This was my second trip to a powerlifting National competition. (The first was in 2019, in Ottawa, at which time my main goal was to not be too starstruck, and to register a number in all three lifts.)
TLDR
Lots of learning, some of which not great on the ego, but yay deadlift PR!
St. John’s, Yes, B’y!
Other initial thoughts coming out of this competition:
- I absolutely love this community of people!
- The meet was incredibly well organized
- Eleiko equipment is pretty sweet to lift on
- St. John’s was an awesome place to visit! (Including the community feel at the GoodLife Fitness gym at Village Mall… did you know they even have fancy massage chairs there?)
- It is actually good to bring my own chalk with me
First, the Actual Lifts
For those who may wish to eyeball any of my lifts, here’s the link for day one, session one, platform two.
As the first lifter on the first day, I started the whole shebang off! Unfortunately the technical team was also warming up a bit, so for the squats, my first one was missed, plus there is no audio and the wrong platform info is showing on the banners.
Squat
2nd attempt 67.5 kg at approximately 11:00 (it’s quite a grind on the way up); 3rd attempt 70 kg at 20:20
Bench
(Technical glitches are resolved re: audio/ platform info)
1st attempt was 40 kg, at approximately 1:45:30; 2nd attempt, 42.5 kg 1:53:40 ; 3rd attempt 45 kg, 2:03:10
Deadlift
Our flight (i.e. my grouping of lifters) was unfortunately not captured on this video. I’ll have to wait for the media package to see it, and I’m still also waiting for the official results to be posted.
Bench Only
Here’s the link to day four, session one, platform one.
The first attempt wasn’t captured (at 40 kg). The 2nd attempt was about 9:27, and the 3rd attempt around 20:53. Both 2nd and 3rd attempts were 50 kg.
And the Food Stuff… (‘Cause There’s Always Food Stuff)
As always, please remember that I am not a nutritionist. Any results come from doing my own research and a lot of self-experimentation.
As background, I usually train fasted at home (i.e. not eating during the day until after I have trained), and I decided to give fasting competition a shot on the first day (three lift), with the exception of eating 50 g of dark chocolate around noon shortly before the deadlift, which is when the initial adrenaline is fading somewhat and fatigue is normally setting in.
Results? It could’ve been a lot worse, honestly, and now I have a baseline for it at least. My numbers did suffer a little due to it (in addition to the fact that I weighed in 1kg lighter than I had expected), particularly squat and bench, but it does match well with my other life preferences. If I do decide to compete that way again, I will just get more used to it the more I do it.
Then I did a large carb-up in the days following the three-lift day to see what a bit more weight and muscle glycogen stores would do for my bench. It was really no magic bullet, and honestly I felt rather yucky from even doing it, so that also goes with my general life preferences.
My Biggest Takeaways on Lifting and Learning
It’s too bad that my first squat was missed in the video, because you could have caught the announcer’s quip that I was the “rawest of the raw” as a lifter – no knee sleeves, no elevated shoes, and no belt – and that we were lucky I was even wearing a singlet 😉 This is who I am as a lifter, and the contrast against other people does show up most in the squat. I also value working towards being a pound-for-pound lifter with a good relative strength ratio instead of absolute numbers and working to remain near the top of my weight class, type thing.
In my paradigm of functional fitness and basically wanting to age well, I feel like as opposed to a front-weighted squat, back squats are just, well, weird… I don’t really need them in my life too much outside of a type of competition that lets me be able to bench and deadlift. (Again, I’m also very minimalist, and from that perspective, I see a lot of the other competitors barely breaking parallel, even with their elevated lifting shoes on.)
Bench… Ouch. I had decided to make a bold move with the 10 kg jump for my second attempt, which as a positive, let me tackle the same weight twice in a row, and it did feel somewhat more solid after a refocus.
That bit about no battle plan surviving first contact with the enemy: that was me and my little internal setup once there was 50 kg on the bar. I really need to improve coherent, full-body tension – my internal workings did step up somewhat, but it’s not good enough yet. As an example, the bar is descending much too slowly.
Similarly, regarding “game face,” making the switch from everyday / casual to hard work: I often have to relax myself more because I get stuck in tense. My regular-life game face would be more about dancing into a situation; that’s great for much of life but not adequate for attaining PRs!
Next Nationals
I will be switching my focus slightly over the coming months to prepare to pass my SFG2, but I think I can concurrently train deadlift and bench if I’m smart about programing and recovery. These Nationals had me almost reach a double-bodyweight deadlift, and I’m gunning to hit that next year. I’m still aiming for my bodyweight bench, although that would be pretty darn unrealistic to get there that soon. I’m happy with incremental gains on my squat, as I will be training other squat variants until we get much, much closer to Nationals.
And You?
Keep in touch: What are you working towards? How are you getting there?