I guess I’ll start by saying that the meet did not go according to plan, but it never really does.
I weighed in on Friday morning at 272. I trained the majority of the meet cycle at around 278 so once I weighed in I tried to gain that weight back. I think I put it on pretty easily, and I was excited going into Saturday.
Squats
Warmups felt great. Everything was on point. I worked up to 690 with my straps down. I finished this set and walked up to the flight roster to see where I was at. Literally on my way up I heard my name … then “the bar is loaded”. Some how I missed the start of my flight – and I had 60 seconds to start my lift. I had 2 different guys from my gym wrap both my knees simultaneously. I ran out on the platform, forgetting to tighten my belt, and not even tightening my straps (which were pretty much draped over my shoulders). 1 minute after taking my last warmup I was on the platform with my opener weight of 733.
I unracked it awkwardly, sat back hard. It felt like I was about parallel when I heard my handler tell me I had about 2 inches to go. I dipped and came up with a very very tough opener of 733. It was good 2-1. I was in the meet.
I went up to 777 on my 2nd. I unracked this one great, sat back … and waited for an eternity for my up call. I heard my handler yell “one”, and I dipped and my right knee twisted and smashed into the platform and dumped the bar hard into the safety chains. This sucked. Looking at the video I just tried to dip and just got buried.
My right knee was killing me and I decided there was no point in going after my 3rd squat and risking injury. So I passed on my 3rd. In doing this I knowingly passed on my goal total but it was an easy call.
Benches
During warmups, everything in my hands after 185 felt heavy. I knew this was going to suck. I worked up to 455 off 2 boards.
I opened with 474 and it seemed to take forever for me to lock it out. My handler said it was the best rep he’s ever seen me do but I think he was lying. We decided to go to 507 for my 2nd. I thought this was heavy but do-able, especially since bench training has been going great. I ended up missing this twice. So at this point I have 1 squat and 1 bench to my name.
Deadlifts
I eat about 600mg of Ibuprofen so my knee quits aching. I warm up to 500 and decide to drop my opener from 638 to 606. This day has been hellacious so far, and with the number of bomb outs I’m sure if I just stay in the meet I’ll get to the Arnold. That I don’t know how my knee is going to appreciate heavy dead lifts.
606 was a smoke show.
Went up to 660 (300kg) for my 2nd. I got it but it felt heavy.
At this point I just assume go for my first 700+ meet pull, and go to 705 (320kg). To be honest I didn’t think I’d get this but somehow I stood up with it. It felt like the bar stopped moving twice but both times I got it moving again and locked it out. This is a 75lb meet PR.
So despite only getting my openers on squat and bench, I go 3 for 3 on deadlifts and finish with a 22lb meet PR of 1912 – which is hysterical.
This meet was the toughest meet I have ever seen in multi-ply lifting. LOTS of people bombed. The judging was extremely strict, which I’m sure you will see more about on EFS whenever Julia Ladewski and Adam Driggers update their logs.
For my incredible 5 for 8 performance, I was invited to day 2 of the XPC Finals at the 2013 Arnold Classic. I’m pretty excited about this, even with my lackluster performance.
I haven’t yet combined my videos into a single one yet, but here is the 705 pull. I’m pretty sure the head judge threw a red my way for a hitch. I don’t remember hitching but the video makes it look bad.
