Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Workout of the Day:
Take 10-15 minutes to work up to a heavy, but not max effort thruster;
and then,
“Fran”
Rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for time of:
95/65 lb. Thrusters
Pull-Ups
(Compare performance with 12/07/09.)

My First Powerlifting Meet
Written by Mark Riebel

Growing up I was always a competitive athlete, and after I finished my senior year of swimming in college, I had no outlet for that competitive side of me.  I dabbled with a few swim races here and there for fun in the subsequent years, and despite my extra 20 pounds, I still did ok (I attribute this mostly to the fact that very few people competed in Guam and that salt water is more buoyant than fresh).  When I was introduced to CrossFit in early 2008, I really enjoyed the competitiveness of the workouts, but something was missing.  Finally, a few months ago I decided that my absence from a real sport had grown too long and that it was high time to compete in something.  Since I’ve been a little obsessed with strength as of late, a powerlifting meet seemed like a pretty good choice.

For the past six months or so I’ve been almost exclusively training to increase my strength, religiously following Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program.  I like this program because it’s very simple, effective, and fits nicely with my school schedule here in Texas.  An upcoming meet fit perfectly with the built-in rest cycle of the program, so I purchased a membership in the USAPL and had my sights set on the Texas State Championships eight weeks from then.  Despite the advice against trying to make weight for my first meet, I decided to go ahead and drop a few pounds so that I could be grouped in with the 198lb. raw class rather than the 220’s since I walked around at about 210 or so.  I was fortunate enough to have Dutch Lowy get me in touch with his brother-in-law who was a competitive powerlifter himself and had some great advice in cutting weight for the meet.  All in all, it wasn’t too bad other than the fact that I was drinking 3-4 gallons of water a day the week of the competition.  If you’ve never done this, don’t bother.  I think I almost made myself hyponatremic and had to pee about every 20 minutes or so.  Oh well.  I’ve done much stupider things, and I slid in with a good three pounds to spare the morning of the meet without feeling any worse for the wear.

The morning of the meet came with all of the unexpectedness that you could think of.  I liked the idea of the USAPL since they have a pretty comprehensive drug-testing program, but little did I know that they’re also the strictest league out there when it comes to equipment and form for the lifts.  I needed knee-high socks for the deadlift (fortunately Target was nearby), couldn’t wear my Vibrams for the DL because of the toes (?), and had to change my foot and hand position on the bench to comply with the rules.  Whew.  Aside from all the nerves and last-minute adjustments I had to make, I finished up completing 8 of my 9 lifts with a 435 squat, a 319 bench, and a 468 dead, all PR’s.  Ok, so I had really done a 350 bench in the gym at one point, but in the meet you have to un-rack the weight, hold it motionless above you until they say start, bring it to your chest and hold it motionless until they say press, then hold it motionless again before they say rack it.  It’s a whole different world so I’m counting it as a PR anyway!

The whole experience was a positive one, and I learned more than I expected.  All of the lifters were very humble and more than willing to give me tips, the fact that I had a set goal in mind for competing in the meet motivated my training more than I could’ve hoped for, and I’ve certainly been bit by the bug as I’m already looking to the next meet in July and getting the Texas state record in the squat for 198 raw lifters (I’ve just got to find 10 more lbs. on my squat and I’ve got it!).  My advice to you—sign up for a competition.  It doesn’t have to be a PL meet, just pick something…a road race, an obstacle course, an Olympic weightlifting meet, it doesn’t matter.  You’ll light a fire under your butt like never before and probably have a blast doing it.  And don’t let me hear you say you’re not good enough at something yet before you compete in it.  You’re competing with yourself and for the sake of competing.  Worry about winning later if you want.  Ask any of our coaches if you need help picking something and they can help you get there!