What a meet! The USAPL North East Regional Championships were held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, and the facility was huge—the warm up room was a few thousand feet and the platform area was double that. There was plenty of room for venders, spectators, and lifters. The meet had a total of 208 lifters competing over two days, and it flew by. There were two platforms going at once and a lot of lifting going on.
I’ll start off by saying that I had a great meet. I headed out to Oaks, PA, the night before with the wife. (We left the kids at home with the grandparents). The trip only took two hours, and we ended up at a mom and pop shop for dinner. I had a 10-ounce burger that was topped with pulled pork, barbecue mayo, deep fried breaded pickles, fried onion rings, three kinds of cheese, and slapped between two pieces of Texas toast. Hot damn, it was amazing. In honor of my “Fat is back” theme for this meet, I couldn’t resist that cholesterol bombshell. We stayed at a very nice Hilton Garden Inn, and my wife enjoyed nine dollar glasses of wine while I ate candy before hitting the sheets.
Meet morning rolled around and I headed down to the breakfast buffet... and I slopped it up once again. I hit the scale at 267 pounds in the morning and had full intentions of being 270 pounds at the 12:00 p.m. weigh-in. After breakfast, I headed out to the venue with Boh. Boh was water loading and had 10 pounds to cut for a two-hour weigh-in. He was 252 pounds the night before and thankfully hit 241 pounds at weigh ins. Money Mike was lifting at 9:00 a.m. so we got to the venue early. Mike ended up hitting a PR squat and missing some PR lifts for the bench and deadlift. It was not the day he wanted, but he will live to lift another day. After a bunch of bullshitting and helping Mike, it was time to get warmed up. The meet was planned to start at 2:00 p.m., so around 1:00 p.m. I put the singlet on and got to warming up.
Warm-ups
I always do a small moderate warm-up before a meet. The first half of the day for me is typically helping one of the guys out, so I am usually warm and loose come my flight. I did the usual soft tissue work and hit the rumble roller and elitefts™ roller on my legs and back. I then hit the lacrosse ball on my delts and pecs followed by my mobility warm-up consisting of 10 movements for one set of 10 each. I was ready to go and hit the warm-up rack.
Squats
To date, my USAPL PR at 275 pounds was 639 pounds. I decided to plan my attempts out to end up with a five-pound PR of 645 pounds. My main goal for the meet was to total at least 1,800 pounds—and a 645-pound squat was a must for that. I set this goal in March of 2011, and I had yet to meet my mark. I set up my attempts to PR on third attempts. I opened at 572 pounds, and this felt great, so I decided to make a jump to 622 pounds. Judging was tight, so I picked something that would get me ready for my 645-pound attempt. Fortunately, 622 pounds went up well, so I called for 645 pounds. I sat deep, Money Mike called me up, and it was a grinder. I stalled halfway but managed to fight through the sticking point and finish the lift. Good lift.
645-pound squat
Bench
I went into the bench feeling pretty confident. I was mixed about my strategy the night before and was ready for a gameday decision regarding my bench attempts. I had two choices: 1) go for a USAPL PR or 2) go for the 275-pound American record. MY USAPL best is 490 pounds. I could have gone 495 pounds on a third or went for 502 pounds for a shot at the record. I chose to open low at 429 pounds. This popped up and I then took 474 pounds for a second. I mimicked my squat attempts and chose a number that was heavy enough to add to the total but not too heavy as to jeopardize energy for my third lift. The 474 pounds went up well, so I decided to go for the record. In the USAPL, records can’t be broken at just any meet. You need to be judged by a certain category of judges. This keeps the records legitimate and keeps integrity in the lifts. Knowing that the right judges were at the meet, I went for it. I took 502 pounds out of the racks and waited for the start command. My setup felt amazing—super tight and my leg drive was the best it has ever felt. I heard the press command and the bar popped up about four to five inches and then dropped. No excuse on this other then it was too heavy today.
474-pound bench
Missed attempt at 502 pounds for a new American record.
Deadlift
After missing 502 pounds, I was ready to go for a sumo PR. I switched to sumo last meet for a change of pace, and I was really looking forward to seeing how my meet prep played out. I felt like I had found a good mix for training the sumo, but you only know after the results do the talking. I opened at 600 pounds and this was super easy. I then jumped to 666 pounds for a five-pound sumo meet PR. I did a hard 660 pounds in July and felt convinced I could improve on that. I was happy to find that the 666 pounds went up very well. I then did the math and realized that I needed 683 pounds to hit a 1,801-pound total. I called for it and waited. My flight was large and it felt like an eternity for my name to get called. Since I took a shot at 502 pounds, I gave up 12 pounds for total. I wasn’t planning to go more than 675 pounds on my third attempt, so now it was do or die. I have done around 35 meets now, and I can only remember pulling my third deadlift two or three times. I was nervous and worried, but I cleared my head and got focused. The pressure got me fired up, and I ended up pulling 683 pounds fairly strong.
683-pound sumo deadlift
I hit a 1,801-pound total and made my goal. My next meet will be the USAPL PA states in March, so I am going to take a week off and get back to work ASAP. I plan to go back to 242 pouns now that the new kid is over the three month mark and sleeping great. She sleeps from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. with only one bottle in the middle of the night now—the wife and I take turns. The four-year-old is doing great too, so I’m comfortable starting a diet again now that my sleep is better. I will be planning my next meet cycle this weekend.