So I pretty much disappeared during the last two weeks of prep because I felt like a bag of smashed b-hole throughout the last half of prep. After missing 510 and 500 on squat the Friday/Sunday before the meet, I just said, “screw it” and took a spirit quest the week of. Slept in the neighborhood of 9.5 hours a day, ate whatever until the last two days before weigh in, eschewed the water load and took the time to get my head right. By weigh ins I felt pretty good. Needed an hour in the sauna to get to 197.7 from 200.9, but it was better than being miserable all week water loading.
Meet lifts:
https://instagram.com/p/6vjOeqKPC4/
(518/440.75/622.75)
Squat
468 (3 whites)
496 (3 whites)
518 (3 whites)l
Extremely conservative squatting considering I did 530 in a meet in April, but my heaviest training squat was 506 and everything in the last month felt like a semi. This is also the heaviest weight I’ve walked out and squatted, so there’s that I guess. Realistically had 15-20 in me the way these lifts were being judged, but I’m still ecstatic to have not completely shat the bed.
Bench
413 (3 whites)
440.75 (3 whites)
452 (no lift)
After my opener, the announcer said, “and that was a speed bench.” I was like, “joke’s on you, they all look like that even when I fail :D.” 440.75 was easy, but I felt my left shoulder wing and my right side dip, which is a nasty habit that dates back to my high school days and snakes its way back in every now and again. So I tried to correct for this on the last attempt, which was probably a bad idea.
As usual, it looked like an RPE 8 through 75% of the lift, then you have to assume the angry hand of god invisibly stops the bar dead in its tracks by the look of it. I have stuff to think about here. I know for a fact I bench differently (read: worse) in wrist wraps and generally avoid using them, so maybe it’s time to completely abandon them. I doubled 430 without them 3 weeks out, and I handle heavy weights just fine without them and with better proprioception. I’m just terrified of having my wrists buckle, and I saw it happen at this meet to some poor bastard. Open to any suggestions from people with similar issues.
Deadlift
589 (3 whites)
617 (no lift, multiple callous tears, dropped at lockout)
622.75 (3 whites)
This was a real come to Jesus moment. After missing that second lift, my meet had played out almost identically to the last one, and I was only a few pounds ahead of it. 617 was easy and smooth, but I gripped a little narrow on my left side and knew it. But I hate resetting, and instead just went with it, which cost me half the skin on my hand. Amusingly, 4 different people told me afterward they saw skin fly off the bar when I lost it. So there I am thinking, “oh no…am I a weak version of the lilliebridges??” NO. NO I SAY.
Relaxed a little, didn’t listen to any music, just went zen and got ready to pull. I went conservative at 622.75, and my grip was a total non issue after adjusting the placement. It was a hellish grind so I’m glad I didn’t jump more. But I learned from my last meet…at that point I was playing for a pr total, even though I could have been pulling for 1600 and had that weight in me under the right circumstances. So yea, this was a big relief.
Summary/lessons learned
Realistically I was weaker on squat in training, a little stronger on bench, and about the same on deadlift. At my last meet I prepped and peaked perfectly, went in feeling amazing, and underperformed big time. At this meet, everything went wrong in prep. I reached way too much with my experiments and beat myself into the ground trying to squat 5x weekly and abandoning a few key assistance exercises I really need to have all the time, then being too beat up to put in the volume I needed to improve.
Lesson: prep is not the time to experiment and tinker too much. But I do it because programming is a hobby for me, so sometimes this is the result. Lesson 2: the importance of repeatable technique; I can’t even describe how many times I changed my squat stance, and all it did was prevent me from mastering anything, and then I still ended up right at the same general technique I’ve used for 5 years. So yea, do that, Dan-o.
BUT, I’m insanely proud of myself for sticking it out and finding a way to make a solid 36-lb improvement on my total despite all that jazz. Getting that last lift and coming away with a sense of accomplishment has me chomping at the bit for another meet. This should qualify me for RUM, so now I have to hope I squeak in the field. But I have 1700 in me if I don’t tank my poor body in prep again, so that’s my goal.
Offseason plan:
Correct left scapular winging through repetition, upper back work, and stretching. Drill volume on all lifts. Use 1 pull day for conventional DL and attempt to convert. Stop sucking on squat.
Other stuff:
I wrote the programming for Sarah Cattan’s (@squatzilla) prep after she had issues with her previous coach, and her progress was insane. Went from 385/155/405 to 440.75/187.5/440.75 @165 in a 4 month turnaround, and that was even with a stance switch to sumo I sold her on. If you saw her squat and DL, she definitely had more in her too.
Girl is an absolute monster and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here…we’re currently discussing her next meet. I also have a client competing in October who will Iikely squat 400+ in sleeves only, which would give me a pretty badarse stable of 400+ squatting ladies. Programming can be almost as fun as competing.
Some poor dude impaled himself on bench dropping the bar from lockout to throat. Crushed his windpipe and had to be trached in the ambulance, from what I understand. But I think he’s ok. Could have definitely used face-savers at this meet. Also had two quad tears on squat with some big weights…this meet had bad juju.