My prep for the meet was terrible. For some reason, I couldn't fall asleep on Friday night, so I ended up getting 3 (maybe) hours of broken sleep. This also meant that I was starving in the morning because my metabolism hadn't revved-down for recovery. Still, I just ate my normal breakfast (four scrambled eggs + milk) and made my way down to Scituate for the meet. I weighed in at 178lbs for the meet.
Personal Performance
Back Squat
175kgs, ~385lbs (3 reds)
I lifted this weight easily, but I got three reds because for some reason the bar went down a little as I was making my way up. I have no idea why that happened. I was probably just tired and lost control of the bar.
175kgs, ~385lbs (3 whites)
I wanted to move up initially to at least 405lbs, but Nate suggested that I stick with the weight to avoid bombing out of the meet. That turned out to be a good suggestion. This was easy. I can triple it, anyway.
190kgs, ~420lbs (3 reds)
This was supposed to be my second attempt, and I think that I could have gotten it on a normal day. I'll have to review the video to find out exactly what went wrong, but I think it was either because my stance was a little wider than normal or because I was just tired. In retrospect, I shouldn't have made such a big jump.
Bench Press
120kgs, ~264lbs (3 whites)
Easy.
130kgs, ~286lbs (3 whites)
Easy, surprisingly so, really. I probably could have doubled it.
137.5kgs, ~303lbs (3 reds)
I got stuck at the normal place (a few inches above my chest). I had moved up to 137.5kgs because 130kgs felt so easy, but I'm not sure my training justified the move. I probably should have stayed at 135kgs.
Deadlift
237.5kgs, ~522lbs (3 whites)
Easy.
255kgs, ~561lbs (3 whites) PR + 16lbs
This felt really smooth. I don't think my form even broke down much.
262.5kgs, ~577lbs (3 whites) PR + 32lbs
This felt really smooth again. This pull was toward the high end of what I had expected to be able to do for this meet, but the ease with which I pulled it gave me the confidence to make a fourth attempt.
272.5kgs, ~600lbs (3 whites) PR + 55lbs
Huge PR. I totally didn't expect to be able to do this, but I got it off the ground with a horribly slumped-over back and managed (somehow) to lock it out.
My total was 175+130+272.5 = 577.5kgs or ~1273lbs. This is 6lbs away from a Masters total at 181 (1279lbs). If I had chosen to squat 395lbs (which I can double) or bench 295lbs (a little less likely, but still doable), then I would have a Masters total right now.
ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH.
Still, I'm happy with how I performed. I'm actually ambivalent about whether I would have preferred 420+565 or 385+600, so I guess it's a wash. With this total, I did manage to get first in my weight class (with three lifters, so I actually beat someone) and third best lifter overall.
Also, huge thanks to Dee for driving and Nate for acting as coach for the meet, which kept not a few of us from screwing up by missing our lifts, forgetting to declare our attempts, or making bad attempts. Thanks also to Eric, John, Patrick, and Tab for showing up and giving their support. You guys should seriously consider competing as well next time.
Team Performance
Everyone else who went did really well. I'll leave it up to them to report their exact numbers, since I don't remember all of them, but here's what I remembered happened. I listed the lifters in order of decreasing body weight.
Rene Befurt: 1100 total or so. The judges were a little tough on him because he didn't completely lock out his knees at the top of the squat.
Jason Ansel: 950 or so total and PRs in all three lifts. 6th in his weight class. All lifts looked really easy.
Gordon "Chinese Guy" Lu: 1155 or so total and 5th in his weight class. He finally managed to deadlift more than he can squat too. We also discovered that he's really good at bouncing bars off of his chest and pscyhes up for lifts by taking a nap.
Brian "Tuna" Yutko: 950 or so total and PRs in all three lifts. 1st in his weight class.
Dierdre Connolly: 610 total, which beats her old total of 600. 1st in her weight class.
Future Planning
I'll probably stay out of the gym for the next for the next few days and just do some mobility work, stretching, and calisthenics to get the blood flowing again to my beaten-up muscles. My first heavy day will likely be Thursday. The program I will be using will be Starting Strength because it seems to have worked really well for Gordon, at least. I will likely start with slightly lighter weights so that I can work on my technique, and the twice-weekly jumps of Starting Strength should allow me to quickly match and, hopefully, exceed my old performance. I will deviate slightly from Starting Strength for my deadlift training, but I'll write about that later.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
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Freaking AWESOME Frank!!!!!!!! I wish I could have been there to see you pull 600 lbs!
ReplyDelete[I'll write only about what you did, and later write about others in their post]
ReplyDelete-- Congratulations!!! Even in a probably off-day, you still managed to pull a huge PR on deadlift, and improve the previous competition total by a lot (how much?). In a better day, you can probably get +50 from squat and bench, with -20 effect on deadlift, so the masters total is essentially there, but not formally.
-- Why switch to a different routine, if the current one made such a big improvement? Deadlift: obvious; squat: from being crushed by 385 to tripling it; bench: no regression, in spite of elbow problems. And obviously, only total matters.
-- I suggest to take more than 5 days to recuperate. Maybe the entire week or more. The important thing is not to start lifting again (and exhaust yourself two weeks later), but to get maximal results from the next training cycle.
@JC: Thanks man. You should seriously consider competing next time, even if it's only for kicks.
ReplyDelete@Danny: Thanks! My previous meet total was 1175, so this is a 100lb increase, which I'm pretty happy with. To be honest, I completely did not expect to pull more than 570, so my *expected* total is about the same, but I hate knowing for sure that I could have gotten 395 or 405 on the squat.
The main reason I'm considering switching to SS is because of the rapid progress Gordon has made with it. I think that one of the reasons I'm poor at the squat and bench is that I don't have enough confidence with the full movements. I think the (relatively) high volume of squatting and benching with full ROM in SS should help with this. Also, the only lift that's really improved these last few months is the deadlift.
This doesn't keep me from using the volume/intensity cycles of more traditional PL programs though. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I should plan my program over the next few months, but I'll post my plan sometime before I actually start lifting this cycle. There are a few other thoughts I have bumping around in my head that I think should either go in a full planning post, or we should chat over GChat about it when we're both on.
I think I will Frank- honestly, it was more of a money issue why I didn't compete. On another note, I'm going to be training Oly with Mike this Thursday, so that should be awesome.
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