This was Reghan’s second time stepping on the platform, and our first meet working together. We were able to make pretty substantial progress in all facets of Reghan’s training, and most of that can be attributed to the fact that she excels in every aspect as a client. Consistent communication, objective and valuable feedback after every session, and 100% effort in the gym makes progress very easy to come by. So, hats off to Reghan.

For squat, the main changes that got made throughout prep came from technique, bar placement, and footwear. Changing the mechanics of Reghan’s squat had such a massive impact on our ability to load it, that we ended up being able to ride out a pretty similar layout for the entire prep and still watch e1rm rise block to block. We had 4 blocks of training leading into this meet, and in week 2 of our first (5 week) block, we made the decision to test out low bar, as Reghan had only done high bar squatting in the past. Given her leverages as a longer limbed lifter, we had a pretty good guess that high bar was not doing her any favors. At the end of that block we secured 105kg/230lb single on squat, beating her previous 1rm by 15lbs. In order to manage that rate of progression a bit, and to avoid making progress too quickly we pulled back on the primary day’s top set intensity and just watched her volume work creep up week to week. We ran 2x per week squat all through prep with all sets/reps changes coming from the secondary session. The primary session was a top set of 1-3 reps followed by a second top set of 4 (both RPE based) with % based back down sets of 4. 4 sets total on the primary. Her secondary started off as exclusively high bar with a pause, but as she became more comfortable with the low bar pattern we slowly fed in more low bar, and in the final block of prep we replaced some of the paused work with competition work. Looking back, it seems as though intensity on the secondary was the main driver of the primary coming in strong rather than whether we did high bar, paused, or low bar squatting. That is also something we will go over more on deadlifts. Lastly, switching to a heel elevated shoe did wonders for Reghan’s ability to hit depth comfortably. Getting to depth was not an issue in flats, but hitting depth while managing center of mass and not collapsing into the hole was. The switch to heels was honestly pretty seamless and easy. After about a week of adjustment, squats were just looking better overall and the increase in top end reflected that. We were able to finish prep with a 115kg/253lb squat, but decided to make a conservative call on meet day with 112.5kg/248lbs after a pretty “meh” opener and second. Looking back, there was probably a 50/50 chance of having 115kg on the day.

Reghan’s bench was the lift that needed the least work technique wise. She already had a very strong grasp on how to set up/how to use her legs, so there wasn’t a ton for us to fix technique wise. But, despite Reghan’s impressive arch, she does have a pretty moderate range of motion. This caused center of mass management through the descent to be tough, and her top end suffered due to not having a consistent and strong touch point. We were able to clean this up pretty easily by prescribing lots of tempo and long pause work on heavier sets to really drill consistency through the eccentric. We worked with a 4x per week bench frequency all through prep, and laid things out in a way where we had 2 heavy top sets per week (one on Tuesday, and one on Saturday). Her Tuesday session was preceded by a low intensity quaternary session consisting of a few sets in the moderate rep range at a low and static RPE, and the Saturday session was preceded by a day of no benching at all. With this strategy we can pretty quickly determine what her frequency/time between exposure needs are by tracking which of these two sessions are stronger, and which one we should bias loading toward. Reghan did best with a day of no bench before hand, so that is what we stuck with through prep and eventually tapered from. Reghan’s best bench from prep was 65kg/143lbs, and given the standard to which that rep was done, and how consistent bench was through prep, we were confident in being able to match that on the platform. Unfortunately, we fell short and simply did not have the strength for it on the day. But, we were still able to get the most out of bench on the day given the fact that her second attempt was 2.5kg less.

Deadlift is certainly the lift that Reghan has the highest ceiling on. We made phenomenal progress through prep with her technique, positioning, and overall hinge mechanics, but I think part of the reason we weren’t able to bring up top end more was due to the fact that much of her programming was centered around what she was responding well to technique-wise rather than what she was responding well to strength-wise. This was something I didn’t pick up on until very late in prep. The first thing I noticed with Reghan’s deadlift technique when we first started working together was the common “squatty” deadlift, or a very heel-heavy, flexion-dominant deadlift. As a warmup for every deadlift day we threw in some light dumbbell RDLs with a toe elevation. These done with proper cueing can do wonders for being able to shift center of mass forward and gain access to the front of the foot, which is what Reghan was lacking. On top of that, we had a secondary deadlift day consisting of 3-1-X tempo barbell RDLs with 50% 1rm, and primary deadlift day with a competition top set, and tempo eccentric backdowns. Since technique was showing up better week to week, I expected top end to increase with it, but it really didn’t. My initial thought was to increase specificity on the primary day by swapping out her typical tempo eccentric backdowns for competition work, and also add in some light competition work on the secondary, but mid-way through her last block of prep we were seeing top end remain pretty stagnant. After a conversation with Reghan about how she was feeling on the primary day, we came to the conclusion that she really needed more intensity early in the week. Her primary session would consistently show up with low fatigue, but everything felt heavy. In her final heavy week of training, we swapped out her 1x4 @5, 1x4 -10%, 2x8 tempo RDL for a 1x4@7.5, 1x8 tempo RDL. Her primary IMMEDIATELY showed up stronger. This tells me that her secondary was essentially filled with “fluff” for a while, and we can get significantly more work done with less sets. I ended up having her pull ~82.5% for a set of 4 the week of the meet (4 days out), which isn’t typical of how I would write a taper for a conventional puller, but meet day certainly showed up stronger than any day of training. All in all, I am extremely pleased with the progress we were able to make this prep, and the data we gathered has us set up to really kick things up post-meet.