Earlier this year I made a trip to Milwaukee Wisconsin to visit my mother and see what was going on in my home town. This is about 2 months after being brought on to the prestigious "Team EliteFTS". While I was up there I was reminded that coach Eric Maroscher housed the infamous Monster Garage Gym (M.G.G) and he was quit gracious to invite me down and introduce himself, give my girlfriend and I a personal tour of the newer facility and personally congratulate me for being brought on. Coach Maroscher then took time out of his day to ask questions I had concerning meets and gave me a powerlifting history lesson which was amazing. In that conversation I learned a lot and one of those things I implemented this training cycle which was taking a mock meet prior to my main meet. there were several reasons in doing this and for me the list looks a little like this:
- I have a lot of bad nerves as my name is being announced getting closer to being on the platform - I needed to work on positive self talk and timing for wraps during squatting - Wanted all types of different variables working against me that I don't have in my own fancy facility - Practice makes perfect, I am still young in this sport and the more meets I do the more experience I will have - TO HAVE FREAKING FUN!!!!
This "mock meet" was exactly two weeks out from my main meet. I weighed in (after 2 full meals) at 193.6 which is 12 lbs over my competition weight in 2 weeks (meaning my water cut will be smooth again as I am waking up in the high 180's). My goal was only to take second attempts and thats exactly what I did. I choose poorly on deadlifts but it was a good thing because this puts me in a good place to make smarter jumps at my main meet.
I left the meet happy, strong(er), and ended up getting an elite total in the 198 weight class making me now have 3 elite totals in different weight classes. Here is the video of my lifts, 7 attempts taken, 5 completed lifts, 1695 @ 193.6
