I went 900/600/620 - 2120
Hit open elite total at shw
Hit master elite total at shw
Set all time IPA squat record for m2
Set all time IPA total record for m2
Had a 5 pound meet pr total
Won 1st mens open full power multiply
Won 1st mens masters full power multiply
Won 1st mens open bench only multiply
Life can be full of adversary at times, we all face it at different level, at different ages and at different situations. So what I am about to explain makes me no different than anyone else. It's taken me a few weeks to really sit down and put this into words, but here we go....
Some people like to start with the bad news but let's start with the good news first. First of all I won my weight class in the men's open, I won my weight class in the men's masters 2 (45-49) I also won first place in the men's open bench only. If you want to get technical for this weight call that I was in witch was the super heavy weights, I had a PR bench, a PR deadlift and a PR total. Actually it was the best total I have ever posted in my career by 5 pounds. I broke 2 14 year old masters 2 world records. The first being the squat and the second being the total.
This sounds pretty awesome so far doesn't it. And technically with all the bad news that I am going to give, I am still pretty proud of my performance considering.
So here is the bad news #1
Well it's not a meet till you end up in the ER? Right?
Being sick the past couple weeks with Bronchitis and a sinus infection is tough enough on you already, especially preparing for a meet but to add to my own turmoil and to not stay properly hydrated during this time, during the trip to the meet and meet day too is a double dumb ass move on my part.
The Dr's at the ER said it was smart to come be seen. My heart palpitations had increased as had my nausea. I was diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis. Now that's a fancy word. It's a condition when large amounts of muscle is damaged. Once this happens a large amount of Myglobin is released into the bloodstream causing all kinds of major issues. Then not adding proper hydration on top of it makes cocktail of bad shit to happen .
For me it was my kidneys and them not working properly. During the 6.5 hour stay, The Dr's ran a ton of blood, urine, stress, chest xray, saliva and many other test, then ran them again before I left. They gave me some drugs to relax me and filled me back up with 5 IV bags to get my kidneys and heart numbers to level back out. The Dr's actually wanted me to stay the night but I had to work tomorrow! Starting a a new business requires me to be there....
So there it is. Take your hydration serious folks. I didnt and should have and this could have turned out way worse.
Bad news number #2
About 7 days out from the meet while at work I was sitting on a roll around chair that is low to the floor detailing a vehicle and I pushed off with my right leg to roll down to the other end of the vehicle. When I did, not only did I hear something pop on the outside of my right knee, I also felt it. This pop caused me to flop off the chair in an crazy amount of pain. I honestly thought I was paralyzed for a minute from the pain and I honesty did not know what had happened. As I lay there on my back I felt like the old woman on the TV commercial who said the notorious line " I have fallen and I can't get up". After lying there in pain for a couple of minutes, I was able to muster up enough strength to get myself up with one leg. Whatever was going on with my right leg it felt like something had popped out of socket or tore or whatever. So I made my leg pop back into place so to speak. Which probably hurt even worse. I was able to walk it off the rest of the day and felt somewhat normal, expect for trying to stand up from using the bathroom or from a seated position. Something kept causing something in my knee on the outside to continue to pop out of place. I was becoming ver frustrated by all of this. I mean I had only trained an entire year solely for this meet. Not only am I just sick and on antibiotics and feel like shit, now my surgically repaired knee from a few years back has messed up again...
Bad news #3
I was only able to bench press twice during the entire training cycle. My left arm was giving me a fit. If you look back at my training logs during the training cycle for this meet, I touch on this several times. Honestly I thought it was just wear and tear, arthritis, bursitis, or any other itis you want to call it. So I felt like the best thing to do was leave it alone and hope for the best on meet day. I was able to get a bench in at the meet but no where near what I am used to doing or capable of doing and several people were asking what was wrong with me. So after 3 months or more of dealing with this pain in my left forearm, last week we went to the ER again to find out what was wrong. So they took an x-ray and it revealed that one of the bones in my forearm was broken. The doctors called it an avulsion fracture. Instead of the bone breaking in half the bone is breaking down the middle of the bone. This fracture has caused a piece of bone to have broken off, and this bone fragment is floating around within the interior proximal forearm soft tissue to boot. Awesome.
It sure does seem like every possible sign for me not to have done this meet was there for me to see plain as day. But being the stupid, hard headed, meat head self that I am, I paid those signs no attention. As you can see things could have been a lot worse and turned out a lot worse and thank goodness they didn't.
Let me get back to some good things. Besides myself, I had 9 other teammates from Team Nebobarbell competing that I coached throughout the meet. Between the 10 of us that competed, 9 of us finished with first place victories and one second place. Each of my lifters also PR'ed on individual lifts and totals and out team broke several IPA world records. But I must brag on my wife and yes I am partial. In only her second full power multiply meet she won best overall multiply female lifter for her second time in a row. Plus she won a crazy badass best overall lifter world championship belt. Needless to say I am very proud of my team and very proud of my wife.
If you are reading this and you have never done and IPA meet put on by Press Fitness and Bobby Betts you are missing out. There is always a big group of multiply lifters at each of theses meets as well as raw lifters. Team NeboBarbell, Westside and Cell Block always have big showings from their gym attending and competing and this meet was no different. By the way I seen Loui Simmons congratulate my wife on her performance at this meet was awesome and for hi to tell me he is proud of us and what we have done as a team. I just had to throw that in there because that was a big deal to me and to them.
I want to thank everyone that was involved in this meet form the DJ, the anouncer, the girls at the table, the spotters and loader, Team Press Fitness, Bobby Betts, the IPA, and Flex Lewis for giving us such a kick ass venue to come to each year and to allow powerlifting as a whole to continue to flourish is a pretty neat thing to see each year as this continues to grow. I also want to thank my wife for taking care of me as she does so well, my daughter being there to support me and her teammates as well, the 40 plus Team Nebobarbell members, wives and families driving 6 hours to support and watch the team competing. I want to that each of the Team Nebobarbell members that were not competing in helping each of us that were. From wrapping knees, getting us food and water, spotting and loading in the warm up room to giving us the support we needed for each and every lift during this meet. We definitely could not have done this meet without their help and support. As always a big thanks goes out to Dave and Traci Tate at Elitefts. this makes my 12th year being a team Elite FTS member and I take more pride in that than most people can understand. Thanks again for giving this old country boy a chance and for believing in me.
I'm not sure what is next for me but I do know this, I must heal up and get healthy again. So for now I am going to focus on my team mates and coaching them for our next meet in March 2020. This old man aint dead yet. I still have some thing I want to accomplish before I am done. Thank you to each of you that support myself, Team Nebpborbell and Team Elitefts.
