| EliteFTS

Way back in 2012, I decided that I was done with competing. As you may know, my last meet was in 2012 and was chronicled in my 44 and Broken article series.

After I finished, poorly, I decided that I needed to stop competing. My body was banged up, I needed to get less fat, I needed to focus on my health, and that is exactly what I did.

The only problem is that training sucked. Training without a concrete goal, at least for me is the pits.

Sure, not dying of a stroke is a good goal, but it is not tangible, not measurable. I am never going to do what Dave did and torture myself with bodybuilding training and getting in the shape that he did, so I just trained.

In the most recent past, my goal has been to rehab my hip and get it to the point where I could walk without looking like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein.

Ambulation was my primary goal.

I did a lot of work, and saw a lot of medical professionals to fix it. This may sound like whining, and excuse making, but not being able to walk sucks, having drop foot sucks.

Fixing it would not suck.

Over the past 9 months I’ve been using RPR and Be Activated techniques along with Kabuki Movement (KMS) drills, and they have been the most effective.

Sure, I know it is the totality of everything I’ve done that got me here, but I am about 99% sure that if I knew about these things, and mostly RPR, I would have gotten a lot better a lot sooner.

With the RPR, J.L. says that even if you do it wrong, you will get some benefit.

Let me tell you, I was doing it wrong for 9 months and it did a lot. After J.L. was here a few weeks ago, I learned to do it right. Since then, I am at almost zero pain in my hip day to day. The difference in only a few weeks was unbelievable.

OK, let’s get back to So, I did a meet:

About 3 months ago, I talked with my Coach, Candace Puopolo and said I am doing the RPS meet that our team is doing.

She may have pooped.

Bench only-this is funny because I can’t squat or deadlift, and the bench used to jack my hip up more than anything.

A year ago, I couldn’t bench an empty bar without a metric shit ton of pain in my hip.

It’s been getting better, and I needed a goal.

We decided to follow a plan to get me to a 405 bench.

I figured I’d get at least 100 pounds out of my Metal Jack bench shirt and I could bench about 275 without much pain at the time, so it seemed reasonable.

You see, the weight wasn’t heavy to press, it was hard to press because of the road construction crew with jack hammers beating my hip that made it hard.

A plan was laid out, and it was a need to know basis. I didn’t tell anyone, except those who needed to know, and they were sworn to secrecy.

Why didn’t I want anyone to know?

Well, first, if I could not make it through the training cycle and the injury got worse, I didn’t want to explain it.

Second, I just wanted to train. I didn’t want to talk about me doing a meet after so long.

I told Candace and my training partners, Russ Smith, Matt Buckingham, Sabra Mitchell and Kevin Cann.

No one else needed to know.

They did.

OK, now that we have a plan work begins.

I will not bore you with the training cycle, but it was tough on Candace.

She had to write a bench only program, work around injuries, keep tolerated lower body work in, and most importantly, put up with me. She did an awesome job.

The Meet:

I did the RPS Winter’s Wrath on December 3rd, run by Jamie and Meghan Matta. They run some of the best meets I have ever been to. If you are in the New England area, do one of their meets.

I entered the Masters 242 weight class.

I did this for one reason: I have had the goal of getting to 240 for while and it was now or never.

I was stuck at about 249 for a while and figured a carb cut with a fluid cycle would get me to 240 lickety split.

On November 24th I weighed 249 and I cut carbs out. On November 27th I was at 244.5.

I decided that there was no way I was missing this weight and did a fluid cycle. Two gallons of (extra) water a day for three days and then cut it out.

This sucks monkey balls. But. I weighed in on the 2nd at 237.

As I’ve never cut weight before, I wasn’t sure how much I’d lose. I figured about 8-11 pounds and I was close. I cut 7.5 pounds in a few days.

Now, time to rehydrate and recomp.

I started eating like it was my job and slamming fluids. I helped out at the meet on Saturday with our lifters and ate.

Note: TeamTPS Lifter Emma Foos took Best Lifter on Saturday and I can’t be more proud of her and all the girls.

Sunday, meet day:

I felt really good, I took my Imodium and I was ready to lift. I went through my warmups and as it should, all of the weights flew and felt super light.

I was confident of the 405 being successful.

I think I am pretty low maintenance at a meet.

I don’t want anyone to talk to me at all. I need to concentrate and “get in my own head”.

Talking just takes me out of the game. I also do not want any cues. I know what needs to be done.

So, as my warmup began, I went into what Russ calls: Closed for Business mode.

Hat pulled down, hoody up, and pulled over the eyes. This is not to be a hard guy, it is so I don’t make eye contact with anyone-eye contact invites conversation.

Did mention I don’t want that?

After the meet, come and sit, I’ll talk all day.

Before, let me get inside my head.

So, as I said, I don’t need much from my team on meet days.

Load the bar, hand me off in warmups.

When it is time to go, just give me the signal that I am four out, non-verbally.

Adjust my shirt, pull my belt, hand me off. That’s it.

Time to go:

I was last in the bench only flight and I opened at 355.

It flew.

380 was my second attempt.

It went up as a second should, not easy, not too hard. But, I may have gotten a gimme.

I know my ass was up on the left side on my first attempt, and I got a red for it.

On my second, I know it was up on the left, and may have been on the right. If it was, they missed it.

Maybe it wasn’t. (This is in no way a critique of the judging!)

Third attempt: 405.

It was not to be today. I brought it down well, the shirt popped it up but I was not strong enough to lock it out. Oh, and my ass clearly came up on both sides.

I was a little disappointed that I did not hit my goal of 405, but I was happy.

A year ago, this was not even a dream. Thanks to RPR, it was a possibility.

Now, we are back to the drawing board.

I will try different foot placements to fix the ass problem, and I’ll get a shirt that fits.

My Metal Jack shirt is from when I was 275.

It was swimming on me.

Now this is not an excuse for missing the weight, but the shirt was way too big.

Since there was nothing at stake, and we decided with only 12 weeks to do the meet, I figured I’d rather not break in a new shirt. But. I know a properly fitted shirt will make a huge difference next time.