Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on my meet and how disappointed I feel that I went up a weight class and had the same squat, here are some legitimate thoughts.
The biggest differences in this training cycle were thrice fold: 1) Linear for longer. 2) Way more deadlifting 3) Way more shirt work. I guess those last two should be reversed since I am addressing them in such order. But too late, can’t go back now. Too lazy to hit the backspace button. So we shall venture forth. Come with me, dear reader, and venture down into the depths of my mind as I share a not very thoughtful retrospective.
Squat: This was actually my best squat cycle to date. It went smoothly and all of my squats looked good, speedy, and dialed in. HYPOTEHTICALLY, I should have hit the biggest PR here. But, considering meets are a crapshoot sometimes, I just shit the bed on meet day. I don’t really know why. I talked to Dave about this and he is less concerned that I fucked it up at the meet and thinks it’s more important to focus on the training cycle. And I agree. The training cycle was successful. Even though I couldn’t make it count on meet day, that doesn’t mean the strength wasn’t there. For a refresher, I fucked up my second and did a weird up and down and had to retake it.
Bench: I literally spend the time during bench warm ups telling anyone around me that my training cycle was a shitshow. And it was. Even Dave said my bench would just be what it would be at the meet. We had no expectations. I struggled so much to touch despite being in the shirt more than I ever had been. I think being in the shirt helped my strength since I was doing a lot of overloaded reps but I had so much trouble dialing in my technique. I didn't even make it to the dialing part. The phone was in the other fucking room.
Deadlift: This is the first time we had a dedicated deadlift day- main deadlifts based off percentages, deficits, barbell rows, heavy block pulls, etc. And I guess it worked. I really did like having all of that extra back work and lockout work in. Is that 100% what helped me not miss 450 for the 3rd time? I don’t know but I can safely say it was a strong contributor.
Mentally: For some reason, I stressed myself out a little more in the week coming up to this meet than I did the last week around. I know that I can be my own worst enemy in that sense. Each meet gets better but this one was a little stressy. I think it was a mix of things- it had been a while since my last meet, a lot of other team members were doing the meet, I got sick before the meet, etc etc etc. Pretty much I’m saying I let it change how I felt going into the meet even though I shouldn’t have. It was fucking stupid. I got nervous then got nervous about being nervous. By the night before the meet my nerves were pretty much gone though.
I also excelled at the lifts I had the lowest expectations for. I had the highest expectations for my squat since I really thought it would be there that day. I was visualizing between my lifts and I was pretty amped up. I wasn’t really talking to anyone except for any gear or knee wrap related things.
In between bench and deadlift I didn’t really give a fuck. I knew bench would just be what it would be and I just had to work my hardest to get the bar to touch my body and then press it back up. I was talking in between sets and was just resigned to letting Dave do whatever things he wanted to do with the shirt (aka just pull that fucker all the way up). Same thing with deads. I knew deads would just be what they would be based on how I felt after the other two lifts. I also fucking knew I wasn’t going to miss 450 again but I definitely wasn’t as amped up as I have been at past meets. I knew on my deadlifts the more amped up I got, the more likely I was to fuck up my setup and be way too far in front of the bar when I started the lift. So for me, the most important part was to just be able to THINK and not grip it and rip it. Plus, the thought of MAKING Dave begrudgingly hug me if I got it was the icing on the cake.
Overall, disappointed in my total for my new weight class but pleased that I got my bench and deadlift together for once.