training cycles

Strength levels simply cannot stay at their highest all the time. Your strength will have "peaks" depending your training, and also will have "valleys." Imagine if you tried to go in and max out every workout? You might be able to increase your max for a short time, but after a while you would undoubtedly get burned out, and would probably not even be able work up to your previous max. As powerlifters, we need to have our strength "peaked" for just the right time, at the meet! All lifters want their strength levels at their highest at their meet, it's just that simple.

With that knowledge of peaking your strength in mind, training cycles should follow that pattern. A cycle should start out relatively light, well below your max. The beginning of the cycle needs to be light so can recover from the meet or the end of a previous training cycle, allowing your strength level to be build back up a peak for the end of the cycle for your meet. How light you start off really depends on your experience level, your personal preference, previous cycles, etc. Either way, the cycle should be planned so you hit your peak at the end.

As I spoke on the Turtle article, percentages are not the best way to determine how much of a jump you want for you goal. Similarly, in a training cycle, percentages are not best way to plan your weekly jumps. Rather, start with your goal, and take a certain amount of weight off each week depending your strength level. Usually 10-15 lbs is a good amount for a weekly jump. For instance, if you goal was 500 lbs at the end of the cycle on week 12, in week 11 you would do 485, in week 10 470, week 9 455, etc.

I have a few training cycles that I have used linked below. They are all customizable to your goal and weekly jumps. All of them are set-up for doing each lift once a week, and usually an additional bench day with some assistant lifts. For instance, a training schedule could look like the following: Monday--Bench, Tuesday--Squats, Thursday--Auxilary Bench, Friday--Deadlift.

Each cycle has the heaviest workout on the last week. Now, you shouldn't have those heavy workouts right before the meet. If you didn't you would not have enough time to recover and have your strength peaked at the meet. Therefore, your last heavy workouts should start the week before the meet. The week of the meet, you should either be doing very light training, or none at all.

As far as the sets and reps of a training cycle, you'll notice that my cycles vary quite a bit. Two of them start out with higher reps and work downward towards a single at the end of the cycle. The other two have singles as their main component throughout the whole cycle. Which type of scheme you use is mostly personal preference. I believe they both work, and likely any set/rep scheme will work so long as the weights are cycled so that strength is peaked for the meet.

Despite all of the routines and training systems out there today, hard work is the most basic key component for any type of training to succeed. I believe, however, the best training is to focus on the powerlifts themselves (squat, bench press, deadlift), and cycle your weights to peak for a contest.



5x5 Cycle - A basic cycle based off of Rickey Dale Crain's training. It is very high volume, and it is a longer cycle of 15 weeks. It starts with 5 weeks of 5x5, 4 weeks of 4x4, and so on down to a top single at the end.

Quick Peaking Cycle - A shorter 8 week cycle that I designed early in my powerlifting career. It has been tweaked since then, but the basics of it remain.

12 Week Singles Cycle - This cycle uses 3 sets of singles, like attempts in a meet. It is very sport-specific in that manner. It also includes some drop sets for reps, and other exercise to work on different parts of the lifts.

8 Week Singles Cycle - This is the same basic cycle as above, only shortened to 8 weeks.