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Meet Recap - Cam Worster - USAPL OBC Summer Open 2025

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A bit overdue on this recap but ya know what they say, better late than never! But really though - I wanted to process Cam’s meet results, think about the last 6 months of training leading into the meet, and come up with a fresh perspective and plan for training and honestly, I am quite happy with the results so far post meet! So, with that context is how I’ll talk about the meet results, what we did leading up, and what we’re changing going forward, let’s dive in.



This meet was both an important one for Cam and me but also one that I didn’t want to put a ton of pressure on. We knew that PRs were there for us on squat and bench and wanted to really go after those and see where deadlift would end up on the day. Cam hurt his back last year in August and then again, another flare up later in the year sent us into a spiral of seeing what he could tolerate for squat and trying quite a few things. Mainly reducing the workload and at times taking weeks off of squatting. This was needed in the moment to reset not just the pain side of things but the mental aspect as well. I have said this many times over but I commend Cam for sticking through a really tough, difficult to manage injury that took both of us a lot of trial and error to navigate but safe to say both of us came out the other side a better team because of it. All this to say, it was almost a year and a half between comps, so this meet meant a lot in terms of getting back in the game, but also lower pressure since we have a long (exciting) road of meet preps ahead!


Squat


Squat training leading into the meet was really promising! We had figured out a micro that worked well for Cam’s back pain and stuck with that for a majority of prep. Day 2 consisted of SSB ascending squats to build up some volume. Then day 4 was primary squats, following a traditional triple > double > singles 4-week progression. Cam did report after a few blocks that the day 4 was feeling a bit foreign still as we reacclimated to low bar, so needed to introduce low bar again somewhere. I ended up adding a “primer” single at the end of the SSB ascending sets and that worked like a charm. This was just a single at around 80% to refresh the movement pattern of low bar, and a step up in intensity from the SSB sets. Leading into the meet, 4 weeks out Cam hit an ATPR on squat at 222.5kg with a bit of room in the tank. The plan for the meet block was to “train in” with a backend deload/taper for meet week. However…this is unfortunately where I dropped the ball a bit and the prep fell apart. 1 week out Cam hit a very nice 212.5kg single, the block before this was a 210kg single, so my expectation of the train-in and backend deload would lead us to chip (or more) the 222.5kg single from the block prior. But as I alluded to, I did not set up the meet week appropriately and I’ve told Cam this 100 times and stand on this, was 100% on me. I told Cam to do his day 2 on Tuesday (normally on Wednesday) and his day 4 would be the meet day, Saturday - pretty normal! That way the days would line up perfectly around our training days. Except I completely forgot that the meet was shifted to Sunday. By the time meet day rolled around, Cam got to the meet and we were chatting and he told me that he “felt really recovered, but during squat warmups they just felt ‘off’” and to me, that meant there was too much time in between exposures and I had messed up. Unfortunately, too late at this point we just had to take what was there on the day. Cam still went 3/3 on squats, still securing a 5kg MPR hitting 225kg on his third, but they didn’t look like “his” squats. The walkouts were…interesting…and just his technique looked foreign. However, I do think his training up to the meet week was great and we were on the right track - so squats will remain similar to this for the next mesocycle until we need to adjust more. 


On a personal note - I know that this is all a learning experience. I’ve had so many preps myself and have prepped over 20 athlete meets so far but everyone is different. I definitely let Cam down a bit here, after being in prep for so long and for the final week to fall apart because I didn’t time the sessions right is a bummer to say the least. Cam however was very understanding of this (it’s only our second meet together) and we both acknowledged that you live and learn. This same mistake will not be made for the next prep that I can say for sure.


Bench


For bench I will keep this brief as I have made an entire post (shameless plug) talking about Cam’s bench progress over the last year! The only thing I want to call out here is again…the meet week and meet block craziness. 4 weeks out Cam hit a 140kg bench (on day 3) as day 2 is his primer bench day and this setup has been working flawlessly for about 6 months. The 140kg bench was a 25kg PR over his meet best. Again I thought we had about 2.5-5kg on top of this with a good taper and train-in strategy. Keyword here: good. I for whatever reason decided to shift the primer day here to day 3 to get it closer to the meet day, but I believe it was either too light as I tried to pull back the intensity of this week and again Cam felt a bit detrained by the time Sunday rolled around. The other thing that happened this meet block - I was quite concerned about his foot position and getting reds for his heels coming off the ground (curse you hyper vs). So instead of just training, getting hyped for the meet, we spent the last 3 weeks hyper focused (pun intended) on making sure his feet were all the way down and there would be no room for error on the platform. I believe this led to us not really focusing on the right things for this block and taking away a bit of momentum we had after the 140kg PR. For the attempts, we still went 2 for 3, a 20kg MPR on the second and decided to shoot for the “3 plate” bench on the third but it simply was not there on the day. However I will say, there were no red lights due to heels being off the ground! Small victories that again we will carry forward into our next cycles of training know what to focus on and what not to focus on.


Deadlift


Last but not least, deadlift. Now it seems like things were off to a weird start with squats and bench for prep but man oh man wait until you hear about deadlifts. Deadlift is definitely a tricky one for me to program and coach, it’s my worst lift and I feel the least confident in it, but I am getting better and trying to learn all the time! For Cam, managing the back pain was our highest priority. We had followed a similar macro plan as squats, triples > doubles > singles progression, and this worked reasonably well. I also implemented an interesting strategy to manage fatigue, as mentioned earlier making sure Cam’s back was not overwhelmed was the primary concern. So usually if we were starting a “doubles” block, weeks 1 and 2 would still be triples and only weeks 3 and 4 would be the doubles. Same deal for singles, week 1 and 2 would be doubles and week 3 and 4 would be singles. This way we would limit the overall intensity and fatigue a bit, while still building up the exposure. I think this strategy would have worked great - if not for where I placed the secondary day. Day 1 was primary deadlift, to make sure he was most recovered and freshest for the day, and day 3 would be secondary deads, where we experimented with volume and pauses. I had read that sumo pullers often benefit from higher reps and figured that made enough sense to me. But this really led to not enough exposure at the right intensity as these sets were often pretty light. We transitioned to pause deads to work on his wedge and building patience from the floor which actually was really helpful! As we got closer to the end of prep Cam reported that his pause days were actually stronger than his primary day. Then it finally clicked for me…I have these days backwards! Day 1 and day 3 were only 2 days apart, but looking at it the other way, day 3 and day 1 were 3, sometimes even 4 days apart! By the time day 1 rolled around, Cam’s technique was not dialed, yes he was recovered but not properly exposed and ready to pull heavy. With not much time to spare when we realized this (4 weeks out) we stuck with this until the meet. Now could I have flipped these days leading into the meet? Sure. But I was more hesitant to change anything with deads as Cam and I discussed that squat and bench were the priority and we would triage deadlift after the meet. The meet then went about as expected, 2 for 3 on the day, falling short of a PR. However we have implemented this new strategy in our first block post meet and things are already looking up. Cam pulled 227.5kg in the first block back and it moved considerably well on a full SBD day. Changing his exposure timings on deadlift I believe are going to make a huge difference going forward.



And I think that wraps things up! My key takeaways from this meet prep are:


  1. Exposure timings matter. A lot. They are probably one of the most important things to consider for programming, right behind intensity and volume

  2. Meet week timing is also very important

  3. I have a lot to learn, each prep is better but not up to my standards yet

  4. Resiliency - through ups and downs of prep and injury, highs and lows, Cam stuck through it.


That I think is the note I want to end it on. Cam is an incredible athlete and teammate. He is always there to support members of the team or the gym, whether that be LFOD, Adams’, Hurt & Co, Evolve, or any of the other gyms he’s visiting. Cam is extremely thoughtful, detail oriented, and passionate about powerlifting and it shows. There is not a week or a day in the program that Cam has not filled out - the man is dedicated to the craft, and I absolutely love working with Cam and he’s an essential member of the team. With that said, we already have the foot on the gas getting right back into our next prep. This meat was just the appetizer for us, states, collegiate nationals and beyond are the main course. To the bubble bath king, cheers and I can’t wait for the next one.


 
 
 

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