Before last week, it had been so long since I had competed that I couldn’t even remember my last meet. My guess was somewhere between two and three years. I would like to be writing to tell you that my return to the platform was a great triumphant success, but it didn’t really work out that way.
I can say, though, that it was great to actually train with the excitement of knowing I was going to be on the platform again. It is also nice to have an official number and starting point to improve on. Over the last few years, my training has been really rough. You could say that my focus was all over the place, and my frustration was high. I did and will always train no matter what, but training without a goal or something to look forward to was starting to get tough.
By LTT7, I had been pretty injury-free for a while except dealing with old injuries that are always going to be somewhat limited. My biggest of these is the tear of the inner head of my right triceps. I did this injury years ago when my bench training was at its highest. I benched 925 pounds off a two-board a couple times (at that time I knew that what I did off a two-board, I could do in a meet) and was getting ready for a bench meet. While doing my 900-pound opener in the gym, I let my right arm get a little wild and ended up throwing the bar into a JM press position. I immediately tried to press it and ripped the hell out of the inner head of my triceps. Luckily, my training partner Scott was handing off and picked it up before it came down on my face. It has been healed for years, but has been my limiting factor since. Even during times that I would put my shirt on and board press, that side would have trouble locking out anything past 700 pounds.
I got to train with my good friend Vincent Dizenzo when we both coached at LTT7 in November. We discussed the issues that I’ve been having with my triceps strength and lockout technique. My lockout technique has always utilized my strong triceps, but after talking to Vincent I decided to change my technique. This made a lot of sense. It wasn’t a lot of big changes but after benching one way for over ten years, there are a lot of neuro-pathways that had to be rerouted. Needless to say, this got me a bit excited and I figured I should find a bench competition.
As soon as I got back home, I started looking for a meet. Powerlifting used to be my first and most important goal in life, but I knew this time that my main goal is paying off my debt and focusing on life issues. This changed things.
Luckily, there was a close meet over in Sacramento about four months away. I made up my mind that I was going to do it, and started training. I had to keep in mind that with two jobs and trying to keep sleep under control, it would be difficult to train all three lifts with full intensity. For this reason, I put my focus more on bench training. The very first thing I did was find a shirt I would use. I was down to 325 pounds, about 60 pounds from my usual training weight. I did have a few old Metal Pro Benchers that I had used and liked before. I ended up using a size smaller than my last meet. I also tried a Metal Jack Shirt, but I didn’t feel I had time to learn it before the meet in Sacramento. I will be trying it next time.
The first day I got into my shirt and tried to full bench was not a good day. I have to admit that I was a complete wuss and totally forgot how much pressure you have to deal with in a good bench shirt. Not to mention, being so skinny at 325, it felt like I had to push the bar an extra half mile. It took a good four to six weeks just to get used to wearing a shirt, going full range again, and actually getting comfortable. Honestly, I thought I would just jump right back into it. I was wrong.
After I got used to the shirt again, training didn’t go much better. This was the worst training cycle that I can remember ever having. It was like starting over again. I continued to have trouble finding a weight I could consistently touch or could consistently lock out. One week I would lock out a weight and then the next I can’t get that damn bad triceps to do anything. It was extremely frustrating and changing my technique was difficult. I always caught myself reverting back to my old technique during warm-ups. I had to slow down and focus on getting each rep right. On the heaviest sets, I would just jump back to old technique and miss the lockout. This just kept going on and the meet got closer and closer.
The good thing is that I was signed up and committed to the meet and was going to go through with it no matter what. All my hopes were pinned on the fact that I have always been a good competitor and have a history of pulling off crazy shit at meets. A week before the meet I still wasn’t sure what to open with. I had some low 700s touch, but other times they wouldn’t. I had locked out some mid-700 benches and had also missed some at lockout. Off boards I had manage low 800s. I just kept thinking, “What the #uck? In the old days, I had everything down, and now I am lost.”
With the meet a week away, I stayed in bed as much as possible. When I wasn’t in bed, I was in the Lazyboy watching TV. That whole week I made sure to get to bed early, and even used some vacation time on Friday so I that I could stay in bed longer. Scotty and I headed over to Sacramento that Saturday for weigh-ins. Somehow I weighed in at 335, ten pounds heavier than I have been in a long time. This threw me for yet another loop. I am guessing that being in bed and lying around so much let me get a little sleep, which made me grow. That was great, but I was already worried about touching and didn’t think that being ten pounds heavier was going to help any. I decided to open with 727 and either make it touch or pass out trying.
The rest of the day was spent eating and watching TV. I don’t have cable, so catching up on History Channel, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic was good with me. Luckily, I am still pretty good at not letting myself get worked up or nervous the day before a meet. The day before the meet is probably one of my calmest days. We also didn’t have to get up early since I was competing bench-only. I went to bed early and slept okay, in terms of how I usually sleep.
When I woke up Sunday, I felt okay and ready to get some food in me. It was nice to take my time getting to the meet. Once we got there, I realized I still had plenty of time. Through this whole training cycle, I have had some shoulder issues, but nothing too serious. It was still nice to have plenty of time to warm up and work them. All of my warm-ups went well and I felt explosive. Somehow my shirt and belt fit like normal even though I was ten pounds heavier. I was loose on my 727 opener and it felt like it took ten minutes to touch. It flew up easy, and I just had to give a little extra squeeze on the bad arm to lock it out.
I decided that 777 would be a good jump for my second attempt. I took it too low and couldn’t get back in a position to push it. I tweaked my wrist a bit, but it wasn’t a huge issue. For my third attempt, I stayed at 777 pounds. This attempt felt great — maybe too great. I kept super tight and grooved it perfectly. It felt so perfect that I pushed it up in a straight line like my old technique. It felt like it flew up until about halfway through the bench when my bad triceps just quit and the weight bobbled down an inch or so. The spotters took the weight. That sucked, and it sucked the hardest because it was my own fault. I screwed up mentally and let my body revert back to my old technique. If I would have pushed in the new groove I worked on with Vinny, I am sure that I would have gotten the weight. Officially, I only got a 727 bench.
I am sure that by this point, most of you reading this have guessed that I am not very happy with my 727-pound bench. It’s not that 727 is a bad bench, but it is just that being a 900-pound bench presser (800 officially), it is hard to be happy with a low 700 bench.
I’m not totally pissed off. I do keep trying to remind myself of the reality of the situation. I haven’t competed in years, I am down 60 pounds, and I have beaten the snot out of my body. Powerlifting is not the main focus in my life right now. I am working a lot, and I am getting older.
At this point, my bad triceps is really the weakest link, and in the last couple of years I have not been able to get it even close to as strong as it used to be. I have no problem locking out over 800 pounds with my good arm. The real positive to me out of all of this is that I did a meet and I got a number in. It’s not the number I wanted, but it is there and now I have some motivation to kill that number next time. Life and other things change. I needed a new number to work from and now I have that. I really want to get back over 800 pounds and I am convinced that I can still do it. After I hit that, we will see what’s next. This is all part of the journey, and it’s not over until I am six-feet deep.