The 1400 or Bust Log

Okay, everyone--I'm going to do my best to do a complete meet report.

First, the weight cut:

I actually thought the cut went very well. I've been training up at ~160 for most of this cycle, and I was able to drop a lot of weight with my water load. When I dropped my sodium on the third day, my weight plummeted, to the point that I was 155 lbs. before bed. I woke up at 152, rehydrated up to 154ish, then cut fluids 22 hours from weigh-ins. I fasted on that day and had to cut two pounds in the sauna the evening before weigh-ins, but I made it at 147 lbs.

Over the next day, I ballooned up to 163 lbs. I was very methodical in my approach, but I still didn't feel great. I had been cramping up a lot over the course of that week, and I felt stiff, lethargic, and sick. For much of the previous day, my resting heart rate was up, and it would spike when I did anything; a light walk on the treadmill had me at ~130 bpm, when normally I would struggle to hit 100. My weight was back, but I didn't feel super. I generally don't feel super at meets, but this time it wasn't just a matter of feeling bloated. I felt off.

Next, the meet itself, starting with squats:

My squat warm-ups were pretty lousy. Everything felt heavy, and 315 felt like a million pounds. I tried to brush it off, but I could tell my strength was down a bit. Again, my weight was back up, but I was still concerned, so I started pounding gatorade before my first attempt.

Attempt #1: 479. This went GREAT. In fact, it was probably my best lift of the entire meet. I came right up with it and felt real strong doing so. It was one of those lifts that I hit just right, and it was a relief, because I had visions of a bomb-out playing in my head as I got set up. This got me in the meet with a 33-lb. increase over my July squat.

Attempt #2: 507. Now that I had handled 479 well, I thought I would take care of 507. I was wrong, because 507 just about pancaked me on this second attempt. Honestly, I was too slow dropping into the hole, and I quit on the lift way too early. I didn't grind it out, and the only excuse I can give is that I wasn't willing to fight through it.

Attempt #3: 507. I knew 507 would really help my meet total out, so I wanted it bad, and missing it put the fear of God in me. I was able to grind it up this time, but honestly, it felt really heavy, and I just about couldn't stand up with it; my legs started shaking at the end and I just prayed the spotters would re-rack it and I'd get credited for a good lift. Thankfully, I was able to stabilize it enough to get the good-lift call, but it was a shaky one. Had you told me that the squat would be the only lift in which I'd hit a second attempt (on the third try, no less), I would have called you crazy.

For my bench, warm-ups felt a lot better than on squat. I didn't blow everything away, but I felt strong. Even 275, my final warm-up, went well, but I had a weird hiccup in my press at around the transition point that felt weird. I hadn't benched much in the last few weeks due to tendonitis, and while my strength had held well with floor presses, I felt a little out of my groove.

Attempt #1: 297. This went about as well as 297 could be expected to go. It was a good, clean lift, and it was pretty fast. I felt very confident going into 308, but I knew I had to take it seriously, because I didn't blow 297 away.

Attempt #2: 308. I failed this one on a two-to-one call for my butt leaving the bench. It was very slight, but it happened, and the judges made the correct call by catching it. I could feel it come up as I was lowering the weight, and so I tried to get it down, but I was too greedy with my hovering and it cost me. I didn't need to do this to make the lift.

Attempt #3: 308. I was determined not to fail 308 on a judges' call again, so I kept my butt planted on this one and decided to press it without leg drive. This actually flew up, but I again got caught up in this weird hiccup, and the bar swayed on me. I pressed it without much difficulty and racked it, and when I looked at the lights, I thought I made the lift (I had two whites to one red).

Later, I was told that the head judge had overruled my bench press because of a dip down in the bar (the hiccup I'm talking about). I watched the video and he was right--it was slight, but it was there. I asked for clarification later and he told me that he indeed overruled it, so I ended up with my opener of 297. I didn't expect to miss 308 twice due to judges' calls, as I've never been red-lighted for a lift before, and this made deadlifting that much more difficult. I now knew I needed 601 for a 1405-lb. total.

For deadlifts, my warm-ups felt pretty great. Everything up to 495 moved really fast; 495 moved well, but not fantastic. My opener was set at 573, and this would give me a 1377-lb. total; that's a meet PR for me.

Attempt #1: 573. This moved pretty fast, but I felt like I got forward on it near my lockout. In general, my lockout just didn't feel as smooth at it had at the last meet. I almost lost my grip on this pull, but the judge's down command saved my ass. This wasn't the cleanest 573 ever, but I was encouraged because it moved fast, particularly off the floor (and this has been a recent issue for me). After this, I called for 601.

Attempt #2: 601. Ugh. So goddamn close. I got good speed off the floor but just could not get my hips to lock out; the lift looked very similar to the 601 in July, except that it just didn't quite click at lockout. After this, I knew it was over, because I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen somebody miss a hard deadlift and then come back to get it.

Attempt #3: 601. Out of desperation, I tried taking a really wide stance on this one, hoping it would make the lockout easy enough for me to gut it out. At this point, I was really just trying to find a way to get the lift, so I did something I had never tried before; I figured I was in a no-lose situation. Of course, it didn't work, and I missed it just past my knees. I was spent at this point. Looking back, I should have done something batshit, like tried to wrap my knees, because I had no chance here.

So, overall, it's a 1377-lb. total, +22 on my best meet, with a small PR on squat. It's probably the best four-for-nine I'll ever have as a powerlifter. It will probably be relegated to #2 at 148 very soon (another guy just did a monster 1415-lb. total), but it is still currently #10 all time, so I moved into the top ten there.

I'm happy--I called an aggressive meet, performed OK, and got my PR total. I didn't hit the big total, but I made progress. I feel like the aggressiveness paid off for me. I don't feel fantastic about the meet, as two of the three lifts (bench and squat) were pretty easy, and so I felt like I left a bunch of pounds on the platform, but overall, progress is progress.

I've taken some time to reflect on this meet, and I feel as if I've learned a few things.

First, competing in powerlifting meets has become increasingly stressful, and a lot of this is self-imposed. I'm the one constantly touting the goal of milestone PRs, and I feel like I had a dozen people in my ear asking me about my competition total at this meet. It adds unnecessary pressure, and shooting for milestone numbers has caused me to take stupid attempts. I could tell after my 573 pull that 601 was going to be rough, but I would have done, say, 590. Those choices are the difference between 1377 and 1394; I would probably total higher if I played my attempts by feel instead of constantly calculating numbers. I'd also be less stressed during meets.

So, I'm going to do RUM in February, and I'm going to take a very basic approach to the meet. I'm going to open right around 3RMs, taking the advice that is given to a lot of first-time lifters. My openers will probably be around a 460 squat, 285 bench, and 550 deadlift; from there, I'll just make smart decisions based upon how I feel. I will try not to do any number-crunching until the meet is done, and I'll just try to total the best that I'm capable of on that day. I'm not going to write up scenarios or stay up all night playing out the meet in my head. I'm going to try and relax a little and go by feel. And I'm going to try to hold myself to this when the temptation to revert back to over-analysis hits somewhere in training.

After RUM, I'm probably going to take some time off just to train. I don't think I'll be able to compete in the summer anyway, as we'll likely be moving, so I'll probably aim for a 9-12 month layoff before my next meet (maybe I do something like deadlift-only in the middle of it, but I don't know yet). Frankly, I would like time to experiment with my training, train for a long span of time, and really build up my numbers. I might not step back onto the platform until I feel ready to smash old PRs, and that could take a while. I feel like at this point in my career, taking a good chunk of time to dedicate to training would be a good idea for me. Maybe this changes after RUM, but this is what I'm thinking of doing as of now.

Anyway, as I said on FB, thanks to everyone here for the massive amount of support I get. Thanks a shit-ton to everyone who hung around during a LONG lifting session on Saturday and was there to help me out; that meant a lot, especially because a lot of people had their own meets to worry about. Thanks to everybody who has helped me out in training, whether directly or indirectly, and on here, whether that's through support or just by telling me what I need to hear sometimes.

Seth wrote:

I'll add it in, thanks man.  Are you guys going to be around during break?

Yep, we're here for the whole break.

I don't even log anymore. I guess I'll just do yesterday and today's combined session:

Floor Press
Barx10
95x5
135x5
185x3
225x3
245x3
265x3
285x3 (PR)

Overhead Press
95x12
95x12
95x12

Tricep Rollbacks
30x12, 12
30x12, 12
30x12, 12
30x12, 12

Face Pulls, in kg
47.5x20
47.5x20
47.5x20

Rear Delt Flys
10x12
10x12

Some internal/external rotation mobility work
Feet-Up Paused Bench Press
Barx10
Barx10
85x8
135x5
185x5
205x8
215x8
225x10 (PR)
w/ slingshot
245x1
265x1
w/ feet down
295x1
295x3

Notes: My plan for the next five or six weeks is to rotate feet-up benching and floor pressing while alternating between light and heavy days. I'm not programming this too rigorously--I'm just going to rotate through rep maxes, try to average a pre-set NBLs per week, and constantly try to see improvements on my performance. I'm also going to use OHP as a supplemental movement, and I'm probably going to run it as one big block leading up to the week--12-rep sets, to 10-rep sets, to 8-rep sets, and so on until I hit a heavy double.

For my first week, the weights were extremely light, but it was enough to tell me that my OHP has gone to shit. The fact that my feet-up benching has been very weak has led me to the conclusion that (gasp!) my shoulders might be weak as hell, and that might be limiting my bench press. So, I'm going to work seriously on a few variations that I'm really weak at for the first half of this cycle and only occasionally use my competition bench. I should be close enough to my regular bench press so that, at worst, I lose very little strength; the risk is worth the potential payoff of learning more about my bench.

aware me on feet up benching? tendonitis gone or what?

Will wrote:

aware me on feet up benching? tendonitis gone or what?

I guess it's the bro style of benching whose practical application for powerlifting involves increasing range of motion on the bench press. I have been doing so much sport-specific training that my arched competition-style bench far exceeds a normal bench with a flat back.

My guess is that my delts have just gotten really weak over the last year, because my OHP is also in the gutter.

With a feet-up bench press (it's something Ben Rice really likes, though IMO for stupid reasons, "i.e. doing something for the sake of making it harder"), I worry about front delt/RC/pec tie-in issues, but so far I've felt fine doing it--I think the key will be just being strict with the reps and not grinding anything out too badly. If a Paralympian can bench 498 this way with the same style, I can train this way too.

And the tendonitis is gone, but I can tell it's ready to reappear at a moment's notice.

look like we are team bro bench

KevinAlvy wrote:

look like we are team bro bench

I will do whatever it takes to someday be #1 again.

Keosawa wrote:

And the tendonitis is gone, but I can tell it's ready to reappear at a moment's notice.

You must have handed it off to me. My left elbow has not been very happy with me this past week.

Keosawa wrote:

I will do whatever it takes to someday be #1 again.

Ruh roh.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Keosawa wrote:

And the tendonitis is gone, but I can tell it's ready to reappear at a moment's notice.

You must have handed it off to me. My left elbow has not been very happy with me this past week.

Keosawa wrote:

I will do whatever it takes to someday be #1 again.

Ruh roh.

That's what happened to me last cycle; I got banged up by these silly over-use injuries early on, and I couldn't really shake them.

And I told Janis recently that when I do decide to do whatever it takes, it'll be goodbye 148 and hello 181.

Goodbye 181, hello 165.

Chris Anderson wrote:

Goodbye 181, hello 165.

lol, that won't happen for a LONG time. But if you're going to do it, do it big.

Also, about 65 pages of my log just disappeared.

Yeah, I dunno wtf happened. I typed up my reply, sent it, then it was like "there is no post for that topic." I will look into this.

EDIT:

My guess is that the forum--or forumotion in general--has a cap on pages for threads.

Intradesting.

I remember that feel

KevinAlvy wrote:

I remember that feel

Never forget.

Keosawa wrote:

KevinAlvy wrote:

look like we are team bro bench

I will do whatever it takes to someday be #1 again.

SRS, what about retooling your squat?

Keosawa wrote:

And I told Janis recently that when I do decide to do whatever it takes, it'll be goodbye 148 and hello 181.

This could be interpreted one way. . .

Mass monster Keough

My body is ready

Nathan Poage wrote:

Keosawa wrote:

KevinAlvy wrote:

look like we are team bro bench

I will do whatever it takes to someday be #1 again.

SRS, what about retooling your squat?

That's a long-term project. I know it probably needs to happen eventually, but I keep putting it off until I have no other choice.

EDIT: It's something I'm going to consider doing after RUM, since I'm pretty sure I'm not doing a meet for a while after that (being that I'll be moving that summer, then getting married). I know it's going to take at least a year until I can squat with a normal stance what I'm squatting with my narrow one, so I need a long break to properly address it.

Will wrote:

Keosawa wrote:

And I told Janis recently that when I do decide to do whatever it takes, it'll be goodbye 148 and hello 181.

This could be interpreted one way. . .

Yeah. I wouldn't expect to see that sort of a change anytime soon though. It's a big change, and it would take a long time to build into a higher weight class.

Nathan Poage wrote:

Mass monster Keough

My body is ready

My body is ready too. I'll disappear from competition for a couple of years and emerge 30 lbs. heavier.

you may disappear from competition, but never





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hearts

Tuesday:

Reverse-Band Squat
135x5
185x5
225x5
275x3
315x3
365x3
415x6
445x6
445x8
405x5

Block Pulls, Knee Height
445x10
445x10
445x10

Notes: I pushed squatting further than I had last week, when I was just coming back from training, and it felt so-so. 445 bent me over pretty good, so I really need to work on integrating enough easy sub-max volume to build a base. So far, the reps haven't been high enough, so I'll try increasing the volume a bit in the coming weeks. Otherwise, this is my best squat session since the meet (which isn't saying too much) and the first time I've done block pulls; my plan is to do these in addition to deadlifting once per week. These felt easy, so I'll have to up the weight over the coming weeks, but I wanted to start slow. I have video, but it'll have to come later.