This past Saturday was my very first powerlifting meet (NASA Colorado Grand Championships). While I’ve “officially” been training, powerlifting style, for about one year now, have gone and watched a few meets, I really didn’t know what to expect from myself as I ventured to perform out in front of judges, family, and spectators. Well, here is a log/rundown of what I can remember. Hopefully it provides some entertainment value as well as, for those new to powerlifting, some insight into what a meet day might look like.
5:00am – woke up, the meet was a good 2 hour drive so had to leave the house by 6:00am if I wanted to get there early enough for weigh-ins that were between 8:00am and 9:00am. The first thing I did, after taking out and feeding the dog, was weigh myself. I was planning on lifting in the 90kg class but unfortunately the scale just tipped at 200lb. Not a big deal, being my first meet I really didn’t care, just wanted some experience and fun. The biggest question, since I’d been trying to lose water weight by not drinking for 12 hours was to decide if I wanted to break my fast and drink or eat anything. I decided to stay on the fast as I might lose a bit more on the way driving and, who knows, my scale might be off. During the rest of this one hour block I started putting together my food for the day. This included two peanut butter, banana, & honey (lots) sandwiches on full grain bread. These sandwiches I decided to put into Tupperware containers (because of the mess) and eat with a spoon at the meet. Made a double brew of tea, poured it into a 20oz container, and added lots of honey. Also in my big snack bag were apple sauce, grape juice, electrolyte replacement drink, one foo-foo sports drink, and plenty of “clean” water (about two gallons). While I didn’t know how much water i was going to need, since I’d been water deprived for the last 14 hours, I wanted to make sure I had plenty to pump in my body without needing to run for nasty tap water somewhere.
6:05am – in car and driving. This was mostly uneventful except for the fact I did get lost. Mapquest said 5 miles off the main highway when in fact it was just under 1. Thanks to my wife and her great ability to use her BlackBerry navigation we were back on track and there just after 8:00am.
8:15am – checked in at the registration desk and proceeded to weigh-in. As expected I weighed in at 200.7 pounds, just a couple shy of the 90kg class. Oh well, not a big issue. I gave my opening attempts to the judge (314/265/408) and proceeded to drink, drink, and drink more. Also, since the 2 hour drive put a lot of stress on my IT Band and Piriformis muscle, started doing some foam rolling. Thank God someone brought a foam roller. Did the foam rolling for about 10 minutes, added in some stick message and stretches for chest and shoulders and was done warming up for the time being.
9:00am – Lifting was to begin at 10am but I’d probably not be lifting until 11am so I decided to eat my first sandwich and sip on my tea.
10:00am – Started warming up for squat. For me, I have noticed that, if i stretch a fair amount, I tend to warm up quickly and easily. Often times when I’ve tried to max out at my home gym I tended to do too many sets and reps. For squat, my warmup consisted of deep knee bends (2 sets of 8), squats (135lb X 3 for 2 sets), (225 X 1), & (275 X1) where each set was about 10 minutes apart. I also added in some more foam rolling and chest and should stretches just to make sure nothing tightened up under the bar.
From this point on I lost total track of time and when things happened. What I do know is the following:
Squat – 1st attempt went up smooth as silk. 315lbs was something I have done X3 and X5 for a long time. It was very important, with this being my first meet, to make extra sure that regardless of what would happen on the platform I’d make this lift, even if I had to recover and nearly raise the weight with my whole lower back. 315lb is something I normally do romainians with so I knew I was set with this weight. 2nd attempt was 364lb, something I’ve done plenty of times but was a nice springboard and close enough to my 3rd attempt weight. This also went up fairly easy. 3rd attempt, 402lbs, was something I’ve not actually done since my early college days. I felt strong, the weight felt easy coming off the racks, I was stable going down, and I popped nicely out of the hole. Honestly I don’t really know what went wrong with this lift as I felt very comfortable with it. I’ll have to watch the video a few more times but I’m thinking I just didn’t sit back enough on it as my quads seemed very stressed and didn’t remember much feeling in the hips and hams.
Bench – my warmup for bench was also somewhat uneventful and consisted of some more chest and shoulder stretches, and sets of squat that consisted of 45X8, 95X3, 135X2, and 225X1. The unfortunate part of my bench warmup, that I didn’t notice, was that there were additional bench-only lifters that I hadn’t counted on being around. Thus I warmed up way too early and was siting around for a good 45 minutes before my wave started. For this reason I decided to just do another 225X1 about 15 minutes before my wave started. As far as my bench went, it went better than it ever has, no shoulder pain and dropping of the left shoulder like I’ve come to expect as I lift. I opened with 265lb, decided to increase my second more than planed to 292lb, and then also increase my 3rd more than I was expecting to for a PR of 304lb. Quite nice other than I probably undershot by at least 15lbs, maybe as much as 25lb as the judges told me. I’ll surely have to recalibrate this over the next couple of months.
Deadlift – my warmup for deadlift was probably as minimal as possible. While I didn’t drive my legs too much in the bench, they were still quite warm as I did nothing but pace a lot. I decided to work out some of the kinks by more foam rolling and then perform the following sets with at least 10 minutes in between sets: 135X2, 225X2, 225X1, and 315X1 and then more foam rolling along with some stick message. My opener, 408, was again something I’ve done for multiples but was clearly needed to just get into the 400′s and set up my 2nd and 3rd attempts. Deadlift form was something I’d been struggling with the last couple months so I decided to play it conservative, just wanting to break a 1100 total, and attempt a 2nd of 435. This also went up fairly easy without any real sticking points. At this point I decided to go for broke, try and hit another PR, and break the 100kg Colorado State record (NASA) by selecting 474. This too, while a bit heavy, went up without any real issues.
For my first meet I was quite satisfied. A couple of PRs and some valuable information about missing and making both good and bad attempt selections. I’m actually glad I missed one of my lifts as it will actually fuel me as well as teach me valuable lessons as I look back. I hope you enjoy the VID of my lifts. It is a bit boring to me, painful to watch my squating, but IS a starting point that I can always look back to. Clearly next step is some brutal training as I ready myself for my next meet which will be a USAPL push/pull in Denver, CO. Stay tuned as I post my training logs.
