Comp. Cycle W4 B2 (10/31/2009)

[CronoPowerlifter]

you can touch with sth like 255 I think. The only thing to do is drive the bar down using your lats, the same movement you do with a Vincent Dizenzo pulldown. If I were you I'll give them a shot.

[TRella2000]

its a good call dude. the katana will just take time to learn. keep working in it with boards to get your lockout going. one thing that might help is as you hit the spot where the shirt stops you, try and tuck the elbows in at that point to touch. i think you can touch with those weights its just a matter of tweaking the form

[tigerak02]

thanks man, and I followed your advice on moving the hands in (I did it one finger in), it seemed to help at the top for sure

[rhsalaska]

Something I did that helped with my Katana in the off season was heavy rack lockouts. Like 140% max lockouts. High in the rack - only a couple inches. It trains the CNS, and forces your lockout strength to catch up with all the power the Katana will give you off the bottom.

Also, ditto about overtraining. Larry Maile, with who I am fortunate enough to train, has written that 2-3 meets a year should be a max. To quote him, "It's amazing what a little rest will do for you."

[SupremeSportsPT]

I agree with Larry. When I was a novice, I got away with four and sometimes five meets per year. Now (when I'm healthy) two to three is more my speed. Additionally, it gives you ample time to address weak points and actually peak properly.

[rhsalaska]

I fully agree that you need time off to train your weaknesses. And maybe I have already forgotten my youth (36 y.o.). But I really think the three meets a year guidelines applies to any age. If you go at redline for too long, you are going to get hurt. And if you look at the greats in this sport, they have had long careers and have either avoided serious injury, or been committed to good (slow) rehab.

[rhsalaska]

I'm thinking here of Wade Hooper, Brad Gillingham, Tony Harris, and, of course, Sioux-Z. These people have all had long careers (longer than most NFL players). While I don't know their full bios, if they would have ruptured a disk or torn a rotator cuff in their 20's, they probably would not have gone on to achieve what they did. (This is also not too mention the psychological aspect of training. Even the most die hard powerlifter can only peak so many times a year.)

[SupremeSportsPT]

Amen.

[DJSTARER]

alex, you also have to be careful not to overtrain. Shirts throw %s out the window. All the 100%+ work you are doing is going to run your body ragged after a while.

[tigerak02]

agreed

[SupremeSportsPT]

I agree. Logic, reason, and % training is all null and void in these shirts.

[rhsalaska]

I love my Katana, but I got it halfway through a meet cycle and it almost made me bomb out. I would think about pulling this Katana out after your meet so you have plenty of time with it.

If you look at IPF benchers it is obvious which shirt most think is best, but for

me it was a big step up from my Fury.

[tigerak02]

yeah definitely