F’ing right Mark! Helluva job on the platform. Such a great feeling after a successful meet like that, congrats.
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Massive well done mate! Happy for you. Hard work gets results!
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Wrecked it.
Mic drop.
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I can’t add anything to what the other guys have said.
Awesome work man, love to see the dedication pay off for you.
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SICK PR!!! what a way to start with those squats too!
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Thanks everyone. Very pleased. Scoresheet came out overnight and I came sixth out of 11. That’s a lot better than I expected going in.
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Great job Mark. Enjoy some recovery time before you get back to work.
What does the future look like for you. Will you continue at the weight and see how far you can go ? Do you have an end game in mind ?
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Immediate future is a week of rest with work to keep myself mobile. Probably lots of air squats and my bracing work. Then six weeks of hypertrophy and a deload. Then normal training until I peak in around five months. I think my best bet during hypertrophy is to see if I can push my everyday weight to 117 kg and hold it there. It’s halfway tempting to drop back into the 110s but it would be stupid. I’m making good progress and I’ll only get better as I get bigger. It seems like my set point now is between 113 and 114 kilos, so if I can push it to 117 without getting softer I’ll be in a good spot.
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End game is to fill out the 125s. Looking around at the meet I’m probably on the short end for the class, and chubby; but I think the chubby part is just me. For whatever reason, genetics or otherwise, I’m more naturally softer. I’m not sure what I’d have to do to change that, but I’m pretty sure it would involve changing my focus significantly for a fairly long time and for what? I don’t think I’d end up significantly stronger. I might just look different. I think it’s a much more realistic goal to get up to the low 120s at the kind of body composition I have now. I won’t ever have to worry about having the energy to move weights and if I stick in the low 120s I’ll never need to cut weight either. I’ll just be a big guy. Not pretty to look at, but performing.
I’ve just got to get my eating game back on, which I consciously let slide a bit the last couple of months. I was too taken up with fixing my back and worrying how this meet would go that I didn’t have the will to pound the food, and pound the right food. Now I’ve got pretty good evidence that my back is working again and I know I can perform, that’s a weight off my mind.
I’ll take some time this week to map out a loose plan of how to go about getting in more calories. Planning has always worked better for me than winging it.
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Just read the log from your last meet to this meet… What a roller-coaster ride you have had! Congrats on doing well at nationals mate, you deserve to walk away with those numbers considering you have had a pretty shit run going into the meet regarding your back and nausea and the several colds.
You probably deserve a fuckin holiday now! Haha look after yourself and take it easy for a little while yeah?
Again, well done!
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Thanks for taking the time mate. Means a lot.
I’ll have an easy week then into the hypertrophy. It’s been a rollercoaster like you said, but finished going up which is all I could ask for. It’s so different coming off a good meet unhurt compared to a bad meet and beat up. It’s put my head back where I need it to be. In between meets I think I’m only starting to realise how much effort I had to put into just showing up, let alone putting in the effort I know I can. There’s another really valuable lesson right there that only shit times teach.
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Hell yeah man, nice work!
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Hows the body @MarkKO ?
Awesome job mate! I totally forgot that comp was on in SA! I know pat Morrison and a couple of his lads were there and did decent as well. Looked like a pretty competitive field
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Woke at 254.6 lbs looking a little bloated but nothing extreme. Now to keep this trend going. Did a bunch of air squats followed by lying leg raises as soon as I got up. Didn’t count, just kept going until I felt loosened up.
@simo74 surprisingly normal. Back still has that lower stiffness which I think is more from sitting than anything. Other than that, normal. Which is fucking excellent.
@kleinhound some of the weight divisions were cutthroat, I think the 110s and 100s especially. The 125s were pretty evenly spaced once Ryan Williams bombed. He was sitting on a 615 kg subtotal but couldn’t hold onto the bar for deads. If he’d just hit his opener he would have won by 175 kilos. Some of the women went well too, like Keeta Davis hitting 600 kilos at 75. She won the class by 197.5 kilos. Our Tegan took second.
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Congratulations on your performance at the meet. I think you’re past due for a 600+ squat though.
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Thanks @chris_ottawa and I get what you mean. I toyed with the idea of going for 600 lbs for my third but I’m just cautious like that. Next meet I’ll attempt it for sure. Hell, my fatigued max next peak will be 594 lbs, so my third will be a bit over 600 lbs.
There are a lot of numbers I want, but the overridingly important one to me is my total and that dictates how pick my thirds. I want a 660 lbs deadlift really bad too, but just like with the 600 lbs squat I won’t take it until I know it’s there. The same applies to my bench, but that 400 lbs is far enough away I’m just looking at a few extra pounds each meet.
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I swear I’m getting sick again. Although I’m hoping it’s just a kind of reaction to the meet and coming down off all the adrenaline. We’ll find out either way.
Actually did some proper food prep too, since I’ve slacked off on the diet side of things.
3 kilos mince beef
3 tins lentils
3 tins kidney beans
1 bottle barbeque sauce
1 kilo couscous (dry weight)
Portioned into 10 tubs after I took out dinner and tomorrow’s lunch. They’re in the freezer and I’ll take one out every night for the next day. Should help keep the calories up and consistent.
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How do you not get the runs?
Yeah, I hear you. The main thing is that you keep making progress, soon enough those numbers will be warmup weights if you stay on the right track.
Seems to me like all the stress and excitement at a meet weakens your immune system, a couple times I woke up sick the day after a meet. This past winter I only got sick one time (a mild fever that I trained right through) and after the meet in the middle of spring (or what we call spring here in Canada) I had the worst cold I had in recent memory.
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