Jordon Riley

[Pipe Line]

Those are pretty decent starting numbers.

Raw = no suits, briefs, or gear. Just a singlet.
Raw w/ sleeves = same as above, approved knee sleeves, approved wrist wraps, and elbow sleeves for squat/deadlift only, not bench.
Raw w/ wraps = same as w/ sleeves except wraps (either 2.5 or 3 depending on federation) can be used for squats, approved wrist wraps, and elbow sleeves for squat/deadlift only, not bench.

You'll see some single-ply and multi-ply suits/briefs, but almost everyone lifts raw now.


1. Are you sponsored or affiliated with anybody?
Right now I am by Unbreakable Gear. I wear their knee sleeves, destroyer knee wraps, and destroyer wrist wraps.

2. How did you find out about the different meets?
Since I've competed at the same meets and it's the same meet director, he usually gives me a heads up. Also, through Facebook there are USPA groups for each state that post their upcoming meets as they're scheduled. Also check the USPA website randomly. After a few years you learn they schedule the meets around the same weekends each year. Example, my Dec meet is always first Saturday and Sunday in Dec.

3. How do you program to work around meet time to get ready?
I do my own programming and always have. The best way I can describe it is a progressive 5-3-1 method with an RPE component built into it. I also listen a lot to my body to pick days to workout heavy or back off. I'm 39 so recovery is a little bit longer. Each day I set my day's 1 rep max and then do my planned reps on that one-rep max. Example, bench day, I'll rep 350 for reps, having done this long enough I know if I hit an easy 7 or 8 with plenty left my working rep max is 440-450. Then set my weight and reps for that day based on that number. I used training blocks with deloads. Prior meets I've done 5 weeks heavy, 1 week deload, 5 weeks heavy, 1 week before meet deload. This next meet I'm dropping that to 4 weeks, 1 week, 3 weeks, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 week.

4. I've seen the totals listed different ways with your numbers, how do yours work with that? I've only just now started to use knee sleeves when squatting and deadlifting. Considering elbow sleeves for bench.
Since bench and deadlift are the same in both wraps and sleeves, its usually only listed once, but sleeves and wraps are different lines for squats and total. So my 644.8 deadlift came in my wrapped meet, but it's my raw PR. Hopefully it makes sense.
Elbow sleeves can't be used in bench in any association. I would also ditch the sleeves for deadlifts.

Less confusing way to list is:
Squat - 622.8 (sleeves), 655.8 (wraps)
Bench - 446.4
Deadlift - 644.8
Total - 1703 (sleeves), 1736.1 total (wraps)

I'm personally not a giant of the knee sleeves or anything but I've gotten really used to my wrist wraps and it feels weird when I bench without them now. I use a belt too but that's obviously standard. I have a singlet for the Cornhusker Games but just never pulled the trigger.

1. That's super cool! Kind of always been an underlying goal of mine to get noticed and maybe get a sponsor at some point. How did you manage to get involved there?

2. I'll have to look into those. I was actually just a farm party last weekend and me and my wife literally drove by that new gym in Gretna on the way home so I've seen it, nice place


3. Yeah that makes sense. I've done some tweaking with my own stuff over the years that I've been doing it seriously. I used to follow a lot of Cory Gregory training methods with the squat every day method. I haven't followed his stuff in a while now but that's a little bit how I got my start. I did tweak it to how I liked it to fit what I wanted to do and how my body reacted to things. It's kind of ironic cause for the last year I've actually been mixing what I had been doing for 3 years with Husker Power concepts and it's actually worked tremendously. I took what I learned from Zach's brother Gib, and mixed it with what I had previously been doing, and the results have been great. Kind of a side note, my cousin has been into Powerlifting now for about a year as well and I taught him all I know, you could consider me his Strength Coach in a sense, and he's a smaller kid at about 5'7" and about 198 lbs now. He's a giant Husker fan too so the thought of doing Husker Power really drew him in and his numbers have exploded over the last year so I'm proud of that effort. That one is basically 3 month cycles: 4 weeks at 3x10, 4 weeks at 3x5, and 4 weeks at 3x3 with more rest between sets as you get lower in reps. It's fairly simple stuff but I'm much more of just work your ass off and progressive overload over time than anything super fancy.


4. I don't personally like the sleeves for deadlifts. Don't think I like them very much for squats either. My buddy just beat me in the last meet we did in May on squats and he said the sleeves helped him out a lot so I bought a cheapish pair from Dicks and have given them a shot for a while. I personally like squatting in sweats much better. I will admit I've gotten a kind of new knee pain sort of the last month or so from heavy squats, I think I might have a strained meniscus possibly. Doesn't keep me from functioning in lifts but does get tight and a tad bit sore after. I still just go to work and do it anyway.