Early stages of meet prep begin tonight

Well I will start my pre-meet prep stuff tonight. Nothing heavy, but actually going through the motions of the routine I will be using. My layout is very basic. I will cycle my bench, squat, and deadlift using mainly percentages of my back off sets to gauge where I am at during each phase of the cycle.

My routine will be as follows -

Tuesday - Abs/Neck/Back/Biceps

Abs - 3 sets of 10-12
Neck - 2 sets of 20-30
Pulldowns/Chins alternated each week - 12,10,8
Db Rows/Chest Supported Rows alternated each week - 12,10,8
Barbell/Db Shrugs alternated - 1x20
Curl (optional) - 12,10,8

Thursday - Press
Incline - 10,8,6,12
Close Grip Bench - 1x6-15
Seated Db Press/Press Behind Neck (optional) - 12,10,8

Saturday - Squat/Deadlift
Calf Raises - 2x20
Squats - cycle work
Deadlift - cycle work

To explain a few things here, I will incline heavy 2 weeks, do light bench after. Then bench heavy once a month. The reason for this is because I cannot bench often because of my shoulder. So I will push the incline hard and then keep the nervous system response intact to benching by using medium loads with medium reps to build the strength and save my shoulders/pec minors.

I will alternate assistance work like chins and pulldowns, rows, and overhead presses. Mainly to keep things from going too stale.

My 12,10,8 rep range is basically working to a top set of 8. I feel like a top set of 8 on assistance work is a pretty good range because you get some hypertrophy work and strength work and you can work "heavy enough". Obviously I like higher reps on some other exercises. This is just personal preference really.

I will say up front this could change once I get started because some things will "feel" more right than others. However I have run this exact routine many times and it's usually my favorite.

I will do 2 weeks of light pre-meet prep then I will start pushing everything a little harder. I usually peak in strength at about 7-8 weeks and this particular program will run 9 weeks. The 9th week will end up being a "smart" single for the big 3 lifts then I will deload for weeks 10 and 11 and then compete on August 20th (the 12th week).