2009 IPF Bench Worlds
2009 IPF Bench Press Worlds -- The training, the meet, the lessons learned
By: Brady Stewart
From the beginning of my lifting career, it has always been a dream of mine to make any USA World Team. If you’d have told me 3 years ago that I’d have made the team for 2009, I would have thought you were crazy. It wasn’t until I learned how to train myself via RTS that my strength really took off. I started training with the Reactive Training System back in January 2007. Once I found that I made the US Bench Press Team, I had only 20 months of RTS under my belt. I truly feel that without it, I wouldn’t have made the team or even come close. I started RTS with a 518lb bench press and in 30 months of training RTS, I’ve stayed in the same weight class and have recently doubled 640lbs in training for the IPF BP Worlds. This article will shed some light on how I trained for my first IPF Worlds, a meet report, lessons learned, and where my training and goals go from here. Hopefully some of you can learn from my experiences to better prepare you for your next contests.
- Training –
I had 9 months to train for Worlds and couldn’t have asked for any more time to get ready. I trained with the mentality that this could be the only IPF Worlds that I’d ever be a part of, so naturally I trained as if I was going to win. I knew that I’d have to handle heavier and heavier weights over that 9 month period to get that Gold Medal. During those 9 months, that was all that was on my mind. WINNING. Training with this mentality really reaped many rewards in training. If I felt tired, I made myself think about my competitors and the types of training sessions that they were having. They were probably getting stronger and working smarter than me. That ate me alive. So I didn’t leave any stone unturned. I learned more in the 9 months leading up to worlds as I did training the first 20 months on RTS. I tried a variety of combinations of training that all had a purpose and reason. That said, everything I do in and out of the gym…every set, rep, weight, exercise, template, micro/meso/macro level cycling and planning had a reason. Too many people just throw something together because it sounds good or worked really well in the past. What worked for you in the past, may not work or achieve the same results as now. I’ll tell you this. What got me from 400 to 500lbs was very very different than what it took me to get from 500 to 600 lbs. Now I am trying new things to get me from 600s to 700s. I do not put limitations on myself, am never satisfied with my current state of training, and I demand results from myself.
I also log everything. I log from the macro/meso/micro levels of training. In a nutshell, I created spreadsheets that outlined the 9 months and how I was going to approach certain timelines. I gave myself time for a post-season, off-season, pre-season, in-season, and peaking cycles. This may be slightly different than what was learned in the RTS articles/manual, but it is easier for me to make sense of my training if I split it up in this format. For the different phases/cycles, I allow myself to use different exercises, and some would overlap with other phases/cycles. I also had staple exercises that I would simply modify depending on where I was or how far out from the contest I was. Here are some crude examples of how I cycled training, what I wanted to emphasize, and the template that I followed (approximately):
Post-Season – 4 weeks – (Right after Nationals Qualifier) Exercise Experimentation Period utilizing lower stresses
Fatigue Template – RTS Charts
S- off
M- EQ BP / Raw BP / Triceps
T- Squat / Dead / ABS
W- extra, recovery, conditioning
R- Raw BP / Lockout / Shoulders
F- Dead / Squat / ABS
S- extra, recovery, conditioning
Off-Season – 8 weeks – Exercise selection includes multiple deviations of the classic lifts and their variations, focused on CNS development and hammering exercises that I felt were weak and needed extra attention.
Frequency Template – RTS Charts
S- off
M- EQ BP / Squat / Triceps
T- Raw BP / Dead
W- Lats / Abs / Cardio
R- Raw BP / Squat / Shoulders
F- Lockout / Dead
S- Lats / Abs / Cardio
Pre-Season – 8 weeks – Accumulation Emphasis, exercise selection modified variations of the classic lifts, increase conditioning level, raw lifts were priority for me in this phase. Build up weaknesses.
Frequency Template – Fatigue Percents
S- off
M- EQ BP / Triceps
T- Raw BP / Squat / Dead
W- Lats / ABS / Cardio
R- Raw BP / Shoulders
F- Lockout / Dead / Squat
S- Lats / ABS / Cardio
In-Season – 8 weeks – Used variations of equipped benching. Focused on CNS development and controlling recovery, building physical strength, maintain conditioning
Frequency Template – RTS Charts
S- off
M- EQ BP / Squat / Triceps
T- Raw BP / Dead
W- Lats / Abs / Cardio
R- Raw BP / Squat / Shoulders
F- Lockout / Dead
S- Lats / Abs / Cardio
Peaking – 7 weeks – Focus on Competition Lifting, continue to build physical strength, and focus technical mastery
Frequency Template – RTS Charts
S- off
M- EQ BP / Triceps
T- Raw BP / Squat / Dead
W- Lats / ABS / Cardio
R- Raw BP / Shoulders
F- Lockout / Dead / Squat
S- Lats / ABS / Recovery
Like I said that is a very rough example, but phasing has a point. I should also let you know that I was in a bench press shirt for 90% of those weeks on mondays. I’d used straight weight the most, but I also used the shirt with chains, bands, and reverse bands. Also notice that I’d stick with a theme for those phases. I believe that you can’t build up every aspect of strength training at once, so I’ll take the time to specifically train certain variables that I feel need to be worked on. I stuck with 6 main slots for the upper body and 4 for the lower body. I did recovery work and Active Release Therapy consistently throughout the 9 months battling tight pec insertions. I’d also like to get into template design and training in ghigher frequencies a little more, but I think that I’ll save that for another article as that is a subject that needs to be discussed separately and I don’t want to go too far off topic. All that you need to know is that…yes…I do bench press 4x per week and occasionally train intensities over 90% on all 4 days. It works very well for me. I started training at this frequency in the spring of 2008 and have had great results ever since. The figures below illustrate what intensities the majority of my training is focused on over 36 weeks.
3455 total reps (over 50% intensity) for the upper body alone. Doesn’t include most warm-up sets/reps.
689 Lifts were between 50-60% intensity
648 Lifts were between 60-70% intensity
908 Lifts were between 70-80% intensity
986 Lifts were between 80-90% intensity
224 Lifts were between 90-100% intensity
During worlds training I was able to increase my squat significantly as well. I squatted a raw beltless PR of 570lbs. I felt that I could have squatted 590 that day. That is a big improvement for me considering that I squatted 573 at the Arnold Classic in 2008. Just before bench press nationals, I had tweaked my back and the chiropractor I was working with had determined that I had a slightly slipped disc. So at that point in training, I had to really back off of squats and deads and only worked up to 50% weights for quite some time. I was a little down, but I knew I’d get right back into it when I could. After nationals, my back was feeling great again, then the pains started coming back. I went to a new chiropractor (Dr. Scott Underwood) to take a look at it. He immediately diagnosed it as a displaced rib. He fixed it in one session. I could have saved a lot of pain and gained a lot of training time had he worked on me before. But at least I’ve found someone who knew what it was. I was beginning to think that my full powerlifting career was coming to an end. Dr. Underwood is also my ART practitioner. I’ve been only utilizing 4 lower body slots and I will add one more in the next meso-cycle, and another slot the meso-cycle following that.
- Exercise Selection -
Selecting exercises for the phases can be a challenging, but rewarding experience. The minimum length that I would keep an exercise was 3 weeks, the longest being 6 weeks. You can learn a lot and gain a lot from different exercises. One thing that I noticed in training for nationals and worlds is that I saw greater increases in strength from more full range exercises than I did with pin lockouts and boards. I thought that boards and pins were God’s gift to the lockout. For me personally, I do not do pin lockouts anymore, unless they are at chest level, then they become a full range of motion exercise (that I really like). Mid-High pin lockouts and high boards really tore my chest insertions and pecs up for some reason. I may be able to throw them in for higher intensities every once in a long while for a limited time (one slot for one week). That is my main reason for not doing them anymore. I can tolerate 2-3 board presses for my assistance exercises if I need to. However, I still can do 1 board presses without any pain and it is also a great limited range of motion exercise that I use for building raw strength. My bread and butter lockout exercise is the reverse band press using various levels and grips. I also like to use them with the shirt and is a great way to break a tight shirt in as well. Other lockout movements that I utilized were bench presses with 2 sets of doubled purple (light bands), doubled purples w/100lbs chains, and other band/band or band/chain combos. For shirt based lockout training, I really hate doing shirted boards. I did do them for some of the training for worlds, but I didn’t like the results that I saw. I didn’t get to lift any heavier, my full bench stroke suffered, and I felt squirrelly on the bench when the boards weren’t on my chest. Maybe the shirt I used was too tight or too loose, but I don’t know if I’ll use this one any time in the near future. If I do, it will be so far away from a contest that it won’t be an issue come contest time. I feel that for most, shirted boards create bad habits for really good benchers and their competitions suffer because of it. I want to know without any doubt what I can touch well before the contest.
For raw benching, I like 1 board presses, micro mini band bench, pauses, pin presses at chest level, and regular raw benching with grips ranging from index on the smooth part of the bar to illegal wide grips. In the future, I will try loading pins, weight releasers, very low inclines, and very light reverse band presses. I know that a lot of this sounds excessive, but they all affect the body in different ways, and who knows, I may wake up some additional muscle fibers while I am at it.
One thing that I make sure that I never do is throw an exercise out. Just because it doesn’t work now, doesn’t mean it won’t work later. Meaning that as certain muscles and muscle groups get stronger, others may be lagging and will need special attention. Some movements require more shoulders, others chest, others triceps, lats, etc… Personally, my chest is nowhere near what my triceps are capable of locking out. So right now my focus is on my chest and shoulders. I used to hate doing illegal wides and straight bar military press work. I probably haven’t done either in over 2 years. Now, they may be just the movements I need to bust into a new level of benching. We’ll see. The best thing we can do is closely monitor the results and analyze all factors involved to make sure that those were the right exercises to pick.
For the lower body, I mainly stuck with raw squats and deadlifts without a belt. In fact, I don’t think I even put the belt on once for lower body work. I’d also do SLDLs, RDLs, manta ray squats, and close stance squats. For some of that time, I didn’t follow the regular RTS protocols because I was trying to get my back used to squatting and deadlifting again.
- Analysis -
This is a subject that is overlooked in the powerlifting community. Some powerlifters say that with too much analyzation, comes paralyzation. I couldn’t disagree more with that state of mind. As powerlifters train, we should be writing down every detail of our training in our training logs. But what happens from there? Do you ignore it? Do you learn anything from it? Can you see trends in your training? I can, but I have to log my training in Microsoft Excel. I have seen many spreadsheets that help athletes log training and honestly, I can’t make sense of any of them. So, I created my own where I can track volume, avg. volume, intensity, avg. intensity, avg. RPE by day, week, and mesocycle. (RPE=rate of perceived exertion…if you do not know what this means, please purchase Mike Tuchscherer’s Reactive Training Manual) Tracking RPEs allows me to see gains/losses in my strength levels. I can even chart it. RPEs also help me make sense of the amount of stress that I am trying to achieve for the week. Am I saying that to be a good bencher or powerlifter, that you need Microsoft Excel to see improvements. Absolutely not. I am just saying that logging and analyzing in this fashion has been one of the largest factors in my improvements. If you are getting weaker, stronger, or stagnating, you should know it. When you know where your strength stands with the goals you have in mind, you can make adjustments to your training to help you get back on track. It is hard to write about analyzation in an article without writing a book or us being in a classroom with computers and a blackboard. I can assure you that if you work harder on analyzing your training, understanding and using the RPE system, and study the effects of the combinations of templates, stresses, exercises, and factors involved with our sport, you will become very effective at understanding your training, other athlete’s training, and fitness in general.
- Gear –
This was the first contest I’ve done using the Titan Super Katana. I probably really need custom gear, but I’d rather use stock sizes to save a little money and time (from the ordering process). Stock shirts are readily available. Since I’ve been in the 242lb weight class, I’ve lifted in nothing but stock 50 Titan bench shirts. Up until this point, I liked to train in one shirt for the entire length of my peaking mesocycle. That will change in the future. My heavy training bodyweight of 250lbs has led to some competition problems for me at worlds.
- Peaking –
I had 7 weeks, including the week of the contest, to peak. The week before I started was a slight deload week working with weights from 60-70%. Here is how I programmed this peaking mesocycle:
Weeks Out –
6 - Accumulation (70-80%) Medium Stress
5 – Accumulation (75-85%) High Stress
4 – Accumulation (80-90%) High Stress
3 – Transmutation (85-95%) Medium Stress
2 – Transmutation (80-90%) Medium Stress
1 – TEST (95%) and Realization (75-85%) Low Stress
COMP Week – Deload (85%, 72.5%)
Weeks Out 6-4 Exercises
Wide Grip Raw Slot – 1 Board Press
Close Grip Raw Slot – Paused Bench Press
Wide Grip Lockout Slot – Equipped Bench Press
Close Grip Lockout Slot – Reverse Band Press
Tricep Slot – Close Grip Bench Press with doubled Monster Mini Bands
Shoulder Slot – Seated Dumbell Military Press
Weeks Out 3-1 Exercises
Wide Grip Raw Slot – Raw Bench Press (WG)
Close Grip Raw Slot – Raw Bench Press (CG)
Wide Grip Lockout Slot – Equipped Bench Press
Close Grip Lockout Slot – Reverse Band Press
Tricep Slot – Close Grip 2 Board Press
Shoulder Slot – Machine Military Press
Comp. / Deload Week Exercises
Raw Bench Press 3 sets (wide, medium, close)
Raw Squat
Raw Deadlift
- Meet Report –
Remember before, when I said that I was training to win. Well I didn’t. I didn’t even medal. Did I lift bad? No! I did go two for three. I opened with 265K and it went up very easy…3 whites. I took 277.5K on my second attempt (it felt OK, but it felt like the shirt gave out half way through the lift), which ties my meet PR. It also put me in the bronze position after all second attempts were finished. Coach Donovan Thompson (who is a great coach) said that he’d pick my last attempt. He opted to have me shoot for Gold. I agreed. I wanted it so bad I could taste it and my mind was in the right place. I pulled my loose shirt down to the point where I felt it was just enough to push 290K (640lbs) out. It came down, touched smoothly, and after the press call, the weight started stalling about half way up and I was able to muscle a few more inches out of it and I just didn’t have the power to keep pushing. The shirt felt much different in training. Since I had done a 640 double, touch and go single, and paused with commands rep on test day with 630lbs, I wondered what went wrong. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. My shirt was so loose, the sleeves were moving around on me on my first two attempts (un-torque-ing my sleeves. So loose in fact, that night (even after eating and drinking), I could put the shirt on all by myself in no less than 10 seconds. What is even crazier is that I got it off in even less time without any help. I could never do that in training. It’s amazing that 640 even went up that high. For the future, I’ll be getting my training bodyweight down to no more than 245, that way I am not over stretching my shirts out. I’ll be benching with a few shirts to keep some of the elasticity in them. I’ll be experimenting with stock sized 48s because I am curious to see if it will work for me and to possibly hit bigger numbers. I am not the prototypical bencher, I am 242lbs, 5’11’’, and I do not have short arms. I was probably the tallest and longest armed bencher in my class and these guys were spilling out of their shirts they were so tight. I learned a lesson with that. Which brings me to my next topic…
- Lessons Learned –
- My bodyweight in training was too heavy. I need to stay or try to be within 1% of my competing weight.
- I need to try to lift in tighter gear, and being a little lighter may just be the trick. I want to take away the possibility that my gear won’t work like it should come contest day.
- I was probably at contest weight for 1 full day before I actually weighed in. (probably zapping a little strength) This is another good reason to train lighter. I have to ask myself if I want to be strong in training or strong at the contest. There is no glory in hitting big lifts in training. I want to be strong when it is important.
- The judging there was surprisingly fair. If you can get a lift passed at our nationals, you can get a lift passed at worlds. I can’t really say this was a lesson learned, but it was interesting to see firsthand.
- Lifters who bombed. From what I saw, this wasn’t a judging issue. However, as with all contests, sometimes there were some bad calls. IPF judges are human aren’t they? For the most part the judging was spot on. Most red lights were given for touching too low or belly pressing. That said I really thought John Bogart’s lifts were good and weren’t too low. Before the 275s lifted, he showed the head judge how low his sternum was and the judge agreed, yet still gave John red lights. He even locked his out. Some guys took way too heavy of openers which caused them to bomb. I don’t understand this phenomenon. I think in some classes, some guys could have opened much lighter and ended up on the podium. Also, there were so many different body shapes and sizes that it can be very hard to judge where the bar is touching or when the bar is locked out. In some cases, the benefit of the doubt went to the lifter. But for many, they were clearly belly pressing.
- In training, my butt left the bench a lot. I am correcting this currently in training. I used to push down into the floor with my feet, now I will push the floor away from me. In other words, I am trying to push my body towards the head judge through my feet. Hopefully this will help me stay on my upper back and traps a lot better as well.
- Looking back, I think that at times I trained over 90% too much. I probably should stay between an average of 75-85% for the majority of my training. I’ll put more attention into this at least for the peaking portion. Different intensities have their purpose at different times. When benching 4x per week, it seems that it is easier to fatigue the CNS if the intensity is too high. But that is just through speculation and not experience at this point. So, I’ll experiment with that for nationals and see what happens.
- I really like the mentality that I had training for and competing at worlds. I trained like my life depended on it and I got a lot stronger. No one cares if you feel tired and weak. What matters is that I train hard and put some heart and drive into it.
- I think that I tested my near max too close to competition day. I like to have no less or more than 12-13 days between testing my bench (95% intensity for a single) and competition day. For Worlds, I had 11. Even though it was only off one day, it may have made a slight difference in strength. It probably wouldn’t have made me place higher anyways. I probably tested a little too heavy also. I took a test attempt at 630lbs, which was based off of an estimated max of 660. In retrospect, I should have lifted no more than 615-620lbs for the test. I should have used the RPEs (that I achieve the week before) as an indicator of where my strength was going.
- As much as I don’t want to admit it…and I hate making excuses, so this may not be one. But, traveling that far had its challenges too. There were so many variables against me traveling like that. I don’t know where to begin. I really need to do my homework with this aspect of competing internationally. So I’ll at least feel better about it. In reality, the more experience I have in international competition, the better I’ll become.
- Conclusion –
I truly hope that you have found this article helpful or at least gave you a little insight on how I’ve prepared for an IPF World Level contest. I’d like to end stating that as strength athletes, we always need to keep our ears open for any and all forms of information related to our sport. We may learn new things that can take our training to the next level. I hope that in your powerlifting career, you will learn to humble yourself, learn from many sources, and help other lifters out. Take care and God bless!