Sam Asks: When programming leading up to a meet, what should your program look like 2 weeks out and 1 week out?
 
Greg Says: I can answer this is mostly general terms, but it does become pretty specific depending on how exactly an athlete trains, so after the general, I’ll try to give some different examples.
 
The first and most fundamental thing to keep in mind is that the final 1-2 weeks of a cycle leading to competition (or testing) is a period not for continuing to build strength, but to strip away as much accumulated fatigue while maintaining as much strength and speed as possible, while also focusing on technical precision and consistency and bolstering confidence—this is what peaking is. The physical qualities have been developed and now just need to be fully accessible at the right time.
 
What this means in simple terms is primarily a significant reduction in volume—this will have by far the biggest influence on a lifter’s fatigue. A reduction in average intensity is typical as well, although lifters respond differently to intensity in that some need a considerable reduction while others do much better keeping it quite high as long as the volume is much lower. This will typically align with the kind of a training a lifter does the rest of the time, i.e. if a lifter responds better to higher volume and lower intensity training, they will typically respond better to a volume and intensity reduction; a lifter who responds better to higher intensity and lower volume training will typically peak better maintaining fairly high intensity while reducing volume.
 
You’re also going to usually have a larger percentage of the training being comprised of the competition lifts or at least variations thereof. Accessory work should be reduced in volume and intensity, although the most important work should remain such as ab/back and any prehab-type work necessary. Specific back work might need to be reduced in volume and intensity to ensure the back is fully recovered.
 
Squats and pulls can often be kept pretty static in terms of intensity for the last two weeks, and I typically reduce the weight of pulls two weeks out relative to three and then further on the final week out since heavy pulls can be so taxing. The idea is to “stimulate not annihilate”—in other words, we want the stimulus needed to maintain strength, but not the kind of training stress the body needs to expend a bunch of resources to recover from. The hardest work should be coming from snatches and clean & jerks now.
 
A pretty traditional approach will have the lifter take the final very heavy clean & jerk (95%+) 10-14 days out and the final very heavy snatch 7-10 days out from competition. This is usually a good schedule for the more volume-oriented, larger and/or older lifter, or at least a good starting point. For younger, lighter, more intensity-oriented lifters, I often have them take heavy singles in both a week out, and sometimes even a pretty heavy snatch (90-95%) just 2-3 days out with a CJ around 85%.
 
The more of a beginner/intermediate the lifter is, the closer to competition they can (and arguably should) do pretty heavy snatch and clean & jerk—those lifts will typically be much easier on their bodies as smaller percentages of their total strength, and staying “heavy” helps with confidence.
 
Ultimately you really need to experiment with peaking approaches for each lifter as they can respond so dramatically differently it’s often hard to believe. Keep good notes so you can continue refining the approach over time.