ZAO Strength

Intuitive training for powerlifting is all about executing the proper amount of sets and reps for each exercise to achieve your desired outcome. 🤓

Thus, there will be many times where you should skip planned sets in your training.

Yes. Skip them. Move on. Do the next exercise, go home, etc.

The main question to ask yourself is: will completing all of these additional sets benefit me MORE than the perceived benefits of skipping them?

Powerlifting is a marathon, not a sprint.

Consistency with training requires a healthy assessment and reflection of your current needs based on your day to day material conditions.

So yeah. Skip some sets. It’s not a big deal.

The biggest limiter to your powerlifting performance is fatigue. Both central and peripheral fatigue can limit your ability to produce force. Additionally, accumulated fatigue can lead to negative adaptations (acute atrophy, behavioral change, mood swings, decision fatigue, etc.)

In an ideal world- we wouldn't need frequent deloads or pivot blocks. We'd simply find the ideal stimulus for each day based on our perceived level of fatigue. However, we can't control every variable in our lives, and we shouldn't try to.

Instead, we recognize how we are feeling and performing and then we make the necessary adjustments to keep us on track to hit our long term goals.

Pivot blocks and Deload blocks are two training tools which we can implement throughout our training journey to reduce fatigue, increase motivation, maintain strength, and build the necessary momentum to reach our goals.

BTW, have opened up 5 spots on our coaching roster for the 2024 powerlifting season! So if you're interested in working with us, check out our bio and send us an application!

RPE is a tool to improve your ability to fully auto-regulate your training sessions.

Many of our athletes have been encouraged and educated to make intuitive training decisions to enhance their motivation and performance.

RPE is a tool we utilize from the beginning of their training career, helping them improve their connection with their body, the exercise, and their actual capacity for each session.

However, RPE is a metric of INTERNAL LOAD.

So, RPE is one of many tools we should use to ensure the lifter gets the most from every training session.

We often use RPE to gauge the expected stress from each session.

Then, depending on the perceived recovery/fatigue that the athlete experiences, we turn up or dial back the stress of each session to ensure the training stimulus will provide a positive adaptation.

Though, if the coach is making these decisions exclusively, it's technically not "auto-regulation.'

To truly individualize training in an ideal way for each athlete, we must teach our clients about each training strategy and auto-regulative tool that we have so they can develop strength no matter what life throws at them.

If you want to learn more about these topics, we will soon open our discord to the public; stay tuned!

Protocol Selection Part 1:

Once you have determined the desired exercises for your (or your client's) program, it is necessary to pair each exercise with appropriate training protocols to create the conditions for the desired adaptations.

As with all training variables, we must consider their relationship to the bio-psycho-social model.

We cannot remove the individual from the equation for optimal progress.

So, when you choose the number of sets, reps, and absolute/relative intensity, think about how the athlete will experience that combination of training variables.

Even better, you can refer to previous experiences or ask the lifter how they feel about a given protocol.

What emotional response do they have when you suggest tweaking certain variables?

When it comes to long-term performance, adjusting the program to match the ever-changing needs of the lifter is crucial for success.

If you're interested in this post, please consider following for more content to optimize your powerlifting experience.

The ZAO Strength Bottom-Up Powerlifting Program is HERE -

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Transference vs Specificity

If you understand these two concepts, you will get stronger.

As coaches, we want to ensure that each exercise we program and every protocol we prescribe allows the athlete to get closer to reaching their goals.

We could write a program that is highly specific to their goals.

I.e if they want to increase their squat max, we could program heavy singles multiple times per week.

Physiologically, heavy singles are likely the most effective strategy to increase their short term 1rm.

However, we must also consider the athlete’s psychological needs.

A highly specific program is much less effective if the athlete does not want to perform it.

This is where the concept of transference comes in.

Transference is the idea that the skills developed while practicing less specific exercises, rep ranges, and protocols will “transfer” to the competition exercise.

To determine if an exercise has high transference we can simply implement the scientific method.

Your strength and skill mastery will inevitably increase once you achieve harmony between specificity and transference.

Powerlifting is fun, but it's much more fun when you can hit a new PR.

After you've lifted past your newbie gains, hitting weekly PRs can be much more challenging. This lack of noticeable progress can lead to frustration, resentment, or even discontinued sport participation.

What if you could hit a new PR every time you enter the gym?

Framing your training sessions around new and achievable milestones can help lifters maintain motivation for years.

If you liked these tips, make sure to share this post with your friends, leave a like, and comment about your favorite training strategies to hit new PRs

Powerlifting is a straightforward sport. Lift as much weight as possible for one repetition in the squat, bench press, and deadlift.

While the objective is simple, maximizing progress can become complex.
Complexity opens the door for mistakes.

So, even if you cannot avoid these mistakes, perhaps you can learn from them to ensure sustainable progress.

Have you made mistakes like this? Let us know in the comments.

Your life stress will impact your training response whether you’re aware of it or not.

Some lifters get lucky 🍀.

The first program they try works symbiotically with their life.

Other lifters will run the same program for months. Spinning their wheels, and manipulating the wrong variables in effort to improve their performance.

Balancing your life stressors to support your training is crucial for creating long term, sustainable strength.

ZAO Strength Athlete is competing at the European Bench Press Championships tomorrow at 12:00 in Budapest, Hungary.

The line up is stacked, and Micaela has been hitting some impressive numbers with a recent 127.5kg x3 all time PR.

However, when you only have 3 lifts to win or lose, each lift must be carefully attempted to secure the highest total and medal placement for team .

Good luck Micaela

Most of the conversation around training volume and training frequency is typically framed without the necessary context required for individual athletic development.

Factors like psychological stress, range of motion, historical experience with an exercise, weekly training structure and how each exercise may interfere with another are all important to consider if you want to build an effective training program.

What happens when a lifter knows that they need more training frequency, but high specificity, high frequency training doesn't yield the desired results?

One potential solution is to implement load limiting variations of the competition lift.

Load-Limiting exercises provide 4 primary benefits:

1. They may increase the stimulus to a specific muscle group that isn't as active during the competition variation. Thus improving muscular hypertrophy in the target muscle group.

2. They may alter the tempo of the movement allowing the lifter to improve their flow and proprioceptive awareness of the bar through the full range of motion.

3. They may increase/decrease the range of motion making the exercise more challenging. This may have both a psychological and physiological benefit depending on athlete response.

4. They allow the athlete to practice similar movement patterns of the primary lift, while reducing the total load, thus reducing the absolute stress of the exercise on tendons and joints which may need more recovery from session to session.

Of course, the load-limiting exercise you choose to add to a lifters' program must provide specific benefits to that lifter that matches their psychological preferences and physiological needs.

However, the human body is incredibly adaptable. So, this is not the ONLY way to increase training frequency while managing training stress. But, load limiting variations can be an excellent tool to add to your training tool box and improve your 1RM.

What are your favorite load-limiting exercises for the squat, bench press, and/or deadlift?

Training to failure has a bad reputation in powerlifting. This is understandable.

Pushing a squat or deadlift to absolute failure every session will likely push you into a severe fatigue debt. Thus, limiting training momentum, and long term progress.

However, like every training variable, training to failure is a tool that can be used in certain contexts to help you make progress in your powerlifting journey.

What do you think? Is there ever a need to train to failure for powerlifters? Let us know ⬇️