Thanks guys!!

New post coming in a bit with details and videos from the meet. It was a good day.

11-13

TCBB Holiday Throwdown meet

I spent most of the day wrapping knees and handing off bench presses to my wife and other teammates. I was so ready for DLs to begin.

Warmups flew super fast and I think my form was nearly perfect on most of them.
225x5
315x3
405x2

I had planned to pull 5 plates before putting my gear on, but they did not have great equipment for me to use to get into my briefs and suit. Normally, I use a carpet puller in a power rack to pull myself into my briefs. They had one bench press left in the warmup room when I was ready to put my gear on, so I used that and it was not easy. For putting my suit on, I normally hang my straps over a barbell in a rack or monolift. I had neither piece of equipment, so I found two big, strong dudes to each grab one of my straps and lift me up so I could slide into my suit. That worked great, but because of the uncertainty of how long that would take, I decided to start warming up early and get into my gear early. It worked out fine.

495x1 - lightning fast
585x1 - fast

I was ready very early to step onto the platform.

opener: 644x1 - 3 white lights. Super fast. I did not realize how fast this went and how good my form was until I saw the video. Perfect opener number. APF American record, 55-59 years old, 275 lb weight class.
https://rumble.com/vp7gvs-644-lb-dl.html

2nd attempt: 705x1 - 3 white lights. Decent speed and form, but I was slightly forward. I never had a doubt about getting this though. APF American record, 55-59 years old, 275 lb weight class.

According to openpowerlifting.org, this tied the heaviest DL by any American over 55 in a multiply meet.
https://rumble.com/vp7gya-705-lb-dl.html

final attempt: 722x1 - 3 white lights - **** YES!!! APF American record, 55-59 years old, 275 lb weight class.

Heaviest DL by any American over 55 in a sanctioned multiply meet (source - openpowerlifting.org). That is all federations, all weight classes, ever.

It was a grind and definitely not the prettiest pull I have ever done - not even close, but it probably took more out of me than any I've done before. My CNS took a beating on this one. Once it got moving, there was no way I was not locking it out.
https://rumble.com/vp7h6c-november-14-2021.html
You can see the meet director in the backround in the white shirt pumping his first after seeing the three white lights Classy - he was the former APF American record holder for DL only, 55-59 years old, 275 lb weight class.

another angle:
https://rumble.com/vp7h94-722-lb-dl-...ent-angle.html

****ing incredible!

:chathumb:

I was gonna say light weight, but then I saw how much weight you lifted and the video. Niiiice Fing lift!!

Sumo pulls don’t count cheater

Jk awesome job cha, congrats!

congratulations bro. brilliant stuff

Thanks!

Thanks!

lol, thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Is that also a DL PR or tied or neither? Seems to me it's also a PR for you.

My 6.5 year old meet PR was 705.

I pulled 725 in the gym about a month ago, but meet PRs are what count.

722 - wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

:chathumb:

11/19

DL
conventional
225x5x2
315x3
405x2
Everything moved good. Everything felt good until the 405. I got a familiar pinch in my right psaos. I think when I get this feeling, what is happening is I am getting minor movement in my L3/L4 area where I blew out the disc 10 years ago. This is telling me I have no room for error with regard to torso position when I pull from the floor conventional. I dont get that when I widen my stance. I think its time to retire from conventional pulling from the floor. I can still do block pulls & rack pulls conventional.

sumo w loose suit & loose briefs
495x1
585x1
615x1
Everything felt ok.

I did a couple sets of light RDLs and I felt the hip/psaos pinch feeling, so I just stopped.

11/23

rack pulls with axel bar just below the knee up to 816.

The straps I have make this pretty difficult to hold onto with heavy weight.

A friend of mine who's getting into strongman stuff has been talking to me about the different events. One of them is an 18" elevated axle bar DL. The world record for masters (over 40 years old) is 926. He says there's a competition in which they do log presses and axle bar DLs. I have no desire to do anything heavy with a log press, but the log only weighs 85 lbs. He says I can press the empty log and then go for the WR on the axle bar DL. I have a shot. I don't know when the next competition near here is, but I am going to do a little training and see if its something I want to do. I have no intentions of quitting powerlifting. This would be something I can do on the side.


11/26
9" block pulls with Texas squat bar up to 772. This is about the height of the axle bar DL. The squat bar is not as big in diameter as the axle bar and it has knurling, but its stiff like the axle bar and its much bigger around than a standard DL or power bar.

belt squats up to 4 plates + heavy green bands (I'm guessing ~120 lbs each near the top) x 6

GHRs
15
vs medium green band x 15
vs heavy green band x 15

11/28

shoulder rehab stuff

I decided to try bench pressing off three boards. It went pretty well.

45x15
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x1
365x1
I felt like I could have done 405 without too much trouble, but I did feel a little something (not much, but something) in the shoulders on the 365, so I lightened it up.
315x5

I decided that was good enough for my first time pressing in ~5 months, so I moved on.
Everything moved fast and form was solid.

band tricep pushdowns with voodoo band
band rows
band face pulls

machine rows
205x10
250x10
295x10

pulldowns
cant remember weight, but 3 sets of 10

TRX fallouts
2 x 15
I love these.

Everything has felt good since doing this, so I will add some more bench sets next time. I'll stay with 3 boards for a bit. I should mention that both shoulders felt significantly more solid and stable than they did ~5 months ago when I was stupidly playing around with ~600 lbs and doing secondary pressing off my chest. I wont be doing that again anytime soon.

11/30

axle bar DLs from ~17" (~1" below the starting point of the strongman axle bar competitions)

236x5
436x5
636x3

suit
746x1
856x1

I put some athletic tape on the bar and it basically stuck to my straps. I'm not sure what the rules are on this. It made it very difficult to get the tension of the straps equal. If I did get the tension equal, it didn't slide at all. Getting them equal is important though.

I think using this bar is starting to mess with my right elbow. Its weird, but its affecting the forearm extensors most. I'll probably need to rotate this bar in & out maybe once every other week.


belt squats
2 plates each side x 10
4 plates x 10
6 plates x 10
8 plates x 10
10 plates x 8
12 plates x 6
12 plates + 25s x 6

Legs were pumped.

video from 11/30 856 lb axle bar DL:

https://rumble.com/vqae6r-856-lb-axle-bar-dl.html

12/3

DL (sumo)
225x5x2
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1
585x1
615x1
635x1
Everything moved fast.

knee high rack pulls with power bar
445x5
645x3
755x1
865x1

1 leg RDL
35x15, 20

12/5

shoulder rehab stuff including face pulls

bench press off 3 boards raw
45x15
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x5
325x5
335x5
345x5

More rehab band stuff

banded jacknifes
15x4

machine rows
210x12
255x10
300x17 - that might be a rep PR. Its the whole stack on this machine plus the little added 5 lb slider weight.

cable pulldowns
3 light sets

That's a big row bro.

Also congrats on the PRs and ARs!!

Looking huge, makes your 2013 self look like a tinybro.

Thanks!


yeah, I was probably 15 lbs lighter back then than I am now. I'm hovering around 250. Never going over 260 again. In the next year or so, I'll probably compete in the 240-250 range depending on what my future goals are when the time comes.


I spent a week in Cancun and just returned yesterday. Despite not lifting at all and eating all the food and drinking way more margaritas than I should have, I came home ~2 lbs lighter than when I left. Some of that probably has to do with daily "cardio" from fighting ocean currents and huge waves (the water is very rough on the beaches along the hotel zone down there) and going up and down a ****-ton of stairs getting around every day.

I'll start lifting again tomorrow.

I talked to my doc friend, the regenerative injection guy, right before leaving for Cancun. He looked over my digital motion xrays closely and listened to what has been going on my my shoulders and neck recently. He says my neck looks "not bad" and the shoulders don't look too bad either, but the shoulders are obviously still separated. He suggested doing prolotherapy on both shoulders and in my jacked up right elbow, so I scheduled that for Jan 7.

Prolotherapy is less aggressive than PRP or stem cells. It does less, but recovery is way quicker. I'll have to play it by ear as to what meets I can do the next several months, and I will figure out how soon I can start benching heavy and squatting with a bar on my back again while listening closer to my body than I did last June/July.

I am halfway planning on DL at APF nationals in June next year, with the hope of also benching if my shoulders and bench strength are reasonably good by then. I'd guess right now I have a ~95% chance of DLing well by then. Its probably only ~25% chance of benching well by June - I mean > ~600 when I say benching well. There's a non-zero chance of doing full meet (including squats) at nationals, but I think the odds are a lot closer to 0 than 25% of that happening.

I'm still looking into whether or not doing an axle bar DL strongman meet makes sense during the next year or so. Setting a WR in that would be fun.

12/17

DL
225x5
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1 - super fast
585x1 - fast
635x1 - fast & easier than expected
675x1 - fast and easier than expected, but heavy enough to stop.
video of 675: https://rumble.com/vr0ide-675-lb-dl-12172021.html

I went in with no exact plan. I figured I would just lift something that didn't feel too heavy and move on to secondary work. 635 went so well, I figured 675 would not be bad and it wasn't. I'm super happy that I can take nearly two weeks off lifting and come back better than I was two weeks prior. I guess my body needed a break from lifting heavy ****.


Some teammates were doing ssb squats with chains. I figured I would see how that bar felt on my back. It felt fine, so I did a few squats.

330 + 80 lbs chains x 2
420 + 80 lbs chains x 2
510 + 80 lbs chains x 1
The last one felt a little challenging, mostly because I haven't squatted with a bar on my back in so long. I love the ssb.

GHR
15

12/19

bench press off 3 boards raw
45x15
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x5
335x5
355x5
365x5

machine rows
up to whole stack plus two little extra weight thingys (I think a total of 305) x 17
light pulldowns
face pulls
TRX strap fallouts


12/21
rack pulls about an inch above the knees
256x10x2
456x5
566x2
656x1
All double overhand, no straps^

suit, briefs & straps
766x1
876x1
942x2 - PR. I wasn't sure how the first one would move. It went up so fast, I figured I'd do another rep.
942 video link: https://rumble.com/vrcyxz-rack-pull-942x2.html

I was feeling pain in my sinuses after that, so I shut it down. Sure enough, I now have a cold.

12/28

4" elevated DLs up to ~635


12/31
DLs up to about 645
axle bar DL - 655x1. This was probably a bad idea.

1/2
3 board bench up to 375 x 3
left pec minor tight

1/4
Straight bar squats
65x5
155x5
245x5
335x3

briefs
425x2
515x1
515x1
545x1

Shoulders held up well. Lower body felt relatively good.


1/7
Saw my doc friend for a treatment and exam. He looked at my right elbow and left pec minor in addition to doing neuroprolotherapy on my neck, shoulders and upper back. There was some good, some bad and some indifferent stuff.

The good: The treatment was way less intrusive than I was expecting and I felt immediately looser and more able to use all of my upper back muscles. Doc said I would have no down time from lifting because of this treatment. My interpretation of what he did is he created some space between the nerves and other soft tissue which allows everything to move better. It works like magic imo. This guy is a wizard.

The indifferent: The left pec has car tissue from the tear from late 2014, but there is nothing new. I am supposed to be careful with it, but treating it would not do much.

The bad: My right elbow is a mess. There is lots of tendonosis and some tearing in the wrist extensor tendons near the elbow. I need to be very careful with this so it doesnt get worse. The treatment doc did this day would not do anything significant to help this problem, so he did nothing. He said a complex PRP treatment, doing it three different ways to strengthen different planes or something like that, is the best solution. I scheduled this for 1/17. I will have down time recovering from this. I dont know how long. Full effects take about six months. Partial recovery is more like 4 - 6 weeks.

Since doc said I could lift, and he said to pay attention to my body if I do standard DLs, I DLed this day.

DL
225x5x2
315x3
405x2
All double overhand, no issues.

suit
495x1 mixed grip
Sharp pain in elbow. So I cant do mixed grip with right hand under now. I probably am unable to get my left hand under in a good position, but I might work a little on trying that. I have not decided yet.

I did some belt squats in briefs and GHRs.


1/9
3 board bench
45x10
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x3
315x3
375x3
405x1
All went pretty well until after the first 405 when My left pec minor tightened up.

I stopped benching and did a few sets of chaos pushups, which did not make my elbow feel great, so I stopped those too.

I did some very light pulling and rear delt stuff.

What kind of straps do you guys have for the chains to make them closer to the ground? I bought a pair of chains recently that are 30 lb each. I just drape them over the bar for DL and floor press and it’s a good height but I need a strap for them to hit the floor for squats and bench.

hey man, just catching on the thread. you made the 675 look very easy.

happy new year and all the best for your lifting in 2022