The Dreaded 4-Letter B-Word!

That’s right, BOMB! I bombed out of my meet Saturday. Here are the details for anyone interested.

I made weight easily weighing in Friday night at 179.2. I had a good meal post-weigh in. Afterward, I ate a couple PB&J sandwiches with my Gatorade and water before bed. I was up early and ate some more PB&J with a banana. I wasn’t feeling that great as I’ve had a nasty sinus cold for a couple weeks, but that was the least of my problems in my opinion.

Since I wasn’t feeling that great, I lowered my squat opener from 441 to 424. Warmups went well. I was hitting good depth and felt strong on the ascent.

First attempt at 424 – 2 Whites, 1 Red (Side judge; depth)

Second attempt at 441 – 2 Whites, 1 Red (Head judge; not sure why the red light?)

Third attempt at 451 – 3 Reds…Rocked back on my heels on the way up and lost my balance. I also felt my left trap/lat/rib tweak on the way up.

Not a PR day and not even close to what I was expecting, but I knew that my physical condition wasn’t 100% so I was glad squats were over and I could move on to the bench with a little more confidence.

Bench warmups were a little different than what I was used to as there was only 2 benches and I really couldn’t gauge the timing of my 1st attempt to when I should hit my last warmup. Either way, my warm-ups went alright and ended with a good pause at 285. My opener was 292, so I felt confident 7 pounds were left in the tank (I was wrong).

First attempt at 292 – 3 Reds. Had to have help.
Same think on 2nd and 3rd attempts. I tried rolling out my trap on a foam roller between rounds, but I just couldn’t get the thing to relax. I just wasn’t strong off my chest and had absolutely no drive to get the lift to lockout. The head judge was holding the Press command a little long, but it’s still no excuse. An opener should be easy enough to get you on the board. I misjudged and paid the price.

So, with that my day was over. My first time to bomb out of a meet and I was extremely disappointed (still am).

Here’s where I feel I went wrong and where I can improve for the future:

· 5/3/1 is a good program to build overall strength in a lift, but it’s not built for peaking. I need to refocus my program to include an entire peaking cycle or two to incorporate more heavy attempts, partials, etc. for my CNS to be prepared.

· I probably shouldn’t have gone on my mountain bike trip the weekend before in hindsight. I though it would be a good mental and physical break, but I was getting sick right before I went and knew that would cause more problems.

· I need help at a meet. I went by myself and had to ask for help with knee wraps, etc. It’s just better to have some people helping to support you during the meet with weight selection, technique pointers, etc.

· I need to practice more bench press reps with a pause.

There’s a lot more, but those are the main points.

I was really disappointed to not get to deadlift. I honestly felt I would have had a big day with my pulls to make up for bench and squat, but never got a chance.

I’m not going to lie; I was extremely angry with myself and went through a lot of really bad emotions after bombing out of that meet. I guess that’s my competitive and perfectionist side coming out, but I quickly reined it in and I’m already looking onward to the end of January to the Raw Unity meet in Tampa, FL where I’ll compete with the Power To The People Deadlift Team. (Thank goodness it’s deadlift-team and not bench-team!) ;-)

One big positive that came out of the weekend was going up to Edmond, OK to hang out at the Whitley/O’Connor workshop hosted by Dustin Rippetoe. (A huge thanks to Jeff and Dave for figuring out my trap problem and getting that sorted out. I honestly can’t even feel it today!)

I learned a ton just in the last few hours of their Day 1 and went to eat some pizza with everyone and got up for a little more Hardstyle on Day 2 before heading home.

I want to thank everyone for their support and asking how things went even though it wasn’t my day. I also want to say a huge thank you to Phil Wylie of Bad Attitude Gym out of the DFW area for wrapping my knees at the meet and being there to support me and get advice from! Thanks MAN!

Another list of Thank You’s goes out to the following for helping me along the way the last 3 months and creating a great learning experience:

· My wife - Kara
· Chief Instructor – Pavel Tsatsouline
· Senior RKC – Jeff O’ Connor
· Team Leader – Thomas Phillips
· Jack Reape
· Phil Wylie
· Brian Schwab
· Chad Aichs
· Sean Rowden – One of my best friends and occasional lifting partner

Powerlifting is a tough and thankless sport. It’s even tougher when you attack it alone. It really does take a team of people to get one to excel. Even though I do most of my training alone, it’s great to have some pillars to lean on when I’m stuck and don’t know what to do.

Thank You!