With the release of The Specialization Success Guide, I got to thinking about some of my biggest mistakes with respect to developing the Big 3 (squat, bench press, and deadlift). Here are the top five mistakes I made in my powerlifting career:

1. Going to powerlifting equipment too soon (or at all).

Let me preface this point by saying that I have a tremendous amount of respect for all powerlifters, including those who lift in powerlifting equipment like bench shirts and squat/deadlift suits. Honestly, they just weren’t for me.

I first got into a bench shirt when I was 160 pounds, and my best raw bench press was about 240-250 pounds. I was deadlifting in the high 400s, and squatting in the mid 300s. In hindsight, it was much too soon; I simply needed to develop more raw strength. My squat and bench press went up thanks to the suit and shirt, respectively, but just about everything I unracked felt insanely heavy. I just don’t think I had enough training experience under my belt without any supportive equipment to feel truly stable under big weights. It’s funny, though; my heaviest deadlifts never felt like this, as it was the “rawest” of any of the big 3 lifts for me.

There’s more, though. Suits and shirts were just an annoying distraction for me. I absolutely hated the time and nuisance of having to put them on in the middle of a lift; training sessions easily dragged on to be three hours, when efficiency was something I’d always loved about my training. Perhaps more significantly, getting proficient with equipment took a lot of time and practice, and the more I was in it, the less athletic I felt. I spent too much time box squatting and not enough free squatting, and felt like I never developed good bottom-end bench press strength because the shirt did so much of the work for me.

At the end of my equipped powerlifting career, I had squatted 540, bench pressed 402, deadlifted 650, and totaled 1532 in the 165-pound weight class. Good numbers – enough to put me in the Powerlifting USA Top 100 for a few years in a row – but not quite “Elite.” I tentatively “retired” from competitive powerlifting in December of 2007 when Cressey Sports Performance grew rapidly, but kept training – this time to be athletic and have fun.

For the heck of it, in the fall of 2012, I decided to stage a “raw” mock meet one morning at the facility. At a body weight of 180, I squatted 455, bench pressed 350, and deadlifted 630 for a 1435 total. In other words, I totaled “Elite” by 39 pounds…and did the entire thing in 90 minutes.

Looking back, I think I could have been a much more accomplished competitive lifter – and saved money and enjoyed the process a lot more along the way – if I’d just stuck with raw lifting. Again, I don’t fault others for using bench shirts and squat/deadlift suits, but they just weren’t for me. I would just say that if you do decide to go the equipped route, you should be prepared to spend a lot more time in your equipment than I did, as my dislike of it (and lack of time spent in it) was the reason that I never really got proficient enough to thrive with it in meets.

2. Not understanding that fatigue masks fitness.

Kelly Baggett was the first person I saw post the quote, “Fatigue masks fitness.” I thought I understand what it meant, but it wasn’t until my first powerlifting meet that I experienced what it meant.

Thanks to a powerlifting buddy’s urging, I went out of my way to take the biggest deload in my training career prior to my first meet. The end result? I pulled 510 on my last deadlift attempt – after never having pulled more than 480 in the gym.

You’re probably stronger than you realize you are. You’ve just never given your body enough of a rest to actually demonstrate that strength.

3. Not getting around strong people sooner.

I’ve been fortunate to lift as part of some great training crews, from the varsity weight room at UCONN during my grad degree, to Southside Gym in Connecticut for a year, to Cressey Sports Performance for the past seven years.

When I compare these training environments to the ones I had in my early days – or even what I experience when I have to get a lift in on the road at a commercial gym – I can’t help but laugh. Training around the right people in the right atmosphere makes a huge difference.

To that end, beyond just finding the right program, I always encourage up-and-coming lifters to seek out strong people for training partners, even if it means traveling a bit further to a different gym. Success happens at the edge of your comfort zone, and sometimes that means a longer commute and being the weakest guy in a room.

4. Spending too much time in the “middle zone” of cardio.

A lot of powerlifters will tell you that “cardio sucks.” I happen to think it’s a bit more complex than that.

Doing some quality work at a very low intensity (for me, this is below 70% of max heart rate) a few times a week can offer some very favorable aerobic adaptations that optimize recovery. Sorry, but it’s not going to interfere with your gains if you walk on the treadmill a few times a week.

Additionally, I think working in some sprint work with near-full recovery can be really advantageous for folks who are trying to get stronger, as it trains the absolute speed end of the continuum.

As I look back on the periods in my training career when I’ve made the best progress, they’ve always included regular low-intensity aerobic work – as well as the occasion (1x/week) sprint session. When did cardio do absolutely nothing except set me back? When I spent a lot of time in the middle zone of 70-90% of max heart rate; it’s no man’s land! The take-home lesson is that if you want to be strong and powerful, make your low-intensity work “lower” and your high-intensity work “higher.”

As an aside, this is where I think most baseball conditioning programs fail miserably; running poles falls right in this middle zone.

5. Thinking speed work had to be “all or nothing.”

“Speed work” is one of the more hotly debated topics in the powerlifting world. I, personally, have always really thrived when I included it in my program. If you want to understand what it is and the “why” behind it, you can check out this article I wrote: 5 Reasons to Use Speed Deadlifts in Your Strength Training Programs.

A lot of people say that it’s a waste of time for lifters who don’t have an “advanced” level of strength, and that beginners would be better off getting in more rep work. As a beginner, I listened to this advice, and did lots of sets of 5-8 and never really focused on bar speed with lower reps. The end result? I was slower than death out of the hole on squats, off the chest on bench presses, and off the floor with deadlifts. And, it doesn’t take much strength training knowledge to know that if you don’t lift a weight fast, your chances of completing that lift aren’t particularly good.

To the folks who “poo-poo” speed work, I’d just ask this: do you really think focusing on accelerating the bar is a bad thing?

Here’s a wild idea, using bench presses as an example. If a lifter has a heavier bench press day and a more volume/repetition oriented day each week, what would happen if he did an extra 3-4 sets of three reps at 45-70% of 1-rep max load during his warm-up? Would that be a complete waste of time? Absolutely not! In fact, the casual observer would never even notice that it was happening.

The point is that speed work is easy to incorporate and really not that draining. You can still do it and get a ton of other quality work in, so there is really no reason to omit it. Having great bar speed will never hurt your cause, but not training it certainly can.

Looking to avoid these mistakes and many more – all while taking the guesswork out of your squat, bench press, and deadlift training? Check out The Specialization Success Guide. This comprehensive product to bring up the “Big 3” has been a huge hit; you can learn more HERE.