Hard to Train…but Training Hard

Imagine you’ve been lifting for twenty some odd years. You’ve competed in both bodybuilding and powerlifting. You follow the current best powerlifters, and you’ve studied all the training methods of the past greats until you pretty much have it memorized. You also know all the records that have been set and by whom. You have your personal training certification and you only go to the best seminars for your continuing education. You’re on Q&A forums with the best, and you’ve met the best. Does it sound like you’re ready to train anyone and everyone? Guys, girls, any body type, any weight class? What if you got a call to train a girl in powerlifting completely raw—no drugs or supplements—and she was wheelchair bound? (Did any of you furrow your brow?)

I’m Chelsi. I’m a powerlifter in the 123-lb weight class, and I was born with spina bifida. The long of the short is I don’t have any feeling or use of my legs from my hips down. Sensation gets sketchy right around my tailbone. My passion is the bench press, and my (life long) dream is the Paralympics. I hear quite often from people, “Wow, you must be difficult to train.” I think it’s my favorite line because it seems to give credit where credit is due—directly to my trainer for having the nerve and the knowledge to take on such a task as figuring out how to teach a person to lift when she doesn’t have the use of her legs, especially considering he has the use of his. When I hear that line, I smile and think, “Yeah, you don’t know the half of it.” Not only am I a peach to figure out physically, but I’ve also got more mental and emotional stuff behind my training than anyone can keep up with. But I’ll spare you the dirty details. This is about my bench. When I met my trainer, Brian Raneri, I had already gone through three trainers. I had been lifting for just over a year. I had nine months until my first qualification to continue toward my goal of the 2012 US Paralympics powerlifting team. I lived with pretty constant spasms that took place somewhere in the lower half of my body. However, from the lack of sensation, I didn’t know where anything originated. Because of the spasms, I had many nights with little to no sleep. I wore gloves and had only used chalk at the only two competitions I’d ever competed in. My grip was such that my fingers were on the insides of the rings on the bar. I benched with my back flat on the bench without any arch whatsoever. I don’t have any glute function, hammies, or leg drive. Just straight upper body strength in an attempt to “bench a house” as many people put it. My previous trainers had done few exercises for my back. I had never used my lats in a bench press attempt. I didn’t even know how to activate them, and it made no sense to me whatsoever that you’d need them to bench. I did do biceps and triceps work, but I had the most strength in my shoulders because I’m always lifting myself in and out of my chair and car and up and down from the floor. I have a shunt in the right side of my head that I automatically protect, so I’m tighter all through that side, which tends to cause my elbow to wing out further than it should. All in all, I was pretty much a mess. I just didn’t know it. Oh, I almost forgot. I brought the bar up and down so slowly that it was almost more fun to watch paint dry. It wasn’t until I was working with my third trainer that I decided I wanted to compete, so the first two trainers hadn’t concentrated on the details of proper technique and maximum effectiveness. However, all three trainers got me off my feet and working toward my goal. When I met Brian, he said he was surprised my form was as good as it was. My max touch and go lift was 190 lbs (very ugly as far as technique is concerned). I knew I needed someone with more knowledge about competitive powerlifting though in order to achieve my goal. Before I go any further, I should explain that it really didn’t mean anything that I could touch and go with 190 lbs. In the Paralympics-sanctioned competitions, we are told to hold the weight on our chest for a two count, preferably a slow two count. The rules state that the bar must come down and stay “motionless” on the chest. We don’t get a press command and it’s subjective as to the judge’s opinion of what “motionless” really is. The bar can’t bounce and it can’t sink. We can’t heave it off our chest. It has to be one fluid motion down. Stop. One fluid motion back up. And my legs are straight out in front of me on a Paralympics-sized bench (which is wider than a regular bench) with two straps—one between the hips and the knees and one between the knees and the ankles. We don’t have any bench shirts or elbow sleeves, but wrist wraps are allowed. There are random USADA drug tests as soon as you make an international team and random tests at every sanctioned state competition whether you’ve been international or not. At the time that I could “touch and go” 190 lbs, I couldn’t even hold 150 lbs for a two count. I started with Brian the beginning of August 2009, and my next scheduled competition was the second week in October 2009. So we didn’t have time to drastically change much of anything. First, Brian started with my grip and widened it out so that my pinky now covers the rings on the bar. I think he’d like my index finger out there, but we’ve also talked about concerns with going real wide because I’m completely raw. Right now, the pinky works. During many of my lat exercises, Brian asked me where I felt the movement. I usually said across the front or in my shoulders. One fine day, he strapped me to the seat on the lat pull-down and pushed down on my shoulders while I performed the movement. Presto! I discovered my lats! That was a good day for both of us. I finally knew what he was talking about, and I stopped looking at him like he was crazy. He knew we could now move forward and he could teach me how to use them on other exercises like the bench. After the next competition was over, Brian reorganized my entire training routine. He basically traded the roles of my back and shoulders. This started slowly because lat exercises are really quite a feat without leg drive. I found out later that during his workouts, he actually put his feet up while working out so that he couldn’t drive with his legs. He wanted to more accurately determine if I could do an exercise and how I would need to be stabilized and strapped down to do it. I have four Velcro straps, and we use them most often during lat exercises.

Brian then taught me about tucking my elbows and “staying tight.” I still wasn’t activating my lats when I benched, so we worked on getting them stronger. He taught me how important leg drive usually is when benching and tried to explain what I was lacking in my technique and strength because I didn’t have any leg drive. By teaching me what exactly should be happening if I were benching “normally,” I could think through the movement and try to come up with ways to improvise and gain similar technique, even without using my legs. In the midst of all the “staying tight” talk, Brian wanted me to speed up my lift. That was difficult. Again, I understood the concept (I almost always understand the concept behind what he wants me to do), but my stability is such an issue that I’m never sure how to accomplish what it is he’s trying to accomplish with me. It seemed like the faster I went, the looser I was. I started to work out with

chains and

bands, and Brian even bought a set of weight releasers on eBay. Learning to be explosive was very difficult because the faster I moved, the more it seemed my body wanted to sway because my anchorage ended at the bottom of my torso. My explosiveness is a huge hurdle for me mentally because I feel so out of control. Brian says that’s the purpose of staying tight—so you aren’t out of control. But I still felt like I was for a long time. I was always so careful and deliberate so I could make sure I didn’t bounce or sink. Again, the answer Brian gave was that staying tight would take that away. Staying tight was a really hard lesson for me to learn and very hard to accomplish. Into the winter, I still wasn’t arching my back. It came up a lot in conversation because I was particularly unstable on lift offs on the bench, which was diminishing the tightness I was learning to obtain. It seemed like every time a bigger load was handed to me, I swayed back and forth and lost whatever stability I had tried so hard to gain. I didn’t think I could arch my back, and Brian was unsure as well. He also wasn’t sure how to teach me to do so. We worked on strengthening my lower back, and eventually I started to arch a little bit. It wasn’t a good arch, but it was an arch just the same. A couple times Brian said that if he had to pay Dave Tate to come teach me how to do it, he would. I finally learned to squeeze my shoulder blades in along with my lats and keep everything in my body as tight as I possibly could. Eventually, my arch got bigger, and Brian even taught me a new way to arch. Now he says that it takes about three or four inches off my stroke when I first get my arch. Unfortunately, I can’t hold it that high yet. I’m pretty sure it’s because I can’t really hold my butt in place. Not only do I lack leg drive, but I don’t have any glutes. We’ve talked about me trying to push my pelvis in the bench to stay more stable. Brian even gets sneaky when he’s standing there while I’m setting up. He pushes his hips against mine to see just how stable I am. I’m getting much better, but it’s much different to do it without weight in your hands than with weight in your hands. The weight always shifts me and it probably always will. All I can do is keep trying to improve, and I have a great teacher to keep finding ways for me to do so. Brian’s current undertaking is teaching me to bring my chest to the bar once I get about halfway down. I can’t do that very well yet. I don’t feel very stable and it always feels like I’m going to lose my tightness by moving to pull my chest up. But I’m working on it. I know I need to do it. It takes every bit of bounce and sink out of my reps. So far, I haven’t managed to get enough stability to be able to do it with much weight. We don’t do touch and go lifts anymore because it’s irrelevant to what I’m trying to accomplish. In May 2010, I qualified for the 2010 USA World Paralympics powerlifting team. In July, I traveled to Malaysia to compete and earned myself an international ranking of tenth in the world with a lift of 159 lbs. This was the first qualification I needed to be able to continue toward my dream of the Paralympics. Recently, we attended my very first able-bodied competition and I got a 15-lb PR, raising my best competition lift to 175 lbs since I was in Malaysia roughly four months ago. I hope you’ve learned a little about how you might use some muscles to assist you in lifting that maybe you hadn’t thought much about before. I had a recent conversation with Clint Darden, who said he’d never really thought much about using his glutes. However, from my perspective, it would make a world of difference if I had glutes. I think it would make it much easier to hold my arch by digging into the bench with my entire pelvis instead of just trying to accomplish this with the top of my pelvis and lower back. Every muscle in your back—above, between, and around your lats—plays a huge part in stability. I’ve also been attempting to learn to use my transversus abdominis to stabilize my spine. It’s a challenge to keep all that tight while simultaneously trying to pull your chest to the bar. Any movement can cause you to lose just a tiny bit of tightness, and it all has one very large domino effect that doesn’t end the way you want it to after all that work. I’d challenge all of you to put your feet up on the bench to see what muscles you’re using that you might not have known you were using. I hope while reading this article, you’ve learned that you shouldn’t give up on your dreams. They really can come true for anyone. You just can’t stop searching and persevering until you stumble across the break that you need. For me, it was finding a great trainer. So that’s my bench. Now when I go to set up, I get on the bench, align my eyes to where they need to be in accordance with the bar, and Brian straps me in. I pull myself up to the bar and put my head back to create my arch. I lower myself on to the top of my head and then reach out to the sides of the rack to complete my arch. I start all the way at the bottom, tightening my pelvis and lower back and digging into the bench with whatever muscles will do so at that end. I work up to tightening my lats and try to hold my spine stable. Then I squeeze my shoulder blades and push my shoulders into the bench as hard as I can. I find the rings on the bar, set my pinkies, and squeeze the bar until I have “white knuckles.” I take a breath and nod my head, and God willing, when the lift off comes, I’m tight enough to keep at least half of the height I’ve managed to obtain through the entire process. I lower the weight, try my hardest to squeeze everything I have, and bring my chest to the bar so I don’t bounce or sink the bar. I do a two count and push the bar back up with every bit of force I can find within myself. If all the stars were in line for the day, I get my perfect lift. But no matter what, it’s still my very favorite place to be and benching is my very favorite thing to do.