Powerlifting Training Programs, Coached Online Across Canada

Powerlifting Training Programs, Coached Online Across Canada

What a coached powerlifting program actually gives you.

A powerlifting training program organises the squat, bench and deadlift into blocks that build strength and then express it on a chosen date. Coached, it also adapts: percentages set from your real numbers, technique corrected from video, and the plan rewritten when your logs say the last block did not land the way it should have.

That is the difference between a program and a coached program, and it is the whole of what you are buying here for $180 a month.

My numbers are public. Check them.

On 11 May 2019 I lifted at the Western Canadian Powerlifting Championships with the CPF. I weighed in at 67.1 kg and finished first in my division:

• Squat - 157.5 kg (347 lb)

• Bench - 90 kg (198 lb)

• Deadlift - 195 kg (430 lb) - just under three times bodyweight

• Total - 442.5 kg (975 lb), Dots 458.41

Dots is the score that lets totals be compared across bodyweights, so you can put mine next to anyone else's without doing the arithmetic.

You do not have to take a word of that from me. Every number is on my OpenPowerlifting profile - the sport's public results database, where every meet anyone has ever lifted is recorded and nothing can be quietly edited later. If a coach tells you what they lift and cannot show you an entry there, that is worth noticing.

That was 2019, and it is the meet on my record. I do not compete any more - these days I lift for my health, for ringette, and because I still enjoy it. What the platform gave me is knowing exactly what this sport asks of you: how a peak actually feels, what nine attempts do to your nerves, and how much of meet day is admin rather than strength. That is the part I coach. My attention is on your total now, not mine.

Who these programs are for.

Your first meet

You have decided to compete, or you are close to deciding. We pick the date, build backwards from it, and rehearse the day itself so that nothing about it is a surprise except how much you enjoy it.

The lifter who has stalled

You have run good free programs and they stopped working. Usually the problem is not the program - it is that nobody adjusted it when your recovery, your technique or your life changed. That is a fixable problem and it is most of my inbox.

Strong, but not competing

You want to squat, bench and deadlift well and you have no interest in a singlet. Powerlifting programming is still the best-tested route to that, and you get the whole thing without the peaking block.

Women and masters lifters

A large share of who I coach. Same sport, different programming choices - more planned recovery, more technique work, and a longer runway into a meet.

What is in your program.

• Blocks with a purpose. Volume when you need to build, intensity when you need to express it, and a written reason for the phase you are in - never an endless grind at 80%.

• Percentages off your real training maxes, not a number you hit once in 2021 and have chased since.

• Video review on the main lifts. You send a set, I send back what to change - bar path, brace, where the rep actually broke down rather than where it felt hard.

• Weak-point work chosen for you. A squat that caves and a squat that folds forward need different accessories; the plan names which one you have.

• A peaking block when there is a date, taper included, so you arrive fresh rather than fried.

• Deloads written in before you need them, and a plan for the week a lift stops moving - that week is expected, not a crisis.

Meet prep: the parts nobody tells you.

Getting strong is the easy half. The day itself is where first meets get lost, and almost none of it is about strength:

• Attempt selection. An opener you could triple on your worst day, a second that is a small confident jump, a third that is a real attempt rather than a wish. We plan all nine before you leave the house.

• The commands. Squat, start and rack; bench, start, press and rack; deadlift, down. Every red light at a first meet is someone who lifted before the judge spoke, and we rehearse them in training until they are automatic.

• Warm-up timing. Working backwards from your flight so you are not sitting cold for forty minutes or sprinting through your last warm-up as they call your name.

• Weigh-in and the day's food. What you eat between weigh-in and your opener, and how to handle a two-hour gap. No water cuts, no sauna suits - if making a class costs you your total, it was the wrong class.

• What to do when the day goes sideways. Flights run early, a lift gets turned down, equipment gets rejected at check-in. There is a plan for each, and knowing it is most of what keeps you calm.

What online coaching cannot do.

I cannot spot you, load your bar, or feel how a rep moved. Remote coaching sees what your camera and your logs show it, which is why the video matters more here than in any other kind of training - a program written from numbers alone is only half-coached.

If you want hands-on technique work every session, hire someone in your city and do it properly. What online coaching does well is everything between sessions: the plan, the progression, the honest read on whether last block worked, and a coach who has stood on a platform and knows what the day asks of you.

Coaching is $180 a month.

Everything included: your written program, weekly check-ins, video review on the main lifts, meet prep when there is a meet, and every revision along the way. Month to month - no contracts, and no separate fee for a peaking block. Nutrition coaching can run alongside it for $40 more - $220 for both - which is worth considering if you are trying to make a weight class or gain into one.