The meet is over and we are two days post meet, my wife is one-day post meet. Lots of thoughts leading to interesting conversations between Julia and I, with an even better perspective brought to our attention by way of clients and other gym members. Here is how the rundown of my meet went.
One Week Out
In previous blog posts, I mentioned the potential of overtraining, I still stand by that theory with how my body reacted the last few weeks before the meet and at the meet by the time I got to deadlifts. After my 3RM (3 weeks out) I was unable to pull my project opener for 2 weeks in a row which lead to me skipping a week of deadlifting. The next time I tried to get to a bar I physically could not as my TFL and Adductor hurt so much it felt like something was going to tear. My last resort was to send Elite FTS Teammate Dani LaMartina a text and ask for her help. This woman worked her magic with me and in 3 days I was able to get down to an empty deadlift bar and squat with very minimal pain. To put a timeline on this, Monday of meet week I could not BW squat or deadlift without massive pain. Tuesday through Thursday worked with Dani and by Thursday evening I could get into a squat and down to a bar with minimal pain. I decided to go through with the weight cut still and just see how I feel come meet day to make a final decision.
Weight Cut
I have been water cutting and straight cutting down to 181 now for about 5 years and some cuts have been miserable but overall getting easier each time. This round was by far the easiest, I did not have to get into a hot bath, drowned myself with water, nor was I miserable the entire evening. Weighted in at 180.3 and rolled into breakfast feeling fine. Probably could have eaten better throughout the day as my water intake was lower than normal and I did not care to eat any more pre-made meals, Jimmy Johns took care of me for the day, lol.
Meet Day
I am always a nervous wreck come this day, my stomach is twisted, I'm gassy, and have anxiety through the roof until squats are over with. During peaking, I hit 1st and 2nd attempts when I needed too, failed my third but figured it would be there on meet day. Opener went well and stuck to the plan, second attempt I was wonky during my un-rack and called for a re-rack. Once I picked the weight I thought I was fine, while going down I shifted somehow and when coming out of the hole I got pitched backward and could not correct myself enough to finish the lift. Came back on my third attempt and got 655 with a terrible looking squat, lol. Watching the video I did not sit back far enough so my hips kicked back getting into the hole and my knees caved, thankfully I was able to correct and pull through.
Bench was a grand success, I felt good, my butt stayed down with some very strict judges watching me like a hawk. My saving grace was a super fast press command all day long. Hit all three attempts and am 5lbs away from my all time best which I am confident I could have gotten on this day but was not gonna chance it.
Dealift was a disaster as my issues from overtraining started to arise again. My hips started shifting and I started drifting on my opener, this was the least of my problems. My grip became a glaring issue which has happened in meets prior but never like this. Watching my opener again the bar started slipping and if I was required to hold the lift any longer at lockout it would have fallen out. my next two attempts there was no hope for holding on, no amount of chalk of grip variation was going to help me. There are two theories here, one being my CNS was so fried my grip let go. This was suggested by both Julia and Dani, Julia mentioned testing baseball players grips at Buffalo to test their CNS prior to training. The other was just a basic grip strength issue, although I will not discount that as a potential issue, I have not dropped a deadlift in training even when working up to 690 so the CNS fatigue is a little easier for me to comprehend. Next cycle I will be deadlifting much less and attempting to manage the overtraining issue I ran into this round
Results
I ended with 1662 at 181, this is far from my best total and I expected to get a 1700 but in this sport expecting something on the platform is a double-edged sword. Having goals are fine but walking into a meet with an injury you are running damage control on and then expecting something is kind of foolish. I would have had to change something drastic on deadlift, like swapping to conventional and trying to pull a 70lb DL pr opposite stance, that in my eyes was a risk>reward I was not willing to take. Looking back, I finished the meet and avoided a bomb out, and I am not severely injured. I can now go back and manage what I did wrong in the programming, adjust it for myself and how I am implementing it with clients and have them benefit from the lessons I learned from, that is what this whole thing is about and why I am even having the ability to type this on this platform through EliteFTS. Here's to Live, Learn, and Pass On. Now on to coaching my tail off and coming up with ideas for the next training cycle.