The (bro) science behind “Peaking” For Powerlifting📈
One of the big keys for success in powerlifting is hitting your PEAK at the right time.
Just like any other sport, we want to be our freshest on competition day- but since training goes on for months and months for just 1 single day, the stakes are a bit higher and training has to trend in a way that goes beyond just taking a couple of days off before the meet.
In this article I wanted to share a few basic bulletins of info on peaking and how to peak properly.
The science behind peaking is a bit more intensive than this, but this is a really good, basic place to start learning about it.
✅Peaking Involves building fatigue up through heavy training, followed by a taper to recover and experience a “super compensation” effect on meet day where you end up reaping the rewards of your training as you experience full recovery and a huge adrenaline boost from being on the platform.
✅Lift Specificity is HUGE for peaking. That means a lot of reps in the 1-3 Rep range in your lifts, up to competition standards. Lots of reps at 90% 1RM (RPE 8-9) and above is a must.
✅A taper won’t be as effective if you’re not actually training hard enough to begin with. A LOT of lifters mess this up. Training leading into a meet should feel absolutely brutal 2-4 weeks out as this is the time you will be experiencing your highest loads of volume and intensity, prepping you for your taper where you drop volume and intensity down leading into the meet.
✅Peaking is not the time to experiment with exercises that you aren’t sure will be effective for you. You should know which ones work based on your offseason training- and execute these exercises to your best ability during peaking.
✅Peaking Timing is different for everyone. In general, younger, smaller lifters who are handling less relative weight can handle heavy training closer to a meet and a shorter taper than lifters who are pushing the limits of their body a bit more. Those lifters usually need a longer taper to drop fatigue leading into the meet.
✅Drop volume (reps/sets) throughout the taper, but keep intensity (bar weight) high as long as possible.
✅I typically set up my Peaking programs so the last heavy Deadlift will happen the furthest out from the meet (14-17 days), the last heavy squat next (7-10 days), and the last heavy bench last (5-7 days) in order of difficulty to recover from (in general). There are a few situations where this order will change, but this is a great place to start.
✅You do NOT have to PR in training to hit a PR on the platform. In fact, most of my lifters only go up to about 95% of their max during training for meets, and often destroy that number when they hit the platform. Chasing PRs in training can cause you to blow your “load” too soon and feel less than strong on meet day.
Have you ever peaked for a meet before?
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