June 4, 2011
Wow this has been a year of changes in my life. First things first let me introduce myself. My name is Jeff Crow and I train in Red Bluff, CA at the Tehama Family Fitness Center. I am 35 years old, currently about 235lbs./107kg. I am self coached at this time. I am not a stranger to T-Nation or the forums, I’ve just been absent for a while. I have kept a few different logs throughout the years, (in the strongman and powerlifting) forums. My training life has come full cycle.
In 2003, after years of just muscle magazine bullshit pseudo-bodybuilding style training I started training seriously under the direction of a former Albania national team member, learning olympic weightlifting. I trained and competed in OL for about 3 years. After Coach Ago returned to Albania, I switched to powerlifting mainly because I needed training partners and no one else OLed. During the next few years I bounced between powerlifting and strongman.
Well fast forward to January of this year and I have for odd some reason been bit with the OL bug again. I don’t know why exactly, (I’m 35 now so officially an “old man” and can enter as a master now, I’ve been inspired by Donny Shankle, Jon North, and the California Strength blogs and videoes, I feel I never truly reached my potential all those years ago, and finally its an epic challenge). I want to set the PWA snatch, clean & jerk, and total records, and then win the masters national championship. So this is what I mean by my training life has come full circle.
Personally, I’m getting married July 9th to the love of my life Cori (moncanlift in the powerful women forum). I will be the proud stepfather to 3 beautiful children. So for the first time ever in my life there is something more important to me than training and competing. I realized that today. I competed to a small local strongman event and did pretty bad by my standards (3rd out of 4 people). However I did flip a 1000lbs tire to win $100! Although I was pretty distraught I came home and had lunch with Cori and her kids, and played “Go Fish” with her 4 year old daughter. I alomst completely forgot my disappointment holding this beautiful little girl. This put everything in the proper perspective for me. I don’t think her girls even realized where I placed, I was still a hero to them. I love training and have some clear definitive goals, but I need to always remember what is truly important, (my God and my family).
In my first life as a weightlifter I competed in the 94, 105, and 105+ kg divisions. My best competitive snatch was 110kg and clean & jerk was 140kg for a 250 total. I back squatted 200kg and could front squat 160kg back then. Since January of this year and reentry in this sport, my best snatch is 115kg, clean & jerk 125kg, back squat 175kg, and front squat 150kg. So my leg strength is a huge weakness now, as is my clean. I do think my technique
is vastly superior now.
Goals:
First of all I need to lose some weight and walk around at about 210lbs. I will compete in the 94kg class.
Short-term Snatch 120kg, long-term 140
Short-term Clean & Jerk 140kg, long-term 160
Short-term Front Squat 160kg, long-term 180
Short-term Back Squat 200kg, long-term 220
I will probably still compete in small local strongman events and the occassional raw powerlifting meet (my future beautiful wife loves doing those together).
I’m going to use a Bulgarian style approach to training (snatch, c & j, squat heavy every workout).
I plan on posting my log in this forum and hopefully receive feedback and suggestions from you guys.
congrats on your front squat progress. and on having a good snatch day, too.