The meet has came and went. Long story short: it went really well!
Making Weight
Ryan and I left for Chicago on Thursday afternoon, giving me plenty of time to use a sauna that evening and ready to finish it out on Friday morning. This was the biggest cut I have ever done and was technically even just a little bigger because of Thanksgiving. I did most of my training at 214-215. Thanksgiving had me bloated to 220. I left home at about 206, so no big concerns.
It wasn't hard to get the last bit off, but my strategy did have to change a little. Usually I use a traditional coal sauna that sits around 180 degrees. This time I could only find infrared saunas that are more like 140 degrees. At first that kind of freaked me out. It took a lot longer to get sweating, but once I got going it wasn't any different than a hotter sauna. All I had to change was long I stayed in. Lengthening the rounds made it fine and the remaining weight came off no problem.
The freak out moment had to be controlled. I'm sure there is some science here around stress and cortisol, etc, etc. My broscience anecdotal experience is that more stress makes it harder to cut. Some deep breathing and verbally telling myself to relax fixed it.
Weigh in: 89.8kg (198.0 lbs)
Made it back to 216 by the end of Friday and was 214 Saturday morning. Perfect.
Squat
Warm ups went about perfect. Cody, who has been at several meets with me now, knows exactly what I need and how to make sure I am ready. He set the pace and made sure I was good to go.
The headline picture... Those dudes hid the Fat Dan shirts from me until we were warming up. I came back from grabbing my water bottle and all of them had taken off their sweatshirts and were wearing my previously fat face. I about pissed my pants. PERFECT.
Opener: 639. Easy, no problem.
2nd: 688. This took considerable effort but wasn't the limit.
3rd: 705, good.
Bench
Similarly warm ups were good. No issues and my body felt right.
Opener: 418
Second: 463
Third: Miss. 485. Just a little too heavy and a lot of cramping. No worries, still sitting on a 50 pound squat PR and a 12 pound bench PR.
Deadlift
Opener: 633, good. I had actually upped my opener some. Reason being was 633 the minimum to total 1800+. I didn't want to open at 600 as planned and then waste an attempt to get 1800. I wasn't going to open at 600 and then take 633, but didn't want to take a risk with my original plan of 600 than 650ish.
2nd: 666. Miss. Came off the floor fine but I started to go to sleep and put it down. Took a knee and let my head come back before moving.
3rd: Pass. No need to risk hurting myself. I had locked up the total I wanted, posted a handful of nice PRs and had a great day on 6 lifts.
Total: 1802 (817.5kg)
Even with the misses, I can't imagine this day going much better. My weight cut was nearly flawless, the combined help of my group and friends from Illiana Power Asylum made warm ups 0 stress and I managed a nice PR total. My body is intact and I will get to do it again in a few months. My training partners Austin and Ryan had good days as well. All in all, it was super fun.
What do I need to change?
I have a few thoughts for a future post. I don't need to change much, but a few tweaks will make a difference.