This past weekend I once again made the unnecessarily long trek to London Ohio, this time, to help out with the Powerlifting Experience 2.

Like PLE 1, this event was designed to mimic a powerlifting meet, giving attendees the opportunity to work up to maximal weights in the power lifts, under the supervision of some of the best powerlifting coaches in the world. I don’t know why, but while I always have a great time at these events, this one seemed like more fun than the last few.

Never mind, I do know why. It was mostly Murph, but more on that later.

After spending the morning traipsing across the northeast (how exactly does a flight from NJ to Columbus get routed through Detroit anyway?) I landed in Columbus and promptly parked myself in one of those automatic massage chairs while I waited for my ride, Bob Youngs, who landed shortly after I did. Once we met up, we made our way to the auto rental section and searched for a company that could rent us a 7-seater SUV, Since our reservation with Thrifty apparently was viewed as more of a “IOU” than an actual binding contract.

We got checked into the hotel, where we saw Vincent Dizenzo. Vincent, who’s been trimming down to compete at 242 was looking lean, and instantly expressed jealousy when he got a look at the awesome bloat I was still sporting from last week’s meet. We then headed towards the compound, stopping on the way for the cheapest Mexican food either of us had ever seen. For 12 bucks, I got three plates overflowing, with food. I’m not the type to upload pics of my lunch to social media, but we did send a pic to my roommate David Allen, to let him know what he was in for.

Got to the compound, and hung out in the office for a while B.S.ing with Mark, Sheena, Matt Charles, Jordan and Chuck. I got some great feedback from them on my last article, because apparently nut kicking jokes go over really well with this crowd. While I hung out, I also got to catch up with some other teammates, like Brandon Smitley, Yessica Martinez, and Joey Smith, who took one look at the bloat I was sporting and expressed immediate concern for my health.

Yes, that Joey Smith.

After a couple of hours of hanging, more teammates arrived, and we started to get ready for our mini-UGSS (Underground Strength Summit).

I had finished a meet the previous weekend, and was really in no shape to lift heavy, but the temptation of some great training partners and some new gear, were a little too much to resist.

I squatted primarily with Yessica, Sherri, Brandon although some other guys joined in on the monolift at different points, Including Bruce Mason, Grant Pullin, and Chuck Kimmerline.

I worked up as follows

Bar 60 x a bunch
110 x 5
150 x 5
200 x 5
240 x 1
290 x 1
330 x 1
380 x 1
420 x 1
Put my Original Pro Brief on

470 x 1
510 x 1

Added a new, size 54 metal Ace that I had just pulled out of the bag. I kept my straps down, because I was only really interested in checking it out for size in the hip-leg area. The straps are adjustable, and I don’t generally wear them tight to begin with.

560 x 1
600 x 1
650 x 1
690 x 1

I got the 690 to about parallel, which is good enough for that light a weight. I knew the suit fit, so my mission was accomplished for the day.

We hung around the compound for a while longer, until I left with Murph and Russtache (Russ Smith from TPS, who sports one of the greatest dick-dusters on the East Coast) to pick Mickey Beleineh up from the airport. Since we knew that Mark Watts was probably tearing his hair out getting last minute details, we took turns calling him from the car to ask him what time we were supposed to get there the next morning.

We knew it was 9am, but he’s fun when he’s frantic.

My roomie for Meathead Fantasy Camp was David Allen, who I’ve roomed with before. To my disappointment, he’s been watching his diet and losing body fat, going as far as to shave his body, making him look like a seal with a beard. Sad… and he was showing so much potential as a gear-whore too. I’ll bet he’ll never even get a CPAP.

At least Joey Smith still knows fat is where it’s at.

The next day we all headed to Bob Evans for breakfast, then made our way to The Compound to get our groups ready for PLE 2.

I was pretty psyched to start coaching, because from briefly meeting our group Friday night, I knew that we had some pretty advanced lifters, as well as some guys that were going to be working in some new gear for the first time. With so much attention on raw lifting these days, I often miss the chess game that gear presents when working with an athlete. I was even able to help a couple of guys with the actual purchase of their stuff, which was helpful, because I knew they’d be starting out in stuff that was sized correctly.

I was also looking forward to coaching in the same group as Joey Smith, Julia Ladewski, Marshall Johnson Ted Toalston, David Allen, Molly Edwards and Chad Aichs.

Our lifters did awesome. Numerous prs were set, and even more athletes fixed technical flaws that were holding them back from much bigger numbers. The guys that were using gear for the first time got a huge head start that they probably wouldn’t have without the same level of coaching.

These guys did awesome, and I’m proud to have been there to help with their progress.

After the hands-on coaching, Dave Tate, Vincent Dizenzo and Steve Goggins talked about technique in the squat, bench press and deadlift respectively. These were all great, but the showstopper was a motivational speech from none other than “The” Clint Darden. It wouldn’t do justice to try and repete his talk, but I believe the video is going to make it to the site at some point, and I highly recommend checking it out.

After the PLE, we made our way back to the hotel (after picking up “supplies” of course), and this is where it got weird. Really weird.

I’ll talk more about it in my next installment. Stay tuned…