Wow. What a day! I can honestly say that, as a whole, the March 7th NorCal Powerlifting meet was my best meet performance. I’ve said many times that I’ve learned something at every meet I’ve done, good and bad. At this one I learned three absolitely HUGE things about meet prep and the day itself.
Overall, my training going into the meet was very good. I don’t recall missing any lifts, with the exception of a shot-in-the-dark bench attempt about 5-6 weeks ago. I did have a little back tweak on a deficit deadlift day about six weeks out but I took care of it and it went away pretty quickly. All-in-all I felt like I was supposed to coming down the stretch.
This leads into the first lesson. I really nailed my taper down to the meet. I’d been doing a fair amount of volume and accessory work for the months leading in. With about a month to go I started cutting down on the accessory work and did a little more high weight work on the competition lifts. I did my openers three weeks out and then did lighter rep work the following week. About 60% of 3 sets of 6-8. I did each lift twice that week and then the final week I did 3 sets of 5-6 at about 50% on Sunday and Tuesday. Doing this I felt fresh, but also still ready to go.
Lesson 2. Breathe! During my squat warmups I started to get a little nervous. This happens to me from time to time with squats. The stress of timing my squat warmups, getting wrapped and getting the first lift in is always a little nerve wracking. Anyway, I started to feel my heart really race and when I took a 275 warmup (about 150 pounds less then my opener) and it felt like 800 pounds I knew I had to settle myself down. I slowed everything down and worked on my breathing. I concentrated on breathing in and out slowly and deeply and then took and easy 315 and 385.
Lesson 3. Nutrition. I never felt like I really figured out how to eat on meet day. I knew to eat light and stay hydrated but it was always a little bit of mystery to me. What I did on this day was treat each lift like it’s own seperate training session. Meaning during warmups and each lift eat/drink my usual workout drink. This and a few small snacks did the trick. After each lift I had a dip in energy but by the time the next lift came around I was back up and felt great.
Onto the lifts!
Squats – As I mentioned before, once I got my breathing under control my warmups felt good and solid. My last warmup at 385 was fine and I felt under control. I hit my 429 opener pretty easily. I hit my 451 OK with a pretty good sticking point in the middle, but I felt OK enough to give 463 a shot. Unfortunately, I lost my tightness at the bottom and wasn’t able to recover. I was pretty OK with my 451, though.
Bench – My warmups here felt pretty good. I went up to 225 for a pretty easy double. I opened with 253 and it flew up with no problem. Here was my nemesis, though. I have attempted 276 at every single meet I’ve ever done and have never been able to hit it. I have hit it twice in the gym, but never at a meet. Having said that, I nailed it here and felt great! I went for 281 on my third and got pretty stapled. I think that I was so happy to hit my 276 that I was kind of mentally done for my third. Overall, I was very happy to hit that 276 here.
Deadlift – It was getting late in the day and after bench I definitely felt a little tired but about 30 minutes before my deadlift warmups I started really feeling good. In the warmup room, everything absolutely flew up. A few people asked me how I felt and I was actually afraid to tell them. I went up to 415 and I think that was just as fast as my 225. I opened with 474 and it was easy. I took 501 on my second and it was just as easy. My main goal for the day was to hit a PR total so I went a little conservative here and went for a 513 so I could hit that number. This one took an extra second to get off the floor but came up pretty well after that for a new PR total of 1240!
The total PR meant a lot to me because I hit my previous one about two year ago and weighing in at almost 17 pounds heavier. Adding to that, the last meet I did was the worst one I’ve done so being to hit this felt like one heck a victory for me.
You can check out the video of my lifts below.
Thanks for reading!
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach, FMS
2861 Grove Way in Castro Valley
510-754-7113
I Help People Discover Their Strength!
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