Write Your Training Audibles Before You Need Them

Autoregulation is useful.

Improvisation is not always the same thing.

When powerlifters make every training adjustment while tired, frustrated, rushed, or emotionally attached to the day’s number, decision quality can deteriorate.

A better approach is to write the audible in advance.

Decide Your Responses While Calm

Before the training week starts, define what happens when common problems occur.

If the top single is one RPE above target:
Reduce the planned back-off load.

If only 45 minutes are available:
Complete competition work and the highest-priority accessory.

If the preferred specialty bar is unavailable:
Use the predetermined substitute.

If warm-ups are unexpectedly excellent:
Follow the planned ceiling rather than turning the session into a max-out.

If a concerning physical issue appears:
Use the predetermined modification or stop criteria.

Now the powerlifter is following a decision rule rather than negotiating with the program in real time.

Autoregulation Needs Boundaries

Good autoregulation changes training according to relevant information.

Poor autoregulation changes training according to mood.

Prewritten rules help separate the two.

They also let coaches and powerlifters review whether the rule itself worked.

Over several cycles, those audibles become increasingly individualized.

The objective is not to predict everything.

It is to prevent predictable problems from forcing brand-new decisions at the exact moment judgment is most likely to be compromised.

Exclusive Powerlifting.com content drawing on published research and industry expertise to ensure accuracy and relevance for powerlifters. Certain statements in this article represent the author’s perspective and may not reflect the views of Powerlifting.com.