Sick work, as usual.

You're going to need an extension to dat mantelpiece soon, to accommodate all the silverware.

There's an Arsenal joke in there somewhere

Can't see no 4th place trophies itt, doe.

Maybe at the worlds, at this rate.

ArsenalTrophyCabinet.jpg

Awesome job!

AMAZING! Congrats buddy. Too bad that punk didn't bomb on squat

Sick results Aidan

What a monster.

Really amazing job Aidan! Sick sick sick numbers.

NZPF Raw Powerlifting Nationals 2015 Recap

This was a bit of a different experience, due to the fact that it would be an afternoon comp with a noon weigh in. The morning was pretty tough, tried not to do much but was feeling quite anxious. Training had been ok but not smashing heading into the meet, and despite knowing I was under weight I was still sweating the weigh in. I had some oatmeal and a coffee in the morning, and sipped on water as I felt I needed to. Ready for the short drive to the venue, we headed off. Got there in plenty of time to watch a few deadlifts from the morning session, and then weighed in at 81.92kg. Started eating sandwiches and banana's, and sipping on electrolyte drinks and chatting to people.

As we started to warm up, we found out we would be lifting as one group of 14 due to several withdrawals. This was to be a second novel experience - at all previous meets there had been plenty of time between rounds, but we would be given 20 minutes this time. As I would find, this is not as long as I would normally spend, and the warmup area was crowded. The most irritating thing was that 4-5 of us had an ascending bar for warmups, and then someone would want to step in and start from the bar where the rest of us were up to 140kg. This slowed everything down, but in the end I got timed very well, taking my last warmup at 180kg with a couple of minutes on the clock (I'd be 8th out).

Squat opener of 195kg was nice and easy, could hear my Mum and wife shouting in the crowd which was great. 210kg felt pretty heavy, though in hindsight it looks good on video. We go conservative with 220kg for the third and I manage to stay under it this time and drive it up, and to be honest it was probably the right call. The guy that won missed his opener at 230kg (missed rack call), then missed it again by letting it get forward on him. Sadly he made it on his third, but not without some fight I was told.

Five minutes to regather, suck down some carb gel and it was on to bench press. A bit of rolling and a few quick band exercises were all I had time for, plus what I could squeeze in between go's whilst trying not to get missed out in the warmups. But bench was feeling solid and 110kg last warmup was great. 120kg first attempt was also very good, but the bench was slippery and I struggled to get set up tight enough. 130kg was tougher than it should have been, and my attempt at 135kg was missed due to lifting my butt. I thought during the rep I might have, but coaches thought it had stayed in contact but it got red lighted 1-2. I know for damn sure if I had the people that were refereeing today it would have passed...

Oh well, on to deadlifts. Warmups were good, pulled a pretty crisp 200kg and again timed it pretty well. 220kg first attempt was similarly pretty good, but I could tell my upper back was getting tired. Went 237.5kg next, and bar was loaded, I got to the platform but my coach had spotted it was missing a 5kg plate on this side, so back out back to try and get in the right mindset, and made it up alright but I was pretty fried. Dialled right back to 245kg, and missed it quite high, though caused by bad positioning off the floor. I was so disappointed I quit on it though. It felt like I was holding it stationary for an age, but if i'd just pulled a bit harder... If.

Finished up with 587.5kg total, narrowly missing the 1300lb mark, for a +10kg competition PR. Took out competition PR's on squat and bench press, and second place in the open 83's, so overall a pretty good day. But enough errors and room for improvement to keep me hungry.

Thanks, X.



thanks!

thanks!

thanks!

thanks!

going to need to rack up a few more before the extension gets designed...

lol

thanks!

haha yeah, I'm expecting to receive continued karmic punishment for daring to hope...



cheers dude!

thanks, btm

I really appreciate all of the kind words spread throughout the forum over the last week, and all the help with form vids and input. You guys are awesome

ughhhhhhhhhhh so close on that pull!

yeah

New S&F power rankings

#1 Cha
#2 Weasel
#3 Aidan
#4 Kid Colin
#5 Saw
...
#25 Yugoslavian

Getting rid to bump KC again though. It is mostly about the strength but there are other factors such as posting, willing to do anything for strength (including fatness), log quality, gym intensity, etc etc.

saw over me wtf? your list has to favor bench highly

You have zero LC participation my friend. And yes, bench rules. 380 and all he does is look at the bar.

convo in lc is so rarely strength training related that i have nothing to offer :\

#7


sorry

HalfSlant, if you're #7, you're either ahead of realbusto or goldenbusto. Either is a pretty decent accomplishment. Heck, it could be both. Only locobro can tell us for sure.

Awesome job Aidan!

Squats - A imo. They always feel harder than they look on video, dont they? Awesome grind on that last one!

Bench- Get your knees out a little wider and that little movement from your hips cant happen during that last bench attempt. Whether or not your butt left the bench, some judges will red light you when they see that kind of movement. Learn to set yourself up so they will never think about doing that again.

DL - You're looking at the floor for most of the third attempt. One of my teammates likes to tell people who do that, "You know what you're going to find on the floor? A lower total. That's all you're going to find." Keep your head up and you'll smoke that weight next time imo.


loco - thanks for the good ranking.

Good advice as always. The bench and platform were both quite slippery, and you can see me slide around a bit trying to get set up. I just didn't manage to get all the slack out as a consequence.

I had been working on the head thing in training, but again didn't manage to execute it well on any of my attempts.

Saw some sick sick stuff on the last day, several 700lb deadlifts, a near quadruple body weight deadlift, and I handled one of our guys on his way to two NZ junior records and the gold in a very close battle. Had an interesting choice to make on third deadlifts: we were tied and ahead on body weight after 2nd deadlifts, we entered 243kg record attempt, they entered 245. Pretty close to last chance, they dropped theirs to 232.5kg which would have been enough to win by 2.5kg if our guy missed, so I had to decide whether or not to drop to match. I had the change card ready for such an eventuality after watching opponents second, but guessed we were good enough to not miss, told our guy he had to pull 243kg for the win, and he made it... Still sweating the discussion that might have been.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw you setting up for that bench press. That singlet looks as if would be hard to make it get a tight setup on the bench.

I don't even get why benches are always in leather (apart from sanitary reasons obv). Seems to me like it would be so much safer and easier if they were made in some rough and grippy surface so that it would stick to your shirt.

I'd guess it's because they're not designed for people to contort themselves into weird positions in order to lift more...

Even my shoes slipped, I must have picked up some talc on the soles somewhere out back. I should have reset myself, but didn't think of it in the moment.

At my old gym all the benches were metal with these thin foam pads on the top. Always just assumed that it was this way because it was cheaper or something, but maybe they were thinking what you were thinking.