I competed raw at this meet, my first raw meet. I competed in the 181 lb (82.5 kg) weight class. Weighed in at exactly 82.5 kgs...which required the removal of all clothing, including underwear lol.
Squat:
402.2 lbs (182.5 kgs) 3 whites
424.2 lbs (192.5 kgs) 3 whites
440.7 lbs (200 kgs) 3 reds
Bench:
275.5 lbs (125 kgs) 3 whites
292 lbs (132.5 kgs) 3 reds
292 lbs (132.5 kgs) 3 reds
Deadlift:
501.5 lbs (227.5 kgs) 3 whites
523.5 lbs (237.5 kgs) 3 whites
540 lbs (245 kgs) 3 reds
I am pretty happy with my squat. My week off leading up to the meet I developed some inflammation in my lower back which wasn't relieved for the meet, so I was cognizant of it. Opener felt nice and strong, although I had a bit of a forward lean. My 2nd attempt was also good, although I also had a bit of a forward lean and my hips shot a bit up, so for a small portion of the lift I had to good morning the bar back into position. On my 3rd attempt I decided to descend a bit slower to try and maintain more of an upright posture but hit the hole pretty statically so the reversal was slow and took a lot out of me and didn't have enough speed or strength to finish the lift. Looking at some videos of my squats, I went WAY BELOW parallel - I mean like 3 inches below. This obviously is overkill and I will fix it but is also good in that my strength and speed out of the hole had been lacking and now is rectified. My weakness now is the portion of the lift about 2 to 3 inches above parallel.
Bench went terrible. Warm-ups felt fine, but 275 was much harder than it should have been. The lift-off guy was horrible and it was a pretty long press call but I got 275. I should have re-evaluated my 2nd attempt and did something lower but thought that the struggle with 275 was a fluke. Needless to say, it wasn't a fluke and I failed with 292 twice. I was slow off the chest and failed at about a 2-board.
Deadlift went ok. I have never felt as tired going into the deadlift as I did for this meet. All the warm-ups went fine though. 501 was a solid opener with no issues. I had meant to go for 529 for my second attempt, but mistakenly put 523 in. 523 while a little harder than 501, might be my most technically sound meet deadlift to date. I just wasn't strong enough for 540 by this time and got it about 3 to 4 inches off the ground and then my hips shot up and I was all out of position, so I just dropped it.
My plan for my next training cycle is as follows:
Squat - high box squats, pause squats, good mornings, and regular squats
Bench - pause bench, pin press, reverse band bench, overhead press
Deadlift - basically to deadlift more frequently, front squats, RDLs, and power cleans.
9 comments:
nice. how many of those lifts are raw PR's?
Nice job on the meet! I find it hard to imagine that your underwear weighed so much that taking it off made the difference in you making weight, but whatever! haha
@Luke - really only the squat was a PR. I have benched 300 in the gym with a slight pause and have DL'd 525 in the gym. But the meet DL was after squatting and benching, so I am happy with that.
@Scott - I originally weighed in at 82.7 kgs, so I pissed as best I could and spit into a cup for a little while. I then weighed in again at 82.6 kgs but asked to see what I weighed in lbs as they are measured more precisely and weighed in at 182.0 lbs, I needed to weigh 181.9 lbs. I was about to leave when another guy missed weight at 82.6 but asked to weigh naked and subsequently made weight. So I figured I would give it a shot and it worked. I doubt my underwear weighed 0.1 lbs, but it probably weighed enough so that when my weight was rounded it was rounded down to 181.9.
Nice lifting Matt! Good to see a post from you too - it's been a while.
Great work Matt!! I remember seeing your name on a roster on PLwatch for this meet. Were there a lot of people competing?
Damn !!! Great job Matt !!! Those are some big numbers !!!
Nice work Matt! I approve of the the shock-and-awe weigh-in technique, haha.
Also for your weak point training, i had two comments. I've had that same sticking point and the high box squats didn't seem to help. For me, they interfered with my stretch reflex and I didn't find a good carry over. What did work was chain-squatting or band-resisted free squatting. If possible, set up the chains/bands so they kick in right at your weak point. It will force you to accelerate when normally you would get stuck.
Second, you might consider swapping front squats for zercher squats. Since you're a sumo squatter, these will target your sumo motion better. Also, you can vary your stance to stay more or less upright depending on what you want to target. I find they have a better carry-over than front squats for me right now.
@Kyle - Thanks bud, and yes it has been a while since I last posted. I have just been lazy, but starting this next cycle I plan to post regularly.
@Vit - Thanks, and yes it was a large meet, especially for a local/regional meet. It was broken into two days with over 200 lifters. I have competed in a couple Robert Keller (meet director) meets and they have been top notch. Also of note, Lance Slaughter was there running the scorers table and announcing the meet. He actually remembered me and pulled me aside for a chat - such an awesome guy.
@Misael - Thanks man, I am generally happy with them, but am looking to keep improving. Unless I get a job somewhere other than the Northeast, my next meet will be an equipped one at the end of Feb in Albany. I am looking to total over 1500 to qualify for Nationals.
@Dave - Thanks for the input. In thinking about the squat, I was worried a little about selecting high box squats for a main movement considering all the progress I have made at the bottom of the lift. I don't want to regress. The chains/band-resisted idea makes sense.
Could you explain more of what you mean by varying my stance to more or less upright for the zercher squats?
For zerchers, you can think of it as two kinds of movements, where both have the same start position and both end with the bar lightly resting on your thighs. For one, you almost taco-squat it with hips high in order to lower the weight. This should be reminiscent of a sumo deadlift. You're bent over, but still in control in order to focus on the lower back. The strongmen I trained with over the summer used this variation for training the stones, since it's about the same position as when you get the stone to your knees.
In the second version, you try to keep your core upright and push the knees out as far as you can. This should really stretch the groin and I've seen some people do this with their toes touching the rack, almost at 180 degrees. This is sort of how Tom Eismann deadlifts, if you've seen videos of it. You'll be emphasizing the adductors, hips and legs more with this version, but it's still a lot of core work. I think this is probably the most similar to a front squat, but targets the sumo muscles. To get this version right, I generally have to keep the bar extremely close to my torso as I lower it, with it touching the top part of my thighs at the bottom, rather than closer to the knees as in the first version.
Both versions are extremely useful once you get the groove. You can even vary the form within sets depending on how you feel and what gets tired first. Also, both should be done without a belt, otherwise you end up hitting it on the way down and up which wrecks the form.
Post a Comment