After sustaining multiple low back issues the past year, and coming off a terrible showing at the XPC Bench Bash, I'm now focused on training to improve my body and mind as I prepare for my wedding in June. I hope to be back on the platform towards the end of 2018.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com

It's been nearly two weeks since I've competed at the XPC Bench Bash at the Arnold Expo. If you follow Elitefts on social media, you probably saw the news write up where I bombed out. This meet report is to give some insights on my performance (or lack thereof), and what I am taking away from the experience.

Training Cycle and Prelude To The Meet

If you follow my training log in any capacity, you probably know I was training for this competition. I was accepted as a lifter for this meet based on my performance at the APF Summer Bash from July 2017. That meet itself wasn't that great, but it was good enough to hit 451 at 131, ranking 10th all-time. My hopes going into XPC's was to just hit a PR, and see where that put me in the overall.

The training cycle I had, was probably the worst training cycle I've ever had in my career. There were multiple times where I debated on backing out and not putting my body through the ringer to make it to meet day, but anyone that knows me knows that I'm highly competitive in anything! I knew that if I showed up, I was probably a top 3 favorite, if not a favorite to take the overall. That drove me to keep chipping away at training, no matter how crappy the training cycle was going.

During this training cycle, I had multiple life events happen:

  • I got engaged
  • Started the process of closing on a house (which fell through)
  • Wedding planning that comes with getting engaged
  • Added a fourth job to my already busy schedule (a labor based one at that)
  • Business moves that might change the rest of my future

None of these are excuses for my poor performance, but I do believe that every single one of them took it's toll in some capacity.

Getting engaged is one of the happiest moments of my life. But with that, comes the planning of wedding functions. My fiancee and I are doing all the planning ourselves, so our workload was increased from day one. We're happy to do it, but you can't really know what it's like to plan a wedding until you start doing it.

Anyone that's been in the process of looking for a home knows the stress that all this is. Setting up times with your realtor, viewing houses daily (via online or in person), and the stress that comes with meeting for mortgage approvals and all the documents that come with this. As a small business owner, this taking place during tax season just made things even more difficult. We got to the point where we found a home and started the closing process, but ran into issues with utilities and were forced to back out (we couldn't afford to take a risk that could potentially cost ten's of thousands of dollars). Being that Adrian and I are both religious, we will not be living together until we are bonded with God on June 2nd, so this puts a time crunch on our search (something we both have accepted but believe is best for us).

Then during January, I accepted a new position at a distribution center when I load/build pallets. My daily job requires over 10 miles of walking a day, and picking up over 1,000 individual pieces, yielding me moving anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of product. I took this job based on the hours and the pay. And it was my own doing, but I did this to save up as much money as possible for our wedding and our home (our goal is to have our house paid off in less than 15 years). This made my training drastically harder due to recovery and the fact that I burned nearly 3000 calories a day at work alone. This didn't include me personal training, working another small part time job on Saturday's, and also working with all my online clients (yielding on average 60+ hours of work a week).

Basically what I'm getting at is, this was the worst time in my life to even think about competing, but yet here I was trying to push my body to the limits like I always do.

The Meet

Traveling and weigh ins went really well. I had no issue making weight and nailed my weigh in at 132 even. With my weight being lower than normal due to my job, I knew that I would have to really push my rebound back up hard, and I thought I did an excellent job until the morning off where my weight was barely 143. I tried to eat up all morning, but for whatever reason my body was just dumping water like crazy (probably because it was used to doing so from my jobs). When I got to warm ups, my shirt slid on basically by myself, and that is where I knew I was going to have a tough day.

I kept my opener at 429, six pounds under the opener I had planned from training. I figured since I smoked this weight all training cycle, I'd be good to go, but anything else might just have to be what I can get for the day. Once I got to the platform, I had lockout issues on both attempts. I bombed out due to the rules of only two missed attempts at your opener.

Afterwards, I talked to Steve Diel about my issues, and he said that using the Metal Jack, you will have lockout issues forever if your shirt doesn't fit right (which mine obviously didn't). So it looks like I'm in order to get a smaller shirt to try to fix this problem.

What I'm Taking Away

Bombing out of my first meet is a real bummer. I'm not pissed, mad, sad, or any other negative emotion. If anything, I'm disappointed in myself for just not being honest with myself about my current life situation. My body gave me EVERY sign that it could: decreased sleep quality and quantity, decreased weight, decreased strength, poor training performances, decreased hunger at times, and just a crappy attitude (something very unlike me).

I'm really good at hearing what my body is telling me, but I'm TERRIBLE at listening to it. Like Clint Darden has said, "I listened to the athlete Brandon Smitley, and not the coach Brandon Smitley."

Moving forward, I'm going to work on actually listening to what my body is telling me, and acting on it. I'm also going to ensure that my meets align with a good point in my life that I can perform at my best. I can't always expect that to happen, but it's pretty obvious in our lives when we should consider competing, and when we shouldn't. I've got a busy 3-4 months ahead of me, and I need to take that time to focus on my life with my beautiful fiancee.

I'll still be training, no question, but I'm going to give myself some time away from heavier weights in general and just get back to LOVING training with my training partners and family, working on developing my clients and my relationships with their goals, and just trying to continue to be a better person for the sport I've grown attached too.

I finally, after many years, feel like a real powerlifter. I've bombed out, had crappy meets, great meets and PR's, and sustained injuries just for personal pursuit. It's about time I give the loved ones in my life that same kind of dedication.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to focus on getting healthy, and prepare my body to be ready to get back on the platform before 2018 is over.

For those of you that continue to follow my journey, thank you. I hope if anything, I can help contribute to your training goals in some fashion. And please, don't hesitate to contact me if I can be of any help. My email is always open.

I also would like to thank my family; my amazing fiancee, Adrian; my training partners Trey, Alex, Demetrius, Ally, Jon, Laura; all of Team Elitefts; Team NutraBio; and all my friends. Your support always means the world to me.

Live. Learn. Pass On.