With no motivation to work out or stay in shape over the winter I decided to enter my first powerlifting competition for March. I'm 6'1" and usually stay between 192-220lbs. After cutting this summer for a couple events I had to go to, my BF was tested at 6.2% and that was my 192 weight but I haven't lifted in a couple years which is another reason for doing this competition.

I'm entered in the 198lb natural class. My current weight is 202 with BF ~12% (a guess). I plan to hit 218ish in the next couple months and cutting down to within 5lbs of my weigh-in and cutting water for the last 5lbs. There are a couple problems though where I need some opinions...

I reluctantly did my maxes 3 weeks ago for the three lifts I will be doing. This was after over 2 years of being "off".

Bench: 305
Deadllift:505
Squat: 275

Looks like all the injuries from running really caught up to me on my squat.

3 weeks I'm at:

Bench: 330
Deadlift: 535
Squat: 335

I've got to say this kind of training is fun as hell vs working out for looks. Anyone have some suggestions to bring the squat up by 150lbs by March? Remember, this is a natural competition lol. I'm doing the basic 4 reps of a weight that I fail on the 5th rep and 4 sets of that, then once a week doing a couple maxes.

Diet is pretty sloppy right now, just making sure I get tons of protein. I've got the cutting process down to a science so that's not an issue.

My other issue, I can cut 15+lbs of water, I've done it in the past but never for this type of competition. Not sure if I should try and put on a couple extra lbs of muscle and cut more water or if the cutting would weaken me too much. The weigh in is the day of the competition FWIW. I'm sure I'll make some newbie mistakes but trying to minimize them.

 

I have a couple gym buddies who swear by Smolov or Sheiko programs (usually around 8-12 weeks long) which I've heard adds a lot of weight to the squat (maybe 50-100 pounds?). One of the dudes routinely squats 585 pounds so I trust his insights.