Very nice, HNG. Looking forward to the story.

Maybe for page 1000 they could fix this thread.

But I doubt it.

How long in between attempts and how long between lifts?

With weightlifting you could be done with your 3 attempts in 5 minutes (if someone gamed you on your 3rd attempt you only get a one minute clock), then wait for the rest of the flight plus the 10 minute break and then onto the clean and jerk.

You guys are lifting all afternoon seems like, would be a bitch trying to time warm-ups and not build up too much fatigue waiting for your next attempt.

Alright.First off I'm going to talk about the meet in chronological order just to keep it simple with some thoughts about different areas at the end.

This was my first USAPL meet. I had done a RPS meet before this one. The USAPL meet was held in Pleasantville NY about 2 hours away. The facility was called Westchester Barbell Coalition. When I signed up for this meet I also had to become a member of USAPL for about ~$45 if my memory serves me correctly. + the cost of the registration for the meet which was ~$100. The main purpose of this meet was to qualify for nationals in october. Of course I wanted to total well, and place well but the main goal was to qualify and get my feet wet with USAPL's meets/rules.

There were 2 lifting sessions an AM and a PM. I was scheduled in the PM but I left my house around 5:30 just to beat the traffic and get familiar with any hiccups or glitches I might encounter when I go to lift. I arrived around 7am. During this time the AM lifters were scheduled to weigh in. They did the weigh-ins in the bathroom which was very small and only had 1 toilet and 1 urinal. Multiply that by about 120 lifters, all hyped up on caffeine and you got some long lines for the bathroom. I noted that weigh-ins took quite long so I made sure I was first in line for my weigh-ins so I wasn't standing in line for 90 minutes.

The building was a gym that had 2 main areas. The first was a "lifting area" of the gym. Complete with racks, bars and plates. Most of the bars were oly bars that some lifters complained about but it didn't really bother me. The other area was a turf field that held the spectators and the lifting platforms. This was a 2 platform meet. Which in the morning didn't seem to be a big deal at all, just don't be on the wrong platform and I was good to go. I was wrong. The platforms were a wooden frame covered in carpet.

The AM lifting session began. One of the issues were that they had moved peoples flights around. Add that to the fact the announcer's voice couldn't be heard in the warm-up room resulted in a cluster fuck for a lot of lifters. Dudes would run in "Mike Smith?!?, Michael? Dude your up!" "WHAT? I THOUGHT I WAS I FLIGHT B?" "They're calling your name now!!" "SHIT,SHIT, FUCK, SHIT!"
I made note of this so that it didn't happen to me. If it did I would have been livid. This is one of my gripes about the meet. It was simply unorganized at times.

One of the things that USAPL is notorious for is hitting squat depth. I believe this may be rooting in the fact that many lifters let their knees go too far forward and even though they are squatting low, they aren't breaking parallel. From what I saw during the AM lifting was that all of the calls were great. I didn't see them red light one "good squat" and actually some of the squats that I thought they were going to red light, they white lighted them.

AM session came and went. Time to weigh in for PMs. I was second in line so that I didn't wait forever and I could warm up and stretch while others were weighing in . I was heavier, then I got sick so I ending up weighing in at 206. 1 pound into this weight class. There were many more lifters in the 93kg weight class so honestly I didn't really care.

During the rule clinic, the meet director said that his order for the medals got screwed up. I honestly got a little confused on what exactly he was eluding to when he was talking about medals. Again, I just wanted to do well. I didn't really care about the ranking or the medals at that moment I just wanted to lift.

Flights were posted, and I must have checked mine 1000 times. I started to warm up with squats my hip was hurting me. I had injured this hip before and stretching wasn't helping it. I figured fuck it. This isn't training, if it hurts, it hurts. It's not preventing me from doing anything. Worked with 135 a few times, and videod myself to make sure I was hitting depth. 225. 315-slow and felt heavy. Fuck. Pulled my knee sleeves up, threw my belt on hit 405 like it was nothing.

Walked out to the field and waited for my name to be called up for my squat opener.
BARS LOADED
Got my grip, walked it out....Easy.
RACK!
3 whites. The first of every lift, especially the squat is always the most nerve racking for me.

465. 3 whites
.
474 - got my grip, walked it out. "ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!"
3 whites. 40 lb. meet pr, 25lb stance pr. 10lb all time pr.

"and halfnattygainz powers the lift up!" I heard the announcer say as it points at me. Shit, thanks man. Most people hardly know my name, he was giving me a shoutout. Pretty cool thing to hear. At this point though I take my belt off and realize that my quads, hams and back are fucked. I could barely stand. I put a lot into that squat. That's okay though I got a while until deadlifts.

Bench time. Warm up. Get called up for my opener of 292.
Start. Press. Rack. Felt good. 3 whites.
"Hey son, you gotta keep your feet flat when benching" <- This is one of USAPL's rules. And I honestly thought I was all the footage from training I never though I had an issue with that. He tells me my feet are rolling inward.
"Yessir. Will do"

I get called up for 308.
START. Press. I get it about halfway up and think *hmm his voice sounded kinda different*  fuck it, get it up.
Rack. 3 Red. The judge tells me I didn't wait for the command, I chuckle and tell him that I thought the other platforms command was for me. It was my fault, I should have been more aware. The other judge tells me about my feet again. But they felt as flat as can be. I could feel the blade edge of my foot pressing into the ground. But perhaps it wasn't. I wish I had footage of this so I could see there the problem was.


The other platform about 10 ft. away called press for their lifter. I didn't wait for my press command. No lift.
308 again. I walk up to the platform and the whole fucking carpet slides when I walk up to the bench. I almost feel. But tried not to let it break my focus. Unrack, judges are taking forever with the start command. I shimmy my feet outward. Little more..little more...okay alot more. (I'm holding 308 in my hands while I'm doing this) It's tough to describe but with an arch the bench when I put my feet back this will keep my butt on the bench. If I put my feet more outward my butt will come up. Which is ultimately what happened. I get it up and I get stuck at the lock out, grind that shit out.
RACK! 1 white 2 reds. I was told my butt came off the bench. I nod, walked back behind the curtain a little pissed off. I fucked up. But I try to remember the main goal, this was practice for nationals. So if I can clean up my form now, I'll have a much better meet in october. This would have been really sucky if it happened then. The only other consolation was that I know where my weak point is on my bench pretty well now. In design my next programs I know where to target.

At this point I'm trying to stay focused and fired up but I know that I left a good 30 lbs on the platform with my shitty as bench. It won't be possible now to hit any kind of goals I set for totals.

I also see some dudes with screws and drills drilling the carpet into the wooden platforms. Apparently it wasn't only me slipping on the carpet.

Deadlift time. My back is still pretty fucked up, along with my hamstrings and quads. Warm up 135, 225 - felt slow and heavy. 315 felt even more slow and heavy. I got out to one of the organizers and ask I can lower my deadlift opener. I do to 480 for originally 550. And honestly this is very kind of them. I didn't think I was allowed to do this until someone told me.

At this point, everyone in the warm-up room looks confused and angry. Apparently one platform was done benching while the other was still on 1st attempts. I'm not quite sure how that happened, if it was poor flight sizes or poor meet. What really ticked guys of was that they weren't saying whether or not they would wait for the other platform or just continue on to deadlifts. They left a lot of guys out in limbo. Luckily I wasn't in that flight. I was after them.
I pull 405, felt good.
455, felt really good. Now I have a little confidence back in myself.

Get called up 480, 3 whites. Felt like a warm up, lol
I go to 535 3 whites, pretty easy.
550 3 whites. felt pretty good. I felt like I may have had another 5-10 lbs in my deadlift but that's okay.

I'm not sure exactly what happened in the awards but I heard a lot of whispers of "bullshit." as they were calling guys up. I'm not going to say anything with certainty until the results are posted but from what I was told that instead of each division then each subdivision rankings, they did each division then group all the Teens together and ranked them by wilks points. So a 120+kg junior lifter was competing against a 83kg junior lifter. From what I was told this is not how it should be done. I didn't expect to place but I didn't want to either. I didn't want to go home with an award for have a poor performance like I did.

Finished at 1316 if my math is correct. Pretty disappointed in my performance. Way below my goal of 1400. But I failed that goal way before I even stepped on the platform. Piss poor programming and performance inside the gym. But I did qualify and I did practice and find some areas I need to work on for nationals so in that regard I did fine.

The meet in general was organized wasn't that great. They had many issues that shouldn't have been there. If asked to recommend a meet I would recommend RPS before I would recommend USAPL.

Areas I need to improve:
Programming
Bench form.
Better "bulking" diet.
More effort inside the gym


HOLY SHIT THAT WAS A LONG POST!

I'll post meet results as soon as they're available.

TLDR!

Thanks for the AAR. Sounds like you did really well on your squat. Looking at your other two lifts, my bet is you could add quite a bit to your bench.

That sounds like fun, HNG. I suppose that commands issue will just take some experience to recognize whonis talking to you. Run into that issue at youth wrestling tournaments where the mats are packed in close with numerous commands being given.

That meet sounds like a good success to me. You learned a lot. If you don't have anyone to bench with in your neck of the woods and you feel like driving to northern VA my garage is open. I'm no expert but I love bench press.

Congrats again!

Thanks. To me this is one of the most important things. I did jiu jitsu for about 3 years when I was in high school. With jiu jitsu you literally lose every 15 seconds with an experienced person. But when you lose you learn. I'm going to talk with a few guys at my gym and see about programming for my bench.

OK finally read it. Good job. Some nice lifts at your weight.

Nice write up.
-- nice lifts!




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Deadly weekend.     Lifted/ran with crossfit chick.   7miles Friday, 7 Saturday, one hr cycling Friday, 2 hours cycling today...


Lifting yesterday was deads 5x3 @ 75% (455) followed by 5 reps of 135lb power snatch/thrusters EMOM... For 30minutes      Nearly puked the last 5 minutes.


I got crossfit chick to PR her deadlift at 275... Double body weight.


Embarrassed the platform of dudes Next to us when she deadlifted more than them...  Hahahaha

Thanks guys. I wasn't really even expecting people to read the whole thing, lol.
I'm already working on my next meet prep.

Awesome work HNG! Thanks for the write-up.

Great Job, HNG! Sounds like you really have your shit together, my comps are normally a total shitshow.

Had a Strongman "clinic" on sunday. Stones, log, yoke. Worked on my "split pick" for the yoke, as I definitely take too much time on that first step, and have the leg strength (in my normal class) to just pick the yoke in a split and start walking. Got on the log too, nothing heavy, right at 160, but I was surprised how much tension I had to keep to prevent the log from rolling off my rack. It was definitely a radically different muscle memory from barbell or axle "presses" since that weight rests very close to my joint stacks, while the log diameter prevents this.




I didn't tape, because I hadn't planned to use tacky but the 180# stone was waaaaaaaaaaay too light, and I was curling it a little to get it into my lap, which is a bad bad habit. Still, I was one of only a handful of guys who could get the 295 stone, and easily the smallest. #feelsgoodman

Good workouts this weekend:

Friday afternoon hit an all time squat PR: 345 for a double. I am now stronger than I have ever been in my entire life. I had working sets of deads afterwards, I was working with 295 and feeling it so I banged out 10. Thats a working set PR as well, and should put me dangerously close to pulling 405 soon.

Sunday had a 4.6 mile run up to and back from a fire tower. 2.3 miles there with a little over 400 feet of gain, it was brutal, especially for a guy from the southeast. Finish time was 49:03. Incrementally getting better each day...

Good job man.  My left forearm has the remnants of three different bruises/rashes on it.  The oldest is over a month old and it's still there.

It is crazy how much more difficult the log is.  It was a game changer for me when I started taking a huge breath prior to the clean (after the pick from the floor) and just holding it through the rack and the press.  But still my log is a good 50# behind my axle.

Hit sets of 8 on back squat today.

315x8
365x8
385x8
395x8

Done.

Body weight only day.

Chins
BW x 10 x 10

Dips
BW x 10 x 15

I need squat advice.

High bar has been beating up my back lately. Even light weights are making it unhappy. Decided to try low bar for the first time in forever. Started with 225 3x5, then did doubles as long as my form held up. Last set was with 275, second rep being pretty grindy. It's the heaviest I've squatted in a long awhile and my back was feeling fine

Of course, the problem that caused me to abandon low bar in the first place started showing up; my left elbow and upper arms were feeling wrecked. Last time, I let it get so bad that even opening doors or driving would cause intense pain and it took a long time to clear up.

So how do I low bar squat without destroying my arms? I tried thumbs, no thumbs, different hand placements but nothing seemed to help much. I was focusing on trying to keep my elbows down and tucked to stay tight.

Mobility will help alot. Mark Bell has a similar issue where his elbow is fucked up so he can't get the bar lower on his back.
Be sure to warm up the shoulders and stretch them out too.
Wrist wraps may help too. Bar placement and grip with will be a comfort thing. There's not really a right and a wrong within reason.

Maybe some straps so you can change the angle of your arms.

I was only sort of listening but the Kabuki Warrior podcast had some info about how a low bar squat will put more tension on the elbows and cause a lot of pain during the bench press.  His recommendation was that people stay with high bar as much as possible.

That's what works for me. Low bar fucks with my elbows something fierce.

Great job HNG! Glad I stopped in to read about your meet.

Chris Duffin knows his shit. I listen to what he says big time.

Thanks man

03! How's school going? Couple week break for me then a couple classes over the summer.

Have fun on your break. Doing anything fun?

Im still plugging away. I definitely want to be a psych nurse. My clinical at the local psych hospital has been awesome.

I went to the gym yesterday to bench and went 3 times 2 weeks ago. Im getting soft but I just dont have the time Wife and I will run together bout once a week.

Working at the range has been fun. It definetly forces me to scedule time for school work. Plus shooting a SCAR 17 is almost like lifting...right?

The last few weeks since doing a de-load have been uninspired.  

I can't seem to get motivated to lift.  I hate it when this happens.  I'm just going through the motions.

Do not take this preworkout called Psychotic by insanelabz holy fuck I think I'm going to die. This shit is nuts

They named it Psychotic preworkout and it's made by Insane Labs... Isn't that the clue?

Link?

Never mind. Found it. Might order a sample pack...  It was that good?

I got a sample of it from the local vitamin place when I picking up some protein. I heard it was strong but damn.

Let me know what you think. You know how I like it

Yesterday squats and single leg work.  Then 7hour drive.

Today sitting in job interviews for 7 straight hours (no kidding, 4 different groups) while sore and trying to get comfortable in crappy chairs with a sore ass and legs.  Probably looked like a 4 year old that needed to pee.

One more dinner/interview left and then drive home tomorrow.  Probably do squats when I get home to work out the extreme levels of nervous tension.  And soreness.

How did the interviews go? Are you relocating?

Regional manager of the western states called my resume 'legendary'.  See what happens when you sell your soul to the company kids?  Some random stranger will be impressed....

They went fine.  I'm exhausted and cranky, sick and tired of being nice.  I need to either go to GD and tell some of those two bit dumbasses what I think...  Or stay out and relax.

I've got the rest of this week and all of next week off, considering quitting next week without another job lined up (or at least official offer and start date) just because if I have to go out of town again you'll be seeing me in the news.

Relocating is the source of stress-  stay in heaven and be poor, move pretty much anywhere to a fair sized city and be not poor.  Status quo is not acceptable.

My lifting buddy gave me a sample of Rhino Black and it was fricking awesome. MSRP is $70, he said the local shop has it for around $50.

We are actually planning on making our own preworkout using bulksupplements stuff. But I may still grab a sample of this stuff since it has different ingredients.

Was the energy stable? Or jittery? If that makes sense...

Jittery. C4 and neon are light but they keep me energized. This other shit was just raw, crazy pump of lets go outside and flip cars over

Eta- I have an extra sample pack of apple flavor pwo here I won't use if you want it.

Sounds close to home.

Keep lobstering and be happy and broke or enter hell for a chance at 6 figures and start a family.

And now I have a life long dream job at a range. RSOing, teaching with leo/mil contracts and potentially the longest outdoor range in the state, tactical classess etc but am still pushing through hell.

Sounds like your ready for for a strongman comp, lol.

Missed the 5:30 am workout this morning because of this guy:

He was crossing the driveway from pasture to pasture. M&P FS9 at 20 yards with 115gr Gold Dot in the noggin.

I wont make the session up this afternoon, either. 8 Year anniversary today, I'm lucky to have a solid wife.
Missed the workout but its going to be a good day!!

Nice.

Not a lot of fun, just catching up around the house.

Psych nurse, huh? Interesting.

I try to convince myself that other stuff is a replacement for lifting, but it is just not true. Trying to lift once, run once, and grapple once each week.

Check this out.  The wife pulling 300# for 5 reps from 20".  (at 115" BW).

I've had her on my program for a month or so now.  She's getting much stronger without the massive amount of cardio she was doing in crossfit.

Thanks for the offer, but after looking at it a little more I think I'll pass. I don't like how they don't list the quantities of the ingredients. They just list it as a blend. My end goal is to make my own pre/intra-workout in bulk, so I don't think this will get me closer to that goal. I do appreciate the offer though.

Nice, awesome pull.

 

Today was death. Squats went like this:

Back Squat:

10@315

8@365


6@225

4@275

2@315

<die>


I really wanted the 6@405. REALLY wanted it. But rep3 I lost a little tightness and my chest drooped, took the wind right out of my sails. I ground out rep4 and didn't want to fail, so I racked it.