Yeah, I'm speaking of myself in the third person. I figured since my lifting is no longer on that grand of a scale, I'd punch it up a bit with the title.
I did in fact compete this past weekend. It's been close to four years. During that time I have had personal as well as physical issues holding me back. I honestly thought I'd never compete again.
Anyway, the body has been feeling pretty good for a while. Also, I have been on a reverse diet since November that has caused me to gain a good 10 lbs. So instead of freaking out about the weight gain, I figured I'd put it to good use in a meet.
Around 12 weeks ago I put my legs down while benching. I had done it a few times over the last couple of years, but it tended to jack my back up a bit. Fortunately, I had no such issues after a couple of weeks.
Most of my training focused more on conditioning and circuits while lifting. Figuring that wouldn't be optimum for a bench meet, I made the switch to 5th Set which I had used successfully in the past. This was a nice change and my body took well to it.
I had three goals going into the meet. First, go three for three. The theory was, that I'd rather leave weight on the platform than push myself to where I could get injured. Second, have fun. Third, hit my yearly standard of a double bodyweight bench. I had been able to do that over the last couple of years with my swiss bar and shoulder save pad with my legs up. However, this was different. It would be under competition standards.
Thankfully I managed to accomplish all three goals and ended up with a 402lb bench at 198 (weights were in kilos hence the 402). I had a smile on my face all day.
I need to thank John Gaglione for handling me. As I didn't want much fanfare or to ruin anyone's beautiful Saturday, I traveled to the meet by myself. John and I are old friends and he was gracious enough to handle my warmups and liftoffs. It was fun sharing that time with him.
Will I compete again, I don't know. However, this experience rekindled my love for the sport. I train at Hellbent Barbell on Fridays where a lot of great powerlifting is going on. Plus being around a meet again was just fun. I think with all that has gone on over the past couple of years in my life, I have become a bit of a recluse. This was good for me and I need to be around it a bit more often.
