[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
stallion wrote:
To first poster: If you want to do a pl meet or a strongman meet, just do it. It does not matter what you lift. You get a starting point, and can improve it later on.
exactly[/quote]
Word. You won’t find many people talking about how competitive they were in their first competition, rather you’ll hear about how much they learned and how great of an experience it was. I absolutely believe that competing is the best way to speed up your training.
I started training two years ago in bodybuilding! But like someone above mentioned, pure vanity totally bored me. The development of strength and watching the numbers increase was so addicting.
I competed in my first comp this past May, after another powerlifter suggested in January I change my training from DC training to powerlifting.
I placed 7 world records and won best overall female lifter. I’m hooked!! Since May, my bench has gone up about 25 pounds, and I’ve got a few more comps coming up this year in the fall.
I love powerlifting. I feel like I fell into it but is exactly the kind of sport my body was designed for.
Ginger
[quote]pf wrote:
My town has starting holding an strongman annual comp. First year i watched, second year i entered weighing 210lbs the lightest in the field the heaviest was over 330lbs and i can last, bombing completely on two of 5 events. I’m signed up this year with the goal of at least posting in every event and not worrying about overall placing.[/quote]
which town is this? Im training for pl meet but missed this years one;I have cut down to 75kg my lifts at this weight are:squat 180, deadlift 230 bench 130.would like to enter a strongman event at some pint as Im good at lifting awkward, as my job can be very ‘hands on’.
I started training after I quit mma and wanted to still have somthing to aim for.
i always loved lifting and used it to supplement sports. when i first got to college i squatted benched and deadlifted but knew nothing about forming a program or periodization. one of my wrestling teammates turned me onto westside’s site and elite and T-Nation and got the ball rolling. during that wrestling season i started with the madcow 5x5 and 5 months later at the end of the season i started using the westside method. been using that ever since and in the last six months or so started really modifying it to work for me and have seen my lifts go through the roof. im competing for the first time this october since i dont have to wrestle anymore and i dont have to worry about staying near my 157 lb limit for wrestling anymore.
Powerlifting started when I was on the varsity football team and one of my teammates put up flyers for the “2006 northwest Houston bench press competition” which was basically a meet organized by him and friends in the community center of their church. Gotta love Texas!
Strongman started when a guy approached me in my OL gym where i train and said in a booming voice: I want you in my gym! I didn’t want to turn down the 350lbs guy so I stuck with it.
I woke up one Sunday morning in September of 2005 and watched a strongman competition on tv. I turned to my wife and said “Think I could do that?” She said “Yeap.”
I Googled Strongman Ontario and found some guys to train with.
And that’s how it all started.
When I was in the 8th grade all I did was sit on the couch playing video games and eat junk food. I was 5-5 and maybe a buck ninety. I vividly remember one night my dad was flipping channels and he stopped on ESPN, where World’s Strongest Man was on. Neither of us had seen anything like this before.
Magnus Ver Magnusson was at his peak and was just mopping the floor with everyone else. “I want to be like Magnus!” I said in amazement. My Dad is a nice guy so he tried real hard not to laugh.
In HS I lifted on and off, I did wrestling and track (throws) also. Did ok but not a star or anything. My senior year we had a new wrestling coach who I didn’t really get along with so I decided to really get serious about my lifting and have been training consistently since.
But really I’d say I have Magnus to thank, though some days I say I have Magnus to blame, lol
When I was 17 I had a buddy who moved down to Calumet City and told me I needed to come down to his gym and train and watch these guys lift. He talked about it all the time, this one guy in particular. Said it was unreal.
The gym was Quads. The guy was Ed Coan.
I can still remember how I felt standing there watching these guys squat for the first time. I started going down there about once a month and was lucky enough to see a number of their workouts not to mention there were some absolutely enormous guys who trained there.
I have been hooked ever since.
A guy in my gym who was TDY was doing box squats with a 135 pounds and some purple bands, chuck taylors, white tee-shirt and shorts. I thought, “look at this fagg!” Being the jerk that I was, I asked him what the hell he was doing. He politely told me he was a PL’er and this is how he trains to lift more weight.
Me: Why don’t you add weight to lift more weight
Him: Doesn’t work like that. Need to build explosive strength.
Me: Lift more weight
Him: You try!
Me: thinking to myself, this is a joke, I’ll blow this little weight and show him.
Me: Help, I am stuck at the bottom and can’t get up
Analysis:
I was humbled and he pointed me in the right direction and exposed me to something I wanted to do, but didn’t know about. From that point, I started reading, researching and experimenting and that is how I got into PL’er. I went from a wanna be monster in the gym, to a humble student of Pl’er always willing to learn and listen from others with more experience and bigger numbers that I have.
[quote]apwsearch wrote:
When I was 17 I had a buddy who moved down to Calumet City and told me I needed to come down to his gym and train and watch these guys lift. He talked about it all the time, this one guy in particular. Said it was unreal.
The gym was Quads. The guy was Ed Coan.
[/quote]
Very cool.