Copyright © 2013 by Jamie Lewis

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 Table of Contents
Introduction 1

Why You Should Cut Weight For A Meet 2

Finally Accepted That You Should Cut Weight, Eh? 5

Three Months Until The Battle Begins 7

Picking A Diet 8
Picking A Program 9
How I Structure My Program 11
Stick to Your Fucking Guns 12

Reverse Engineer Your Total 13

In The Midst Of Meet Prep 15

Attack! 15
Sleep, Count Bodies Not Sheep 16
Massage, Motherfuckers! 17
Sometimes, You Have to Freeze the Fat, Not Burn It 18

One Week Until Your Get Blood On Your Blade

(Now You’re Just Cutting Yourself) 21
Training In The Last Week Before A Meet 21
Dieting in the Last Week Before a Meet 22
Same Day Weigh In 24

24 Hours To Weigh-In 25
In the event you go hot bath: 27

In the event you go sauna: 27

Getting Tank Girl Dry 28

An Unorthodox Method I Don’t Really Recommend 30

My Experiences Cutting Weight 30

Wrestling With Stupidity 30

My First Foray Into the Wild and Wooly World of Powerlifting 31

Basking In The Warmth Of True Enlightenment 33

Recomposition- More Than Simply Eating Your Face Off 36

The Meet 40
Traveling Sucks 40
What to Bring 41
Know the Rules 42
Picking Attempts 42
Tell Your Brain to Shut the Fuck Up 44

Manage Your Expectations 44

The SATs or Graduation? 44
The Squat- The United States of Powerlifting’s “Keystone State” 45

The Wrapup 46

Bibliography 47
 Introduction
Some of you might find it odd that I have a tendency
to title my books in a warlike manner, given the
fact that I’m not a soldier and there’s really no war
to be fought- we’re strength athletes. We’re not
going to kill anyone (hopefully) in the course of
a competition, and we’re really only competing
against ourselves and numbers. As such, it seems
like an odd choice for me to characterize strength
athletics as a war. There is (as always) a method
to my madness, however- America was born from
war and forged in the crucible of constant conflict.

We’re pretty much inured from birth to fight the

world, rather than live within it, and we’ve been
raised in an environment wherein the world
simultaneously envies and despises us. Thus,
it’s natural for me to see myself as a microcosm
of my environment, and the parallels are rather
staggering, from my perspective.

I’ve always been a contrary guy, fought and

scrapped my way through school because I
refused to keep my mouth shut and toe the line,
and continued through adulthood. While that’s
left me with a massive amount of conflict in my
life left me more or less living outside, rather than
as a part, of the world at large, it’s left me with a
mentality that is perfect for competition.
According to the author of The Next 100 Years,
America and Rome were great for the same
reasons- they were always on the defensive,
and the need to prove themselves and
defend themselves left them stronger than
their neighbors. I’m not saying you need to
view your fellow powerlifters as the enemy
or develop some kind of inferiority complex,
but what you do need to remember is that no
matter what your brain tells you, there’s almost
assuredly someone as strong or stronger out
there, and that person intends, implicitly or
explicitly, to prove themselves the physical
better of you.

As such, you need to do everything in your

power to defeat them, and everyone else, and
cultivate a mindset that will allow you to do so.
That what this book is intended to do- provide
you with the tools to ensure you destroy your
opposition because you’re better armed and
better provisioned.
 Why You
Should Cut
Weight For
A Meet
I will frequently come across individuals who
think that cutting weight for meets is either
totally unnecessary or counterproductive,
or have to endure shit like the occasional
preposterous and embarrassing tirade about
the “unfair” nature of cutting that issues
forth from the mouth of some unranked
self-indulgent fatty. We shall refer to those
people going forward as “people who
should probably refrain from speaking in
public, as they’re about as bright as those
useless 40 Watt energy-saver bulbs” and “fat
people who know less about cutting weight
than they do about cutting themselves to
Joy Division’s Closer album.”

This negative opinion is derived entirely

out of fear, though it’s fear of the wrong
dark demon hiding in their closet. Instead
of lifters fearing embarrassment due to the

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fact that their numbers suck and they look like shit, they’re worried that they’ll lose a couple
of pounds or kilos off of their generally unimpressive total. This fear is compounded by the
fact that they’ve likely never cut weight, or really pushed themselves hard at any physical
activity. Thus, they’re afraid their bodies will enter some state of shock from which they cannot
recover and which will paralyze them on the platform. I’d venture to guess, however, that it’s
these same lifters who routinely bomb out of meets, as they don’t push themselves, are poor
decision makers, or have no idea what their actual capabilities are.

Their fears are, of course, utter fucking nonsense. One’s primary concern when entering a
strength competition should be winning. Not competing, not “doing your best”, not collecting
a trophy, but winning. Winning will mean something different to everyone, whether it be
setting world records, winning the cash prize at a meet, beating one’s rival, setting a PR, or
simply finishing a meet, one should have their eye on the prize and victory in their blood. As
such, you should be focused entirely on what it takes to win, not acting like some fat, shiftless
reprobate who accidentally wandered into a strength competition.

If you’re already focused on what it would take to win, you should be focused on what you can
do to fucking embarrass everyone around you for even showing up. Thus, having the highest
possible relative strength should be your primary concern, rather than the greatest absolute
strength. This, of course, flies in the face of the conventional online wisdom that “he who lifts
the most wins”, as anyone who’s not a sloppy fucking mass of adipose tissue would be far
more impressed with a stupendous lift by a guy with visible musculature than they would with
a world-shattering lift by someone who looks like they’re a contestant on The Biggest Loser.

Fat people will call it “fatism” or some such absurd nonsense, and Kevin Smith is probably
going to write me a strongly worded letter that apes the one he wrote Southwest Airlines to
express his displeasure over the fact that they insisted on charging him for two seats because
his fat ass couldn’t fit in a single chair. Nevertheless, this is why everyone shits their pants
about Dan Green, Stan Efferding, Joe Ladnier, and Matt Kroczaleski, even after they’ve hung
up their singlet and retired from the sport, when there’s a new record broken in the squat by
a different circus fat man every 45 minutes.

4
This is also the reason why most of you know who 170 lb. Bulgarian Olympic Ivan Stoitsov is,
and have seen his pic a thousand times, but have no idea who Tatiana Kashirina is, in spite of
the fact that she probably clean and jerks what you deadlift.

Thus, it really doesn’t matter that a fat person is all that strong. You might be thinking, however,
that you’re not necessarily morbidly obese, but just have a “powerful torso” or some such. All
that means is that you’re leaving weight on the table by which you might be able to fuck up
the competition. For instance, if you’re competing 235 and sitting on something around 20%
body fat, you’re doing yourself a massive disservice if you’re competing at 242 because you’re
too fucking lazy to diet a bit. That extra body fat is doing nothing but holding you back from
greatness, as you could ostensibly be crushing shit at 220, or dominating everyone and looking
ridiculous at 198. I realize that looking like you’re a couple weeks out from a bodybuilding
competition isn’t important, but winning should be. As such, getting lean should at least be
in the back of your mind when you’re prepping for a meet.

As you can see, cutting weight is not, as some people would have it, the death knell for a
lifter’s total. Provided cutting is done sensibly and fairly slowly, one’s strength can rather
easily be maintained, and can even be increased slowly if the cut is managed correctly. The
added volume you’ll probably implement to cut the weight will just contribute to your total
workload in the gym, and you could see random lifts jump up as you increase your mobility
and strength to weight ratio. Additionally, you won’t feel like you need a nap if you have to
take the stairs one day when the power goes out.

Throw on top of that the fact that strength does not increase proportionally with bodyweight-
the law of diminishing returns kicks in like a motherfucker. This means endless weight
gains to shut up the fat guys talking shit on some message board are probably pointless.
At some point, you’re going to hit a wall where your body is pretty much at its upper limit
for maximizing strength for your bodyweight. Thereafter, your strength gains will probably
be incremental, while your bodyweight increases could be exponential. There’s no point in
asking other people at what point that will occur, either- it’s entirely individual and completely
unpredictable. Thus, you should experiment with your bodyweight to find your “sweet spot”.

5
All of this is, of course, heresy to the myriad fat asses of the world. Those saddies would likely
hold one man aloft as evidence of the faulty nature of my theory- Ed Coan. Coan was a fucking
freak of nature, however, and it’s relatively certain that unless you’ve recently destroyed every
record within reach, you’re not fucking him.

So why, then, would they postulate something so absurd? To justify the fact that they look like
they do. There’s no other possible reason, as there will always be someone stronger than they
are, which obliterates their supposition regarding absolute strength. Additionally, I don’t think
you’ll find any of them criticizing Coan for dropping to 242 after competing at 275 for a while,
especially given the fact that he looked fucking awesome.

So, when deciding whether or not to drop weight for a powerlifting meet, consider the
following:

1. Should you bother competing at all? This is the most critical, and usually the most
overlooked question of all. If you’re not one of the strongest people you know, there’s
really no reason to do so- getting numbers for an internet message board is a retarded
reason for dropping what will eventually amount to a couple hundred dollars. If you
have that kind of loot to spare and aren’t one of the strongest people you know, you’d
be far better off spending that money on a good strength coach. That won’t stop
many people from doing so, however, which leads me to the following question.

2. Are there weight classes in this meet? If so, you should probably think about cutting
to make a lower class, thus ensuring the highest strength to weight ratio and thereby
placing you further away from the possibility of embarrassing yourself, whether it be
when you disrobe or when you lift in the meet.

3. Do you have weight to lose? Chances are you do, unless you’re already ripped to
shreds. Unless you’re planning on smashing a superheavy record or sitting at 5% body
fat, there’s absolutely no conceivable reason why you shouldn’t drop weight.

4. Can you see your genitalia without a mirror and a partner? If the answer is no, it
doesn’t matter if you’re going to smash a record in any weight class- you need to lose
some fucking weight. If the answer is yes, refer to question 3.

6
Finally Accepted That You Should Cut Weight, Eh?
So, you’ve decided to do the meet and now you need to make weight, eh? If you’re one of the
half dozen people are thinking you purchased this book at the “right time” because you’ve got
a meet this month, you’re probably fucked. Proper fucked. Done correctly, weight cutting will
require a decent amount of pre-competition experimentation to determine how your body
will react, a shitload of dieting, and a hell of a lot of unpleasantness- there’s a reason why
cutting goes with emo music, as it fucking sucks.

Allow me to explain:

While strength athletics don’t generally require bodybuilder levels of leanness, anyone this
side of Ray Charles can see a trend emerging amongst the dominant elite in powerlifting and
strongman- they’re fucking lean. Take a look at the guys who are dominating these days.
Matt Kroczaleski, Derek Poundstone, Mariusz Pudzianowski, Konstantin Konstantinovs, and
Stan Efferding are all shredded... I mean, fuck, even Phil Pfister’s gotten lean in the last few
years, and the world’s strongest woman, Aneta Florczyk, is lean (and fucking hot).

This means that before you even bother cutting water weight, you’re going to need to drop
some fat. I’ve outlined ways to do so here, here, and here, so you can check those out for some
ideas. As anyone who is familiar with this blog knows, I’m a big fan of ketogenic diets and I
think they’re even better when making weight is an issue, as you get some idea of bodyweight
when you’re not holding water and will thus have a better idea of what’s feasible for a weight
class. My bodyweight fluctuates 5-15 pounds after a carb-up, so I’m especially keen on having
lifters experiment with a carb-free week, every now and again, just to know where they stand.
Going a week without carbs might be considered abject misery for some of you, but it will give
you a very good idea of how much water you’re holding, which will then allow you to make a
rational decision on a weight class.

Though it’s not necessary that you get ripped to the fucking bone to compete in strength
sports, you might as well use a competition as an excuse to bring your abs out of hiding.
They’re likely not Jewish, so there’s no reason for them to be treating your abdominal fat like’s
it the fucking attic and their name is Anne Frank.

7
For those of you who want to remain fat, go read something else and try not to burn any
calories doing so- I’d hate for you to develop vascularity or some other indication that a heart
attack’s not your idea of a normal Saturday afternoon. For those of you who are going to cut
weight, here’s what is going to happen:

• You’ll be stronger. This might seem counter-intuitive, but even with same day weigh-
ins, provided you don’t overdo your cut, you’ll feel better, and fresher, after your
recomposition. This could be due to any number of things, but I think it has a great
deal to do with the recomposition. You might then posit that doing a recomposition
without the cut might yield the same results, but I think that’s unsound logic. Call it
“broscience” if you will, but I think there’s something to be said for flushing the body of
whatever toxins might have accrued over time and replenishing your body with fresh
nutrients. Just as you have to dump out the old water under your Christmas tree every
couple of days and refresh it with Christmas tree nutrients, you should do the same
with your body before a meet.

• You’ll be more competitive. Cutting weight, even if it’s only a couple of pounds,
will always make you more competitive. While the formulas to determine best lifters
don’t always favor the lighter weight classes, increasing the amount of weight lifted
per pound of bodyweight is always a good thing, even if it’s your first meet and you’re
just trying to “get numbers on the board”. Don’t be that asshole who qualifies his total
with “but I weighed in at such-and-such” to justify your shitty numbers. Doing your
best in a meet means just that- leave the excuses to the pussies sitting in the stands
rationalizing their failure to enter the meet. Even if your cut goes badly, remember
this- you’ll regret some of the dumb shit you do in your life, but you’ll likely regret close
to 100% of the shit you didn’t do.

• You’ll be fresher. Something about cutting and recomping leaves you fresher than
you’d otherwise be. Whether it’s the wild gleam you get in your eye three hours
into a cut or the happy, warm feeling in your belly after you polish off your second
pizza of the day, you will always feel better going into a meet if you cut to make a
lower weight class.

• You’ll be more focused. When you drop weight for a meet, you increase the amount
of focus you have to place on the meet exponentially. If you’re not cutting weight, the
meet doesn’t fully enter your mind until you arrive. If you’re cutting, however, your
focus has to increase a month out from the meet or more, and the week of the meet
is basically an all-consuming exercise in mental preparation, discipline, and fortitude.

8
You literally eat, sleep, drink, and breathe the competition until your last attempt hits
the floor. Cutting for meets is as much mental as it is physical, and that means you’re
focused like a gold digging Russian club slut on a Rolex watch when the meet draws
near.

9
 Three
Months Until
The Battle
Begins
It might shock you to consider this, but proper
preparation for a meet begins, in my opinion,
ninety days out from a meet. At ninety days, you
should be making a conscious decision to enter
a given meet. You might alter or abandon these
plans in the next three months, but ninety days
gives you ample time to prepare, mentally and
physically, for a competition. At ninety days you
should:

• GET INSURANCE. My recent bicep tear

could not have illustrated this more
plainly- insurance is a fucking must.
For the foreigners among you whose
governments are not currently engaging
in “police actions” in every corner of the
globe and burning your tax dollars like
books at a Christian rally at a library, you
needn’t bother with this bit. For those of
you who live in the United States, though,
I highly recommend you get insurance

10
10
 before you even begin your meet preparation, and definitely get insurance prior to
your meet. Golden Rule has some cool options for no deductible catastrophic injury
insurance that shouldn’t break your bank. If you decide to go another way, remember
that a $150 a month for a couple of months is a hell of a lot cheaper than a few grand
to repair a muscle tear or break, and it will be even more expensive if you go to the
hospital. Save yourself the stress and the debt by throwing down a little cash on
insurance.

• Begin working on getting leaner. Nearly everyone ebbs and flows with their diet,
and we all have “fat” and “lean” phases, even if the difference is only between what
would be extraordinarily lean and slightly less so. I’ve gotten to the point where 10%
body fat is an almost unthinkably ridiculous amount of body fat for me to carry, but
from time to time I find myself slipping out of nothing more than a subconscious desire
for more dietary leniency. It happens to everyone, so rather than beat yourself up, just
start tightening down your diet, increasing your protein, and focusing on the task at
hand- maximizing the amount of muscular bodyweight you can while minimize waste
bodyweight (fat).

• Choose a weight class. This is particularly important, as it will guide your diet through
the next three months. If you’re competing in an open competition like in strongman,
or you happen to be a 320+ lb. powerlifter, you won’t need to worry as much about
this issue, but you should focus strongly on maximizing the amount of protein you
consume, irrespective of your other macronutrients.

• Start focusing on the lifts in the competition. Shift your programming to reflect
the sport in which you’re going to compete. Thus, if you’re going to do a powerlifting
meet, you should alter your program to focus on the three powerlifts. If you’re going
to do a strongman competition, begin working on the events. Likewise for Olympic
weightlifting, where technique plays an even greater role. This might seem obvious,
but nearly everyone I know has been caught out at a competition, unable to properly
perform a lift because they’d not practiced it. Whether it be working on getting to
depth in the squat, learning how to do a proper snatch, or figuring out what shoes you
need to wear for a truck pull, practicing the events of the competition is essential.

11
Picking A Diet
Picking a diet is, for most people, akin to picking a sex partner. On occasion, you’re going to
find yourself being very, very picky, whereas at other times it’s any port in a storm and you
take what you can get. I personally thrive off of a ketogenic diet, about which I have written
at length in blogs and Issuance of Insanity III. As such, I don’t think it’s particularly necessary to
rehash the Apex Predator Diet, as it’s incredibly lengthy and most of the audience is already
up to speed. The short version of my diet, then, is to eat a ketogenic diet consisting of 50-
60% fats, 35-40% protein, and as close to no carbs as humanly possible. One day a week is
designated a carb up, with a 3 hour cheat window at some point during the day.

While that diet has worked incredibly well for myself and others, there are those who either
don’t get fat on carbs or do get fat on them and still cannot seem to live without them. For
the former group, lucky fuckers that you are, carry on about your business. For the latter
group, I’ll recommend Tim Ferriss’s “slow carb” diet. Whereas my diet consists of 6-8 meals
throughout the day and night, Ferriss sticks with but 4 meals consisting of as much of the
following ingredients as you wish:

Proteins
• Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
• Chicken breast or thigh
• Grass-fed organic beef
• Pork

Legumes
• Lentils
• Black beans
• Pinto beans

Vegetables
• Spinach
• Asparagus
• Peas
• Mixed vegetables

12
The diet, which seems to be a paleo + legumes sort of idea, has worked wonders for a couple
of girls I know who have tried it and for a lot of Ferriss’s clients. Of note, Ferriss recommends
you repeat the same couple of meals over and over (a tactic I’ve been employing for years with
great success), and recommends that while you should not drink your calories, you should
indulge in the occasional alcohol for recovery purposes. Additionally, he sides with me on the
necessity of a carb up day, though his is a complete “free” day (Ferriss, 20 Lbs.).

No matter whether you go keto, paleo, slow carb, Zone, or anything else, the key is that you
pick something with a reasonable degree of success and stick to it like a horny barnacle on the
side of a Playboy cruise ship. Getting as lean as possible is critical to your success, so the failure
to get lean basically ensures failure.

Picking A Program
This is for some people the greatest hurdle, though I cannot understand why it is. It appears
that people think that the selection of a perfect program is tantamount to actually training
hard, which is on par with Hitler’s choice to launch a three-pronged attack into Russia for
stupidity. There’s no substitute for hard work, and if you’re not going to bust your ass in the
gym, your choice of program is completely fucking moot.

I’ve detailed a couple of programs in Destroy the Opposition that are based around my style
of training, but your program should reflect your particular strengths and weaknesses and
should not come mass produced. You weren’t created on an assembly line, and neither should
your program be. Instead, find a program that suits your goals- these should include the sport
in which you’re competing, the lifts at which you excel, and the lifts you most want to bring
up.

This doesn’t not mean you should download a Bulgarian weightlifting program and attempt to
adapt it to powerlifting because you like squatting. For that matter, unless you are a full-time
professional athlete, you should never base your training methodology on a top-tier Olympic
weightlifting program unless you intend to sensibly modify it to the point where it no longer
resembles the original. That sort of obviates the point of choosing such a program, so I’ll just

13
go ahead and reassert that you should not adopt a 40 hour a week training methodology as
your own.

If you are happy with the program you currently have, awesome. I generally train the same
way year round, but with the caveat that as the competition draws near I will:

1. Increase my total volume

2. Decrease my number of fuckaround days

3. Focus more on volume with extremely heavy loads

I’ll elucidate that to give you a somewhat more precise picture of what this means. In an “off”
season, I always train between 5 and 7 times a week. One to two of those sessions are likely 30-
45 minutes long, whereas the others range from 75 to 120 minutes. There’s no real rhyme or
reason to this- I just train more when I am fresh and have time, and train less when I’m beat up
or pressed for time. I refer to the shorter sessions as “fuckaround” days, and although they’re
characterized as such, they’re not your average “go into the gym and sit around bullshitting and
occasionally touch a weight” session. Instead, they’re super high-speed sessions consisting of
jump sets or just straight sets with really low rest periods, in which I don’t go too heavy and
generally do upper body stuff. As such, my volume’s higher but the loads are lighter than my
average training session.

When I get to three months out, I start curtailing those sessions, or add them in as the second
session in a day. I might go into the gym at lunch and hit up arms or do some light shoulders.
Then, I’ll come back later in the day and train very, very heavy.

At two months out, I really cut down on the fuckaround sessions as main workouts, unless I am
incredibly beat up (which happens about every 6 weeks). Those sessions are relegated to AM
sessions only, and my evening sessions are all hard and heavy. That is, at least, until I cannot
continue going heavy every night, in which case I’ll take a lighter night of Klokov pressing,
arms, a combination thereof, or a day off. Autoregulation is important here, because you have
to mitigate your need for conditioning with the fact that the law of diminishing returns will
kick in at some point to derail your progress harder than a New York commuter train rounding

14
a curve with too many fatties on the outside edge. By the same token, try not to be a pussy.
No one ever became a champion by doing less than his or her peers.

How I Structure My Program

The structure of my program is fairly simple, and can be adopted to any strength sport. At
the outset, I analyze the sport and determine what movements are critical for me to master.
These would be the events in which you compete. Next, I determine what planes of motion
are being utilized, and what ancillary movements would best contribute to my strength in the
primary lifts based on the motions and muscles recruited. Once that’s done, I fill in the blanks.

What I am left with, then, is basically this for powerlifting:

• Two days of squatting/leg dominant movements

• Two days of benching
• Two days of overhead pressing
• Two days of back work

I realize that makes for 8 days and I generally only train six. This can actually be condensed
to three days, but leaves out all of the accessory work if you do so. Thus, the structure of my
program will generally take form looking something like this:

M/TH: Squat and back

T/S: Overhead work and bench
W: Arms and light accessory
F: Shrugs and accessory

That’s right- I have a whole day for shrugs. Most people would deadlift on this day, but I prefer
to rack pull and shrug instead. It’s a personal preference and something that works for me.
Unless you can pull triple bodyweight in street clothes and no warm-up, I recommend you
make that a deadlift day with shrugs added in.

15
For those of you in the “benching is ghey” sect, slow your roll. As these are the same people
that bemoan bodybuilding movements and wring their hands about “carryover”, this is
directed at you as well. It’s these assholes stinking up meets with their dogshit lifts and
wasting everyone’s time. If you’re too good to do bodybuilding movements, you’re not good
enough to enter a strength competition. You’ll have far too many muscular imbalances, overall
weakness, dogmatism, and general suck to succeed at lifting, so you might as well close this
pdf and drown yourself in an unflushed public toilet. Dmitri Klokov benches all the time. So
do the Chinese National Olympic weightlifters. So do all of the lifters n00bs venerate as lifting
gods as they’re simultaneously jerking off to training videos and debating who’s “natty”.

Include movements from every strength discipline in your routine as a matter of course or
you will find yourself sucking like a Thai hooker when the US navy pulls into Bangkok. The
completeness of a lifter is reflected by the completeness of his or her physique. If you have a
body part that truly sucks, you likely have a lift that truly sucks as a result.

Stick to Your Fucking Guns

The name of the game in contest prep, be it training- or diet-wise, is the fact that you must
stick to your fucking guns. This means no jumping ship on the paleo diet three weeks in when
you decide to switch from Smolov to Shieko. Pick a program, pick a diet, and go. Its three
months of your life- very little catastrophe could possibly occur in three months of ridiculously
hard training and dieting, even if you choose both incorrectly.

It is far better to apply massive amounts of effort to a bad program and a diet that’s not quite
ideal than it is to halfass the “perfect” diet and the “perfect” program. Sticking to your guns
doesn’t just apply to midway through this process, either- it begins the second you commit to
a meet. To wit:

• Don’t suffer from analysis paralysis. This phenomenon seems to be the weak sauce
move du jour, wherein one spends weeks dithering with the uninformed and weak
on the internet about what the precise correct course of action they must take. Give
yourself 48 hours to make up your fucking mind about your diet and program and get
moving.

16
 • Don’t second guess yourself. You picked the diet and program for a reason. Can they
be tweaked? Yes. Can they be abandoned and replaced? Hell no. You picked it, you
stick with it- its 90 days. If you can’t stick with something for 90 days, suicide might be
a reasonable option.

• Don’t listen to assholes. When you’re making up your mind about a program and a
diet, you should have compiled some research. Save it. When people start talking shit,
and they will, throw it in their fucking faces.

Perseverance Against all opposition

Crushing all limitations
Pure strength through solitude
Discipline and determination

Reverse Engineer Your Total

Though I don’t employ this technique as others do, it bears discussing. Because I don’t peak
for meets, I always have a fairly good idea of what I’m capable of in a meet. The only thing I
really reverse engineer is my squat, as I chase that number like an unneutered dog chasing a
bright red pickup sporting mud flaps with chrome Kappa girls on them.

For that, I pick a number within reason and train towards it using a variety of techniques that
I outlined in Destroy the Opposition. For a total to be reverse engineered though, you have
to pick a total within reason and then pick a progression scheme that will allow you to hit
those numbers. Thus, for a female lifter I am currently helping, we did the following- took
her current maxes (not her best lifts, but her current maxes), picked an ideal total and a pipe
dream total, and then figured out progression to meet the former.

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 Current Maxes Min Goal Real Goal
Squat 225 275 300
Bench 155 175 185
Deadlift 345 360 375
Total 755 810 860

Min Necessary
Training Necessary %1RM Weekly %1RM
Improvements
Weeks Weekly Improvement Improvement
in lbs

Squat 20lbs 8 2.5lbs 8% 1%

Bench 20lbs 8 2.5lbs 13% 1.50%
Deadlift 15lbs 8 2lbs 4% 0.50%

This should seem as simple as it is. As such, I will not belabor the point- if you feel like you
need programmed progression for some reason, this is an easy way to do it. Frankly, if you’re
not trying to add weight or get more reps with a given weight every time you enter the gym,
I question your motivation for going in the first place. Nevertheless, there’s your progression.

Peaking is for Biceps and Meringue

This might come as a shock to many of you, but I have never and will never “peak” for a meet.
For there to be a planned peak, there has to be a planned valley, and planning to suck is a lot
like… planning to suck. I’ve written in the past about my lack of use for periodization and will
reiterate- it has no place in the programming of a Western lifter.

The reason for this is that the system called periodization was set into place for lifters who
were, for all intents and purposes professional lifters. These people lifted as their job, and left
their homes for up to nine months a year to slave away in a Siberian gulag 8 hours a day lifting
weights to further the aspirations of Stalin. During that period, they gradually ramped up
their training from whatever light maintenance work they were able to do in their crappy local
Soviet gym, eating little meat and drinking heavily, to training with brutal loads in modern

18
facilities and eating massive amounts of healthy food. They periodized their training and
peaked because they had to, not because they found it efficacious.

Put another way, forcing yourself to take a protracted period in which you only train light and
lose strength is preposterous. Doing so sets you back considerably and makes setting new
PRs harder in the future. Ramping up your training for a meet makes sense, but that’s hardly
“peaking”- it’s just increasing your load to drive your peak even higher.

If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backwards in comparison to the competition. If
you’re doing that, there’s no reason to compete- you’ve already lost. Don’t be a fucking loser.

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 In The Midst
Of Meet
Prep
Nobody ever defended
anything successfully,
there is only attack and
attack and attack
some more.
- George S. Patton

Attack!
One of the biggest hurdles you’re going to
run into when prepping for a meet (especially
if you suffer a minor injury or setback), is the
evil fucking gremlin that sits on all of our
shoulders telling us how much we suck. That
motherfucker never shuts up, but most of the
time he can be ignored like he’s a nagging
housewife or a screaming baby you placed in
a trashcan because he was screaming. If you
succumb to the gremlin, however, your training

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will invariably fall apart, because you can royally fuck yourself up with negative thoughts. I’ve
always fucking detested spotters who will call the lifter a pussy while he’s lifting, or talk shit
in any other manner while trying to “psyche up” the other party. That sort of negativity has
never fucking worked, in my mind. It’s another thing altogether, however, to think to yourself
that “so and so thinks I’m a fucking pussy, but I’ve got their fucking pussy” and then crush a
bunch of weights in outright defiance of their suggestion, and to prove what you know to be
the truth- that you’re a fucking badass.

It’s a subtle distinction, but a vastly important one. Just as the placebo effect can work in your
favor (I’ve heard of people gaining weight and getting stronger within 24 hours of taking “oral
GH”, for instance), the placebo effect can also fuck you up royally if it’s a negative placebo. For
instance, a guy named Sam Londe was diagnosed in 1974 with esophageal cancer, a disease
for which there’s little hope of recovery once it’s in an advanced stage. Londe was given a
couple of months to live, and he ended up dying in a few weeks- in spite of the fact that an
autopsy showed that the initial diagnosis was incorrect, and he showed almost no cancerous
cells in his throat (Lipton 111). This effect, called the nocebo effect, can have just as profound
an impact on your health and lifts, but in a massively negative way.

For those of you still unconvinced, I can understand your skepticism. Whether it’s the effects
of the mind on quantum physics (as asserted by Lipton and friends) or that reality is mere
perception, and that one can change in on a whim (like the Buddhists and Hindus think), or if
it’s simply that we’ve some untapped reserve of energy that can affect our internal chemistry
on an atomic level- our minds control our bodies. Not only that, but they control the bodies of
others. Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation participated in a study that was published
in the Social Indicators Research journal, wherein they allegedly lowered the crime rate by 20%
over an 8 week period utilizing group meditation (Hagelin, et al). Exactly like Ghostbusters II,
right? The power of positive thinking might sound like some The Secret bullshit, but there’s
something to it. Thus, I implore you to force your mindset to remain positive when prepping
for a meet, no matter what it takes.

Remember, if you want to be the best, you have to act like the best. FAILURE IS NOT AN
OPTION. A winner accepts responsibility for himself, rather than pawning responsibility off
on others, and immediately takes charge of shit, even when he has absolutely no authority

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to do so. Even if you’ve no idea what you’re doing, a strong belief in victory will serve you
far better than the mealy-mouthed defeatist bullshit coming from anyone who labels you a
failure before you’ve even started. Pessimism is the sole purview of losers, and unless your
name is Cake, that shit should not be in your wheelhouse (Van Fleet 64-66). Fuck Arthur
Schopenhauer- his contention that lowers himself to a simple member of the animal kingdom
by allowing will to triumph over reason is dogshit. You’re never going to witness a hyena
passing up on making a tasty meal of a hyena because she didn’t believe in herself, and if
you’re not trying to be a hell of a lot more hyena and a hell of a lot less gazelle every day, you
should pick a different fucking athletic pursuit.

Sleep, Count Bodies Not Sheep

For whatever reason, everyone seems to discount this important factor. Of late, I have been
guilty of it as well, and I am sure my training has suffered as a result. Studies have shown that
the risk of injury is greatly increased by a sleep deficit (Luke). Getting less than 7 hours of sleep
a night during meet prep will drastically increase your risk of injury, but that’s not the only
reason to sneak naps in the broom closet on your breaks at work. Getting ten hours of sleep
a night, which I’ve often espoused but which is unthinkable to most people, has been shown
to drastically increase sports performance, reaction time, vigilance, and mood (Mah; Kamdar).
Thus, if you’re not getting 8-10 hours of sleep a night, you might as well just skip the fucking
meet anyway- you’re leaving a ton of weight on the platform and leaving yourself open to
grave injury.

If you’re one of those people who thinks you’ve gotten by this long on a tiny amount of sleep,
studies have shown that cumulative sleep deprivation has an even more profound effect on
mood and performance. The good news, however, is that the effects of cumulative sleep
deprivation can be reversed with two consecutive full nights of sleep (Dinges). In other words,
sleep bitch, sleep. Count bodies, not sheep.

Massage, Motherfuckers!
Though I have decried the endless fascination with prehab and rehab, I will not discount
the value of massage. That might seem odd, but I can elucidate my point simply- name a

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single vocal proponent of prehab and rehab who holds a world record in strength sports. You
can’t. Know why? World record holders in strength sports spend their time in the gym lifting
weights! Imagine a world in which every gym was not filled with skinny assholes laying on
the floor rolling out non-existent knots in underworked muscles, and instead actually spent
all of the two hours they spent in the gym actually lifting, rather than doing prehab, warming
up, not lifting a motherfucking thing, and then doing rehab for the muscles they didn’t work.
World records would fall like Chechens under a gas attack by the Russian army. Instead, the
floor of every gym is covered with 150 lb. lifters who would fold up like an according under a
cardboard cutout of Mariusz Pudzianowski because they’re busy fucking around in the gym all
day and not lifting. Need to foam roll? Fine- do it at home. No one wants to watch your bitch
ass flop around on the floor when you should be lifting.

Massage, on the other hand, is an entirely different issue. Massage takes care of real, rather
than imagined foam-rolly issues (take note of how many records were set and still stand
prior to the advent of the foam rolling revolution). Rolfing in particular will get particularly
stubborn trigger points to release, improve your mobility, and prevent injury. My recent bicep
tear could have, and should have, been prevented by a deep tissue massage on my forearms,
triceps, and biceps, but I was so preoccupied with getting knots out of my traps and upper
back in my pre-meet massage that I totally forgot about my biceps. I rolled into that meet
with absolutely catastrophic range of motion- so much so that I was accused by more than
one person of trying to curl the deadlift. I wasn’t trying to curl shit- I just couldn’t straighten
my left arm.

Don’t get it twisted- I’m not about to start singing the praises of stretching, but I will mention
that muscular stiffness seems to play a major role in injury. I cultivate what I like to refer to
as “functional inflexibility”. I am exactly as flexible as I need to be to perform the exercises
in which I compete and no more so. Once you overstretch a ligament, it does not regain its
former tightness. This means if you have hypermobile joints you are even more prone to injury
than someone who’s tight, because your joints lack the requisite tightness to allow you to
maintain stability in heavy lifts. By the same token, extreme muscular stiffness, particularly in
the biceps and hamstrings, leaves one extremely prone to injury (McHugh).

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As such, it would behoove you to get regular deep tissue massages to loosen trigger points
that will artificially shorten your muscles to prevent injury and facilitate greater strength and
hypertrophy gains. If regular massages are out of the question, ensure you get a two hour
deep tissue massage two nights before your meet and work on any trigger points/areas of
stiffness you have.

Sometimes, You Have to Freeze the Fat, Not Burn It

It might be that the fat isn’t coming off quite as quickly as you’d like with your diet, and you
might be thinking about tweaks. One non-dietary tweak you can make to make yourself
more Brad Pitt and less Vincent D’Onofrio is to take cold baths or apply an ice pack to your
lower back. Though the former will yield somewhat better results, it is, as you can imagine,
horrible. As such, Tim Ferriss experimented with ice packs on his upper back, which is where
your brown fat is located, and found he could get much of the effect without the requisite
unpleasantness. According to Ferriss:

“Not all fat is equal. There are at least two distinct types: white adipose tissue (WAT) and
brown adipose tissue (BAT). WAT is what we usually think of as fat, like the marbling
on a steak. A WAT cell—an adipocyte —is composed of a single large fat droplet with
a single nucleus.

BAT, in contrast, is sometimes referred to as “fat-burning fat” and appears to be

derived from the same stem cells as muscle tissue. A BAT cell is composed of multiple
droplets that are brown in color because of a much higher volume of iron-containing
mitochondria. Normally associated with muscle tissue, mitochondria are best known
for producing ATP and oxidizing fat in muscle tissue. BAT helps dissipate excess calories
as heat. These excess calories would otherwise be stored in the aforementioned WAT
and end up in your beer gut or muffin top. In a nutshell: cold stimulates BAT to burn
fat and glucose as heat. Cold, as well as drugs called beta-adrenergic agonists, can also
make BAT appear within WAT in mice and rats. In other words, cold might help you
increase the amount of your “fat-burning” fat. This has tremendous implications” (4
Hour Body).

Doing a bit of my own research on the subject, I discovered that “resting metabolic rate was
positively correlated with brown-adipose-tissue activity both under thermoneutral conditions

24
and during cold exposure, indicating that brown-adipose-tissue activity is involved in energy
metabolism” (Lichtenbelt, et al). In other words, the more you activate brown fat activity to
regulate your body temperature, the faster your metabolism goes. Another study supported
this, stating that

“Prolonged cold exposure causes the adaptive recruitment of NST (non-shivering

thermogenesis) capacity by hyperplasia of brown adipose tissue and by hypertrophy
of mature brown adipocytes which results in a several-fold increase in the capacity for
NST. Early studies demonstrated that in cold-acclimated animals brown adipose tissue
may dissipate heat at a power of 300–400 W kg -1 tissue, and contributes more than
~60–70 % of total NST (Foster & Frydman, 1979; Heldmaier & Buchberger, 1985; Puchalski
et al. 1987). This emphasized the outstanding importance of this thermogenic organ
for NST, but also suggested the existence of other unknown mechanisms and sites of
NST in the body” (Klingenspor).

With this in mind, you might want to consider doing some short-term cold exposure, as it
(Feriss, 4 Hour Body p. 142):

• Leads to fatty acid release to provide fuel for heat production through shivering.
This same shivering could be sufficient to recruit GLUT-4 to the surface of muscle cells,
contributing to increased lean muscle gain.

• Increases adiponectin levels and glucose uptake by muscle tissue though shivering,
an effect that could persist long after the cold exposure ends.

• Slightly increases in lean muscle tissue from cold baths, even without inducing
shivering.

• Improves immunity by increasing levels of norepinephrine.

• Cures depression. Two to three minute showers at 68°F will do the trick.

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 One Week
Until Your
Get Blood On
Your Blade
Now You’re Just Cutting Yourself

This is the time that shit starts getting real. By this

point, you’ve trained your ass off, prepared, and
should be ready to do battle on the platform. All
that remains is shedding the final few pounds to
make weight, and then you’re in business. This
week is highly important for a variety of reasons,
and your responsibilities will extend beyond water
loading and carb and salt depletion, however. Thus,
we’ll break this week down into training, diet, water,
and miscellaneous.

Training In The Last Week Before A Meet

Much ado has been made recently of the
need to deload, whether it be the week before a
meet, one week a month, or a month per year.

26
26
I find this fascinating, because most people seem to train far too little, than too much, going
into meets. As such, they’ve neither earned a rest, nor do they really need it. Additionally,
Vladimir Zatsiorsky states unequivocally that “elite athletes cannot afford complete passive
rest for more than three days in a row”, and that they typically should not go more than two
days (Science and Practice 4).

Conventional wisdom tells most people to take the week of the meet off. I find that hilariously
telling, as powerlifters are by and large some of the least well-conditioned people on the
planet, and train so slowly and infrequently that it’s a fucking miracle they bother competing.
Why, then, would they need a week off from training to “rest their CNS” prior to a meet.
They don’t.

Overtraining is demonstrably a mental, not a physical issue. As such, if your brain is being
a bitch (Perryman), work around your brain and keep training your body- the key here is to
keep your body primed and pumped, not allow it to get flaccid and stale. That’s not to say I
am suggesting that powerlifters should train balls out all the way up to a meet- I hardly think
many powerlifter have the conditioning of an elite Olympic weightlifter. That’s right, they
train balls out all the way up a meet, for the exact reason I described and Zatsiorski explained
above. Instead, here is what I recommend for a powerlifting meet (obviously, the exercises
would be altered to match the movements of your requisite sport):

• Monday: Take your opener in the squat for 2-3 sets of 1-2 reps, followed by a lot of
auxiliary work. Keep the workout to 45 minutes or so.

• Tuesday: Bench opener, same rep and set scheme. Auxiliary work thereafter.

• Wednesday: Moderately heavy back and shoulder work. I generally do Pendlay rows
and behind the neck push press, because I am cock strong on these and they fire me
the fuck up. It’s all about setting the mindset, after all.

• Thursday: Light arms and/or lots of walking.

• Friday: Off.

• Saturday: Kill everybody. At the meet. Kill them at the meet.

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One thing I can offer that might come as a shock to you but which I discovered both in China
in 1998 and in Vegas this year is that doing a great deal of walking ( a couple of hours a day)
will help you lean out very quickly, especially if fat loss is stalled. For those of you kvetching
about you potential loss of leg strength due to a normal human activity that should not even
register in your mind as exercise- drop me an email and return this book for a refund, because
you’re too fucking stupid and lazy to be involved in my sport.

Dieting in the Last Week Before a Meet

For starters, let’s back it up a second- let’s take it back to two days out. I left out something
of note for Wednesday which interests the shit out of me, but happened to forget to include
in the last installment. Beginning Wednesday morning, no matter what diet you’ve been
following, cut out starchy carbohydrates and red meat. Both starch and the creatine in the red
meat will cause you to hold water (3g of water per gram of glucose or creatine) (Ferriss, How
to Lose).

Skipping forward, crunch-time for a cut starts not a day or two out, but rather a week out.
Assuming a Saturday meet (Friday weigh-in), as they’re by far and away the most common,
your immediate weigh-in prep is going to begin the preceding Sunday. This will go like the
standard glycogen supercompensation week, so no matter what diet you had been following,
you’re going to be low-carbing the shit out of this week like your last name was Atkins and
you’re a sorostitute the week before her wedding, only without the “fat loss” gangbangs. Thus,
you’re going to avoid carbs like Robert Downey, Jr. used to avoid rehab and chug water all the
live-long day Sunday through Wednesday. During this time, I recommend keeping your carbs
absolutely under 50 grams a day and preferably under 30 grams a day. Remember that you
hold 3 grams of water for every gram of carbohydrates (Thibaudeau and Shugart). And try to
do yourself a favor by letting your body shed water as easily as possible. Before you ask, that
includes post-workout carbs and carbs from shakes, as well. As you’ll find later, sugar alcohols
will also make you hold water, so it’s also advisable to skip protein bars.

From the proceeding, if you aren’t under the impression that all you’ll be eating this week is
meat, you are dumber than you look. Unfortunately for you and your taste buds however,
you’re going to be avoiding sodium with almost the same cock-fueled determination as the

28
aforementioned sorostitite avoids carbs. This means that Mrs. Dash is about to become your
number one fuckbuddy - she’ll take good care of you and the additional potassium should
reduce any cramping you might get while shedding water. Additionally, using Mrs. Dash
should also fight feelings of hunger that would otherwise result from your cut if it included
salt as the increased salivation and gastric acidity that comes from eating salt can make you
hungry as shit (Dukan 35).

Another critical component of this week will be the inclusion of 2-3 gallons of water per day
in your diet. Your pansy-ass sensitive teeth can get fucked - this shit should be ice-cold. Cold
water is an ultra-easy way to burn calories as it takes 60 calories to raise the temperature of
39.2 degree water (that’s Fahrenheit, fuck your Celsius nonsense) to body temperature (Dukan
118). Additionally, cold bath immersion, application of cold packs, and the consumption of
cold liquids all reduce core body temperature, which will necessitate an increase in metabolic
rate to compensate and result in additional fat loss (Ferriss 142). If your teeth bother you when
you drink cold shit, throw on Invasion USA and watch it with your teeth bared for a half hour.
They’ll either toughen the fuck up or you will - either way, it’s time to chug some fucking water.

29
 Same Day
Weigh In
It should be obvious to those of
you competing in feds that (sadly)
obstinately refuse to accept that
24 hour weigh ins make for better
co mp e ti ti o n an d s af e r li f tin g
conditions that 1) you’re competing
in the wrong federation, and 2) the
cutting methods I am about to describe
are not for you.

You could use some of these methods,

but given the research I am about
to cite, you will likely be too fucking
drained, lack the necessary rehydration
time, and probably open yourself up to
any number of performance problems
to make a hard cut feasible. As such,
I’d experiment with a few different cuts
in your meet prep period and test your
strength thereafter. More than a few
pounds, however, is likely going to be
way too much for you to recover. I’ve
not had to endure a same day weigh-in
since high school, and I can honestly tell
you that cutting more than five pounds
the day of a match left me struggling
for an entire weekend to recover.

30
30
 24 Hours To
Weigh-In
The last twenty four hours before weigh in is
by far and away the most interesting day in
the entire meet preparation process. Having
gotten that out of the way, let’s move onto the
day before the weigh in.

Friday morning, you should begin limiting

your liquids to 1/3 of what you normally drink,
and it should consist of naught but purified
or distilled water. Your consumption of food
and water will end with a light meal on Friday
evening around 5, and that’s when your water
consumption for the day will likely end. Prior
to hitting the hay, however, you should weigh
yourself to see where you stand. Time Ferriss
recommends using two scales twice each,
and then averaging the results. Additionally,
he recommends consuming enough water
that you’re two to three pounds off from your
desired weight before you go to bed the night
before weigh-in if you’re close or under, and
I can personally attest to the fact that going
to sleep with horrible dry mouth makes for a
terrible night’s sleep.

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31
Should you find yourself more than two or three pounds away from the promised land, you’re
not going to do what your brain tells you at first impulse. There will be no scampering about
the countryside in a sauna suit and sweats to get this weight off. In fact, I strongly advise
against doing cardio in a “sauna suit” for those of you who are familiar with them. It’ll leave
your legs weak as a kitten with polio, and it’s far less effective than the method about which
I’m about to tell you. Additionally, you do not want to do this the day before your weigh-in-
this is strictly day-of stuff.

You need to limit the time you spend in a dehydrated state, as dehydration drastically impairs
your performance. According to one study, even mild weight loss from sweating (1-2% of
pre-exercise weight) resulted in a significant degradation in performance (Armstrong). More
extreme dehydration can reduce your endurance by about 55% (Sawka), and depending which
of four separate studies you consult, can reduce maximal strength by up to 11% (Maughan).
Additionally, Ferriss chimed in with a statistic of his own (unfortunately uncited, but I believe
it’s Bosco et al (1968)), that dehydrating a muscle by 3% can result in a loss of 10% of contractile
strength and an 8% loss of speed (How To Lose). For those of you posting numbers that aren’t
world-changing, this means that dehydration can be the difference between first and last in
a meet, and as such, you’ll want to be at your weigh-in weight for as little time as humanly
possible.

To get to your weight class cutoff, however, you’re going to use one of two things- hot baths
or steam rooms. Ferriss is a huge fan of the former, as a hot bath has 100% humidity, and the
“higher the humidity, the less the evaporation, and the more your body must sweat to cool core
body temperature” (Ferriss, “How to Lose”). For this you should use a bath containing water
“that does not burn the hand but causes pain if the hand is moved underwater” (Ibid). For
anyone who’s been in an overly-heated Jacuzzi, this can generally be a godawful experience.
Never fear, however, as Matt Kroczaleski has the solution for you- use a combination of hot
bath and steam bath, in thirty minute intervals. According to Matt:

“I start by entering a bath with the water as hot as I can get it without scalding myself,
and I submerse my entire body except for my mouth and nose. I prefer the hot bath
because it facilitates raising my body temperature as fast as possible and being
submersed in the water is somewhat more comfortable (at least for me) than sitting
in a steam room, especially a dry heat type of sauna. After fifteen minutes, I get out
of the bath. I leave the shower running though on pure hot to maintain the steam

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 and heat in the room. I don’t know what the precise temperature gets up to, but it’s
typically as hot as any steam sauna I’ve been in. Next, I either sit or stand in the steam
for another fifteen minutes. At the 30-minute mark (bath and steam time combined), I
exit the bathroom for five minutes. This allows me a break both physically and mentally
and lets my core body temperature return to a more normal level. I’ll feel much better
physically. After five minutes in the cool room, I return to the hot bath (I drain and refill
the water each cycle to keep the water as hot as possible) and begin the process again”
(Kroczaleski).

To make the steam room he mentions, Kroc has a pretty slick method- he just fills the tub by
running the shower on full hot with a towel stuffed in the crack under the bathroom door.
Using this method, you’ll just keep weighing yourself with your two scales until you’re there.
Quite frankly, I only use one travel digital scale and just ensure I am a bit under, and tend not
to alternate between what amounts to a Turkish bath and a hot bath, if for no other reason
than I don’t want my hotel room to reek of sweaty taint for the rest of the weekend. Make no
mistake about it, either- if you go with Kroc’s method, sweaty taint is the best scent for which
you could reasonably hope.

Instead, I generally choose either dry sauna or hot bath and go with that. Hot tubs seem
like they might be a viable option as well, but unfortunately, I have never successfully made
weight using one, as commercial hot tubs seem to be too damned cool for that. Instead, I test
the hotness of the water in my tub the night before weigh-in to determine if the water is going
to get hot enough to facilitate a cut. If it’s not, I go to plan be, which is a sauna- locate one that
opens early, buy a sauna suit the night before in the sporting section at some soulless big box
consumer goods store, and prepare for misery.

In the event you go hot bath:

• Make sure you have a bathmat, or you will slip on the tile and break your fucking head
open wandering around overheated on wet tile.

• You’re going to really start hating life after the first hour. Reading won’t be an option,
and watching movies even gets difficult. Throw on some movies, put a clock where
you can see it, and just treat it like some really long intervals. It sucks, but it will pay off.

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 • Dabbing menthol under your nose seems to help keep you alert and cools you off a bit,
as does sniffing peppermint or eucalyptus oil. The former oil and menthol will make
you more alert and energized, and should cool you off a bit, while the former should
have a significant palliative effect, which is nice when your panic starts to rise with your
body temperature.

In the event you go sauna:

• Choose a steam room if you can.

• Wear a sauna suit inside the steam room as much as possible. Remember though, once
you take it off it will cool rapidly and you’ll reabsorb the sweat if you put it back on.
Once it’s off, it’s off.

• Rub yourself down with makeup remover before going in- it opens up your pores and
increases sweating.

• Once the suits’s off, scrape your skin with a spare room key, credit card, etc. in between
rounds. That also seems to help with opening up pores and increasing sweating by
removing the natural oils insulating your skin.

• Again, peppermint, eucalyptus, and menthol are your friends. If you don’t want to
bring a bottle of them into the sauna, pour some into a hand towel and drape in
over your face. Eucalyptus is especially helpful here for me, as I tend to get weirdly
claustrophobic in saunas due to the added difficulty of breathing.

For either method, you should have an idea of how the weight’s going to come off. I find that a
good hot bath or sauna will generally yield a water loss of two pounds per hour until my urine
starts to get dark. At that point, water loss will be seriously attenuated, because dehydration,
stupid. Everyone’s different, and gender and body fat, in addition to carbohydrate and sodium
depletion will play a role. My experience can serve as a bit of a benchmark, but it should not
be treated as gospel. You’re going to want to weigh yourself at fairly regular intervals, as you
don’t want to deplete more than you have to and come in light. Doing so will only make
rehydration harder, and increase the risk of cramping. I generally weigh myself every hour
until I make weight, unless the weigh-in is drawing close and I can’t risk missing out on cooling
off and missing out on the water loss I could otherwise have.

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Some random notes that don’t really fit into the flow of this thing:

• Though tempting because your mouth will be hot, dry, and taste like a donkey’s asshole,
do not chew sugar free gum or eat sugar free mints. Sugar alcohols cause you to
hold water in your bowels, which is pretty hard to sweat out. Though I don’t think the
amount of water retention is really all that significant, there is no reason to make your
life harder.

• According to some sources, standing on your head can cause urination by driving
blood to the head, which signals a carotid baroreceptor that your blood pressure is
sky high. This is basically how prescription diuretics work as well, and while they work
very well when you’re hydrated, it’s not nearly as effective when you’re dehydrated.
Nevertheless, if you’re a ¼ pound over and you’re at the end of your weigh in period, it
might be worth a shot.

Getting Tank Girl Dry

If you’ve never read the comic Tank Girl or seen the incredibly awesome movie starring a
shaven headed, stupidly hot Lori Petty, you have no idea what I’m referring to. In the comic
and movie, an evil corporation runs the US because they control all of the water in our dystopic
future. When people are deemed worthy of execution, they’re stabbed with a device that
pulls all of the water out of their bodies, leaving a vile, desiccated husk. That’s what I think of
when I think of prescription diuretics like Lasix and Aldactone. Personally, I’ve never used a
prescription diuretic, as I have a weird fascination with maintaining kidney function into old
age and don’t have diabetes.

As such, I go a more natural route, sticking with over-the-counter diuretics like Kranker 2,
goldenseal root, and the like. I’ve cut about 10% of my total bodyweight using these substances,
and have thus really never had a need for the stronger stuff, but I’m hardly one to discourage
experimentation. With that, I’ll cover some OTC and prescription diuretics and provide the
results of my research into the stuff I haven’t used, but with one caveat- I’m not condoning
you guys do anything illegal, and I frankly don’t think the risk of kidney failure is justified here.
Nevertheless, knowledge is power, and you might as well know what your options are.

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Dandelion root and caffeine work synergistically to help you shed water, and taken at the
doses I’m about to suggest shouldn’t have much of a negative impact on your health. This
is especially true because dandelion root is potassium sparing, and a sodium/potassium
imbalance is what generally leads to the incredible cramping one experiences when cutting.

Tim Ferriss recommends 250-500mg of dandelion root 3 times daily (preferably with food)
and 200-400 mg of caffeine 2-3 times per day along with a potassium supplement. When I
drop water, I use a variety of herbal water shedding supplements, and have yet to find one
that works significantly better than the rest. You will definitely want to find something that
contains the aforementioned two ingredients, in addition to Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), Vitamin
B5 (pantothenic acid), calcium and Vitamin D. All of those will help with fluid excretion, as will
calcium, magnesium, manganese, evening primrose oil, chaste tree, corn silk and horsetail.
It’s likely that whichever water pill you choose, it will contain most or all of the above, so
you should have no problem finding something that will help you get those last few bastard
pounds of water off.

If you want to go the more extreme route, the two mainstays of diuretics are Lasix and
Aldactone. I’ve no idea why people use the latter, as it suppresses testosterone production.
As such, you might want to avoid it. For Lasix, the effect will depend on your level of hydration
and sodium and carbohydrate depletion. Lasix works by pulling water out of your blood, so
the effects of Lasix are pretty much immediate- in three hours you’ve gotten all you’ll get out
of it. More water is dumped into your blood from the surrounding tissue after about eight
hours, so you’re not going to want to take Lasix more than once every eight hours. A normal,
40mg. dose of Lasix should get you to drop two to four pounds of water in two hours, but the
effects will be reduced as you take it more. You would have to be incredibly well hydrated and
sodium depleted to get 8 pounds out of 80mg. That said, I’m no guru on the stuff, so trial and
error will be your best friends when it comes to the use of a prescription diuretic.

An Unorthodox Method I Don’t Really Recommend

One method of which I’ve heard apparently meets with reasonable success and yet is not on
my list of things to try- drinking liquor. One guy I know (who trains drunk or high as a matter of
course), drinks half a fifth of vodka and takes fat burners before he goes to bed to drop weight.
This seems to me to be reckless on the scale of slaloming an oil tanker on icebergs while high

36
on crack, but he swears it drops the weight fast. Does it make sense? Yes. Drinking liquor
without adequate water in concert with caffeine increases water loss by 32% (Stookey). Does
that mean you should try it? Probably not- sitting in a sauna hungover sounds like the worst
Saturday morning ever, and there’s no telling if you’ll be able to beat the hangover in time for
the meet, as you’ll be in a state of intense dehydration and hungover. Nevertheless, if you’re
adventurous you might as well give it a go- I’m certain the Russians have.

My Experiences Cutting Weight

Wrestling With Stupidity
Insofar as I understand it, the rules surrounding cutting weight for high schoolers and
collegiate athletes have changed more than Michael Jackson’s skin tone over the course of his
life, and there are now hard limits on the amount of weight one can cut. When I was
wrestling, however, there were no such limits, and we utilized every asinine method of which
you could think to cut weight.

As I didn’t start wrestling until my junior year in high school, I ended up only wrestling varsity
when the best wrestler in my class was “sick” or “injured”, conditions which seemed to only
occur when he discovered that he was wrestling a highly ranked wrestler. As such, I generally
had about as much time as it would take for a Star Trek convention attendee to blow a load
over the green chick in the last Star Trek movie to make 134.

Having been a fairly chubby kid throughout middle school and my first two years of high
school, I was unused to the idea of staying lean, and my eating habits reflected that. I knew
very little about what to do to get and stay lean, and thus relied on a ridiculously cardio-heavy
regime to keep me from looking like a retarded kid who’s been locked in a Hostess factory for
a week. As such, for a same day weigh in, I would have to cut between ten and fifteen pounds
between 9AM, which is usually when I discovered I’d be wrestling, and 6PM, which is around
when weigh-ins were. I’d stop eating and start spitting into a cup, then hit the sauna every
free period I had in a sauna suit, and usually run in place and do pushups while in the sauna.

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After school, I’d throw the sauna suit back on and run mile after mile until I was at weight.
Thus, by the time I got to the mat, I was fucking exhausted. I knew nothing whatsoever about
carbohydrate depletion, couldn’t have cared less about my protein intake levels, and thought
that dietary fat was the ultimate enemy. By the time I hit college, I was cutting weight by
refraining from eating the day before weigh-ins, subsisting entirely on Nestea Ice Tea mix, which
I’d eat dry to keep my energy levels up. Had I been any more stupid about my methodology
for cutting weight, I’d have considered cutting off my pinky toes and followed the Hollywood
Grapefruit diet or some other silly horseshit. In short, my cutting strategy was about as well
formed as the Elephant Man’s skeleton, and I had about as much business cutting weight as
Susan Boyle has for entering a beauty pageant.

What You Can Learn From the Horrors of My Actions: Don’t cut weight this way, no
matter whether it’s a same day weigh in or a 24 hour weigh-in- wearing yourself out prior
to competition is downright fucking stupid. The key, as Gandhi stated in his first rule about
fasting, “Conserve your energy, both physical and mental, from the very beginning” (Russell
87). As I found later, the conservation of energy during a weight cut is critical to a good
performance in competition, so I recommend that you refrain from doing exercise as a part of
your cut. Save your energy for when it matters- the competition. Wasting energy in a weight
cut would be akin to burning yourself out from doing pushups in the bathroom before you
get to bang Bree Olson and then showing up to bed exhausted. It’s stupid and pointless and
counterproductive. Don’t do it.

My First Foray Into the Wild and Wooly World of Powerlifting

In 2010 I competed in an APA powerlifting meet in Atlanta, GA for perhaps the dumbest reason
of which I could conceive- to shut the mouths of some internet shit talkers. As we all know,
the internet pretty much exists for the sole purpose of providing a forum for people no one
cares about to give opinions they’re unqualified to provide on subjects and people about
whom they know nothing- utilizing them as a rationale for competing was, as such, about as
intelligent as banging a Thai hooker without a condom. In any event, with hate and spite as
my most valued henchmen I attacked the weights on a daily basis, only without bothering to
train the bench press nor the deadlift.

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Having not competed or trained with powerlifters, or having had someone observe my
squat depth, I hamstrung myself a bit as well, choosing instead to just go to where I thought
depth was like a modern day Helen Keller with some sort of horrible decision-making mental
handicap. Topping it all off was the fact that I did not research weight cutting in the slightest.

Instead, I trained twice a day for a month in preparation for a Saturday meet, and got as lean
as I possibly could. Having cut weight for wrestling, I was of the impression that I knew what
the fuck I was doing, and thus did no research into the science of cutting weight. Instead, I
did not eat or drink anything beginning Friday morning, sat in a sauna for a half hour during
lunch, and then made the two hour drive after work in two pairs of sweats and my winter coat,
with the heat running on high for the majority of the trip. As I recall, I had to lose about seven
pounds, which I’d done in a couple of hours in high school with no problem. When I arrived
in Atlanta for the weigh-in, I has sweated through all of my clothing and my car seat, and my
car smelled like a sweat lodge that had hosted a month of gay orgies for unwashed homeless
men who wiped their shit-covered cocks on the walls before departing. Not only did my car
reek that day, but it actually smelled that bad for the better part of a month, during which time
I had to drive around with the windows down.

I arrived at the weigh-in at about 7PM without anything to eat or drink, weighed in, and
immediately went out to dinner. The problem with this plan was that I was I so thirsty that
I could not finish my burger, fries, or the cinnamon butter coated dinner rolls I was served,
which rivaled opening the city gates for the Trojan horse in terms of tragic outcomes. I spent
the majority of the night waking and chugging water, and thus had a shitty night’s sleep, a
terrible refeed and rehydration, and I ended up with my only sub-1600 total in the last three
years.

Of note at this meet was also the fact that a chick lifter projectile vomited on all of the judges
and the first row of spectators in between my second and third attempts on the deadlift. I’d
just hit a PR on the deadlift, and was busy pacing back and forth, listening to the same badass
Jerome song on repeat while pumping myself up to hit a 650 deadlift. I glanced over to my
left while stomping back in the general direction of the platform, and thought I saw the lifter
bleeding out of the mouth. I stopped and stared, wondering if she’d somehow contracted Ebola
and was about to crack and bleed out in the middle of a powerlifting meet. As I considered
this, half-digested Muscle Milk erupted from her mouth and sprayed down the judges, and I
stared in amazement as she continued pulling, and finished the lift. Astonished, I went back to
pacing, never considering the fact that this was going to delay the meet considerably. Instead

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of returning to the warm-up room to do a couple of deadlifts, I finally got bored and sat down
to read a novel for a half hour or forty-five minutes. By the time my name was called for my
final attempt, I was completely cold and stiff, and had lost all interest in the meet. This was a
crucial mistake and one that would have been easily avoided with a little bit of common sense
and a couple of extra warm-up reps to keep my mind in the game and my blood pumping.

The Lesson to Be Learned from this Cockup: Basically, do the opposite of everything I did.
While I still managed to total 1585 at 181, which is fairly respectable, I know for a fact I left a ton
of weight on the platform. Number one, you should train the lifts for whatever competition
it is in which you intend to compete- don’t do a strongman meet without at least trying out
the events and getting some advice on their performance, don’t do an Olympic weightlifting
meet without having drilled those lifts into your body like dicks into a vagina at a record-
setting orgy, and don’t do a powerlifting meet without having someone check the depth of
your squat, practicing all three lifts, and trying out some different techniques to see what
works best for you.

I know all that seems reasonably obvious, but hubris can be a bitch sometimes, and your brain
might tell you you’re ready when an objective observer can tell that you’re not. Additionally,
day before weigh-ins should occur in the morning or early afternoon. If you weigh in the
night before, you will not have enough time to do a proper refeed if you’ve cut much weight.
Additionally, driving long distances while overheated, dehydrated, and hungry as hell rivals
sharing needles with someone who’s boasting a bunch of open sores for stupidity. Take a full
day off, weigh in early, spend a full day on your refeed, resting, and rehydrating, and get to
the meet rested, full, and refreshed. Failure to do so will leave you miserable, at the very least.

In the event of some sort of catastrophe that halts the meet, make sure you keep your head
in the game. Don’t sit down to read or bullshit with your friends- stay warm, stay limber, and
stay near the weights. The second your mind deviates from winning, your body will follow.

Basking In The Warmth Of True Enlightenment

After nearly dying in a fiery car accident for the meet in Atlanta, I thought it prudent to do a
bit of research into water manipulation to see what, if anything, I could do better. As it turned

40
out, there was a lot that I could do better, and I experimented with a variety of techniques
over the next couple of meets to see what worked best. For one meet, I turned my parents’
bathroom into what amounted to a Turkish bath. They have a heated tile floor in it, so I would
alternate steaming in the shower in a makeshift sauna suit I constructed out of trash bags and
duct tape and laying on the floor. My dog, who’s perhaps one of the most loyal creatures on
Earth, bailed about ten minutes into the experience, apparently finding the floor too hot and
the room too steamy. Frankly, I don’t blame him- after about an hour, that room resembled
Chaz Bono’s taint in sultriness and scent.

Cutting weight does not smell good. For the next meet, I utilized an actual sauna suit and a
dry sauna, which worked, albeit not as well. For my third and fourth meets, I utilized a hot
bath for the majority of the cut, which as Tim Ferriss assured his readership would, worked far
better and was far less unpleasant than the rest. I managed to drop my total cut time for a 15-
20 lb. water cut from 6.5 hours in the first cut to about 4 in the last. For the third meet, I didn’t
water load nearly as much as I did for the second and fourth, which made the cut slower and
harder.

On one of the cuts, I had to travel from Birmingham, AL to San Francisco, CA, then drive to San
Jose. This meant I had a two hour flight to Houston, then a two hour flight to San Fran, and
then would have to drive (at about midnight) an hour to San Jose. While this would typically
not be a problem, it was in this instance because I was doing it food and water depleted, and
I left myself very little leeway for delays.

My weigh-in was the following morning, which meant I was leaving myself precious little time
for things like sleep. My flight was supposed to leave at 5PM, but ended up leaving at 7.
Luckily, my connection was delayed, or I would have had to fly out the following morning,
which would have made my cut even more brutal. Once in San Francisco, however, I ran into
another delay at the rental counter, eating up another hour of precious sleep time. As such, I
overslept when I finally made it to my hotel at 3AM, and didn’t start my cut until 8:30, rather
than my planned 7AM. I then lost another precious hour in an effort to find a nearby gym with
a sauna and eventually opted for one further away, which cut my time to make weigh-in down
to 3 hours.

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Though this all likely seems ridiculous to someone who’s never trained for a meet, laid out
the money for the travel, and then run into innumerable obstacles, this was pretty much
catastrophic for me. I made weight late, after having to weigh-in twice because I used an
analog scale to check my weight at the gym, was incredibly stressed out and pissed, and too
tired to really focus on my recomposition. As such, my performance the following day suffered,
and although I hit PRs on the squat and deadlift, I didn’t perform nearly as well as I had hoped.
This might seem like so much bitching, but leaving myself no time slack meant the difference
between simply winning and breaking 40 year old world records.

Still Learning Even As I’m Succeeding: Quite frankly, you should never do anything without
coming away having learned something, and self-evaluation is a valuable tool. Having
reviewed my efforts in the last couple of meets, I came away with some incredibly valuable
knowledge:

• Buy and bring your own travel digital scale for use while you cut. This will save
you a lot of time and aggravation hoping the analog scale you’re using is “on” or in
simply finding a scale in the first place. Hunting for a scale while you’re overheated,
dehydrated, and extremely hungry is about as much of a good time as hanging out at
a bar mitzvah with Sting and Phil Collins.

• Use glycerin in your recomposition. You’ll feel better sooner, be heavier at the meet,
and will likely perform better.

• Bring at least the beginning of your recomposition with you to the weigh-in. You
might think it would tempt you while you’re cutting, but your focus will (should) be on
making weight, not stuffing your face. This means, at the very least, that you bring two
liters of liquid and copious amounts of some fast-digesting carbohydrate source.

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 Recomposition
More Than
Simply Eating
Your Face Off
Rehydration and replenishment is even more important
than the dehydration phase. Yes, that should be an “is”,
as the two words are parts of a singular hole- there are
some grammar Nazis on Reddit who were going to get
all up in my shit if I didn’t make that apparent. The first
thing you’re going to want to do is rehydrate- eating
will come later. For this, Kroc uses Gatorade diluted 1:1
with water, but Ferriss recommends straight Pedialyte
instead. “Commercially available sports drinks” he
contends, “and so called ‘replacement fluids’ contain
much too high a concentration of sugars (high fructose,
dextrose, glucose, sucrose, and maltodextrin) or other
solutes to move efficiently from your stomach to the
primary site of absorption in the small intestine” (Ferriss,
“How to lose 30 pounds in 24 hours”).

The key at this point is to achieve a state of hyper-

hydration, which differs considerably from what most
housewives will tell you when they see you chugging
water and tell you that “too much water can

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43
kill you.” This is true, but that condition is called hyponatremia (water intoxication), is caused
by a sodium imbalance rather than a surfeit of water, and is characterized by “nausea and
vomiting, headache, confusion, lethargy, fatigue, appetite loss, restlessness and irritability,
muscle weakness, spasms, or cramps, seizures, and decreased consciousness or coma”
(“Hyponatremia”, Wikipedia).

Hyper-hydration, on the other hand, is awesome, as it can induce improve power output
and oxygen delivery. Endurance athletes use hyper-hydration for this reason, and the way
to ensure that you end up with the one rather than the other is to consume 75mg of sodium
per 8oz of water. Additionally, Tim Ferriss and Christian Thibaudeau recommend consuming
hand moisturizer to increase the amount of water you hold intra-muscularly. Before you start
rummaging through your nightstand and eating your onanism lube, ensure that it’s made of
glycerol, which will be called glycerin on the cover label. As the majority of you likely roll with
something more along the lines of Lubriderm, your stash should remain at home, uneaten.
Glycerol has been shown to improve rates of hydration, and even if you don’t give a shit
about looking “full”, “pumped”, or “shredded”, you should consider including .543g/lb. LBM of
glycerol in .3984 fluid ounces/lb. LBM (Ferriss, “How to lose 30 pounds in 24 hours”).

Ninety minutes to two hours after you’ve chugged the glycerol-infused electrolyte-containing
liquid of your choice, you’ve got three options. The first option is Tim Ferriss’s method, which
uses the time-tested endurance ratio of protein to carbs (4:1) and is probably most easily
accomplished with some waxy maize and whey protein, for recomposition. Throw on top of
that 100mg of ALA per 75 lbs of bodyweight and 50 mcg of chromium polynicontinate (not
picolinate) to increase your insulin sensitivity, in addition to a 15 minutes soak in an Epsom
salt bath for magnesium supplementation and muscular reaction, and you’re off to the races.
Ferriss, by the way, mentions that you can absorb a tremendous amount of water through the
skin even in a shower, demonstrating that it is after the weigh-in that you should shower or
bathe, rather than before (Ferriss, “How to lose 30 pounds in 24 hours”). Should you choose
this method, make sure the water is not hot- use room temperature water for rehydration.

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Kroc, on the other hand, eats a real-food meal as soon as possible, and eats as much as he can
possibly fit down his gullet. He also recommends continuing to drink throughout the day,
which I would think goes without saying if I didn’t see so many people do so much stupid shit
every day I leave the house.

I kind of split the difference between the two suggestions. I will purchase six 32 oz. Gatorade
G2s (I hate overly sugary drinks), dump out 2 ounces of liquid from each, and replace that with
glycerin. Since 6oz of glycerol is 177 ml, and 177ml of glycerol is equal to 177g of glycerol. For
me, that means 100g of glycerol (4oz) in 72oz of liquid. He prefers extraordinarily fancy water
made by machines too expensive to even both discussing to Gatorade, but I would rather
spend $900 on anything other than a Panasonic Microstructured Water Ionizer. Thus, each
of my G2s gets a quarter teaspoon of salt to improve sodium balance and prevent diffusion
of the water in the blood (plus is greatly improves water retention), and add 10g of creatine
monohydrate as well. Clearly, I’m overdosing everything from Ferriss’s recommendations, but
my goal is to step onto the platform as heavy as possible. Additionally, the extra creatine and
glycogen (from both the glycerin and the sugars in the G2s) aids in intracellular water retention
even more, as “increased entry of either creatine or glycogen into a muscle cell changes the
cell’s osmotic balance, which necessitates increases in intracellular water. Also, the entry of
either glucose or creatine into the muscle cell is enhanced when blood insulin levels are high”
(Nelson). As such, you are going to end up full as all hell when you hit the platform if you
follow my protocol.

As for food, I take a page out of the book of bodybuilders and modify their method slightly. I
have a rather unique take on the food portion of my recomposition, as I combine traditional
methods with glycogen supercompensation to maximize my performance. For those of you
who are unaware, glycogen supercompensation is a metabolic trick utilized by bodybuilders
to maximize their size, shape, vascularity, tightness, and weight onstage. Happily,
supercompensation also makes you stronger, because the more glycogen your muscle cells
hold, the more ATP they produce. The more ATP you produce, the more energy you have for
anaerobic contractions (Matthews). There are a couple of different methods for doing this,
but all of them basically consist of the same concept- forcing as much muscle glycogen into
your muscle cells as humanly possible as quickly as possible. Warren Willey’s method for this
is a bit extreme for my tastes, but is worth trying. Frankly, I am so fucking hungry by the time I
start the supercomp, and believe that for strength training you need real food in your system,

45
that I cannot follow this strictly. In any event, here is one protocol for supercompensation:

Part One- Liquid Carbs (0-12 hrs.)

Lean bodyweight in kilos x 12 over six meals. That’ll tell you how many grams of carbs
per feeding.

Part Two- Solid Carbs (12-24 hrs.)

Same deal but half of the carbs, and they are high-glycemic solid carbs (Willey likes
Lucky Charms).

Frankly, a good night’s sleep is far more important to me than replenishing lost muscle
glycogen the night before a meet, and I’m not going to subsist on shakes after I’ve lived on
them for months. As such, I drink at least one, and sometimes two infused G2s every two
hours, and eat a box of Captain Crunch over the course of the day. That will give me 108g
carbs from the G2 and 483g carbs from the cereal, bringing me to 591g of carbs from both,
spread out over 12 hours. I will also eat high calorie foods during this period, mostly consisting
of burgers, fries, and pizza, in an effort to get about 400g of protein during the day.

As you can see, I once more take the science as more of a polite suggestion than a hard-and-
fast rule. I consume as much liquid as I possibly can during the day while maintaining the
ability to eat (if you’re super full from liquids it makes it hard to eat solid food) and maximize
my carbs and sodium while keeping an eye on my protein. If I am feeling especially motivated,
I’ll add in an electrolyte supplement like Nuun to aid in balancing my sodium and potassium.
Is it an exact science? Nope- like all of this, it’s much more Salvador Dali than Nikola Tesla. You
need to have the insanity of both men, but you need to have enough of an understanding of
the science of the art to make your art beautiful.

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 The Meet
The following will not be helpful to those of us
who have competed on a regular basis, but is
should be pretty valuable for those neophytes
among you brave enough to read this. I realize
I often overlook the simple stuff in an effort to
give the most advanced information I can, but
as I’m all about providing exhaustive resources,
I might as well address the simplest shit. The
following should provide you with a pretty
valuable resource in terms of knowing what to
do and expect at the meet.

Traveling Sucks
Traveling for meets, as you probably picked
up from the previous sections, is a necessary
evil. If you’re going to compete at a high
level, you’re going to have to travel at some
point. While this should not be a daunting
prospect, you should bear in mind that it plays
a rather important role in your meet prep.
To wit, you can seriously fuck yourself if you
don’t adequately plan and prepare for the
inevitable delays, mishaps, and shenanigans
that come with traveling long distances. I’m
not just talking about jet lag, which is a factor
unto itself, but I’m referring to weather, traffic,
getting lost in a new place, etc.

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47
I won’t belabor the subject- just know that however long you think you need, double that
time. You might not have weather delays on your flight, or have to stand in line for two hours
for a rental car, or get lost on the way to the place you’re going to cut weight. If you don’t,
awesome. If you do, however, failure to give yourself an adequate cushion is going to stress
you out even more than you already are. That’s right- even when this shit is old hat and you
have a world record under your belt, you’re still going to put so much pressure on yourself that
every meet will make you nervous.

Some travel tips:

• Plan to get to the location of the meet no later than early afternoon the day
before weigh-ins. This will give you plenty of flexibility if you need extra time to
cut. There’s nothing worse than having to fly when you’ve already cut off your food
and water, other than getting lost on the way to your hotel while you’re dehydrated,
exhausted, and starving.

• Find all of the things you will need prior to leaving. Print out maps (I know you can
find them on your phone, but sometimes your brain gets so fuzzy from cutting that
you can’t google properly) of directions to the gym, the hotel, the venue, the weigh
in… anything you’re going to need. I’ll usually find out where the nearest Walmart or
Target is as well to backstop myself in case I forget anything.

• Bring two bags- a meet bag and a bag with everything else you’ll need. Pack the
meet bag before you do anything else, and make sure everything you’re going to need
at the meet is in there.

What to Bring
Everyone is going to have their own preference on what to bring, but there are a few essentials
you should definitely not be without. All of this should go into your meet bag and be packed
before you even think about packing anything else.

• Meet shoes. Oly shoes, Chucks, Minimus… whatever you wear in a meet. For some of
you, there will be more than one pair, so pack both.

• Knee sleeves/wraps (If applicable)

• Socks. I bring two pairs for meets, plus deadlift socks, because we always go grab
food right after the meet and I sweat profusely at competitions due to the torrent of

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 adrenaline pouring through my veins… I don’t want to put my sweat soaked socks
back on after deadlifts.

• Singlet. If you’re a strongman, the silly ass compression shorts all of you seem to
regard as magical.

• Wrist wraps (if applicable). I have a stiff pair and a soft pair and bring both, just in case.

• Mp3 player. I don’t use my phone for this purpose so that it doesn’t get fucked with
chalk and so that I stay focused. Also, if you’re using your phone as an mp3 player
you’re likely going to spend too much time worrying that your battery is going to die
and not enough time with your head in the game.

• Hoodie. I don’t give a fuck if you’re lifting outdoors in the Sahara, bring a fucking
hoodie. Nothing helps you shut off the outside world better than a hoodie and
headphones.

• Shorts/Sweatpants. You’ll look like an asshole (if you’re a guy) walking around in
your singlet all day. Everyone will be staring at your dick, which turns from flattering
to uncomfortable in a hurry if you’ve got something to look at. Conversely, if you’re
walking around in a singlet and no one’s staring at your dick, you should be even more
embarrassed. Just bring a pair of fucking shorts. If you’re a girl, everyone wants to
stare at your ass, so ignore the foregoing and help raise test levels.

• At least two t-shirts. Just trust me. You’ll want a change. I generally bring one
sleeveless and one sleeved, because I need sleeves when squatting and am a narcissist
the rest of the time.

• Electrolytes. Though you should be completely rehydrated by the time you hit
the platform, a bit of a backstop never hurts. Drop them into your water/Gatorade/
Powerade/whatever to make sure your salts are balanced.

• Stimulants. If you compete in a tested federation, you should obviously skip this
because the assholes that run your federation would probably ban you if they saw you
in line at Starbucks.

• Nose tork (optional). I hate the shit, so I use Olbas inhalers instead. Peppermint is a
natural stimulant and the slight mentholation wakes you right the fuck up.

49
Know the Rules
This really should go without saying, but everyone I know has missed a lift in a competition
because they were unaware of some arcane rule they unwittingly violated. Everyone hates
rules meetings, and if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to enough, but make sure that you
check the rules of the federation and sport in which you’re competing weeks before you hit
the platform so that you can modify your form if need be to ensure you’re in full compliance.
Check out your federation’s website and email the meet promoter if need be for clarifications.

Picking Attempts
One thing that seems to mystify people is the allegedly arcane art of picking attempts. Much
ado is made over this, and you’ll find people whining about how they’re going to select their
attempts. Hilariously, it’s the same people who abandon their plan the second they hit the
meet and get under a weight, and all too often the same pussies who skip their thirds to
save their strength for lifting a whole 5 more times over the course of a day. If making nine
attempts (or six, if you’re an Olympic weightlifter) in a day is too taxing for you, pick another
fucking sport.

The key to picking attempts, in my opinion, is moderating your hunger for glory with your
desire to have a decent meet. While those two goals would seem to be concurrent, they are
often at odds- it’s tough to be conservative and go for broke at the same time. As you saw in
the chapter on programming, however, it can be done simply by picking a base goal and an
ideal goal.

Picking the first attempt is going to be the trickiest part, because each individual is capable
of making different jumps comfortably. One person might have an easy time making huge
jumps, while another might have to take tiny baby jumps to stay sane. Managing your jitters,
staying positive, and keeping your predatory edge is the key to having a good meet. Thus,
you are going to want to pick a weight you know you can do easily to get a first attempt on
the board, but staying within the range wherein you feel comfortable making the jump to
your goal weight. That’s right- we’re not in this to get numbers for the internet. If you have a
hundred bucks to blow on a meet to satisfy your ego, use your ego to pick weights that won’t
make you look like a punk bitch come award ceremony time.

50
With that in mind, your attempts should look like this:

1. Easy weight. This is a weight you should be able to do no matter if you’re running a
fever or have a broken limb. I pick a weight I can double easily.

2. Goal weight. This is the weight you set as your goal during meet prep. If you have a
shit opener, are having a terrible day, broke up with your significant other that week,
slept shitty, whatever, this is the weight you adjust downward- not your opener.

3. Ideal weight. This is your dream weight. Frankly, I don’t give two fucks about running
the board with a perfect score. If you manage that, you will always run the risk of
thinking you could have done more. I’d rather overreach and fail than underreach
and succeed. That’s one man’s opinion, but I do have a world record to show for my
strategy.

Tell Your Brain to Shut the Fuck Up

Yeah, that’s right. Tell your brain to shut the fuck up. Powerlifting is not a cerebral thing. It’s
not a chess match. It’s not a math equation, or a physics test, or a linguistics dissertation. It’s
about channeling your inner Minotaur, stomping though a pack of people who barely register
as human to you as you elevate yourself to godhood, and destroying your opposition.

The wolverine doesn’t calculate his odds and weigh the outcomes when he attacks a polar
bear that outweighs him by 15 times- he wades the fuck in and rips that bear’s fucking throat
out. Same goes for the meet. Your brain starts telling you can’t? TURN IT THE FUCK OFF. You
can’t expect to ruin lives and destroy dreams every time, but that wolverine doesn’t beat the
bear every time either- sometimes he just ends up a snack. Nevertheless, he fucking goes in
and gives it hell.

51
Manage Your Expectations
Like I stated above, they can’t all be winners. I broke a world record, then followed that up
with two meets wherein I failed to drop a weight class and showed up at my third subsequent
meet in the greatest shape in which I have ever been, stronger than ever, and tore a bicep.
Shit happens. That stated, I didn’t go into those meets expecting failure. I expected to set the
whole world on fire and fuck on its ashes.

Going into my next meet, however, I will do so with the knowledge that while I have been
murdering my training, I know my bench and deadlift will not be what they could due to my
torn bicep. Even rushing my recovery leaves me with a weakened left arm. Thus, whereas I
had planned to open at my best competition bench and second best deadlift, I am putting all
of my eggs in the squat basket and doing my level best not to embarrass myself on the other
two lifts. Be aggressive, but know where the boundaries of the real world lie.

The SATs or Graduation?

Something to bear in mind when you’re managing your expectations- neophytes and elite
lifters will not approach meets the same way. For the noob, a meet is simply a test. It’s a
way to determine if your training has been going as it should, and giving you a measuring
stick to determine where you stand against your peer, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Frankly, I have no idea why the new breed of lifter is so overwhelmingly preoccupied
with measuring themselves against people they wouldn’t piss on if they saw them ablaze,
but people are idiots.

Elite lifters, on the other hand, are not there to test themselves- they’re there to showcase
their skills. I don’t go to meets, for instance, to see what I’m capable of- I go to show people
precisely how much better I am than they are. Conceited? Of course. I’m a clinically diagnosed
narcissist. I’d not be as good as I am at what I do if I weren’t. That’s not to tell you to set the
bar low if you’re new, but rather to let you know that you should look forward to a meet with
reasonable expectations and look back on your performance the same way.

52
The Squat- The United States of Powerlifting’s “Keystone State”
The foreigners amongst you won’t know about this, and frankly I doubt many of the Americans
reading this do either. My home state is called the Keystone State, both because it’s the middle
colony of the original thirteen, and because it was crucial to the political, economic, and social
development of the United States. Just as PA was crucial to the development of the US, so is
the squat for a powerlifting meet. You need to set the entire tone for the meet by crushing the
squat, no matter if it’s your bread and butter lift or if it’s your worst. Set yourself up for success
by succeeding at the squat.

With that in mind, know that if your squat goes badly, you are going to melt down. It’s nearly
inevitable. In the event that occurs, you have to get your fucking head right and tear through
the rest of your lifts. Don’t adjust downward- just try fucking harder. Get positive. Get
aggressive. Get fucking angry. Whatever you do, don’t tuck your fucking tail and bitch out of
the rest of your meet.

53
 The Wrapup
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- this isn’t
fucking brain surgery. It’s picking up heavy shit
and putting it down, and trying to look damn
good while doing it. While you might want to
think about whatever sport you’ve chosen to
do as “your life”, doing so will limit you gravely
and leave you a shell of a human being. It’s not
that big a deal. Frankly, testing one’s strength
against your peers is a rather stupid enterprise,
as the strongest people in the world likely
don’t compete. As such, we’re all engaged in
an ultimately ridiculous quest to prove we’re
the strongest when we will never know if we
are or aren’t. Pessimistic and fatalistic? More
like realistic and pragmatic.

Get out there and kill shit. Having a shitty meet

isn’t a big deal, and just because a program
you used didn’t work once doesn’t mean it
will never work, or that there is nothing to be
gleaned, borrowed, or used from it. Lifting is a
lifestyle, not a fad, not a finite goal. Treat it as
such and you’ll enjoy it- fail to remember that,
get too focused on your short-term goals, or
expect too much in too little time and you’ll
end up hating it.

Time to fucking murder it.

54
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