and cut into the class and this was the saving grace for his career, as Evan has now raised his DOTS score 25 point while putting on 17lbs of bodyweight! That does not happen and sometimes, allowing your body to grow, really will allow you to see the gains you are capable of. He weighed in at 99.05kg/218lbs bodyweight and since he did not have to cut, was chilling as he prepared for for squats to start.
What was cool was I had actually been to this facility twice before, this being my third. So knowing the lay of the land and how things go, is huge for predictability sake.
Something I would recommend, if you are working in on a rack with people who are NOT the same rack height as you, get those rack heights before you start warming up as when things start to pick up in pace, having all things ready to go really makes a difference. Also be weary of assuming rack heights are the same across different combo racks, for reference Evan was an 18 rack height on the ER but was a 15 on the TSS. That, and have your warmups planned. I always do my best to help people who do not have help on the day, but it is hard when a lifter has absolutely nothing prepared besides their opener. What I usually tell people is if they know their warmups in pounds, I am pretty good with converting to kilos on the fly, but having nothing, really stalls everyone on that rack.
For Evan, I knew he had a big squat on the day based on warmups, but I have come to learn the pattern of judging and execution to the point where, if you leave any room for doubt on an opening attempt, when you circle back to attempt 2 and 3, you will be magnified x10. So, I told him intentionally to sink his opener, which he did but made the attempt not as clean as he knew he could hit it. We took our planned 2nd and simply adjusted to attacking, his body was primed to go to depth, he was good with commands, just attack under control. The second moved even better, so we called for 242.5kg/535lbs for his third, a +5kg meet PR and an all time PR, a weight he failed outright 12 weeks prior. When I tell you this was blown up, man, it was blown UP. He had 2.5-5kg to spare easy, and if we HAD to reach for 7.5kg for a do or die, it might have honestly been there. He will probably squat 250kg/551lbs by his next meet.
Bench, oddly enough, was cruising on the day. If any of you reading get to watch Evan bench, only then will you appreciate the weight he is putting up as I cannot think of a person I know who has a longer ROM than him. Even with a fairly wide grip, the bar is traveling easily 18-24 inches, with this, will come a high sticking point. His opener and his second, which was a 2.5kg meet PR of 142.5kg/314lbs, moved well enough to take our planned heavy third, 150kg/331lbs. Just was not there on the day, he said something felt off about it, and I think if we were to do it again, we would still load this. Did he have 2.5kg less? Ya, but with a meet PR secured, why not? It was not egregious and this will probably be a second by next meet when we get his shoulder healthy.
Finally, on deadlift, this is where I was going to see what he was made of. How was he going to bounce back from a missed third?
Warmups for deadlifts are always a bit chaotic, as usually people warm up way too early for squat and bench, but since deadlift usually is the quickest between attempts, start too late for their warmups to overcorrect. We did not make this mistake, but several people around us did, but the big key, is to stay calm but also be assertive. If you are cordial and inviting to others, it is no issue to say hey, yes, we can load what you need, but my guy has to go now. If you were an asshole in all the moments leading up to that, then rightfully so, it will come off as dismissive, so, treat people with respect and you can still make sure you are there to do what you have to do.
Evan’s opener moved clean, so we went up to 262.5kg/578lbs on his second. I planned for this to be the second as I knew we would be probably be taking a big swing on a third, and Evan has not PR’d his deadlift in a meet since 2020. Yes, he had not PR’d his best lift in 2 whole years. It is important as a coach to lay out a plan that reflects an athlete’s training. I think sometimes people put together an amazing prep and then leave with nothing to show for it because of poor attempt selection.
The way I see it, if you trained for a meet, paid for it, paid for the travel, etc… You might as well leave with something to show for it. Now, special circumstances arise here, but at the local level, I think this reigns true.
He nailed the second, and then we had a talk for the third. I mentioned this before, but if you have any concern on what to put in for an attempt, just put a number in. You can change it twice (for the deadlift) and there is no need to panic, especially amidst a 14 person flight with ample time to decide.
I thought 270kg/595lbs was the better call, but I gave him the opportunity, if he felt 272.5kg/601lbs was there, now is the time to take it. So he made the call, not me, so he get’s full credit here.
He went out, stayed on that thing, 3 whites, 601lbs in competition!
What a day.
In closing, I think the main takeaway from this meet with Evan is the theme of sticking with something through the tough stretches.
In the span I have worked with Evan, he went through a spell where he did not PR his squat or bench for a year, got injured, and then a stretch where he did not PR his deadlift for 2 whole YEARS. Some of you freak out when you have not progressed in a month! I think this is why this guy will eventually be a national competitor. There comes a point where being strong is what get you into the game but staying healthy and being disciplined is what keeps you there. I want you to take a second, you the reader, and think, would I still be powerlifting if I knew I would not PR for a 2 year stretch? This guy did, and it was all worth it.
To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 242.5kg (535lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 142.5kg (314lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 272.5kg (601lbs), +28lbs PR
Total: 657.5kg (1450lbs), +66lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, 406 DOTS (first DOTS over 400)
Team Hogan - Titan Barbell Open (25 September 2022)
Well, what a day. It seems like I, and the people preparing for this meet, had been waiting forever for the day to get here and honestly, this was one of the most electric meets I have been fortunate enough to be apart of.
Some general commentary for context, I had 5 people doing this meet, 2 women in the morning and 5 men in the afternoon and I find it interesting that all 5 had different goals not just in weights hit on the platform, but also what they wanted out of the day. Not to get too philosophical right off the bat, but realize if you are one to pass judgement easily at meets, there is context to every decision an athlete makes and sometimes if you bother to look into it, you will understand why people take the risks they do. More on that towards the end.
I will also say, I had no clue how this meet would turn out in terms of set up. Having been fortunate enough to train at Titan quite a few times now, I really could not mentally picture how a full meets setup would work here and I was pleasantly surprised to see just how well it turned out and that is a testament to meet director, Alyssa Orlando, who always runs very smooth meets.
Lastly, I want to thank the help I had on the day, primarily Josh Dang and Bobby Dortona, Josh helped me load weights all morning and afternoon, and Bobby helped handle Seamus and Kyle, and later Andrew as I tried to keep track of where everyone was on the day. Never will I ever think I above help and I am beginning to realize that in order for me to be on my game, I need help with this stuff, so if y’all are reading, I do not take your services for granted.
Let’s get into each lifters day, shall we?
Ladies first.
Bex Labitt - 52kg class
Bex had taken some time off from powerlifting specific training to dabble in some strongman (strongwoman???) work and I think the reset really helped as sometimes time away makes you put into perspective what you like and don’t like about the game. In terms of her prep leading into this meet, it felt like she was hitting some type of PR every single week and it really manifested in her performance confidence-wise, as I did not see any second guessing of herself this time around which was awesome and a testament to her hard work these last few weeks. What I have learned by trial and error, the lighter weight a lifter is, the less tapering they need to do to avoid detraining, doubly so if the lifter is female. In the past, I think I tapered her too hard and as such there was some detraining, this go around I made the call to pretty much keep training the exact same, but the last session before the meet was down slightly in volume and major in intensity and this was pushed till 2 days out instead of 3 days out. The results certainly justified the approach. Along with this, I think the most important variable is she allowed herself to gain bodyweight, which is sometimes a hard sell, but her DOTS coefficient went UP 41 points while weighing in about 7lbs heavier from her last meet. Again, this shows that weight gain is very crucial and borderline necessary at the lower weight classes as the results are almost linearly correlated, I am very proud that she went all in in that regard! She was one squat away from a 9/9 day and I think that will happen next meet!
Results:
Squat: 72.5kg (159lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 42.5kg (94lbs), +22lb PR
Deadlift: 95kg (210lbs), +50lb PR
Total: 210kg (463lbs), +88lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Jordyn Rocca - 67.5kg class
So, Jordyn’s performance was incredible outright, but the context really displays the level of commitment here as well as perspective for how crazy this really is. 8 weeks before this meet, Jordyn competed in the USAPL Maine Event: Summer Showdown, an event directed by myself and Andrew Graves, and totaled 290kg. She, along with everyone who did this meet, trains and Titan and mentioned that she wanted to do this meet as well and I will be honest, although I said yes, I did not know what we’d be able to piece together for it as peaking for meets back to back is rough in itself, and 8 weeks is sharp turn around. For reference, that means you take 2 weeks off that for intro back into training and then tapering into the meet, so that means you have 6 weeks of actual preparation time.
We decided to go with the better safe than sorry route, and pretty much run what we did into last meet as it provided favorable results and at bare minimum, we at least knew it wouldn’t NOT work. The only real addition was stiff legged deadlifts, which I think came in handy for his deadlift at this meet.
Her meet this summer was up 83lbs from her first meet, as such you’d think maybe up 2.5kg each lift, maybe totaling 7.5kg/16lbs more would be reasonable. However, her goal was to total 300kg, so we had to make up an extra 2.5kg somewhere, and make up for it we did.
We exceeded expectations almost across the board! Sky is the limit and after some off-season work, she will probably put another 100+ on her total within another year of work.
Results:
Squat: 120kg (264lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 55kg (121lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 130kg (286lbs), +11lb PR
Total: 305kg (672lbs), +33lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Tyler Hill - 90kg class
I can dance around the bush here but the fact of the matter is Seamus did not have his best day and I think I am to blame here and I will tell you why.
Seamus trains hard and with intent and has very high standards for himself and I believe I did not put him in a great spot to succeed and that pains me to say but I will own up to that.
There a few confounding variables that I believe made a difference, to be fair, but I think that is only a piece to the puzzle.
Things such as:
He really could not bench the way he wanted to from a weird glute flare up that rendered him benching feet up for what seemed like forever.
A tough one week out session in which he had a ton of things to do leading into that session that made it fall a bit flat.
A battle with his deadlift grip moving up to the 29mm stiff bar as this was a USAPL meet and he was used to doing USPA on the 27mm deadlift bar.
In regards to the first piece, I think had we had unaltered bench progression, he would be primed for a PR as he was very close to one despite all that.
Regarding the second, there is not a ton he can do about that and truth be told, we should have scaled back expectations a bit because of it as physiology aside, confidence is the bigger variable with that one week out session. That is completely on me and I suppose my reasoning is I know how hard he works so I wanted to at least give him the opportunity.
Then lastly, with the third point, this is where we have talked that moving forward, hookgrip is the move. I have had success with this approach with many people and believe he would be a great candidate, I would have liked to change sooner but it is a risk to change much when you are less than 4 weeks out.
Overall, I think the main culprit is I should have scaled back attempts to kind of save us from ourselves, ya, total would have been down but I did him a disservice allowing him to walk out of a meet going 5/9, this is unacceptable on my end and to be frank, I thought about it the entirety of the days since then, even though so many people did well, it KILLS me knowing I allowed someone to fall short. I will do better here.
Results:
Squat: 192.5kg (424lbs)
Bench Press: 135kg (297lbs)
Deadlift: 222.5kg (491lbs)
Total: 550kg (1212lbs)
5/9 on attempts
Kyle Kable - 140kg class
I think in terms of everyone who lifted on the day for me, Kyle stole the show and really, it is extremely deserved. Over the last couple of months, Kyle has gone back and forth with strongman training and powerlifting, and we have had to scramble to put together preps during this time where we pretty much took everything we could get, and then hope it will be there on the platform. Sometimes, it would be there, other times it wouldn’t.
Overall, I will say in terms of catching fire, this is the perfect example of what it can look like when you work with the same person for at least a year. Kyle and I have now done 4 preps together and I really feel we nailed the prescription for him this go around. Things that are not usually featured in other athlete’s programming, seem to really benefit Kyle, like 2 heavy bench singles a week, only 1 day of comp squatting and the other being a very distant variation, then using assistance movements such as trap bar deads to build his deadlift.
I really think we drastically exceeded expectations here as that was the kind of day he was having.
Also, oddly enough, Kyle did BETTER and performed as good or better in each lift on a stiff bar than his speciality bar numbers, which boggles my mind, but when I sat with it, it makes sense.
In the squat, it forces him to be more inside and create a bit more back stability.
Bench press is the same bar yes, but in USPA meets, generally bench is 2.5-3hrs after squats and fatigue really seems to effect him.
Lastly, for deadlift, his biggest technical flaw is rushing the bar off the floor and a stiff bar is very unforgiving with that. This, and the aforementioned timing piece, where I think the last USPA meet we went to, deads were around 6 hours after squats had ended.
Kyle not finished with the highest squat, bench, deadlift, and total of the meet and becomes Team Hogan’s first official 400lb bencher and the guy managed to bring his DOTS from 394 to 413 to place 6th overall in a 54 lifter meet!
This was truly, truly, a supernova day.
Results:
Squat: 275kg (606lbs)
Bench Press: 182.5kg (402lbs), +16lb PR
Deadlift: 295kg (650lbs), +28lb PR
Total: 752.5kg (1659lbs), +67lb PR
9/9 on attempts
Andrew Graves - 82.5kg class
Where do I start here, this was quite the day for Andrew here. To paint the landscape of the history we have, let’s rewind to July of 2018.
I have never been to a powerlifting meet and was completely in over my head on what to do. He had never competed before and all of a sudden we are in New York, in some place called the G-Box, warming up in the Gorilla Room, and we stumble our way to a 530kg/1168lbs total in the old 83kg class to the tune of a 190kg/419lbs squat, 120kg/264lbs bench press, and a 220kg/485lbs deadlift.
Between that point and now, passed 8 meets, this being the 9th and it is quite the journey to look back and see how far we’ve both come and then the context to each one of the performances that got him to this day, and this opportunity here.
I want to preface this that Andrew is not disappointed about this day, but I just find it kind of surreal to note that if we both put ourself in the shoes of ourselves in 2018, now, and fill our past selves in on the day he had, they’d be blown away 10 times over. That is how much progress you can make if you stick with it, and Andrew will be the first to tell you, it has not been an easy road to get to this opportunity.
Now that’s out of the way, I suppose we should talk about some things surrounding this performance.
Here are the facts and the objectives:
Qualify for Raw Nationals in the 82.5kg class, a total of 682.5kg/1504lbs to do so, 71lbs up from his best total.
Make all 9 lifts as we would not be afforded a miss, or, if we did, the plan would be substantially harder.
Rehab a back injury that left him unable to squat or deadlift heavy for a brief but important period.
Find a plan of attack for deadlift grip as he reached a threshold with his mixed grip that would fail him well south of what he could actually pull, despite every method under the sun used to bring it up.
Now, along with this, as close as 8 weeks out, Andrew had many things he needed to do or was asked to do, things such as, but not limited to:
Working full-time
Directing a sold-out meet that included full set-up, commentating, and take down
Handling several lifters across the US
Vacations with loved ones that required training to be worked around
Finally, his referee schedule picked up quite aggressively
To top it all off, very close to meet time, he was stricken with a common cold that rendered him almost to the point of passing out after a squat and bench workout.
Needless to say, this prep was not smooth in terms of variance, but I am not sure for Andrew that is even a deterrent anymore. The fact of the matter was, this was a home meet, with all his friends and family in attendance, and that was an opportunity we could not pass up in terms of being as aggressive as we possibly can to hit this qualifying total.
Coming into the day, we decided that the most realistic prescription to get to this QT would be:
Squat: 252.5kg/556lbs
Bench Press: 165kg/363lbs
Deadlift: 265kg/584lbs
Andrew tapers extremely well and we have been working together for 4+ years now so we have a good feel at this point for what he needs to hit in prep to get to that point and for the most part, we were right on the money with how we prepped for this, I felt.
Fast forward to the meet itself, Andrew was in a flight of 8, which goes by fast, but I think he might agree here we prefer the smaller flights. It let’s you stay in a rhythm, you do not have a chance to really get cold, and your mind does not tend to drift as much. Plus, he was closing the flight so we had ample time to clear out for warmups.
So, squat went well for the first 2 attempts, blowing up 242.5kg/534lbs on his second attempt, which was actually a 7.5kg PR and what he failed outright last meet. So, we made the call to go 252.5kg/556lbs. Now, this is where I think in hindsight, we could have made his life a bit easier on pull as this was just a hair too heavy on the day. No technical errors, just was not quite there. However, I do think 247.5kg/546lbs was there as a matter of fact, which would leverage us 5 extra kilos to work with going into bench, where we forced to take a safety call. This is on me, not him, but this is why I like to write these things down. There is a world where we hit 247.5, have the leverage to gamble for 165kg on bench, say we get lucky and he grinds it out, his subtotal going into deads is 412.5 and we “only” need to pull 270kg/595lbs, which was steep but if you get a chance to see his attempt at over 600lbs, it really could have been there. However, in the heat of the moment, you trust your gut and I do not think either of us really regret giving it a go. And you know, I confirmed why I think this kid is a national caliber competitor because after the miss here, he did the mature thing. He gave himself a few minutes to be mad and disappointed about it, but as soon as that arbitrary timespan was up, it was almost as if it didn’t happen. As a word to coaches, when something like this happens, know your lifter. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want someone to ask, “WHAT HAPPENED?”, right after a missed lift. If they need to be consoled, console them, otherwise, let them be.
Bench went well, with him hitting 162.5kg/358lbs for a 2.5kg bench press PR on his third. As I mentioned before, I told him we really could not afford a miss here and it ended up being the right call as the press commands on the day were longer than usual, not a complaint in the slightest because that’s the game, but certainly made us a bit more weary to load 165kg as if we missed that, and carried his 157.5kg/347lbs second attempt, we’d be left with a 390kg subtotal and need to pull 282.5kg/623lbs, which, objectively speaking, was not there and borderline reckless to attempt.
So, after bench, we cooled down a bit and made a call that I only think you make if you know each other, the plan was, we’d drop his planned last warmup, take 200kg/441lbs as his last warmup, drop his opener to essentially a last warmup weight of 230kg/507lbs, take a reasonable jump to get one on the board, and then go for it.
Now, Andrew told me explicitly that he did not care about a total PR. I wanted to stand by this but I brought it to his attention that we COULD because at that point, if we were going to take a hail mary attempt, we might as well leave the meet with a total that somewhat reflects his strength on the day and again, at that point, an extra 5kg to what would already be a huge jump to a third, really represented very little difference.
So, we enacted to take exactly what we needed to PR the total on his second, being 247.5kg/546lbs, which he made with relative ease, and then made the call to jump to what he needed to get the QT, that being 277.5kg/611lbs.
And oh ya, Andrew was pulling hook grip for the first time in a meet here. We decided early on that we needed to at least give this a try as we were at the end stages of finding a solution with his mixed grip, electing to use hook gradually but still keep mixed in for backdowns as to not lose it. The results were way better than we ever could expect.
So, with a new grip, back against the wall, pulling 12.5kg heavier than he anticipated and 50lbs heavier than anything he had ever attempted before, Andrew went out to a standing ovation and gathered the most ethereal intensity to give this thing a go.
Although he broke the floor, it was just too heavy on the day and he lost it forward. No lift, but man, what a moment.
What is cool to me as well, not only was the opportunity there, but at a meet where 9 lifters scored over 400 on DOTS, Andrew took 2nd in best lifter standings not even prioritizing his total.
Mark my words, the next time we compete, this total will be achieved. But for now, this will be a memory we carry for a lifetime as I cannot stress enough how electric the moments before and during that last attempt were.
Results:
Squat: 242.5kg (534lbs), +16lb
Bench Press: 162.5kg (358lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 247.5kg (546lbs)
Total: 652.5kg (1439lbs), +6lb PR
7/9 on attempts
In closing, I just want to say, I will cheer and be happy for all my lifters regardless of strength and regardless of their day as these guys and girls give their best efforts for me and to not celebrate, and make it known that their efforts are not in vain, is not something that I personally am interested in. So if it ever seems like I am taking it too seriously, or that I am overreacting, good, I would rather have that reputation than the opposite in which it does not look like I care at all.
To Utopia!
Team Hogan - Mens Team @ the USAPL Maine Event: Summer Showdown (30 July 2022)
Now, the guys turn.
Everyone who has ever been around me long enough knows I am super emotional when it comes to moments and although I am very inward with it, sometimes, I can’t keep it in. This was one of those times.
As a collective, the men took 4 podium spots, set numerous state records, one unofficial national record, and pretty much all showed up wearing suits. For me, it was like seeing my children (although some of them are much older than me) all unite to behave at a wedding or something. Trying to not be too cringy here, but that’s how much I care about these guys.
These 6 men (Nathan not shown, he had to pick up his son lol) all have 6 unique and important stories that led them to this point and I want to take the time to explain all of them. Again, in no particular order.
Brandon Allen - 140kg class
Brandon is someone who came to me a few months back that has really impressed me from top to bottom. Without going into detail, Brandon has been through some shit. Brandon will also be the first to tell you, he has had a lot of personal struggles that he has had to overcome on his own to make it here and for that, my hat is off to you sir.
What I admire most about Brandon is he is very, very coachable. In terms of raw strength, there are not many stronger than this guy, but we had a fair bit to clean up when he came to me in terms of executing to competition standard. For Brandon it is, you are doing X, do Y and things will go better, and he goes and does it. He doesn’t fight back, doesn’t complain, just works. How can you not succeed with that attitude?
During this prep, Brandon made the executive decision to take most of his heavy lifts on comp equipment over in South Portland and trained to a very strict comp standard that made his first meet, quite easy in terms of execution. This shows me that he really wanted this. It takes effort to drive out of your way to do this. It takes effort to even make it to the gym when you are on your feet for 8-9 hours at a time doing manual labor. I cannot force someone to want it, Brandon, clearly, wants this.
All of his lifts were anywhere from 11lbs to 18lbs up from his best lifts in training, a truly peaked performance and what we preach at Team Hogan. This is not always possible, but when it is, we want to save our PRs where it will count. I was in the gym with him when 315lbs was a heavy, heavy single. This meet, he squatted 402lbs with a ton to spare. He also set a junior state record on deadlift.
Brandon bro, I am so proud of you and although I have only known you for a bit compared to others, I consider you a great friend.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs)
Bench Press: 130kg (285lbs)
Deadlift: 235kg (518lbs)
Total: 547.5kg (1207lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Christopher Couillard - 90kg class
Chris man. Any lifter on Team Hogan will go up to bat for this guy because he is the consummate teammate and is always uplifting others and putting others first.
Going into last meet, Chris was dealt a tough hand in terms of a very serious back injury that left him deadlifting 135lbs for tempo reps, 12 weeks out from meet time.
Needless to say, we were able to rehab this over a very long series of weeks and months and for the first time in a while, had a healthy prep… Until the very end, in a weird way.
Chris dealt with his hands constantly tearing, something I suffered going into my last competition and it is something that is VERY annoying as it seems so minuscule compared to, say, a muscle injury, but if effects the deadlift more than anything, I would say.
Another component that we will fix this next go around, Chris is literally a meet day lifter. I think he would be comfortable with me sharing this, so I will. All the lifts Chris hit in the competition, he failed anywhere from 10lbs-20lbs LESS a week to 10 days out. Let that set in. As a coach, you see an athlete missed a lift, do you plan to go even HEAVIER in the meet? Well, Chris and I have been working together for a while now and I know how he operates and his patterns, so I did not second guess it.
Now, I want to contextualize his performance the best I can. After his second deadlift, he secured a PR total, albeit a small one, and I told him, you can either take what I know is there, or go 2.5kg heavier and have it be 50/50. I feel I owed this to him and wanted to give the opportunity to push himself a bit outside his comfort zone, him being the lifter he is, he asked for the second option. 247.5kg/546lbs.. 26lbs up from his final heavy lift that he did not complete due to hand tear. Man, this lift was as close as you can possibly get. Chris was maybe 2 inches away from lockout? Hand tore again, no lift.
I think although he wanted more, he was happy that the opportunity was there and you know what, so was I. I think all the people around Chris see his potential and to put it into perspective, there were 32 lifters in this session, and on a 7/9 day, Chris placed 7th overall. When he makes his first podium, I will 100% cry.
So proud of you Chris, when the super meet happens, maybe everyone will finally get it. I will never lose faith in you.
Results:
Squat: 190kg (419lbs)
Bench Press: 105kg (231lbs)
Deadlift: 240kg (529lbs)
Total: 535kg (1179lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Logan Allaire - 90kg class
Ah, Logan. My youngest athlete and certainly my most raw talented lifter. Logan, competing in his first meet, is only 15 years old.
Logan is also mature beyond his years and surprised even me with how he executed on this day as, for a first meet, there were a lot of variables.
Typically, in someone’s first meet, we want to go 9/9, leave some room for next time, and have a great time. And we wanted to do this with Logan, however, we found some cool things along the way that upped the ante, so to speak.
After Logan trippled 445lbs on squat around 10 weeks out, or so. I wanted to see roughly where he stood for the T1 90kg division as that was objectively a heavy load. Little did we know, that set was only 2.5kg under the American record for that division. You read that right, he hit 6lbs under the American record for 3. Naturally, we wanted to make sure he left the day with this, albeit unofficially. What I both like, and don’t like about USAPL, you need to set records under very strict parameters. Meaning, an American record is not official unless there are national referees present or at a nationally sanctioned meet. Although we knew this, he will live knowing he did this forever, as he exits this age division shortly.
I had multiple people tell me they did not believe he was 15 and how impressed they were with his execution and composure amidst a ton of pressure. That, my friends, is all him. Brandon was kind enough to take Logan to South Portland so he could get a feel for calibrated plates and comp equipment. He even went as far as wearing his singlet for each and every heavy day, like I mentioned before, when you train this way, the meets are almost easy and this day was certainly not difficult for him.
To put it short, Logan went 9/9, set 2 unofficial American record squats, and hit an all time PR squat, bench, and deadlift in meet. He took his final deadlift to Sidewalks by The Weeknd and when I say it got me emotional, I had to take a second to catch my breath after the lift.
Logan qualified for both Teen and High School Nationals, where in the latter, I have a feeling he will be favored to win or at the very least medal. Team Hogan has not had a medalist, besides myself, at a national meet, it would be an honor for him to be the first.
His potential is as high as any lifter I have ever come into contact with and if he stays with this, there is a chance Maine could have it’s first multi-time national medalist in well over 3 decades.
Results:
Squat: 222.5kg (491lbs), unofficial American record in T1, 90kg class
Bench Press: 110kg (242lbs)
Deadlift: 205kg (453lbs)
Total: 537.5kg (1184lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Nathan Hilton - 75kg class
Nathan Hilton, the adult of the group. Although Brandon, Chris, and Michael are my age, Nathan is a homeowner who has a young son, a wife, and works 5 days a week. Nathan is someone I really respect, as I remind him all the time, if most of my boys had to deal with what you did day to day, week to week, they’d be out of the sport. Nathan trains at anywhere from 3:30am to 5:30am, before his family wakes up, because he knows he won’t have the time later and to boot, he trains alone 100% of the time. Think about that, whatever you are doing right now, do it at 3:30am and completely alone and see what progress you make.
We have worked very hard on execution on squat depth at heavy loads, legit pauses on bench, and locking out heavy deads and for the most part, this work really manifested.
This being Nathan’s third meet under me, we have a ton of data points on him and that really helped cultivate the approach leading into this meet. What you are about to read is going to seem impossible for a good meet, but it is the truth.
The only tapering we did, was reduced training volume 3 days out with 2 rest days. That is it. Most of my people taper 2 weeks out with volume and then the week of with intensity. We tried this twice and Nathan’s strength flat-lined the day of the meet, so many weeks out I told him this was the move, and it 100% was. What we did was take our heaviest lifts around 10 days out and 7 days out and those would be our planned thirds as timing the peak up for the meet is hard with this style of taper.
Besides a few bench hiccups, this was the meet that solidified that Nathan can and will continue to improve and that, and this is what I kept telling him on the day, he matters too.
Results:
Squat: 115kg (253lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 90kg (198lbs)
Deadlift: 152.5kg (336lbs), +6lb PR
Total: 357.5kg (788lbs), +17lb PR
7/9 on attempts
Elliot Woznica - 90kg class
Oh Elliot, how far you’ve come.
For those who are unaware, I started working with Elliot a bit over a year ago, as he was a member of my gym and was turning up daily getting lit with his boys, a simpler time.
Over the span of the last year, I would wager to say he is not only one of the people I am closest with in this life, but someone I consider a great friend of mine.
His first meet, a lower level one for high schoolers only, in Massachusetts, occurred on March 12 of 2021, in which he totaled 909lbs. From that point to now, I have seen nothing short of pure dedication, resiliency, intent, aggressiveness, and most importantly, maturity. You see, Elliot is a young man himself, only turning 19 fairly recently, but with 4 meets under his belt already, he is what I would consider an experienced lifter and that all came to fruition at this meet here.
Like Logan Allaire and Brandon Allen, and later Michael Beaupre, Elliot is someone I see multiple times a week so as soon, I see the day to day struggles, the hang-ups, the supposed lack of progress, in real time. However, the beauty of that is we are able to navigate that in the moment and 9/10 find a resolution rather expeditious.
This is the first prep that kind of challenged Elliot. Before, when he was not as strong, he could, quite frankly, stumble into 100lb total PRs because of where his base level was. I think he knew in the back of his mind, it won’t be this easy moving forward.
The biggest factors for Elliot this prep were:
He was to compete at 90kg/198lbs, most of the prep he was above 208lbs.
He injured his thumb very close to the meet and had to pull in straps exclusively as it healed.
A week out he failed a bench press leading into the meet.
So, we had a weigh variable, an injury variable, and then a confidence variable. This is where I think he really, what we call, “leveled up”, in that he just kinda embraced it and went for it anyway.
Elliot communicates with me very often and it makes our coach/athlete dynamic unbreakable as he trusts me and I trust him because of it.
He is also someone who is very prone to getting into his own head about how a certain weight is feeling or looking and I usually do my best to reassure him to fall back to the data. Just because X weight feels awful 2 weeks out, does not mean when we load heavier at the meet it will feel bad. It took a while but I think next meet he will 1000% trust this process as he has peaked to BIG attempts each meet and always feels like a God on the day.
At this particular meet, he weighed in very light. 195lbs, his lowest weigh in since meet #2 over a year ago. Although he has put on quite a bit of muscle, this concerned me as he did most of his heavy training around 202-208lbs. This did not manifest in the squat or deadlift, but did on the bench press.
A couple cool moments here.
I was able to be in the back with Elliot during his warmups and I will probably always remember this. He was taking his second warmup for 4 or so reps, rep 1 was high and I lipped “LOWER” to him as he had his headphones on. The old Elliot would have been freaking out, instead he sunk the next 3 and they moved EASIER. That’s when I knew it was on.
Elliot took a page from coaches book as he worked himself up into an emotional turmoil pre-squat and deadlift third attempt and really locked in when it mattered and I think he will remember what this feeling was like.
Despite 2 misses, he fought as hard as I have ever seen a human fight on bench, missing his 2nd and 3rd attempts by mere inches, which tells me next time when we have to grind a heavy bench out, he can do that.
Lastly, he hit 2 milestones. His first 400+lb squat and then executed his third attempt deadlift for the first time since meet #1. He came out to Die Hard by Kendrick Lamar (a song we have been playing endlessly since May) for squat and Chasing Pavements by Adele for deadlift and man, what a truly emotional moment for me, and him, and everyone watching, to see him hit an all time PR and hold on to it for 2-3 seconds after the down command.
He made his first podium, along with Logan Allaire, in the teen division.
The boy has become the man, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, this is only the beginning. I believe this kid will make a nationals within the next 4 years, I also know a lot of people won’t believe that. They will see.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs), +28lb PR
Bench Press: 130kg (286lbs)
Deadlift: 205kg (453lbs), +50lb PR
Total: 517.5kg (1140lbs), +77lb PR
7/9 on attempts
Michael Beaupre - 67.5kg class
Well, I saved this one for the last because the ending to this one literally played out like a movie, and I am not exaggerating.
Let’s contextualize this for a second here.
Michael has a strong case to be considered the most decorated lifter from Maine of the last 20 or so years. Well over 50 state records, won a national title in the teen division, represented the US at IPF Worlds, and has been a executing at a high level since 2014.
All that said, this was only Michael’s second meet since 2018 after a very extended period of time off from the sport. His first meet back in January went well, as we were able to PR his squat, his deadlift, and his total to a small degree, but I don’t know about him, but if we said this is where he would be 7 months later, I would have sworn he moved up a weight class or something.
There are a lot of things to unpack here, but the main thing is this is the first prep Michael trained heavy. As a 67.5kg/148lb weight class lifter myself, I have seen first hand the benefit of being over 150lbs for most of the year for my own training and then water cutting into the class instead of walking around very light to begin with. Looking at Michael’s weigh ins in the 66kg/145lbs and 67.5kg/148lbs weight classes, his registered weights have been:
141.9lbs in 2017
138.4lbs in 2018
144.8lbs in January 2022
145.7lbs in July 2022
Now, this was a different 145.7lbs as he water cutted here around 150lbs and was eating and drinking the day of the meet, I think we have data next time, cut from like 152-153 to have even more leverage.
This flatout made a huge difference as most of his gains this prep came during the weight gain period, which is a natural lifters steroid.
Beyond this, we found a protocol that seems to really work with Mike and it is kind of unconventional in that we only comp squat once a week, the other being SSB work. We only comp bench twice a week, the other being multi-grip bench. And we only comp dead once a week with the other day being light conventional. When something works, you run with it.
The goal for this meet, outright, was a qualifying total for Raw Nationals. This total was 572.5kg/1262lbs. Based on training, we had enough strength to lock in that on a second attempt deadlift, based on what he squatted and benched, and then go for something big on a third attempt deadlift.
What we had was ranges for squat and bench and based on that, we would change the deadlift attempts to reflect a QT on the second attempt, assuming it was not well into the 530 range.
As the meet played out, it was almost as if a force I cannot explain was on our side as everything had to go right in order for this to happen. I will explain.
We have a dilemma on what to go for the third squat, 202.5kg/446lbs or 200kg/441lbs. Mike makes every single lift look like RPE 3 so bar speed is NOT a good indicator for him. I thought, let’s go with what is 100% there and not 97% there, confidence wise as we can make up 2.5kg lost from not attempting 202.5kg. He goes out, smokes, it. 3/3 with momentum into bench. You see, with the second attempt we took of 195kg/429lbs, if we missed a third for any reason, we most likely are not making up 5kg on the bench or deadlifts, especially if we encountered what would happen later. This is a tale of just take the make, especially if something is on the line.
Next, bench. We talked about this before, bench for lightweight lifters peaks late and peaks hard. Meaning, the 250lbs you hit 6 weeks out that felt slow, probably will feel effortless on the day. Michael knows how to bench as he has done a Bench Worlds. Again, the dilemma was do we go 135kg/297lbs, or 132.5kg/292lbs. Michael has a high sticking point, so I thought okay, if we take 2.5kg lighter here, we have to make up 5kg total on deadlift, which based on training, he was in shape for. We take 132.5kg/292lbs, make. His first bench PR since 2018!
Now, this is where the show began. During intermission I called Michael over and we did the math on what he would need to pull to secure a 572.5kg total. The number was 240kg/529lbs. Our planned 2nd was 237.5kg/524lbs. We simply added 2.5 to that and then we bumped his opener up 2.5kg and all his warmups up 2.5kg. My thought process, that I talked to Mike’s dad about, who helped out on the day and always does a phenomenal job as Mike’s muse, was take it on the second so if he hit’s it, we can attack something heavy as winning was already locked up, but also god-forbid something weird happens, we have another chance at it and not be left like me in March where I got my third attempt turned away and had to wait 16 more weeks for redemption. So, he takes 227.5kg/501lbs on the opener, clean. We jump to it for the second, 240kg/529lbs. Then ,my worst nightmare happens. The bar hit the floor and Michael flies back. No lift. What happened next, seriously, still gives me chills writing about. We talked, there is not reason for you to not his this, you did 525 for 2 before, you don’t miss on grip. We loaded up on baby powder, more so than I would ever use and Mike moved his grip out a hair as I screamed to the person brushing the bar to clean the inner parts where the baby powder was, in which he obliged. If Mike pulls this, he goes to nationals. If Mikes misses again, we have to circle back, find another meet to qualify and this whole process get’s extended an extra 3-4 months. The bar was loaded, the people in attendance knew the moment, the people on the stream knew the moment, it all came down to this one attempt. He went out, this lift was a fight. He got the down command and for split second, a very roaring crowd went silent, completely silent, as we waited, we finally saw it, three white lights and pandemonium ensued. Everything this kid has been through to get back to this point, all the hours he put into this prep, trusting me, finding himself as a lifter again, his experience as a competitor, all of that showed on this attempt and we both lost it.
Michael Beaupre, the person who got me into powerlifting, is now the first lifter in Team Hogan history to qualify for an open nationals. What a meet, what a year. If there is one thing for sure, the 67.5kg class is in good hands for the next decade in Maine and at some point in time, our legacy will be defined as one of the better ones to grace the platforms from this state.
Results:
Squat: 200kg (441lbs), +22lb PR
Bench Press: 132.5kg (292lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 240kg (529lbs), +50lb PR
Total: 572.5kg (1262lbs), +88lb PR
8/9 on attempts
At the time of this post, the #13 total in the US for all junior 67.5kg lifters out of 167
Team Hogan - Womens Team @ the USAPL Maine Event: Summer Showdown (30 July 2022)
Ladies first around here.
To say I am proud of this fine group of not only incredible lifters but outstanding individuals, would be a vast understatement. We had 5 women compete on the day, something, to be quite honest, I never anticipated as at this time list year, I believe we had one total female lifter compete at this meet and I think I only had 4 total on the roster, last time I checked, I believe we have tripled that at this point in time.
The lifter’s on the day were Liz Bernier in her first meet, Emily Gallant in her second meet, Jordyn Rocca in her second meet, Carlee Cummings in her second USAPL meet, and Amanda O’Connor in her second USAPL meet.
So, to put it quite frank, I was as overloaded as one human can be on this day. Not only was I beyond exhausted from the night before, I was very anxious, as I usually am for meets that are not my own. You see, I feel it is my responsibility to put these girls in a positions they can succeed and when I fail to do that, it really eats at me. So, I prefer to leave no stone unturned, and doubly so for my first time competitors. We had a range of goals here and the big take away that I had is the group of girls I had on the day are resilient but realistic and beyond that, supportive of each other. Not everyone will jive 100% and that is fine, but when you catch lightning in a bottle and everyone wants to see each other do just as well as themselves, that is when you have the magical days like this.
As a whole, we collectively went 44/45 on attempts and most importantly, everyone had a euphoric time, at least that is what I was told. In no particular order, I will breakdown each person’s respective performance.
Liz Bernier - 82.5kg class
Miss Elizabeth performed like a seasoned veteran of the sport on this day.
Where as she had not done a powerlifting meet before, I believe she had a distinct advantage in that she came to me a pretty polished lifter already and although we certainly tightened up the bolts, so to speak, on a few of her lifts, she already knew how to move so her progress came from finding a scheme that compliments the demands of the sport, which I feel we did big time. Liz also does a phenomenal job of communicating and we navigated a few non-ideal scenarios a few weeks out, very well.
As with most first time competitors, my biggest concept is making sure the day is an overall positive experience, as too many times I see people show up to a meet and be completely overloaded with the nuances of the day and end up underperforming to their standard by default. It seems like a simple sport, but timing warmups, when to change, when to eat and drink, remembering to put in the next attempt, remembering the commands, etc… Is a lot, especially when you do not have anyone their with you, that is why I try to handle as much as I possibly can so it condenses what they have to focus on, to just what is going on for their lifts. The first meet is not the meet to go 5/9, nor is any meet, but certainly not the first.
Liz’s prep was phenomenal and I think another advantage she has is she is her own biggest critic in terms of execution. As simple as it sounds, if you train for months and months on end to competition standard, the actual meet itself, is really the easy part and aside from general jitters, I feel she would agree.
Another thing I will add is Liz is a very patient lifter and that bodes well to competition lifts, if you are one to rush walkouts, unracks, routines, etc… you will be humbled on the day when one missed step or set up throws you completely off, so it is better to keep all the variables you can control at bay, as beyond that, strength is the only limiting factor and I would much rather a lifter fail on strength than technicality, we can get stronger, but execution is something that waxes and wanes.
I am very proud of her and cannot wait to see how much she destroys this total at her next meet, whenever that may be!
Results:
Squat: 102.5kg (226lbs)
Bench Press: 60kg (132lbs)
Deadlift: 117.5kg (259lbs)
Total: 280kg (617lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Emily Gallant - 100kg class
Emily is a lifter than I have been working with since around mid-January, where she competed in her first meet and did very well, I was also co-director of that meet.
To put it short, Emily has a very busy schedule as she has a family and works long hours and many times, fits training around these things the best she can, even if it is at crazy hours or off-days, week to week. For some of my people, and they would admit this, if their schedule is off by a hair, all hell would break loose in terms of performance, for lifters like Emily, they almost thrive in it, which is something you cannot coach.
Emily is also another very good communicator and gives me great detail with her check-ins, something I do not take for granted as it makes it so much easier to build each successive cycle when I know 100% what is going on, as opposed to 60-70% of the total picture. Her and Liz actually train at the same gym, a gym that certainly gets the job done, but I am glad they took the pilgrimage out to Jacked and Jilled a week out, along most of my team, to feel out comp equipment.
What I have noticed with Emily is when we implement a new cue, she takes to it almost immediately and you only need to cue it once. That, to me, is the sign of someone who is very in-tune with their body and again, makes my job easier.
Emily went 9/9 and honestly, had more in the tank on squat and deadlift, next meet, if it is around 20-24 weeks after this, I could see her either opening or hitting her meet PRs here as seconds.
Results:
Squat: 102.5kg (226lbs), +33lb PR
Bench Press: 60kg (132lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 117.5kg (259lbs), +22lb PR
Total: 280kg (617lbs), +61lb PR
9/9 on attempts
Jordyn Rocca - 67.5kg class
Jordyn has a strong case for breakout performer of the day and to me, had the most impressive performance, from both boys and girls I had on the day, when you factor in the chaos that was her 2 weeks before the meet.
Before I get into that, I want to set the stage for how much Jordyn has improved since meet #1. We started working together shortly after she attended Team Hogan lifter, Bex Labbitt’s first meet, at this same facility, in January of this year. Shortly thereafter, she did her first meet in Augusta where she performed incredible. That meet was in March and with this meet being in July, we had roughly 4 months to prepare, 16ish weeks. Now, that is actually not a bad span between meets, however, progress, although expected, usually is fairly minimal, 5kg or so on each lift on the high end. You will see quickly what Jordyn did in this span was nothing short of spectacular.
Jordyn is also the prototypical worker. Here is the plan, then she goes and executes to the highest possible standard. A big emphasis for us this prep was to slow down progression to peak properly, limit excessive depth on squats, and make sure all bench reps are paused and held for a longer time than what would be needed in the meet. She did all of these things and then some, what we saw was a brand new lifter.
Now, to the important part, Jordyn was out of the country until 7 days out from the meet, having to scramble to put together sessions in Portugal with limited equipment the best she could.
With this, we elected to move her heavy deadlift day to the final heavy session of the block, the one she would be taking in the gym she usually trains at in the states. Probably jet lagged and exhausted, on a very hot Sunday, she came in and gave it her best effort and despite some lifts being a bit janky compared to her usual standard, I knew are bare minimum, she would be ready mentally. All we did is adjust her week of taper a bit to account for this. Again, put yourself in her shoes, do you execute like she does? Probably not, I can say I most likely would not have!
Jordyn is the definition of a gamer as well, she has a very special mindset and does a great job of blocking things out for that one moment it matters.
I’ll let the cat out of the bag, Jordyn put 84lbs on her total in 4 months. You read that right. All time squat and deadlift PRs as well. So, so proud!
And oh ya, she is doing another meet in 8 weeks. 300kg total? I think so.
Results:
Squat: 112.5kg (248lbs), +28lb PR
Bench Press: 52.5kg (116lbs), +22lb PR
Deadlift: 125kg (275lbs), +33lb PR
Total: 290kg (639lbs), +84lb PR
9/9 on attempts
Amanda O’Connor - 60kg class
Amanda, where do I begin with this one. To make a very long story short, Amanda and I have been working together for quite a bit now and I have seen SO much growth overall from her in and out of the gym since the advent of our working relationship. Without getting into detail, Amanda was looking for a change of scenery last fall and sometimes, that is all you need to hit a second wind, so to speak, and I am honored to be apart of her journey.
For lack of a better series of words, Amanda is a very confidence-based and mental lifter. Meaning, success does a lot for her confidence and lack of success drains it. So, my approach with her is very submaximal and we chip slowly and only when we both think she is ready for more.
During this prep, squat and bench emerged as her lifts that were going to shine regardless, and we knew this pretty early on. What Amanda does very well, is she has a good feel for when something feels good and when it does not, in terms of technique and execution. Some people stumble into a good lift and you ask then how it felt and they can’t pinpoint and default to, “I dunno”, on the squat and bench, Amanda found her “sweet spots”, where depth was, where to touch on the chest, and just repped the hell out of it.
Now, deadlift gave her fits and to be blunt, I was relieved it went well enough on the day. In terms of leverage, she is not built to deadlift in with either stance. Her arms are shorter, making conventional more bent over at the hips than most, while she does not possess very long legs, making sumo positioning hard to get into.
This is NOT me saying, her deadlift will never be strong, in fact I think we are right there in terms of a breakthrough, but I do think a stance change next block will do her good, even if it is just for mental and emotional clarity.
Amanda is another person who, for whatever reason, really turns it on on meet day, outperforming her training numbers and executing BETTER, where it matters, this is never a bad thing.
We were able to do a few cool things.
PR her total for the first time since her first meet that used deadlift bars and to be quite honest, was to lower standard of execution.
Set multiple state records, one in the bench press and another in the total! Like, what!
All in all, Amanda’s best day’s in the sport are ahead of her and I think once we get deadlift situated, we’ll total north of 600lbs next meet.
Results:
Squat: 100kg (220lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 47.5kg (105lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 107.5kg (237lbs)
Total: 255kg (562lbs), +22lb PR
9/9 on attempts
Carlee Cummings - 75kg class
Carlee performed INCREDIBLE on this day and to be honest here, I would be hard pressed to say she did not earn every single kilo on the day, with all the work she put into this prep and how she constantly bounced back from adversity.
Much like Emily, Carlee has a young son to take care of and a family of her own on top of working full time, so training is usually the last part of her day where she trains primarily on a pair of squat stands in her basement area. Not a lot of extras here, just a barbell and plates. Do specific machines help? Yes. Can you get by just fine with plates, a rack, and a bar? Absolutely.
Now, Carlee has a few issues this prep, the first being getting very sick a few weeks out and then having a weird shoulder injury a few DAYS out.
The first we were able to navigate easily, although she still felt the effects a week or so later, the second, I won’t lie, concerned me a bit.
Oddly, the shoulder pain did not effect bench, but really hurt getting into position for squat and the lift Carlee was most anxious to get after was her planned 3rd attempt squat of 137.5kg/303lbs.
Even as late as 2 days out, it really bothered her but there is something to be said about being proactive when things like this inevitably happen instead of feeling sorry for yourself. Carlee scheduled a few massages and we already were going lighter that week with a few rest days towards the end, I told her that the best we can do is hope adrenaline kicks in and we go numb. Luckily, she did not, to my knowledge have any pain on the day and thank god as we were RIGHT there with her biggest goal.
To make the long story short, Carlee went down to depth and stood up with 303lbs on squat, I turned my head for a second after she stood up to run across the platform. When I saw the monitor, I saw three red lights. Missed rack command. Was I disappointed, ya for her, a bit, but what I have learned from my own lifting, where I had an important lift taken away from me, is there will always be another meet to make it right. I guarantee this won’t happen to her again and we have bigger squats planned, much higher than 303. Besides this, Carlee really redeemed herself. She executed a very smooth PR bench press and, without her knowing, executed a third attempt meet PR deadlift that brought her from 4th place to 2nd place overall. This was huge as there was a ton of women competing at this meet that were very, very strong. 2nd overall in the open AND overall. Ahhh!!!!
Despite all the turbulence, still, we rise.
Results:
Squat: 132.5kg (292lbs), +6lb PR
Bench Press: 70kg (154lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 150kg (331lbs), +17lb PR
Total: 352.5kg (777lbs), +28lb PR
8/9 on attempts
To summarize this portion of the meet I am very proud and only see us growing on the female side. Women in strength sport is very important, not just in the moment, but for the future generations. So if there was one girl in the audience who saw these girls lift and thought, hey, I can do this one day, I think we did our job in the big picture.
Lastly, one thing I am proud of, we did not miss a third attempt bench press. The third attempt women’s bench press is the most missed lift in all of powerlifting and it usually stems from taking greater than a 2.5kg jump from 2nd to 3rd. In our session, out of 23 lifters, only 12 successfully completed their 3rd attempt, a success rate of only 52% and 5 of those 12 were Team Hogan lifters. When in doubt, jump 2.5 and take the make in this scenario!
To Utopia.
Dave Cailler - USPA Resilient Classic II 110kg class, (23 July 2022)
Big Dave has returned.
After a for fun meet in August of 2021, Dave took a very extended off-season that very clearly paid off in terms of how much he added to his lifts.
This day, really was the manifestation of all the things he had worked on over the last year and it played out in real-time. This was a home meet, so to speak, as this is the gym he has been training at ever since taking a job down in Connecticut. This venue was sneakily awesome, from the outside it does not look like much but it just keeps extending further and further and has all the bells and whistles to get strong.
Per usual, Team Hogan rolled in with a pit crew 6-7 deep, which is awesome as although I feel comfortable handling things solo, the more help, the better, especially at USPA meets that do not provide multiple monitors and no liftingcast for real time updates.
This is NOT a knock, but USPA meets, in my experience, tend to run a fair bit slower than USAPL meets, which is neither a good nor bad thing, but it does throw a wrench sometimes in planning warmups.
You see, in USAPL, there is always the flights, a 10 minute intermission (on the dot) between lifts, and that helps pace things down to really the exact minute. Andrew Graves and I tend to count out the flight, multiply it times 3 for the amount of attempts, and then find where our lifter is in their flight and pace things that way. You need to know how far out they are from their opener, but also get feedback with how much time they want between last warmup and opener. This usually is fool-proof, however, when that 5 minute intermission goes to 7 minutes, a flight of 14 has loading issues or rack height issues, timing things this way can put you ahead of schedule or behind, very quickly. However, that is sports, things will never be perfect and that is not a valid reason to place stress on.
Another variable I should mention, Dave got really sick during the week of the meet, corona-negative, but sickness during a water cut certainly is not great as you are acutely dehydrating yourself when your body is working overtime. He certainly was not 100% on the day, maybe 93-94% but on his second warmup of 125kg, he was citing he felt like he was going to pass out. It was also very, very hot and that did not aid in this feeling go away. But I digress, variables.
So, to put it frank, Dave’s squat has blown up and I knew (and he knew), this would be the shiny lift of the day. Prior to this meet, his best meet squat was 628lbs. For his third attempt this meet, he nailed 716lbs with pretty much nothing to spare. What I like about Dave’s squat is he is in control of the weight every single inch of the range of motion, to some, this may look, “slow”, but I look at it as deliberate. If you are in control, minor errors either do not happen or, if they do, you are able to correct immediately, with a more speedy descent, that counteraction can throw you in a position you are not ready to handle and that’s when you see the squats that are missed at a very high sticking point. All the SSB squats, high bar work, paid off here. 88lbs on an already strong squat in just under a year’s time is truly incredible, bodyweight gain also helped in this regard.
Bench press was again, a sneaky strong performer, Dave has put a ton of quality size on and again, getting bigger has been the biggest variable for bench progress when you bench like he does. I would be remiss to note we upped bench frequency big time, benching 4x per week with lots of volume and it very clearly paid off and is the prescription going forward. Coming into the day, his best bench was 358lbs, on this day, he benched 396lbs with a bit more to spare. 402lbs, to be honest, was there, and I think in hindsight, I would have made that call, the second attempt was just ever so slightly too shaky for me to feel confident in it, and he co-signed. I can admit when I made the incorrect call and this was one of those times, however, I would gladly make the right call and lose just 2.5kg off the top end then overshoot the wrong call and then we lose an effective 7.5-10kg carrying only our second into deadlifts. He will probably bench like 419-425 his next meet, so I am not worried here.
Now, deadlifts. This one was tricky and I think there were a few compounding variables here.
The end of the day. Lifting started at 9 and I think he pulled his final deadlift at 4:30pm. Preparation aside, this is a huge factor, even the longest SBD days are maybe 3 hours tops.
Hands swelling. His fingers had swollen so far that when he closed his hand it looked like a glove from Glove World on Spongebob.
Maybe the wrong attempts, this is 100% on me. Based on opener, we most likely should have gone like 733 and ended at 755-760. But we stuck to our plan coming in and we were maybe 2-3 inches of lockout away from nailing 749 as a retry.
His opener at 705lbs, which was already a meet PR, moved good but not GREAT, not like he usually moves it. His second, of 749, frankly moved good but there was a little hiccup at the knee that caused him to misgroove it.
Now this is where there is levels to this shit. When you are lifting under 600lbs on a lift, which is a cut-off I made up, but certainly valid, repeating a lift after a miss where you had to stay on it for a bit, when it is well over 700lbs, is very difficult to do. On his third, he broke it off the floor clean and was perfect all the way until he got to the mid-quad, just couldn’t get the knees locked and that was the manifestation of squatting 716 earlier in the day right there with how quad dominant sumo is off the floor. I am happy grip was not the limiting factor today, all things considered.
All in all, Dave currently carries the #21 total in the USPA out of 821 lifters this year in the 242lb weight class and did that on a 7/9 day. A great day and one I really feel honored to be apart of as he is the first person on Team Hogan to total 1800lbs+, Bobby Dortona was the first to 1700, Dave the first to 1600.
I see Dave, God-willing he stays injury-free, becoming a top 10 lifter in the 242lb class and totalling 2000lbs before his career is over, and I do not say that with grandeur.
To Utopia, the next time we take the platform, we will be in Oklahoma City, bringing New England to that bitch.
Results:
Squat: 325kg (716lbs), +88lb PR
Bench Press: 180kg (396lbs), +38lb PR
Deadlift: 320kg (705lbs), +6lb PR
Total: 825kg (1819lbs), +133lbs PR
7/9 on attempts
At the time of this post, the #21 total in the USPA @ 242lbs out of 821 lifters this year
Erik Hogan - USAPL Odyssey Summer Open 67.5kg class, (16 July 2022)
Yes, it is I.
Crazy to say, this was meet #9 for me. I cannot recall where I came across this information, but the average competitor only does 3 total meets in their career, so, to triple that span and still have the same fire as I did back in 2018, is something I carry in high regard. This meet, really meant everything to me and was honestly the culmination of all the things I have learned from meet #1-#8.
To set the precedent of why this meet was so special to me, I have to rewind to March of this year.
I was amidst my first year as a teacher, driving 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, staying up until 11pm to prepare for the day, having to be up the next morning at 5am in order to show up to school on time and not be starving. All of this, on top of coaching a vast group of lifters and co-directing a competition around this time. This is not to say, whoa is me, my life is so hard, look at how impressive this is, but it is a calling to those who think we have infinite recovery resources and have endless time to prepare our nutrition and are never stressed with things outside of training, the fact of the matter is we all have the same 24 hours in a day and how we choose to allocate our free-time generally defines our successes in the avenues we pursue.
March 19, I competed in my 8th meet near Springfield, Mass and it was a bitter sweet moment for me, in that I had my final deadlift to secure a 9/9 day and a milestone 1301lb total, taken away, 2 red lights to 1 white light. Now, I am a fairly liberal person when it comes to judging and understand people are human, but I knew at the end of the day, good call or not, it was on me to be as undeniable as possible at all times and never even give people the opportunity to take a lift away from me due to technicality, if I am going to miss, I will simply not be strong enough.
I am beginning to realize that other people do not necessarily feel this way, but it pains me when I make an error and in return, my top end is diminished because of said error. What I mean is, I’d gladly leave 2.5kg on the table each lift, if it meant a 5-7.5kg total PR. The total is the only thing I care about. I do not care about DOTS, I do not want to “squat X, bench Y, deadlift Z”, I just want to know what I need to hit the goal total I have and what permutation of numbers is most realistic to get me there. Early on, I was not like this. I wanted to PR every single lift, get best lifter, etc… When you have 4-5 different goals going on at once, at least for me, I tend to fall short in almost all of them. So, these days, my goals going into each meet are, “I want to hit this total and I want to go 9/9.” What I have found is good things usually come to me if I do these things and do not worry about anything else. Keep the goal, the goal, that will be important later on.
This was the shortest turnaround I have had from a meet in quite some time, about 16 weeks, and honestly, I think that is a good time frame for me. I don’t quite vibe with the notion that you need to take 24 weeks to “build” and then find a meet and then all of a sudden it has been 10 months between meets, because what usually happens is you get overzealous, maybe push a little too hard, and then set yourself back and lose that edge competition seems to sharpen. Beyond that, I love meets, so as long as you have time to build somewhat of a base, I think you should compete regularly.
Before I talk about the day and training leading in, I want to discuss weight cutting, as this is something I think I have done a pretty good job with over my career and have been able to use the leverage advantage of being bigger to pretty substantial measures. What I have done the last couple of meets is start my water cuts a pound heavier than usual, and I will fully anticipate waking up heavier and then I will spit my way to the threshold for making weight. Trial and error, Jolly Ranchers are what people usually use for this, I tried that both times before this and it degraded my teeth enamel and tongue so badly that I could barely eat without tooth pain and salt feeling like dry ice on my tongue. For those who are curious, this is what I do to make weight for a 2-hour weigh in.
Sunday (6 days out) - 1.2g gallons of water, 7-8g of sodium, normal food
Monday (5 days out) - 1.2 gallons of water, 7-8g of sodium, normal food
Tuesday (4 days out) - 1.75 gallons of water, 7.8g of sodium, normal food
Wednesday (3 days out) - 1.75 gallons of water, 7.8g of sodium, normal food
Thursday (2 days out) - 2.2 gallons of water, under 1g of sodium, food as energy dense as possible (chocolate, unsalted rice cakes, unsalted peanut butter, Naked juice, orange juice, low sodium protein shakes, eggs, chocolate covered nuts)
Friday (1 day out) - 2.2 gallons of water, under 500mg of sodium, food as energy dense as possible biasing mostly towards liquid calories, cut all food and drink out around 14hrs out from weigh ins.
Saturday (Meet Day) - Spit as needed.
This was a bit tricky this go around as I weighed in later at 2pm, so I started my water intake later in the day on Friday and kept at it until just before midnight. I knew if I planned things for the morning, like I usually weigh in at, I would be dehydrated for far too long and it would take a hit to my performance, so I was still peeing and hydrated all the way until about 12pm and I am confident this was the right move. I spit with Winterfresh gum now and it is so easy compared to Jolly’s. Only thing I regret is I weighed in TOO light, 67.05kg/147.8lbs, a full pound under the class. Although I rehydrated fine, it’s not necessary to weigh that light.
My rehydration has gotten much better over the years and is now a streamline process. Before, I would consume the right things, but certainly not in the right order. Far too often, I see people dilly dally between stepping off the scale and getting what they need in. When I step off the scale and sign my initials, within 10 seconds of stepping out of the weigh-in room, I have chugged down my Trioral (5g of sodium) and Gatorade solution. From there, I aim to finish about 2 cups of rice with plenty of salt as well as a half gallon of water in the first 30 minutes after stepping off the scale. From there, I usually have pretzel sticks and more gatorade as I work my way into finishing that gallon and try to give myself about 45 minutes to decompress before warmups. I have found getting up and moving to assimilate the food and drink really helps, I used to just wallow in misery and this made it exponentially worse. I started the cut at 152.8lbs, weighed in at 147.8lbs and by the time I took the platform I was 155lbs.
Training into this meet was tremendous and this was my best prep to date. I did not have any set backs aside from some acute ones and I really discovered that in my “off-seasons”, I don’t have to get too far removed from what I do during peaking. That is not to say I train singles year round, however I do not go distant rep maxes anymore and it has made a world of difference. Meaning, I won’t do 5s as a top set on squat for 8 weeks, I just find that doesn’t translate well to my singles as much as heavy sets 3 and below do.
Squat training was pretty straightforward and I have ran the same progressions/schemes for about a year now. 2x per week low bar, the secondary session is ascending volume, the primary session is top set with percentage backoffs. Only variable that changes is the rep range. I also found that I need to keep unilateral work in, in some capacity, usually in the form of lunges.
Bench training is where I really found a break through for me. Oddly enough, this is the least amount of barbell benching I did in a training cycle and I put 11lbs on my bench press, which does not sound like much but it certainly was for me. My bench training is simple, 3x per week frequency, 2 days of the week are comp bench work, one day is variation. Secondary days are top rep sets, tertiary days are ascending volume with a variation, and primary says are top singles or doubles. All back off volume is higher rep, LOW RPE. I do not grind bench reps on back offs ever. I found that when I really tried, my upper body can handle a lot more volume than what I was doing in the past and I am glad I came to this realization. Feet up DB pressing, chest press machines, tricep pressdowns with heavy loading and then unilateral with lighter loads, delt work twice a week, bicep work twice a week, pushing all of those things and really having a bodybuilding mindset, I believe is the difference when you have a bench like mine that is relatively longer range of motion and low arched. Get jacked, good things will happen.
Deadlift training has also become very streamlined. I get a lot out of beltless work, heavy and for lower reps, and then I actually am one of the few conventional deadlifters that respond well to relatively higher reps per set. I trim down from 7s to 5s but usually never lower than that. My only setback of this prep was one that I will improve upon and that is torn callouses. As lifters, we all like to have the calloused hands as marks of valor, but mine were getting so bad to the point I could not grip north of 440lbs without extreme pain in my hands and that all manifested in my hand exploding 10 days out with 545lbs. This tear made me fearful as I could not grip even a 60lb DB in that hand without it reopening, so I made a commitment to try my best to heal it and got creative.
I was to use a pumice stone twice a day, O’Keefe’s working hands cream twice a day, and I made the call to take my last deadlift session exclusively in straps. Thank Christ himself, it healed within time and my grip felt immaculate on the day, crisis averted. Lesson learned, take care of your hands.
Finally, let’s talk about the day itself. My friend, OG Team Hogan lifter, USAPL Maine state chair, and USAPL referee, Andrew Graves handled me on the day after spotting and loading all morning. I never take what he does for me, for granted, as I am not too proud to admit all of my best performances are directly because of the guidance he provides me with on meet day. Reassurance, staying on top of the meet, and telling me what I need to hear after an attempt, I think at this point we have it down. I do not question his judgement, if it’s time to warm up, it’s time to warm up. This makes the competing part, SO much easier.
Squats felt incredible on the day. I went 195kg/429lbs, 207.5kg/458lbs, 212.5kg/469lbs with room to spare. Going 3/3 on squat is so crucial to the rest of your meet momentum wise and when you can almost guarantee that, you do not go away from it.
Bench is where, frankly, I shined, which is slightly embarrassing to admit as I still see myself as a weaker bencher but the reality is, I am not now, it’s not my biggest strength but it is no longer a weakness.
We went 125kg/275lbs, 132.5kg/292lbs, 137.5kg/303lbs which gave me my first over 2x bodyweight bench. Certainly think this was a limit lift.
Now, this is where having a goal, matters. I needed 240kg/529lbs to secure my goal total, which was 590kg/1301lbs and my planned second was that. I went in with the approach of, “my second is my third”, in terms of focus and intent.
We went 227.5kg/501lbs to open, easy.
240kg/529lbs was loaded and again, I went out there like this was my only shot. I hit the lift with a ton to spare and when I saw those three white lights, I said, “Thank you God.”
I got what I came to do, now this is where I want to reiterate, keeping the goal, the goal and letting a good thing be a good thing. You see, I find a lot of times in this sport, we have an original goal, and then we creep it up a bit and then a little more, and then when we get to a meet, we get caught up in the moment and want to stray further and further north, and often times, I have found when you try to exceed the plan, you are granted with nothing to show for it, most times going LESS than the original goal. I could have sent it on my third deadlift, but I figured, there will be more meets for me, let’s go 9/9 and secure the best meet of my life and have no ounce of failure on the day. Days like that can catapult you into months and months of progress.
Whenever you have a dilemma of what to load for a third deadlift, put a number in and then talk. You can change that number twice so panicking at the table does nothing for you. I told Andrew, 2.5kg up (which is a jump I would normally never take on deadlift) would give me a meet PR deadlift and secure PRs on all 3 lifts. We both agreed that hey, let’s end this day with a bang and not risk tearing my hand or injuring myself or something silly. Went out, pulled it without 5kg to spare, and I secured a 9/9, perfect day.
All in all, I can finally say I am a member of the 1300lb total club, one that is very exclusive for this weight class. I will remember this day forever as not only did it avenge my performance from March, I was able to do it with some of the people I value most in this life and share the platform with a legend in Jon Lavoie, our states strongest lifter.
I am confident in that I have only scratched the surface of my potential in this game and that I have the capacity and work ethic to medal at a nationals in the 67.5kg open division. I always tell people, learn to enjoy the moments, in the moment, as this sport can be very fleeting and being miserable and unsatisfied all the time will be quite a drag if and when it comes to an end. When Heads Will Roll hit (we were able to pick third attempt music for this meet), I truly felt the rush of what it’s like to be completely locked in to a goal and this is a feeling I am always chasing, where nothing else matters and you feel as if you are invincible.
Cannot wait to get back to training.
With love and To Utopia,
Erik
Results:
Squat: 212.5kg (469lbs), +6lb PR
Bench Press: 137.5kg (303lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 242.5kg (534lbs), +6lb PR
Total: 592.5kg (1307lbs), +22lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
At the time of this post, #32 total in the US out of 597 lifters, #62 all time in USAPL raw history out of 3223 lifters.
Tony Pederson - USAPL Massachusetts State Championships 75kg class, (25 June 2022)
This was a truly euphoric day. Mr. Pederson here, is a lifter who, up until a few weeks ago, was a foreign-exchange student from Norway. At this moment, he is back in Norway enjoying his summer.
In order to put this performance into perspective, we have to first highlight where he’s come in terms of progress.
Meet #1 for Tony, he registered a total of 0kg due to unforeseen issues with deadlift lockout. This is when we started working together.
Meet #2, he totaled 420kg/925lbs, with room to spare on each lift. This was done on purpose as I wanted him to experience what 9/9 felt like and how rewarding it can be to leave on a perfect day.
Meet #3, we set to make his final meet in America (at least for a while) a great one.
This prep for Tony, to be honest, was as perfect as it could possibly be in terms of performance, even when his consistency was up and down due to circumstance out of his control. From what I have observed, Tony trains HARD. I don’t know if I can quite do it justice in what I mean by that, but what I am trying to say is there is training with purpose and then training hard and trying to get every last kilo you can out of your plan, that is Tony.
We found a good scheme for him that seemed to really do well on every lift and we pretty much ran that iteration back with tweaks after each block ended.
This meet was phenomenally ran and was reminiscent of USAPL Regional meets I attended in the past, which was pretty cool as I like that atmosphere.
What I really enjoy on meet day, is when an athlete trusts my calls, and just executes what I ask. Eat now, drink now, do this in 5 minutes, do that in 10 minutes, be back in 20 minutes, etc… When things are streamlined like that, it really makes my job easy.
Squat started off pretty strong, we built solid momentum on attempts 1 and 2 and took the top end for attempt 3, which was 145kg/319lbs, which was a good lift and a +10kg/22lb PR and an all time PR!
Bench was where I thought we’d lag a bit as I did not see his last heavy bench and with how wide his set up is, I feared butt-lift would be an obstacle. Crisis averted, we made it 3/3 on bench as well with 102.5kg/226lbs, which was a +5kg/11lb PR!
Lastly, deadlifts. Man oh man, deadlifts were on fire going into this meet. Tony was exceeding pace every week and finally I conceded and allowed him to push progression a bit faster. He has a very classic sumo where he is able to get close to upright and apply vertical pressure down into the floor, less hinge-driven and more lever-driven. The only issue with this type of pull is you need to be ultra patient off the floor or lockouts will always be wonky.
Deadlift 1 was effortless and sealed a PR total.
Deadlift 2 was a meet PR, so I allowed Tony to make a call on what he felt he was capable of that day. We decided on 215kg/474lbs.
Before he went out, I said something I like to tell all my lifters.
Make or miss, you owe it to yourself to enjoy this moment. We train too hard and too long to not enjoy the 9 minutes we have on the platform and with that, I can see the fire ignite in him.
He went out, executed, good lift! Full disclosure, I think this lift could have gone either way as he did receive a red for hitching, I believe, and it would have been a fair call. Sometimes you get the bright side of things however and I am not going to argue with that. This was a +27.5kg/60lb PR and an all time PR.
All in all, Tony is a warrior and has really only scratched the surface of his potential. He is the second career athlete I have coached to a national qualifying total, with him hitting this total, he qualified for USAPL Teen Nationals.
At the time of me writing this, we are preparing for his next meet in Norway in which he will be attempting to break the teenage national record deadlift, a weight class down. Ambitious, but doable. We will make sure he has every opportunity to do so.
To Utopia.
Results:
Squat: 145kg (319lbs), +22lb PR
Bench Press: 102.5kg (226lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 215kg (474lbs), +60lb PR
Total: 462.5kg (1020lbs), +95lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Andrew Graves - USAPL New Hampshire State Championships 82.5kg class, (23 April 2022)
The Team Hogan OG, Andrew Graves took the platform for this 8th meet, our 8th working together in some capacity. Before I get into the performance, I want to lay the foundation of why I think this was Andrew’s best meet yet, not only in performance, but overall as an athlete. Over the last year, Andrew has taken on a lot of responsibilities that he does not use as excuses or crutches, but are absolutely variables to consider when preparing for meets.
First, Andrew works full time as a construction manager and I have been in the car with him as he fields calls on weekends where he is not in the office. Andrew was also elected state chair for USAPL Maine and has put his heart and soul into making the state of Maine a force in the New England local meet scene, another time commitment that is very understated. Beyond this, he is also a meet director, something we have done together over the last year, but I have no ego in saying he deserves most of the credit for the logistical things we provide at our meets, such as the livestream he taught himself from scratch to create and the tunnel we set up for our last competition. You see, all of this takes time and effort away from lifting, for our last meet we were setting up for 6-8 hours counting the commute to Augusta, with very little sleep. If we want to go back to January, set up was 10-12 hours in total in a snow storm. Lastly, Andrew has been traveling like crazy this year to extend his services to referee meets in the New England area AND to handle other lifts, myself included. To give you a synopsis, in a 3 week span, he was out in Rhode Island with me handling 3 Team Hogan lifters, the week after that was out in Springfield, Mass handling me to my best meet yet, and the week after that was directing the Maine state meet and the DAY after flew to Chicago to handle one of my lifters Josh Dang, at his first national meet… This was all in meet prep and he did not miss a single training session. For those of you who say you do not have time or use the excuse of being tired from school or work, consider what other people are going through and ask yourself if you really want to be a good lifter or if you just kinda wouldn’t mind it if it happens but certainly do not want to put in the effort year round.
Now, to the performance. This was easily his best prep yet and the beauty of doing multiple preps together is you have data and with that data, you have trust. I can write the best plan on paper, but if you do not trust my plan, this is rendered obsolete 10/10.
To save the extreme detail, I feel as if we know the winning formula to peak, the building blocks at this point are what is most valuable for Andrew as he is very sensitive to certain intensity zones and rep ranges, for instance I recall a time where we did sets of 5 for a cycle on deadlift for top sets and his deadlift fell apart. That is individualization for you.
Coming into the meet, I think something that is so understated, is having a plan. This was to our benefit on this day in particular because with the wrong attempt selection, we probably lose out on 5-7.5kg on his total by taking the wrong attempts.
Our top end range for the day on squat was 240kg-242.5kg. To have a chance at that number, we had to be around 235kg for a second attempt, which was already a 5kg meet PR and all time PR, and we paced back the opening attempt from there. Having attempt #2 be a 5kg meet PR opened the door to take a risk on a 3rd, should we have to. You see, it does not always work out this way, but I pride myself in making sure my lifters get credit for their hard work during a cycle and if we can have a safety attempt to fall back on, I am planning for it. With 235kg made, we made the call to go 242.5kg. Was just too heavy on the day, which to me, is a good thing, he was falling a bit forward which we can chalk up to mis-grooving, but overall I’d rather a miss be on it not being there than technicality. This was the first real grind from Andrew in a while and I wanted to reward his prep with a bug number, 240kg was there with 95% confidence, 237.5kg was there with 100% confidence. This is why we do meets, everyone can do it in the gym, but what are you putting up after a weight cut, rehydrating, with timed warmups, strict judging, etc… We shook this off and were on to bench, Andrew’s best lift.
We had the conversation that although we were still on pace for a total PR, we were going 3/3 on bench regardless. 165kg was our planned heavy third, and to be honest, it was there, but again, we take what is there based off the prior attempt and this is where maturity really set in and why I think Andrew has really grown as an athlete. We opened open at 150kg, moved great. We decided to go 157.5kg, which in hindsight I am still glad we did as he had a gnarly miss groove that made the rep harder than it had to have been and with anything heaver MIGHT have been too much to come back from. We were forced to go up 2.5kg to tie a PR, something that killed me, but I wanted this kid to walk out with the biggest total possible and I knew based off the 2nd, 2.5kg up was the right call. Of course, he blew up 160kg at 7.5-8 RPE, however, he said straight up, it was the right call based off the second and sometimes hearing that as a coach validates your ability to make a call. In the past, I think both of us would have lamented in the fact that he had more in him and I think over the last few years we have both come to a realization that we are in this game for the long-haul and sometimes giving up 2.5kg-5kg for the sake of a make and positive momentum leading into the next lift is as valuable as anything. Had he have hit 242.5kg on squat, or even 240kg, I would have had no problem going 162.5 or even 165kg on bench, even with the misgroove, but context is everything.
Now, on to deadlift, this was a breakthrough. At the last meet he did, we left with no deadlift PR and frankly took something a bit too heavy for the third as we had already got our goal total, on this day, I told him again, we are leaving with a deadlift PR (PR being 250kg), so unless we have resounding proof that it is there, 252.5kg will be the goal. He agreed.
We opened up at 235kg and it was absolutely smoked. Over the last few months, Andrew has had some grip troubles and a lot of it stemmed from overthinking, as his grip is actually quite strong but in my experience, with some people, myself included, the more you think about grip stuff, the more likely you are to fail on grip or neglect other areas of the pull. He enacted chalking up certain spots of his hand and adopting a very quick set up, 2 things I thought were really important for him moving forward. After 235kg, we opted to take our top end of 247.5kg, 2.5kg under his meet PR. Before the attempt, we talked that we can change the attempt after we put it in, so let’s not waste time deliberating when we can extend the pros and cons in the waiting area.
247.5kg moved great, so I said I’ll put in 252.5kg (top end was 255kg) and we can talk about it.
We did some math and this is where you as a coach need feedback from your athlete, we weighed out the pros and cons of taking 255kg and missing, it meant no deadlift PR for the 2nd consecutive meet although we would still have a small total PR. This is about as far as the conversation went, he said he’s fine with that outcome should he fall short, and that he wanted to try 255kg, I obliged and honestly, I am glad he went with it because that was the limit for the day 100%. He went out, the crowd was losing their minds, he pulled it and gave me heart attack and PTSD from the Team Hogan curse (getting your third deadlift turned away 2 to 1)… Good lift, 2 whites to one red. 255kg, all time PR deadlift and secured a monster 650kg total.
All in all, Andrew is only going to continue to get stronger, certain things I cannot trust with some lifters, he gets the green light because he is always communicative with me, extends his concerns, trusts me, and trusts the process. When he qualifies for his first open nationals outright, I will most likely lose my mind.
The best is yet to come, but for now, this was pretty cool to see 8 meets and 3 years into this sport.
To Utopia.
Results:
Squat: 235kg (518lbs), +17lb PR
Bench Press: 160kg (353lbs),
Deadlift: 255kg (563lbs), +11lb PR
Total: 650kg (1433lbs), +33lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Joshua Dang - USAPL Collegiate Nationals, 75kg class, (27 March 2022)
Hey everyone, this is Erik. I was not able to attend this meet and Team Hogan OG, Andrew Graves, handled him on the day. Josh here was kind enough to write up a meet report for me from his perspective, I’ll give my thoughts on it at the end, but for now, here is his experience at his first national level meet.
Josh Dang, 75kg:
Although I performed on Sunday March 27th. There was a lot of prep involved in getting everything together for the day. I got to the hotel a couple of days early just to be able to get my bearings and a feel for what a national event would be like. That and giving myself time to get everything together I wanted a couple of days. Since the timeline was so short I only took a single carry-on to Illinois and that meant I would essentially need to get everything I needed to eat and drink for the meet out there. Although a Target was located right next to the hotel, I had a feeling that many things would be out of stock, things such as Pedialyte, Gatorade, essentially anything that contained electrolytes. When I got there my suspicion was right, low stock on Gatorades, and little to no Pedialyte. I was lucky enough to get an Instacart order and get everything I needed for meet day. Some other nice things that was offered to athletes was being able to check in early with registration and to check equipment the day before. This meant I would not have to get my equipment checked the day of the meet and one less thing I needed to worry about. Everything, including the OG Hogan cropped shirt was approved. One thing that I noticed during this was that some but not all stickers were allowed on the lifting belts.
Meet day started off at 8 AM. I wanted to weigh in early and be able to portion out my meals as I was in third session of the day meaning my lifting was going to start at night. I weighed in about 2 kilos under and knew that I didn't need to put much effort into watching my weight, really what I needed was to be eating calorically dense foods so I had enough energy for the meet. At around 4 PM I stepped on the scale at 73.03 KG. Just about 2 kilos under the limit. At around 4:50 PM Andrew and I came down from the room and waited in line to the warm-up room to begin getting ready for squat.
When I stepped into the warmup room I can say that with confidence that it was the most hectic and chaotic warmup room I had ever seen. Luckily Andrew and I were able to find a platform relatively early. We shared the platform with some of Rondel Hunte's lifters. I have to say after that things become a little blurry as everything happened so fast. One brief moment that brought me back to reality was Andrew taking me out to the platform to show me exactly what I was about to walk out to.
I opened squats with 182.5 and I have to say it felt heavy on my back. I knew it moved and I really had the intention of breaking into the 200's for squats so I opted for the higher jump. Second attempt of 190 had the same feeling, it was heavy but it moved and with feeling my momentum pickup I wanted that 202.5/446lbs for the third. So I told Andrew to load it up and give it to me. Him and I both knew it was there. I took 202.5 and got 2 white lights to 1 red for depth. In all honesty I was a little sad however on a national stage with the highest level of judging I really was not going to argue. (Erik’s commentary here, weak call but I am glad it counted, the kid’s stomach was below his knees)
Bench took a surprising turn in my favor for the day. All through warm-ups I was feeling really smooth. Something just felt right that day. With deadlifts not feeling so hot I knew if I wanted a PR total that I would need to squeeze as much out of bench as I possibly could. I opened with 115 and got a very quick press call. Good lift. We went up. My second attempt was at 122.5. Once again a very quick press command from the judges and it moved incredibly well. Although Erik, Andrew, and I planned to match my bench PR of 127.5. I think both Andrew and I knew that today was a PR day. With loading 130 for my final attempt I once again was able to successfully complete the lift with 3 white lights. 6/6 for the day so far. (More Erik commentary, Andrew and I were in contact this whole time and agreed that we would stray from the plan if 122.5kg moved insanely well, this is the 3rd straight meet Josh has all time PR’d his squat and bench press)
Then it came down to deads. Now through this previous prep I really did struggle with my confidence on this lift. Although this used to be my best lift in my opinion, with the two failed attempts the week prior I had a lot of worry on how these would end up. Originally the plan was to open at 217.5 however with some quick thinking Andrew and I agreed to increase my opener by 2.5 kilos to 220 to therefore allow a higher second attempt which would give me a PR total without having to rely on my third pull to complete this. First attempt moved, nothing much more than that. I lost contact with bar on my body about halfway up my shins and required alot of my strength to successfully pull it back in and lockout. Second attempt Andrew called for 232.5, the weight I had failed twice before and I honestly had a fear of. How would I be able to pull it today if I had failed it twice before? At that point in time I remembered the words Riley Hennessy said to me when I told him I had failed the lift in training, "f#ck that, let it be fuel for meet day". That combined with Erik and Andrews positive reinforcement, I let go of my emotions and pulled 232.5 for my second attempt giving me a total PR of 565 on a national stage. My third attempt on deadlift was not a successful lift. Much like my previously failed pulls in training, my hips shot up and back rolled forward. I can't say I'm proud of it but I am happy to walk away with my head high. 8/9 on the day, on a national stage, 16 weeks of nonstop work and back to back meet preps, I can finally say I finished the mission. (Andrew posed me with the dilemma of adjusting attempts since he went 130kg on bench press and I said there were 2 options, open 2.5kg heavier or open the same and take a bigger jump. Either would have been valid but we go with what the athlete is confident with on the day)
All in all, this experience of competing on a national stage has given me a lot of fuel. I was able to see just how far I can take this, and what it takes to compete at the this level of competition. I still have a lot of growing in this sport and this will not be the last time I step foot on a national stage.
To the Teen Titans thank you for always bringing the hype everyday in the gym. I'd like to thank Erik who turned me from a 20 year old hot headed 5/9 lifter, who would have most likely have burned out by now to being able to qualify and compete on a national stage. You lead from the front and I admire that greatly. And finally to Andrew Graves, the man who went out of his way in 2020 to get me into this sport, coach and handle me for my first powerlifting meet, and then come out to Illinois and once again coach me on the biggest stage I have ever been on, thank you.
Erik’s commentary:
This was nothing short of an amazing stretch of weeks for Josh. As someone who is in the game, competing myself, and has down a meet 9 weeks after coming off of one, I know how difficult it is to not only eek out more progress, but make sure you end up injury free. You see, when we prepare for a meet, ideally we want to plan out the 2-3 blocks before that before we peak off that base, when you do back to back meet preps, you are really re-peaking off the same base and as such, anything more than 5kg PR should not be expected.
Some things I feel Josh does very well:
Effort: This is something you can’t coach. I cannot make you want it more than you already do. This is a breath of fresh air as when I create a program structure, I do not have to worry about effort being a limiting factor.
Trusting the process: This being our 4th meet together (wild) we have a great depiction of how Josh tapers into meets. We are always good for 2.5-7.5kg more than his best training squat, 2.5-5kg more than his best training bench, and ideally, non back to back meet preps aside, good for 2.5-7.5kg on his deadlift on the day. This makes planning so much easier and although Josh has a tendency to doubt himself, he will never flat-out say he cannot do something out of fear.
Executing on meet day: Again, this is something you can develop to an extent but you largely cannot coach. Josh is a gamer and clearly gets a lot out of something being at stake and performs better with adrenaline. This is well established and makes me ALWAYS feel confident in numbers that might seem outlandish based on training.
Some things that I think we absolutely need to address and that we agreed upon.
We need to get bigger: Josh’s weigh ins have always been low, low 160s give or take and as such, he is giving up anywhere between 5 and 10lbs of possible leverage/mass he can carry to make the 75kg/165lbs class. He will be tracking calories and we will be adding in more traditional bodybuilding work so the next time this kid takes the platform, he will look Cyborg from Teen Titans.
Re-working the deadlift: I think we really “ran-out” of strength for his pull. Good technique aside, there is certain traits all good deadlifter’s have in terms of general strength. Very strong upper backs, quads, and adductor/abductor muscles. I think he first needs to get stronger for this region overall but then apply this to his pull, re-working it from the ground up. This will be a work in progress but he does not plan to compete for a while so we have plenty of time.
To summarize, proud is an understatement. Josh is the first Team Hogan lifter to represent on the national stage and I could not name someone more qualified and that I would rather send out there first. It pains me I could not be there but I had the person I trust most besides myself there in Andrew and I am more relieved than anything that things ended up working out. Coming from someone who, again, has been out on the national stage, it is different. You know how they say it is different doing it in the gym when compared to a meet? It is the same deal from a local meet to a national one. The judging is more strict, the schedule is concise, everything is more hectic, etc… And despite all that, back to back meet preps, having to go 9/9 to scratch together a QT just 16 weeks prior, he had 3 all time PRs? I cannot ask for more and I truly believe this is only the beginning for him. Josh sir, well done, you went to Utopia and will have this memory for a LIFE time, enjoy it please as moments like this are fleeting.
Results:
Squat: 202.5kg (446lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 130kg (286lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 232.5kg (513lbs)
Total: 565kg (1245lbs), +6lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ the USAPL Maine State Championships (26 March 2022)
3 weeks of euphoria! It’s funny, I did not plan for March to be this way it all just kind of happened. 3 meets, 3 separate states, 14 different Team Hogan lifters and every, single, person… had their best meet of their life and/or a tremendous debut. That, I won’t lie, brings a tear to my eye.
So, about this meet, directing meets overall is very fun but also takes a lot more effort than maybe people realize. Friday, we initiated packing up the truck at 2:30pm and arrived at the facility at 6:30pm to unpack. We did not leave until 10pm that night, I had a few more warmup plans to write and did not get to sleep until 12am or so. The next morning we were up at 5am, registration at 6:30am, meet all day, clean up around 6pm or so, then I did not get back to my house until 11:30pm after clean up. So, my whole point is if you do a meet, please be respectful to the meet directors (we have not had any blatant disrespect, just as a call to attention to lifters) as they probably are running on fumes by the time the actual meet rolls around.
On this day, I performed a ton of weigh ins, a drug test, and most importantly, handled 9 Team Hogan lifters, with some help of course, to insane performances. Here was how everyone did!
First, we had Evan Larsen, who ended up winning best lifter for the second meet in a row! Evan and I have only been working together full-time for 3.5 months as he was working with another coach and in between had some pretty severe shoulder injuries that were suppressing his bench strength for quite some time. My work for him focused mainly on control and building muscular strength in the squat, rehabbing to pain-free status on bench press, and getting back to his old numbers on conventional deadlift, as he was messing with sumo for a while and had not pulled heavy conventional for a spell.
Evan is an athlete who knows how to channel his energy for ONE big attempt, so my attempt selection for him features 12.5kg-15kg attempts, so his opening attempts end up being glorified last warmups for most and that is intentionally done for momentum purposes and to save energy for one big grind. This is high risk, high reward for sure, luck was on our side this day.
Winning best lifter on this day meant $250 cash, gift cards to SBD, gift cards to a supplement company, as well as 2 medals and 2 banners, so there was actual stuff on the line here! Proud of this man, first proper water cut and he rehydrated and re-fed perfectly.
Great work sir.
Results:
Squat: 257.5kg (567lbs)
Bench Press: 140kg (308lbs)
Deadlift: 267.5kg (590lbs)
Total: 665kg (1465lbs)
8/9 on attempts, best overall lifter
Next, we had the other Evan on the day, Mr. Evan Wright. Now, I train with Evan once a week on Saturday’s and as such I knew a bit better than some distant remote clients what he was capable of. He trained the ENTIRE prep to comp standard, especially on bench press and I think that really bled into his performance in a good way. He also agreed to move up a weight class and I think we both will be the first to say this was a game changer as with weight classes changing, he would simply be too tall for 90kg and long term, 100kg would be the move, this re-assured this.
So, to make this one simple, Evan was one white light away from a supernova, 9/9 performance. So yes, this was 3 weekends in row a Team Hogan person got his 3rd deadlift turned down 2-1… I’m the common denominator here haha, so maybe I need to go back to the drawing board. I have zero ego when it comes to giving credit where it is due, on his squat I thought he should go 2.5kg lighter based on his 2nd and he told me straight up, he had this today, and I am glad I trusted him as he certainly did and that was the right call. A coach-athlete relationship should NEVER be one-sided, this was an example of that flexibility.
Evan placed 2nd overall and I could not be prouder at this moment. The man only trains 3 days a week, y’all really don’t understand!
Results:
Squat: 237.5kg (524lbs), +44lb PR
Bench Press: 140kg (308lbs), +16lbs PR
Deadlift: 250kg (551lbs)
Total: 627.5kg (1383lbs), +55lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Next in line, we had Mr. Chris Couillard. Chris was the wild-card of the day as there is some data we pull from previous meets that support that certain lifts SHOULD be there, but it is always a risk as should we miss, Chris goes from a PR total day to -12.5kg on his total in an instant, and I refuse to let my lifter’s regress from meet to meet if I can help it.
To make it short, Chris got hurt and could not deadlift for essentially a month straight. After than we did not go over 440 for 8 weeks after that and we only went over 500 I think once, maybe twice since then. Chris’s best lift is his deadlift, so that threw a wrench in things. However, his squat was rising and we were able to keep his bench afloat so I knew we had a good shot on the day to still walk away with a PR total, albeit small.
Chris, flat-out, is a meet day lifter. He performs better when there is something on the line, I think should we have a stretch of no set-back, productive training, he will do the following in his next meet:
Total 1200lbs
Squat 200kg/441lbs
Deadlift 250kg/551lbs
Just watch.
Results:
Squat: 190kg (419lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 105kg (231lbs)
Deadlift: 237.5kg (524lbs)
Total: 532.5kg (1174lbs), +6lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Next, we had Mike Iascone, doing his first meet and man, he might have had the performance of the day in my book when you lay out the circumstances. As with Jordyn who will be covered later, Mike has really only been powerlifting for 12-15 weeks. You read that right. Although he had been training in general, he was very much not used to heavy, heavy singles, especially on the squat and deadlift. Mike, to me, is the model when it comes to being coachable. On the day, tell him what to do, he will do it to the best of abilities and that’s where the discussion ends. He really over-performed in every capacity of that phrase as with a first meet, you deal with so many other things besides the lifting. You have nerves, possibly their first time lifting on comp equipment, not knowing the rules, etc… Mike familiarized himself very well by attending a bunch of meets over the last few weeks and really, if you told people this was his first meet, no one would believe you.
Mike set 3 all time PRs in his first career meet. ALL TIME PRs, meet PRs are every lift in your first but to hit the heaviest weights of your life in your first ever meet is just so unlikely, it is insane. Very proud of him and his effort, next stop, total 1200lbs.
Results:
Squat: 185kg (408lbs)
Bench Press: 127.5kg (281lbs)
Deadlift: 202.5kg (446lbs)
Total: 515kg (1136lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Lastly for the men on the day was Tony Pederson. Tony is one of my most recent acquisitions on Team Hogan and he has been an absolute blast to work with. He is extremely coachable, very strong just genetically without training, and is a great kid, which I really like as at this point I want to work with great character individuals above all else as reputation is something that I care about, quite a lot actually.
To put it short, Tony did our first meet, the USAPL Maine Event: Winter Open, and bombed on deadlift as he could not lockout clean/opened a bit too heavy. This was actually an easy fix and man, the sky is the limit for this kid should he commit to himself to this for the next 5 years. We had good grinds on squat and bench and had a decent bit left over for deadlift, which just means next meet we will have something to go off of!
Results:
Squat: 135kg (297lbs)
Bench Press: 97.5kg (215lbs)
Deadlift: 187.5kg (413lbs)
Total: 420kg (926lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Now, to start off the Team Hogan ladies was Ms. Amanda O’Connor, or AmandaLifts as she is known by most. Amanda was coming off of a long lay-off from her first meet, which was in a different federation, and coming back from a pretty long lifting hiatus, at least in terms of specific training, as she joined the US Army and attended basic training.
With Amanda, most of the training we do is for confidence building as she is a very mental lifter and having specific milestones to call back on seems to really keep her spirits high. She had a tremendous day and made every single lift move like an opening attempt AND some of these lifts were pretty big time! If and when her next meet roles around, she will be in line for a truly special performance.
Results:
Squat: 95kg (210lbs), +12lb PR
Bench Press: 42.5kg (94lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 110kg (242lbs)
Total: 247.5kg (547lbs)
9/9 on attempts
Next, we had Carlee Cummings, who is another recent client of mine who, by all means, over-exceeded expectations across the board. Carlee is in a unique scenario as she has zero variables that scream success in this sport on her side as she is the mother of a young child, was on the mend from fairly recent health battles, AND her gym is a basement/living room set-up with squat stands, a barbell, plates, and that is pretty much it. She also trains very late at night as that is the only free time that she has. I know a lot of people who would just simply bow out if that was the hand they were dealt, but not Carlee, she clearly thrives on it. This also happened to be her first meet since 2019, which, is a win in itself in my book. She has only scratched the surface in terms of what she can do, I am thinking she will blow this out of the water in her next meet!
Results:
Squat: 130kg (286lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 67.5kg (148lbs)
Deadlift: 142.5kg (314lbs)
Total: 340kg (750lbs)
8/9 on attempts
Second to last, we had someone do their first meet, in Ms. Jordyn Rocca. Jordyn has actually only been powerlifting for 12 weeks and she really impressed me with her work ethic, ability, and also her attention to detail. Jordyn is someone who is very coachable and has no ego in the sport, which is a breath of fresh air as most hold themselves up to a very unrealistic standard, a standard that is only there because they placed it there. I tell Jordyn do X adjustment, she does not say why can’t I do Y instead, and that makes my job so much easier.
For all these people, it was really best case scenario for them as the staff were Team Hogan athletes, the spotting and loading team were Team Hogan people, and it was a very lifter-centric atmosphere, something we do intentionally so first time lifters are completely comfortable on the day.
Jordyn had a tremendous first meet and I think if she wants to, she can really do some damage in this sport.
Results:
Squat: 100kg (200lbs)
Bench Press: 42.5kg (94lbs)
Deadlift: 110kg (242lbs)
Total: 252.5kg (557lbs)
8/9 on attempts
Lastly, I wanted to cover what was the largest 1st to 2nd meet improvement I have ever seen in Rebecca Labitt, Bex as she is known to her friends. Bex I think sometimes loses track of how much and how rapidly she has improved which is a double-edged sword in that that means she is never complacent but can also be frustrating for her when that very, very rapid progress slows. I will let the cat out of the bag, she added 105lbs to her total in 12 weeks. For reference, I added 16lbs to my total last weekend and I was pretty ecstatic about it. Her super-meet is coming, I think if she sticks with this, she will most likely add another 80-100lbs to her total her next meet.
Results:
Squat: 65kg (143lbs), +49lb PR
Bench Press: 32.5kg (72lbs), +12lbs PR
Deadlift: 72.5kg (160lbs), +45lbs PR
Total: 170kg (375lbs), +105lbs PR
7/9 on attempts
All in all, this was a truly euphoric day and a stretch of weeks I will remember for a very long time.
To Utopia!
Erik Hogan - USAPL Massachusetts Spring Classic, 67.5kg class, (19 March 2022)
Yo, it is me again!
Crazy to think, this was meet #8 for me. Now, that might not sound like a lot, but in this sport, I cannot recall where I saw this info, but the average number of meets a lifter does in their lifetime is around 3-4. Shows that there is a high turnover of lifters every 5 years or so.
I truly don’t like talking about me, but there were a couple cool things about this meet that I would like to share.
The first aspect I will touch on is my prep into this meet. It was borderline the most euphoric but also chaotic prep I have ever done. This is why I have so much respect for each lifter who gets on the platform as you truly do not know what they went through to get there. As most of you know, I commute a total of 2hrs each day to and from New Hampshire, so on average I am driving in the car about 10hrs a week and then add 3-5hrs to that every few weeks to handle people at meets in New England. This, along with programming for just over 30 athletes and fielding their questions on top of prepping each week for my first year of teaching in a school system, my time has been spread thin for a while now. Now, I am not someone who likes free time, but I won’t lie, I do miss having lots of energy without copious amounts of caffeine haha. Many days, I am up at 5am, get home, train for 2-2.5hrs, come home and work for 1-2 more hours and finally get to sleep around 11pm. Some might think teaching is easy, weekends off, holidays off, well I am here to tell you I have never been working as much as I have in life! Monday through Friday I spend my time in the classroom and commuting, Saturday my workouts typically take about 3 hours and on Sunday I complete programming for clients and plan out the week for the classroom, something that I am afraid to admit takes around 5 hours minimum each time.
Now, this is not to say my life is so hard, look at what I can do despite it. Rather, it is to show that what you see on Instagram is only 5% of the actual performance.
Next, the weight cut.
I feel very strongly that 90% of people should NOT cut. Most people do not do it right and it usually turns into an “I cut X amount bro isn’t that crazy?”, instead of actually prioritizing lifting well.
So, the 67.5kg class benefitted me in that an extra 3lbs really was a game changer for me and will make this class much more sustainable for me in the future. As such, I trained heavier this prep and used my data from my 7 previous cuts to figure roughly where I would be to make the class while being able to rehydrate up to a sizeable leverage advantage weight. I won’t go over my protocol, but I will highlight this.
6 days out: 152.0lbs
5 days out: 153.5lbs
4 days out: 153.5lbs
3 days out: 153lbs
2 days out: 151lbs
1 day out: 150.5lbs
Morning of meet @ 6am: 149.4lbs (class is 148.8lbs)
Weight in around @ 7am: 148.3lbs
I have learned that since I keep carb intake very high, I hold on to a bit more water and anything north of 4lbs of pure water loss is not possible, but this is also why I think my performance has never suffered from a cut. Do not panic if you are heavy the morning of.
Lastly, the meet.
This was the best meet of my life!
Squats are cool for me in the sense that when I am peaked, every weight feels the same from 265lbs on, I am just a hair less stable as I add weight, hence my slower walkouts. I squatted 210kg/463lbs for an all time PR with a decent left in the tank!
Bench press, I will admit, I have become a decent bencher. I am closing in on a 2x bodyweight bench which is wild as my first meet, I benched 214lbs and it should not have counted due to downward motion but it did, haha. I benched 132.5kg/292lbs, which was an all-time PR, and had a lot left in the tank here, I think had I planned for it, 303lbs was there! This was also my first ever state record bench press.
Deadlift was literally an out of body experience. I literally feel as if I could have pulled anything I wanted on that day, which tells me the protocol I used to peak will be what I use next time. I walked away with a meet PR of 240kg/529lbs! However, this is where things kind of fell through in the sense that I was a white light short of a supernova day.
I put in for 247.5kg/546lbs for my third attempt, which would have been a 10kg meet PR deadlift, an all time PR, and locked in what was my main goal on the day, a 590kg/1301lbs total. I made the lift, was incredibly pleased with how well it moved, got the down command, waited for what seemed like an eternity annnnnnd… 2 reds, 1 white light. Side ref said shoulder was not back far enough, center judge called downward motion. As mentioned previously, I am liberal with calls and although I was disappointed, it is the name of the game. As objective as I can be, I reached out to a few people, both state and national certified refs, and asked them what I could do next time to make it more convincing, not for validation on it was a bad call, but quite literally so it never happens again. What all of them, literally all of them, said, was sobering but also frustrating in that they could not see what was wrong with the lift aside from maybe one soft knee, something that I was not red-lighted for. Oh well, refs are human and make mistakes, I know I am a god-awful referee myself so I have no room to talk in regards to this stuff. The opportunity was there and that is what I wanted, I will total much more than this over the next 5 years and I will make sure to be even MORE convincing in each successive meet I do.
To Utopia.
Results:
Squat: 210kg (463lbs), +6lb PR
Bench Press: 132.5kg (292lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 240kg (529lbs), +6lbs PR
Total: 582.5kg (1284lbs), +16lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
At the time of this post, this is the #13 total in the USA for 67.5kg lifters out of 252 lifters!!! I truly think I can medal in the open division at nationals in this life time. I will work for that.
Rob Rose - USAPL Massachusetts Spring Classic, 110kg class, (19 March 2022)
This was a fun meet, I had a blast handling Mr. Rose here. Robbie is actually (skip this part if you read this Robbie….) the oldest member of Team Hogan, but you would never be able to tell this based upon his intensity and disposition.
We have only been working together for a few months now but I feel we really hit our stride during this meet prep.
To put it simple, Robbie has a tough schedule and one that is not conducive to becoming as strong as possible, but he would be damned if that was going to hold him back.
Having to commute 3 hours a few times a week to Western Mass on top of his military requirements, his plate is full already, throw in an actual adult home life and a child (something we underestimate as younger lifters in terms of impact to recovery), I can tell you straight up, some of my young guys would call it a day and give up on competing altogether. Robbie is literally not built like that.
I want to say that he is easily, easily the most coachable athlete I have ever come into contact with, I have noticed that the older my clients get, the less they fight back and trust my decisions. This could have something to do with Rob’s military background for sure, but if I make a call, he trusts it and that is that. That is a breath of fresh air for me as usually every call I usually make with a lifter is met with pushback, even if it is objectively the right call.
This was a weird meet in that some referee stuff was very clearly emphasized, not that that’s a bad thing, just wish it was a bit more consistent from lifter to lifter. Things like excessive pre-squat knee lock, excessive knee lock on deadlift lockouts, etc… But despite catching a few weird reds, Robbie was 3 whites or 2 whites on every lift this day.
Now to the fun part, Robbie hit an all time PR on all 3 lifts and PR’d his total on a 9/9 day, you cannot do much better than that. Plus, he was on vacation 2 weeks out, meaning no lifter for 7 days, who can do that? Truly incredible and I am proud to have this man on my roster, representing Team Hogan.
Results:
Squat: 200kg (441lbs), +6lb PR
Bench Press: 122.5kg (270lbs), +16lbs PR
Deadlift: 230kg (507lbs), +6lbs PR
Total: 552.5kg (1218lbs), +28lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ the USPA Rhode Island State Championships (12 March 2022)
The USPA crew, minus Dave, plus Bobby. This day, man, it was truly euphoric.
We had 3 guys compete at this meet with 3 very different back stories leading into it, I want to do justice to each.
First, let’s talk about my most consistent, drama-free, and most reliable athlete, Mr. Tyler Hill, Seamus as he is known to the ones who value him.
Seamus was primed for a great meet for a while, it was simply when and where, which was cool. What I admire most about Seamus, he is extremely amicable and willing to voice his opinion but also open to hearing mine. When an athlete shows confidence in himself in a certain direction, has data to back it up, and listens to my counter-argument, I am more than likely going to meet them more than halfway on their request, and with Seamus that happened a few times during this prep. First off, he went up a weight class, something I suggested and he agreed and I think he will co-sign this was the best decision for his strength. Seamus is always there for others and sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle when it comes to times like this where it is better, in my opinion, to be a bit more selfish. At this meet he was helping people like he was handling, not actively competing! That just shows you what kind of person he is.
Seamus honestly was one lift away from his super meet and I find solace in his miss, it was not on grip, not on technicality, just wasn’t there on the day. USPA meets are rough in that there was easily 1-2hrs of downtime between each lift, from first squat to last deadlift easily 8 hours had passed haha. 1300lbs is in your near future, sir.
Results:
Squat: 207.5kg (458lbs), +29lb PR
Bench Press: 137.5kg (303lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 227.5kg (501lbs)
Total: 572.5kg (1262lbs), +39lb PR
8/9 on attempts
Next, Kyle Kable. The alpha dog of Team Hogan and our largest lifter, that man just turned 30 as well, a true silverback.
To put it short, this would have been a great meet for Kyle but he was victim of a very egregious call on deadlifts. Kyle, in my opinion, had the most uphill battle to a great meet for many reasons, so the fact that he came in and did what he did, really leaves me wondering what this guys top end potential is if he had a single year dedicated to ONLY powerlifting, he is also a national-caliber strongman. Here are some things that I think really effected Kyle leading into this meet:
He went on vacation 2 weeks out. This was out of his control and not something I would ever hold against him. However, I would be lying if I said it didn’t effect his progression/momentum leading into the meet, especially on bench press.
Kyle was in the 4th flight of a 4 flight, single session meet. These were full flights too, 13-15 lifters per flight. It was a long day for him and I would not be able to perform as well as he did, straight up.
We had 2 people in flight C, more like 3 and another we were helping in flight B. So, most often, Kyle got no help in the warmup room and this is on me, I should have had someone assigned to him to help him time his warmups because for at least one lift he warmed up way too fast and had to go back down in weight to stay warm.
Needless to say, Kyle makes no excuses and can really call upon some serious power for a single attempt, hence why we take huge jumps on attempts for him.
His final deadlift of 287.5kg/633lbs, which would have been a 2.5kg PR and locked in his first total over 1600lbs, got called 2 reds to one white for hitching. I am liberal when it comes to judging, in fact most often I take the judges side over my lifters, this was not one of those times. I felt so bad for him as it truly was a missed call. Oh well, I told him I counted it, he counted it, next time we will pull 650 and forget this whole thing even happened.
Results:
Squat: 277.5kg (611lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 167.5kg (369lbs)
Deadlift: 272.5kg (601lbs)
Total: 717.5kg (1582lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Lastly, the guy who went to Utopia and lived to tell the tale, one Robert Dortona, straight outta Salem, New Hampshire.
Let me tell you, this was a full-circle moment for me. Bobby was one of the guys who indirectly got me into the sport at the tail end of 2017 and was someone I really looked up to in the game. Not that I don’t anymore, but I won’t lie, it really hurt to see him on hiatus for so long, knowing what he could do if he committed himself. It was a shock when he reached out to me, telling me he was 6 weeks out from a meet and was requesting my services to help him get there. I put full effort into all programming but man I put easily 2.5hrs into his plan because I knew how important it was to him.
For someone who is as strong as he is, he really listened to my suggestions, which were minor, but minor changes usually lead to big outcomes in my experience.
Less reps per set, more sets. This essentially solved his depth issue along with a few weeks of high bar, beltless work. When reps are very high in a set, it makes it hard to go to comp standard depth by virtue of fatigue on a lift like the squat.
A bit more of a pacing approach, not just simply taking what is there on the day. Although we exceeded that pace, we did not fall off it, which was crucial and elicited an actual peak at the meet, and not a week or two out.
Based on his training, I issued him a challenge, be the first Team Hogan lifter to total 1700lbs in competition. He agreed, and we designed a plan to do just that, we adjusted it heavily based on training but that is the beauty of prioritizing the total as the biggest variable, it allows you a ton of different ways to get to the same outcome, our plan coming in was WAY different from what manifested on the day, yet got us to the same outcome. That is called being flexible as an athlete and being flexible as a coach.
I could go on and on about this, but Bobby showed everyone what we already knew, he’s a strong guy who has a tremendous mentality when he locks in.
In is first meet back in just under 5 years, he not only got that 1703lb total, but he won best overall lifter for the ENTIRE meet. That my friend’s, is Utopia on Earth. So happy to be in your corner sir, was fun crunching numbers on the day to make this happen.
*since this is his first in 5 years, please take the meet PRs for a grain of salt, they are a little outrageous*
Results:
Squat: 287.5kg (633lbs), +99lb PR
Bench Press: 177.5kg (391lbs), +66lbs PR
Deadlift: 307.5kg (678lbs), +77lbs PR
Total: 772.5kg (1703lbs), +243lb PR
8/9 on attempts
Connor Winslow - USPA New Hampshire Lift or Freeze, 75kg class, (22 January 2022)
Mr. Connor Winslow and I had been working together for a few months leading into this meet here and to me, he did phenomenal for only his second career meet, something I remind him of all the time. Connor and I had a bit of a learning curve in terms of learning each other, much like any other client I have, but I feel as if we were able to meet halfway on a few ordeals that paid off when it came time to perform.
I could be misremembering here, so don’t quote me on this, but Connor was running template programming before we started working together and made a ton of progress with them. The issue with this is not what most people say, “you would do BETTER with a coach”, but more so, it skews the perception on how you actually build strength. Despite being mature beyond his years, Connor has only been a competitive lifter for under a year and only heavy training for half a year (or so) more than that. Starting together when he was 17, this meant that he was succeed in spite of his program because his body is not fully developed yet. This is cool and all, but I have noticed this is where a lot of young guys build bad habits that drive them out of the sport by the time they are 21. That being the following:
Going too heavy, too often.
Not enough emphasis on developing muscle mass.
Too much specificity, too soon.
This is where a lot of our disagreements kind of manifested, as my approach is not similar to template-based programs. He felt many times that he was not going heavy enough to be ready for gameday, which, believe me, I totally get it. At one point in my lifter career, I thought I needed to lift 500lbs in the gym in order to have the confidence to attempt it in a meet. However, I think we had a breakthrough after some conversations on why we do things and why we want to peak at the meet itself and not 3 weeks out and just try to hold on. Basically, you don’t need to hit a weight 3 times in a peak cycle in order to be in shape to take it on the platform. Eventually, I think he saw on the day how powerful this is.
Some things we will be working on is getting bigger overall, bar-none. His squat is money, we will return to the approach that got him to 182.5kg for next prep, his bench will benefit from more accessory work and simply putting more emphasis on it, and lastly, some careful technical changes to his deadlift are going to limit lockout issues that have kept him away from a very heavy pull (at the time of me writing this, his deadlift has been on fire).
To summarize, Connor had a great day but his best days in this sport are in the future. When this kid fills out completely, has a few 9/9 meets under his belt, and does a USAPL meet (Connor bro if you’re reading this, meet July 30th in Maine with all your teammates on Team Hogan………) good luck. The sky is truly the limit for him, if he wants it and is patient.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs), +28lb PR
Bench Press: 97.5kg (215lbs), +6lbs PR
Deadlift: 202.5kg (446lbs)
Total: 482.5kg (1063lbs), +27lb PR
7/9 on attempts
Team Hogan @ the USAPL Maine Event: Winter Open (8 January 2022)
Meet # 2 as a co-director, meet # a million as a coach.
For these multi-lifter meets, I have decided to lump them altogether as I have lost more and more free time with intense training myself AND working essentially two jobs 6 days a week. Oh well, I have time now and I want to talk! I will break down each lifter’s performance at this meet as each lifter has a pretty cool story about how they got to where they are in the sport.
First up, Ms. Rebecca Labitt, Bex for short.
Bex is actually the lightest lifter on Team Hogan and this was not only our first meet working together but it was her first meet overall! The way I have Bex train is a bit different compared to conventional training styles due to a few reasons but mostly since she is so new in training age to the sport but also because I have learned lighter weight lifters (me included) are super-sensitive to de-training, meaning taking away too much work, too soon, leads to a degradation in strength similar to over-training which is an interesting phenomenon. For this being her first meet, she did incredible and I am very proud of her effort, I am now months in the future writing this but let’s just say she is opening around 10-20kg (44lbs…) ABOVE some of her meet PRs at this next meet she is doing, I expect something incredible.
Results:
Squat: 42.5kg (94lbs)
Bench Press: 27.5kg (61lbs)
Deadlift: 52.5kg (116lbs)
Total: 122.5kg (270lbs)
6/9 on attempts, first career meet
Next up, Ms. Meg Frangione.
Meg was competing in her second career meet and her second under my services. Meg was fortunate enough to place 3rd overall this meet and really improved a ton from meet #1, which is what the goal should ALWAYS be in this sport, improve on your performance from last meet. Any time you can go 9/9 with meet PRs on every lift and total is a good time and Meg is a very good meet day lifter in that she takes constructive criticism well and applies it to each attempt, something you cannot teach. Although she is a programming-only client, she has phenomenal technique on every lift and that alone carries her in terms of her training. Interesting to note, she is also a full-time art teacher, which I know now since entering the teaching profession, eliminates all your free-time. Teaching is unique in that you are expected to work overtime and on weekends essentially without pay (not contracted pay that is) and throw full-time training on top of that, you are left with maybe an hour or two of decompression time each day, so with that said, this makes her performance even MORE impressive. Very proud of her efforts, next meet will be a supernova, I can tell.
Results:
Squat: 112.5kg (248lbs), +6lb PR
Bench Press: 62.5kg (137lbs), +16lb PR
Deadlift: 125kg (275lbs), +11lb PR
Total: 300kg (661lbs), +33lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Next, we will talk about Nate Hilton!
Nate, flat-out, is a work-horse. I’m sure he is tired of hearing it but I wish some of my younger guys had his work ethic. This man sometimes is up at 3am, yes, you read that correct, in order to get all of his training in as he works full-time and is raising his young son in his free-time. Training in his home gym, by himself, 4-5 days a week, he is always incredibly steady with his effort level. Nate is a somewhat curious case in that his performance really seems to flat-line with a taper, meaning the traditional aggressive drop in volume and intensity really zaps his strength. I theorize this has to do with his background in distance running, meaning the stimulation of the slower twitch muscle fibers keeps him strong and by virtue, his reps per set and overall volume is a lot higher than most of the people I work with. For this meet, we pretty much pulled back workload 5 days out and for the next one, I am honestly thinking we pull back 3 days out. After this meet, we committed to really making an effort into growing into the next weight class and so far, it has been a game changer for his leverages, I expect next meet will be the meet he goes over 800lbs on total.
Results:
Squat: 110kg (242lbs)
Bench Press: 95kg (204lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 147.5kg (325lbs), +6lb PR
Total: 350kg (772lbs), +12lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Next, the legend in the making himself, Elliot Woznica.
Elliot has been my de facto training partner for close to a year now and to see his progress in this sport in that short a time is nothing short of amazing. Elliot is one of my younger clients, sitting proud at 18 years young but his maturity is well beyond his years when it comes to the process of getting stronger and performing in meets. This meet, we had a deal, go 8/8, we will send a huge 3rd pull. More than fair and his training supported that something big was in the tank. Elliot’s peak cycle was absolutely money, I think he hit some sort of squat PR pretty much every week, made strides in his bench consistency (no butt lift!!!), and really improved upon his deadlift execution. This being his 3rd meet, he really showed and solidified who he will be in this sport and that is someone who really performs on meet day. He put over 100lbs on his total this meet, wild, but I would not be surprised if he put another 100lbs on it this summer.
Results:
Squat: 170kg (374lbs), +50lb PR
Bench Press: 130kg (286lbs), +22lb PR
Deadlift: 182.5kg (402lbs), +22lb PR
Total: 482.5kg (1063lbs), +111lbs PR (Lmao)
8/9 on attempts
In our penultimate recap, we have the return of Michael Beaupre.
Mike has been a friend of mine since we were very young, 2nd or 3rd grade I believe. To make a very long story short, Mike was (and in my eyes still is) a very high-level lifter at a very young age. He has competed and won a National meet, competed at the IPF World level, and set tons and tons of records since his first meet in 2014. When I first got into the game, Mike was actually the one who was kind of coaching me and teaching me the ropes, so it was surreal to be on the other side of the spectrum all these years lately. This meet was special for a few reasons. The first, this was Mike’s first meet since 2018. Yes, close to 4 years. Burnout, injury, etc… all play a role here but any time you take 4 years off from something and return, that is a hard thing to do. The second was Mike was in real contention to win the lightweight division at this meet, which would be pretty cool in your first meet back. His training was absolutely incredible, blowing everything up like a mad man. Although he did well here and did end up winning the division, I really think this is only the beginning, feels good to have my partner in crime back on the scene, setting the standard for the 67.5kg class in Maine and eventually in the Northeast. Mega Nationals 2023???
Results:
Squat: 190kg (419lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 125kg (275lbs)
Deadlift: 217.5kg (480lbs), +16lbs PR
Total: 532.5kg (1174lbs), +22lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Lastly, we will end with what ended up stealing the show, Joshua Dang.
This meet was an emotional one for Josh and to me, told me all I need to know about who he is as a competitor. Let me give y’all a rundown on the stakes of this meet for him.
Needed to go 9/9. When I say need, I mean if he missed a single lift, his goal of making the qualifying total for Collegiate Nationals would be virtually impossible. We trained to hit exactly the QT with relatively no room to spare.
Josh had an unfortunate run of deadlift issues leading into the meet, culminating in him initially failing his last heavy dead that was around 7.5kg lighter than what we needed on the top end.
This was most likely his only chance to do this. All the other meets in the area fell too close to CNats and would make prepping for the meet very dangerous in terms of injury-management. Next year was not an option as he is in his final year of school.
With all that said, how many people would rise to the occasion? Not many, Josh, he is different. Each attempt built upon the previous lift, culminating in what might have been my most emotional moment as a coach to date. 237.5kg/524lbs on the bar. Make the lift, go to CNats, miss the lift, the window is closed. Nailed the lift, the roof came off the facility for a bit, and we did what we came to do. Will fully admit I was as close to happy tears as I have ever been in my life and I am NOT an outwardly emotional person. So proud of you man, first person ever to represent Team Hogan at a national meet (I don’t count) and I could not think of anyone else I’d rather bestow that title to.
Results:
Squat: 197.5kg (435lbs), +16lb PR
Bench Press: 127.5kg (281lbs), +6lb PR
Deadlift: 237.5kg (524lbs), +16lb PR
Total: 562.5kg (1240lbs), +40lbs PR
9/9 on attempts, Collegiate Nationals Bound
Andrew Graves - USAPL Odyssey Barbell Club Classic, 83kg class, (30 October 2021)
Where to start, this was a euphoric day, but to get to this point, it was NOT all sunshine and rainbows.
To set some background for you all, there were actually a few things we changed leading into this meet that in my opinion, were game changers.
The first of which, was changing from high bar squats to low bar squats. Since Andrew has been powerlifting, and even as far back as to when he started lifting in general, he has squatted high bar. Due to injuries, set backs, and general staleness, Andrew’s squat had been stuck at 479lbs since July of 2020. Think about that, he went over a YEAR with no PR on squat and he competed twice during that time span. Before I even continue, this separates the people who love this game from those who are in it for instagram notoriety. I know not many people would be willing to stick it out but Andrew is different and that is why what occurred at this meet was so special to me. Back to the low bar switch, we had the idea that it was probably worth it to finally dive in head first to it as we messed around with it in the past AND had exhausted every other programming option before it. One thing I will say, when you make the switch, there should not be a ton of difference between the two in terms of technique but you can really screw things up if you add too much volume, too soon. The thought process for most is hammer it down with 8s for multiple sets to get the reps in, I do not agree with this notion. We pretty much went right into heavier 4s and simply built up organically and allowed his stabilizers and all the ancillary muscles adapt 1-1 instead of FORCING the issue, and I think that paid off.
The next biggest change was enacting percentage based bench work. Although these had an RPE cut off, I have noticed that with his bench, it just flat-out gets stronger with a ton of sub-max volume (think RPE 6 and below), accessory work, and 1 heavy exposure a week. Instead of putting load selections in his hands, I put it in my hands because I knew what was needed to get to the end goal and I am glad he trusted that. We also had a pretty successful couple of hypertrophy-based blocks that I really allowed him to stack on the size necessary to push his bench heavier.
This prep honestly was the perfect storm of everything coming together at once. This was our 4th meet together as coach and athlete but I have been at every competition of his either handling or competing myself before that. Having data on what works is so, so crucial because if we have a good pre-meet block, we pretty much can plug and play what has historically worked with minor refinements and are off and running and this was much of the same. The goal for 7 months was to total 1400lbs, which might have seem aggressive at the time but I knew in my heart that if we picked the right numbers (notice I said we, not I), we would be able to do that. We paced out that he would have to hit an all time PR bench a week out and pretty close to his meet PRs on squat and deadlift if we wanted a chance to taper into a 1400lb total. Thankfully, we were able to do just that, ending the prep off with a 215kg/474lbs squat, 157.5kg/347lb bench press, and a 245kg/540lb deadlift.
This is where we had a breakthrough, he approached me a few days out saying that he felt capable of going a little bit heavier on the squat and as such, wanted it to at least be on the table. If you have a track record of making lifts and I know you as a lifter, you 100% have that leeway to negotiate with me, so we met halfway, as you should. The thing I think we do well on Team Hogan is have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C, for every step of the way. We knew what Andrew had to bench and pull if he missed his 3rd squat, what he would have to make up on pull if he missed his third bench, and then of course had our ideal, dream goal on the day.
Fast forward to the day, things started off pretty smooth. Warmups moved nice, opener, although it didn’t move lighting fast, moved “strong”, if you have been around long enough you know what that means. Fast does not always equal strong! We called for 220kg/485lbs on his second, which was a 6lb all-time PR along with a meet PR. It is always nice when you have a PR to fall back on should you miss a third but it does not always work out like that. That moved flawless and I told him hey, if you feel like you have it, I think it’s there today, and we loaded it up. 227.5kg/501lbs, sunk and moved insane. He had another 5kg left! The same person who did not PR his squat for a year just tapered 27lbs up from his best prep single. This was emotional and the right call, I can’t take credit as he convinced me that he could do this, and when someone is that confident, I listen.
Bench, to be honest, was on fire for months leading into this meet. I pretty much knew he was going to hit a bench PR but did not know by how much. We ended up hitting 160kg/352lbs, which was our planned heavy 3rd, and were right on pace for the plan we had to get to 1400.
Deadlifts moved good in the back and ever since moving to conventional, his deads are a lot more predictable. We figured out that his deadlift style just does not lend itself to heavy rep sets, so moving forward we are going to alternate between doubles and singles for our heavy sets. The goal now was to secure 1400 on the second pull and then see what was there for a big 3rd deadlift. The opener of 232.5/513lbs moved insane, so we went for 247.5kg/546lbs on the second to secure 1400. I was informed after the fact that he has never taken this big a jump in comp, to me, for deadlifts I think it is important mentally to just get one on the board, because you never know what wacky stuff can happen on meet day that cause you to have a slip up and you don’t want to double down on that slip up with too heavy an opener. We get to 247.5, he makes it with room to spare, 1400 = secured. Now, we had a little fun and I pretty much let him pick the top end of what he felt capable and that was 260kg/573lbs. Just was not there on the day, no big deal as we got the goal we wanted. I think if I HAD to do it over again, I would have just gone up 5kg to 252.5kg/557lbs and not only do I know he would hit that, it would have given us all time PRs on all 3 lifts and added an extra 5kg to his total, oh well, there will be more meets and we kept the goal, the goal which I am proud of.
I am so thankful to have this man in my corner, what’s interesting is he handled me to my best ever performance a few months prior and come full circle, we are in the same gym in different roles, and I handled him to his best performance. The Dream Team man, Maine drug-free powerlifting is in good hands with us at the helm and leading the charge.
Results:
Squat: 227.5kg (501lbs), +22lb PR
Bench Press: 160kg (353lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 247.5kg (546lbs)
Total: 635kg (1400lbs), +34lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Axel Ramirez - USPA Drug Tested Hoosier State Championships, 67.5kg class, (23 October 2021)
The following was written by Axel himself as I was not in attendance for this meet out in Indiana. He was gracious enough to create a meet report through his eyes for me that I will comment on at the end!
This was my first time working with Erik. I had just finished up my first meet by myself and knew I could perform a lot better if I had help. I hired Erik a week after my first meet and 14 weeks out from my next. Meet prep went amazingly. I have a home gym and Erik was able to work around my equipment to make a very effective program. Erik was super detailed with everything from my training to my diet to meet day warmups and attempts. He also helped me with my first water cut and explained how much to eat, drink and even how to refuel after!
I am in a completely different state and Erik was not physically present, but it sure felt like he was there. Every single jump was planned out by him. From the bar all way to my last attempt including a plan on what jump to take if I was not feeling at my best. My friend who was handling me for the second time was able to follow Erik’s plan perfectly. My first attempt at 364lbs/165kg on squat moved like an empty bar so I was able jump up to 386lbs/175kg. To me this felt light but thought it moved slow. My handler said it was just mental and that it moved well to him, so we decided to go for it and jumped to 402lbs/182.5kg. Now I’ve been trying to hit 400+ for a whole year and had attempted and failed it 3 times. This time though I was able to hit it and it moved better than my second attempt. 3/3 for squats skyrocketed my confidence and I knew it would be a good day.
Bench is the lift that I think is my worst lift mainly to injuries. My shoulders tend to act up sometimes and cause me to have stop my progress to nurse it back to health. During prep Erik gave my exercises to do helped my rotator cuffs stay health and thus my bench progressed better than I expected. I started off with an easy 215lbs/97.5kg that moved like air. Second attempt was 231lbs/105kg which tied my best bench and it moved awesome. Now I was nervous for my third attempt because I had never hit anything above my second attempt, and this was uncharted territory for me. However, during prep everything I did felt light. I trusted the plan and selected 242lbs/110kg. Off the chest it moved awesome, and I was able to lock it out without too much trouble for a huge PR for me. So far 6/6 and not a single red light.
Deadlifts are my favorite. I actually hit a small PR during prep, so I knew I was going to end up with nice PR. I started off with 424lbs/192.5kg that felt like nothing so I went up to 446lbs/202.5kg. This would tie my third from 3 months ago. Moved like air. This had me super fired up so we went with the planned third of 463lbs/210kg for a huge PR that moved great. Now at this point I was allowed a fourth due to it being a state record. We decided to take a small jump up to 468lbs/212.5kg. This moved like fourth attempt but was able to get it without too much problem and finish out my day with another PR. 10 successful attempts. 30 white lights. 6 state records. first place in the open and junior 68.5kg weight class. I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
Erik: Axel was a dream to work with and never once questioned my plan for him. Although I welcome athletes being skeptical of why they are doing certain things, there is also something to be said about those who will run through a brick wall if I said it would add 5lbs to their bench, and Axel is that type of person.
His prep was fairly straight-forward as I knew with the block we ran before-hand, some big numbers were there. Off the top of my head I think we finished the prep off with last heavy singles of 385lbs on squat, 225lbs on bench press, and 450lbs on deadlift. So that means he tapered into +17lbs on squat, +17lbs on bench press, and +18lbs on deadlift. I don’t always nail a taper but right here, I will say I nailed it but it was not just me, Axel is so meticulous that in many ways, my job was actually quite easy. I pride myself on my lifters making lifts, making PRs, and always leaving with a huge PR total and this was no different! Moving forward, if he wants to continue to push that total deep into the 1100s and into the 1200s, we need to put more muscle on, flat out, non-negotiable. We are working on that now and I expect this big of an increase for his next meet whenever that may be.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs), +31lb PR
Bench Press: 110kg (242lbs), +11lb PR
Deadlift: 212.5kg (469lbs), +23lb PR
Total: 502.5kg (1107lbs), +59lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Jess Lawrence - USPA United We Lift, 75kg class, (9 September 2021)
This write-up has taken too long to get up but finally my schedule has somewhat normalized, so nonetheless, here we are!
This was an interesting meet for sure. More on that later.
I would be doing her a disservice if I did not commend Jess on her effort this meet. There were several things that occurred that honestly I would not have faulted her for had she decided they were too much to compete with. Not in her style to go against a commitment, she finished off this prep as strong as she possibly could and gave it her all on the day and for that, I cannot stress enough how proud I was of this alone.
As a side note, this was my first time traveling to Vermont, I left just outside of the Boston area at 3:30am to make it on time for the 8am start time… That did not end up being at 8am. Vermont was cool, a more country version of Maine I was in a trance looking at the scenery on the way back.
Back to the meet, I had some major issues with how this meet was run. As a meet director myself, I 100% sympathize with meet directors as I know first hand the amount of obstacles one has to go through to actually have the meet, let alone run it smoothly. So the following are suggestions for next time, NOT attacks or critiques.
The first issue was the board was not up for order of flights in the morning as well as the expedited flight sheet. We did not know where we were in the flight and despite the 8am start time, we did not actually start the meet until 8:10am. You may be saying, does 10 minutes really matter? If you want to warm your athlete up optimally, hell yes it does. 1 or 2 minutes is 1 thing but since we were 4th in the flight, we finished at 7:59am and did not take the platform until 8:14am. The next time you take a heavy single, I want you to wait 15 minutes between the last warmup and the top single. Thinking on the fly, I resorted to waving back up in weight AND keeping loose with rear foot elevated split squats.
We got off to a semi-rocky start with her missing her opener on commands, which, I hate to be this guy, the ref messed up on. She signaled rack but did not use her voice until AFTER the fact. Staying on the safe side, we re-took it, made it, and then made the 3rd at 110kg/242lbs.
On to bench press, this was the lift I thought we had a fighting chance with and I think I was correct in this assumption. We went 50kg/110lbs to open, 55kg/121lbs for the second, and then had the grind of the century for the third of 60kg/132lbs that got turned down 2-1 for butt lift. I was proud of this grind because for her, that was something I needed to see. However, I won’t be making the same mistake twice, the data is overwhelming that the most missed lift in all of powerlifting is the 3rd attempt female bench press and that jumps over 2.5kg are really risky. This is on me more than it is on her.
Lastly, deadlifts, her bread and butter. We flat out balled on deadlifts this whole cycle so I knew something heavy would be there and it was. We were able to take 155kg/341lbs for an all-time PR, meet PR, and break a state record she wanted to hit for a very long time. This meant the world to me as I knew she was capable of it, perfect execution on her part.
We did have her take a 4th, which again, was ridiculous as I called for it immediately after and was told repeatedly I needed to wait and that I can just chip it by 0.5kg. I wanted to do neither and she was forced to wait 2 minutes AFTER the flight had ended with the bar loaded before attempting it. Again, this is not on her and most a call to action to maybe ask for some additional help to manage the meet better, again, I know how hard it is to run a meet and could not imagine doing it alone.
Nonetheless, we have some valuable data for Jess in many avenues. The biggest is to stop cutting down into meets. Physiology dictates we cannot perform optimally in a calorie deficit and net-loss of energy, this coupled with leverage (being too tall for a particular weight class serves no advantage and Jess is probably too tall for the 75kg class, all her best numbers were at a light 82.5kg lifter) makes it very hard to progress. The next is to experiment with a lower bar position, Jess’s strength is her back and we cannot use that in a high bar, upright squat. When you are not built for high bar (very short femurs, very long torso) it is extremely unforgiving, meaning any degree you tip forward increases the risk of missing as you cannot center yourself with the bar up that high. Lastly, and we had this conversation so I feel comfortable posting it, make sure we are okay overall before we decide on a meet. Prepping for a meet is emotional in itself if you care and at the end of the day, I care about my lifters as people first and if they are not okay, I can care less about their powerlifting numbers as I do not attach ANY of my lifters worth according to their numbers. Some things are in our control, others are not, and that is okay if we can distinguish things as such.
If I can ever get this girl to compete in the USAPL, I think she would like it a lot better. No squat bar, 2 hour weigh ins, drug-testing, etc… but baby steps…
Results:
Squat: 110kg (242lbs)
Bench Press: 55kgkg (121lbs)
Deadlift: 155kgkg (341lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 320kg (706lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Kyle Kable - USPA Greater Boston Championship, 140kg class, (14 August 2021)
Rounding out the USPA trio, the only lifter on the team I trust with 17.5kg and 20kg jumps, and newly 140kg lifter, Kyle Kable.
In the first meet Kyle and I worked together, he was coming off a very long lay off so I wanted to do what I always do with new lifters or people coming off long lay offs, go 9/9 and leave some room for next time and we did exactly that.
This go around, Kyle informed me he was probably going to focus a bit more on strongman in the coming year and that if possible, he’d like to be a bit more aggressive this go around, which I obliged within reason.
To be truthful, Kyle’s prep started off slow but anecdotally speaking, most of the time guys in the heavier weight classes have a “late peak” in that they do not need that heavy an exposure, at least not frequently, to taper down into a big lift.
Fast forward to the meet.
So as a little background, Kyle cannot physically fit into a standard combo and as such requests the the racks in. For some reason, on his opening squat his rack height was high and thank god Andrew Graves (who came up to help and was invaluable on the day getting everyone warmed up) caught it that his racks were not in. I was at an angle and did not notice, as Kyle stumbled out of the rack and it made his opener a little off-balanced. Still moved good (245kg/540lbs) so we went with the planned heavy second. With Kyle, we take big boy jumps to conserve energy so the planned 2nd was 260kg/573lbs and it moved good but I noticed something crucial that made it move a little worse than we may have anticipated, he did not brace at all. Like, he literally did not take a breath he just went down with it after getting a start command. He came into this meet wanting to achieve a lifetime goal of squatting 600lbs and despite the second not really warranting a 12.5kg jump, we went for it because in my heart I believed if I had him take smaller deliberate steps and get tight on the unrack and before the descent, it would go. And man, did it go. 272.5kg/601lbs to great depth for a 7.5kg meet PR and an all time PR to boot! Crazy what small changes can make in terms of the big picture.
On to to bench, this was the lift I think we got a little greedy on. Kyle wanted a shot at the Mass state record and truth be told, it was probably a reach on the day but I wanted to give him the opportunity even if it was halfway there. We went 155kg/341lbs on the first, which moved good honestly, then 167.5kg/369lbs on the second which moved good but was kind of misgrooved. We jumped to 177.5kg/391lbs which to me was 2.5kg to heavy. I don’t think this was technical thing but rather strength and he even said after the lift it just wasn’t there on the day. This is the game you play with big jumps as this effectively cost Kyle 7.5kg on his total, again, I was okay with this as the constraint he laid out before made it more reasonable. With the squat we hit, we were still on pace for a good total but we had to play it smart.
Deads for Kyle taper HARD and based on his warmups, we knew deads were on this day. We opened up at 252.5kg/557lbs and it was a glorified last warmup. We went with the planned 2nd of 270kg/595lbs which moved insane and was given 2 whites and 1 red. When this happens, to me you tell the athlete to put it on the judges and do exactly what you did before as it passed and the last thing you want to do when attacking a third pull is worry about technique. We went with 282.5kg/623lbs which was our conservative third because it secured a PR total, a deadlift PR, and was well within reason on the day. This moved incredible, I mean, literally insane! After this we decided to chip the state record of 285kg/628lbs with a 285.5kg/629lbs 4th attempt and he locked it out but it was turned down 2 to 1 for hitching which may have been fair in hindsight.
All in all, we left with PRs on the squat, dead, and total and crossed off some very important milestones. So proud of this man and really cannot wait to see him level up into that next stratosphere.
Results:
Squat: 272.5kg (601lbs), 7.5kg PR
Bench Press: 167.5kg (369lbs)
Deadlift: 282.5kg (623lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 722.5kg (1593lbs), 2.5kg PR
8/9 on attempts
Tyler Hill - USPA Greater Boston Championship, 82.5kg class, (14 August 2021)
Keeping the theme going, another former Wentworth Men’s Rugby standout, Tyler Hill, was also in attendance to turn up this weekend. Seamus, as he is known, had a day that I only can describe as gritty. He earned everything this day the hard way and I would be damned if I said his final pull didn’t make me a but emotional.
This was about as good a prep as we possibly could have asked for. We paced him a bit better this time around to the point where I think all the lifts were there on the day but more to that later. A couple things I noticed for Seamus this time is his physique has improved big time, he was a bit heavier this prep but substantially leaner. The other thing is his mindset is a lot cleaner, I say cleaner because his goals are very concise now and not just the lowest hanging fruit.
So to start, we have a plan on this team, from warmups to attempts, we are ready for everything. This, to me, is where we have an advantage at meets and things that seemingly should be a death sentence to overall performance for others, are things we can brush off rather easily. Again, more on that in a bit.
Seamus started off hitting his first 2 squats at 182.5kg/402lbs and 192.5kg/424lbs (which was 2.5kg below his meet PR) and they both moved stronger than he moved them the entire prep. We paced this whole prep out for a 200kg/441lbs third and I think he will agree to this that we do not regret taking this at all. There are “good” misses and “bad” misses. This was a good one, I say that because he stalled out literally as high as one could possibly stall out and I think maybe if he had a touch more impulse out of the hole it would carry him to lockout. A bad miss, to me, would be something that was overzealous to the point where you do not make it an inch out of the hole, pretty much failing the eccentric. Was 197.5kg/435lbs there? Easily. We could have taken the 2.5kg PR but with the attempt we took before being 2.5kg under his best, we had a safety net of sorts to be a bit more aggressive, next meet, 200kg will fall, bar none.
Bench is the lift that Seamus really attacked this prep and I honestly feel, again, his heaviest 3rd was there but we had a little bit of a technical groove issue that will be an easy fix. Still, we tied his meet PR on his second, at 135kg/297lbs, effectively putting us 2.5kg back on his subtotal but I knew he was in line for a 7.5kg meet PR on deadlift which would also PR his total based on his training so I assured him we would be alright.
On to deads, Seamus has improved his technique big time and to me, has a very technically sound conventional pull. Historically a sumo puller, he put his ego aside and made the call a while back to go with what is strong and it has paid off. I may be misremembering but I believe we ended this prep at 220kg/485lbs or 222.5kg/491lbs which ties or exceeds his meet PR and it moved insane. I knew we had something heavier on meet day.
We opened at 212.5kg/469lbs and it moved better than it had the entire prep, from there we jumped to the planned heavy second of 222.5kg/491lbs and again, best it had moved all prep. Circling back to having a plan, I wrote this out so if he did not make his thirds on squat and bench, he would still bare minimum tie his total with only his second deadlift. Is it always possible to construct a plan like this, no, but when it is, I will make sure we walk out of that venue with a PR total come hell or high water. So the dilemma was do we go with the planned heavy third or the conservative 3rd. To me, I believed in him to hit the heavy third as did he so I rolled the dice and put in 227.5kg/501lbs. He nailed all the positions off the floor, was patient almost like a sumo pull, and locked that pull out smooth and when he got 3 whites, man I lost it. This sealed a deadlift PR, a total PR, and encapsulated everything I respect about this man, he does not quit. It’s one thing to say that but it’s another to see it. Again, I am so proud of this day and that we salvaged it, proper planning and trusting your athletes goes a long way!
Results:
Squat: 192.5kg (424lbs)
Bench Press: 135kg (297lbs)
Deadlift: 227.5kg (501lbs), 7.5kg PR
Total: 555kg (1224lbs), 5kg PR
7/9 on attempts
Dave Cailler - USPA Greater Boston Championship, 100kg class, (14 August 2021)
Starting off with the man, the myth, the legend, one David Cailler, former Wentworth Men’s Rugby standout and local hell-raiser.
This is Dave and I’s second meet working together and this one was a bit different as we had some circumstances to deal with that we did not last go around and his life was changing and very hectic as close as 2 weeks out from the meet.
To make it short, I believe 3 weeks out, maybe 4, he came up to the meet myself and Andrew Graves co-directed and spotted and loaded all day from 8-5pm plus helped with the takedown. Anyone who has spotted and loaded at a meet, it is ROUGH. Tyler Hill, who I will be covering later, had to deal with the same and I am very thankful these guys came up to do this because again, 24hrs post, it is ROUGH. Coupled with this, Dave was moving and starting a new job, he won’t make the excuse but anyone who is trying to peak for a meet, I dare you to coincide it with a major life change, and see the results. Dave never complained once and many times he would have to move things around workout wise to get everything in. Squatting fairly heavy 2 days in a row, pulling a couple days after that, etc… There is a point to having a dedicated split but at some point when you have to adjust, you cannot overthink it and I think Dave does a great job with this.
Dave usually does all his off-season work on his own and we come together to prep which has worked well in the past and this honestly was nothing different. He gives me very good feedback in terms of exercise selection and I listen to that and we fine tune each go around to the point where I think we have the timetable to peak him down to a tee.
Weight cut was easy and I think he came in as prepared as we possibly could have been. I think the thing I respect most about Dave is when we have the conversation about attempts, they are always realistic and not outlandish. Being not attached to arbitrary numbers is generally the route to best performance. Because what is so special about 200kg or 300kg really when you think about it?
Squats started off hot, we went 255kg/562lbs to open and it looked like he was shot out of a cannon. We jumped 12.5kg to 267.5kg/590lbs and again, smoked it. We went with the planned heavy 3rd of 277.5kg/611lbs and honestly, I feel it was there but when weights get THAT heavy, any minor miss-step will cause a chain reaction. He made a comment I feel that is fairly prevalent in that he has a hard time getting a good shelf with the thick squat bar. Bar rolled up on him a bit and it was just a little too much to grind.
Bench, was bench. We were conservative with it as his opener was easy, but on his second attempt of 152.5kg/336lbs he got about a 3ct pause for some reason which made it a bit harder than it normally would have been. We hypothesized the head ref could not see the bar touch his chest as he lifts his head during the bench, but to me, this is fairly common in USPA and I reviewed the video and he did not hover or have the bar moving at the chest, we decided to jump 2.5kg to 155kg/342lbs for the third and just expect a long press command, he hit it and honestly had another 2.5-5kg to spare but I have learned that after missing a third squat, mentally, you need momentum of going 3/3 on bench to have any hope of “making up for it” on deadlifts.
Going into deads, I will be honest he was moving weights in the back like I have never seen them moved before in person. I knew this was going to be a good day for pulls and it was. We opened at 282.5kg/623lbs and despite a little turbulence at the top from that whippy DL bar, it was unreal how it moved. We took our planned heavy second of 295kg/650lbs which I think caused most people in the crowd to gasp because it moved faster and smoother than the opener. From there we made the call to end with momentum and took the lighter of the 2 options, 305kg/673lbs. This moved insane still but he knew he would hit this and so did I so there was no need to get greedy. We debated taking a 4th attempt for another record but emotionally it is very hard to go to that spot twice in a row and that is usually when injuries occur so I am glad we lived to fight another day.
I don’t know if this surprised him, but it certainly surprised me, this performance won Dave Best Lifter in the afternoon session, the first Team Hogan athlete to do this at any meet. I would be curious to see how close it was as at the time of me writing this, the results are not posted to openpowerlifting and there was not a way to check in real time. Drives home my entire point I preach to people that usually your best performances against others come when you worry about yourself. The only thing you can control on meet day is what you do, you cannot control what others do, so why worry?
This was well deserved and I could not be prouder to be associated. Next time we circle back to the platform, I would expect some next level numbers. Some numbers that put him up there with the best in the nation.
Results:
Squat: 267.5kg (590lbs)
Bench Press: 155kg (341lbs)
Deadlift: 305kg (623lbs)
Total: 727.5kg (1604lbs)
8/9 on attempts, #32 total in the nation for 100kg men out of 454 lifters (at the time of this post)
Erik Hogan - USAPL Odyssey Barbell Club Summer Open, 66kg class, (31 July 2021)
Yes, it is I. I already spoke about this meet ad nauseam but this is my website and I shall write about what I please!!!
So, to give a bit of backstory, I had my first “down” meet back in April at the Junior and Collegiate Nationals. I say it in quotations because in the grand scheme, it wasn’t a down meet. I was just dealt a poor hand and some unfortunate things occurred that limited my top end strength. Not an excuse at all because I knew this and still chose to compete. You can go back and read that meet report to see what went wrong. Long story short, I failed to PR my total for the first time on the biggest stage. In hindsight, I was able to set a bench press PR in the strictest of standards, I came back from a bizarre squat call, and was within reach of winning my class had my final deadlift not been redlighted. Despite all that, I still was within 5kg of my best total ever. I get that now, but at the time this kind of crushed me. Yes I was injured but that meant nothing, yes it was my first time competing outside of New England and having to fly to a meet, and yes, it was my first time not competing as a big fish in a small pond. But all I saw were results. 557.5kg/1229lbs total. 5kg/11lbs less than my best. However, I was made aware that for all day 1 men, with a total that was less than my best, I was 8th overall out of around 55 total competitors.
I signed up for this meet within days after Nationals. I am not one to really care about Junior credentials but I did know I did not want to go out like that as a junior competitor. I was lucky for a few reasons this meet fell when it did. First, I think most people by now are aware I was a co-director for a meet the week before, so any competitions on that date were out the window. Secondly, my birthday is August 1st, so naturally I needed a meet before that. Enter, July 31st at Salem, New Hampshire. I have sent lifters to Odyssey meets before, I think 5 total lifters across 3 meets but never had done one myself. As a side note, within New England I have been fortunate enough to travel to meets in Maine, Mass, New Hampshire and a bit outside of that in Connecticut and New York. Eric Lapointe and Odyssey by far run the best meets, just my opinion.
As mentioned before I had roughly 18.5 weeks to prepare for this meet and I was still very injured at this point. I could not squat 135lbs with my regular stance, regular tempo without severe pain in my left knee. Many days I would be in tears thinking why me, why does it still hurt. But that was neither here nor there, I decided to be proactive and use my resources. My protocol to rehab was simple, mundane, but effective. I was to perform 3-5 sets of 30-45 seconds on isometric leg extensions each training day (5x per week) with a higher rep set at almost no load to promote blood flow to my quadriceps. This last part is not rooted in science but allowed me to placebo myself into thinking my quads were being used in the squat. Along with this, I performed a ton of unilateral calf work for the gastroc and soleus and most of my accessory work was unilateral. The longer duration, iso lunge was also my best friend. I kept up with this protocol all the way until I was about 3 weeks out where I finally felt comfortable to not do such a long and mundane warmup. In terms of squat training, I made some amendments to my stance, my sequencing, and then my approach.
I brought my stance in about 2-3 inches and committed to a more knee-forward position. You might think this would exacerbate knee pain but quite the contrary, it was almost therapeutic for it. My squat used to be fairly wide and use a ton of hips and glutes, if you look at my build, you can see that I am definitely lower body dominant but my quadriceps are by far my strength and I should have been using them the entire time. Less hips back, more sit down and it really paid off for me. In terms of programming I established a 2x per week frequency with one day being beltless and the other being belted. Both days were with a strict tempo and both were in ascending sets. As mentioned in Evan Wright’s meet report, the thought process was to continue loading the tissue but with the pre-fatigue constraint that would force me to adapt at a rate I could maintain. It worked very well, I lifted the tempo first and only until about 4 weeks out lifted the ascending sets.
Between the process of coaching 9 lifters for 1 meet and another 4 in meets before or after it, planning/setting up/reffing a meet I was a co-director for, AND prepping for a meet myself, I would be lying if I said I was 100% confident I could pull it off but I will say I was certainly 90% sure I could do it as I have always thrived when my back was against the wall.
Fast forward to one week out, I was feeling the best I had in quite some time. The theme for this meet was, “save some for where it matters” something I preach to my own athletes but really something I got from Andrew Graves, who time after time peaks perfectly and all his best lifts are in a meet where it actually counts. I ended my prep with a squat of 440lbs at 8 RPE, a bench press of 280lbs at 8 RPE, and a deadlift of 520lbs at 8 RPE. In prior preps I have gone slightly heavier but did not quite have the taper effect you would think. Momentum is EVERYTHING in a meet prep.
This is where I started my water load in which I was the heaviest I have ever been a week out from a meet. I was 68.3kg/150.7lbs, with the weight class being 66kg/145.5lbs. Now, you might say isn’t 5lbs nothing? Maybe for you, but the lighter you are the bigger 5lbs is proportionate to bodyweight. Now this was not done recklessly, I have so much data from prior cuts (I even did a cut for a mock meet and this was actually my saving grace) that I knew I could push heavier. Why push heavier? Well when you are in a light weight class, there is a distinct advantage of being heavier than the weight class in terms of true weight rather than being lighter. All variables being equal, being 150lbs under the bar serves way more cushion and leverage than being a true 144lbs. 6lbs of leverage can go a long way, especially when you break it down in terms of percentage of total bodyweight. I need that leverage for the squat and bench press.
I did my normal protocol and knew I was going to be heavy in the morning so the night before, I spit out about 0.5lb with jolly ranchers and cut off all food and water 17.5 hours out from weigh ins. I woke up the morning of the meet 66.55kg/146.75lbs. Which is right on par with what I expected, I lose about 4lbs with water/sodium loading alone. This is where I overestimated myself. I began to work on spitting, knowing I would have to fill an entire 16 oz bottle. So I did just that. I threw on a hoodie with layers and created a make-shift steam room in my bathroom with the shower on as hot as possible and spit into the bottle and would get up and move to elicit some sweating, nothing strenuous. I did this for about 1 hour and left my house weighing 66.30kg/146.1lbs. This was the first time I left my house above weight, did not panic at all really. It was about an hour and half drive to the venue and I filled the bottle completely but ran out of jolly ranchers so I had my handler on the day, Andrew, grab me a huge pack of mint gum. When I arrived to the facility, I began going into overdrive. I knew I was in the back of the lot numbers so I used that my advantage and pushed it literally all the way until I had my name called. Stepped on the scale, 65.9kg/145.3lbs.
I won’t get into rehydration but this is my thing, I know how to rehydrate. It is never easy but by the time I was on the platform for my opener, I was 152lbs. Side note, do not cut weight if you are going to be an idiot about it. I did this for a reason and this was meet #7 for me with plenty of data. Weight cutting is not bad or dangerous but it CAN be, be smart and reach out if you are in a situation where you have to.
On to the meet itself, it was a dream. I opened at 190kg/419lbs, killed it. Jumped to 200kg/441lbs, killed it. My dilemma was tying my meet PR or going for an actual PR. My goals for this meet were simply to go 9 for 9, PR my total, and secure an open raw nationals qualifying total. My handler Andrew and my close friend Bobby both assured me 207.5/458lbs was there so I trusted them and attacked it. All time PR, meet PR, and man did it feel good to come full circle with all that rehab work I did. 3/3, state record. Closed the flight too for the first time, that was cool.
With bench, this was the lift that was there all prep. I opened at 120kg/264lbs and killed it. On my second attempt of 127.5kg/281lbs, which tied my meet PR, I got a little forward with it and it had some turbulence but it felt insane. My top end was 132.5kg/292lbs but Andrew told me that my goal was to go 9/9, I had a great start on squat, why risk it? Take the meet PR. So I did, and I do not regret it. This was an all time and meet PR and the first time I have ever closed a flight on bench press. I was 2.5kg away from my first 2x bodyweight bench! 6/6 so far.
On to deads, this was the lift I was 100000% confident in. I knew what I had to hit to ensure a meet PR total, a nationals total, and a deadlift PR. I switched to mixed grip this prep because with hook grip I kept running into the same issue of not being able to lock my shoulders back at weights above 500lbs. I worked hard on this and it showed.
Opened up at 222.5kg/491lbs and it was @ 5 RPE. Moved to 232.5kg/513lbs and killed it, I planned for this to ensure me and PR total. This is where my experience and having a good handler showed. My deadlift PR is 235kg/518lbs, and I only needed that to ensure a nationals qualifying total. However, my planned top end for the day was 242.5kg/546lbs and honestly, it was probably there. I have not gone 9/9 since 2018 so I wanted to load something that killed multiple birds with one stone. We went with 240kg/529lbs as a placeholder knowing we could change it. I thought about it and was like why would I risk potentially the best meet of my life at this point, so we bumped it down to 237.5kg/524lbs to give me a further PR total, a deadlift meet PR, a nationals total, and ensure me a 9/9 day. This was surreal, I blew it up and jumped out of pure reaction. It moved insane. 9. for. 9. 575kg/1268lbs total.
I needed this day to prove to myself that I am a high level lifter and that my best days are in the future. I left this meet with momentum and I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep the goal, the goal and to not move goal posts as you get caught up in the day.
From Maine, with love. Thank you for reading.
Results:
Squat: 207.5kg (458lbs), 2.5kg PR
Bench Press: 130kg (286lbs), 2.5kg PR
Deadlift: 237.5kg (524lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 575kg (1268lbs), 12.5kg PR
9/9 on attempts, #7 total in the nation for Jr 66kg men out of 85 lifters (at the time of this post)
Evan Wright - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 93kg class, (24 July 2021)
Last but certainly not least, Big E himself, Evan Wright. I wanted to save Evan for last because I wanted to write in depth about what this guy had to go through to even make it here, let alone finish 4th overall.
Rewind a couple of months back, Evan was struck with some pretty serious injuries to his hamstring that rendered him unable to squat or deadlift for very long periods at a time. Literally we were just benching at one point. How many people would have just pulled out of the meet at that point? Christ, I think even I would have heavily contemplated it.
Now, this is where I had to get very, very creative in terms of prepping him for this meet. These are the dilemmas I had and for the most part I think we addressed this dead on! The first, most pertinent thing was we needed to deliver him to the platform healthy and in a position to actually show what strength was there. So there was some rehab stuff put into this approach. Secondly, we needed to be in shape for the meet. Therefore we could not afford to get too distant from comp movements because we would be running into lack of practice at that point. Lastly, we needed to make sure we did not burn out too early, in meets in the past Evan would be way too overreached 1 week out and would not get much out of a taper going into the meet, this time around I think we got everything down to the point where we had a HUGE supercompensation into the day. Here is an example of how we approached squats: ascending sets from bar to “working” sets on the secondary day in sets of 5. Meaning he would take the bar for a warmup set then every successive set after was for 5 reps. You might say, well wouldn’t that fatigue him for the heaviest sets? Yes, that is the point. What this did was allow Evan to heal 1-1 as he adapted to the training stimulus and really kept absolute load in check for the primary day. On said primary day, I enacted for something that I knew in theory would work but I don’t think I have EVER seen anyone use it, I had him take a top single AFTER ascending volume work. He would follow that same squat protocol as the secondary session except with 3s instead of 5s and after he reached a threshold RPE for the day, he would then take a single around 6% heavier than that. I could not have him enter a meet without doing singles but I also needed to make sure we were not biting off more than we could chew, too fast. We only took a “top” single with no pre-fatigue work, 1 week out in which he hit a little over 205kg/452lbs with ease. I knew we would taper well but he exceeded my expectations.
So, at the meet, this is where I knew we were locked in. At Maine State 2020, he came out of the gates way too hyped and missed his squat opener on balance at the top in which we had to make a risky call about going up. This meet, man, he was so in control and focused it was almost robotic. I think this is the mindset he performs best at and I hope he recognizes that. He actually lobbied for a heavier squat attempt than my initial plan because he knew he was good for it, this was aggressive (so I thought) but I was flat-out wrong.
Evan went on to take 217.5kg/480lbs @ 8-8.5 RPE for a 10kg meet PR. Yes, his best squat in training was 454lbs or so, and he blew up 480lbs with I would say 15lbs left in the tank. You do the math, that is crazy. However, I think this is where I failed him. I should have had the foresight to trust his instinct and let him attempt something heavier but I will do better next time, if he is going to taper like this, man, 500lbs is gunna be here sooner than we think.
Bench has been his bane for a while now. He has long arms and has never really felt strong on it in terms of executing to comp standard, I think if it was touch and go and but lift was not a thing, he could do 315 right now no problem. We were able to tie his meet PR here, and that was a win in my boom since we set the tone with squat.
Deadlift is where I think the injury and lack of pulling kind of showed. This was also a meet Evan had a chance to podium at so I took a 3rd attempt for him I thought was 2.5kg too heavy but figured it was time to roll the dice. I do not think he regrets it, just was not there on the day.
Some cool things to note is Evan placed 4th overall with a total that was less than his best and going 7/9. Still, he was only 5kg off that! We could have gone conservative on deads to chip a small PR but that was not his goal. However, now I owe this man a 9/9 meet with a PR total now and I will do everything in my power to do that. It really is scary as along with a few other people, once they put it altogether in a meet, they’ll see what I see potential wise. I am not one to be arrogant EVER, but I will speak it into existence NOW, Evan will either WIN or at the very least podium at this meet next year. I’m thinking somewhere around a 1380lb total will be in the cards, just watch.
Results:
Squat: 217.5kg (480lbs), 10kg PR
Bench Press: 132.5kg (292lbs)
Deadlift: 247.5kg (546lbs)
Total: 597.5kg (1317lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Conor Silkey - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 83kg class, (24 July 2021)
Next up, we have the man, the myth, the legend, Conor Silkey. This was Conor and I’s 2nd meet together and his day was lukewarm in that he was strong enough and peaked perfectly but some very minor things held him back, in my opinion.
So to preface, I held Conor back in his first meet with me because it was his first after a long lay-off. Despite it, he left with a 25kg PR total in a federation that is objectively more strict than the previous federation he lifted in. This meet, we agreed we would be a little bit more aggressive as his training reflected it being appropriate.
Conor is someone who has it all in terms of technique, it is quite literally flawless on all 3 lifts, but he is victim of confidence issues from time to time (something him and I can relate to) and sometimes is prone to being hypercritical of himself. To be honest, my approach with Conor is more mental training than physical. I try my best to let this guy know he is capable of the things he is doing and reassuring him every step of the way and for the most part I think that is something I have done a good job with. I really think he turned the corner this prep in this regard too because towards the end he was flat out ready and chomping at the bits to get under some heavy weight.
Training this prep was good in my opinion, bench lagged a bit but squat was on fire and deadlift, after a bit of a lull really gained steam when he let go of hookgrip and stuck to mixed grip.
Now at the meet, this is where I thought things kind of effected him, whether he “felt” it or not. Conor handled Team Hogan lifter, Emily Silva, all morning before his session. Now, you might not think this does much but standing around and loading weights for 2 hours probably was not a net positive for his performance. However, you roll with the punches. He did not complain once but I want to make it known that he had no choice here, I don’t fault him as I would have done the same thing. The next thing is he weighed in super light at 179lbs, if you have not been able to tell by now, I am a stickler for weighing in too light. I think Conor by default, is a 93kg lifter in an 83kg frame as of now but we will be addressing that this off-season.
Getting into squats, we had 1 goal and 1 goal only, finally cross 200kg/441lbs off the bucket list. We did that and with room to spare in my opinion, sunk depth and took it confident. It was awesome to see. Bench, was bench. This is where we got aggressive, 122.5kg/270lbs was just not there and 120kg/264lbs was probably the better call. On to deads, this was Conors first crack at over 500lbs on deadlift. I saw a lifter that was attacking the pull, not someone who was apprehensive. Everything we have worked on showed, he was patient as hell off the floor, maintained his positions perfectly… All to JUST miss it by inches at lockout forward. This was not a strength issue, Conor will tell you himself he was peaked and ready to go, just a slight balance issue. I take solace in the fact that now I think he realizes what he is capable of. I would not be surprised if this was a 2nd attempt next meet!
To summarize, Conor was able to leave with a squat PR and despite 2 misses left with 2.5kg under his best ever total. This guy will be WELL into the 1200lb range next time we do a meet and it will be awesome to see. I am so proud of him and am very happy to be a catalyst in him beginning to love training again as he said in the past motivation has been an issue. Onward we must go!
Results:
Squat: 200kg (441lbs), 2.5kg PR
Bench Press: 117.5kg (259lbs)
Deadlift: 220kg (485lbs)
Total: 535kg (1179lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Chris Couillard - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 83kg class, (24 July 2021)
First in the “Veterans” three part series is CJPowerlifts. This is the meet Chris has been ready for for a while now. Straight up, I knew this would be his day in terms of PRs and increasing his total. Crazy enough, this is Chris and I’s 4th meet together and 3rd prep together. This is so crucial because I have so much data to draw from to formulate a plan that “works” for him. In the past, we have always peaked about a week to 5 days too early, with him either hitting his heaviest lifts 2 weeks out and actually failing lifts 1 week out OR we went too light and did not get the momentum needed to kind of boost confidence going into the meet. This time, I think Chris will agree we nailed it on the head in terms of his peak.
The theme of the prep was, “save some for when it counts”, and I really feel like we did just that. For his squat and deadlift, he is fairly intensity sensitive so we only touched an 8-8.5 RPE (around 91-93%) once this entire prep but gained solid momentum in terms of workload. Thankfully, this is the first prep we were able to train bench press without injury and this gave us a good total boost as despite his true strength being much higher, he has only been able to match his PR each meet, many times not comp benching until the week of the meet! Like I said, we nailed everything this prep and it showed on the day.
Chris ended the prep with lifts of 177.5kg/391lbs on squat, 110kg/242lbs on bench press, and 232.5kg/513lbs on deadlift, all on calibrated plates and comp equipment.
Fast forward to the meet, I knew we were on one from the get-go. We nailed a huge milestone of 182.5kg/402lbs on the third attempt with more to spare! Did he have more, yes, but I have come to learn you do NOT get greedy with meet PRs as this was a substantial one. Bench press was the only blip on the radar on this day yet he still left with a PR. He hit 107.5kg/237lbs on his 2nd attempt but it did not move how we thought, so we only jumped 2.5kg and it just was not there on the day. I am okay and not okay with this for a few reasons. I am okay with it because it was on strength and not technicality, which is good because that means thats an easy variable to address. I am not okay with this because I believe I failed him by tapering him too fast. With his history of injury, I opted to take a fairly aggressive bench press taper but I knew in my heart that it was probably a bit too much and it led to a bit of detraining. I am not perfect but I am glad we finally moved the needle on bench. Next meet, I will fix this and he will bench closer to 250lbs, watch. Deadlift, this is the lift I “trust” the most with Chris. Why? Because of the fact that I have data on him. His dead is very brute force and not overly technical and relies upon a ton of back rounding for leverage. You might be saying why not fix that but this is his strength! We just have to dose it properly. Chris knows how to grind a heavy pull and he will keep pulling on a bar until he passes out, so I am totally okay with loading something heavy on the day as he ALWAYS tapers perfect for the meet. He was able to hit a PR of 240kg/529lbs and end the day with a nice PR total.
All in all, this was 1 lift shy of being his super meet. He has done all of this despite dropping 14lbs from his first meet! If that is not getting stronger flat-out, I do not know what counts as that. The goals for him moving forward are to put on more size and density and fill out the 83kg class, his weigh ins the last 2 meets he has been 3 and 4lbs light, weight that will aid in his leverage for the squat and bench press. Beyond all this, Chris is a tremendous asset to the Maine powerlifting community and you will see him at these meets encouraging people he does not even know all the same as his teammates, that energy is always reciprocated. Hell of a day Chris, you continue to amaze me meet after meet.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs), 10kg PR
Bench Press: 107.5kg (237lbs), 2.5kg PR
Deadlift: 240kg (529lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 530kg (1169lbs), 15kg PR
8/9 on attempts
Nathan Hilton - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 74kg class, (24 July 2021)
Last in the Newcomers series is a lifter I admire a lot, Mr. Nathan Hilton. To make it clear, all the people I work with are phenomenal people, however, Nathan is in a league of his own in terms of the respect he gives me and trust he puts in me. To make it frank, Nathan’s first priority is not lifting. He provides for his family, is raising a very young child, and has other interests outside of lifting like running. Nathan trains most days between 3:30am and 4:30am down in his basement and most mornings I wake up to 3 or 4 videos from his session.
If that is not dedication, than I am not sure what qualifies as dedication.
Day after day, week after week he chips away at small milestones.
You see, Nathan’s limitations are not strength related but execution related. Most of the first 2-3 months of our working relationship were spent addressing squat depth, making sure pauses and holds on bench were up to snuff, and locking deadlifts out without hitching or shelving. I am very happy that we addressed ALL of these issues to the point where I do not view any of these things as limitations anymore.
Nathan had done one meet before in the APF, which, if I am being objective, has a lower standard of lifting than USAPL. The lifts he hit at that meet, he would agree, would not fly in a USAPL meet, so I did not even look at his results from that meet as a standard to work towards, this meet was a blank sleight.
As I mentioned with Nick Taylor, Nathan was one of the people who suffered with me not being able to handle him like I usually do. A lot of his warmups were compete well before his opener, meaning he spent 8-12 minutes doing nothing which does not bode well for executing.
Squats were good for the most part! He was not able to hit his third but more on this at the end when I circle back, I have some theories now that I have had some time to reflect on everything. Bench was the lift that really surprised me, Nathan was projecting for something around 102.5kg and a week out was moving weights like this with ease, so to see him struggle with 97.5kg initially puzzled me. Again, I have a theory on this. Like with Nick, I told him straight up, we are going 3/3 on deadlifts so we can end this meet with momentum and we did just that. He nailed 145kg/319lbs with more in the tank!
In regards to his squat and bench not being there on the day, 100% this is on me. I should have gone with my gut and used a taper I use for my other people who are “slow twitch” and have endurance training backgrounds. I took away too much volume and it had an adverse effect to his performance, next meet, I will keep volume high pretty much until 4 days out because all his best results are with a ton of volume during the week. I will also take blame in that I should have made smarter attempts for him realizing this was his first USAPL meet and he does not train on competition standard plates or equipment. Sometimes as a coach you have to swallow your pride and admit when you messed up and I did here. The beauty in it all is I have concrete data now and I know for deads, what we did worked. For squats and bench, it did not.
All in all, this guy had a busy day. He had to leave early to go to a wedding for crying out loud! I am happy he came out and competed and if I can convince him, in November I want to make things right by executing a 9/9 day. Also think he is a candidate to leave the 74kg weight class and allow himself to fill into his frame and compete as a light 83kg lifter but that might be a harder sell.
So proud of you Nate, 99.9% of all people would bitch and moan if they had the schedule you did, you never do, and for that you will be rewarded. I am sorry it did not show this meet but I promise you, it will!
Results:
Squat: 110kg (242lbs)
Bench Press: 90kg (198lbs)
Deadlift: 145kg (319lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 345kg (759lbs)
6/9 on attempts
Teejay Itchkawich - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 120kg class, (24 July 2021)
Teejay! Man, where do I start with this individual? My second oldest athlete, Teejay is unique in the sense that his training age and his competition age is extremely low. Now, he has been in the gym, do not get it twisted, but in terms of training specifically for powerlifting, he is still very raw, which is scary because everyone at this meet I think was blown with away with ease at which he took some heavy weights. I want to lay it all out here to make it even MORE impressive.
So, to rewind, Teejay and I have been working together for roughy 5-6 months now. He has some unique restraints as his gym does not allow chalk and is not really equipped for powerlifting in the classic sense. As such, all of his heavy deads were with straps. With 2 weeks to go, Teejay expressed that he wished he could lift at this meet for his first one and I told him, hey, registration is still open. We had a conversation that hey, we are in the middle of a hypertrophy-focused block but we could be ready in 2 weeks. Ready in the sense that we could deliver him to the meet feeling good and execute the sport aspect to gain the experience for a meet in November in which I will open up the flood gates for him.
I told him since this was his first meet, I do not care about what you hit in terms of weight. I want to see you execute the commands, execute to comp standard, and walk away with a ton in the tank and experience with how a meet works.
So to prep we went, with 2 weeks to prepare I went with a “better safe than sorry” approach in that we could not to a typical phase linear periodization model, we literally went as specific as possible. We took comp singles twice a week and did something I would NEVER do in a typical prep, we did a bit of a “mock meet” 1 week out to base his attempts.
Teejay being new to the sport, I sent him a TON of resources with how to execute commands, what to expect on the day, how to warmup, etc… and man, this guy just put his head down and did everything I asked of him and more.
Fast forward to this meet, he severely exceeded my expectations and in hindsight I was a little too conservative with his attempts in which I kind of, “made up for it”, at the end.
I saw everything I needed to see from Teejay from a competitors standpoint, he flat out has “it”. Not only did he execute, but he was coachable, he even made a comment that although his attempts felt like air, he wanted to stick to the plan.
Squats he blew up 197.5kg/435lbs, bench was an easy 125kg/275lbs, deadlift our planned top end was 207.5kg/458lbs but he was making things look way too easy at this point so I broke the cardinal sin of taking a bigger jump from attempt 2 to 3 than 1 to 2. He ended with 212.5kg/469lbs and honestly had I think 10-12.5kg more in him hahah.
All in all, I hope he does not view this experience as a waste of time because when I unleash this beast in November, again, everyone should be on watch. Give me a year with him and Maine State 2022, he will be on the podium for overall men.
Results:
Squat: 197.5kg (435lbs)
Bench Press: 125kg (275lbs)
Deadlift: 212.5kg (469lbs)
Total: 535kg (1180lbs)
9/9 on attempts, 27/27 white lights
Emily Silva - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 84kg class, (24 July 2021)
The first of the “Newcomers” series, in which three of my athletes either did their first meet in general or first USAPL meet, Emily and I have been working together for a few months at this point.
Coming into things with a phenomenal base, I will be honest, she has been one of the easier people to coach in terms of approach and work ethic. It also helps that she had competed before, albeit a while ago, so things came back to her very fast and I think she will agree with me in that the rate of which she progressed surprised the both of us.
My approach with people who are coming off a long layoff and/or switching federations is always the same. We go conservative and try our best to go 9/9 and enjoy the day, leave the meet with a good experience and not a sour one. Too many times I see people go H.A.M. their first meet back and go 5/9 and honestly have zero motivation to get back on the horse and build for the future. You see, a lot of the stuff you do as a coach is setting up for the future. It is hard to drill into someone that there will always be another meet but once it clicks, that is when the consistent and steady progress occurs. Emily got this from the jump.
Prep was pretty good, I can’t think of anything aside from a one-off shoulder injury that occurred that set us back at all. There were days mentally it just was not there and I trusted her judgement when she felt she needed to take a rest day.
During this prep, she hit lifts of 295lbs on squat, 305lbs on deadlift, and 150lbs on bench press, all with a ton in the tank. Like the other Team Hogan women, Emily’s reps per set on average are about 2-3 reps more than most of the males. Partially research driven but mostly because it is a fairly accepted anecdotal take that woman can handle more volume and respond better to higher reps. The week of the meet she was doing 9s on bench press and 6s on squat, deadlift I wanted to address starting position so we did 6-10 singles per deadlift workout.
Fast forward to the meet, I had to step in and ref last minute so I could not handle her like I normally would, that is where Team Hogan member Conor Silkey stepped up and made perfect calls for her, I take not credit for that. Emily, much like myself, is fairly reserved and does not need to outwardly show “hype” to get focused. Her performance was quite literally perfect and I don’t know if maybe I underestimated her or what but next meet look for this girl to total well over 800lbs.
In a 9/9 day, Emily went 137.5kg/303lbs on squat (literally 7-7.5 RPE and it was an all time PR), 70kg/154lbs on bench press, and 145kg/319lbs on deadlift (again 7-7.5 RPE) en route to a 352.5kg/777lbs total!
In hindsight, were these attempts very, very conservative, of course. However, unless there is stakes at hand, it is pretty cool having the best meet of your life AND it being a breeze in terms of effort.
Very excited to see where she goes as I know I keep saying it with most of my people but the sky is really the limit for her. 800lb total next meet, calling it now!
Results:
Squat: 137.5kg (303lbs), 6kg PR
Bench Press: 70kg (154lbs)
Deadlift: 145kg (319lbs)
Total: 352.5kg (777lbs), 10kg PR
9/9 on attempts, 27/27 white lights
Nick Taylor - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 83kg class, (24 July 2021)
The last of “The Kids”, Nick is a gahdamn warrior man. So, before I get into it, let me preface all this with the fact that Nick did not come into this meet 100%. 95% of the things that led to that point were NOT his fault. He is very busy and has many different responsibilities and I cannot think of a single time where he made an excuse or asked for sympathy. There were many times he would be training at 10:30pm and finish at 12:30am. Still, he put in the work.
As close as 4 weeks out he was dealing with a very nagging and painful quad pull that made squat training (arguably his best lift) very hard to get through. We were doing tempo squats and backing off of a lot of accessory work just to give it enough stimulus to maintain at best. Bench training however was solid! I was really pleased with the strides he made on bench as all of his heavy, heavy benches were done at a much heavier bodyweight. Deadlift, was eh, I think his pull is limited by a few things but mostly fatigue. His style of pull is incredibly fatiguing so as a result he is very sensitive to intensity on pulls.
Of the 5% of things that were in his control, I think the biggest is his weight. Nick weighed in at 175lbs bodyweight (the weight class is 183 mind you) and shredded to the gills. He got away with this his first meet but we had a discussion that he is just simply too light to support his leverages. It was not necessarily the being light it was the consistent calorie deficit through peaking training that zapped him in my opinion. The next meet he does, he will be a 93kg lifter where I think he will do the most damage.
Out of all my athletes at this meet, there were 2 I think the suffered the most from me not being able to time their warmups and Nick was one of them. He informed me he took his last warmup on squat RIGHT before his opener which, understandably, he was gassed for and missed.
This was alarming to me but when I knew the backstory, I was like okay, you are fine. We retook it, he hit it just fine.
This showed me this kid knows how to bounce back and this experience here will pay off down the line cause it WILL happen again in some facet and he will remember that he is capable.
His third I thought was there but the bar began to roll up his back and anyone who has had that happen knows, it is a death sentence.
Bench press, I really thought was going good. Nick has a very hard sink into his chest with a close grip which is notorious for causing a long press command, so I think that really threw things for a loop. This one however, was on me. I should have been more conservative on his third here and settled for a 2.5kg meet PR but we went for 5kg and he was probably one inch away from getting out of the sticking point and locking it out. Scary, he is hitting right around 290 at 175lbs bodyweight, when he is 195lbs I think he will press WELL into the 300lbs range with ease (as well as bringing his grip out a hair) so this is promising to me. Again, I could do better here. Next go around, I am not making the same mistake.
Lastly, for deads, I kinda put my foot down and made it known, we are going 3/3 on deads and are exiting this meet with some type of momentum. His deads were smooth and he really showed me how coachable he is because he did not object once. He ended the meet with a nice 225kg/496lbs and lived to fight another day. What is cool to note, Nick did not perform at his absolute best and he STILL placed 5th overall at this meet. Had he hit even just his planned 2nd attempt squat, it would have landed him on the podium. Like my other 2 young guys, the sky is truly the limit for this kid and I cannot wait to handle him for real and get him a 9/9 meet and take the total he has earned through all his hard work. Out of all my lifters, Nick is the most raw. When he kinda figures out the sport aspect of this stuff, the state of Maine better be on alert because when he has his super meet, it is going to turn some heads.
Results:
Squat: 195kg (430lbs)
Bench Press: 125kg (275lbs)
Deadlift: 225kg (496lbs)
Total: 545kg (1202lbs)
6/9 on attempts
Josh Dang - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 74kg class, (24 July 2021)
The second of “The Kids” on this day, Josh is the most senior of the group at the ripe age of 21. This young man had the meet of his life and checked off some major, major boxes in terms of milestones.
A little backstory to his background and our time working together. This is our 2nd meet together, however we have been working together for substantially longer than that, coronavirus threw a wrench in most of 2020s competition plans. To put it frankly, Josh has a lot of commitments. He works, is finishing college, plays rugby at a fairly high level, dabbles in grappling and BJJ, AND trains the powerlifts. As a coach, my approach with him is essentially, “do what we can until PL becomes the sole focus”, which usually falls between 4 and 6 weeks out for him. At times, he get frustrated but by now I think he understands that when the other stuff isn’t in the picture, it literally takes him a month to get up to peak strength. Josh is also the most critical of his technique out of anyone around him, objectively, his technique on every single lift is phenomenal and I even have people messaging me just to say that, which I always send to him so he knows I am not blowing smoke.
This prep started off slow but man did we gain momentum. Each week you could see him gain more confidence and it was a true “momentum peak”, where by the time the meet came around, I think he was chomping at the bits to get after his heavy attempts. When you work with someone through a bunch of testing and meets, you can pull through data and see what works historically and what does not. For Josh we do a ton of unique things. His ace card for his pulls is easily the wide stance snatch grip deadlift, I only program these for him in meet preps because I do not want the stimulus to go stale as it is so potent for him when we go to it. He was taking 160kg/352lbs for a set of 5 at one point on these! Truly incredible on a variation like that. His sumo pulls are also high rep the entire time, this entire prep we did not dip below 7 reps on backdowns. He also does well with 2 top sets a week on low bar squat but again, I only do this during preps because it is not sustainable with how beat up it makes his elbows. Lastly, much like myself, we keep his bench press volume high and even the intensity high pretty much until 5 days out where we pull it back and it’s yielded an all time PR each time.
Getting into the meet, I knew flat-out this kid was ready from the jump. Josh is what I refer to as a true competitor, when it is time to throw down, mentally he just has “it”. He has the unique ability to block out everything around him and focus for 1 minute on ONLY the task at hand, sounds simple but I know it is not. I pump this kid with as much confidence as possible as I know if he believes, it will happen.
Much like Elliot, Josh came out of the gates swinging with a 190kg/419lbs squat which was an all time PR and 7.5kg more than his heaviest single of the prep! Honestly could have squeezed out 2.5-5kg more but we kept the goal, the goal.
Next, on bench press, straight up I was not sure if we would PR this go around, I was planning on him matching his meet best because leading into the meet his bench singles did not really move that great, I still had a PR built into the meet day attempt sheet because calling on data, it should have been there and I am glad we had that option available because after his second, it was apparent he would be able to grind out a PR. He took 125kg/275lbs and I think this was the only lift he did not have a ton of room to spare on, this was an all time PR as well and was again, 7.5kg more than his best single in training.
Lastly, deadlifts. Man, I knew this kid was going to pull something insane. I’ll save the build up and just say it now, he made 230kg/507lbs look like a light second or heavy opener. Not only was this his first time ever attempting anything over 500lbs, but it was another all time PR but a whopping 12.5kg heavier than his heaviest single of prep! What a taper and peak man. You cannot ask for better results than this when preparing for a meet.
This final pull secured a couple things, some I was aware of, some I wasn’t. It secured a 9/9 day, a deadlift PR, a total PR (his first 1200lb total), AND finally got him his distant goal when we first started together of a 400 wilks! I really was at a loss for words here because we have now put 117lbs on his total in a little over a year and he STILL has so much in the tank. This to me is how you attack local meets, you build momentum from meet to meet and when it’s time to really empty the tank, we can and will know how to prepare. Hell of a day Josh, so proud of you.
Results:
Squat: 190kg (419lbs), 2.5kg PR
Bench Press: 125kg (275lbs), 2.5kg PR
Deadlift: 230kg (507lbs), 5kg PR
Total: 545kg (1202lbs), 10kg PR
9/9 on attempts, 27/27 white lights
Elliot Woznica - USAPL 2021 Maine State Championships, 83kg class, (24 July 2021)
The first of 9, yes, 9 athletes I had lifting on this day, a meet I was also a co-director for. This was a lot of work and very stressful but I would not want it any other way.
This was Elliot’s second career meet. We went down to Massachusetts for a warm-up meet to give him some experience about 6 weeks before this one and I really think it paid off as he had a base to build from and he learned the sport aspect of powerlifting, something anyone who works with me knows I am a stickler for. You can cut it any which way you want, lifting on the platform is just different so I am glad we got one under his belt before this day as I knew I could not give him the attention he needed and it would be irresponsible for me as a coach to send a lifter to a meet not knowing stuff like how to warmup, when to warmup, etc…
Elliot has also been my training partner for the last couple of months and one of the few athletes I get to work with in person which is pretty cool as he is very malleable and very open to improving and trusts my judgement.
His prep was nothing short of awesome for this meet and I want to give him credit as he did literally everything I asked of him the entire time. I held him back a lot and now I think he understands why because he had an insane peak/taper leading into this competition.
Since he was close, we made the call to have him go 83kg for this meet, however this will not be his long term weight class as he is well above 6 feet and if there is one thing I know, you should not stifle someone in a weight class not meant for them, especially early on in their training career. 93kg will be his weight class for the forseeable future.
I think we only had 1 roadblock this entire prep, which was his last heavy pull. This circled back to something I think we know he needs to work on moving forward.
His final heavy lifts of the cycle were 295lbs on squat, 265lbs on bench press, and 380lbs on deadlift.
I constructed his attempt plan to yield as close to or slightly above a 1000lb total, I feel like we were right there for it too, here is how it played out. He lobbied for heavier squat attempts, for the majority of this prep he trained on a whippy commercial gym bar with non-calibrated bumper plates so I was hesitant but I met him halfway.
Elliot came out of the gates absolutely maniacal and BLEW up 147.5kg/325lbs for his third attempt squat. Yes, his best in training was 295 and he squatted 30lbs heavier 7 days later with more to spare. Ah, to be a teenager again. This was a huge meet PR.
Bench press is arguably his best lift but oddly enough, this is the one that give him some problems and you know, you never want someone to struggle but I am glad it happened NOW because it is a great teaching tool for what to work on. He blew his opener of 112.5kg/248lbs up with ease but it was turned down 2 to 1 for butt lift and it was noticeable. We did the smart thing and retook it and he got himself on the board. In hindsight, I should have taken a smaller jump to ensure he got a little more out of bench but we went with what was the planned 2nd attempt initially, which he hit, but was turned down 2 to 1 for butt lift. Not the result he wanted, but this is the sport aspect of the game!
On to deads, this kid has come such a long way on deadlifts. For someone who had apprehension attempting 315lbs on a stiff bar (he has his 405lbs with straps on a deadlift bar aka he has not hit 405lbs) a couple months ago to now someone who’s last warmup was that weight, he has improved a lot. However, again, this is where we can improve. His first 2 attempts went up very easy so the obvious call was to go up to the heavy option for this third, which was 182.5kg/402lbs. He showed insane patience, staying on the bar for a full 2 seconds until it broke the floor, got ALL THE WAY TO LOCKOUT and just could not stay balanced and lost it forward. He was inches away from pulling 22lbs more than his last heavy pull!
All in all, he had a stellar day. We had a talk about expectations going into this and to not shift goal posts, so to speak, in terms of being “let down” with some made up number that was arbitrary going in, you’ll see what I mean by this when I lay out his results.
The sky is truly the limit for this kid, we talked about it briefly, but my goals for him are to get him a collegiate or teen nationals qualifying total within the next 2 years. The next time he steps on the platform it will be a brand new lifter. I am very excited and thrilled to be apart of this young man’s career.
Results:
Squat: 147.5kg (325lbs), 22.5kg PR
Bench Press: 112.5kg (248lbs)
Deadlift: 172.5kg (380lbs), 5kg PR
Total: 432.5kg (954lbs), 20kg PR
7/9 on attempts
Salvatore Bozzuto - USAPL CT Summer Showdown, 83kg class, (26 June 2021)
Man, what a day. Before I get into the meet, I want to provide a little back-story. Sal and I have been working together since January of 2020 where I went out to a meet in Connecticut to handle him. Ever since then, to no fault of anyone, we actually have not had a meet with a coach/athlete relationship, at least in person. Coronavirus happened and put all meets on pause, when we finally could compete, the meet he picked was not allowing spectators or coaches. Although it was streamed, it pained me to not be there because, as like any coach, you want to see it through that someone who invested into you sees the results they are capable of. Nevertheless, this prep was a whirlwind for a few reasons.
First, we were on a roll. In the block before prep we had a breakthrough in his squat and deadlift training with some all time PRs on both with relative tweaks to the programming that really seemed to do wonders. Essentially, we relied on one heavy exposure a week (single) for squat, with the other day being volume driven with intensity restraints (ascending sets). On deadlift, we had 2 heavy exposures, one primary and the other for reassurance as Sal is a lifter that really thrives when he is confident in what he is doing, the second single kind of reassured him that he was as strong as he thinks he was. Singles are useful for so many reasons but equally as detrimental if you don’t control expectations for them.
Second, we ran into problems on bench press. Now this next portion is anecdotal at best so take this from a grain of salt as this is mainly my own personal belief. Bench press, in my opinion, is Sal’s best lift. With an all-time PR of 322lbs, he certainly has a very technical groove with a wide grip, high arch set up. Common thought is these type of benchers do not get “carry-over” from traditional bodybuilding movements that promote hypertrophy in the prime movers. I disagree. Maybe the gains made are not mutually exclusive with the bench single going up, but I think in my experience, those who can train in multiple planes/ROMs, benefit from the aspect of staying healthy and strong in those ranges. In essence, those movements aid in keeping you healthy which means you can train the comp bench for more volume with less chance of overuse or overcompensation. Sal, again to no fault of his own, trains in a home gym where he does not really have access to anything other than his barbell and plates. The variations we can use are somewhat limited but the accessories we can use are extremely limited with this set up as everything has to be bilateral. We cycled through a ton of different set ups with only one of them really leading him to pain-free, no hiccup bench training. We tried to go back to 3x per week comp benching, manifested in injury. We kept up with 2 comp sessions, 1 variation, injury. Finally we settled into just 2 comp bench sessions a week, something that you don’t usually do with a bencher the style of Sal. We actually ran pin press pretty much exclusively until 2 weeks out where we lifted restrictions. The thought behind it was train in the ROM that does not hurt and load it fairly heavy (as we were close to the meet itself) and supplement the ROM we did not get through light dumbbell pressing at the gym. This worked wonders as the heaviest free ROM bench Sal hit in training was 281lbs, with a 265lbs opener feeling eh 5 days out, and we nailed 292 at the meet with room to spare.
Now, on the day, I feel like we were both in the zone and firing on all cylinders. It was otherworldly humid and we had Sal mildly dehydrate to sneak under to make 83kg (no more sub 180lb weigh ins!!!!) so it was crucial to make sure we mitigated any dehydration-driven performance loss, which we did to a tee. Gleason Performance is a state of the art facility, never have I ever seen a warmup room with eleiko racks/bars, calibrated plates for 30+ people, etc… it was incredible. Squat warmups went well, we timed everything perfect and took attempts at 167.5kg, 177.5kg (to ensure a meet PR), and finally 182.5kg, or 402lbs. This one was special as this has been his goal since he started competing and I knew it would be there on the day, frankly we could have gone 185kg (408lbs) and it would have went up to. Very emotional, the culmination of so much effort, finally paying off where it matters. Bench, was bench, we knew that in order to PR his total we needed bare minimum, 130kg, so taking 132.5kg was really insurance should deads suffer from the heat. Honestly probably had 135kg here too. Lastly, deads were the one that we knew would be there, because to no avail, Sal always tapers well for deadlifts. Again, I think in hindsight we had a bit more but at this point we wanted to secure a perfect day, 9/9 and walk away with a deadlift PR, no matter how small. We went 190kg, 200kg, and then finished with 205kg (452lbs) as that was the attempt he was more comfortable with on our list of planned thirds.
All in all, this was the meet this man deserved. He pours himself into his training and is easily one of the most dedicated individuals I have ever encountered. I think we agreed that he would compete one more time in 2021 and then go into the hyperbolic time chamber for a longer off-season to fill out a bit more and make some gains that can only be made with time.
Hell of a day, congrats man. Once we get your bench back, 1200 incoming, no doubt in my mind.
Results:
Squat: 182.5kg (402lbs), 7.5kg PR
Bench Press: 132.5kg (292lbs)
Deadlift: 205kg (452lbs), 2.5kg PR
Total: 520kg (1147lbs), 7.5kg PR
9/9 on attempts, 27/27 white lights
Team Hogan 4 Life.
Elliot Woznica - USAPL Ryan Moore New England Open High School Championships, 93kg class, (12 June 2021)
Aside from Andrew Graves back in 2018, I think this is the only other time I have had a competitor do their first ever meet under my services. Could be wrong on that but I am fairly certain those are the only two people. This meet was really cool for a couple reasons.
The first, Elliot, who actually is my closest in proximity client (by a hair), and actually trains as the same gym as me, is the youngest athlete I have personally worked with. At only 17, turning 18 very soon, there are a couple considerations I take with him that I do not take with others. Stuff like specificity continuums, weight manipulation, etc… go out the door as it is my belief that not only are you responsible for development at this age but you are also responsible for getting young athletes off on the right foot. This essentially means you don’t send a young athlete to a meet alone, you don’t have them “send it”, you don’t even necessarily need to peak for it. First meets for everyone should be about one thing and one thing only, experience. Elliot had signed up for the meet I am co-directing next month, a meet I could not handle him at as I will be busy with directing duties, so we both agreed it would be good to get him in a meet that I could be at ASAP for the experience aspect.
Searching around we stumbled on this meet here which was really a perfect storm for a multitude of reasons. First, USAPL Mass always runs GREAT, professional meets and I will always support them where I can. Secondly, this meet was high school and teens ONLY, which, although maybe not that important, is a cool way to get a young person into the sport, competing with and against people of your own age who are probably also doing their first meet. Sometimes it is jarring and frankly intimidating competing with seasoned lifters for the first time and you panic and overthink things, I think we will both agree this was literally just another training day. Lastly, it was far enough away from the goal meet that it really would not mess with progressions leading into it, so we simply did a mini-taper, by mini I mean we dropped intensity on the bench session leading into the meet (thursday) and did the same with deadlift (wednesday) as a way to not come in completely fatigued.
Meet was very smooth and I can tell this kid is a gamer. This was the first time he lifted on calibrated plates, a nice bar (OPB is good but Eleiko is Eleiko), and was judged on his lifts and despite all that we went 9/9 and 27/27 on white lights. We were conservative on squat, bench press but turned it up a little on deadlift, which ironically “backfired”, as he made his third attempt look like an opener.
I think he enjoyed the day, got the experience he needed, and is eager to turn it up a notch for this next meet. I can see this kid making teen nationals/collegiate nationals as soon as next year with the path he is on right now.
Results:
Squat: 125kg (275lbs)
Bench Press: 120kg (264lbs)
Deadlift: 167.5kg (369lbs),
Total: 412.5kg (910lbs)
9/9 on attempts, 27/27 white lights
Tyrell Sykes - USPA Vermont State Championships, 100kg class, (8 May 2021)
Much like the previous write up, this will be half Tyrell’s perspective, half my perspective as I was not there on the day. Before the explanation, I just want to say first and foremost this guy is a gahdamn fighter and he earned EVERY kilo on this day in the truest sense.
Tyrell: This is my second meet working with Erik. Opening with squats I was pretty nervous due to the way squats had been feeling leading into this meet. Luckily, Erik makes a spreadsheet for his guys with all the attempts for the day, and in either direction should a certain number feel better or worse than anticipated, so I didn’t really have to think about that. I stuck to the plan we had in place and made it work. I played it safe on squat only taking 245 on my third to ensure going 3/3, really was chasing that 9/9 day. On to bench, we opened with a smooth 152.5kg, then went 162.5, that moved just as good as the opener. This gave me the confidence to take the heaviest comp bench of my career and it moved great, 170kg with room to spare. This gave me a comp bench PR and put me 6/6 going into deads. This is where we knew we could make up some ground from squat lacking this prep and boy did we execute. Moved all 3 attempts with relative ease, ending with 295kg for an all time PR. Secured the goal, which was my first 9/9 day and left with a PR bench press, deadlift, and total.
Erik: What Tyrell had to go through to get here was nothing short of amazing. This being our second meet together, I had a good idea of what to expect in terms of performance and we know each other well enough by now to where if something comes up, we can roll with the punches and make due with what we got. We had to do that a fair amount this prep, as Tyrell had to switch gyms halfway through this prep cycle and as such did not have a lot of continuity when it comes to his training environment. A miscommunication on his final heavy squat day set him back a bit mentally but I feel like we had a breakthrough conversation that really made the difference this meet.
A squat PR, was going to be very hard to achieve, especially since his last meet he thought he was lifting 5kg less and by the grace of God made the lift, it was not until months later it was found out that every squat attempt was 5kg heavy. His final heavy squat did not go well and he will be the first to admit he lost confidence and was doubting himself. However, and this is where we had the breakthrough, powerlifting, the sport of powerlifting, is the total, and there are many ways to achieve a big total. We really made strides on bench press and deadlift this cycle and I crunched some numbers so we could get all we could out of squat with minimum, medium, and maximum options to account for the bench and deadlift I thought he would bring. Truth be told, I think he had 247.5kg MAYBE even 250kg on the day but I am never going to be mad at going 3/3 into bench, especially since that option still projected us for a PR total.
Bench was incredible, pretty substantial meet PR to boot! Deadlift is where I really thought he over-performed in some aspects. With all the up and downs this prep, the fact that this meet was outdoors and subject to the elements, and it was the end of a long day, I am surprised at how well his final pull moved. This pull of 295kg is an all time PR and cool to note it was 25lbs more than his heaviest single in prep, that Team Hogan Taper though!! This secured a PR total and a 9/9 day, won’t lie, when I got the video of his 3rd pull I got a little emotional because I knew how much this meant to him. Special thank you to one of my lifters Jess, who made all of this possible, being an extension of me on the day and making sure Tyrell was good enough to perform. Hell of a day.
Results:
Squat: 245kg (540lbs)
Bench Press: 170kg (375lbs), +16lbs PR
Deadlift: 295kg, (651lbs), +11lbs PR
Total: 710kg (1567lbs), PR
9/9 on attempts
Sam Peterson - USAPL Minnesota State Championships, 74kg class, (25 April 2021)
Little bit different write up, the following will be written through Sam in the first person as I was not at this competition. Will highlight some cool things afterwards.
Sam Peterson:
Meet went super well after a really successful prep. Cut from 170 in January to 162 day of competition.
Squats felt very light day of after very shaky 350 on last heavy squat day during training. In prep had issues with bar rolling up back but no problem at meet.
Bench was great as well. Only real issues were slippery bench and one red light for heels. Hit grinder 250 week before and 248 was heavy but smooth.
Deadlift felt rough in warmup room so lowered opener 7.5kg. Still ended up hitting planned top end with 474.
Erik:
These meets are always tough for me as a coach as there was no livestream and my only updates were via liftingcast. However, having a plan going in is so crucial as well as plan Bs or even plan Cs, should something come up on the day.
Training into this meet was money, we pushed him hard and pulled back at the perfect time in my opinion, as highlighted by what he his on the platform. One week out, he his some grindy lifts on squat and bench but I assured him that based on prior data, it will be there on the day. What I have come to notice about Sam is he is a gamer, meaning when the pressure is on, he can mentally frame the mindset necessary to attack heavy third attempts, something that is very admirable.
Since he does not train on all calibrated equipment (he does have a comp spec bar and bench), I am always airing on the side of slightly less or matching what he hits in training, and for the most part I think that was a great call. I reckon we had 2.5kg more on squat, maybe 2.5 on bench, and honestly up to 5kg on deadlift which is crazy to me.
Can’t stress enough how proud I am of this guy. He came to me with a 904lb meet total and we have since added 165lbs to that and in my estimation that number will be into the 200s in meet #3.
Hell of a day!
Results:
Squat: 157.5kg (347lbs), +16lbs PR
Bench Press: 112.5kg (248lbs), +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 215kg, (474lbs), +33lbs PR
Total: 485kg (1069lbs), +61lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Erik Hogan - USAPL Junior/Collegiate Nationals, 66kg class, (8 April 2021)
Yup, it’s me writing in the first person for this one…
I will say straight up beforehand, this was so awesome. Being able to share the same warmup room with such high level lifters was incredible and something I cannot wait to do again.
A little backstory, my final year of college I was signed up to do this meet and of course, this was when corona first hit. Naturally, the meet was “post-poned” and there was no way for me to be able to tell my schedule at that point so I elected to get partially refunded and sign up for a local meet instead. As you can probably guess, that local meet was canceled shortly after.
So I went a good year without a meet and when I was finally able I had somewhat of a breakout performance in which I added 40kg to my total.
Fast forward to now, when the USAPL announced Juniors could attend this meet, I signed up instantly. I actually found out the night before if you graduated in 2020 you could still register as a collegiate lifter and and place in the collegiate standings but more on that later.
This prep was awesome for this meet until it wasn’t. For the first time ever I think all 3 lifts were clicking and I found a split that worked very well. However there were 2 things that I think really effected me negatively. Due to schedule and access, I could not do any pulls on comp equipment until roughly 4 weeks out. For me, pulling on a 28.5mm bar with bumpers easily adds 10kg to my pull simply for the fact that I can grip the bar better with my hookgrip. I kept running into the same issue the last 4 weeks of my thumb skin being destroyed after every heavy pull on a comp bar to the point where I went into the meet with a slight tear that I just knew would tear open at some point. The other factor is 3 weeks out I was hit with the worst bout of quadricep tendinopathy I have ever experienced. I did not want to make a big deal out of it because that is not who I am. Mornings after a squat workout were brutal and I had to back of squats substantially to keep everything under control. For 21 straight days I followed Jake Tuura’s patellar/quadricep tendon rehan protocol of heavy isometrics on the single leg leg extension and longer ones in a lunge position as well as a fair amount of single leg full ROM work. Thankfully, by meet day I felt like a god and every weight was feeling crazy. Adrenaline certainly helped and I am one to go numb when it is time to compete.
Weigh ins were alright in the sense that this was the least stressful cut of my life despite traveling for an entire day and having to buy groceries the day before and being on my feet all the day before. Woke up 65.9kg on my calibrated scale, went to the venue and checked on the check-weight scale and it said 66.2 but I had my necklace and my pants on. So I just popped a few jolly ranchers in and spit to be safe (hindsight I wish I spat some more). Weigh Ins were supposed to be at noon. I was last in my lot numbers and was not weighed in until 12:40. Thankfully the meet director extended the start time to 2:30 which honestly was a blessing because that gave me the time I needed to rehydrate. Cutting at this point is easy for me and I will actually start my next cut 1lb heavier.
Squat was moving great in the back, every warmup felt great and I honestly was not nervous at all. We took the mile long walk to the platform (hyperbole but anyone there can attest the walk was easily a 3 minute walk or 2 minute trot) and I settled in for my opener of 187.5kg (413lbs). I had hit well over this virtually every week in prep and was considering opening at 190kg but wanted to drop 2.5kg to account for judging at a meet of this level. 187.5kg was a good lift, but I was redlighted by the center judge for soft knees at the lockout. Never in my life have I been called for that, but it felt INSANE so we took the jump to the planned 2nd of 197.5kg (435lbs), a number I had hit again multiple times and a week out hit 2.5kg more. This is where things kinda got tough and I will let y’all be the judge as I personally do not agree with it but I am not so brash to think I am above anyone else’s opinion. I took my second out of the rack and was held in my stance for a good 7-8 seconds. Confused, I was praying to get a start command because I was quite literally going to cramp severely with how hard I was flexing my knees. I was told to rack the bar with 10 seconds on the clock, which I did and the bar was placed so far to the left that the right side of the bar was partially not in the rack. Panicking at this point I dove under the bar and unracked it within about 4 seconds, got a start command with 1 second left on the clock and missed it due to my legs feeling like jello. I retook it, made it with ease and moved on. I will include the still pictures of squat 2 and 3 and if you see a distinct difference I trust you, it could 100% just be me being salty but part of me thinks maybe there was a crease in my knee sleeves that made it look more egregious.
Bench was fantastic, however after every warmup I was seeing stars so I just continued to eat pretzels and drink liquids and that cleared it up well for attempts. Was extremely exaggerated in my start and lockout to avoid the issue I had on squats. Went 117.5kg (259lbs), 122.5kg (270lbs), then finished with 127.5kg (281lbs) for a 5kg meet PR. This was pretty cool as my first meet my bench 3rd attempt was 97.5kg (214lbs) and it was an all out, max effort lift. I have taken my grip out substantially over the years and took the time to gain more upper body size and it 100% has paid off. That, and weekly singles.
Lastly, deadlift. Deadlift has been my lift so to speak for the last year or so and I really felt good warming up. Doing lots of back work and actually less deadlifting brought my training pull from 520-540lbs and although I was not aiming this high due to both of those being on bumpers and a 28.5mm bar, I felt very good on the day. My best training pull this prep on comp equipment was 235kg (518lbs) and it moved easy. I made the mistake my last meet of opening too high and taking too small jumps, so I actually brought my planned opener down 2.5kg to get myself on the board, made a 12.5kg jump and then had a range for thirds. My opener I was red lighted by the center judge (again) because he said I hitched and my foot moved (upon replay it did not). My second moved easy but I started to bleed in my hand and just knew it was going to explode during my final pull of 237.5kg. Much to my avail, it did and although I did not drop the bar, both the center judge and the left judge did not think my left shoulder was far back enough and it was a no lift.
Needless to say, this was disappointing in the sense that I trained very hard for this meet and it was not the outcome I wanted. I placed 2nd in the juniors and 8th overall (55 total lifters) for Day 1 lifters (men 66kg and below) with 5kg less than my best total ever. This meet really made me feel like I belong in this sport as a less than my best day yielded me top 10 which was crazy to me. Funny how expectations change because a year ago I would have been ECSTATIC to total 1200lbs on the dot at this meet. That is just the game.
One last thing to add, about registering as a collegiate lifter. I was lukewarm on that for 2 reasons, one legitimate and one petty. I could not do that as I was in real contention to place had I made both my thirds and to take a medal away from a kid who is actually in college going to classes, busy as hell, and still training would be selfish, that is not why I do this and the overall results speak for themselves. Next, it would mean I would have to represent Springfield College, an institution who helped me 0% in my powerlifting career and when I reached out to club sports for funding last year I was told, “unless there is a team of 5 or more we can’t help you”, never mind the fact we did not even have 5 competitors and these meets (despite the low qualifying total) are not easy to qualify for a barebones beginner. I could get into it but I would take negative pride in representing them, so I didn’t, and I do not regret it in the slightest.
Just to be frank, I do not agree with the squat calls BUT at the end of the day, that is on me, I need to make everything undeniable and although I know now that executing at a big meet like that is different, I should being holding myself to a standard like that year round and that is exactly what I will do moving forward. Also will be trying some new things in terms of deadlift grip.
I will be competing one more time this year, July 31st in Nashua and it will be my final meet a junior (not that anyone should care but it’s actually one day before my birthday) and you will see a totally new lifter on that platform.
I already said thank you to those who needed to be thanked so if you took the time to read this, I truly appreciate it. I will be back!
Results:
Squat: 197.5kg (435lbs)
Bench Press: 127.5.5kg (281lbs), +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 232.5kg, (513lbs)
Total: 557.5kg (1229lbs)
7/9 on attempts
Squat 2 (Told to Re-Rack for 1 soft knee, your left, my right)
Tough one.
Squat 3, granted a start command immediately
Again, a tough one.
Medal
Josh Dang - USAPL New Hampshire State Championships, 74kg class, (10 April 2021)
Josh and I have been working together formally since July of 2020 but I helped him with things here and there for a couple months before that. The transformation I have seen this young man go through since Day 1 has been nothing short of incredible. Coming to me, Josh was very raw in the sense that you could tell he was a strong kid and a good athlete, just did not have the proper guidance/structure in getting to where his goals were at. A member of the infamous Wentworth Men’s Rugby Team that I am the de-facto strength coach for, Josh is a dual-sport athlete (sometimes tri-sport with BJJ rolling here and there) and such is highly active. Some things I don’t monitor with others I monitor closely with Josh such as his weekly weight, his caloric intake, and his fatigue level as he has many different commitments week to week, day to day.
Josh and I actually had a rough couple of months together at the beginning as it took me a fair while to find a volume/intensity prescription for him that matched his lifestyle but also yielded progress. What we agreed upon that ultimately worked is toning down the other stuff and for this prep really honing on solely powerlifting and it paid dividends. He also was not too proud to give low bar squatting a try and I think we both agree that this was a game-changer.
A big factor for Josh this meet was taking all the variables we could account for and maximizing them. I noticed 3 glaring things in his prior preps (not done under me) that both yielded 5/9 performances. The first was all of his lifts were on commercial gym equipment and his first lifts on comp equipment would actually be at the meet. 4 weeks out he purchased a month pass at a powerlifting gym with kilo plates and this made a HUGE difference. The second was he did not peak well, meaning all of his heavy, heavy lifts would be many weeks away from the platform. To account for this we enacted a “time to peak” strategy in which we used 4 week cycles to mini-peak at the culmination of each block, from there we essentially did the same thing leading into the meet just pushing a bit harder and pulling back with more aggressiveness, I think he will agree the meet was the easiest portion of the prep. Lastly, Josh never had someone there with him who oversaw his entire training cycle, meaning people could not help with attempts in a true sense as they were just judging the lift, not the historical data. This is where I came in.
The major goals for this meet was primarily to go 9/9 and secondary we wanted to get as close as possible to a 400 wilks (aware USAPL does not use wilks anymore but theres no lust to having a 90 IPF GL points yet). Here were the results.
Results:
Squat: 187.5kg (413lbs), +27lb PR
Bench Press: 122.5kg (270lbs), +11lbs PR
Deadlift: 225kg, (496lbs), +56lbs PR
Total: 535kg (1180lbs), +95lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Chris Couillard- USAPL New Hampshire State Championships, 83kg class, (10 April 2021)
This was Chris and I’s 3rd meet together and 2nd prep, I only handled him at the first meet he ever did. I want to set all of this up briefly with a bit of a back story. Chris came to me roughly a year and some change ago and since then he has come so far it’s almost as if he is no longer the same person I came into contact with way back then, and I say this in a VERY good way. When we first started working together he was unsure of himself, not sound technically, and was more or less a beginner. He is NOT a beginner anymore. I’ve been able to see this person bring his total from 1003lbs to 1135lbs WHILE dropping down a weight class, more on that later. He has become totally confident, totally secure in his positions as a lifter and most importantly, he is one of the most coachable athlete’s I have ever worked with as he took the time to rework his squat, bring the bar down his back a couple inches, and has reaped the benefit ever since.
With all that said, this was about the best prep we could have asked for given the circumstances he was dealing with outside of training. I commend him for his effort as he very easily could have pulled out of this meet and I would not have faulted him for it but he didn’t and it was one squat away from being his super meet. This guy is a fighter above all else and made some major life changes that only benefitted his lifting.
So, about the weight loss, Chris was actually floating around 200lbs for most of the meet he did but was probably naturally closer to 190-195. We made the decision maybe 16 weeks out or so that giving the 83kg class a shot might not be bad idea in the short term as not only would it improve body composition, but we always could go back up if progress stalled. This was a great move and he somehow got stronger losing close to 20lbs in totality. I say somehow, but I know the reason, he adhered to a high protein intake, adhered to his training program, and made smart choices outside the gym that maximized his recovery session to session.
This day was just about perfect aside from a slip up on squat, maybe could have grinded it out a bit more but I honestly put the blame on me mostly as 396 was a better call on the day rather than 402 but he wanted to attempt 402 in a meet and I owed it to him as we did not push lifts much his first 2 meets. His first ever miss on the platform and it wasn’t on technicality which I am very proud of.
Funny enough, his bench somehow overperformed and this is becoming a theme as he has gotten hurt the last couple of preps in the final stages and we really could not bench much at all leading into both meets and he STILL somehow matched his meet PR bench both times. I will make note that bench is always there meet day, we had 2.5-5kg more on the day but I did not want to risk a miss as it would set him back substantially to PR his total. Fun fact, he actually missed 5kg less than this 4 weeks out.
Lastly, deadlift training was dicey with the weight loss. People are are under 105kg (on average) tend to not benefit from weight loss especially if they pull conventional where the torso is literally tasked with taking on most of the weight. We actually ended this prep with a grindy 502 pull and where it mattered most he came away with a 2.5kg meet PR of 524lbs. Seeing him mentally prepare and bring the quiet intensity to this pull 100% got me emotional.
Here were his results.
Results:
Squat: 172.5kg (380lbs), +11lb PR
Bench Press: 105kg (231lbs)
Deadlift: 237.5kg, (524lbs), +6lbs PR
Total: 515kg (1136lbs), +18lbs PR
8/9 on attempts, down 1 full weight class
Thank you Coach Wright who helped BIG time on the day.
Andrew Graves - USAPL Massachusetts Spring Classic, 83kg class, (21 March 2021)
The Team Hogan OG, Andrew and I have been friends since 2012 and I think in some capacity we had competed on the same sports teams going back to as early as 2010. Andrew actually got into the game a bit before I did and I actually handled him at his first meet before I even competed myself.
Before we started working together in a coach-athlete manner, he ran popular online templates like TSA 9 week, Candito 6 week, and PH3 (message him about this program if you can, please) all to various degrees of success.
What made this meet unique compared to others was how different it was in training approaches we enacted in the past as well as flat-out how fast it flew by.
Historically, Andrew has always been a sumo puller, in the attached photo, you can see he is 100% not pulling sumo. A brief back-story, back in 2017-2018, deadlift was actually his best lift by a considerable margin. He pulled 500lbs sumo and actually only really touched more than that a handful of times in the coming years after that.
Going into his last meet, which was a fairly quick turnaround from the meet before that, we only put 2.5kg on his total and he “only” went 7/9. This was inexcusable and although I was competing on the day myself and didn’t handle him on the day, I take full responsibility for that performance because there were some variables I just did not notice or take seriously enough to change things and it made his performance suffer.
What’s cool about Andrew and I’s relationship now, is we have months upon months of data on him as well as plenty of meets to draw averages from that really, really helps when designing a peaking protocol.
Long story short, after what was supposed to be a break from sumo pulling to give his adductors a break, turned into a decision of whether his potential would be higher conventional. I commend him for not being stubborn and allowing for the possibility to be there with a couple cycles of conventional under his belt.
His squat training going into this was hit or miss, we had road blocks of confidence, approach, you name it. However, roughly 8 weeks out, we had a talk that I think made all the difference in which we agreed that whatever weight was there on the day, it would be put on the bar and to detach from previous performances and to rely upon the data we have with how his squat tends to taper into a meet. More on this to come.
Bench press training, was great in my opinion, technically, his bench groove is flawless and we really stacked some size on to his frame which made a huge difference to me with his top end strength.
Above all else, the biggest thing we changed going into this meet compared to the last, was how we approached progress from week to week, and emphasized bar speed (not speed work) and clean reps with RPEs between 4.5-7.5 as opposed to the increasing weight week to week method we used before. To me, what was happening was although he was strong, the weights he was lifting were causing too much fatigue at a disproportionate rate to the adaptation we were creating and no taper would be steep enough to dissipate the fatigue in time.
So, as an example, going into 1 of his prior meets, he hit 7 or so sets of 4 @ 400lbs on squat in a workout that eventually yielded a 479lb competition squat, this go around the “worst workout” was maybe 5 sets of 5 @ 360-370lbs. This yielded a squat of 474lbs in competition.
Lastly, without making this too long to digest, we knew going in this meet would be very fast. Only 8 lifters per flight meant we had at most 8 minutes of rest between attempts and we needed to warmup fast. So, as you should, we did that in training and it did not effect his performance on bit on the day.
He finished his prep off with a 458lb squat @9, a 326lb bench @9, and a 534lb deadlift @9. This was his results. Also keen to add this was his final meet as a Junior as he will be aging into the Open class next month.
Results:
Squat: 215kg (474lbs)
Bench Press: 155kg (342lbs), +5.5lb PR
Deadlift: 250kg (551lbs), +27lb PR
Total: 620kg (1367lbs), +39lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Conor Silkey - USAPL Massachusetts Spring Classic, 83kg class, (21 March 2021)
Conor and I have been working together since October of 2020 and this meet was the culmination of everything he earned and more. The main issue Conor has had in his career has been motivation to continue and lack of drive on certain training sessions that either lead him to burn out or lose interest.
To me, for someone who loves lifting in general, this screamed to me that the approach used for him in the past with previous coaches, however optimal on paper, was not SUSTAINABLE for longer term success. There is a huge difference. He works, he has a social life, this is not priority #1 all year for him, however it certainly was when it was time to buckle down and this is something I really admire and thought he did well this prep.
Conor had not competed in 3 years due to various reasons and this was actually his first USAPL meet which was cool when we put everything together at the end.
During this prep we had quite a few road blocks that I feel we were able to evade rather easily, ranging from confidence issues in the bench as well as some technical deficiencies there, to some mobility and sequencing issues in his competition deadlift that manifested in some off sessions towards the end.
The biggest thing for me with Conor this entire time has been finding a fine line of getting him strong with an optimal plan that also does not create burnout and feel like a chore to him. Any athlete reading this, you need to communicate with your coach when things are not working. This is not to say Conor complains, he NEVER does, but he is honest with me when things are not working for him and I am thankful for that because it makes things so much easier to titrate.
This being Conor’s first meet in a very long time, I opted to go conservative with his attempts because the last thing I want for a person who is just getting back into this and trying to rekindle the flames for the competition aspect of things, is a 6/9 meet with 3 send-it thirds that were missed on strength.
In terms of his squat, it is one of the smoothest, cleanest, squats you will see, highlighted in the picture I have attached. Depth is never an issue, he never overshoots his RPE, and he tapered UNREAL for this meet.
Bench we had an agreement that although his distant training numbers were slightly higher, we would opt for something on the lower end to account for the drop in bodyweight as well as to ensure 3/3 on bench.
Deadlift hit a road block at the end, but some simple mobility stuff and just sequencing his pull made all the difference for the meet itself.
I can confidently say we left 5kg or so on squat, 2.5 on bench, and 5-7.5 on deadlift. You may be saying, Erik, why did you short change him. Well when I lay out the numbers you’ll see why sometimes being greedy does not reward the total. We have an agreement that his next meet in July, we will open up a bit and turn him loose, and that is hard to do as an athlete who cares and Conor is very mature in the sense that he knows I have his best interest as heart. Cannot wait to see what this guy puts up over the next calendar year as we have only scratched the surface of his potential.
Results:
Squat: 197.5kg (435lbs)
Bench Press: 120kg (264lbs), +14lb PR
Deadlift: 220kg (485lbs), +15lb PR
Total: 537.5kg (1185lbs), +50lb PR
Two 9/9 days, Two Massive PR totals!
Dave Cailer - USPA Rhode Island State Championships, 100kg class, (13 March 2021)
The third of 3 people to do this meet, Dave and I have been working together off and on since the summer of 2020. Under this time he has made some insane progress, I do not personally take a lot of credit for that since he really just trained by feel for a while and the fact he followed a structure probably gave him the performance boost he got respective of any programming strategy I implemented.
Dave was in a separate flight from the other 2 this day, so he was largely on his own in the warmup room which did not prove to be an issue. A reoccurring theme, this was his second official meet, with his first being nearly 3.5 years ago in 2017.
Dave trains mostly in a commercial gym with less than stellar equipment, but never once made a big deal about it, in fact, I actually oddly think it was to his benefit as some good equipment really unlocked what was there for him on the day.
For heavy thirds we agreed on 285kg (628lbs) for squat, 160kg (353lbs) for bench press, and 332.5kg (733lbs) on deadlift.
Squats responded unreal, 285kg was STRONG and maybe if we wanted to we could have added another 2.5-5kg and been fine.
Bench went I guess way better than I personally anticipated, we actually agreed to go 2.5kg HEAVIER than we had planned, something I do not usually agree with but it is important to not mess with something if confidence is there. Glad we took this attempt too cause it made an even bigger goal possible.
Deadlift was the lift that EXPLODED during prep. When you have a lift that responds well, the biggest issue is getting greedy, however I really do not think that was a concern for either of us. We needed 714lbs to secure a 1700lb total, however Dave made it known he did not really see that as anything beyond a number so we stuck to our original plan. The biggest anomaly in all this is Dave trains exclusively in straps, a la Pete Rubish, which made me nervous more than him.
We ended up pulling 700 on the second and then going for 722 on the third and it was one ripped callous away from being locked out. I have never seen a bigger hand tear in person than that one. In hindsight, I think we should have gone 694 on the second, then pulled the minimum 714 for 1700. However, there will always be more meets down the line and if I am being honest, the next time he hits the platform we will be closer to 1800 than 1700.
Results:
Squat: 285kg (628lbs), +110lb PR
Bench Press: 162.5kg (358lbs), +72lbs PR
Deadlift: 317.5kg, (700lbs), +83lbs PR
Total: 765kg (1687lbs), +266lbs PR
8/9 on attempts
Kyle Kable - USPA Rhode Island State Championships, SHW Class (13 March 2021)
Kyle and I have been working together since late 2020 and have made great progress since then. In the same vein as everyone I coached this day, this was technically his second meet despite him being very experienced in the gym and doing the lifts themselves.
A couple unique things happened through this prep and even on the day that I am surprised did not phase him at all. His final 2 deadlift workouts did not go as planned and we were forced to scramble with a taper strategy and be a bit conservative with attempts simply because we only had a finite amount of data to pull from. Squats and bench flat out cruised the entire prep, a week out he went #578 and #375 respectively with plenty of room in the tank.
After discussing attempts, we decided for heavy thirds we would go 265kg (584lbs) for squat, 175kg (386lbs) on bench, 280kg (617lbs) on deadlift. All numbers I was very confident in. As a side note, this is always good when a lifter is realistic and sees what they CAN hit rather what they WANT to hit.
Kyle had some issues with his singlet and sleeves (do not buy Metal anything anymore please anyone reading this), thankfully he had an extra singlet. However, the knee sleeves he ended up using were easily 1-2 sizes tighter than what he was used to because getting the knee sleeves on proved to be the biggest struggle of the day.
Squats were on fire, he blew up 265kg and honestly had another 5-7.5 in the tank which is insane as this was already an all-time PR. Bench press was much of the same, blew up his third of 175kg with 5-7.5kg to spare, again, an all-time PR. Deadlifts were the only lift we did not massively under shoot, his third of 280kg was easy enough but this was the best competition legal pull he has ever done. We can count this as an all-time PR as his other pulls heavier than this were ramped or lacking a hold at the top.
All in all, there is not a ton more you can ask for on a day. 9/9 with all time PRs on every lift while also adding 160lbs to your best meet total. Kyle was a dream to work with in prep and on the day, if I told him to run through a wall in order to improve a lift, he would do it and he did not object a single call for attempts on the day but also was honest with me that he was feeling good and to be a bit more aggressive. Made my job so much easier.
Results:
Squat: 265kg (584lbs), +60lbs PR
Bench Press: 175kg (386lbs), +23lbs PR
Deadlift: 280kg (617lbs), +77lbs PR
Total: 720kg (1588lbs), +160lbs PR
9/9 on attempts
Tyler Hill - USPA Rhode Island State Championships, 82.5kg class (13 March 2021)
Tyler (also known by many as Seamus) and I have been working together since late spring of 2020. Although he had only done one official meet before this, he has been around “the game”, so to speak, for a while now and has consistently trained for double that time span.
The approach we took to this meet was pretty much, don’t get greedy, stick to the plan, and make your lifts. Tyler is very good at being communicative and although we had some tough moments in prep, mainly with confidence issues in the squat and sumo deadlifts not ever really clicking, I am fairly confident he would agree with me that he was as strong as he has ever been in his life on this day.
Going into this our plans for heavy third attempts on the day were 195kg (430lbs) on squat, 137.5kg (303lbs) on bench press, and 232.5kg (512lbs) for deadlift. It should be noted he has historically been a sumo puller but after much deliberation and adjustments, we settled on going with conventional for this meet because all of his conventional pulls were FAR outweighing his sumo pulls both in weight and technical proficiency. Props to him for not being stubborn.
We started off strong going 3/3 on squat and hit that third with kilos to spare, probably had 5 more kg on the day.
Bench press we hit some turbulence on the second attempt so went with the conservative option of 2.5kg back and I think that was absolutely the right call on the day as 137.5 would’ve just been a hair too much. 6/6 through squat and bench.
Deadlifts, I think we both would agree, could have gone better. Flights were very long and it was going on 5 hours from opening squats and I think we warmed up a bit too soon as there was about a 12 minute gap from last warmup to opener. We opened up at 210kg (462lbs), a number that has never given him problems pretty much ever, however after getting the down command his under grip kinda gave out and it was red lighted. We did not panic because grip really has never been an issue, however, we really could not afford to take any risks so I opted to retake it, which he made easily, and we settled on 220kg (485lbs) for the third and he made that with probably 5 more to spare. You might be saying, weren’t you a little conservative? Yes, I was and that was for a reason. The main goal on the day was to go 9/9 and there will always be other meets where we can put it all together. Although he is an experienced lifter, he is not an experienced powerlifter in the sense of competing.
All in all, we went 195/135/220 for a 550kg (1212lb) total. This is cool because his only other meet was a weight class up and knee wraps. The goal was to surpass this but had we not had a blip on the opening deadlift, we would have certainly done that. He left with an all-time bench press PR and his coefficient was greatly improved. All in all, a great day.
Results:
Squat: 195kg (430lbs)
Bench Press: 135kg (297lbs)
Deadlift: 220kg (485lbs)
Total: 550kg (1212lbs)
8/9 on attempts
A great day had by all.