Sorry if you came here for beer.

This week is the last full training week before the meet on the 22nd. Since the week prior will be basically be a de-load (rest) week, today and tomorrow are my last chances to go heavy. These two maximum effort days are supposed to be when I take the box away on squats, pull out the pins and boards on bench and see what the the 11 weeks of training have solidified into.

Today's squat session wasn't a good sign.

I will spare you the details, but it was pretty much a normal max effort progression. Dropped to singles at 315 and above, but it culminated with two failures at 355; 10lbs lower than my best squat and right around my best in a meet (352 or some such).

Bench, as we have witnessed, is set to be a similar disaster. I still haven't moved my meet best of 255 since the actual meet where I did it. I'm only somewhat confident I can hit 245 with a competition pause.

So where does this leave me? Worse than I was 8 months ago. I have spent all day trying to determine what has gotten me here. Here is a list, in order of likelihood, of the things that could have gone wrong.

1. I'm a weak little bitch.
2. I took too long to get back to heavy lifting after the meniscus tear. I did some accumulation work and tested myself up to 85% or so at times, but I never really pushed it on either bench or squat because I was afraid of the knee.
3. I lost too much weight. I dropped about 18 lbs. for the strongman competition in August, and I never really bulked back up. I was 217, then cut to 199. I have been a steady 205 since then. Now, it's not like I couldn't be a ton stronger at 205 (see #1), but I think some of the weight I lost was useful stuff like...muscle.
4. I just don't respond to this kind of programming (conjugate periodization), or I programmed myself wrong. Either is likely but the program isn't rocket science. If I'm honest with myself and admit that 11 weeks ago I was probably much weaker than I thought I was, it's reasonable to believe I have made some modest gains. Then again, I do have a sneaking suspicion that this program really isn't ideal if you are a lean, drug-free, raw lifter.
5. My technique is shit. Probably true, but I don't think it's biggest problem I'm facing.

I'm pretty down about it today; way more than a reasonable person should be. It's just stupid powerlifting numbers, after all. I'm probably not going to reach my short-term goals, but all I can do
is keep putting in work.