This meet did not exactly go according to plan, not by a long shot.
I weighed in at 209 lbs, which was pretty much spot on in terms of what I expected. I didn’t do any sort of cut, but close to a fortnight of carb cycling is starting to show results.
Let’s start with what went wrong after weighing in. I couldn’t keep my upper back tight for the squats. My last warm up felt off, my first attempt went up fast enough but felt like garbage and I got stapled by my second. It unracked fine, better in fact than my first, and I felt fine going down but got pinned in the hole. Passed the third. Call it defeatist but I knew I was done for squats. There goes my target total. No point in risking injury. It was rushing my setup and the old elbows at the bottom of it all: once they start flaring up, I can’t squeeze the bar tightly and I can’t pull my elbows under the bar and that means my upper back isn’t tight at all. Solution: since I won’t have a full power meet until March 2016 I’ll do all my squatting with the SSB or spider bar for the next couple of months. It’ll get my upper back strong too. Also no chin ups. Their cost to my elbows is too high compared to the benefits.
Following on with what didn’t go my way, to my disappointment deadlift just wasn’t happening. Warm ups felt fine. First attempt felt fine. Second got stuck below the knee. Re-attempted and same deal. Just could not move it. Couldn’t even get a good rage going. There goes my chance of even getting close to my target total.
Did anything go right? Well, all my openers were pretty much spot on. If I hadn’t set them out as I did I’m not entirely sure I’d have any total at all.
Bench press went as well as I could have hoped under any circumstances let alone a day like it was. My third attempt was at the high end of my planning for a 22 lb PR with what felt like about 5 lb to spare. That really was the highlight of the meet for me.
Finally, despite only going 5/9 I set a new PR total of 1243 lbs, improving on my previous best total of 1215.5 lbs by 27.5 lbs. The fact that I’m 13 lbs heavier now obviously had something to do with it but right now I’ll take what I can get.
I won’t lie: I’m pretty disappointed. I went in with high hopes, and high expectations. I wanted to total over 1320 lbs, and I was sure I would do that. Next time. Next time I’m getting it right.
I’m not angry with myself though. I didn’t take stupid second attempts for the squat and deadlift. They were both 10 lb PRs which I’d comfortably come within 10 to 20 lbs off in the month leading up to the meet. I didn’t train too heavy leading up to the meet: in the nine days prior I trained once, hitting my squat and bench openers and they felt light. So, it was just a bad day for squats and deadlifts. Maybe wrapping someone’s knees for the first flight (I was in the third) had something to do with it, but I doubt it. I’m certainly not going to hang my under par performance on that, because I had my knees wrapped for me, so it isn’t like I had to do extra wrapping.
Here is the playlist of all my attempts except my first bench press.
GPC Canberra Cup 2015 at PTC Canberra: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyS0a9-Wd5n_QVmDkanODAEjCtGYYWnL9
For the record, my attempts were:
Squat: 440 lbs, failed 495 lbs (stapled in the hole), pass
Bench: 242 lbs, 264 lbs (PR), 275 lbs (PR)
Deadlift: 528 lbs, failed 572 lbs (just below knees), failed 572 lbs (just below knees)
Well, I’ve got a push pull meet at PTC Canberra on 6th December.
I’m going to squat just in sleeves and with the SSB out of the mono for lighter weights to work on speed and technique. I need to figure out exactly what width is best for me and groove that. I know its wide and in flats, but whether its medium wide or wide I need to pinpoint.
I’ll train bench exactly as I have since it seems to work and I won’t change much for deadlift either as I just need to get stronger.
The way I look at it, this was an important learning experience.
