I've finally had the time to catch up and reflect on everything that happened two weekends ago at the XPC Finals at the Arnold Classic. What a whirlwind of a weekend to say the least! Although I'm relatively new to competing in powerlifting with only 4 meets under my belt, I have been around the block in strongman by participating in over 25 contests. I am used to handling the mental stresses of competing. However, competing at the XPC's pushed me to my limit. I overcame the challenges in some areas, failed in others, but learned from both experiences. Let's get down to the details.
My bodyweight for most of the training cycle leading up to the meet was around 240 lbs. In the past when my bodyweight's hit 240, I start feeling uncomfortable and sluggish, and want to get back into the lower 230's to feel good again. This time around my body was really enjoying being 240. I felt great and strong, not lethargic, and my joints felt fantastic. For the sake of making the cut to the 220's a little easier, my coach Mike Mastell started dieting me down around 6 weeks out. Personally, I am not comfortable with the idea of water cutting over 15 lbs, so I was on board with this and stuck to the plan. I respect the guys that can make big cuts and can perform on game day, but the process really saps a lot of mental energy from me and distracts me from the whole point of competing in powerlifting - which is lifting weights! Not seeing how much weight I can strip off in a 24 hour span. A week out from the meet, my bodyweight was holding steady at 231. I was in an ideal position to begin my water cut down to 220.
The cut itself went flawlessly from a physical perspective. The weight fell off with minimal effort after following my cutting protocol, but traveling in a dehydrated state really sucked a lot of mental energy out of me. Upon arriving to Columbus, various things I had set to be in place to make my rehydration protocol did not end up going through as planned. I'm not going to bore you with the details, because the amount of things that went wrong between arriving in Columbus to getting off the scale would need its own article. And I'm also not one to whine or blame game day performance on external forces or anyone but me. But needless to say, I was pretty furious and stressed out the night before and the morning of weigh ins.
After making weight at 218.6 lbs Friday morning, I headed back to my hotel room to rehydrate, relax, and get my head in the game for Saturday. From noon until the time I went to sleep, I laid in my bed with Chipotle bowls on my right, Pedialyte bottles between my legs, and snacks on my left, and literally did not move for the entire day except to use the bathroom. For much of the time I was slamming food and fluids, I was sitting in silence, visualizing my meet day performance in my head. I've struggled with getting an upset stomach after weighing in countless times before, but this time around, my stomach was holding up amazingly well. My appetite was almost insatiable and I put away double the food that I normally can after cutting weight...and this time, without it coming out of the other end. Powerlifters that cut weight know what I'm talking about here. I went to bed feeling huge, bloated, and much less stressed out than when I arrived the day before.
Enter meet day. I've competed in some big events before, but something about the XPC's just got my juices flowing like no other competition I've ever done. Maybe it was 1,000+ miles away from home at the biggest meathead convention in the world, yet having an enormous support system of friends from home there supporting me. Or the layout of the meet itself, which was freakin' epic. Or the fact that I was sharing the same room with so many lifters I've looked up to for so long. But I knew something was going to be special about this day, and the combination of nerves and adrenaline was really sending my body for a whirl.
Warm-ups for squats felt TERRIBLE! I'm still sort of trying to figure out what went wrong with these, but have given up and just resolved to get stronger this offseason. I was having a very difficult time finding my monolift setting in the warm up room. From taking the bar up to 675, I must have changed my height 3 or 4 times. This has never happened to me in my short powerlifting career, in competition or in the gym. I also had a big time balance issue. I was wobbling all over the place with every weight that I took from 225 and up. I'm not sure if I actually put too much weight back on, considering my stomach was so cooperative and I was able to eat so much. Or maybe it was just the nerves getting to me. In any case, my nerves were going strong before taking my opener and the pressure was on.
I unracked my 765 opener and something felt off immediately. I took the weight on too low of a rack height, so I ended up arching the weight out instead of having my hips under me and having a nice, neutral spine. The smart competitor would have asked for a rerack, gone up in height, and retaken the weight. Unfortunately in this situation, I was not the smart competitor and just figured I could make the weight look easy anyways. Wrong! I immediately shot forward out of the hole and had to grind the weight out. Got 3 whites on the lift, but it didn't leave me feeling too confident about my 2nd. I backed off my original 810 planned 2nd attempt and asked for 805, which would be a 5 lb PR. I also asked for a change in monolift height. My set-up on my 2nd attempt was much better, the rack height was perfect, and I smoked 805 for another 3 white lights. Felt great, but decided to stay conservative on my 3rd due to my balance issues in the warm up room. And thankfully I did, because 820 stapled me. I caught the rebound from my wraps and just had nothing left to give. The spotters were fantastic and got the weight off me quickly, so thankfully I didn't fry myself with this miss.
Squat has always been my money maker lift and I've never missed one in a meet before, so not hitting the PR I had in mind was a tough pill to swallow. With that in mind, and the fact that my balance issues in warm ups were so extreme, I started to freak out a little thinking I was going to have a bad day. But my handlers and good friends, Matt LaCroix and Mike Skiba, talked me off the ledge and I used the down time to compartmentalize the whole thing and put it behind me. I still PR'ed the lift and there's more than one lift in a full power meet, so it was now on me to man up and bench to my potential.
Warmups for bench felt worlds better than they did on the squat, which helped turn my confidence around even more. My bench press was the lift that improved the most during meet prep and I really had my eyes on hitting a 500+ bench. Took my opener at 460 and it felt like an empty bar. Went to 500 for a second and it felt even better! 30 lb meet PR in the books. I had been called for sinking on my opener, so I decided to be 5 lbs more conservative than my planned 520 lb 3rd attempt and went for 515. After missing my 3rd on squat, I had to focus on not overreaching on another lift and missing. But my conservatism turned out to be unwarranted. my 515 3rd attempt came up even easier than my 2nd attempt. When I saw the three white lights, I just freaked the hell out. I stomped around, beat my chest, and screamed my head off like an idiot. But the euphoria I felt from that single lift made me feel like every ounce of energy I've put into this sport was worth it. Even that description does what I felt no justice. In 11 years of training and 7 years of competing in strength sports, I've never accomplished a goal and hit a weight that's sent chills through my entire body like that. Onto deadlift, and with some momentum too!
Due to the number of flights going before me, I had a good amount of time to get a bite to eat, do a full mobility warmup to get my back loosened up after squatting, and take my warmups at a slow pace. Warmups felt pretty solid and I was ready to pull big. 685 lb opener came up as fast as I expected. Good lift. My 725 lb 2nd attempt resulted in one of the most humiliating moments of my competitive career. I was so focused on pulling my planned 750 lb 3rd attempt that I didn't give the weight the proper respect it deserved. I pulled 725 with a half hearted, distracted effort and the iron made me pay for it. It came off the floor wretchedly slow, and I stalled hard at lockout, which resulted in me losing my grip and dropping the bar. I stormed off the stage furious at myself, being well aware that my distracted mental approach was what resulted in that miss, instead of a technical error or just not being strong enough. I was livid because the least you can do in life is give something your best effort, and I failed to do that on one of the biggest stages in the sport I love so much. After slapping myself around and calling myself a bunch of dirty words in the bathroom video, I came out like a rabid dog for my 3rd and pulled 725 very easily for my 3rd. As happy as I was to come back on my 3rd and get the lift and secure the win for the 220 lb class, I've never been so upset about a successful 3rd attempt. I was kicking myself thinking that if I pulled my 2nd attempt with the same level of intensity and effort that I did on the 3rd, could I have been capable of pulling substantially more than 725 lbs? I guess I'll have to wait for my next meet to find out. Lesson learned - treat all attempts like they're life and death lifts, because the iron is unforgiving and doesn't give a damn what your game plan is if you don't bring it 100%.
After hitting my 3rd attempt, I was in the hall watching some of the 242's pull when I felt a tap on my shoulder. The man behind me asked, "hey are you Carlos?" I spun around while saying "yes sir," before making eye contact with who was speaking to me. And what do you know...it's Dave Tate himself. EliteFTS sweatshirt and all. I don't get star struck too often anymore because I've had the fortune of sharing the platform with so many of my idols in the sport, but seeing Dave really froze me in my tracks. When I started lifting in high school, I grew up reading training logs, Q&A's, articles, and watching videos on the EliteFTS page, which included such gems as Wendler Vision and Dave's countless crazy Westside stories. Dave then said, "I've got your buddy Vinny Dizenzo on the line and he wants to hear how you did." Vinny's a good friend of mine and a former training partner from back home, so I obliged and took the phone from Dave still star struck as hell. I hear Vinny's always cheerful voice on the other line, asking me how I did, and I give him some cliff notes from the day and tell him that I won the 220's. He replied with, "do you know what else you won? Welcome to Team EliteFTS, you've won yourself a sponsorship." Hearing this hit me like a ton of bricks and I honestly felt like I was dreaming. After the emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs that the weekend put me through, knowing that I'd now be in the company of the best athletes, coaches, and minds in the strength and conditioning industry just put me on cloud 9. I stuttered through several emotional filled thank you's and "wow, I can't believe this" to both Dave and Vinny, and Dave told me he had to run but we'd be in touch. I sat down unable to process the whirlwind of emotions I just went through, but when the dust settled, I left the meet with my head held high and more excited about my future than ever before.
I'm pretty happy overall with the way things went at the meet, but here are some things I'll be focusing on working on this offseason:
Squat: I need to reevalute my stance and bar position. I am an extremely high bar squatter, and need to make the transition to at least a mid bar position or a low bar position. I feel like I've maxed out my potential as a high bar squatter, and need to recruit more of my posterior chain to be able to hit bigger weights in the future. I also need to find a middle ground with my squat stance. In the beginning of my powerlifting pursuit, I was a wide stance squatter and had a lot of success with it. However, within the last year, a slew of hip and groin issues forced me to bring my stance in. I feel like I've brought my stance in too close though, so I want to work on bringing it out a little as long as my hips and groin cooperate with me. I will be keeping up the manual therapy (ART, Grastons, electro stim acupuncture) and mobility work I've been doing to alleviate my hip issues.
Bench: Don't change a damn thing. Things could not be going better on this lift, so why fix what isn't broken?
Deadlift: I need to pull the bar with violence and intensity from 135 through 700+ lbs. All weights from this point forward will be treated with the same level of respect. My programming, form, and strength felt good in preparation for this meet, so I feel like if I can fix this fatal flaw, good things will come in the future.
If you've made it through this excessively long write up, thank you very much! It is difficult to put all of my thoughts around this meet into words, but I hope what I've shared with you has caused you to think more analytically about your previous performance, and implement an appropriate plan of action to PR and succeed in your future strength endeavors. I look forward to being a part of Team EliteFTS to Live, Learn, and Pass on with all of you and help you grow in your own pursuit of strength.